Now we have it, now we don’t

 

“We’ve got to go back and have a look at everything. We are going to have to cut our cloth to suit the circumstances.”

Oh yes,we shall have to, but we may not even have any cloth to cut. At first we needed reassurance about this global financial fiasco, then we needed hope. I do not blame governments for trying to put a good look on it. The capacity for people to panic and further destabilise our already fragile global economy is very real. The truth isn’t what people could handle and still can’t because this whole situation came about in an unorthodox manner and no one cared because they were rich, they had money and who cared? The heady heights of dollars mounting up in piles in their personal portfolios was far more important. We still have to go through the process of understanding how this has all occurred and why it will bring some heartbreaking change and that we shall ALL have to work together to remedy it. No government is in an easy position because the markets were pumped up and pumped up…and yes…bang…and the bits are everywhere and we shall need some really good teams of experts to put it right. This whole this is massive financial mismanagement for short term gain…like the short selling of shares. So to put it right we have to build it back up on a solid framework and there will be things people won’t like because they loved all that money.We cannot just think in terms of the entitled and the unentitled because that hasn’t worked. We need a clear picture of how this happened. A clear picture of the impact it is having and a clear picture of the things we can do to improve the situation. Panic won’t help. Moaning won’t help. We need a decent global economy which is constructed by people who actually know how to construct a solid economy.

Budget: Swan reveals $40 billion hole

Easy Come , Easy Go

How many platitudes come to mind in a crisis…easy come, easy go, pride cometh before a fall, you win some you lose some, look after the pennies…they just keep coming. All that potted wisdom our grand parents put into us and our languages gave us as wise counsel. Out the window! All those adages were ignored and now we keep reading how every country is daily losing millions and how easy it all is. One day they are rich. Six months later they are struggling and this financial crisis is now world wide and you can see just how tied up and dependent our global economy is. People are doing things to try and fix it but we haven’t stopped the flow. Russians are losing millions. The Chinese are now losing money and the whole world is in a flap…except those who have no money. There are millions of people for whom this is irrelevant and yet the great promise by G8 to work on making poverty history is ringing rather hollowly right now. Words come easily, don’t they? All talk. There has been a lot of talk through this financial mayhem too and the subprime mortgages have a lot to answer for. We might get some positives out of the whole thing in the long run but at the moment people believe we can choose between addressing the financial crisis or global warming. The global financial crisis will be of little consequence in a planet which cannot sustain itself. I still want to know how financial people managed to make this mess. People who would want to be considered good at their job and experts in their field. So who do we trust? Who do we call? Never ceases to amaze me how, in the information age we are privy to such poor quality information! If anything has been in recession it’s prudence and common sense.

Talk Back Finance

The financial crisis has had a lot of attention on the news on television and the radio and then in the newspapers. Too much of it was devoted to blow by blow accounts of the issues without any real help and support for the general public. Of course panic set in. What would you feel if you thought your money was running out of your super and bank accounts? Fortunately leaders have started to lead instead of blowing hot air. They are daring to make decisions which will stem the flow until better solutions can be put in place by people who ought to be able to manage this. It is not all bad. We have worked out we need some regulation. We have worked out we need our finances in the hands of reliable people. We have realised that some deals haven’t been deals at all, they have been rip offs. So in a short space of time we have had the magnifying glass on world finance and we have seen the details…and hasn’t it just been all in the detail? Well, yes. Things need to be built properly. Our radios have been buzzing . The announcers who have been running talk back shows have come into their own and demonstrated just how skilled they are. They have led the citizen enlightenment programmes and a lot of it has been self help through talk back. The radio announcers have sometimes organised 3rd party experts to be on hand to participate in discussions and it has been a real think tank. There are a lot of people who know a lot who get on the phone and talk. When the experts are there they put a perceptive on it and the announcers have been asking some really pertinent questions. Who would have thought finance could be interesting, amusing, entertaining and so absorbing? The best thing is a lot of ideas have come out which could be followed up. One of the obvious ideas is to encourage part time work, both to keep older people in the work force, open up opportunities and to share the financial burden . There are always people on hand then who can do the job, because more people are skilled in it and the full time workers are not over worked nor over paid. An idea, but it might be useful to us. People are not short on ideas and I think our government has started to listen. This is democracy in action. it has been good!

The World Market

Image via Wikipedia“This created this huge bubble of debt and we’re seeing the consequences today,” Mr Tagliaferro said.

Absolutely. This hasn’t happened overnight. G7 doesn’t seem to have helped much, but then they are politicians. G20 might be better since we actually have the finance ministers together and far more countries involved, so there is some chance there will be some useful decision making. Hot air is not helping. Panic is not helping. We need a plan to help us help the world. In crisis you need a crisis management plan and you need your strategies. You need to be stemming the flow, applying the first aid and then gathering data so that you can treat the problem effectively. This article is the closest I have found to help. What we seem to be lacking is advice and suggestions to all the citizens of affected countries so that each day we can be helping the situation. Watching the stock go down, watching Wall Street, Iceland and Europe flounder is all very well. We need to be more practical. We are all jumping for joy the petrol prices have come down but that may well create some problems and in any case that hasn’t registered at the pumps. Why not? It did when the barrel price went up. So , the financial gurus have probably been consumed with the intricacies of last week. We need some of them to stand back and advise us.

Financial Crisis

Image via WikipediaOur money situation just didn’t happen just like that. It’s important to respond and not react. It’s going up, down and all over the place. The great outcome of this is that people are pooling their thinking resources and some really interesting views and explanations are being heard. Radio stations and the Net are coming into their own as they share news and views very quickly and effectively. We are really very fortunate to have an ageing population because they have a wealth of knowledge and experience on which to base some interpretations of this market. Then we have some real whizz kids out there who understand how the new terms and ideas work and can interpret that for us. The big plus of this situation is there is no generation gap. The age groups are working together harmoniously to bring some sense and sanity into all of this. Firstly it brings us information. Secondly it is bringing us strategies and thirdly it is getting so many people to think better about the current situation. The whole world is online and we are able to share our views , knowledge and experience. We are able to get information quickly and then there are people who are showing us what to do with that information. Money crises are not a bit fun and people are tearing their hair out. We just need to have confidence in our connectivity so that international experts can help us sort through this in a more comfortable way.It really is a challenge and it’s a test of whether we actually have sufficient knowledge and know how to competently steer the global markets! The good news is there is plenty of good information out there to help you sort through any decisions you might have to make.