The End

After each memeber had posted 10 posts, we've decided to quit!
So this is the end of our blog, this was the last week we’ve posted!
Thanks for reading!
The EU-team!

British Gas warns of big price rises in the pipeline

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, positioned itself to take the lead in an anticipated wave of gas and electricity rate rises from energy suppliers after warn-ing yesterday of "challenging conditions" in the wholesale gas markets.

As the UK's leading energy supplier – Centrica has 10 million gas customers and 6 million electricity users – the company is typically the first to increase its rates, providing cover for its smaller rivals which then usually follow suit. Karen Darby, of the price comparison service SimplySwitch, said: "Historically, when one of the big suppliers increases prices, the others are quick to follow." She said that a 15 per cent increase would mean an extra £131 to annual energy bills.

Last winter, wholesale gas was trading at about an average of 37p per therm. That compares with 53p per therm now. The rising price is due to myriad factors, including the highly illiquid European market for natural gas, which has kept prices artificially high. The high oil price, against which many gas prices are indexed, and a cold weather snap are further factors.

Centrica said it had managed to end the year with about 16 million customers despite losing more than 250,000 early in the year after it raised its prices. Analysts expect the company to report a profit of between £1.8bn and £1.9bn when it reveals its annual results in February.

source

(Tom Van thienen)

Veolia Cargo becomes the new competitor of the NMBS!

The French railway society “Veolia Cargo” hopes to become the new competitor of the Belgian railway society “de NMBS”. Veolia Cargo received an approval for his rolling staff and hopes to receive another approval for his material (trains). Veolia Cargo is not an unknown in our country, Veolia Transport (the mother company of Veolia Cargo) is the biggest controller of our city- and region lines for “De Lijn”.

Nowadays, Veolia Cargo is active in 3 countries: French, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2006, the French railway society had a turnover of 100 million Euro. This with 850 employees and 189 engines. The turnover for this year would be estimated to 226 million Euro, an increase with 126 million.

This is not good news for “de NMBS”, because with Veolia Cargo the competition in Belgium grows to 9. Now there are 4 companies who submitted an application: CFL Cargo, the British EWS, the Dutch ACTS and Veolia Cargo. The other 5 companies have already an approval to ride on the Belgium net: Dillen & Le Jeune Cargo, SNCF Fret, Rail4Chem, Trainsport and ERS. So the competition is raising.

But there is one obstacle that prevents a fast grow: there is not a balance in the supply and demand of engines and the most important obstacle is a shortage of train drivers.

My opinion: I think that for the consumer nothing will change. Because the competition is for the transport of cargo. But I think that it is not a good thing, “de NMBS” needs a lot of money to exist. So when there is more competition, they lose a lot of money.
Source: http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/942/Economie/article/detail/96884/2007/12/08/Veolia-Cargo-wordt-nieuwe-concurrent-NMBS.dhtml
(Bram)

The central banks join forces to deal with credit crisis

Five central banks launched a coordinated attempt to boost the liquidity in the financial markets, in the hope of avoiding a repeat of the credit crisis in the summer.

In a joint announcement this afternoon, the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, and the Swiss National Bank said they were addressing "elevated pressures in short-term funding markets".

The plan sent the FTSE 100 index back into positive territory having earlier been down on the day. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened over two hundred points higher.

However, the celebrations appeared short-lived. Just ahead of the market's close in London, the FTSE 100 had moved back into negative territory, with a loss of a couple of points.

Concern has been growing in recent weeks that financial institutions are again unwilling to loan to each other.
By allowing commercial banks to borrow more money from them, the central banks are hoping to avoid a repeat of the Northern Rock crisis.

The Bank of England has agreed to allow commercial banks to borrow a total of £11.35bn through two auctions on December 18 and January 15 - £10bn will be available in loans repayable after three months.
The auctions are part of its usual long-term open market operations, but until today the Bank was only offering £2.85bn.

As usual all loans must be secured against a bank's assets, but on this occasion the Bank is relaxing its rules on securitisation. It will accept a wider range of securities, including bonds issued by G10 government agencies and sovereign funds.
The Federal Reserve said it would offer US banks up to $40bn (£19.5bn) through two auctions next week. It plans to hold two further auctions in January, but has not decided how much to offer.

It is also entering into foreign exchange swap agreements with the ECB and the Swiss central bank, to try to tackle the shortage of dollar funds in Europe.

I think it's a good thing that the central banks anticipate to avoid a new crisis. This pact is also good for the customers: they won't lose their money like they almost have at the Northern Rock crisis.

Source

Fight for a Christmas tree!

The shortage and price increases last time are certainly for the next four years!
The Christmas trees become about 10 percents more expensively this winter. Especially the more expensive “Nordmanspar”, which doesn’t lose his needles, become continuously scarcer.

The women of present want no ordinary spar more as a Christmas tree. It must be a silver blue Nordman, because that doesn’t lose his needles!

They have planted, however, massive of those Nordmans, but it lasts still five years before they are ready to sale.

The Ardennes are good for about five millions Christmas trees per year, of which 85 per cent remain there in Belgium. In former days existed that for 70 per cent from ordinary trees, and scarcely 20 per cent Nordmans. For this year Raymackers expect 65 per cent Nordmans, 15 per cent traditional trees and already 10 per cent Fraseri. The remaining types take together scarcely five per cent.

This year still turns out better than expected damage: a traditional Christmas tree of 2 meters with mound costs 7 euro and a Nordman 19.95 euro.

The shortage to Nordmans is not only a Belgian problem: rather what supplies northern countries, such as Denmark, traditionally a considerable part of Europe. But has been introduced there for ecological reasons cap restrictions, as a result of which there is there also a shortage. At the same time with those restrictions the question increases in Europe, because also the Eastern-European countries choose, such as Poland, for the Nordman trees.

