“Ten years later, the crisis still essentially determines how the financial system works, thanks to the political decisions and interventions by central banks in response to it. There has been no “return” to normal…
“The supply of US dollars funneled into the global finance system in response to the crisis partly ended up in emerging markets. In recent years, many developing countries used the low rates that followed the crisis to gorge on dollar-denominated debt. The impact of that can be seen today as the US dollar rises and investors wonder if these countries will be able to repay all the debt they’ve accrued. It’s bringing down currencies as far flung from each other as Turkey and Indonesia.”
https://qz.com/1362101/the-2008-financial-crisis-never-really-ended/
“Although there has been a lot of recovery from the 2008 financial crisis there are still many countries with fragile economies. Argentina has 29% inflation and 9.1% unemployment. South Africa has 27% unemployment and there were predictions that some cities were on the brink of collapse. Turkey’s currency has lost nearly 40% of its value against the dollar this year. Turkey has 9.6% unemployment and 12.8% inflation.”
“S&P reduced Turkey’s foreign-currency rating to four notches below investment grade at B+ from BB-, on par with Argentina, Greece as well as Fiji. Moody’s lowered its grade to Ba3 from Ba2, three notches below investment grade. The ratings companies said the weak currency, runaway inflation and current-account deficit are Turkey’s key vulnerabilities.”
“Turkey’s numerous large companies and even the Ankara government are struggling to service their overseas debts. While corporate and government revenues are denominated in fast-depreciating lira, a high share of debt interest payments must be made in rapidly rising dollars – the currency movements sending the real cost of such payments spiralling upward.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/08/18/turkeys-troubles-may-come-home-roost/
“With interest rates sky-high and the economy heading for recession, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri is running short of options to stem a slide in the peso, economists say, leaving the battered currency at the mercy of volatility in emerging markets.”
“The rupee’s plunge to a record low has worried a wide cross-section of India’s society… The 9.3 per cent fall in the rupee this year has already led to a surge in local prices of goods with an imported component.”
https://timesofoman.com/article/140002
“In a televised speech Sunday, Khan mentioned that he ‘feels ashamed begging for loans and funds from foreign institutions’. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan asked overseas citizens to invest and increase remittances to the South Asian country to help boost its foreign-exchange reserves and overcome an economic crisis.”
“For more than two decades, OPEC has tried to avoid repeating a mistake that cost it dearly. In November 1997, at a meeting in Jakarta, Saudi Arabia convinced fellow oil producers to boost output, ignoring a crisis brewing in emerging markets.
“The output increase came at the worst possible time. What in November 1997 looked like a hiccup, by mid-1998 was a full emerging-markets crisis spreading to Russia and Brazil. Global oil demand growth slowed, in part because of an unusually warm winter in the northern hemisphere. Benchmark oil prices fell below $10 a barrel, the lowest since the 1973-74 oil embargo.”
“Oil prices fell on Monday as concerns over slowing economic growth weighed on markets.”
Nations like Venezuela, Iran, Libya and Nigeria need lower oil prices like they need a hole in the head.
“Brazil is sending troops and extra police to the border town of Pacaraima where Venezuelan migrant camps were attacked and set ablaze.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45242786
“The Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, has said Nigeria’s economy has not recovered from the 2016 recession.”
The trade war, as it progresses, is also likely to hurt demand thence oil prices:
“It’s been step, by step, by step. And it’s been getting more and more expensive to produce products in China,” said Sloven, president of Capstone International HK Ltd, a division of Capstone Companies, from Deerfield Beach, Florida, a maker of consumer electronics goods.”
“The problems facing Sweden after a wave of shootings and arson attacks are every bit as serious as the country’s 1990s financial crisis, according to the favourite to become prime minister in next month’s elections… Sweden, held up in international surveys as one of the world’s happiest and most successful countries, has been jolted by frequent shootings, grenade attacks and arson attacks on cars in suburbs with a heavy immigrant population in Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5655711c-a389-11e8-8ecf-a7ae1beff35b
“During rush hour on one of London’s most affluent streets, amid the bustle of the Strand, an orderly queue is forming. Dozens of people stand patiently, and hungrily, waiting for their dinner… “We find that people are not homeless as we know it. A lot of people are homeless and working. We get Deliveroo drivers quite a lot. There’s a road sweeper who picks up the rubbish who comes along sometimes. He’s not homeless, but I wouldn’t imagine he’s earning a great amount of money.””
“The exit [of Greece from its bail-out programme] is a welcome milestone. But it offers little assurance that the 19-country euro currency union has left behind its problems with debt. The huge debt pile in Greece and an even bigger one in Italy will remain a lurking financial threat to Europe that could take a generation to defuse. Europe’s debt problems have repeatedly raised fears over the past decade of a break-up in the euro, a worst-case scenario that would cause severe economic damage in the region and shake world financial markets and trade.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20180819-greece-debt-eurozone-bailout-italy-imf-european-union
