I feel sorry for the minister of finance

Vítor Gaspar

He just seems such a nice guy.  He speaks clearly and is clearly no real politician...yet.  He is also is nearly the only member of government (or even parliament) that actually seems to be able to calm down the country.  In spite of his job of delivering the extreme austerity measures.  If his measures had the same quality as their delivery, things would start to look brighter.

But boy does he look aged and stressed.

Anybody would, with his responsibility.  And his problems - they become worse every day...

The OECD just came out with new previsions from their group of Gypsy soothsayers.  I don't know why but I trust their gypsies more the the gypsies of the EU not to mention the complete lack of quality of the Portuguese soothsayers.

Retraction of the economy will be worse in 2012 than predicted by the government about 4 weeks ago and worse than predicted by the EU about 3 weeks ago: Not 2,8%, not 3% but 3,2%.

My hat eating, as fun as it would be, looks more unlikely than ever.  Of course you do not need a soothsayer to be able to predict that it will worse than 3,2%.  Much worse, I am afraid.

That is what a lot of new taxes and no structural changes will do to a country like Portugal.  In fact we still have to see a single structural change implemented to try to make it possible or even likely for businesses to grow.  They are the producers.  The simple truth is that we all live off the products of what looks like a smaller group of smaller producers in 2012 and onwards.  Not the least because the consumers will have less purchasing power in Portugal for sure, and probably in the entire EU.  Even with the same purchase power, people are saving more and are more careful with spending.

By the way, the OECD also predicts nearly 14% unemployment for 2013.   Higher numbers than the government and the EU predict.   We will be lucky if it does not rise to the Greek levels of this year.  Estimated at 18%.