Source

(Jonas)

Airbus may move production to US as euro soars

Airbus, the European plane maker, is considering plans to relocate production to a new plant in Alabama and other parts in the dollar zone because of the effects of the soaring euro.

As the euro rose marginally against the dollar to $1.46 - three cents off its all-time peak - Gallois called for a new G7 meeting devoted to the euro-dollar exchange rate because "there is a deep crisis in a number of industries solely due to the fact that the Americans are carrying out a policy that translates as the endless fall of the dollar."

Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, said last month on a French radio that the dollar's weakness was "life-threatening" for the plane maker. EADS says that each 10 cent rise in the value of the dollar costs the group €1bn (£712m) in earnings.

EADS sources confirmed that Airbus could set up a new plant in low-cost Mobile, Alabama, in the southern US for the final assembly of civil aircraft - alongside the A330-based air-to-air refuelling plane for the US air force. "But a precondition would be that we win the tanker contract," they said.

EU finance chiefs, meanwhile, confirmed that the bloc faced economic slowdown because of financial turmoil caused by the US sub-prime crisis.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

British women still have lower-paid jobs through chilcare

British women are working in lower paid and lower status jobs than British men because they still have more responsibility for housework and childcare; That is the conclusion of a Cambridge University study.

The comprehensibility that women do the domestic duties, creates a vicious circle because then they are less able to work the long hours needed to win top jobs. They then earn less and are obliged to do household tasks.
The divide also leaves women with a longer working day, despite earning less, according to the study. The average working week for a woman in Europe is 68 hours, including paid and domestic work - for a man this is 55 hours in full-time employment.

Only if the lifestyle divide changes will women have equal opportunities in the world of work, say the researchers. "The working lifestyles of most people in Europe still are determined by gender," they say. "In many cases, we were surprised by how little the results for EU nations like Britain, Germany and France have changed since 1991." The best way to break the circle would be to assimilate gender inequality in employment and the household" . Encouraging men to do more in the household would be a step towards this target.

I think that every man has to do as much as his wife in the household, because women also deserve a change to make career.

Source

Colruyt is doing better than expected.

Colruyt has booked good results over the first half year of exercise 2007/2008. Better than they expected. They had bad market circumstances: it was a bad summer and there is more competition. But Colruyt held his results.The turnover (revenue) was 2.714,7 million Euro, this was also the expects of the analysts. The company profit was 197,3 million Euro, against an average expect of 186,5 million Euro. The net profit was 143,1 million Euro against the 132,1 million Euro the analysts had expect. All of this has a result of a profit/share of 4,36 Euro. And I think that is great for al the shareholders.

Despite of the circumstances this is a very good result. And because of this reason, the management of Colruyt raises the profit expectations with 2 million Euro. To achieve this 2 million Euro extra profit, Colruyt has invented a new extra-discount card and on the tickets they show the price comparison with the competition.

The activities in the retail made the best results of the whole group, an increase of the turnover with 6%. Colruyt is one of the biggest groups on the market, and they are still growing. In the 3th quarter of 2007 to 21,04%. There is only one problem coming. The increase of the food prices! Till march next year the price of some good will increase, but it will not be a big problem.
Source: http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_674297.html?wt.bron=hlnBottomArtikels
(Bram)

Belgian inflation doubled in two months almost!

The inflation in Belgium has again strongly increased in November. On an annual basis the inflation has been encouraged up to 2.94 percent, of 2.24 percent in October. The increase is blame especially to the higher prices for fuels.

It is the second successive month that inflation on an annual basis with 0.7 percent point increases. In September inflation 1.51 amounted to percent.

The strong increase of the inflation in November is especially the consequence of higher prices on engine fuels, gas and liquid fuels. Also milk, cheese and eggs, fresh vegetables and to a lesser degree bread and granen became more expensive. Lower pricing was noted down for foreign travel and holiday villages.

The remuneration lane in October with 1,34% compared with October 2006. Compared with the increase of the remuneration stand a increase of the index of the consumption price with 2,24% between October 2006 and October 2007. That means a reduction with 0,90%.
The general Executive Board statistics and economic information calculates 4 times per year an index concerning the development of the remuneration lane of the male workers as from 21 years.
The Belgian index for the consumption price for the month of November amounts to 108.10 points compared with 107.10 points in October.

Source

(Jonas)

Second break!

This is the second week you’ll have to do it without our vision of the European economy, on Monday December 3 of 2007 we will be back!

Big loss for English economy by fail to qualify for Euro 2008

Because England doesn’t succeed to qualify for the Euro 2008 football tournament, the English businesses could miss out 2 billion pound experts said.

Especially sport stores, bookmakers and pub groups are the big losers to feel the financial chill after the defeat by Croatia.

When England participate in a major summer tournament such as the World Cup or the European Championships the economic boosts with 650 million pound according to analysts.

A sport consultant predicted that the total sales of replica shirts could be 100 million pound lower next year.

Bookmakers said that the absence from Euro 2008 would cost at least 250 million pound. They said that a major football tournament without England will be like Christmas without turkey. There simply won’t be the interest levels.

The profit of Umbro, the England Football team’s official kit maker, is expected 15 million pound less. Because they need to give discounts to the England shirts. Last year Umbro sold 4 million shirts, but the poor performances of England under the lead of Steve Mclaren meant that only 1 million shirts have been sold by September.

Profit at Sports Direct, a retailer, is contracted to buy 65% of all England shirts made by Umbro, but has struggled to sell them. They will loose 10 million pound as a results of England’s nonqualification.

TV advertisements revenues could fall by 10 million pound because of the likely lower audience.

source

(Tom Van thienen)

Our Second Podcast!

