Monday, February 23, 2009
Keep Buying Our Debt!
Clinton Urges China to Keep Buying U.S. Treasury Securities
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China to continue buying U.S. Treasury bonds to help finance President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, saying “we are truly going to rise or fall together.“Our economies are so intertwined,” Clinton said in an interview today in Beijing with Shanghai-based Dragon Television. “It would not be in China’s interest” if the U.S. were unable to finance deficit spending to stimulate its stalled economy.The U.S. is the single largest buyer of the exports that drive growth in China, the world’s third-largest economy. China in turn invests surplus earnings from shipments of goods such as toys, clothing and steel primarily in Treasury securities, making it the world’s largest holder of U.S. government debt at the end of last year with $696.2 billion.
Soros " No Sign We Are Near A Bottom"
Soros Sees No bottom For World Financial "Collapse"
Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union. He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.
Volcker: "Worse Than Depression"
Crisis May Be Worse Than Depression: Volcker
The global economy may be deteriorating even faster than it did during the Great Depression, Paul Volcker, a top adviser to President Barack Obama, said on Friday. Volcker noted that industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain."I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world," Volcker told a luncheon of economists and investors at Columbia University.
CDN Schools Fail On Financial Literacy
Failed On The Financial Literacy Front
The recent federal budget included the establishment of an independent task force to make recommendations on financial literacy, among other issues. Our organization, the Investor Education Fund, applauds this development and looks forward to working with such a committee. In the past nine years, we have learned that the key problem this task force will face is that our education system is not providing the essential skills necessary for Canadians to understand money management. As a result, Canadian households have been buried under a mountain of household debt and have forgotten the importance of saving and asset building, lessons that boomers should have learned at their parents' knees. We are not talking about learning the specifics of investment products or understanding what a short is. It's much simpler than that. There are a few concepts central to good money management – which we seem to have lost in schools and households – that are the foundation of financial prosperity.
Brown: World Needs 'Global New Deal'
Brown: World Needs 'Global New Deal'
The world needs a "global New Deal" to haul it out of the economic crisis it faces, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom said Sunday."We need a global New Deal -- a grand bargain between the countries and continents of this world -- so that the world economy can not only recover but... so the banking system can be based on... best principles," he said, referring to the 1930s American plan to fight the Great Depression.Brown was speaking as the leaders of Europe's biggest economies met to try to forge a common position on the global financial crisis ahead of a major summit in London in April.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Huge Protest Over Irish Economy
Huge Protest Over Irish Economy
About 100,000 people have taken part in protests in Dublin city centre to vent their anger at the Irish government's handling of the country's recession. They oppose plans to impose a pension levy on 350,000 public sector workers. Trade union organisers of the march said workers did not cause the economic crisis but were having to pay for it. In a statement, the Irish government said it recognised that the measures it was taking were "difficult and in some cases painful". The pension levy was "reasonable", the government said. It reflected "the reality that we are not in a position to continue to meet the public service pay bill in the circumstances of declining revenue", it added. Reports say the plan could cost the 350,000 public sector workers between 1,500 euros and 2,800 euros (£2,500) a year.
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