By Padmini Arhant
According to the latest reports, the current jobless rate is 10.2% with 16 million Americans competing for 3 million jobs. Apparently, this figure does not include the underemployed. The Corporate related unemployment is further expected to rise up to 10.8% by the end of next year. Another grim factor is the joblessness among the self-employed and the small business retrenchments reportedly escalate the figure to an alarming 17.5% resembling the severe depression era.
Growing unemployment is a major impediment as consumer spending is directly linked to the job market posing a downside for the entire economy. Despite, the economic growth at 3.5% along with the 9.5% annual productivity for the recent quarter, the American workforce is yet to benefit from the surge in these areas.
The most affected sectors appear to be construction, manufacturing and retail. Although, the recent stimulus signed by President Obama extends unemployment benefits for 14 weeks and 20 weeks to the worst hit states combined with the tax credits for the first time and other home buyers, the problems confronting the industries required to generate jobs is attention worthy.
Please refer to http://www.padminiarhant.com for the remaining content.
Thank you.
Padmini Arhant
Congratulations! to the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and the FDP leader Guido Westerwelle on the re-election of CDU-CSU (Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union) in grand coalition with the Free Democratic Party in the 17th German Federal election on September 27, 2009.
As a major economic power and the largest exporter as well as the second largest importer of goods, Germany is significant to the global economy and the international progress. The export-oriented nation has been drastically affected from the global economic crisis. It experiences the common woes like the financial market failure leading to the government bailouts; massive job loss in the manufacturing sector especially the automobiles and heavy industrial equipments…having a ripple effect on other sectors in the economy.
However, Germany has contained the crisis from further deterioration due to the various government run programs viz.
At my school we have a few people who refuse to support you. I always confuse them by asking them why that don't supprt and I make them give me a reason why they don't support and then I give them a bunch of facts and stuff about the war or the recession and then they might just ignore me or look confused, or just say whatever. I have changed the mind of many and my goal isn't a number like 5 per week, it is EVERYONE.
Have a Great Patriotic Day,
Your Friend
Erin
I appologize if this appears as a duplicate post under my blog as I am new to blogging and was not sure how it works. Post begins below
Back track to early 2007. I had met the most wonderful woman of my life. We shared equal values and dreams. I was 46 at the time and she was 44. We began our plan to merge our lives. I here in Melbourne FL and she 2700 miles away in LA County CA. We married in April of 2007 and in less than a month the economy began it's decent and began to take our hopes and dreams with it.At the time I was earning enough to support myself plus plan for our retirement. Although we lived in separate parts of the Country when we married we thought things would go smoothly. The plan was either for me to sell my home and move to her or her to move here. I did not lose my job but, lost overtime pay, half my retirement fund and ongoing investment income. Then as bad luck would have it my 17 year old cars engine seized up and I was forced to lease a new car. Ironically we could hardly live in two worse States. I in Florida and she in California. Both have horrible housing and employment markets now. I cannot sell my home even though I am not upside down as of yet. No employer in CA will even call me. Probably because I am still in Florida. My wife could not find work here in Florida either. We are still living apart and for two years she has helped support me. We tried to visit each other when we could. Mostly she came to see me as I could neither afford to go to her or would risk my job by taking so much time off. However she does not get paid time off so the costs are heavy on her. I have been a financial burden and source of stress to her and I know this is hardening her heart. Other issues have happened on her end that have made things worse for her. She is now working 7 days and almost 14 hours each day. She is making herself sick and I can do nothing to help her. Just the other day she got sick with the flu. Because we are on opposite coasts all I could do was tell her what medicine to take and to say I hope she gets better soon. I can't begin to describe how awful I felt because that is the best I can do right now. Life is not fair sometimes. I have nothing to offer beyond my health insurance. I in turn feel like a horrible failure as a husband and a man because I can not provide for her as a man should. I love her more than life itself and as such hate myself for being the burden I have been. I believe that when the economy improves I can change this but, when will that be and how long will it take? She has told me very recently she wants to divorce and this is tearing out my heart but, what can I say? I have told her to stop doing things for me and just worry about taking care of herself. I want her to keep the marriage for now so at least she has health benefits which she does not otherwise have and can remain my beneficiary. At least in this way if something were to happen to me she could finally be secure financially. How ironic that in life I am a burden but, after I would be the opposite! I have tried everything I can think of short of just abandoning my house and moving out there to be by her side. I have even tried finding a second job here or even a part time one so I would not be a burden but, my present work schedule makes me an unattractive candidate for either. I tried to apply for a mortgage modification but, I missed