News – Business & Economi

European stock markets are expecting a strong signal on the governance of the euro area. German Chancellor has warned however that we should not expect the summit of spectacular announcements. President Nicolas Sarkozy meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday, August 16th at the Elysee Palace (both are here in Berlin July 20, 2011)

European shares opened slightly lower Tuesday, opting for caution before the Franco-German summit on the governance of the euro area. After three consecutive sessions of gains, Paris opened down 0.73%, 0.68% from London, Frankfurt 1.02%, Madrid and Milan by 0.65% to 0.28%. Monday, Paris won 0.78%, London 0.57%, 0.41% Frankfurt, Madrid 0.71% and 1.37% on the Swiss Exchange. New York has erased all its losses last week in garnering 1.90% for the Dow and 1.88% for the Nasdaq.

Global financial markets are also showing much more attentive Tuesday.Asian stock markets were the first very hesitant: Tokyo has ended up slightly from 0.23% after a session sawtooth and Sydney ended down slightly by 0.86%. Seoul, closed Monday, was an exception by closing up sharply from 4.83%.

All eyes are on the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy from 4:00 p.m. at the Elysee Palace in Paris. "The markets are expecting a very strong signal: Is there a pilot on the plane to govern the euro area? Will you finally speak with one voice in the Franco-German and stop to maintain the cacophony that lasts for months and madden investors? "asked a Paris-based analyst who requested anonymity.

But hopes could be quickly showered.Berlin has in fact warned that they should not expect miracles, especially not that the two largest economies in the euro zone agreed to set up Euro-bonds, which would be financially harmful to Germany .

"It seems that there is an acute attention paid to this appointment, and we believe that the margin for a big disappointment," warned analysts at MF Global. This meeting should ultimately focused on the governance of the euro area, following decisions taken by Heads of State and Government of the European end of July.

Officially, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the U.S. will fail, causing a global financial disaster. But in practice, the U.S. economy could continue to operate, at least in the short term. Explanations. View of the Capitol, seat of Congress.

And if the end of the world was ultimately not for next week? The White House has continued to repeat: if an agreement is not quickly find the Congress to raise the debt ceiling, then the U.S. will be in default on August 2. But that date could be arbitrary. After all, it would not be the first time that the disaster would be delayed.It was originally scheduled for March 31 and then to July 8 and finally to August 2 …

Some analysts also believe the government has enough to deal with some 23 billion dollars in social assistance for elderly and disabled due on August 3 and what redeem the $ 90 billion of treasury bonds reached expire on 4."In all projections, it appears they have a large cash reserve to cover their commitments," said Lou Crandall Reuters, economist at Wrightson ICAP.

Barclays Capital, for its part that the Treasury may find itself short of cash on August 10 only days scheduled payment of $ 8.5 billion in Social Security, which oversees welfare programs.

Wrightson and Jefferies' offices for their estimate that the U.S. really start to risk default on August 15, when the government will pay 41 billion, including $ 30 billion of debt interest.

John Carney CNBC a hypothesis still more bold. He said the United States can continue to operate for another 18 months if the ceiling is not raised on August 2.His reasoning is this: the U.S. government has a bank account at the Fed, which varies depending on the deposits and withdrawals. Friday, the reserve of cash included $ 77 billion. Withdrawals represent all government spending such as salaries of civil servants, NASA, the interest on the debt while deposits are powered by various tax revenues, profits made by the Fed itself, but also largely by public bond issues. But the debt cap applies only to this last source of financing, by prohibiting the government to issue more than good.

For John Carney, nothing prevents the U.S. government to continue to write checks to its employees and its creditors, even to be discovered, "as are millions of Americans."As a bank with his wealthy clients, the Fed will not refuse it discovered the American state and still honor his checks. Failure to do so "would defeat its dual mandate of full employment and price stability." To credit the beneficiary's account, "the Fed can either print money or sell some of these assets (especially holds 1.6 trillion worth of Treasury bills)," says Felix Salmon of Reuters. In any case, the overdraft would not be technically considered public debt and therefore not subject to the statutory ceiling. Best of all, "having an overdraft facility would only strengthen, not threaten, the triple A of the United States," said Salmon. Conclusion: "The Fed can not run out of money, said John Carney.It can only run out of money if Geithner and Obama decide to stop to draw checks to meet their obligations. "

One could certainly argue that even if it appears that the U.S. can continue to operate without raising the ceiling, no one monitors the reaction of international markets and rating agencies. If Congress fails to reach an agreement and that the Treasury is not empowered to borrow on the markets, it is likely that the United States lose their triple A, which strongly destabilize not only the U.S. economy but also global. Except now it seems that the U.S. will lose it anyway, even if a plan is adopted before August 2. According to the Washington financial blog's blog, as well as the proposal by Democrat Harry Reid than the Republican John Boehner are perceived as insufficient to address the problem of U.S. debt.

