Greece now defines a great economic depression

One of the issues in economics is that transferring the theoretical concepts to real life often has problems. Before we even get to the conceptual issues there is the simple concept of time which means that by the time we have the full data on something it can already be too late. However today’s releases from Greece will update us on what Elton John described well.

It’s sad, so sad
It’s a sad, sad situation
And it’s getting more and more absurd
It’s sad, so sad
Why can’t we talk it over?
Oh, it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

Looking at the last decade or so is grim reading and it starts symbolically because the Greek statistics office sends you to a page which does not exist. But once you bypass that if we look back to the pre crisis era and I mean just before the first bailout then Greek GDP at current prices was 54.1 billion Euros ( first quarter 2010) and in the last quarter of 2020 it was 42.5 billion at current prices.

As that sinks in and there is an element of shock in that size decline you may think that the Covid pandemic is just bad luck. But as I have regularly pointed out if you mess around for years and years another recession or problem was bound to come along. So the scale of this downturn is unlucky but not one occurring. We can refine our numbers in terms of scale by switching to a chain-linked index which tells us that the 104.6 of the opening of 2010 has been replaced by 77.6 at the end of last year.

An economic depression has two features of which the first is the economic decline and the second is how long it lasts. For example the Covid-19 depression has been deep but we hope it will be short. Care is needed as like wars these sort of things are always supposed to be over by Christmas and I note many who suggested it would end in 2020 have simply recycled that for 2021. Greece has been a case of it being both deep and long lasting. Looking back remember when Christine Lagarde was telling us the bailout was a case of “shock and awe” and economic growth of 2.1% for 2012 was forecast followed by 2% per annum ad infinitum?

There is another way of looking at such a thing and it is to compare yourself with your peers. Sadly things just get worse as whilst the composition of the Euro area has changed it grew by 8% over the same period.

What about now?

Inflation

Regular readers will know that in general I am a fan of lower prices but there can be special cases and Greece is certainly one of those.

The CPI in February 2021 compared with February 2020, decreased by 1.3%. In February 2020, the annual rate of change of the CPI was 0.2% ……The average CPI for the twelve – month period from March 2020 to February 2021, compared with the corresponding index for the period
March 2019 to February 2020 decreased by 1.6%.

As you can see there are actual deflation dangers here as opposed to the usual media panic which is anything but. What I mean by that is that we have falling prices with pretty much everything else falling.

Overall the issue is different as since 2009 Greece has had inflation of around 5% in total so it has not been something which has made things worse. Also looking at the detail health (~2%) and education (~12%) have got cheaper which is very rare so the numbers need an investigation I think.

Trade

These are important figures on several levels. In ordinary times they have importance. But in the context of Greece the austerity programme had something of a kicker because of the International Monetary Fund involvement as in the past its programmes were set to improve trade figures. In that context the numbers below are really poor.

The deficit of the trade balance, in January 2021 amounted to 1,442.9 million euros (1,733.7 million dollars) in comparison with 1,893.0 million euros (2,075.9 million dollars) in January 2020, recording a drop, in euros, of 23.8%..

There are several levels to this so let us start from the fact that Greece had a deficit in spite of all the austerity pre pandemic. If we now go to the Bank of Greece and add in services mostly because of the importance of services we see that there was an issue allowing for that.

In 2020, the current account showed a deficit of €11.2 billion, up by €8.4 billion year-on-year. This development is almost exclusively due to a decline in the services surplus, which was partly offset mainly by a €4.3 billion drop in the balance of goods deficit

The point here is that Greece still had a deficit pre pandemic. As to the pandemic it wreaked havoc on the tourism numbers.

A significant decrease in the services surplus is attributable to a deterioration in, primarily, the travel services balance and, secondarily, the transport balance, while the other services balance improved. Both travel receipts and non-residents’ arrivals fell by 76.5% year-on-year. Sea transport receipts dropped by 15.3%.

If we now switch back to January of this year it is worrying that imports fell faster than exports as we have seen this be a signal for an economic decline before.