the minimum qualification of my total mortgage expense having to meet or exceed 31% of gross income! It did not matter that it exceeded 51% of my net income or that all other living expenses combined exceed 110% of my total net income. Another irony here is that when my old car died had I taken a home equity loan to by a new one instead of leasing one I would have qualified for a mortgage modification!In a previous career I was a fully certified ASE Master Automobile Technician with 100% dealership experience. I thought maybe I could go back to that as the pay could be better and overtime chances greater. So I decided to retest to see if I still held the knowledge necessary to pass at least some of the qualifying areas. Imagine my personal surprise and satisfaction when upon receiving my results I discovered I had passed every single test and was once again a fully certified master technician. I thought things might finally be going my way. That maybe the tide would turn. I updated my resume to reflect this achievement and posted it on many job boards as well as directly responding to job postings. So what happens? GM and Chrysler decide to close thousands of dealerships! That puts thousands of automotive technicians out of work and sends me to the very bottom of any candidate pile as current on the job experience is going to trump older regardless of certification level. I am now at a complete loss as to what to do or try next. Maybe that's why I am posting this blog. Not just to share my personal recession experience but, also to see if perhaps there is something I missed, some other ideas I could try to change my circumstances and in turn possibly save my marriage which is what is most important to me. Maybe I am a die hard romantic at heart and I know many people would call me a fool but, I believe that with out someone special to love and share your life with then how can life have meaning? Even if I were by some miracle to become a wealthy man it would be meaningless to me if it meant I lost my marriage. I guess what I am saying in a way is that I would do anything. I would truly move Heaven and Earth if I could just to be with her as the husband and provider I was supposed to be. So I am open to ideas and suggestions. I will not let pride get in the way of asking for help so I am asking. You may ask what is it I want or think I need? I need to be with my wife or at least not be a burden any longer. In a perfect world that means I would be able to sell this house and also find a good job in the LA County area. I don't suppose there are any employers reading this blog that are willing to take a chance on me are there? I am probably as motivated as they come. Now back to my marriage and us.We do not fight and otherwise have similar values. I have told her that no matter what happens I will always love her and that I will find a way to make everything up to her even if she does divorce me. I cannot live with myself knowing the burden I have been. I will find a way to repay all she has done but, she tells me no! I tell her I must. That I cannot go through life without her unless I know I can some day make it up. Sometimes the world is very cruel. I ask every day why someone so wonderful was brought into my life only to have her taken from me. I really do feel a failure as both a husband and a man. She deserves a far better life than she has had with me. I was supposed to give her that life and I still want to if I can. Please feel free to share this blog. Perhaps the more people that see it the greater the chances that I will find the help I need. Thanks to all for taking the time to read my story.
News week, Aug 3,2009 (newweek.com) asserts the recession is over.
we think not, here aqt Democratic Financial World. One must keep in mind History:during the Great Depression of the 1930's there were five stock market rallies, and none of them lasted. In fact in James Livingstone argeas in "the true Causes of the Great Depression" Challenge (www.challenge.com) in the May-June issue- the tue cause was falling wages and Failing banks--the exact same course we are on now.
Livingstone argues t6he underlying cause "was a fundametal shift away from wages and consuption to corporate profits of a tidal wave of surplus captial that could not be profitably invested in goods production, aand in fact was not invested in goods peroduction.
"In classical,neo classical aamd supp-ly side theory this shift should have prouced more jobs and invewstemt vbut did not.
Livingston cites key trends:
--in 1929 90% of tax payers had less disposable income in 1929,than in 1922;
--meanwhile corporate profits rose 62%, and dividends doulble
--the top 1% of taxpayewrs increased their disposalble income by 63% between 1922 and 1929
In a word the very mirror image of the end of the Bush years. but Livingston goes on to say that by "1999 income shares from wages shifted awway from wages toward profits, resutled in new securies
The NY Times reported that Mexican immigration and migration has slowed to a halt because of the recession. Also migration is slow because of the Swine Influenza outbreak. The report figures shows a 25% decrease in illegal immigration from Mexico, and nearly 11 million illegal immigrants are already here in the United States. Since when has 25% of anything been a grinding halt. Someone’s gotta check their math here. That’s not a grinding halt thats just because half of Mexico is in bed with the flu. Give it a few weeks when Obama starts pumping money into construction projects that employ illegal immigrants and watch that laughable grinding halt start back up. Illegal immigrants send BILLIONS back home. Statistics showed nearly $17 billion was sent to Mexico. Want to know where your infrastructure money from the Obama stimulus package is going? Take a trip to Mexico. Oh yeah, in his weekly address he said $25 billion would be spent on improving infrastructure and schools through construction projects. He also mentioned there would be 2.5 million jobs created and $150 billion would be spent over the next then years.
