German consumer confidence declined for the first time in seven months as workers worried about keeping their jobs amid the worst recession since World War II. GfK AG’s confidence index for April, based on a survey of about 2,000 people, declined to 2.4, the Nuremberg-based market- research company said in a statement today. March’s result was revised down to 2.5 from 2.6. br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/ScuFpubSkBI/AAAAAAAANQs/5ib4oAFAOIY/s1600-h/german+consumer+confidence.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 199px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/ScuFpubSkBI/AAAAAAAANQs/5ib4oAFAOIY/s400/german+consumer+confidence.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317490736924626962" //abr /br /strongEconomic expectations: slight decline/strongbr /br /After an increase in February, economic expectations in March this year have decreased by 4.9 points, a drop that is almost on a par with the gains of the previous month. The indicator currently stands at -32.8 points.br /br /At present, consumers are still seeing little reason to abandon their pessimism as regards the economy, and fear of job losses is also coming increasingly to ...

Russia is reeling.  GDP is down nearly 9% year-over-year.  The ruble has lost a third of its value since September.  Unemployment is rising so quickly, protests and riots are breaking out.  And yet, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin assures his supporters that “no catastrophe” is in view in 2009.

What makes him so confident?

The answer might lie in a fascinating article in the Moscow Times, an English-language daily.  Now I can’t speak to the publication’s credibility; according to Wikipedia, it’s under foreign ownership and isn’t afraid to take an anti-Kremlin line.  But the Wikipedia article is thin, to say the least.  So if all of what follows turns out to be a crock, I won’t be too surprised.  But it’s too intriguing to ignore.

The paper reports the president of Sakha Republic, in Siberia, came calling on Putin recently.  Vyacheslav Shtyrov brought ill tidings: The swoon in

...

Last week’s crude and gasoline inventories dropped more than expected as the effects of Hurricane Gustav resulted in some production disruptions. Gustav, which struck last month, was the fourth-most-destructive storm to hit the United States, causing $20 billion in damages. And then came Hurricane Ike. Ike made landfall in the Galveston area of the U.S. Gulf Coast on in the pre-dawn hours Saturday (the day I was penning this column) as a Category 2 storm with winds hitting 110 miles per hour.  Ike’s path toward Houston makes it the first storm to hit a major U.S. metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina eviscerated New Orleans in 2005, Bloomberg News reported. We won’t know how much direct damage those high winds from Hurricane Ike will cause for several days at least. From the initial reports, the results appear to be devastating. But the indirect costs are ...