What is certain is that the use of an open can not solve the short to medium term the debt problem. However, this might help avoid a financial earthquake on August 3 in case the Congress failed once again to find a compromise to raise the ceiling.

Deutsche Bank reported Tuesday a quarterly profit before tax lower than expected, following the presentation of its new management team.

Germany's biggest bank posted a profit before tax up 17% in the second quarter to 1.8 billion euros, while analysts polled by Reuters were expecting $ 1.97 billion.

Its net banking income came out unchanged at 1.2 billion euros.

The bank expects to achieve its goal of a 2011 profit before tax of EUR 10 billion, but that it could miss its target on its corporate finance, due to the debt crisis in Europe.

Deutsche Bank announced Monday that a duo of Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen be succeeded in May 2012 at the CEO, Josef Ackermann.

Anshu Jain, 48, heads the investment bank Deutsche Bank while Jürgen Fitschen, 62, driver's German operations of the facility.

U.S. stocks opened higher Thursday, JPMorgan considered the results of positive compensating the warning on Wednesday by Moody's sovereign rating of the United States.

In early trade, the Dow Jones gained 0.1% to 12,512 points, while the Standard & Poor's 500, the benchmark for fund managers, is 0.3% to 1321 points and the composite Nasdaq ahead by 0.2% to 2803 points.

JPMorgan gained 3.2% to 40.91 dollars.The bank reported earnings better than expected, reflecting a decline in impairments on mortgage-and credit cards.

The rating agency Moody's placed the sovereign rating on Wednesday night the United States under review with the risk of downgrading, if an agreement is not reached in Congress on raising the debt ceiling.

Google, which must publish its results after the close, taking 0.5% to 540.8 million.

Wall Street finished up on Wednesday after what the Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke suggesting that further monetary easing was not excluded if the economic situation warranted

Yum! Brands earns 2% to 56.60 dollars.The fast food company raised its annual profit forecast on Wednesday night.

In contrast, Marriott International was down 5.4% to 35.12 dollars. The landlord gave a forecast for the fiscal year that displeased the market.

Nearly 1.2 trillion euros, or 27% of GDP: it is the weight of debts of all the local Chinese. Remains to be seen whether a systemic risk …

Debts incurred by the provinces, municipalities and districts in China amounted end 2010 to 10,700 billion yuan (1.163 billion euros), said Monday the National Audit Office, while some of these claims, debts, threatening the banking system. Credit Suisse saw the same "time bomb" the most dangerous of the Chinese economy.

This represents 27% of gross domestic product last year, which amounted to 39,800 billion yuan. For the first time that Beijing published a figure for the national debt, according to Xinhua news agency.Through ad hoc structures called "platforms financing", local governments, which are not allowed to borrow directly from banks, have heavily indebted after the global financial crisis in 2009 and 2010 to finance infrastructure and sometimes unprofitable real estate projects.

"The ability to pay is low and faces potential risks in certain areas and certain industries," according to a statement from the National Audit Office. Some local governments have had to make new loans to repay debts incurred prior to or rely heavily on land sales to meet their deadlines, according to the statement.

According to the auditors of governments of China, 108.3 billion yuan (11.8 billion) of loans were made or used fraudulently, the money ends up in banks or stock markets real estate. Platforms local funding must be "cleaned and regulated," the National Audit Office. The Chinese government has begun to curb the debt of local authorities last summer.

The official press had reported in July 2010 that all remaining loans to be repaid by the banks' financing platforms "amounted to 7660 billion yuan, of which 23% would be problematic.

The amount of loans to China had almost doubled in 2009 to 9,600 billion yuan, which had been added a government stimulus package of 4000 billion yuan.

Last year, the goal of a loan volume of 7.500 billion yuan were to be held in which Chinese banks had been exceeded, the amount awarded up to 7950 billion yuan. After rising sharply in March, new lending by Chinese banks fell sharply in May, while the government wants to limit money growth to fight against inflation that has accelerated.

Oursel Luke, CEO of Areva, is the favorite to replace Anne Lauvergeon head of French nuclear specialist, reports the newspaper La Tribune.

According to a forthcoming article in the Thursday edition of business daily, Nicolas Sarkozy would have sliced ​​and decided not to renew Lauvergeon the end of his second term as chief executive of Areva, which ends June 30

An announcement should be made by Friday, the newspaper reported without citing its sources.

Several names have circulated in the press as potential successors to Anne Lauvergeon, including Marwan Lahoud, Chief Strategy Officer of EADS and of Laurent Collet-Billon, Delegate General for Armaments, income insistently in recent weeks.

