Nakon rekordno snažnog pada industrijske proizvodnje u siječnju od 14,1 posto, iznimno nepovoljna kretanja u promatranoj djelatnosti nastavljena su i tijekom veljače.

Posljednji podaci Državnog zavoda za statistiku ukazuju na godišnji pad industrijske proizvodnje u RH od 12,4 posto tijekom veljače. Smanjena domaća i inozemna potražnja, uz već snažan prošlogodišnji rast zaliha gotovih proizvoda, rezultirali su nastavkom smanjenja proizvodnje, pišu analitičari Raiffeisen Consultinga.

Jedan radni dan manje u odnosu na lanjsku veljaču također je pridonio relativno snažnom padu. Prema glavnim industrijskim grupacijama očekivano je najsnažniji pad zabilježen kod proizvodnje trajnih dobara od čak 32 posto. Istodobno, proizvodnja netrajnih dobara ostvarila je pad od 19 posto, dok je proizvodnja intermedijarnih dobara te kapitalnih proizvoda manja za 16,1 odnosno 11,2 posto. Jedino je kod energije zabilježen rast proizvodnje od 7 posto, što je primarno posljedica uglavnom neelastične potražnje te hladnijeg vremena. Sličan trend prisutan je ukoliko se promjene promatraju prema NKD-u. Tako je opskrba električnom energijom, plinom i parom zabilježila snažan rast od 11,8 posto.

Prerađivacki segment zabilježio je pad od 15,3 posto, a skupina djelatnosti rudarstva i vađenja još snažniju kontrakciju od 18,3 posto. Proizvodnja hrane, kao najznačajnija industrijska grana, zabilježila je pad proizvodnje od 13,8 posto. Nepovoljni trendovi izraženi su u primarnoj obradi drva te proizvodnji namještaja, a slična kretanja zabilježena su i u tekstilnoj te kožarskoj industriji.

Tijekom prva dva ovogodišnja mjeseca industrijska proizvodnja smanjena je za čak 13,3 posto u odnosu na isto razdoblje lani. Ovakva kretanja u industriji odrazit će se i kroz smanjeni izvoz te izraženiji pad BDP-a tijekom prvog tromjesečja, navode analitičari. Ipak, već podaci za ožujak mogli bi ukazati na manje izražen pad proizvodnje uslijed nešto niže prošlogodišnje baze te više radnih dana.

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Deca, ode i češka vlada.Joj,bogek moj kad buju i ovi naši otišli

Deca, ode i češka vlada.Joj,bogek moj kad buju i ovi naši otišli

Deca, ode i češka vlada.Joj,bogek moj kad buju i ovi naši otišli

“People will start to abandon the dollar as current and past economic policies create a steep rise in interest rates,” Mr Paul says.

“If you are in Treasuries, you will need to be watchful and nimble to time your escape.”

Unfortunately, cashing out will not protect the value of investments, he insists, because “fiat” currencies will all decline over the coming years as measures to try to haul the world economy out of recession fail. “The current stimulus measures are making things a lot worse,” says Mr Paul.

“The US government just won’t allow the correction the economy needs.” He cites the mini-depression of 1921, which lasted just a year largely because insolvent companies were allowed to fail. “No one remembers that one. They’ll remember this one, because it will last 15 years.”

At some stage – Mr Paul estimates it will be between one and four years – the dollar will implode. “The dollar as a reserve standard is done,” he says. He sees little hope for other currencies where central banks have also created too much liquidity dating right back to the early 1970s.

“Europe and the US will both have to fundamentally change their money systems,” he adds.

And don’t even mention shares to Mr Paul: “The last place you want to be is in the stock market,” he says. “It may not bottom out for 10 years – just look at Japan.”

Of course, everyone has a view on the credit crisis, its causes and putative solutions. What differentiates Mr Paul is that he has been warning of the dangers to the world economy for nearly 40 years. “The breakdown of Bretton Woods was my motivation for running for Congress. I have been talking about the dangers ever since and warning that the control by central banks over the money supply would create an enormous bubble.”

A deep recession had only been avoided up until now because of the efforts of successive governments to reflate the economy. But there are no more policy levers left, says Mr Paul. “This is the big one.”

Unsurprisingly, Mr Paul has been viewed as a crank in Washington, dismissed as a doomsayer and a party-pooper. His bill early this year to abolish the Federal Reserve was largely ignored. And his adherence to the Austrian School of economics, which predicted that fiat currencies would destabilise the world economy, has won him few friends.

“People don’t like the Austrians because they are against big government, against armies and against the welfare state. To accept Austrian economics, you have to accept limitations of credit expansion and that is what has kept the government and financial firms in business for so long.”

However, his views are, for the first time, being taken seriously in Washington. Like another politician who recently aimed for high office, Al Gore, Mr Paul’s uncomfortable truths are starting to be deliberated at elevated political levels. “Before last summer, in meetings nobody really knew I was there. Now they often defer to me on economic matters. But you won’t catch any of them admitting that publicly – not yet at least.”

He believes that markets will fall much further and inflation rise much higher before his fellow politicians recognise that the system has failed. “We are likely to see an inflation depression,” Mr Paul says.

“In the 1970s, we had stagflation, but not depression. Inflation depression is what you see in Zimbabwe.”

Even Nouriel Roubini, the renegade economist whose once “extreme” views are now mainstream, fights shy of this analysis. The investment options arising from the analysis are no more palatable. In fact, according to Mr Paul, there is only one: gold.