Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The start of a global depression?

Economists are painting a grim picture of what's coming. It is the most complex and difficult economic crisis the world has seen in decades and possibly since the Great Depression, according to analysts. Financial turmoil, the onset of recession and decline in stock markets have hit major countries. For wage earners , it's the rising cost of food, petrol and transportation that hurt them the most. Last week, in the US, 80,000 people lost their jobs, with wages stagnating. The hardest hit sectors have been in the hospitality, construction and propery sectors. The latest news is that Siemens, the German technology group, will axe over 16,000 jobs worldwide. No matter how well our commodity stocks perform, we will not escape from this global problem. The question is how are Malaysians preparing themselves for the global effect. Can we get our act together to save jobs to continue putting food on our tables or are we going to continue with our kind of politics? We are running out of time.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those who don't know about The Great Depression, the entry in Wikipedia puts it this way:
The Great Depression was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in some countries as early as 1928.

The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday and the end is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939.

The depression had devastating effects in both the industrialized countries and those which exported raw materials. International trade declined sharply, as did personal incomes, tax revenues, prices, and profits.

Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent.

Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as farming, mining and logging suffered the most. At the time, Herbert Hoover was President of the United States.

Even shortly after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, optimism persisted. John D. Rockefeller said that "These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again.”

The Great Depression ended at different times in different countries; for subsequent history see Home front during World War II. The majority of countries set up relief programs, and most underwent some sort of political upheaval, pushing them to the left or right.

In some states, the desperate citizens turned toward nationalist demagogues - the most infamous being Adolf Hitler - setting the stage for World War II in 1939.

For more, click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_depression

Anonymous said...

This is not really a global depression. All mix together. Keynes also pening kepala this moden global economics scenario. Different country is different problem. Change monetary policy..asyik-asyik interst rate.tiada tools lain ka. Currencies must based on gold instead of US dollar. Close the current option market and shoot the speculators either currencies, commodities, properties or whatever and the impotant thing is to avoid "the greedy economics theory".

Anonymous said...

How International Bankers Gained Control of America

From a Video Script Produced by Patrick S. J. Carmack

Directed by Bill Still
Royalty Production Company 1998

[QUOTE]
One month after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12,1861. …

Certainly slavery was a cause for the Civil War, but not the primary cause. Lincoln knew that the economy of the South depended upon slavery and so (before the Civil War) he had no intention of eliminating it. Lincoln had put it this way in his inaugural address only one month earlier:

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Even after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, Lincoln continued to insist that the Civil War was not about the issue of slavery:

“My paramount objective is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.”

So what was the Civil War all about? There were many factors at play. Northern industrialists had used protective tariffs to prevent their southern states from buying cheaper European goods. Europe retaliated by stopping cotton imports from the South. The Southern states were in a financial bind. They were forced to pay more for most of the necessities of life while their income from cotton exports plummeted. The South grew ncreasingly angry.

But there were other factors at work. … The central bankers now saw an pportunity to use the North/South divisions to split the rich new nation - t divide and conquer by war. Was this just some sort of wild conspiracy theory? Well, let’s look at what a well placed observer of the scene had to say at time.

This was Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, the man who united the German states in 1871. A few years later, in 1876, he is quoted as saying:

“It is not to be doubted, I know of absolute certainty,” Bismarck declared, “that the division of the United States into two federations of equal power was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained as one block and were to develop as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset the capitalist domination of Europe over the world.”

Within months after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, the central bankers loaned Napoleon III of France (the nephew of the Waterloo Napoleon) 210 million francs to seize Mexico and station troops along the southern border of the U.S., taking advantage of the Civil War to violate the Monroe Doctrine and return Mexico to colonial rule.

No matter what the outcome of the Civil War, it was hoped that a war-weakened America, heavily indebted to the Money Changers, would open up Central and South America once again to European colonization and domination.

At the same time, Great Britain moved 11,000 troops into Canada and positioned them along America’s northern border. The British fleet went on war alert should their quick intervention be called for.

Lincoln knew he was in a bind. He agonized over the fate of the Union. There was a lot more to it than just differences between the North and the South. That’s why his emphasis was always on “Union” and not merely the defeat of the South. But Lincoln needed money to win.