We present you:

Our second Podcast!

http://rapidshare.com/files/71657302/Podcast2.mp3.html

For people who are not that technological-minded:
click on the URL
Scroll down and click on "free"
and then you must show that you are valid user!

Profit of Roularta increase by taking over Express-Expansion.

Media company Roularta has generated in the 3th quarter 34.8% more turnover. This is the result of the taking over of the French Group Express-Expansion. The turnover of Roularta in the period July-September was 151,1 million Euro. Last year it was “only” 112,1 million. Most of this grow comes from Print-division, and also thanks to the taking over of the French Group.


The products of Roularta grew with 1.5%. Other reasons of the turnover increase are the taking over of some small magazines. Like a Dentist paper, Pharmacy paper, …. The best original product is the free newspaper, “De Zondag”.


According to Roularta, there is a lot of pressure on the Belgium and French market. The audiovisual media has grown with only 2%, this is not much. The reason is the failing of the distribution contract with Carrefour. It was especially VMMa (VTM and KanaalTwee and Q-music) that grew a lot, 9.1%.


The results of radio station 4FM are not that good. But Roularta hasn’t got yet some prospects. The prospects of Television and Radio are good.The advertising market in Belgium is doing better than in French. In French the social climate has a negative influence on the money for advertising.


Source: http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_661256.html?wt.bron=categorieArt4

(Bram)

The Belgian consumer is losing his faith in the Belgian economy.

The belgian consumers faith has been fallen abruptly in november and is standing at the lowest level since december last year. The consumers especially lose their faith in the grow of the belgian economy in the next months.

The indicator of the consumers faith is now fallen till minus 8. It has been a long time that the consumers faith was so low, more exactly since december of last year. The consumers think that the perspectives of the economic situation in belgian is extremely weak,and they are very pessimisticabout their own save-capacity for the next months.

A thing that looks very optimistic according to the consumers is the perspective of the labour market. It raised against october, but decreased against the start of this year.

The national bank says that it is the first time that their is such a large decrease without a specific political or economical event, but i think that the difficult negotiations about the forming of the Belgian government is a influential factor to the indicator.

The national bank also says that possible factors are the raising prices for alimentation and petroleum-products and the reports of an international credit-crisis and the impact of it on the stock-exchange.

I think that when the political situation in Belgium is solved, the indicator will slowely raise again, but the high oil prices will keep the indicator low.

Source

30 billion euro in three years

Volkswagen invest more than 30 billion euro in three years

Volkswagen, the largest car concern of Europe, will invest the following three years about 28.9 billion euro in new models and factories, to realize the necessary increase. The Supervisory Board of the company from the German Wolfsburg approved the investment program last week.

With about 13.8 billion euro the product range will be broadened with new models and the modernization of existing models. Moreover 7.1 billion goes to factories, among other things in Russia and India. In these “increase markets” the cars will be built.

Volkswagen wants to build more than ten millions cars per year in 2018. This year there will be more than 6 million and in 2006 there were 5.7 million. Volkswagen wants to exceed the most successful car dealer Toyota.
They want to introduce in the coming three years twelve new models, to raise sale up to eight millions carriages in 2010.

Also they will invest in innovative technology and new factories.

At the new models the compact SUV “Tiguan”, a remake of the sport-loving Scirocco and a new version of the Golf (the best selling model of the mark).

Now we have to wait what the consequences are for Audi will be.

Source

(Jonas)

EU to impose tariffs on China’s products

Europe is to reinforce its tougher line against China by following the US in slapping tariffs on Chinese products that benefit from alleged subsidies.

The EU governments and some industries are supporting the slapping tariffs because the growing trade deficit with China is increasing 20 million $ an hour.

Some ways to achieve that are to ex-officio initiation of investigations.
Another way can be more anti-subsidy actions, for example: let the goods that are coming from China pay more taxes so that they have the same price or even more expensive than our own goods. The EU has avoided so-called “countervailing duties” in the past because by designating China a “non-market economy” it accepts that prices there are not set by free competition, making it hard to put a value on soft loans or benefits given to state-controlled enterprises.

However, Mr Mandelson proposes to use the measure against companies that have received “market” status in previous anti-dumping actions, for which more information is available.

The most sensitive anti-dumping cases have split national governments, often between the
liberal north, dominated by retailers, and the south, which has a strong industrial base.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

A bonus don't make a difficult job more attractive

The VDAB has a list with bottleneck-jobs, and who educates himself for one of those jobs can have a bonus till the end of this year. This bonus is between 150 and 250 euros.

But the bonus doesn't have success: less than one percent educates him in bottleneck-jobs for the bonus. As a reaction on this news the minister of work, Frank Vandenbroucke, has abolished the bonus. The budget will go to other boosts to follow an education.

The problem is that the number of the bottleneck-jobs is increasing. "It's normal that with a booming economy, the bottleneck-jobs will feel it first." says Ward Verhaeghe of the ministers cabinet. "On the other side, the number of jobs where they find an adequate candidate is hiher than ever. A problem is that the government doesn't know if the people who have followed an education, also work in the sector. 1 out of 5 avoidances doesn't find an adequate candidate.

"We have to enlist people of the foreign countries. These people can follow a language-class on the workfloor, there is no other solution." says Ward Verhaeghe

I think that the govenrment choses the simpliest solution. They can look to other solutions, instead of importing foreigners

Source

Expensive oil delivers the government 11 million extra!

De oil prices keep on growing, but the taxes won’t decrease. Because of this, the government gets 11 million euro more! But the pressure is coming to decrease the taxes.
Last week, the oil price reached a new record, 1.252 euro/litre. Many people give comment because the government won’t decrease the taxes on the fuel prices.

