Sunday, November 30, 2008

Biggest Slowdown Since 1929

By Don Bethune

Aided by major advances in Information Technology,the GDP's of the United States and other countries has risen dramatically during the 1990's and into the current century. Economic and financial advances and declines are of course cyclical yet few experts or analysts in the global market place anticipated the rapid financial meltdowns we have witnessed in recent weeks and months, the steepest decline since 1929.

This unfortunate and however remarkable incident has proved the need of redefining and re-strengthening the current financial chemistry. For instance the biggest bail out package, cuts in CRR up to 150 bps have proved itself insufficient to prevent the steep fall in stock indexes across different global exchanges.

For instance the experts comments over the fall of one of the largest banks in US the Lehman Brothers is said to be a calculated and well predicted with time. The policies, strategy, pay role to the employees, exposure to in-calculated field, mortgages over last decade clearly indicates a poor management and policies adopted by the company. If these were so much visible to the experts then why action were not take with time? similar kind of stories lies beneath the fall of other biggies too. These have made many investors, employees and IT companies to shut down the shop or making them bankrupt.

The question arises here is how long and how many times a country or banks would be able to prevent these debacle? Is our strategy of investment or portfolio being adopted is healthy enough to promise a sustainable growth rate. Surprisingly the recent G7 meeting couldn't find out feasible solutions.

Ironically at the present juncture economies like China and US who always stand Back to Back have without joining their had are trying their level best to save their economy which in turn, though un-intentional is helping other countries to recover from the same.

The practice of instituting financial rescue or bailout packages begs the question as to how long and at what cost will financial institutions and economies be able to withstand the pressure leading to future debacles. While the financial situation is under repair the investor has to review is or her own patterns of investment to determine how, from this time forward, to gain a sustainable growth rate.

Instead of finding out all these hook and crook at the time of turmoil political leaders of prosperous and responsible nations should sit together to decide strategies, which can prevent such collapses in future. IF incase these solutions doesn't crop up from them then small investors should be careful while making any decision in putting their money in.

All to often when we read the news about the plunging stock market we may feel unaffected unless we ourselves are players in the market. What is not always so apparent is the slowdown in the economy, noticeable loss of jobs and lowering of wages resulting from loss of share values. The average citizen needs to be aware of the effects of what is going on in the marketplace on his or her own well being. The road to recovery isn't just about saving major financial institutions but also about educating the average citizen about what this all can mean to him or her. - 15432

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