The total value of imports-arrivals, in January 2021 amounted to 3,953.2 million euros (4,799.9 million dollars) in comparison with 4,747.7 million euros (5,254.2 million dollars) in January 2020, recording a drop, in euros, of 16.7%………The total value of exports-dispatches, in January 2021 amounted to 2,510.3 million euros (3,066.2 million dollars) in
comparison with 2,854.7 million euros (3,178.3 million dollars) in January 2020, recording a drop, in euros, of 12.1%

The decline in trade has mostly been outside the EU. Also as people often ask what does Greece export? Well in January it was manufactured goods across a range of categories. Followed by mineral fuels and lubricants and the vast majority goes outside the EU. Then chemicals and food exports are similar.

Production

We find a little more cheer here as we see Greece is seeing the bounce we have seen elsewhere.

he Overall Industrial Production Index in January 2021 recorded an increase of 3.4% compared with January 2020. The Overall IPI in January 2020 decreased by 0.6% compared with the corresponding index in January 2019.

However the 2019 decline is troubling as after all Greece was supposed to be surging forwards then. Also if we look back and use 2015 as our base then manufacturing output was at 101.3.

Comment

At the moment Greece is mired in two particular problems.

The third wave of the coronavirus pandemic ramped the number of daily cases up to 3,215 on Tuesday, in what was a record figure for this year, approaching those seen at the peak of the previous wave.

Also we are back to riots there with both sides accusing the others of brutality. In terms of hopes well world trade coming back would be a boost.

Greece remains the world’s largest shipowning nation. Though the country accounts for only 0.16% of the world’s population, Greek shipowners own 20.67% of global tonnage and 54.28% of the European Union (EU)-controlled tonnage (Figure 1)⁹. Between 2007 and 2019, Greek shipowners have more than doubled the carrying capacity of their fleet ( Greek shipping and the economy)

Although we have noted in the past the problems with taxing this area.

As to the central bankers priority the housing market it seems to have missed the reforms that have so regularly been trumpeted.

The result is that the property market is in zombie mode, in that the number of transactions completed is minimal, also damaging the state that is deprived of significant tax takings. ( Kathimerini)

There is some hope that the Brits might make some sort of rescue effort although in truth it feels like a PR release dressed up as news

The islands of the Cyclades, Lefkada and Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea, as well as the capital Athens and the nearby islands (e.g. Spetses, Hydra etc) are today the most expensive areas for investing in the property market across Greece. Nevertheless investment interest in them from abroad remains particularly strong and looks set to surge as soon as the health crisis is over. ( Kathimerini )

 

Has nobody else spotted 6% inflation being reported in UK GDP?

Today brings my home country the UK into focus as we get the first picture of how much economic damage the lockdown did in the second quarter of this year. So let us take a look.

UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have fallen by a record 20.4% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020, marking the second consecutive quarterly decline after it fell by 2.2% in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020.

That was depending on who you looked at better than forecast, for example the CBI was suggesting a 25% drop yesterday with most suggesting 21-22%. I see the someone at the Financial Times will get first dibs on the best cake from the cake trolley today for presenting it like this.

Just in: The UK economy contracted 20.4% in the second quarter, a bigger slump than any other major European economy.

In itself the fall was no surprise as at a time like this we can certainly ignore the 0.4% as we wonder if it is even accurate to whole percentage points? Curiously for a number which is of the level of a depression and a great depression at that the media seem to be lost in a recession obsession.

BREAKING: UK is officially in #recession as the economy shrinks by a record 20.4% in the second quarter of the year. It’s the first time in 11 years that the UK has gone into recession. ( BBC)

Meanwhile back in the real world we were expecting a fall of the order of a fifth and we need to move on to see if and how we are recovering from the impact of the lockdown. After all we did close quite a bit of the economy.

There have been record quarterly falls in services, production and construction output in Quarter 2, which have been particularly prevalent in those industries that have been most exposed to government restrictions.

June

We see that there was indeed quite a bounce back as the economy slowly began to reopen.

Monthly gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 8.7% in June 2020, following growth of 2.4% in May 2020.

I am not sure whether we will ever fully pin it down as for example pubs and bars were allowed to reopen on July 4th but the ones I jogged past on the Battersea Power Station site had people sitting outside drinking some days before that. So officially after these numbers but unofficially?

Speaking of not being sure what was and what was not supposed to be happening the strongest growth came here.

