The world’s most econo♉mically fragile developed nations🀅 are having an especially rough time lately. The 2008 crash continues to be felt in Greece. Falling oil prices have hit Petro States Russia and Venezuela especially hard. The Ukraine has suffered as a relatively young government fights with Russia and tries to manage runaway inflation.

Greece

No Eurozone country has suffered more since the crash of 2008 than Greece. Employment has fallen  since then, with more than 1 million jobs lost; household income dropped by ; and investment and consumption are , according to the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. In October, . The ratio of central government debt to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:gross domestic product hit by the third quarter of 2014.

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Deflation 🦹is a very real threat, with the coun🍌try suffering and .

The banking sector is weak. Banking outflows wer🧸e weekly in mid-February, and a report warned that Greek banks would run out of collateral in .

The January 2015 by the left-wing Syriza party set the country up for a showdown with cre🦂ditors. That reckoning was postponed in February 2015 when the government and Eurozone ✅finance ministers agreed to a four-month extension of bailouts, and Greece promised to crack down on tax evasion and corruption.

Russia

Falling , soaring inflation, international sanctions due to conflict with Ukraine, and skittish foreign investors continue to pummel the Russian economy. The rouble is . Inflation rose  in January. The World Bank’s December 2014 baseline proj🍌ection, its most recent, was that Russia’s real GDP would contract by  in 2015. Not surprisingly, the Composite Leading 🌌Indicators has .

A dependence on oil exports, barriers to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:foreign direct investment, and continued state control stumbling blocks. Soaring inflation, as well as President Vladimir Putin’s ban on food from sanctioning countries, means Russians may spend half their income on this year. The February murder of Putin critic Boris Nemtsov and the of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice, about a hedge fund manager’s battles with Putin’s government, mean are unlikely to reverse. &𓂃nbsp;

Ukraine

Russia’s March 2014 sent Ukraine into a full-blown financial crisis. The IMF projected a  contraction in GDP for 2014, but the country’s top central banker told reporters that the actual decline was probably . Its currency, the hryvnia, was the in 2014, with declines so precipitous that the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:central bank temporarily in February 2015, before quickly reversing itself. In March 2015, the central bank raised its benchmar🦩k interest rate to  🔯in an effort to control hyper-inflation, 

Reserve losses, deposit withdrawals, currency depreciation, and loan deterioration continue to add to . The IMF, which projected that 2015 inflation would climb to 14%, committed to a lo💞an package to Ukraine on February 🏅12, 2015.

Venezuela

Declining oil🐽 prices have been devastating for Venezuela. The IMF forecasts that its economy will decline by in 2015, calculating that each $10 decline in oil prices worsens Venezuela’s trade balance by 3.5% GDP. A large share of public spending coming from oil revenues and domestic gasoline prices near zero any revenue from domestic sales.

The central bank said in December 2014 that GDP had contracted in each of the first three𒅌 quarters by 🧜4.8%, 4.9% and 2.3%. Twelve-month inflation reached 63.6% in November, the highest in the Americas.

The Bottom Line

Barring a sharp spike in oil prices, wh⛦ich would help Russia and Venezuela, turning around the economy in all four countries will🉐 be a years-long challenge.