democracia participativa y derechos humanos / participatory democracy & human rights

Assuming the euro zone survives within the boundaries recently established in spite of Britain's rejection, we expect the global economy to grow by a fraction less than 2% at market exchange rates in 2012, meaning a further slowing down from 2011.  However, at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, giving more weight to emerging markets, expected growth may reach 3.5% - still less than this year.  The IMF considers a global growth of less than 3% at PPP rates as a recession and the world will be very close to such an undesirable mark during 2012. Measures taken by many countries, including the United States, have gained some distance from a recession, but the situation is not stable yet because of the underlying (and still growing) debt load that have left consumers, businesses and banks quite vulnerable to more disruptions.  And there is always a possibility of the unexpected to trigger a collapse.

Brussels, Dec. 15 (The Economist Intelligence Unit).─ Europe's failure to tackle its financial crisis urgently and forcefully has left the global economy at risk of a deep and prolonged recession. A summit of EU leaders on December 8th-9th, billed as a "make or break" meeting for the euro zone, was at best a disappointment and at worst a failure. The outcome marked a return to the medium-term, muddle-through strategies of prior months—and this at a time when panicky financial markets have shown that they can quickly push indebted euro zone sovereigns to the brink of a liquidity crisis. Indeed, the week that was meant to save the euro zone left the single currency, by week's end, ropier than it was at the start. Apart from the inconclusive summit (see the Western Europe section of this report), a major ratings agency warned that it may downgrade almost the entire euro zone in the next three months, while the continent's banking authority said its financial institutions, including those in Germany, were even more poorly capitalised than was originally thought. For these reasons, the Economist Intelligence Unit continues to assign a 40% probability to a break-up of the euro zone, which would trigger a depression in Europe and a serious recession for the global economy overall.

Despite the high probability of such a dire outcome—indeed, because of it—we still believe that euro zone leaders will take the necessary steps to avert a full-blown collapse of the single currency. This will almost certainly require the sustained intervention of the European Central Bank (ECB) in sovereign bond markets—essentially purchasing the debt of distressed governments in sufficient quantities to stop the increasingly severe investor panics that threaten the ability of these countries to finance their debts. We maintain our view that the ECB, despite its statements to the contrary, will find a way, or a pretext, to support these countries, as it has been doing in a limited fashion for many months. There remains the possibility—a small one, in our opinion—that the muddle-through strategy, including promises of stricter fiscal policies and larger bailout funds, will gradually reassure markets, reducing the pressure on sovereign bond yields and allowing the crisis to ease. But the range of potential shocks facing the euro zone in the coming months is so large that a gradual, go-slow approach by euro zone leaders is unlikely to work.

Source: http://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articleType=gef&articleId=548667839&secID=1