Monthly construction output grew by a record 23.5% in June 2020, substantially higher than the previous record monthly growth of 7.6% in May 2020;

How much?

Monthly construction output increased by 23.5% in June 2020 compared with May 2020, rising to £10,140 million

Which areas?

The record 22.2% (£1,224 million) growth in new work in June 2020 was driven by increases in all new work sectors, with the largest contribution coming from a record 42.3% (£545 million) growth in private new housing.

The Bank of England will be happy to see the housing growth.

Next on the list was manufacturing.

Production output rose by 9.3% between May 2020 and June 2020, with manufacturing providing the largest upward contribution, rising by 11.0%, the largest increase since records began in January 1968.

Driven by.

The monthly increase of 11.0% in manufacturing output was led by transport equipment (52.6%) but this subsector remained 38.2% weaker compared to February 2020; of the 13 subsectors, 11 displayed upward contributions.

The issues with transport production began long before February of course.

Unusually for the UK its main sector was something of a laggard rather than being a leader in June.

There was a rise of 7.7% in the Index of Services between May 2020 and June 2020; of the 50 services industries, 47 grew between May and June 2020, though most remain substantially below their February 2020 level.

The detail provided reminds us that much of the debate about the decline of manufacturing ignores the reality that we have to some extent defined it away. As the repair of cars and bikes involves elements of manufacturing and services in my opinion.

The largest contribution to monthly growth was wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, rising by 27.0%; of the 7.7% growth in services, 1.7 percentage points came from wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles.

We learn a little from looking at the best part of services and noting that even it has a way to go.

The rate of progress for each sector in returning to February 2020 levels can more easily be understood in Figure 8 where, for example, in June, wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles services was at 93.7% of the February 2020 level, rising from its lowest point between March and May of 65.2% of the February 2020 level.

Also I did say that the Bank of England would be happy and need to correct myself to say until it read the bit below.

In contrast, real estate activities have fallen for the fourth month because of real estate activities; and rentals and commercial property, excluding imputed rent.

For newer readers a fall in imputed rent is just too much for the establishment to cope with. So let’s leave them with their fantasy numbers and move on. Also I am not expecting a major bounce in the category below any time soon.

Head offices and management consultants have also fallen for the fourth consecutive month.

How much of a shift in economic life there will be remains uncertain but offices will be downsized overall and management structures will change.

We also get a reminder that we need to take care using percentages.

Wholesale, retail and repair of motor vehicles had the largest growth of 417.2% as car showrooms were open to the public in England from June 1 and elsewhere later in the month, replacing click and collect sales.

417% of not much is well I am sure you can all figure it out. Also I have emphasised the number that stands out below.

which reported that the average usage in June 2020 was 73% for all motor vehicles, 6% for National Rail and 75% for heavy goods vehicles.

As a child I recall the advertising campaign which told us “this is the age of the train”. well apparently not! This is an awkward conceptual issue as we have been told by the establishment that public transport is the way forwards and yet it has hit the buffers. Has anyone checked on how this would affect HS2?

On a personal level this is one of the reasons why I have been using the Boris Bike system over the past few years. The standard of hygiene in London public transport is, well I think it is best we leave it there.

Comment

So we hope to have experienced the fastest depression in economic history but we do not know that yet. For example we looked at the monthly recovery (June) in manufacturing above but it is still only 86.4173% of the 2016 benchmark and yes I am smiling at the claimed accuracy. As to the recovery more is reported for July.

However, of those businesses currently trading, over half (54%) reported a decrease in turnover during this period compared with what is normally expected for July.

But still well below the previous trend.

Also I said earlier that the numbers might be out by 1% and now I think it might be by 5% so let me explain.

Nominal GDP fell by 15.4% in Quarter 2 2020, its largest quarterly contraction on record.

Okay so a 5% gap on the headline. How? Well there is a bit of an issue with the story we keep being told about there being no inflation.

The implied deflator strengthened in the second quarter, increasing by 6.2%. This primarily reflects movements in the implied price change of government consumption, which increased by 32.7% in Quarter 2 2020. This notable increase occurred because the volume of government activity fell while at the same time government expenditure increased in nominal terms.

Yep it is apparently now 6% and even 32.7% in one area.