But it would ultimately an internal candidate who would hold the rope, according to the Tribune, which has Oursel Luke, one of four members of the Executive Board of Areva, as a "favorite".

Mines graduate, he joined the nuclear giant in 2007 after working in several departments including the functions exercised at Schneider or Geodis.

Areva declined to respond.Asked late Wednesday, the Elysee Palace declined to refute or confirm the report and declined comment.

A member of the supervisory board of the French group told Reuters he was not informed of the possible appointment of Luke Oursel.

Supposed to endorse the choice of the Elysee, the council has not yet been convened, "he added.

The principle of this aid must be maintained, according to two MPs. However, they recommend a reform of the management device.

Often subject of controversy, the principle of the State Medical Assistance (EMA) for undocumented immigrants with limited resources must be maintained even if it is necessary to reform the management of this device, said Thursday a parliamentary report. Claude Goasguen (UMP) and Christophe SIRUGUE (SRC), the two co-rapporteurs to assess the device, advocate, in their joint recommendations, the need to preserve the soul and make management changes.

The device, created in 2000 to provide free medical care to undocumented migrants who have few resources, has benefited 227,000 people in 2011. The amount of benefits guaranteed by the state health insurance has been budgeted for 588 million euros in 2011 (against 75 million in Budget 2000).Rejecting accusations of some extreme-right, or even a part of the line, the report notes that there is no "explosion" of medical consumption or "outright fraud". "We made the report to allay rumors," said Claude Goasguen told reporters. "Far from being a fraud problem, the MEA has a management problem," he said stressing that the two factors that explain the increase in expenditure is the change in the number of beneficiaries (+185% since 2000 ) and the conditions of hospital billing.

Twisting the neck to popular belief, the two members stressed that the 227,000 beneficiaries, 81% were single and less than 5% have two or more rights holders. At the last Finance Act, MPs voted to right an entrance fee of 30 euros, a measure denounced by associations defending the rights of foreigners.

If Claude Goasguen approves this measure "symbol" which "shows that everyone involved in the health of all," Christopher SIRUGUE is hostile "because it is a barrier to accessing care." Both members have highlighted that the rest of the establishment of this "stamp duty" might be more expensive than it would bring. In their report submitted to the Committee for evaluation and control of public policy, MEPs stressed that "humanitarian considerations, as the imperatives of public health policy, require continued access to care." They note that the cost of the MEA, "although increasing," "not enough to motivate a deletion whose health and financial consequences could be cons-productive".

For 2011, expenditures of the AME forecast at 640 million euros and two MPs called for "a proper budgeting.The bulk of the expenditure is made up of hospital spending "focused on a small number of people." The report notes a strong geographic concentration of beneficiaries and expenditure: especially in Paris, Seine-St-Denis, Val-de-Marne and Guyana. Among the common recommendations, the two MPs want the implementation of preventive medical examinations at the entrance of the device.

A report of the Fraud Control indicates that the oil does not fully reflected at the pump lower crude oil prices. Christine Lagarde threat of force them.

The Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said Sunday that the government could impose on oil to reduce fuel prices at the pump if they do not justify the price drops enough found so far by the administration.

"Yes, yes, yes," replied the Minister on Europe 1 to a question asking whether there could be sanctions and a "decision almost authoritarian" of falling prices, which currently operate at very high levels.

She had said that pump prices have not fallen enough, delivering the preliminary findings of a report from the Directorate General for Consumer, Competition and Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF).

According to Le Parisien, which published the bulk of the report Monday, the price of a barrel of Brent oil from the North Sea, which is a reference to the world, fell by 8.5% between 2 and May 15, from 125.18 dollars to 114.56 dollars. This would represent a "downside" of the pump price of 6 cents per liter for diesel and 4 cents for a liter of unleaded 95.However, this potential decrease was reflected in the case of diesel as a proportion of 50 to 70%, according to the distribution networks.

The report said as well have been a price decrease of 3.9 cents in supermarkets, by 3.2 cents in the stations of the oil majors and 2.6 cents from the independents. And the situation would be worse for unleaded where the potential drop would not have been passed or whatever.

Christine Lagarde acknowledges however that the decline of the euro against the dollar over the period has absorbed some of the decline in crude prices.To the tune of 50% says the report from the DGCCRF, which emphasizes that "the impact of changes in the pump prices of oil" also depends on "the evolution of supply and demand in the European refining market ".

"With Frédéric Lefebvre (Secretary of State for Commerce, ed), we will request further explanations" for the industrial sector, has nonetheless warned the minister.

"If we do not receive appropriate explanations that justify non-compliance with the commitment of oil (to pass on prices at the pump prices of oil, ie), we will take action," warned Ms. Lagarde, displaying the firmness "extreme" government. Which remains to be seen. Pricing freedom is indeed the rule in France.

