Government's Efforts in Emerging Markets

Well if that's the case then I guess there's nothing wrong.

An article about how Kenya & Georgia's government in their efforts in becoming more transparent in fighting corruption, while at the same time encourage the participation of its citizens in data collection. I find this intriguing as the things that they are doing has yet to be done in oother more advanced countries.

But the bigger question would be its effectiveness; which needs to be tracked over time.

The Seperated States of America

Anyone up for putting on some duct tape?

So Obama’s new stimulus plan has been criticized. Big deal. He knew it was going to happen, Congress knew about it, even the people would’ve expected it. Based on the proposal in which he will table to Congress, the new stimulus package is meant to address the issue on high unemployment while increasing domestic consumption at the same time. So how will the USD$ 447 billion stimulus package be funded? Through one off cuts from the Healthcare programmes, as well as “limiting deductions for upper middle income earners”; in other words, taxing the rich.

The so called “Buffet Rule” (with reference to Warren Buffet), I don’t think this would much a very attractive package, particularly in the eye of politicians since apparently a significant number of the House of Representatives and The Senate are meant to be millionaires? But it seems like the Republicans are much more resistant towards the idea of reshuffling the budget to spend more rather than being taxed. There’s also the matter of the effectiveness of Obama’s plan; some find it to be “non-progressive” in nature since the stimulus package is funded through one-off cuts rather than a complete overhaul on the American fiscal structure. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more on this claim.

We all know that stimulus packages are a double-edged sword; it helped them pull through the 2008 without dragging the whole world with them (but no politician will get credited for actions he took which avoided catastrophes; people have a short memory) but we’ve also seen countries like Japan pull of a number of programmes which has done nothing to help to put their economy back on track (putting both their macro and microeconomic characteristics aside that is). From Obama’s point of view, pulling an austerity stunt would without a doubt drive the American economy straight off into the Recession river. So would this measure help save them?

As much as I hate to say this, I don’t know.

The Heat Of Financial Volatility

Very nice I like very much

Turns out the sneaky Chinese government finally came out of the closet by professing that in return for buying European bonds, the EU should reciprocate by granting them "market economy" status. Pretty smart eh? I've always known that the Chinese are a bunch of sneaky people. I've always had a sense of respect for them, until this Korean guy I met told me about his opinion on the country and its government. It all came much clearer when he reminded me of the country's kanji characters; "中国", where "中" means "centre / middle" and "国" refers to country. Get it? They see themselves as the centre of the world.

On another note in relation to the current Global Financial Meltdown; the one that has been hogging all of my blogspace of late to a point where I cant find any other shit to write about since its all over the news, Steve Forbes openly criticized Barrack Obama's stimulus package by quoting Japan's experience in dealing such matter; that they have had 15 stimulus packages in the last 20 years, and the outcome? Nothing. Frankly, I couldn't agree more on this but there are vast macro and microeconomic characteristics between United States and Japan (some discussed here), so a set of stimulus measures which doesn't work in Japan, might work in United States and vice versa.

The funny thing I find about this whole ordeal is how America keeps telling Europe to get their shit together but they can't even handle their own problems. This entire charade is too politically intertwined; stimulus package is tied to America's next General Election, Europeans can't think as a united entity and China is buying debts not for investment purposes, but for political gains. It's like the whole world is a fucking stageshow!

Think about the people you twats.