I helped Pete Comley with his book on inflation a few years ago with some technical advice and proof reading. I recall him telling me that he had looked into the deflator for the government sector and had discovered they pretty much make it up. Today’s figures support that view.

Podcast on the flaws with GDP

https://soundcloud.com/shaun-richards-53550081/notayesmanspodcast90

The Italian economy looks to be heading south again

Today has opened with what is more disappointing economic news for the land of la dolce vita. From the Italian Statistics Office or Istat.

In July 2018 the seasonally adjusted industrial production index decreased by 1.8% compared with the previous month. The percentage change of the average of the last three months with respect to the previous three months was -0.2.
The calendar adjusted industrial production index decreased by 1.3% compared with July 2017 (calendar working days being 22 versus 21 days in July 2017);

As you can see output was down both on the preceding month and on a year ago. This is especially disappointing as the year had started with some decent momentum as shown by the year to date numbers.

 in the period January-July 2018 the percentage change was +2.0 compared with the same period of 2017.

However if we look back we see that the push higher in output came in the last three months of 2017 and this year has seen more monthly declines on a seasonally adjusted basis ( 4) than rises (3). Looking ahead we see that things may even get worse as the Markit PMI business survey for manufacturing tells us this.

Italy’s manufacturing sector eased towards
stagnation during August. Both output and new
orders were lower, undermined by weak domestic
demand, whilst employment increased to the
weakest degree since September 2016……..Expectations were at their lowest for over five years.

This seems set to impact on the wider economic position.

At current levels, the PMI data suggest industry
may well provide a net negative contribution to
wider GDP levels in the third quarter of the year.

With Italy’s ongoing struggle concerning economic growth that is yet another problem to face. But it is something with which it has become increasingly familiar as the industrial production sector is still in a severe depression. What I mean by that is the peak for this series was 133.3 in August of 2007 and the benchmarking at 100 for eight years later (2015) shows what Taylor Swift would call “trouble,trouble,trouble” . The initial fall was sharp and peaked at an annual rate of 26% but there was a recovery however, in that lies the rub. In 2011 Italy saw a bounce back in production to 111.9 at the peak but then the Euro area crisis saw it plunge the depths again. It did respond to the “Euroboom” in 2016 and 17 but looks like it is falling again and an index of 105.2 in July tells its own story.

So all these years later it is still 21% lower than the previous peak. We worry in the UK about a production number which is 6.1% lower but as you can see we at least have some hope of regaining it unlike Italy.

The wider outlook

Italy’s economy is heavily influenced by its Euro area colleagues and they seem to be noting a slow down as well. From @stewhampton

The ECB committee that oversees the compilation of the forecasts now sees the risks to economic growth as tilted to the downside.

Perhaps they have suddenly noted their own money supply data! At which point they are some time behind us.  Also in the language of central bankers this is significant as they do not switch from “broadly balanced” to “tilted to the downside” lightly, and especially not when they are winding down a stimulus program.

So we see that the Italian economy will not be getting much of a boost from its neighbours and colleagues into the end of 2018.

Employment

Yet again this morning’s official release poses a question about the economic situation in July?

In the most recent monthly data (July 2018), net of seasonality, the number of employees showed a slight decrease compared to June 2018 (-0.1%) and the employment rate remained stable.

This modifies the previous picture which had been good.

The year-on-year trend showed a growth of 387 thousand employees (+1.7% in one year), concentrated among temporary employees against the decline of those permanent (+390 thousand and -33 thousand, respectively) and the growth of the self-employed (+30 thousand).

So more people were in work which is very welcome in a country where a high level of unemployment has persisted. We keep being told that the unemployment rate in Italy has fallen below 11% ( in this instance to 10.7%) but then later it gets revised back up again. Of course even 10.7% is high. I would imagine many of you have already spotted that the employment growth is entirely one of temporary jobs which does not augur well if things continue to slow down.

Some better news

Italy is a delightful country so let us note what some might regard as a triumph for the “internal competitivesness” policies of the Euro area.

Italy’s current account position is one of the country’s most improved economic fundamentals since the financial crisis. As the above chart shows, it improved by 6.2 percentage points to a sizable surplus of 2.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year—the highest level since 1997—from a deficit of 3.4% of GDP in 2010.

