What Is Important in the Financial World (4/4/2013)

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Just when it seemed that the economic data from the European Union could not get worse, new service sector purchasing managers index (PMI) information from Markit shows that the collapse in most countries in the region has accelerated. Even Germany did not dodge the fallout. The data will open the debate, which now occurs daily, about whether austerity actually closes national deficits or widens them as lack of stimulus pushes gross domestic products into negative territory.

A PMI measurement of less than 50 signals contraction.

According to Markit:

At 46.5 in March, the final Markit Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index was unchanged on the flash reading, confirming that the rate of decline in activity accelerated for the second month in a row to reach the fastest since last November.

The PMI shows that output has fallen in each of the past 19 months with the sole exception of a marginal increase at the start of last year.

Of the four largest euro nations, France saw the steepest downturn with output falling at the fastest rate for four years, while severe contractions were again recorded in Spain and Italy (albeit with the latter showing a marginal easing in the rate of decline). Only Germany continued to see higher business activity, though even there the rate of expansion slowed sharply to near-stagnation.

The Rise of Skype

Internet telephone giant and pioneer Skype announced that members spend two billion minutes a day using its video chat service. The number proves just how badly Skype has hurt traditional phone companies, which both charge for calls and rarely have video features. It is not clear how badly this hurts the cellular subscription industry, but the trend must hurt landline communications as people use home PCs instead of home phones to communicate. According to Mashable:

Skype announced Wednesday users are spending more than two billion minutes a day connecting with one another via the video-chat platform — enough time to watch 16 million movies or travel to the moon and back 225,000 times.

Not only is this is a big milestone for Skype in particular, it also highlights just how much people have embraced communicating via a voice over IP (VoIP) service.

“Skype has been growing in its number of minutes at double digit rate for a steady time,” Elisa Steele, corporate VP of marketing at Skype, said. “The number of mobile users continues to grow at a very strong rate too, not just from the desktop but other devices, as well.”

U.S. Spreads the Fat

People who live in nations where most residents were thin, at least as measured against the tremendous number of obese Americans, are getting fatter. Bloomberg blames this, in part, on the number of fast food restaurant locations opened in emerging markets by U.S. companies such as McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) and Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM). Americans, in essence, are damaging the health of large numbers of people overseas. According to the news agency:

Eating less home cooking, and consuming more processed snacks and sugary drinks, the average man is gaining weight in Mexico, Brazil and Chile faster than the worldwide average, according to the Waistline Index compiled by Bloomberg. The women are too, except in Brazil, where they are holding to the global average. In all three countries, fast food is a relatively new option.