So lets do the math. 11 million illegal immigrants minus 2.5 million jobs to illegal immigrants sending money to Mexico = 8.5 million illegal immigrants not sending money to Mexico.
$25 billion minus $17 billion = $8 billion, leaving us with $158 billion dollars over ten more years.
$158 billion divided by ten years is $15.8 billion a year.
So $15.8 billion minus $17 billion is negative $1.2 billion dollars a year.
So we actually loose $12 billion dollars to illegal immigrants over ten years, but our roads are really nice but no one is on them because our citizens don’t have enough money to drive on them. Our schools? I’ve done the math and we spend more money on average across the country to keep an inmate in jail for one year than it costs to send one child to college for two years at a public university. If you think I’m just a babbling blogger, do some investigating and find out for yourself. All the information is available on our government websites and is free information. Your turn to comment, I’m logging off. This has been another installment of Politicalpete.com
Ok, if anyone of Mr. Presidents people actually reads these things, let him know he will lose my vote and a few more of my family members votes in Nebraska if he bails out the newspaper industry.
I have written a post that details what is happening to our economy. I hope, Mr. President, you understand what is truely happening to our economy. We are just in a stage of regrowth and you have to let everything old burn. Your best bet is to retire anyone over 55.
Here is the link: www.2009depression.com.
Courtesy: www.padminiarhant.com
It is one hundred days since the new administration under President Obama took office on January 20, 2009.
Precisely, around that time the nation was in a precarious situation specifically with the economy in severe recession heading towards a possible depression. It required urgent policy decisions to avert the serous economic crisis contributing to the crumbling housing market, potential bankruptcies of the auto industry, tremendous job losses, failing financial institutions and volatile stock market.
Even though, the crises are far from over, the administration demonstrated diligence with the legislation of the $787 billion stimulus bill through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act accompanied by various strategies to reform and revive the financial institutions and housing market.
The financial bailouts were justifiably controversial and awaiting the stress test results due on May 4, 2009. Meanwhile, the alternative of inaction would have proven equally detrimental and exacerbated the liquidity crisis in the financial market.
In addition to the measures in stimulating the economy, the administration’s effort to sustain the existing jobs in different sectors particularly the auto industry is noteworthy. Further planning and policy decisions to create new jobs phrased, as ‘green jobs’ through vigorous environmental and energy programs is the right course of action to efficiently deal with the challenging issues of global warming and energy independence.
Other achievements in promoting science and technology such as the stem cell research within the realm of ethical code, proposal to digitalize medical records as one of many innovative solutions in the health care policy, coordinating with the environmental agencies in the protection of threatened and endangered species are impressive. However, the request from the environmental groups to rescind the rule that limits the protection of polar bears from the melting Arctic ice caused by climate change is pending approval.
In social programs, the signing of two major pieces of legislation into law – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ensuring equal pay for men and women and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that guarantees 11 million low-income children affordable health care are significant actions.
World health crisis in the wake of the ‘pandemic swine flu’ appropriately handled by the Obama administration thus far.
Despite the fragile economic conditions, the Obama administration’s response and reaction to most issues has been right on target. The anticipated legislation of the budget focused on education, energy and health care should accelerate the economic growth for rapid recovery from the existing crises.
The administration must strive hard to isolate investment from wasteful spending i.e. earmarks or pork barrel that often finds its way through major budgets and stimulus packages. Likewise, preventing the special interests and lobbyists’ continuous dominance should be part of the administration’s agenda.
With respect to transparency and accountability, the recent scandals involving legislators raises credibility issue for the majority party. It is important to maintain bipartisanship in legislative matters for national interest since future holds no guarantee with the majority rule. Moreover, divisive politics contributes to polarization jeopardizing national unity and ultimately election results.