The 11 million euro is only the extra income on the diesel prices. The profit on the petrol is not calculated in those 11 million euro. But the taxes on the bio fuel are also taken in the extra income. The total extra turnover of the bio fuel taxes is 2.2 million euro. So we are paying extra money for a product (bio fuel) that not exist.

Guy Verhofstadt said that the government will maybe decrease the taxes. But on 1 condition, the price of diesel in Belgium must be higher than the price of diesel in our neighbouring countries. At the moment Belgium has the second highest price, Germany is on number 1. But before the price raise, we had almost the lowest prices, just Luxembourg did better. At the moment, the government has decrease the taxes, but it is only a small decrease. If we fill our car, we only get 1 euro discount.

If we believe the secretary of the BPF, the 11 million euro is not the total sum of revenue. Apparently it must be more, but the BPF won’t give the correct number of money.
Source
(Bram)

A fall of the economic growth for 2008

The crisis on the financial markets and high oil - and raw material prices ways on the economic growth. That becomes clear from the autumn forecasts of EU-Commission that Friday was released. The increase in EU-27 will fall back on 2.9 in 2007, to 2.4 percent in 2008. In the euro zone it goes of 2.6 in 2007, to 2.2 percent in 2008.

The driving force behind the reduced increase remains the private consumption. The internal question remains strong, thanks to the high employment. Moreover there is the positive pulse of the rising economies. The lower increase in the US (2.1 percent in 2007) on the other hand has become a slowing down factor.

For the period 2007-2009 the EU-Commission expect 8 million of new jobs and a fall of the unemployment up to 6.6 percent in 2009.

In comparison with the previous years there is much more uncertainty. Not only there is the disorder on the financial markets, there is the spectacular increase of the oil-price.
The public debt its dive, however, will continue. Between 2006 and 2009 it will decrease with approximately 5 percent points and still only 63.4 percent to amount to. In the complete EU the objective of maximum 60 percents debt would be already obtained in 2007.

Source

(Jonas)

Peking stops the export of dangerous toys

The Chinese autorities have decided to stop the export of dangerous toys. They made the decision to stop the export of 'Aqua Dot' after that two kids got in a coma because they swallowed a pearl of 'Aqua Dot'.

The pearls are produced in China, but it's a canadian company why distributed it, namely 'Spin Master'. The Americzn government removed already 4,2 million units out of the horizontal bars. Nobody knows which substantion contains the poison, which makes it more dangerous.

Also in Australia are three kids adopted in the hospital after getting unconscious because of swallowing the same pearls.

America have also removed 400.000 other product who came out of China, namely toycars and robots. This was mostly because they contained to much lead or had a mistake in the manifacture.

I think that it is a shame that products which contains a poisson, can be exported whitout being controlled, especcialy when it is meant for litlle kids. It think th at it also isn't good for the 'toy-economy' of China. The countries who import toys from China can lose their faith in the Chinese products, and stop to import them, which can have a lot of consequences.

Source

Bank holds rates despite further signs that housing boom is over

For the first time in 2.5 years house prices drops 2 months in a row.

This month house prices tumbled by 0.5% after it tumbled 0.6% in the previous month.

However the Bank of England kept rates on hold at 5.75%

A report of Halifax showed that the annual rate of house price inflation dropping back into single figures, to 8.9% from 10.7% the previous month.

If the trend continuous, prices would fall in real terms over the coming year. The growth will be 1.2% per year and that is below the inflation.

The interest from new buyers in purchasing a house fell by 6%.

The recent oil prices, that peaked this weak for the first time over 98 dollar a barrel, highlights the nagging risk of a renewed burst of inflation.

Also the increases of other goods, such as food are reinforcing inflationary worries.

A majority of economist still believe that lower interest rates are coming for next year as an effect off a weakening US economy

Although Britain’s economy grew at a buoyant 3.3 % in the third quarter, inflation in September on the consumer prices index stood at only 1.8%.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

The price of beer is again going up!

Inbev the biggest beer producer in Belgium will raise the price of his products with 3% starting from February 1st. This means that we as customers will have to pay 5 to 10 eurocent more for a lager.

But why announced Inbev the price increase 4 months ahead? The reason is the cost of the resources that increases. Especially the cost of energy and food is going up. Because of this, they have to raise the price of the beer. Otherwise the profit will go down.

Not every price will increase the same. There are differences, Jupiler in the bottle and in the can will increase 3.5%. Whereas the price of the Hoegaarden remains the same. When al of this is completed, there won’t be any difference between beer at home as in the pub.

The price increase will come on the head of the customers. They will feel the price increase, because when the owners of restaurants and pubs won’t change the price, they won’t survive. As the beer producer increase the price, than the sellers of those products have not a choice. They must follow Inbev and increase their prices also.

Normally the price will increase with 5 eurocent, but sellers do not calculate with prices under the 10 eurocent. So starting in February the price will increase with 10 eurocent.
At the moment it is only Inbev, the concurrent Alken-Maes and De Koninck will not follow. But this will only take some time, everybody will change their prices.
Source
(Bram)

People especially provided concerning virtual security...

Belgians are not worried concerning their personal or concerning the national security.
They are more worried about their security online and the financial threats, such as credit card fraud and abuse of personal information.

Unsafe?

For Belgium the index stands on 131, what indicates an average level of unsafe (especially concerning their financial, personal and online security). The Germans make has a general score of 160. The English keep track of them with a score of 138. In France (83) their are less concerned concerning their security, followed by the Italians (90) and the Dutch people (98).

The Belgians are most afraid concerning the security of their information and their security online. The Belgians are the most worried Europeans concerning the online security.

Where average only 30 percents of the Europeans find that the online security is very important, is that in Belgium average 41 people to 100.
The Belgians are just as afraid of being infected by viruses, spyware or spam, as for unsafely online shopping or online banking.

