i'm both encouraged, as well as concerned watching the world leaders attempt to resolve, or at least lessen the impact of the current financial crisis - labeled by many to be the worst since the great depression (ominously, the great depression was one of the greatest reason that hitler manged to come into power leading to the waging of the second world war.) - caused by the credit crunch.
i'm greatly encouraged by the decisiveness and the determination of the leaders of the 'big' countries to not allow the banks, and in so doing the market to fail, by pumping billions of dollars into the banks to secure the banks' credit and therefore, encourage the banks to lend to each other, which hopefully will galvanise the market.
what was impressive of such a move, was that despite many of the observers' naysayings, claiming that the eu disagreed more that they agree and therefore will not be able to come up with a plan both daring and quickly enough to salvage the free-falling market, and that the eu has no real ability to handle such a crisis, the eu surprised many, by following britain's lead, when they announced that the eu, as a whole will inject billions of dollars, what ever that is needed, to secure the failing banks. such a bold move would not only require trust between the member states, run up gargantuan deficits, but also goes against the very principle of capitalism, in which the market is supposed to regulate itself, with little or no interference from the government. now, however, governments are buying into the banks' shares, somewhat against the principles of capitalism; yet this is what needs to be done, the hard choice, and the eu, made it nonetheless.
soon after that, the united states of america followed, and then, governments of countries all over the world, singapore included, made a pledge to secure the assets of banks, and in singapore's case, till 2010. this led to one of the strongest all-time rallies in the stock markets all over the world after a week of plunging values of the stocks, with investors feeling a little more confident, an acknowledgement to the governments almost radical move to handle financial crisis.
conversely, i too am deeply concerned that such resoluteness has never been shown when it comes to dealing with an arguably more critical, albeit less urgent, issue - global warming. like the financial crisis, tough choices have to be made, radical solutions thought of, and great co-operation and trust between nations are needed in order to solve this problem. disconcertingly, many are still debating the validity of global being a man-made phenomena. notice the word phenomena, when words like "crisis" and "catastrophe" could very well be more felicitous should we continue to drag our feet in dealing with this matter and procrastinate. in fact, the contrast between the manner which the world's leaders moved to deal with the financial crisis (note the change in diction) and the protracted talks for pledges to cut down carbon emissions could not be any sharper.
but then again, are we not too guilty of such a charge? of placing things that appear to be more urgent then things that are truly of importance.
how many times have we brushed our loved ones off, our parents or siblings, or any one else that we care about, when we are engrossed in our computer games?
how many times have we gave up the opportunity to meet up with our friends because we are lazy and want to sleep in?
how many times have we neglected those that we care so much about because of work, or even studies?
but will the urgent things last? will they truly be something that we will look back and smile to ourselves, saying that we're glad that we invested part of our lives in that, or will we look back ruefully and lament our senselessness in focusing on the things that reward us with instant gratification, while overlooking the things that mean something, the things that last, the things that are truly important.
p.s. please let me know if there are any errors in my "facts" in the earlier parts of entry; i've never quite learned to enjoy reading the business section in the papers. thanks.