In foreign policy matter, the recent participation in international summits appears promising with the exception of the boycotting of the Geneva conference on ‘racism.’ Please refer to the article on ‘Racism – The Durban II Geneva Conference’ @ www.padminiarhant.com.
Obviously, the rising tensions in the international arena from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea are few of the many challenges ahead. Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the form of two states solutions is paramount to attain permanent peace in the region. It would create a pathway for others sharing similar aspirations.
Combat troops withdrawal from Iraq and simultaneous deployment in Afghanistan deserve individual criteria and attention. Military operation always yields immense casualties and often precious lives are lost in the process.
President Obama’s initiative with Russia in the reduction of conventional weapons and other arsenal is praiseworthy. Nevertheless, it remains subject to the real statistics and the actual defense spending contraction by the geopolitical powers. The bold and audacious declaration of nuclear disarmament was music to ears, although the reality of it relies on the willingness and commitment by the other nuclear nations.
At the G-20 summit, the United States’ reluctance to support France’s proposal to force international financial institutions unveil the corporations using tax havens for tax evasions was disappointing. The unpopular yet meaningful recommendation contributed to a major disagreement between France and China leading to the mediation by the U.S. President Barack Obama. The international sources attributed China’s objection to the potential ramifications on the corporate investments in that nation.
In conclusion, the result oriented performance reflects President Obama’s admirable leadership skills and the administration’s ambitious goals in education, energy and health care is a step in the right direction.
I wish President Obama and the administration success in all endeavors.
How do you deter an enemy who is willing to kill himself in order to kill you? You strike at something more important to him than his own life. Defining that will be easy for me. The next question is can America be as ruthless as our enemies?
The time has come to end the fruitless and unsustainable effort to search and destroy every cave in Afghanistan and bomb every campground in bordering Pakistan. It’s counterproductive anyway.
What will put the fear of America into terrorist masterminds and those who would follow their orders is simple and radical revenge. Masterminds have families: Cousins, brothers and fathers. Eliminate them. All at once, or one at a time, it works just as well. The ones who survive an initial “hunt” will go into hiding. Having some adult male relatives killed and the rest hiding out in caves will demoralize masterminds and their loved ones. You cannot work and support your women like that. You can’t make more baby masterminds that way. You cannot continue the blood line. The women and children will pressure them to stop their plotting and bombing.
People want to leave a familial legacy, and they can’t do that under those circumstances over the long term.
Should America do that? Yes. Do we have the “intestinal fortitude” and sustainable motivation? I don’t think so. But we should, and it shouldn’t take another terrorist attack to get us there.
For the last seven years the CIA has been kidnapping people from other nations and torturing them. Why not just go in there and quietly shoot them to death?
Frankly, by not killing women or children the way those terrorists routinely do, we can even claim the moral high ground.
From my Blog at www.ThinkManFeel.com
I have been in a fog this week, put-off in large part by the oversaturation regarding AIG bonuses, which I consider little more than political fodder and an emotional distraction from our much larger problems. For an amount that is truly a small fraction of a penny of our real debt, waste and greed, in just a few days we have reached a level of nonsense that is overwhelming and depressing. In the matter of days, we have reached a point where Congress is passing legislation to specifically tax a hand-full of people, I see articles with whodonit headlines saying “AIG bonuses, who knew what and when,” and individual members of Congress are spewing crazy babble about how the Secretary of Treasury should already resign. Secretary Geithner has been in office for a whole 60 days and has inherited a bigger set of pressing challenges than many U.S. Presidents do, and people with more than a high school education actually believe he should already be removed over $165 million in bonuses for contracts written last year in one, too-big-to-fail company? People better wipe the froth from their mouths and get smarter quick, or we are seriously, seriously screwed.
In case people are truly unaware of the magnitude of problems we face and challenges being faced by the Obama Administration before he even has all the appointee positions in the executive branch filled, I have decided to do a bulleted list of what I consider to be the major challenges the United States of America is facing, right now. In creating this list over the next few days, I am not going to look at one single news paper or web site. I am going to just list what I know based on my cumulative efforts in months past to learn about and track current issues and events.
The main goal is to see what one brain, with a small amount of effort, can compile and see just how long the list becomes. I have set myself a limit of listing no more than ten challenges in any single post and no more than three support sentences for any single major challenge identified. I think it will be very interesting to see how many days it takes to complete this effort. And, of course, if I miss something that is clearly a major current challenge or I get something wrong, I would love to get some feedback, so don’t be shyJ.
