There is no way around that question, is there?
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by Philipina A. Marcelo
Ugh, commotion - the economic kind!
I was still stunned by all the images from the London riots and all that report about the Asian stock market skidding dangerously, sending tremors to the US stock market, which is predominantly "in the red" right this very moment, and to the already battered European economy, as well, following the Greek economic woes, and the growing Spanish and Italian economic troubles that are slowly going out of control... and then there's that report on China's growing "displeasure" (why does that sound very "scary"?) for the Washington D.C. politics that's pushing the US government to the peripherals of default... when BBC announced that live feed from the White House - Pres. Barack Obama, the announcement said, will be addressing the issue on US government's downgraded AAA credit rating. Yeah, that issue, which evoked anger from many fronts in Washington D.C. the past few days... and is probably causing all sorts of panic from investors and creditors worldwide. Thus, the red downward arrows in the stock market? Uh-huh....
Tik-tak, tik-tak....
Okay, just heard Pres. Obama address the issue on Standard and Poor's downgrading of the US government's debt rating. Nope, didn't sound promising. Oh, boy! Tsk, tsk... and we thought we'd seen the worst of the recent economic catastrophe, didn't we? Are we ever going to see the light at the end of this long and dark tunnel? Okay, time to call in the expert to dissect this "mess" for us... Prof. Paul Krugman, who else! And let's do it quick 'cause Bloomberg Television is screaming "massive sell-out" in the NYSE! Uh-oh, here we go again....
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Are they? Are we? Will we? Who will?
Is the US headed to another recession? Hmmm... but maybe, the more important question is, can the world withstand another US recession? 'Cause if the US failed, to whom would the world cling to? Eurozone is already deep in its own economic woes, with a lot of questions, the answers to which need a lot of figuring out. Japan is still reeling from the aftermath of that catastrophe in March and its own economic woes rooted as far back as the '90s. The rich Middle East? They are highly on "experimental" stage... while they provide a very exciting economic "playground", who knows about their economic resilience? China? I don't think so. It hasn't shown itself "open" enough for any sort of "clinging". :) That a US debt default should worry them, displease them even, is "interesting". That they have been proposing the use of an international trade currency, instead of the US$, which obviously is tied to the US economy's health, for the longest time now is "scary". The fact that they're at it again as the US economy is falling ill again... is "doubly scary"! How wealthy exactly are they? How much of the $ on the face of the earth is theirs? How much of the world is already "theirs"?
Uhm... *sigh* let's just talk about football again, shall we? ;)
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