EconomicCrisis.US

The economic and financial crisis of the last 18 months has transformed the global map of the world’s wealthiest people, with Europe nudging out North America as the richest region, according to a new report by
The Boston Consulting Group’s.

BCG said that global wealth fell 11.7% to $92.4 trillion in 2008 – the first decline since 2001. BCG said it is unlikely to return to its pre-2007 levels for four years.
North America saw the biggest decline in wealth, falling by 21.8% last year. The big drop was partly put down to the large percentage of wealth held by Americans in equities. Latin America was the only region where wealth grew, by 3%. Total wealth in Europe fell 5.8% to $32.7 trillion last year.
Offshore wealth fell by 8.2% to $6.7 trillion last year. Switzerland remained the largest offshore centre, accounting for 28% of the total. The number of millionaire households worldwide fell by 17.8% to nine million last year. But the crisis also narrowed the gap between the wealthy and non-wealthy, with wealth owned by households with less than $100,000 in assets under management increasing by 2% last year, but declining in all other segments. Those households with more than $5m saw their wealth falling by 21.5% last year. “Wealth will begin a slow recovery in 2010 but may not reach its pre-crisis level until 2013,” said Peter Damisch, a BCG partner and a co-author of the report.
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The World Economic Forum has produced a new study on the competitiveness of each of the worlds many nations. This report is available as a nearly 500 page pdf file, and shows some surprising elements as they downgraded the US from the most competitive economy in the world to second behind Switzerland.

And competitiveness is important as the report writer notes in the first pages as he writes:

Competitive economies are those that have in place factors driving the productivity enhancements on which their present and future prosperity is built.

And this has been the great advantage the US has maintained in the economic world and part of why the US economy is bigger than the combined economies of Japan and China (the nations with the #2 and #3 economies by annual GDP). Actually you could add in Germany (#4) and the UK and only barely beat the US. But the report indicates that the economists of the World Economic Forum are worried about the situation in the US.
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According to a report released Tuesday by the National League of Cities, the economic slump has taken its toll on US cities, forcing them to layoff workers, raise taxes and cut non-essential services.

The report, which gathered data from fiscal officers in 380 US cities, said the economic slowdown has forced 67% of cities to either cut jobs or put a hiring freeze in place. Of these, 14% have had to make cuts in the public safety sector.

The report also found that 27% of the cities surveyed have raised taxes on services like water use and garbage collection in order to help gain revenue. Another 25% have raised taxes on property, while 5% increased sales taxes.
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Just five months ago, when stock and commodity markets hit rock bottom, capitalism was viewed as seriously if not terminally sick. The Financial Times ran a series of articles titled ‘The Future of Capitalism.’ Economists, politicians, and philosophers saw the Great Recession of 2007-09 as a historic watershed, and produced new visions of a changed capitalism.

Today, that looks like much ado about nothing. Stock markets are booming, commodity prices are rising, and shipping rates have tripled. Pessimists warn of rising defaults in credit cards, commercial realty and corporate debt, so we could have a double-dip recession. But markets believe the worst is over. Despite political and public outrage over “casino capitalism” the financial reforms being contemplated across the world are not fundamental.
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