#230 bites on global financial crisis

I found this website ‘The Baseline Scenario’ useful in understanding the global financial crisis we are experiencing.
The site provides and offers some easy to read articles, interesting videos and radio and relevant websites offering insights and education:
http://baselinescenario.com/financial-crisis-for-beginners/#video.

#221 spend, spend, spend

Is spending the only way out of recession? What kind of spending are we referring?
Spending using real money, not credit or borrowed money? How does this work when people have no job translating no income, fraught with problems?
I’m still trying to make sense that’s happening in this financial crisis.
Has man been so dishonest that greed had overtaken turning [...]

#215 yo-yo stock market

I cannot believe that I read: yesterday the US stock market soared 900 points or 11% (!) while for the past few days, in spite of monies injected, yet…there was a spiral downwards! Why no stability? Who are the suckers? Who are the winners?
Who has been deciding or manipulating the rise and fall of the stock market?!
Who is [...]

#213 european rights prize

Hu Jia, a prominent activist and currently serving jail sentence from China apparently won the European rights prize. What does this prize stand for?
Will this prize given to Hu Jia encourage more dissent in China?
When people are given the housing and food, will they rise up against the leadership of a country?
Will any nation in Europe [...]

#212 simple understanding

CNN’s senior business correspondent Ali Velshi gave this layman’s understanding on Oprah Winfrey show:
The first step toward grasping the bailout plan is to understand how we got in this mess in the first place. Ali says it started with three basic assumptions about the American economy: homes will increase in value over time, wages will go up over [...]

#207 who do you trust?

Having money is a problem these days. Putting money in the bank is no consolation either.
You lose your hard earned cash when a financial institution collapsed. I was told you could file for misrepresentation — that the profile of products bought did not suit the personality of one. How does this work?
The high turnover of officers serving you in [...]

#203 the new poor

There was concerted effort to weed out poverty.
Will this global financial crisis set to increase widespread poverty? 
Today’s poverty is not those living in the 3rd world countries but in the first world!
In the 1929 great depression, this depression followed after the Wall Street Crash. However this global financial crisis has taken more than 10 years after [...]

#201 a roof over my head

I’m grateful to our Singapore’s first echelon of leaders under the leadership of the then prime minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew who concertedly provided housing for her citizens.
Not that the government provided cheap-rented housing but they were able to come up with a national scheme known as the central provident fund where we were forced to set aside [...]

#196 a new financial world emerging?

It seems the global financial crisis we’re experiencing at the moment is deeper and more serious than anticipated.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers has caused domino effect on many financial institutions creating turmoil, tsunami, hurricane… Is this the true face of credit crunch?
Below a video clip of NY trader Arthur D Cashin Jr with almost 50 years of [...]

#98 global rice grain crisis

I’m boggled at the escalating increase in the price of grains, especially rice. The poor in countries like Haiti, Philippines, Bangladesh and others took to the streets in protests and violence…
Due to climate change, for instance, drought in Australia but what about other rice growing countries?
An assumption that the rise of India and China economically, people will consume more [...]