Welcome to a world where Bill Gates is once again the worlds richest man, and Bernie Madoff is about to get his comeuppance.
- We'll start this week with news of bad times for the worlds billionaires, apparently this crisis has destroyed 45% of the world's wealth (assuming it actually existed in the first place) and hardest hit have been the world's billionaires. Their number having fallen from 1,125 to 793, meaning there are 332 people who have to live with being mere multimillionaires. Your correspondent's heart bleeds.
- Internationally, lets take a little look at the much neglected area of Latin America. Suffering badly is Brazil which has had a pretty severe drop in output, Argentina having had years of strong growth looks like it's dropping off and Chile appears to be headed for recession. Hugo Chavez's Venezuela seems to be living in a different (and not entirely bad) economic universe although suffering badly from lower oil prices and is calling for OPEC to cut it's quotas.
- As the bill for the recession arrives at the table, the EU is trying to ignore it in the hope that the US will pay the bill. Our own chancellor is also looking a little tight, Mandy appears to be more than a little unhappy about this. Stop faffing and get your wallets out people!
- Last week the Bank of England announced it's intention to begin quantitative easing, this week the first actions began and already it's been called a success, with a stampede to buy gilts. Apparently, gilts are now offically sexy.
- Pound has been dropping during the week, mostly due to the QE announcements, seems to have perked up a little today. FTSE is up on the terrible lows of last week.
About the author: Andreas is a Labour activist based in Norwich, he's organiser for his local ward of Town Close. He works as a software developer and being the mercenary soul that he is has found himself working in the insurance, financial services, electronics and marketing industries at various points in time. He blogs at CitizenAndreas. Read more from this author