Archive for the ‘economy’ Category
Why Italy’s women are out of work
Posted on: April 19, 2008
- In: domestic | economy | Europe | family | girls | Italy | out of work | women
- Leave a Comment
The economy is one of the big issues in the forthcoming General Election in Italy.
Some are questioning why in particular the country has one of the lowest rates of women’s employment in the European Union.
Why is there so much female unemployment in one of Europe’s most developed countries?
Italy has almost the lowest rate of female employment in the European Union – just 46 percent of Italian women have jobs, and the figure is even lower in the south of the country.
Italy’s minister for European affairs Emma Bonino believes that getting women into work would help revive the country’s economy.
“We have six million women, more or less, who do not have access to a job or are not looking for one anymore,” she told BBC World Service’s Analysis programme.
“In any country, if you had six million men out of the job market it would be an emergency. In Italy you have six million women and, apparently, it is thought to be normal.”
Demand
The state of the economy is likely to be one of the key issues in the election in a few days’ time.
And Italian economist Fiorella Kostoris says that the current state of insufficient growth means many more women are needed in the economy.
 |
  It is important that women understand what is happening to them, and take the strength publicly to say it is unacceptable  European affairs minister Emma Bonino
|
She says the jobs are available, but the demand is not effective because women are not seen as good candidates.
“Provided there was a fight against discrimination towards women – in particular in the south – there would be a demand for them,” she added.
“And there would be a supply, because of the female unemployment.”
Family
In order to work out how to get these women into the job market it is important to understand why they are unemployed.
Traditionally, women are absent from the workforce in order to have children – but Italy has an exceptionally low birthrate too.
“In Italy, family and domestic responsibility fall almost completely on women’s shoulders,” RAI news Mariella Zezza, who broadcasts a programme about the role of Italian women in society.
There are calls for Italy’s media to show more than glamour girls
|
Because “family” in Italy refers to extended family, even women without children might give up looking for work to look after elderly relatives.
“We need to offer tax incentives to women, and the state should think about what mothers who work need. They should build more nurseries, for example.”
- In: Defies | economy | Google | New York Times | Profit | Shows | Surge
- Leave a Comment
“The American economy may be weakening, but Google said once again that the slowdown has not affected its business.
Easing concerns that its growth would stall, the Internet search giant on Thursday reported better-than-expected financial results for the first three months of the year, igniting a huge rally in its shares.
“We are obviously very pleased with another strong quarter for Google,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts. “It is clear to us that we are well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment that we find ourselves surrounded by.’
Mr. Schmidt credited improvements to the company’s highly targeted advertising business for the growth, which was stronger overseas than domestically. For the first time, international sales accounted for the majority of revenue.
The results came as a relief to investors, who were bracing for a big slowdown in Google’s business. The company issued its report after the close of markets, and its shares surged more than $76.42, or 17 percent, in after-hours trading, to end the day at $525.96. They had closed d”
- In: economy | Pennsylvania | Reuters | still | stupid | U.S
- Leave a Comment
“(Reuters) – In 1992, Bill Clinton used the phrase ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ to win the White House amid a recession. Sixteen years later, his wife Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination by promising relief from more hard times.
Clinton and Obama served up economic messages this week in Pittsburgh, a steelmaking center in Pennsylvania, whose April 22 primary is the next stop in the Democratic contest to face Republican John McCain in November’s presidential election.
Appealing for labor backing from unionized steelworkers, Clinton promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and to get tough with China over counterfeiting and currency and industrial policies she said were the cause of trade deficits and U.S. job losses.
Obama also offered tough talk on NAFTA and China, railed against lobbyists and chief executives who took home huge pay packages while cutting jobs, and told steelworkers he had witnessed 1980s mill closures in Chicago and understood their plight.”
Sweden’s credit crunch lessons
Posted on: April 14, 2008
- In: Bear Stearns | credit | crunch | economy | JP Morgan | lessons | shareholders | Sweden | united states | World
- Leave a Comment
It is recognised as one of the oldest central banks in the world.
Yet it seems that Sweden’s Riksbank could even teach America’s Federal Reserve a thing or two about recovering from the current debt crisis.
As the IMF becomes the latest body to call on governments for concerted global action to calm troubled markets, policymakers are studying how Sweden managed to rescue four of its biggest banks when its own credit boom turned to bust in the early 1990s.
House prices had slumped, the currency was out of control, and unemployment and bankruptcies were rising rapidly.
Rescue plan
If the Riksbank had failed to act rapidly and chosen not to inject capital into its major banks, the entire financial system of the country may well have collapsed.
|
You do have to act swiftly. You can’t say this is a banks’ problem, because it is also your problem Lars Heikensten, former governor, Swedish Riksbank
|
At a cost of some $11bn (£5.5bn), Sweden guaranteed repayment of depositors and creditors at all of its stricken banks.
But the state aid was skilfully targeted, so none of the cash went to the bank’s shareholders.
Indeed, most of the money was regained by the Swedish government as the national economy recovered.
Moral hazard
Sweden’s affluent economy could have been threatened
|
Perhaps without even fully realising it at the time, the Swedes had identified what was to become known as ‘moral hazard’ – the risk that the state might bail out private investors who risked their money on the stock market.
One man with a ringside seat at the time of the Swedish crisis was the Riksbank’s Lars Heikensten, who subsequently served a term as central bank governor.
“One of the questions we had to ask was quite simple. Will this bank be solvent or not?
“If the government was to step in with taxpayers money to deal with solvency problems, it was made clear that the owners would have to give up all their rights. That was important for political reasons – and for moral hazard reasons.”
Valleywag - valleywag.wordpress.com 
Recent Comments