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Posts Tagged ‘great depression’

Europe was officially in recession last Friday, November 14, 2008. The 15-nation Euro Zone economy fell by 0.2% in the second quarter in a row and in other words, this really means recession.

Actually, I am not a financial analyst or economist in any way and I don’t know about money market, and even I cannot handle my own personal finance, but I am fond of researching on things that I don’t know, and it’s only recent that I got the chance to know the real meaning of recession. This term does not bother me because I don’t really know what the heck it is, and according to one reliable source, it means that it is a contraction phase in a business cycle wherein it is a period of reduced economic activity. Well, I think these terms will blow my brains out, so let’s just get to business shall we?

According to reports, more than $30 trillion has been deducted from the value of global equity markets this year and $966 billion was the sum of credit losses and writedowns in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

House prices are falling sharply in the U.K. Santander, a prominent Spanish bank that owns the U.K. mortgage lender Abbey has also lost 6.9 percent. BNP Paribas, France largest bank dropped also at 8.1 percent to 43.02 euros.

Germany’s biggest cement maker, HeidelbergCement, dropped to 22 percent to 39.90 euros. Bodycote Plc, U.K. supplier of metal-strengthening services to Ford Motor Co. also dopped to 22 percent to 96 pence.

U.S. economy was hit heavily by the financial crisis. Citigroup, one of the financial companies being relentlessly bashed by the crisis, plans of cutting off jobs by as much as 20% of its workforce.

Sun Microsystems Inc, announced it would layoff 10% of its staff to cut off cost.

Freddie Mac, the second-largest US home loan financing provider, reported a $25 billion quarterly loss as the housing loan spiraling down, and asking a $100 billion lifeline from the Treasury Department.

Fidelity Investments, the world’s biggest mutual fund company, announced also that it will need to lessened 1,700 jobs on top of 1,300 already announced.

There is also the possibility of mass layoffs on automobiles manufacturers, particularly at General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.

Almost the entire community right now are in great danger due to the financial crunch that hit every nation and leaders of G-20 held a two-days summit to discuss on ways to resolve the crisis.

I really don’t know much about finance because I for myself didn’t finish with a business degree. I actually graduated with computer engineering course so please bear with me in explaining what I only read on the news because for me, it is really troubling. No doubt, world finance is really sick, and I really don’t know how a simple guy like me can help but just to report the current news.

This is one sensitive topic that I for myself will surely need to be aware of. I for one, is currently working in one of the top call centers here in the Philippines and one thing that came to my mind right away when I heard and read the news regarding the financial crunch in the United States is…will call centers in the Philippines be affected by the current financial crisis in the Philippines?

Actually if I’m not that kind of worried when time comes that I be forced out of job because of the current economic situation in the United States, because I know for myself that can easily adapt in this situation because I know that I didn’t put in all my eggs in one basket.

However, this problem will surely affect our country bigtime because we all know that call centers is one of the lifeline of our ailing country now. It provided jobs for our youth today. It does not only provide jobs but provided a really high-paying career. Many families depended on this industry and became the bread and butter for so many of us.

All of us definitely would not want another great depression to happen in this age. But when worst comes to worst, the United States, which would be hit hard might go into recession and lay-offs will surely follow. And it would not take a rocket scientist to expect that their working population will need every work they can get, and of course big companies in the United States that employs our fellow men in the call center industry here in our country will definitely need to pull off in their offshore sites like here in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world where they provide cheap pay in the workforce in order to provide the jobs in their home country.

We may not experience the problem now, but who knows, maybe next year might be a bleak year to some of us or to all of us! We do not want that. We don’t want that to happen. So, I hope and I think all of us will hope that everything will weather down any time soon. We all want to sleep soundly, right?

Just like what I post in the headline, G-7 financial leaders guarantee to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets to prevent a global financial meltdown since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Germany and France endorsed the plan of the United States to buy equity stakes in a very broad variety of banks and financial institutions.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted within 1,000 points before closing last week. On Friday, investors’ loss came almost to $100 billion.

Panic is the cause of this turmoil, the Financial Times reported this last week. Many investors panicked and sell that prompted the crash in the stock market last week.

The unstable swing in the stock market this past two weeks reminded us a lot like what happen in October 1929 when the Dow Jones industrial average gyrate sharply on October 23, Wednesday, and then came to a free fall the next day and it became known as “Black Thursday”.

The next day, a banker tried to save the day by buying shares in steel, and everyone thinks that this will help start the rebuilding of the market; however, the following week, seems to be much nastier than before because there seems to be no one interested to buy anymore and everyone were selling.

The index crashed by 13 percent and after that, the market took a beating again for another 12 percent. By early November, 50 percent was lost in the stock market’s value and many Americans saw their wealth slowly disappeared.

And what will you expect for the normal employees to experience? Of course, layoffs, millions were laid offs. Jobless Americans roam the streets. They all expect a dole out from the government to weather those times. If not only for those brave and cunning businessmen and entrepreneurs that tried to succeed, it might last much longer than expected.

Let’s all hope that history will not repeat itself because we don’t want another great depression to be felt by everyone now, because it is really terrible and awful to be in this state of life again.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…