10-01-2008, 09:56 PM
<b>Is anarchy loosed upon the world?
</b>
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
'TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ..."
<b>
The above are the first four lines of William Butler Yeats' poem The Second Coming and they resound today as the pillars of capitalism continue to crash like dominoes. This financial storm began with the unfettered greed that fed the sub-prime feeding frenzy until US property prices started sliding and finally collapsing leading to over three million Americans in the process of having lost, losing or about to lose their homes. Foreclosures by lenders also helped to speed the downward spiral and major banks in the US and on the European continent that were sucked into the sub-prime whorl were saddled with billions of dollars or euros in bad loans. Recovery will take years.</b>
The US$700 billion ($1,001 billion) bailout awaiting the nod despite much bickering between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, has been estimated to cost every American, including babies and children, about US$2,300. Having unlearnt the lessons of the last Great Depression that began with the collapse of Wall Street on October 29, 1929, it will be the poor and the homeless Americans who will pay the biggest price. Removing the rules and regulations that kept unfettered greed at bay, the US economic gurus of laissez faire market policies have led to an economy hurtling blindingly without reins and unbridled greed as regulations fell one by one by the wayside. Under such circumstances, collapse was nothing but inevitable and the market that was allegedly supposed to correct itself fell apart like Humpty Dumpty.
<b>
In today's era of globalisation, the US financial debacle will have an immediate impact on world markets which has led to International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn predicting financial anarchy in the world. While Asian economies have been largely left quite untouched, with Japan and China offering Asian financial support for what is left of the US economy, the US meltdown will definitely hit Asian exporters and their incomes.</b> Meanwhile, the Business Spectator points to the "other US$700 billion and growing US trade deficit accumulated mainly through the net cost of trade with China and the cost of oil imports. These dollars that have gone abroad are coming back to purchase US securities which the Spectator estimates at US$6.5 trillion currently and growing at US$50 billion a month. At this juncture, it is people like former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who has been wagging his fingers at the US for the way in which he was chastised for rejecting IMF help and instituting currency controls after the Asian financial meltdown of 1997/98.
On top of this, the US is also fighting a war on two fronts and not making much headway to put it mildly. Now with its hollowed out Treasury and having frittered, or perhaps squandered, its once superstrong financial might, one wonders where the funds will come to finance the expensive war on terror that has already estimated to have cost the American people over US$3 trillion. The Bush administration will probably go down in history as the worst and most inept in American history. Amidst this it is Dick Cheney, probably the most powerful US vice-president in history, that must take a large part of the blame for many of the human rights abuses and failings under the Bush administration.
</b>
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
'TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ..."
<b>
The above are the first four lines of William Butler Yeats' poem The Second Coming and they resound today as the pillars of capitalism continue to crash like dominoes. This financial storm began with the unfettered greed that fed the sub-prime feeding frenzy until US property prices started sliding and finally collapsing leading to over three million Americans in the process of having lost, losing or about to lose their homes. Foreclosures by lenders also helped to speed the downward spiral and major banks in the US and on the European continent that were sucked into the sub-prime whorl were saddled with billions of dollars or euros in bad loans. Recovery will take years.</b>
The US$700 billion ($1,001 billion) bailout awaiting the nod despite much bickering between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, has been estimated to cost every American, including babies and children, about US$2,300. Having unlearnt the lessons of the last Great Depression that began with the collapse of Wall Street on October 29, 1929, it will be the poor and the homeless Americans who will pay the biggest price. Removing the rules and regulations that kept unfettered greed at bay, the US economic gurus of laissez faire market policies have led to an economy hurtling blindingly without reins and unbridled greed as regulations fell one by one by the wayside. Under such circumstances, collapse was nothing but inevitable and the market that was allegedly supposed to correct itself fell apart like Humpty Dumpty.
<b>
In today's era of globalisation, the US financial debacle will have an immediate impact on world markets which has led to International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn predicting financial anarchy in the world. While Asian economies have been largely left quite untouched, with Japan and China offering Asian financial support for what is left of the US economy, the US meltdown will definitely hit Asian exporters and their incomes.</b> Meanwhile, the Business Spectator points to the "other US$700 billion and growing US trade deficit accumulated mainly through the net cost of trade with China and the cost of oil imports. These dollars that have gone abroad are coming back to purchase US securities which the Spectator estimates at US$6.5 trillion currently and growing at US$50 billion a month. At this juncture, it is people like former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who has been wagging his fingers at the US for the way in which he was chastised for rejecting IMF help and instituting currency controls after the Asian financial meltdown of 1997/98.
On top of this, the US is also fighting a war on two fronts and not making much headway to put it mildly. Now with its hollowed out Treasury and having frittered, or perhaps squandered, its once superstrong financial might, one wonders where the funds will come to finance the expensive war on terror that has already estimated to have cost the American people over US$3 trillion. The Bush administration will probably go down in history as the worst and most inept in American history. Amidst this it is Dick Cheney, probably the most powerful US vice-president in history, that must take a large part of the blame for many of the human rights abuses and failings under the Bush administration.