Since finance seems to be the hot-button of the week, I will start with the Geithner arena. I will keep myself limited to 5 major challenges today, since I took a few paragraphs to outline my approach and I have been a bit concerned about the length of some of my blog postings.
1. Housing Market: Housing prices has dropped significantly over the last two years and they are projected to drop this year and next year. In 2004 or 2005, home owners took out $900 billion of equity out of their homes in a single year. There are at least 5 states where a minimum of 1 in 3 homeowners now have upside down mortgages, making selling or refinancing our of reach for almost all of those homeowners.
2. Insolvent Banks: For half of this decade Wall Street banks bought as many mortgages as could be written, resulting in a massive increase in the origination of high-risk mortgages by mortgage lenders across the country. After buying these mortgages, banks turned them into mortgage-backed securities and complex mixtures of mortgages and other forms of debt (collateralized debt obligations or CDOs), sold them to generate revenue and/or apparently borrowed $30 (debt) for every $1 of mortgage in an effort to invest, grow and generate more profit. The housing market bubble burst, driving down the value of these mortgage-backed securities and ruining the balance sheets (basically rendering insolvent) of our major banks, as well as banks, funds, local governments and other investors around the globe that bought these mortgage-backed financial products Wall Street created.
3. Frozen Credit Markets: As mortgages began to fail and mortgage-backed securities began to decline in value and business balance sheets turned bad, lending by financial stopped. Many businesses could not get short-term loans for payroll, longer-term loans for expansion, prospective home buyers found it instantly harder to qualify for loans, etc. This halt to the flow of money, along with drop in property values, resulted in a significant drop in economic activity in the U.S. and abroad.
4. Credit Default Swaps: CDS are a completely unregulated insurance product for financial investments that were bought and sold throughout the global financial sector for the last 5-10 years. CDS exposed companies writing and selling such coverage (e.g., AIG) to trillions of dollars in liabilities once property values started to decrease and companies began to fail. Thus far, only $500 billion of the $60 trillion CDS written (less than 1%) will not be paid due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Iceland, etc., but there is significant concern that there will be additional policies not paid as issuers go bankrupt and that this will cause a domino effect in financial markets globally.
5. Unemployment: Compounding the impacts on our economy by dropping property values, dropping stock markets and less available credit, 2.6 million jobs were lost in 2008, which is the worst year since 1945. Over 1.3 million jobs have been lost in January and February of this year and it is likely we will break 2 million for the year when March statistics come out in April. Our national unemployment rate is already over 8%, will quite likely be at 10% before the end of the year and various talking heads suspect 12-15% is quite possible before the rate starts to go down.
Five major challenges listed and counting.
As for how many I will come up with before I complete this exercise, I cannot venture a guess.
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
Once upon a time some thousand years back a country X faced serious economic crisis resulting financial and banking institution failures, massive unemployment, trade crisis that slashed kingdom revenue. King and his chief minister were worried about moving economy. All solutions they brought were failed rather deepened further. Entire kingdom was sleepless. Worried King ordered the ministries “Perceiving economic down turn I decide to invite all the economists and ministers for their suggestions to overcome the deepening crisis and find solutions. Suitable idea will be rewarded”.
A Show Of Confidence From The Top Will End Economic Turmoil
By Ben Stein
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/08/sunday/main4852193.shtml#
March 8, 2009
We need to give credit where credit is deserved: NAME this economic crisis after the man most responsible for it's creation.
$10 trillion deficit is what we had at the end of the Bush administration. In eight years, Bush more than DOUBLED all the indebtedness America had accrued in more than 200 years.
This is more than a talking point, this is a necessary reminder that should be made every day, so that the notoriously SHORT memories of Americans shall be stimulated on a regular basis.
At the beginning of 2008, the world economy seemed to heading towards recession. Economists alarmed about its peeping face. But the world leaders upon whom the responsibility of advancing the world economy towards forward was entrusted, did not admit it at that time. They felt comfortable not to pay any heed to the fact and tried to make the world understand that the world economy was on a proper track and was behaving appropriately. Not late, the recession had appeared with all its terrible dentate appearance. The economy across the world was gradually being gripped under deep recession. World leaders had become puzzled, perplexed, bewildered and all together confused to combat the recession that gradually was spreading its evil curtain all over the world. The leaders were then holding a series of meeting in groups in Washington, Lima, Paris, London, Delhi and in many other places to take some uniform measures so as to get rid of the abyss of recession.