That is from DBRS research who in this section will have the champagne glasses clinking at the European Commission/

external cost competitiveness gains related to relatively slower domestic wage growth.

The Italian worker who has been forced to shoulder this will not be anything like as pleased as we note that some of the gain comes directly from this.

In response to the recession, nominal imports of goods declined significantly by around 5% a year between 2012 and
2013.

Also Italy has benefited from lower oil prices.

Since then, lower energy prices further contributed to the improvement in the current account, and Italy’s imported energy bill bottomed out at 1.6% of GDP in 2016, down from a peak of 3.9% of GDP in 2012.

Not quite the export-led growth of the economics textbooks is it? Still maybe there will be a boost from tourism.

Why everyone is suddenly going to Milan on vacation ( Wall Street Journal)

According to the WSJ Milan has  “been hiding in plain sight for decades ” which must be news to all of those who have been there which include yours truly.

Comment

The downbeat economic news has arrived just as things seemed to have got calmer regarding the new coalition government. Or as DBRS research puts it.

More recently, the leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to adhere to the European Union (EU) framework. In DBRS’s view, this is a positive development.

This has meant that the ten-year bond yield which had risen above 3.2% is now 2.75%. So congratulations to anyone who has been long Italian bonds over the past ten days or so and should you choose you will be able to afford to join the WSJ in Milan as a reward. However bond yields have shifted higher if we return to the bigger picture so this will continue to be a factor.

In DBRS’s view, total interest expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) may slightly narrow this year compared with the 3.8% of GDP recorded in
2017.

As new issuance has got more expensive than in 2017 I am not sure about the narrowing point.

Also there is the ongoing sage about the Italian banks which has become something of a never-ending story. Officially Unicredit has been the success story here and yet if it is such a success why were rumours like these circulating yesterday?

*UNICREDIT MAY CONSIDER BBVA, ABN AMRO FOR POSSIBLE M&A: MF

— lemasabachthani (@lemasabachthani) September 11, 2018

The other rumour was a merger with Societe Generale of France. Anyway the current share price of around 13 Euros is a long way short of the previous peak of 370 or so. This reminds us of the news stories surrounding the fall of Lehman Bros. a decade ago as it has been a dreadful decade for both Unicredit and Italy as we note the economy is still 5% smaller than the previous peak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Greek economic depression continues to the sound of silence

Today it is time again to look at what has been in my time as a blogger a regular and indeed consistent contender for the saddest story of all. This is of course the issue proclaimed as “shock and awe” by Euro area ministers such as Christine Lagarde back in May 2010 as they sent Greece spiralling into an economic depression from which it shows little sign of returning. This was accompanied by a media operation where those who argued for a different course of action were smeared with claims that they would damage the Greek economy. How shameful that was!

Instead we got austerity and claims of an internal devaluation instead of the old IMF strategy where the austerity was ameliorated by a currency devaluation. Oh and promises of reform which remain in the main just that promises. Eventually there was a default but by then it was not enough partly because the official creditors refused to take part. Drip by drip we have had confessions of failure as the IMF first decided its sums were wrong and more recently has become a fan of fiscal stimulus rather than austerity. Just as a reminder Greece was supposed to return to growth in 2012 (1.1%) and then 2.1% for two years before growing at 2.7% until the end of time.

An economic depression

How do we measure this? Well the first signal is that Greek GDP was 19.5% lower in the second quarter of this year than it was in the second quarter of 2010 when “shock and awe” was proclaimed. So that is a severe depression or Great Depression. There is no other way of putting that.

If we move to the present position then we see this.

Available seasonally adjusted data indicate that in the 2nd quarter of 2016 the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in volume terms increased by 0.2% compared with the 1st quarter of 2016 against the increase of 0.3% that was announced for the flash estimate.

Sadly even this brief flicker of candle light gets sucked up by the gloom when we look at the annual comparison.

In comparison with the 2nd quarter of 2015, it decreased by 0.9% against the decrease of 0.7% that was announced for the flash estimate of the 2nd quarter on August 12, 2016.

We have other signs of a depression here. Firstly the fact that so far there is no rebound. Ordinarily however bad things are economies eventually rebound in what is called a V-shaped response but here we have a much grimmer L shape as in a collapse and then no recovery. Also numbers in such a situation are mostly revised upwards but as you can see it has in fact been downwards.

