Poll: 87% of EU Citizens Happy Today but Uncertain about Future
A pan-European opinion poll conducted for the European Commission and published on Monday showed that 87 percent of EU citizens considered themselves happy, with a record 97 percent in Denmark, Reuters reported. Only in Bulgaria, which joined the bloc in January, did a majority of people (55 percent) say they were unhappy, the global news agency said citing the survey.
But the Eurobarometer survey on ``European social reality,’’ conducted between mid-November and mid-December, found far lower satisfaction levels with retirement and employment prospects.
Two-thirds of the 26,755 Europeans questioned think life will be more difficult for the next generation because of unemployment, the cost of living and uncertain pensions.Our point in all of this is that all rational discretion about what a business is really worth is thrown out the window. The index is driven by the programs, which then influences fund and ETF buying, none of which has anything to do with what a particular stock is worth. Buying and selling become reflexive, rather than reflective. This is what we call speculation driven by liquidity. And ironically, it’s why recent history shows major one-day slides in financial markets seem to have little or no impact in the real economy. And it’s not just one-day slides either. Remember the tech-wreck? The Russian bond-default? LTCM? All of these mini financial panics took place in the stock market without, apparently, causing so much as a ripple in the real economy.
What happens in markets does matter, of course, and not least because it affects the net worth of consumers, who spend and earn money in the real economy. And in that sense, the stock market is a psychological leading indicator of the real economy.God forbid most Western investors look at the real world. Then they’d really get scared, seeing millions of consumers in debt, with stagnant wages and large mortgage liabilities. Fully price that into the market and you’d start to see some real selling, as investor flee stocks into, of all things, short-term bonds with stable yields.
No comments:
Post a Comment