Meanwhile, Development economists were recalculating their growth forecasts. They were afraid, that most of the developed countries even would not be able to sustain their positive growth rate. The U.S. economy might undergo negative growth rate. China, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Korea and some other developing countries might have been able to maintain their growth rate up but that too is far below the target. For the last several years, China and India were feeling much comforts with their double digit growth rate, but now they are rescheduling their growth target. China apprehends to achieve less than 7.5% might be at 7% and India from its 7.9% growth rate last year to less than 7% growth rate in the current year. Growth rate in some others Asian countries like South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan also seems to move downwards. All together this gleams to an alarming situation for the whole world.
The big companies of most of the countries are trying to safeguard their interest by cutting jobs in huge number. In the U.S.A. meanwhile 3.6 million of people have lost their jobs. In January only in a single month in U.S.A., some 598000 people have lost their jobs. Unemployment rate in US is now 7.6%. The Bank of America some days before announced to cut thirty five thousand jobs in the next three years. The big Car Manufacturing Companies in the U.S.A. have cut about one hundred thousand jobs by this time. Some car manufacturing companies are at the verse of announcing lay-off. Sony one of the largest electronic goods producing companies in Japan has incurred losses of 199 million US dollars last year. Large scale heavy industry producing machinery goods seeing bleak days ahead with their huge investment and a large fleet of employees. Factories producing consumer’s goods also see clouds over their business sky on the backdrop of falling demand as the consumption level of the people has enormously gone down due to job cut and spreading of unemployment. It is apprehended that by the end of this year some 51 million people will loose their jobs world-wide. And thus the recession steps in gripping the world economy.
Of course, to tackle the situation the U.S. Government had spontaneously tried to put its pioneering efforts last year by launching a stimulus package of $700 billion Bail out plan to meet the liquidity crisis of the large banks and save them from bankruptcy. Under the coverage of the Bail out plan, provision was also made to help other big manufacturing companies by advancing fund. France, U.K., Belgium, Japan, India, China, Korea, Australia and some other countries have meanwhile come up with their Bail out plan following the U.S. initiatives. But it not a panacea to recover their economies suffering from the disease of recession. It is just a temporary and partial measure and at the same time it is controversial. During the Bush Administration, the U.S. Senate-upper house of the Congress did not approve such a proposal of providing fund to three big car maker companies in U.S.A though it was backed by the former U.S. president himself. The reason was obvious that the taxpayers’ money should not be given to the big companies which are at the verge of bankruptcy due to their mismanagement and mishandling of affairs. Now banks are requested to advance fund to the companies. But the banks are not willing to do so though the bank rate has been reduced to zero. However, after the assumption of President Barack Obama administration in U.S.A. a second dose of about $787 billion Bail out plan is under way.
The Bail out plan is a paradoxical approach. In stead of giving money to the hard hit middle and lower middle class people it is advocated to give to the large companies and organizations with the expectation of no jobs cutting. But the irony is this that hundreds and thousands of people in the mean time have lost their jobs. Many are scared even to loose. In the U.S.A. rate of unemployment figure now stands at about 8%, highest since 1992.
Now the question arises what measures and steps should be taken up to bring the world economy out of recession and place it on the proper track. The simple answer is to pull up the consumption level of the people at any means i.e. to increase and only to increase the market demand. Now again a question arises how it can be achieved? The following measures can be considered to this end;
1. Not a single organization should cut any more jobs. The mills and factory owners should take more responsibility to help the employees thereby the people of the nation in time of such a crisis. They are to share the impact of the crisis.
2. Payment of all kinds of bills may be kept suspended for the hard hit people.
3. Measures of tax cut may be adopted. But administration should be efficient and honest enough to ensure that the beneficiaries are actually getting the benefit.
4. Students’ tuition fees can be waived or suspended for the time being.
5. Premium of health care insurance can be waived or suspended for a certain period
6. Payment of installment for housing or mortgage can also be suspended for a considerable period of time.
7. Special Credit Card facilities can be introduced for buying goods and services with the provision of repaying its dues after a considerable period of time.
