Consumer Confidence and corruption !!

Confidence in Europe among consumers fell in January to a record low as job prospects vanished and incomes deteriorated.
Caterpillar Inc. and Home Depot Inc. were among companies this week that said they will cut at least 74,000 workers from payrolls in coming months as sales drop and the recession deepens.

Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, said yesterday it's cutting 20,000 jobs and this year's profit and sales will trail analysts' estimates. The jobs include 12,000 employees, or 11 percent of the workforce, and 8,000 contractors.
The consumer is being squeezed on so many sides, we're going to have to see some turn in the labour market before we see much upside for consumer confidence. Consumers in Europe remain quite pessimistic about the state of the economy and about their earnings, we can't say that the worst of times are behind us.

The recession in Portugal will continue to aggravate mainly because the energy companies like Galp,BP.Repsol and Cepsa continue to inflate oil prices for the consumer, even now as crude prices during the week dropped more than 10%, the Portuguese government together with the oil companies GALP,BP,REPSOL,CEPSA have once more increased final consumer prices for the motorist...
WorldWatch investigated and found that there is a monopoly of fixed prices between these companies and government, the month of January the oil prices for consumers increased more than 7 cents per litre, while in the international crude market prices dropped more than 10%...
The reason for this final increase is the fact that one of Portugals refineries had to closed for six weeks, so to counterbalance the import of refined crude
Galp decided to increase consumer prices and in this way the company profits for all involved does not suffer any loss.
As there is a cartel in price fixing, one oil company increases they all follow and since all authorities are involved in this form of corruption this country will continue to suffer higher energy prices..

Its time for the Portuguese population to choose a new government, one that will work for the people and not for the oil companies...