Saturday, November 29, 2008

Biggest Slowdown Since 1929

By Don Bethune

The rapid growth of telecommunication with the emerge of IT industry has kept the GDP and different growth parameters steep rising post 1990s.However far beyond the imaginations and expectations of researchers, experts, analyst across the globe the recent turmoil in credit market, banking sector in the banks of USA, European and few Asian banks are the largest since 1929.

This unfortunate and however remarkable incident has proved the need of redefining and re-strengthening the current financial chemistry. For instance the biggest bail out package, cuts in CRR up to 150 bps have proved itself insufficient to prevent the steep fall in stock indexes across different global exchanges.

It seems strange that the collapse of several major financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers came as such a surprise. Hindsite shows that there were plenty of danger signals which if heeded may have prevented this major problem. The business model of Lehman Brothers, their lending practices, and their operating practices, if attended to and revised at an earlier time may have saved the company and kept employees and shareholders holding a bag containing precious little.

We have to ask, how many other financial institutions face the same fate and what financial help to retool their business models. What is it that needs to be done to enable our economies to get back on track and experience a solid and sustainable growth rate once again. Even the G7 has yet to find the answer to this dilemma.

Ironically at the present juncture economies like China and US who always stand Back to Back have without joining their had are trying their level best to save their economy which in turn, though un-intentional is helping other countries to recover from the same.

The practice of instituting financial rescue or bailout packages begs the question as to how long and at what cost will financial institutions and economies be able to withstand the pressure leading to future debacles. While the financial situation is under repair the investor has to review is or her own patterns of investment to determine how, from this time forward, to gain a sustainable growth rate.

The small investor having been burned by the recent slide will no doubt be very cautious as to when and where to invest any additional money. And well he should be until the political leaders of the countries most involved get together and put in place practices designed not only to reverse the current situation to prevent it from happening again.

A common man when reads an article on crisis in share indexes doesn't understand or even bothers to think how this effects his life. However the same person when unfortunately gets laid off from his organization accounting slow down as reason blames his luck. Awareness among common people about ups and downs of stock graph would help them to improve their life style.

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