LyrArc Article Gist
The passage of another round of austerity cuts through the Greek parliament by prime minister Papandreou leaves him with little political capital. Greece's debt is expected to get worse as the austerity cuts worsen the economic situation. This round of austerity cuts with no realistic restructuring of Greek debt is basically kicking the can down the road by governments in the EU say some economists. The implementation of the cuts will be a major challenge for Papandreou's government, which won the election on the basis of a social welfare program. Some analysts do not expect his government to last for the rest of 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
A former president of the Bank of China International's U.S. office describes the rampant shadow bank lending that is happening in China. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the China Bank Regulatory Authority (CBRC) is aware of this activity and regulations are in place to prevent such lending. Yet much of this lending continues as property developers and local governments devise new ways to get around these rules. The PBOC and the CBRC have no precise handle on nonbank sources of lending such as money from state owned enterprises and are not able to control the huge increase in credit and speculative uses of capital. And they have to struggle with local governments and the National Development and Reform Commission which support higher spending and credit levels. As a result there is a sense of a financial system that is out of control and building up risks whose precise nature and size are hard to calculate, even for China's senior leadership.

LyrArc Article Gist
Navigation company TomTom loses 27% of its value in one day after negative reports by analysts about the company's future prospects. The threat to its business from users obtaining navigation information from cell phones.

LyrArc Article Gist
The large infrastructure investments in the high speed rail network - estimated at $300 billon- have increased the debt of the railway ministry to about 5% of national GDP in the 1st quarter of 2011.The high speed rail lines are not likely to be economically viable, with revenues not enough to pay for operation and investment costs. With the higher fares it would take 9% of monthly disposable per capita income of urbanites or 555 yuan ($86) to pay for the cheapest ticket on the 300 mile Beijing-Shanghai high speed rail line. This makes high speed rail less affordable for middle and lower income people in China. The acceleration of the program in 2008 with stimulus funds and the moving up of deadlines for completion have led to corruption, stress on suppliers, and overinvestment. The program suffered from lack of good financial management and supervision in the rush to complete the program. Lack of equitable access and affordability to income groups from a majority of Chinese people have left the impression that it was for higher income groups. Higher tolls on highways and now the higher prices on highspeed rail have left the impression among ordinary Chinese that all income groups are not being served by the large infrastructure investments....