Questioned by AFP, the French Union of Petroleum Industries (Ufip) was not immediately available for comment on these statements.

The government increases the ads about the recent surge in pump prices.

Mid-April, he had indicated he would draw upon the oil sector to the tune of 115 million euros to finance an upgrading of kilometric scale taxpayers.

Sales of commercial vehicles grew by 9.5% a year over the other in April in the European Union, said Friday the association of European manufacturers, the upturn in recent months.

During the first four months of the year, sales increased 13.5%.

ACEA says that sales of utilities rose 4.6% compared to April 2010, while those of trucks jumped 52.4%.

Sales of commercial vehicles over 3.5 tonnes on the other hand grew by 42.4%.

The wedding dress for Kate Middleton is a dream for millions of young girls but Handicraft who helped create this unique piece usually do much less.

To boost the image of crafts, Colbert has taken a series of initiatives, including through an agreement with the rector of Paris, to discover the business of luxury students graduate.

"Find craft skills and motivate the younger generation for this type of art is a general problem with the French industry," says Elisabeth Ponsolle des Portes, Delegate General of the Comité Colbert, the agency that represents seventy-five houses in the area of luxury in France.

"Today, it is difficult, for example, find furriers and motivate young people to train in this profession," she adds, while stressing that the trades are devalued in French society.

"We let them visit the shops or high fashion jewelry and give them the opportunity to talk with the artisans to show that these trades are considered true treasures for the company," says Elisabeth Ponsolle Gates.

The finding is similar to the UK where the British jeweler Theo Fennell said it was difficult to convince young people to devote considerable time to acquire scarce skills, at the finish, earning less than in other occupations popular with people their age.

"One might think that young people are lining up to become an apprentice, but this is not the case," said Theo Fennell, founder and artistic director of the eponymous brand at the global summit of luxury and fashion hosted by Reuters.

SECURING THE KNOW-HOW IN THE LACE

A Caudry, the cradle of lace industry in northern France, the transmission of craft skills is a priority for companies such as Sophie Hallett and Solstiss, two lace makers have recognized some of their reasons in the dress of the wife of Prince William.

The lace of the dress made in great secrecy by Sarah Burton Alexander McQueen, one of the houses of the PPR group, have been carefully assembled from different grounds of English and French lace to create a unique piece.

"We are committed to sustain our business because it is a rare skill.It's a job that is not learned in books, "said Maud Lescroart, marketing director and member of the family who runs this company for three generations.

Maud Lescroart says it takes about seven years to train a tulle, the worker-craftsman who operates the business on which is woven Leavers lace.

Sophie Hallette society, which manufactures lace for fashion houses such as Valentino, Christian Dior and Jean Paul Gaultier, employs 200 people and trains about 20 new recruits per year.

Herve Protais, sales manager and director of the house Solstiss, a local competitor, however, recognizes that it is not always easy to motivate youth to work on looms dating from the nineteenth century, much noisier than modern machines .

"Work schedules are also very irregular, since rates are driven by cycles in the collections of fashion and haute couture," he adds.

Herve Protais insists, however, that Soltiss, who works with houses such as Chanel and Givenchy, is not faced with major difficulties in recruitment, the profession still enjoying a real social recognition and offering Caudry addition of attractive salaries.

Tulle workers who are paid to produce, can earn up to 3,000 euros per month, "he recalls.

During the crisis, which has forced companies to lay off lace, tulle from the craft has been very little affected, these skills are very difficult to trace where the activity is restarted, Herve Protais also observed.

Desperately WATCHMAKER SEARCH

The question of know-how arises more acutely in watchmaking in Switzerland, which is currently facing pressure on the productive side to the popularity of Asian consumers for luxury watches.

The Swiss watch industry is currently experiencing a wave of recruitment.

Swatch Group, which had insisted on the need to keep skills sharp during the crisis, plans to hire between 1,000 and 1,500 people this year.

Last week, rival Richemont, owner of the house Cartier has also announced plans to create up to 800 jobs in Switzerland.

"We will train people for the positions we offer. We expect that many people discover that we recruit the watch industry," acknowledges Alan Grieve, the spokesperson of the group.

Richemont watch form about 65 per year.Vacheron Constantin, one of the oldest houses to watch Swiss entry into the group in 1996, as currently twelve apprentices and this figure could rise to sixteen in two years, said Juan-Carlos Torres, CEO of the house.

According to figures published by the Employers' Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 318 watchmakers and business associates were formed in 2010, twice more than in 2001.

Paul-Andre Hartmann, director of a special school based in Le Locle, the heart of the Swiss Watch Industry, said the danger for the entire profession to see the younger generations turn away from these trades.

"If they disappear, the entire watch industry will be affected," he warns.