8. Banks should be asked to lend money at a generous hand with no hard conditions.
9. Money under Bail-out plan can be utilized for the mentioned above measures.
10. Owners of the firms and factories producing consumer’s goods may be advised to reduce their production level to a certain quantity with out any jobs cut.
11. The surplus consumer’s goods, which can not be marketed on consideration of existing demand level in markets, should be purchased by the Government and make a buffer stock. The Government can donate these goods to the International Refugee Camps all over the world and also to the calamities shaken and hunger driven poor countries as the U.S. did it before under PL-480. This may create additional demand for goods with out hampering the existing effective market demand. (money under the Bail out plan should be utilized to this end.)
12. The big companies producing investment goods or the machinery can sell their goods on deferred payment system to the potential entrepreneurs home and abroad.
13. To help the car producing companies, Government can buy the cars replacing the old ones at their disposal and donate to the International Organizations for humanitarian work.(Bail out plan can also work under this head.)
14. Government expenditure should have to be increased on different heads like construction of public buildings including hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, clubs, libraries; houses, roads, bridges, culverts etc. at different places with the aim of wide participation of people all over the country.
15. Alternative source of energy generation specially the “Green Energy” generation package advocated by the U.S. President Barack Obama should be launched giving much attention on environment protection.
16. Utmost importance should have to be given on establishing small industries as they generate more jobs and can easily cope up with the changing conditions of the markets. Much attention should to be given on their proper organization and efficient management as with out “proper organization and efficient management” it is quite hard to achieve the expected goals.
17. Activities of stock exchange should closely be monitored so as to prevent any abnormal or artificial behaviors or malpractices. Banking activities should also be monitored and controlled with strong hand by the Central Bank, if necessary.
If the measures, put forwarded above to recover the economy from the grip of recession now the world faces, are widely and honestly adopted with wisdom and enthusiasm, it is hopped that the economy is sure to recover from the recession within a short span of time.
# -Jahangir Azim
February 14, 2009
"Many people took out loans they were never going to be able to afford,never! That means somebody knew from day one they were never going tobe able to pay back the loans." The bankers approved these loans and used the money to pay themselves bonuses and payed our government representatives to look the other way…that’s where we are…any suggestions for getting us out of the mess are welcome…but if you just want to play the blame game…where does that get us?
Read what was spammed on the comments section of my blog:
The people that bend the rules GET PAID!
You too can bend the rules by printing out fake paystubs w-2 w2 1099 forms usinghttp://www.PROOFOFEMPLOYMENT.com
Buy a home, car or get a huge irs tax refund just for being you! Do what you have to do to get yours! EVERYONE ELSE DID!!
http://www.FAKEPAYCHECKSTUBS.com
Print out Fake Employment and Fake Income, Wages, 1099, w2, w-2, using your home computer printer!
Oy vey!!
Mr. President,
You are getting very bad advice on the economy from someone who is not a friend of working families. He has a long history of support for the very policies that got us into this mess, a long history of opposition to all the likely solutions to the economic meltdown, and a reputation that lacks integrity to put it mildly.
You need good advice. May I suggest Joseph Steiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, James Galbraith and Dean Baker? These are economists who predicted the current crisis, opposed the speculation and de-regulation that caused it, and who offer solutions that are oriented toward working Americans, not protection of Wall Street tycoons.
You got a stimulus bill passed, and that's great. It would have been a lot better had you not listened to Summers and his ideas about tax cuts. Tax cuts have not proven nearly as effective as infrastructure investment in speeding recovery. Then Summer's protege Geithner got his way on the TARP II package and was laughed off the stage and the stock market took a nose dive. Why? Because he has no idea how to solve this problem or has ruled out any ideas that would hurt his Wall Street buddies. He needs to go also.
This administration will stand or fall based on its handling of the economy. If serious reform of the system, and serious infrastructure investment are not enacted in the next year or so, there may not be another opportunity. You need advisors who will consider nationalizing the banks and seizing their worthless assets. You need advisors who will tell you that enacting single-payer health care and increasing Social Security benefits are superb ideas to rescue the economy, freeing billions for investment and jobs. You need advisors who will promote strong re-regulation of the banks and financial markets, including breaking up all the banks that are "too big to fail", mandating reasonable caps on interest rates and an end to inflated late fees. You need people who are willing to make sure that Wall Street never again takes this nation to the brink of ruin by rampant speculation and fraud.
Wake up, Mr. President! You don't have much time.
