But sometimes you don't need to be downloading pdf files from economists to find a forecast worth listening to. In an interview in this morning's Daily Telegraph, Jim Rogers, the US investment guru who is usually held in the same regard as Warren Buffett, gives the most perceptive and least wordy forecast on Europe's outlook I've seen. He says it all in one line: 'If someone told me they were building a factory in Europe I would have every right to ask them if they were stupid.' Compare that with the guff Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, was talking yesterday following a meeting of the bank's governing council. He insisted the world should not write off the eurozone and insisted a double-dip recession 'is not at all what we are observing.' (Maybe Trichet should have been observing instead the live interview former US Fed chief Alan Greenspan gave yesterday on msnbc television in which he indicated double-dip in Western economies was very much a possibilty.) What kind of evidence did Trichet produce to back up his insistence that Europe isn't over? He offered this weekend's World Cup final between two European countries, Netherlands and Spain, as proof that 'one must not underestimate' Europe's future. Which gives the rest of us the right to ask Trichet if he, too, is stupid.
09 July 2010 10:11 AM
European forecast: one line says it all
Sunday, 11 July 2010
These last couple of days I've been tangled up in reports from economic analysts at ING Bank, Capital Economics and others on the probability and outcome of a break-up of the eurozone. In a line, probability is more than 50 percent that the break-up will come in five years or less, and immediate outcome is going to be dramatic and traumatic. Conclusion I take: stay clear of the place.
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