Even 29% is extremely afraid that others would have access to their personal information.

Of the Belgians there is 34% extremely worried concerning fraud with their credit cards and bank accounts. At the Italians is that 14%. Kindest 44% of the Germans are very worried concerning fraud with their financial data, And that makes them the most agitated Europeans if it concerns protecting information.

Source
(Jonas)

Take a break!

This week you have to do it without our vision of the Europian economy, on Monday 5 November 2007 we will be back!

Microsoft caves in to European commission

Microsoft goes agreed with a fine off 497 million euro after 3 year.

Microsoft received the fine after the European commission had discovered that Microsoft accepted swingeing price cuts for interoperability information that would enable rival servers to work smoothly with its Windows operating system.

In the past three years Microsoft received a total of 777.5 million euro plus interest of fines.

Microsoft now hopes that Ms Kroes will not levy further fines for its failure to comply with the 2004 ruling from December 2005 until today. Last week it said in an SEC filing in New York that it was potentially liable to penalties of $1.6bn up to the end of June alone.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, said that she hopes that the nine year during battle against the European commission and Microsoft can become to an end and that they can go on in an absolutely close and constructive way.

Agreements that Microsoft strikes with rival developers will be enforceable in London's high court, seen as the premier European court for handling high-profile IPR and international contract cases.

The commission, meanwhile, extended its deadline for its inquiry into Google's $1.5bn purchase of internet advertising broker DoubleClick.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

Is the production of biofuel a crime against humanity?

Jean Ziegler, an independant expert of the United Nations says that the production of biofuel is a crime against humanity. He says that the transmutation aliment growth has as effect that their is famine of food, wich raise the price and that has as effect that millions of poor people can't afford it anymore.

Ziegler wants a five year lasting mortuary of the production of biofuel to abduce a disaster foor poor people. He says that the scientific research makes progression, and that infive years it will be possible to make biofuel with agricultural garbage.

The use of biofuel is seen as a step to decrease the CO2-emmission. The US and Brazil have made a pact in march 2007 to raise the production of Ethanol. That would be good for the employment and to decrease the antics of the oilmarket.
That pact has as effect that the price of wheat has doubled, and the price of maize also has been raised.

I think that if it is true that in five years it will be possible that there can be made biofuel out of agriculteral garbage, the world has to do what Ziegler propose, cause it will be better for the poor people.

Source

1 on 7 persons in Belgium is poor!

The poverty line for a person alone is a loan of less than 822 euro/month. And the poverty line for a family (2 grownups and 2 children) is a loan of less than 1762 euro/month. This is not much. According to the numbers of the FOD Economy almost 15% of the Belgium population lives under the poverty line. This is to much, especially for a country with so much wealth. It are especially women, children under the age of 16 and older persons who live under this circumstances.
The most of these persons are also not active on the labour market.
How can they survive? The most Belgians living under the poverty line spend 40% less than the others. They save al lot of money because they travel less (they do not go on vacation). Maybe the can not afford a car, so the save also money on private transportation.

Strange is, that they also save on health and food. I thought that food and health were some basic needs, but these peoples spend more on tobacco.
This is a strange phenomenon. More than half of the persons who live under the poverty line lives in a rent-house. Their house is in most of the cases too small.

Poverty is phenomenon that is passed on from generation to generation.
My opinion: I had no idea that so many Belgians under the poverty line live. Because we have a good social system and the OCMW’s. But apparently there are still persons who need help.

Source
(Bram)

A quarter less CO2!

Like we all know, we must all try to reduce the CO2-emission , and not only we, but much more important is that all the big companies would do something about that!

Inbev, a brew-company, has succeeded to decrease the energy use in the company and also to reduce CO2-emission since 2003 with more than one quarter.
This all mean that the InBev-group stands on the top of companies and their emission.

- They use al not of innovating installations such as:
- The new water purification station
- The renewing of the steam turbine for the production of own electricity
- The energy usage decreased by regular audits and saving programmes
- There is stoked with ground energy
- The also bought a machine to suck the substance from the malt flour-milling

All this things are due the reason for the fall of co2-emission.
But that’s not all, there are a lot of other measures such as:

Detritus recycle:
InBev succeed to recycle 99 per cent of its cousin products. The brewery makes good agreements with agriculture and animal feeding world for the sale of trot, leaven and finally the silt from the water purification station.

Less water:
The water usage has decreased the last 3 years with 17 per cent by an investment in a cleaning system and the reuse of water.

Criteria Since 2005 is that InBev its breweries have applied a management system that an incorporated treatment includes of the requirements on operational, financial, quality, security, health and environment.

I think this is a very good start to reduce the CO2-emission and the Inbev-company can be a good criterion for all other companies!
Source
(Jonas)

S&N plotting Russia sale to derail bid

Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s biggest brewer is planning to thwart Dutch and Danish rivals by refusing a takeover bid from £7,5 billon off Hartwall. Hartwall is the Finnish holding company behind its most valuable asset.

Heineken and Carlsberg who makes the following beers: Foster’s, John Smith’s and Kronenbourg, surprised last week S&N when they announced that they would takeover S&N and split the British brewer between them.

S&N’s board want to defeat the plan by selling 50% of the shares from BBH, its Russian beer business. With the selling of those shares S&N will receive £2,5 billion .

The other 50% shares of BBH are in hands of Carlsberg and they are keen to buy the other half. There will be a complex arrangement with Carlsberg.

According to the analysts a way to unlock the value in BBH is the key to S&N’s survival.

There are also other brewers who are interested such as Anheuser Busch, SAB Miller, the Spanish drinks giant Mahou San Miguel, which has a distribution deal with S&N in Brittain.

However, nobody will make a move until the Carlsberg-led bid is tabled. This is expected within 10 days.

