Amid all the hoo-hah about September 16 (or 916 as it now seems to be popularly known as), a tsunami of a different kind was crashing through the world of economics. First up, the price of crude oil dropped to US$92 per barrel. Great news for the little people; not so great for speculators and investors.
I wonder if retailers in Malaysia are keeping abreast of this latest development, especially the eateries and the mamaks. They were quick to raise prices when petrol prices went up; I wonder if those sods will reverse the trend. Highly unlikely, though. I'm sure they'll be concocting some barely-plausible excuse on why prices are being maintained. "Apa nak buat, saya punya lori guna petrol special punya." Bloody cutthroats. Which makes one smile with glee at the fate of the nasi kandar operators, who are often boycotted for the slightest unsavoury issue (politics, Hindraf, etc). They deserve it, each and every day gone by with barely a handful customers.
Then there was this shocker of an announcement: Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy. And Merrill Lynch had been bought over by Bank of America. Okay, I will not profess to being an expert in economics. I'm not one of those no-lifers who switch to Bloomberg or CNBC first thing in the morning; it's Eurosport for me. When I first heard the news on CNN, I was wondering who the hell Jens Lehmann's sibling was. I had never known of his prominent 'sibling', renowned enough to receive the moniker 'Brothers'. Wikipedia put an end to my ignorance, and I was soon swallowed by this cavern of information available at the end of every blue-coloured word or phrase.
It seems the economic earthquake that was the US subprime mortgage crisis has continued to send wave after wave of destruction across major stock markets and indices. Many economists and investors had anticipated the demise of the crisis, and it's now come back with a vengeance. Well, I wouldn't say now now. It started, in my humble reckoning, with the Bear Stearns buy-out by JP Morgan Chase in May this year. The next victims were the aptly-named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bailed out by the US Government.
And it just got worse when Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch announced their capitulation under the combined onslaught of bad debts and dried up capital. AIG is at this very moment scrambling to find a White Knight to aid them in what is surely their 'darkest moment'. Analysts are predicting more standalone banks, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to be next in the path of this tsunami of apocalyptic proportions. Wonder what all those Italian-suited, glib talking, capitalistic conniving executives are going to do, since almost 80% of them would be unemployed, if they aren't already. A spot on The Apprentice, perhaps?
I think Noel Gallagher nailed it when he said "Americans buy on credit" [sic] (when the Abu Dhabi sheikhs bought over Man City). Everything there seems to be linked to credit, mortgage, loans or borrowings. Houses, cars, college educations, health care - everything. Heck, they even bought Man Utd and Liverpool using money that wasn't theirs. It's not such a 'land of opportunity' if one is mired, shoulder-high, in credit crap, is it?
We're all plastic addicts, admittedly. But I reckon, the sooner we recognise that plastic cash and virtual money chain us to the cubicle, the better. Best bet, keep just one credit card, and only use it for emergencies (like hospitals and such). Other than that, get a nice, soft sheath for it, and keep it locked in a box. Never delude yourself into thinking, "oh, I use it to collect points for petrol, ya-dee-da." Calculate the value of your redeemed gift, compare it against the amount spent to accumulate the points, and do the math, genius.
You'll be mildly surprised.
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