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Thursday 21 October 2010

Uncle Sam's Role

Uncle Sam's global banks' greed and financial engineering created the worst financial crisis of 2008/2009 since the Great Depression.  Subsequently the whole world was plunged into recession and many people were unemployed. With massive bailouts and stimulus packages, Uncle Sam managed to put the world's largest economy back on track.  It lowered its interest rate to almost zero and also instituted "Quantitative Easing 1" - printing money!  As a result the US dollars devalued and "cheap money" caused the world's commodities' prices, stock exchanges, real estates to escalate - my food prices,petrol, my cup of coffee, the gold jewellery that I buy, the property prices that are transacted are unimaginable!  Now there is talk of "Quantitative Easing 2" (printing more money) -  more cheap money looking for better yield creating bubbles in the world's stock exchanges, commodities, properties and prompting talk of currency wars. Uncle Sam must be mindful of what action it takes or does not take because it has implications and consequences for the whole world!  We all hope and trust its action will always be appropriate, measured and most important of all responsible!!!!!

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Why Aren't The Americans More Appreciative of Their President Barack Obama

According to the latest polls, the approval rating of President Barack Obama has fallen to 44%.  He has my full sympathy for holding on to the world's most powerful job but alas a "thankless" job nevertheless!  The irony is that he has just rescued America from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929 by providing massive bailouts for the auto and banking sectors and stimulus packages.  With almost a decade of overspending and over-leverage the American economy has to drain itself of the excesses and to slowly de-leverage.  An economy is like a battleship, it slowly turns around.  With unemployment at 10% it is inevitable that the American public is losing patience and heart!  However, I see the American President as a person who has "the helicopter view" of the whole problem: he knows the options, trade-offs, solutions,etc. I gauge this from watching the many media interviews/telecasts and town-hall meetings that he hosted. I guess you just have to give him time. I hope that his race and family background has got nothing to do with this!  American politics is complex and has many moving parts.  I just wish President Obama the best of luck!!!