Analysts put the value of BBH at £4.8 billion.

S&N would receive above 800 pound per share for BBH to have any chance of success.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

The biggest airplane of the World, the A380

Airbus, the European airplane constructor has delivered the biggest airplane of the history. On Monday the 15th of October they finished the first plane. It is Singapore Airlines that receives the worlds first A380, but this with 18 months delay.

This makes an end to all the disappointment of the delay. But it comes in a period where the mother company EADS is suspected of fraud. The delay did also decrease the rate of the shares.

The first commercial flight is not for this week, it will be on the 25th of October, with destination Sydney in Australia. But people who want to see the airplane have tomorrow the chance. Then leaves the A380 France with destination Singapore.

But it wasn’t al good, the delay came because of technologic problems.
The target of Airbus is to take over the first place of Boeing. The A380 is the rival of the Boeing 747.
The Boeing 747 was long the only plane that could transport 450 passengers. But now the A380 of Airbus can transport standard 525 passengers.

At the moment Airbus has 189 sales agreements, especially from Asia and Europe. But cause of the delay, Airbus lost millions of dollars. So in stead of 270, they have to sell 420 planes.

My opinion about this: This is good for the economy of Europe. Now Airbus can compete again with Boeing. But there was also bad news, the delay cost Airbus a lot of money. So it will be difficult to sell 420 types of A380.

Source

(Bram)

One corporate road Vignette in the BeNeLux?

The Dutch government is patron for a corporate road vignette in the whole BeNeLux. Ger Koopmans, a member of parliament, thinks that Camiel Eurlings, the minister of traffic in the Netherlands, must start a deliberation with his colleagues from Belgium and Luxemburg. The Flemish government had that idea some time ago, but let it go by the objection from the Dutch government.

Ger Koopmans thinks that it will be better for the countries that they deliberate about one road vignette, he thinks that would be better for the economic competition with other countries. He thinks that it would be bad for the economic position, when we would have an overlap of payment systems.

But the Flemish Government have already the idea of a road vignette as in Germany, which can be a problem in the negotiations about the corporate road vignette.

Another problem can be that in Belgium, they want a vignette for motor-trucks only, while in The Netherlands, they want a vignette for all motor vehicles.

This shows that there is still a lot of work before there will be a corporate road vignette, if there will be one ever. The idea is already there, now they have to start the negotations.

I think that it is a good idea for a corporate road vignette: it would be much easier for the inhabitants of the Benelux and the foreign people would have to pay for the use of our roads, like we already have to do in some countries,like par example France.

Source

The European markets score!

News from Belgium:
The Bel 20 wins 0.4 per cent on 4,472.13 points! 13 shares go higher and only 6 shares go lower. The largest profit in terms of percentage is for Agfa-Gevaert.
The share has had it bad since the end of July, but now it seems to pick up again. Agfa-Gevaert increase 3 per cent up to 13.95 euro.

The oil prices:
The price for a barrel harsh Brent-oil falls for the third day and stands now on 76.11 dollar.

The euro:
A euro is now 1.4035 dollar worth.

The Banks:
The financials Dexia and Fortis make the figures Brussels really beautiful.
Dexia increase 1 per cent up to 23 euro and Fortis increase 0.4 per cent up to 22.60 euro.

Fortis has now also confessed that the Fortis-consortium has 86 percent of ABN AMRO in hands. The shareholders of the Dutch bank have massively discussed the take-over bid of the three banks. If everything goes well Fortis can pick up more than 13 billion euro at its own shareholders.
KBC, the third financial heavyweight in Brussels, note 0.2 per cent higher on 99.68 euro.
Bank Degroof have raised up their aim-rate from 70 to 76 euro.

The Aviation:
Alitalia has raised up 3 per cent, up to 0.84 euro.
The Italian airline company will resume adoption negotiations with air France-KLM, Lufthansa, TPG and three other parties.

And this are only some examples of all the things that happened last time on the European markets, and I think we can conclude that the EU is doing very well!

(all these figures could be changes when you will read this post, that how the rates go)

Source
(Jonas)

Turkey fears send oil to record high

The crude oil prices are peaking after concerns that Turkey may soon launch an invasion against northern Iraq in an attempt to hit Turkish militants it accuses of attacking Turkish targets.

Such an attack could destabilize the Kurdistan region, the only relatively peaceful area in Iraq.

Rapidly declining oil inventories in developed countries ahead of the northern hemisphere winter also helped push the price higher.

The previous record for a barrel oil was $83.90 and yesterday the price peaked to $84.05 a barrel. It closed at $83.71 a barrel, up 63 cents on the day.

Iraq pumped about 2.18m barrels a day of crude oil in September, up 190,000 b/d from August.

Turkey is a key route for a crude oil pipeline from the Caspian sea that is forecast to carry about 500,000 b/d of oil by the end of 2007.

The watchdog has asked the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to boost its supplies to build up inventories. Crude oil and products inventories usually increase in the third quarter, ahead of the winter, but so far they have fallen by 360,000 barrels a day.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

Our Podcast!

We present you:

Our first Podcast!

http://rapidshare.com/files/62257352/Final_Podcast.wav

For people who are not that technological-minded:

click on the URL
Scroll down and click on "free"
and then you must show that you are valid user!

The growth in the technological industry is going down.

The car industry in Belgium is at a loose end. Early this year there were some restructurings by VW Vorst. A cause of this, the technologic growth was only 1.9%. If there were no restructurings the growth would have been 7%. The numbers come from Agoria, this is the federation of the technological industry.

But it is not all negative. There are also some sectors who did grow. One of the biggest is the electro industry. It has a growth of 7.1%. The employment was the same, but the car industry had al loss of 7.5%. A cause of this, the technological industry lost 1.1%.

