France and Spain are the only main countries which are not in recession. Does it mean they have better manager than Germany, UK, States, Hong Kong, Italia, or they just forgot to say they are over too?

Go fuck yourself.

France slips into recession: official forecastI'd heard that Canada was the only one of the G8 likely to avoid a recession

Maybe and maybe not. But knowing that from 2002 to 2006 there were around 800,000 housing starts per annum in Spain with 18.5% of GDP going to housing / construction, pouring 66% more cement than Germany (whose economy is 3 times larger), and building 25% of all new homes in the EU in 2006, and cheap money during those years, developers, investors or every people loaned money to buy and/or to invest in what???? ground and buildings. And now that building market in Spain and in the world is just collapsing, like a miracle, Spain is not touched.

French PM Francois Fillon said today there would be no recession in France this year, but maybe in 2009. While Gordon Brown said 1 month ago UK was already in. That makes me ask myself if France and Spain have stronger economy than UK and States?

Go fuck yourself.

Spain is in shit up to its neck, there is not going to be any difference ultimately between its fate and the others. There are significant differences in the mortgage market in Spain that made it a much better market than in the US and other countries with "innovative" finance. First, there is virtually no securitisation, so there is no incentive for liar loans and all kind of crooked shit with exaggerating appraisals and making huge loans at hugely inflated prices to people who would never pay back. Second, home loans are full recourse, unlike non recourse in the US, so you cannot just walkaway and buy new home or something. What it means is that this market has much fewer defaults, foreclosures etc per year. But home market will go down the same in absolute, and Spanish banks and economy will too. It will just take longer in Spain, they swapped being a little tidbit better now for being worse in the future

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperFrance slips into recession: official forecastI'd heard that Canada was the only one of the G8 likely to avoid a recessioni'm waiting for the canadian dollar to bounce back