Wages

An important signal of these times has been the behaviour of wages and especially real wages well we have seen nothing like this. There is an index for Greek wages for different sectors so let us start with manufacturing which at the start of 2010 was at 95.9 and at the start of 2016 was at 45.5 and had fallen by over 9% in the preceding year. It is not the worst example as the wages of the professional and scientific sector fell from 100.8 to 45.9 over the same time period.

Just so you see both sides of the coin the best number was for the information sector which only and by only I mean comparatively fell from 89.8 to 80.9.

Retail Trade

This sadly is one of the worst examples of the economic depression. You may wish to make sure you are sitting comfortably before you read that on a scale where 2010=100 then Greek retail trade was 69.8 in June. Grimmest of all is that food is at 78.1.

Is it getting any better or Grecovery as some were proclaiming in 2013? Take a look for yourself.

The overall volume index in retail trade (i.e. turnover in retail trade at constant prices) in June 2016, recorded a decrease of 3.6% compared with the corresponding index of June 2015, while compared with the corresponding index of May 2016, recorded an increase of 3.7%.

May must have been dreadful mustn’t it?

The Monetary System

We see regular proclamations of recovery but regular readers will recall the situation last year when Greece saw capital flight on a large-scale. Capital Greece sums it up like this.

Greece΄s banking sector saw a 42 billion euro deposit outflow from December to July last year.

They try to put a positive spin on the data but it tells a rather different story.

Greek bank deposits dropped slightly in July after a rise in the previous two months………Business and household deposits fell by 160 million euros, or 0.13 percent month-on-month to 122.58 billion euros ($138.3 billion), their lowest level since November 2003.

That means the credit crunch is ongoing.

Export Led Growth

One of the ways that the “internal devaluation” was supposed to benefit Greece was via foreign trade. This should impact in two ways. Firstly exports would be more price competitive and rise and secondly imports would fall in sectors where Greek producers can replace them. How is that going? From Kathimerini.

exports of Greek products dropped to their lowest point in the last four years in the first half of 2016, posting an annual decline of 8.1 percent to 11.8 billion euros, against 12.8 billion in January-June 2015. Excluding exports of oil products, the annual decline came to 1.4 percent.

So the oil price fall has had an impact except care is needed here if it was counted when we were being told this was getting better. Especially troubling considering the efforts of the ECB to reduce the value of the Euro came from this.

There was a notable decrease in exports, including oil products, to non-EU countries, where they fell by 14.6 percent compared to June last year.

An area which had shown signs of hope was tourism where I recall better numbers and hope for the future but sadly the Bank of Greece has another tale.

In January-June 2016, the balance of travel services showed a surplus of €2,991 million, down 6.7% from a surplus of €3,205 million in the same period of 2015…….The decrease in travel receipts resulted from a 1.6% decline in arrivals and a 4.9% fall in average expenditure per trip.

Just in case someone wants to deploy the scapegoat of 2016 which is of course Brexit that has so kindly given the poor much abused weather a rest. well see for yourself…

Receipts from the United Kingdom increased by 24.8% to €388 million.

Actually it is people from outside the European Union who have stopped going to Greece for a holiday it would appear.

while receipts from outside the EU28 dropped by 21.9% (June 2016: €469 million, June 2015: €601 million).

Any thoughts as to why?

Comment

As we review the scene there is a familiar austerity drumbeat.From Kathimerini.

Tens of thousands of pensioners will see their auxiliary pensions slashed by between 10 and 12 percent on Friday morning, while in some cases the cuts will even exceed 40 percent…..This second wave of cuts will affect 144,000 pensioners, after a first one hit just under 67,000 retirees in August.

Odd that because we have been told so many times that reform has been completed. Oh and we have been told so many times that the banks are fixed as well.

Greece’s four systemic banks increased their provisions for nonperforming loans by a total of 1 billion euros during the second quarter of the year

By systemic they mean toxic under the Britney definition.

I’m addicted to you
Don’t you know that you’re toxic
And I love what you do
Don’t you know that you’re toxic

Meanwhile the Greek depression continues to the Sound of Silence.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence