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...Scrapping schemes can have similar effects. The aim is to pump up weak car sales while at the same time taking older, potentially more polluting vehicles off the road. This seems to be working, at least in Germany. The VDA expects registrations for the first quarter of 2009 to trump those seen in the same period last year. But a more modest $1,300 on offer to French motorists who give up their clunkers hasn't been enough to prevent car sales there from sliding 13% last month. Scrapping schemes in Italy and Spain failed to halt even steeper falls...
...youngest workers were the most likely to resort to questionable tactics, the survey found. Nearly 40% of employees from 18 to 34 said they would act dishonestly to save their jobs, a quarter of them would explicitly lie, and 4% would flirt with their boss for an advantage. It's not clear whether members of the younger generation are simply more forthcoming than their elders about bad behaviors, or whether they're just plain old bad. Probably a bit of both, says Kenny. "They are the newest in the professional world, so they are still learning the professional lessons...
Overall economic growth is following suit. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Taiwan's GDP contracted 8.4% from the same period a year earlier, making it the worst quarter on record. South Korea's GDP shrank 3.4%, Singapore's fell 4.2%, and Hong Kong's dipped 2.5%. Eric Fishwick, head of economic research at the brokerage CLSA in Hong Kong, predicts the dismal numbers will persist. He expects GDP in Taiwan and Singapore to contract at double-digit rates this year. "We've never seen an external shock in Asia like this," says Fishwick...
Asia has suffered recessions before, of course. But this downturn is different. Unlike in 1997-98 and 2001-02, Asia's favorite customer--the American consumer--is drastically cutting back. Consumer spending in the U.S. dropped at a rate of 4.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008, the steepest quarterly decline since 1980. Because roughly 25% of Asia's exports ultimately end up in the U.S., the region's manufacturing powerhouses are helpless to counteract this crash. Trade among Asian countries is also plummeting, since much of this intraregional commerce is indirectly dependent on the West. A high percentage...
Japan's gross domestic product dropped 13% in the fourth quarter. The Russians are so short of cash, they are signing a lopsided 20-year deal for oil sales to China in exchange for a $25 billion loan. Iceland is bankrupt. The World Bank predicted on March 8 that in 2009 the global economy will shrink for the first time since the 1940s...