September 27 in Germany, where elections are held in the Parliament. The number of citizens who came to the polls in the first half of the day in different regions of the country, was less than the same period in the elections four years ago. Meanwhile, voter turnout in 2005, sank to a record low, accounting for 77.7 per cent.

Thus, in the most densely populated land of Germany, North Rhine - Westphalia, before 12 pm on Sept. 27 had to vote 35 percent of residents. In 2005, before this time voted 39.83 per cent.

In Lower Saxony, their votes before noon gave 9.8 percent of German citizens, four years ago for the same time voted 11.1 per cent, reported on the website of the German news channel n-tv. In Bavaria morning turnout was also slightly lower compared with the 2005 election. Click to continue »

Regardless of what happens at the summit of G20, the era of Western domination is coming to an end. This writes Daily Telegraph.

 

Sometimes recovery in the world of common sense and balance need a crisis and this fully applies to the imbalance of trade and capital, which, according to some experts, are the root cause of the current financial crisis.

For purists

economic changes taking place today in the field of demand and trade is inevitable, necessary and even desirable. Anyhow, long-term victims of these changes likely will be the status of the dollar and geopolitical domination of the West.

Almost unnoticed consequence of economic recession is that the imbalances in trade and capital flows spontaneously adjusted because of declining demand in the once-profligate consumer countries.

current-account surpluses of China, Germany and Japan are reduced, as well as deficits in the major consumers, primarily the U.S. but also Britain and Spain. The main issue facing the summit participants G20, are not the bonuses of bankers and financial regulation, and the opportunity to use this correction to create a more balanced global economy.

forced changes of behavior occurred in countries with deficits, where, despite the massive support provided by financial systems, there is still a lack of credit and increases thepropensity to save. These two factors limiting demand in the near future will not change.

This, in turn, leads to change the behavior of countries running surpluses. Exporters can no longer count on wasteful neighbors who bought their products in the past. As a result, they have to stimulate domestic demand. Click to continue »

Chairman of the Chinese bank ICBC, Jiang Tszyantsin in 2008 earned a total 234.7 thousand dollars, but operates the largest credit organizations in the world. It is only 2% of the earnings of executive director of the largest on the market value of U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Daemona, who last year received 19.6 million dollars.

Such data leads

Reuters citing its own study of salaries and bonuses in the 18 largest banks by market capitalization. In the United States are four of the nine largest banks in the world - JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, as well as live here once the 6 most highly paid bankers in the world. In China, their headquarters three giantstate-owned banks - ICBC, CCBC and the Bank of China, but President and CEO of each of them receives a maximum of 230 thousand dollars a year.

Such low wages of Chinese bankers due to the fact that the leadership of these banks appointed former bureaucrats that actually means for them a new promotion on the civil service. Click to continue »