Aussie francs, anyone? Who would have thought, the Australian dollar is now close to 10-year highs against the Euro. While the Aussie rose by about 2% against the Greenback, the performance against the Euro was stealthy. At the local close of trade in Australia on Friday the Aussie was at 65.11 Euro cents, up from Thursday’s close of 64.39 (it closed at 65.12 Euro cents in New York trading on Saturday night). In Euro terms, the currency ended at $A1.5356, in sight of a 10-year low of $A1.5330 hit offshore on Thursday. Don’t tell me that the Aussie dollar is starting to look like a “safe haven” against the euro …?

Beware of Greeks and their stats #21. It won’t come as a surprise to Greece watchers, but the country’s recession has been deeper than reported. The fourth quarter of 2009 sees another turn for the worse – down a nasty 0.8%. That makes a mockery of all those commentators who suggest Greece is somehow a victim and that it has a superior lifestyle to countries such as  Australia. It’s a basket case whose woes are self-inflicted. The 0.8% fall was the worst for the eurozone in the quarter and follows restated falls of 1, 0.3% and 0.5% in the latest report. Previously the falls were 0.5%, 0.1% and 0.4%. The current Greek government claims growth will fall by just 0.3% this year — not on these figures and the extent of the cuts it has to make in spending to win approval for any backing from the European Union. Greek GDP joins debt, inflation and the budget deficit as being “rubbery”.

Double dip, anyone? Greece and Spain remain in recession, Italy slipped back into negative territory, and France rose a stronger than expected 0.6%, but the big stunner was the slump in Germany, the continent’s engine economy. German growth stalled in the fourth quarter; no growth, with consumers refusing to spend. Exports rose. After the 0.7% rise in the September quarter, the drop was a shocker. As a result growth in the eurozone slowed to 0.1% from 0.4%, despite France’s rise of 0.6%. Italy contracted by 0.2% and Spain shrank by 0.1%, its seventh negative quarter in a row.

Europe sicker than first thought? Compared with the last quarter of 2008, seasonally adjusted GDP decreased by 2.1% in the Euro area and by 2.3% in the 27 EU economies. That at least is better than the falls of 4% and 4.3% respectively in the September quarter. But the US economy grew by a provisional 1.4% in the 4th quarter, after growth of 0.6% in the third quarter. Over the whole year 2009, GDP fell by 4% in the Euro area and 4.1% in the wider EU zone. German GDP last year was 5% lower than in 2008; Spain’s was 3.6%. Economists had forecast a slowing in growth to a positive 0.3% for the quarter from the September quarter’s 0.4% growth. No one picked the sharp slowing of activity in Germany. Industrial output also fell in December after rising in November — that was a surprise. The UK economy grew by 0.1% in the 4th quarter. The UK stronger than Germany, fancy that!

A touch of Greece, in Japan? The Financial Times reports the Japanese Government has launched a broad review of how it measures and reports economic output, and that this will cause the GDP figures today to be “tweaked”. The paper says, if successful, the effort should make it easier for analysts to monitor the health of one of the world’s biggest economy. The revision follows the surprise cut in third-quarter growth estimates from the original 4.8% annual to just 1.3% in December. The change involves reworking the impact of the sharp fall in exports on the December quarter of 2008, trying to make business investment estimates more accurate, and increasing sample sizes and timeliness in other figures. The changes could take up to three years. So what happened in the fourth quarter? Japan’s economy grew 1.1% (in line with forecasts) for the quarter, or 4.6% on an annual basis. Domestic demand added 0.6 percentage points to growth, while external demand — exports minus imports — added 0.5 percentage points. And what happened to the third quarter? Revised from that already weak 1.3% to zero! No wonder they want to do some tweaking.

Japan still No 2. And as a result of the sharp rise in fourth-quarter GDP, Japan remains the world’s second largest economy with GDP of about $US5.1 trillion (based on current exchange rates) to China’s $US4.91 trillion. That won’t last long — with China’s first-quarter growth estimated at 10% or more, it will move past Japan around the third quarter of this year.

A miracle, Canwest saved? In Canada, on the eve of the Winter Olympics, Canadian cable TV operator Shaw Communications agreed to buy a controlling stake in Canwest’s TV business. Shaw owns cable and telecom services in Western Canada and will buy a 20% equity stake and 80% voting interest in Canwest Global. The price won’t be made public until Friday night (our time) when a Canadian court examines the proposal. But media reports saw Shaw, which has no free-to-air TV interests, will pay about $C65 million, plus debt — well short of the reported $C3.4 billion millstone on the TV and specialty channels reported. Canwest’s newspaper interests are not involved in the transaction. Canwest has specialty channels that are attractive to Shaw, including HGTV, Showcase and Fox Sports World, which are prime content for cable. Shaw gets 35%  of these, but Goldman Sachs’ private equity business has the other 65%. And Goldman already thinks Canwest has been playing fast and loose during negotiations. The Ten Network is very lucky to have avoided this mess.

Not so Reserved. Central bankers are usually a reserved lot. They are guarded and speak elliptically; at times it requires the skills of St Thomas Aquinas to work out the message. This week, however, it could be different. Four separate releases of information and/or speeches and testimony will hopefully leave us with a better idea about the future direction of interest rates, but then again perhaps they won’t. Starting with tomorrow’s release of the minutes from the Reserve Bank’s meeting on February 2, and speeches by assistant governors Phil Lowe and Guy Debelle, finishing with the House of Representatives economics committee where governor Glenn Stevens makes his first appearance of the year. Thankfully, Barney Joyce won’t be there.

Now this is public broadcasting. According to London’s Sunday Telegraph at least 382 executives at the BBC are paid six-figure salaries, However, the paper says the BBC refused to disclose the names of the majority of those on the list or say what they do to justify their salaries. In 2009, of the 384 employees on the list, just under half were paid between £100,000 and £130,000; nearly a quarter received between £130,000 and £159,999, and nearly a third were on more than £160,000. The Telegraph said the documents released exclude the BBC’s “talent”, “which refers to presenters and contributors, as well as staff at BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm.” The BBC last week said  it spends £229 million a year on “talent”, including £70 million a year on its top stars.