The Russian fires have spread to British Columbia in Canada. Here in Portugal there are many assumptions that burning woods are the result of arson. But firebugs are not the likeliest culprits. Careless smokers seems far likelier causes of fires which seem to take off sporadically in different places. A big cause of fires is the proliferation of ugly bark-dropping eucalyptus trees, which are big water-gobblers, and of course are not native to Portugal. They come from Australia but were planted in Portugal because they grow fast and their pulp can be used to make paper. Frankly, I wish they would be cut down every one. Writer Eca de Quieroz already called for a ban on eucalpytus trees in the 19th century.
One thing that all the fires and my tree uprooting project can do is put more Portuguese to work. Desculpe. I misstated the level of Portuguese unemployment in my Weds. blog. The mainland (excluding the Azores and Madeira) has a 10% rate of joblessness, still half that of next-door Spain.
More for paid subscribers from Britain, Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, Hong Kong, Israel, Canada and Denmark follows. To say nothing of Portugal. But before I take on our exotic companies, I wanted to warn you all not to take too seriously the latest ominous chart pattern, named after the Blimp Hindenberg. Yes, it blew up and set back the cause of motorless flight for decades. But a Hindenberg is clearly not as disastrous as a Death Cross, the last chartist panic call two months ago, which was followed by a normal flat market since then. Neither chart pattern has a long-term convincing history. They are just used by bears to scare us off the stock market.