In 1861, Lincoln and his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, went to New York to apply for the necessary war loans. The Money Changers, anxious to maximize their war profits, only offered loans at 24-36% interest. Lincoln said thanks, but no thanks, and returned to Washington. He sent for an old friend, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago, and put him onto the problem off financing the War. At one particular meeting, Lincoln asked Taylor how else to finance the war. Taylor put it this way:

“Why, Lincoln, that is easy; just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes… pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.”

When Lincoln asked if the people of the United States would accept the notes, Taylor said:

“The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money … the stamp of full legal tender by the Government is the thing that makes money good any time, and this will always be as good as any other money inside the borders of our country. ”

So that’s exactly what Lincoln did. From 1862 to 1865, with Congressional authorization, he printed up $432,000,000 of the new bills.

In order to distinguish them from private bank notes in circulation, he had them printed with green ink on the back side. That’s why the notes were called “Greenbacks.” With this new money, Lincoln paid the troops, and bought their supplies. During the course of the war, nearly all of the 450 million dollars of Greenbacks authorized by Congress were printed at no interest to the federal government.

By now Lincoln realized who was really pulling the strings and what was at stake for the American people. … This is how he explained his monetary views:

“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers… The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity… By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The financing of all public enterprises, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”

Meanwhile in Britain a truly incredible editorial in the London Times explained the Bank of England’s attitude towards Lincoln’s Greenbacks.

“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurate down to a fixture, then the Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”

Keep in mind, by this time the European monarchs were already chained to their private central banks, hence the bankers’ concern to preserve their captive monarchs. Within four days of the passage of the law that allowed Greenbacks to be issued, bankers met in convention in Washington to discuss the situation. It was agreed that Greenbacks would surely be their ruin. Something had to be done. They devised a scheme gradually to undermine the value of the Greenbacks.

Seemingly unimportant limitations on the use of Greenbacks (printed on the green back), insisted on by the bankers, forbidding their use to pay import duties and interest on the public debt, were utilized by the banks to slap a surcharge on Greenbacks of up to 185%. This undermined the confidence of the people in Greenbacks and necessitated further concessions to the bankers to obtain more, discounted as the Greenbacks now were.

This scheme was effective - so effective that the next year, 1863, with Federal and Confederate troops beginning to mass for the decisive battle of the Civil War, and the Treasury in need of further Congressional authority at that time to issue more Greenbacks, Lincoln gave in to the pressure, which he described:

“They persist, they have argued me almost blind - I am worse off than St. Paul. He was in a strait between two. I am in a strait between twenty and they are bankers and financiers.”

Lincoln allowed the bankers to push through the National Banking Act of 1863 in exchange for their support for the urgently needed additional Greenbacks. This act created “National Banks” (hence the N.A. still in use after National banks’ names) and gave them a virtual tax-free status. The new banks also got the exclusive power to create the new form of money - National Bank Notes. Though Greenbacks continued to circulate, their quantity was limited and no more were authorized after the war.

[END QUOTE]

The ones who REALLY pull the strings in politics are the ones who pull the PURSE strings. Sharon, Bush, Blair and their ilk are merely puppets. The REAL tyrants - the Mammonites, the Plutocrats, the gazillionaires – almost always remain nameless!

Courtesy Ardeshir Mehta and togethernet

Francis said...

Hello Mr Choon Wai, we are going to be worst off by having people like bung mokhtar in Parliament. Visit here and judge for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPBA2fw4T5w

Have a good day!!

amoker said...

I was driving to work today and was thinking if our finance ministry is in capable hand to tackle this. And i shudder when I think of Noor Yaakob making decisions. Mustapha has been around since Mahathir and is an economist but Mahathir was making the shots. AAB is, just the minister.

In fact, i have not seen Nor Yaakob getting grilled on his vision on economy nor see him attempting to articulate it offhand. If someone from the gov can do it, it can shore up investor confidence. Mahathir did in his blog.

Anonymous said...

My only wish is that no criminals become our PM.

Anonymous said...

dear folks of all political, racial and religious stripes:
The upcoming economic strom in malaysia that will hit some folks very hard are:
1) Abandonment of housing projects. People who have paid "progress payments" will be caught as there will be no completed houses to move into, but still have bank loans to service, and rental to pay.
2) SME's will have bank credit facilities being reduced. This will throw a big spanner into their business, as they will have to scramble to collect from their customers, cut cost, and got no cash to buy stock. Citicorp is doing that worldwide.
3) massive retrenchment soon by many MNCs. Their malaysian operations will not be spared.

What you are experiencing now is just the quiet before the storm.

PENANG BOY