The shortage of personnel slows down the growth of the company’s. So when nothing changes, there will be no growth anymore.

Why did it stopped? According to Agoria, the reason is the low dollar price and the low expectations in the construction sector.
A solution would be: more investments, those would involve into more constructions.

My opinion about this:
Maybe the government in Belgium can make some special proposals towards the industry. They can lower the taxes, so the company’s won’t leave Belgium. Now all those company’s restart their production in the East. There is the cost for personnel lower.
Another solution would be more subsidies. With those subsidies, the company’s could invest in a better production.

Source

(Bram)

Aldi will be more expensive

Aldi has already raised their prices of almost half their products in Germany, and now they have pronounces that also in the Netherlands they will raise their prices.
The reasons are always the same: high energy prices and a raise of the prices from cereals, milk and oils. Because these raw materials are used in a lot of products, are there a lot of products which prices will increase.

Also Colruyt thinks that they won’t escape to a rise of the price level but they say that they
will hold to their generalship of lowest prices.

Some suppliers have to declaim there contracts, because of the amount of the price rise. Another problem is that the price of fungible goods will raise because their is more demand, par example rice and cereals.

Professor Gino Van Ossel thinks that Aldi makes a large price adjustment, because it has a lot of basic product in their assortment. He think’s that is the reason why the expensive raw materials have such an impact on the prices of Aldi.

But Van Ossel thinks that the price rise will have some delay, because of the concurrential situation in Belgium. Colruyt namely shows clearly their price advantage against other supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl. But he also knows that Belgium will also suffer of the high prices of raw materials: “it’s not allowed to sell with loss, the expensive raw materials are to important to be ignored” he says.

I think it’s normal that the supermarket will raise their prices because of the expensive raw materials. Professor Van Ossel explains it correct: you can’t sell with loss, so ypu have to raise your prices. The only thing we can do as customer is hoping that the price of raw materials will descend again, so the supermarkets can drop their prices.

Source: http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=A51IGL39

Your savings suddenly disappeared?!

There were 23 fraud cases in 2007!

In Brussels the accounts of about fifteen Belgians with an internet account at Argenta, Dexia and KBC were plundered this year by hackers of the Russian mafia. But the banks have already did something to stop this.

In the course of spring some customers have communicated that their bank account was dismantled. The hackers have provided their selves access to the internet account of the customers.

The central systems of the banks were not cracked. The hackers obtained therefore possibly to the data of the customers of their Personal Computer.

Judicial research must identify now the accused ones of this new fraud!

The Russian mafia has to the technique in house to commit hacking.

At the beginning of this year hundreds of customers of the Swedish bank Nordea were the victim of computer fraud. That happened thanks to e-mails. They have stolen more than € 870,000 of the personal bank accounts of that people.

But thank God the touched customers were already compensated by their banks.

What is mostly strange is that Belgium stands on the top concerning security for banking on the internet and it is in Belgium that this has happened.

After this case that three important Belgian banks have taken more security measures. They think it was because some people don’t have a Digipass!

But now is the question:
Is electronically paying really safe enough?
The answer is that it is safe but the number of operations where something went wrong, amounts to one on ten millions, that is not much, but I hope I will never be the victim of that type of fraud, because I also use the internet banking-service of the banks!

Source

New member states EU have a boosting economy.

The prosperity in the new member states of the EU raises a lot faster then in the "richer" western Europe. But between the "old" member statese are also high differences.

For example in Latvia increased the income by inhabitant with 85 per cent between 1995 and 2004. Estonia and Lithuania have almost the same effect.

In Belgium was the increase in the same period a lot less, "only" 20 per cent, and in Germany it was even less then 10 per cent.

Economists from 8 European countries lanalysed the exploits of the EU member states, and looked for declarations for the high differences. They determined that the new member states from central Europe had already an increase before they entered the EU. From the new member states have Malta and Cyprus the slowest increase.

In the older member states are there coutriens who have a boosting Economy like Great Brittain, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. The reason for the boosting economy is a lot of investments in the information technologie, which increased the ICT-capital.

Other countries like Spain and Greece hav a boosting econmy because there was an increase of the labourer market.

France and Germany have a rather less growing economy, because they have a reduced labour market.

I think that it's good that the new member states have a boosting economy, because al member states of the European Union will have an advantage of boosting European Economy.

Source: tijd.be

Insider dealing scandal threatens Airbus

There is a suspect that twenty-one senior executives from Airbus and two large corporate shareholders sold their shares with inside information.

The transactions were reported as “strange, massive and simultaneous”. The shares were sold last year just before the plane-maker announced a huge delay for the A380 and that are the super-jumbo’s.

A preliminary report has been forwarded to a judge by the French financial markets. That judge is investigating possible charges of “insider trading” against those who unloaded their shares.

The Largardère company and DaimlerChrysler each sold 7,5 percent. M. Lagardère is one of France's wealthiest men and a close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy. DaimlerChrysler is one of the largest shareholders of Airbus.

The previous December the French government was tipped off about the problems.

A day after Airbus announced that their were technical problems with the A380, the share price fell 26,8 percent. There is a report that says that 1200 individuals could have inside knowledge of the problems at Airbus. And they dumped 10 million shares before the official announcement. The profit from this inside information is estimated at 90 million euro.

Everybody who is involved with the situation denied that they used illegal inside knowledge.

A video showing the takeoff and landing of this new master peice by Airbus. The largest airliner the world has ever seen. Source

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

2010 the start of more competition into Europe's rail networks

Finally the European lawmakers gave their blessings to reform the Europe rail networks. In 2010, the passengers will have more choice and the train societies will do their best to be on time. Because, when the trains aren’t on time, the rail networks have to pay the customers a compensation.

