I always refer the Global Financial Crisis as the new Great Depression.
Without governmental involvement, assuming the government does nothing to stop the Depression (which seemed to only make things worse), the economy would have definitely shrunk 10% or more. This fits into the technical definition of an economic depression. Or maybe this depression is even worse than the previous one, because unlike the previous one, the governments literally go broke to stimulate the economy, to no avail.
Worse of all, unlike the previous Great Depression, life seems to be standing at a standstill. New land can't be developed, families can't be formed, confidence is dashed and everybody seems to wait for Germany and China for solutions for the whole world.
I can guess Germany's ultimate solution to the whole problem: just let the PIIGS fail on their on (and along with them, Britain). As for China's solutions, allow me to just say China will rather spend all their time singing communism songs than to do any constructive thing to build the global economy, since all the PRCs seem to have is their self-interest as a nation.
View attachment 1648
These pressing times present opportunities to a few countries who still can do wonders, however.
One of them is New Zealand, which I have mentioned earlier, somehow finding the strength to build their country after a big earthquake.
Another could be Indonesia, which receives new capital investment from China, and now have factories that hum non-stop. (For the purpose of this entry, I consider Western Australia to be part of 'Indonesia', since they also benefit from massive, unimaginably large Chinese investments, more so than the relatively stagnating Australian heartland from Sydney to Melbourne).
The third country that has opportunities, despite my repeated denials, is my own.
Yes. The country that has quotas for its public university admissions, up till now. Yes, the country with vicrtually non-exisitent support services for adult autistic people. And yes, the country that cannot feed or hydrate itself. For the little resources given to the people, Singapore still created wonders.
Singapore achieved a marginal economic decline in 2009 (actually just whiskers from economy expansion, thanks to governmental spending that was accumulated over the years), and has a 14% economic growth in 2010. This year? Technical recession, and the government is ready to spend money in the next Budget, to ward off another, and bigger, wave of import-led economic contraction.
Many of my classmates are unemployed, despite most of them being NTs. Companies prefer to invest in capital expenditure rather than in new employees. But never before had Singaporeans who are lucky to have no crippling 'disorders' or 'diseases' got so much opportunities lying ahead of them.
First of all, for all the bad press given, China's domestic economy is booming, so does India's and most of ASEAN's. Singapore, strategically located in the nexus of different countries, stands to benefit the most from active trade flows.
Secondly, Singapore's top-tier talents who survived through tough challenges have bright futures ahead. Understand that we Singapore has only 5 universities for 5 million people, while 3 are boutique universities (for business, engineering and applied science). Practically, we only have 2 universities with no community college system. This gives rise to the 'minimum percentage' (actually, maximum, from the looks of it) of 20% of the total number of Singaporean students (including foreign students). And assume that there is indeed a top half of the class, which is definitely more motivated than 'norm'. What gives? Well, this is why we have a top 10% of the population empowered by their tremendous amounts of opportunities. They are the best of our best. They make use of their competence to go through so much, to create more wonders for our economy.
It is said that the top 10% have so much in their hands, they are the ones who create Singapore's futures. From the looks of it, they have so much opportunities here, it's hard to see the most able of Singaporean talents passing better opportunities elsewhere for their career developments. There could be exceptions for now, but with Asia rising and Singapore capitalizing on the Asian boom, our best talents stay here.
Perhaps more importantly, Singapore has free trade agreements with various countries (particularly ASEAN, China, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and the United States), which open new doors of opportunities for its people to enter, if only we have enough money or know-how to know how - more will succeed.
Without governmental involvement, assuming the government does nothing to stop the Depression (which seemed to only make things worse), the economy would have definitely shrunk 10% or more. This fits into the technical definition of an economic depression. Or maybe this depression is even worse than the previous one, because unlike the previous one, the governments literally go broke to stimulate the economy, to no avail.
Worse of all, unlike the previous Great Depression, life seems to be standing at a standstill. New land can't be developed, families can't be formed, confidence is dashed and everybody seems to wait for Germany and China for solutions for the whole world.
I can guess Germany's ultimate solution to the whole problem: just let the PIIGS fail on their on (and along with them, Britain). As for China's solutions, allow me to just say China will rather spend all their time singing communism songs than to do any constructive thing to build the global economy, since all the PRCs seem to have is their self-interest as a nation.
View attachment 1648
These pressing times present opportunities to a few countries who still can do wonders, however.
One of them is New Zealand, which I have mentioned earlier, somehow finding the strength to build their country after a big earthquake.
Another could be Indonesia, which receives new capital investment from China, and now have factories that hum non-stop. (For the purpose of this entry, I consider Western Australia to be part of 'Indonesia', since they also benefit from massive, unimaginably large Chinese investments, more so than the relatively stagnating Australian heartland from Sydney to Melbourne).
The third country that has opportunities, despite my repeated denials, is my own.
Yes. The country that has quotas for its public university admissions, up till now. Yes, the country with vicrtually non-exisitent support services for adult autistic people. And yes, the country that cannot feed or hydrate itself. For the little resources given to the people, Singapore still created wonders.
Singapore achieved a marginal economic decline in 2009 (actually just whiskers from economy expansion, thanks to governmental spending that was accumulated over the years), and has a 14% economic growth in 2010. This year? Technical recession, and the government is ready to spend money in the next Budget, to ward off another, and bigger, wave of import-led economic contraction.
Many of my classmates are unemployed, despite most of them being NTs. Companies prefer to invest in capital expenditure rather than in new employees. But never before had Singaporeans who are lucky to have no crippling 'disorders' or 'diseases' got so much opportunities lying ahead of them.
First of all, for all the bad press given, China's domestic economy is booming, so does India's and most of ASEAN's. Singapore, strategically located in the nexus of different countries, stands to benefit the most from active trade flows.
Secondly, Singapore's top-tier talents who survived through tough challenges have bright futures ahead. Understand that we Singapore has only 5 universities for 5 million people, while 3 are boutique universities (for business, engineering and applied science). Practically, we only have 2 universities with no community college system. This gives rise to the 'minimum percentage' (actually, maximum, from the looks of it) of 20% of the total number of Singaporean students (including foreign students). And assume that there is indeed a top half of the class, which is definitely more motivated than 'norm'. What gives? Well, this is why we have a top 10% of the population empowered by their tremendous amounts of opportunities. They are the best of our best. They make use of their competence to go through so much, to create more wonders for our economy.
It is said that the top 10% have so much in their hands, they are the ones who create Singapore's futures. From the looks of it, they have so much opportunities here, it's hard to see the most able of Singaporean talents passing better opportunities elsewhere for their career developments. There could be exceptions for now, but with Asia rising and Singapore capitalizing on the Asian boom, our best talents stay here.
Perhaps more importantly, Singapore has free trade agreements with various countries (particularly ASEAN, China, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and the United States), which open new doors of opportunities for its people to enter, if only we have enough money or know-how to know how - more will succeed.
