Germany is a great nation. The country also saw the emergence of a great hero, or devil depending on how you look at it – Adolf Hitler. He participated in both worlds’ greatest war, World War I and II. I can’t imagine what would happen to Germany if Hitler never invaded Soviet Union and spared the three million elite German troops and the much feared and greatest tanks of all time, Panzer, to guard his newly acquired territory of Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Northern African Countries, Romania and Bulgaria. Arrogance and greed were the main reasons that soon sent Germany to her defeat and Hitler his death. If only he listened to his advisors.

Amazingly both countries that were defeated in the World War II, Japan and Germany, rebound and becomes world’s third and fifth largest economy respectively. However the Germans are not so happy lately. As expected the U.S. Congress finally passed (263 – 171 in favor) and President Bush signed the $700 billion rescue plan. So I guess everything is settled as if we’ve traveled through the time machine back to the future to the good time, no? At least the Dow didn’t panic and only drop 157 points, better than the previous 777 points drop *grin*. The Congress’s vote of approval might help to calm the stock market in the sense that wild volatility would most probably contained and depositors don’t need to worry about their money now that the amount of deposits covered by FDIC increased from $100,000 to $250,000.

Unfortunately an economic downturn is happening. You can choose to argue until the cows come back whether U.S.’s economy is technically in recession (Warren Buffett believed so months ago) but in reality the times are getting tougher. Despite Germany’s surplus of $185 billion compared to United States’ deficit of $731 billion in 2007 and the fact that the Germans save on average 11 percent of their incomes into savings accounts, the country that once ruled most of the European countries is mumbling about having to bailout their financial institutions as a result of United States’ own problem. Not even the mighty “Terminator” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is immune from current crisis that the California state is screaming for $7 billion emergency loan from federal government because it is running out of cash.

All the eyeballs are now monitoring on how the $700 billion will be disburse effectively to meet the objectives. But if the Dow’s performance is any indicator to goes by, it appears that majority of the investors, analysts and economists do not think the $700 billion bailout plus the $150 billion tax breaks will do any good and the monies are as good as flushed down the toilet. Sure, now that the U.S. economy is in a huge mess it quickly becomes the laughing stock. Countries (such as Malaysia) that was criticized (and laughed at) because it didn’t subscribe to the IMF medicine during the 1997-1998 Asia Crisis are now giggling and laughing back at the military power-house United States. No doubt that U.S. is literally bankrupt and relies on printed monies without the backing of gold reserve (go check the Fort Knox) as claimed by such parties but like it or not all the economic super-powers are holding huge amount of U.S. Treasury bills. Japan owns $593 billion and China has $519 billion while Asian countries hold more than $1 trillion of these IOUs. Why?

Now I realized the truth when one of the wise-man told me “If you want to owe money, make sure your debts is as huge as possible”. Try to owe the bank millions of dollars yourself and chances are high you’ll be given VIP treatment and you can negotiate for the lowest interest rate in town. Go try it if you don’t believe me. As of now the U.S. national debt stands at $10 trillion with each citizen’s share of about $33,300.00. You can laugh back at the U.S.’s economic backyard now but it won’t take another decade for the same mess to happen in another countries. The point here is do we learn from our past mistakes and take the “right” medicine no matter how bitter it is? I doubt so and if you have politician suckers running the financial show as well, chances are high the taxpayers’ money will be used again to bailout many more inefficient fat cats.

I read that the blogger, Kickdefella, was toying with the prospect of being kicked into the detention center without trial (ISA) when he claimed that the outgoing PM Abdullah Badawi actually received RM200 million from the total of half a billion ringgit commission gotten from the submarine deal. He claimed the money was paid by deputy PM and PM-in-waiting Najib Razak’s wife, Rosmah. This is absolutely ridiculous because Malaysian politicians are the cleanest and can never be so corrupt, can they? RM200 million is a lot of money and I can tell you a dozen of good companies to buy over after their share prices took the beating lately. Do we really have that US$119 international reserves as claimed by the new Finance Minister Najib recently? It would be interesting to get an independent auditor to perform such check else all our jaws will drop to the floor one fine day when we open the vault only to find a couple of pussy meowing inside.

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• Waiting for Congress’s “Aye” but the Problem is Gigantic
• Economic 9/11 after $700 billion Bailout Plan Rejected
• Panic again, $700 billion is insufficient to treat disease

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October 4th, 2008 by financetwitter

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