When a train has a delay of 60 minutes or more, the passengers receive 25% of their fare. When a train has a delay of 120 minutes or more, the passengers receive 50% of their fare. This sound good but you only receive the compensation when the rail network can be held responsible for the delay.

Starting from 2010, new competitors are welcome on the railroad market. This leads to a bigger choice for the passengers, but will the new competitors be able to guarantee the safety? Not every land of the EU is happy about this new law.
The meaning of al this, is to promote the railroad. So it become a more popular way of transport.
Conclusion, it is positive for the passengers that they have more choice. Maybe the price will decrease. But if they can’t guarantee the safety it isn’t positive.
Source

(Bram)

Hugh labour shortage in the ex-communist EU states!

The 10 ex-communist states of the European Union were hit by massive unemployment.

I’m talking about these eight ex-communist countries: the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.

At the beginning of the year 2007 Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, and that brings us to al membership of 27 countries.

2 decades ago they shifted to a market economy, and there were a lot of people looking for jobs, but there were no jobs… and now they are extremely unemployed.
In the past 2 years, in some of that countries the rate of vacant jobs has more than doubled.

The domestic shortfall in skilled workers has been amplified due to the emigration to other EU member states (Britain and Ireland).

A few little solutions:

They must do something about the early retirement, their median retirement age is 57, eight years less than in Belgium.
There was also urged to increase the investment in education, and also in “in-service training” for workers, in order to help reduce the skill shortages which are needed the most!
They also must open their markets to foreign workers. They must find a balance between the labour market needs and the employing of migrant workers!

Source

(Jonas)

Eurozone growth past peak.

The economic growth in the eurozone is past his peak said the European Commission. Due to financial market turmoil and a weak French performance.

The European Commission estimated a 2,6 percent grow in the eurozone, but at the end it was a growth of 2,5 percent. The growth in the European Union is 2,9 percent.

These results are a bit disappointed because last year the Eurozone had got the fastest growth since the turn of the decade with 2,8 percent and the European Union had 3,0 percent.

The biggest reason for the disappointed results is France. France is the second biggest eurozone economy. The European Commission estimated a growth from 2,4 percent for France, but at the end it was only 1,9 percent.

They warned that chaos on financial market could spill over to the real economy if a slowdown in the United States proves to be worse than expected or if credit conditions for business and consumers worsen sharply.

They expected that the European economy can remain strong thanks to the confident of the consumers, with unemployment falling to levels not seen in Europe since the early 1980s.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

Expensive oil makes travelling more expensive.

The price of oil has reached a new record this week, which is a signal for Air France to raise their prices, more exactly the fuel adjudication. The price will raise with one euro if you travel in Europe, and with 5 euro when you take an intercontinental flight.
Brussels airlines, the belgian fly company will not raise their fuel adjudication yet, but they admit that if the situation stays like it is, they will have to intervene. They are following the situation closely.
Ryanair still doesn’t ask a fuel adjudication, but they sometimes change their prices for other services, like luggage, to keep good results.

The fuel adjudication encourages the travel agencies to raise the price for a journey. For the summer holidays, the travel agencies have already asked a fuel adjudication at their customers. Because their is a chance that they will have to pay more to fly compagnies in the future, they have also raised the brochure prises for the spring holidays, so they are armed against the oil price in spring. The travel agancies said that they won’t ask a fuel adjudication on top of the brochure prices for the spring holidays.

This article shows us that we are to dependent to oil, and that the oil price has a large effect at the European economy.

Source: klik

Northern Rock goes bankrupt

A few weeks ago, the news arrived that a bank in the United Kingdom had some financial problems. But nobody had thought that the problems with ‘Northern Rock’ were so big.

The bank had not enough money to help all the people so it lent 3 billion British Pound at The Bank of England. That is about 4,3 million Euro.
The past week everybody who has a bank account at Northern Rock started to worry.
Almost everyone reacted the same, they started to take their money of the bank account. This reaction is the end for Northern Rock.

According to the ‘Financial Times’ the 3 billion British Pound is equal to 10% of the bank accounts. The Prime minister of the United Kingdom wants that the government create the same system as in the United States of America. There, all the bank accounts are protected against a bankruptcy. Meanwhile the government has promised to pay for all the bank accounts, so nobody will lose their money.

My opinion about this: I thought that in the economical en political system of today it was impossible that a bank goes bankrupt. Especially a bank in Europe, where they have al those control organisations. Last year we have seen that it was almost impossible that a big bank goes bankrupt. Because there are so many controls to see of everything is still ok.

Source: Tijd.be
(Bram)

Euro vs Dollar

On Thursday the euro closed in on 1.41 dollars!

(To be precise: 1.4090 dollars.)

That’s more than the previous record for the European currency, that’s because of the cuts in the interest rates in the US. In the US the interest rates stand at 4.75 percent now while in the Eurozone the rates are at 4.0 percent. This reduction in interest rates makes it much interesting to invest in the Euro in comparison with all the other currencies!

The dollar became cheaper for investors using other currencies that causes much fear about inflation fuelled by record oil prices.

Over the next few months the believe that the markets will start to speculate that US interest rates will actually fall below those in the Eurozone
Analysts forecast that the Dollar will lose more in 2008, some suggesting the euro could rise to 1.50 dollars.

And what is also new after 27 years: the price of gold is surged, striking 738.60 dollars to reach its highest level.

Like I just said the Euro is increases at 1.4090 dollars, but also the other currencies decreases in comparison with the yen (162.01), the pounds (0.6975) and the Swiss francs (1.6528).

(Keep in mind that all this values are those at this particular moment, and when you read this it can be modified!)

So this means that we will receive much more investors from other countries in the future, we’ll see what that will bring us!

Source

(Jonas)