How to Avoid a Double-Dip Global Recession

How to Avoid a Double-Dip Global Recession
Roubini has come up with another lucid and cogent set of categorical policy measures that, in his view, will go far to stave off and, avert a global double-dip:


There is an ongoing debate among global policymakers about when and how fast to exit from the strong monetary and fiscal stimulus that prevented the Great Recession of 2008-2009 from turning into a new Great Depression. Germany and the European Central Bank are pushing aggressively for early fiscal austerity; the United States is worried about the risks of excessively early fiscal consolidation.

In fact, policymakers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they take away the monetary and fiscal stimulus too soon – when private demand remains shaky – there is a risk of falling back into recession and deflation. While fiscal austerity may be necessary in countries with large deficits and debt, raising taxes and cutting government spending may make the recession and deflation worse.

On the other hand, if policymakers maintain the stimulus for too long, runaway fiscal deficits may lead to a sovereign debt crisis (markets are already punishing fiscally undisciplined countries with larger sovereign spreads). Or, if these deficits are monetized, high inflation may force up long-term interest rates and again choke off economic recovery.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, for the last decade, the US and other deficit countries – including the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Dubai, and Australia – have been consumers of first and last resort, spending more than their income and running current-account deficits. Meanwhile, emerging Asian economies – particularly China – together with Japan, Germany, and a few other countries have been the producers of first and last resort, spending less than their income and running current-account surpluses.

Overspending countries are now retrenching, owing to the need to reduce their private and public spending, to import less, and to reduce their external deficits and deleverage. But if the deficit countries spend less while the surplus countries don’t compensate by savings less and spending more – especially on private and public consumption – then excess productive capacity will meet a lack of aggregate demand, leading to another slump in global economic growth.

So what should policymakers do? First, in countries where early fiscal austerity is necessary to prevent a fiscal crisis, monetary policy should be much easier – via lower policy rates and more quantitative easing – to compensate for the recessionary and deflationary effects of fiscal tightening. In general, near-zero policy rates should be maintained in most advanced economies to support the economic recovery.

Second, countries where bond-market vigilantes have not yet awakened – the US, the UK, and Japan – should maintain their fiscal stimulus while designing credible fiscal consolidation plans to be implemented later over the medium term.

Third, over-saving countries like China and emerging Asia, Germany, and Japan should implement policies that reduce their savings and current-account surpluses. Specifically, China and emerging Asia should implement reforms that reduce the need for precautionary savings and let their currencies appreciate; Germany should maintain its fiscal stimulus and extend it into 2011, rather than starting its ill-conceived fiscal austerity now; and Japan should pursue measures to reduce its current-account surplus and stimulate real incomes and consumption.

Fourth, countries with current-account surpluses should let their undervalued currencies appreciate, while the ECB should follow an easier monetary policy that accommodates a gradual further weakening of the euro to restore competiveness and growth in the eurozone.

Fifth, in countries where private-sector deleveraging is very rapid via a fall in private consumption and private investment, the fiscal stimulus should be maintained and extended, as long as financial markets do not perceive those deficits as unsustainable.

Sixth, while regulatory reform that increases the liquidity and capital ratios for financial institutions is necessary, those higher ratios should be phased in gradually to prevent a further worsening of the credit crunch.

Seventh, in countries where private and public debt levels are unsustainable – household debt in countries where the housing boom has gone bust and debts of governments, like Greece’s, that suffer from insolvency rather than just illiquidity – liabilities should be restructured and reduced to prevent a severe debt deflation and contraction of spending.

Finally, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and other multilateral institutions should provide generous lender-of-last-resort support in order to prevent a severe deflationary recession in countries that need private and public deleveraging.

In general, deleveraging by households, governments, and financial institutions should be gradual – and supported by currency weakening – if we are to avoid a double-dip recession and a worsening of deflation. Countries that can still afford fiscal stimulus and need to reduce their savings and increase spending should contribute to the global current-account adjustment – via currency adjustments and expenditure increases – in order to prevent a global shortage of aggregate demand.

Failure to implement such coordinated policy measures – to sustain global aggregate demand at a time when deflationary trends are still severe in advanced economies – could lead to a very dangerous and damaging double-dip recession in advanced economies. Such an outcome would cause another bout of severe systemic risk in global financial markets, trigger a series of contagious sovereign defaults, and severely damage the growth prospects of emerging-market economies that have so far experienced a more robust recovery than advanced countries.

August 2010 Gatherings by Camelia

August 2010 Gatherings by Camelia
"Came" means Business Networking (referral business/business gathering)


Came 239
7 August 2010 (Sat)
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: A & W Restoran,Leisure Mall, Tmn Segar,Cheras,Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Came 240
7 August 2010 (Sat)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Pappa Rich,Dataran 32,Jalan 19, Petaling Jaya, Selangor,Malaysia.(opposite Toyota Car Showroom)

Came 241
8 August 2010 (Sunday)
Time: 3pm to 5pm
Venue: Teh Tarik Place, 1 Utama Shopping Mall,Petaling Jaya, Selangor,Malaysia.
Came 242
8 August 2010 (Sunday)
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Venue: Chawan Kafe,Bangsar,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.(opposite Bangsar Village 2 Shopping Mall)

Came 243
11 August 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 12pm to 2pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee, Kelana Mall,LDP,Petaling Jaya, Selangor,Malaysia. (next to Giant Kelana Jaya)

Came 244
11 August 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Garden Food Court, The Gardens, Mid Valley Mega Mall, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

Came 245
12 August 2010 (Thursday)
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Mc Donalds, KL Sentral station, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

Came 246
12 August 2010 (Thursday)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Burger Kings,KLCC Suria Mall, Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

Came 247
20 August 2010 (Friday)
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Old Town White Coffee,Pavilon Mall,Jalan Bukit Bintang,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

Came 248
20 August 2010 (Friday)
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Station 1 Cafe,Sunway Metro,Petaling Jaya, Selangor,Malaysia. (next to Sunway Pyramid)

Pls Call /SMS to confirm the date/place/time.

Please give me time to reserve a seat for you.

Do not be LAST MINUTE.I will not entertain you.

You may bring your friends or bosses or spouse.

PLEASE BE PUNCTUAL, Thank you!!

Mobile : 6-016-9795515
Love Camelia
Malaysian Chinese lady

*Venue and time subject to change

A doctor and 3 patients

A doctor and 3 patients
One morning at a doctor's surgery a patient arrives complaining of serious back-pain. The doctor examines him and asks him "OK, what happened to your back?"

The patient replies "You know that I work for a local night club? This morning I got home to my apartment early and heard a noise in my bedroom. On entering I knew someone had been with my wife and the balcony door was open. I rushed out the balcony door and did not find anyone. As I looked down from the balcony I saw a man running out and he was dressing himself. I grabbed the fridge and threw it at him, that’s how I strained my back"

The 2nd patient arrives looking as if he has been in a car wreck. The doctor said "My previous patient looked bad, but you look terrible. What the hell happened to you?"

He replied, "You know I have been unemployed for a while now .Today was the first day at my new job. I forgot to set my alarm and was running late. I was running out of the building, getting dressed at the same time, and you
won't believe it but I was hit by a fridge."

The 3rd patient arrives; he looks even worse than the other two patients do. The doctor is shocked.
Again asks, "What the hell happened to you.... .?"

"Well I was sitting in a fridge & someone threw it from the 3rd floor"

Women are like cellphone

Exercise for your brains

Working with different personality types

Working with different personality types

The office is a melting pot of individual motivation, preference and attitude. No worker is an island so understanding your personality and those around you is essential for getting the job done.

It is rare that you can choose the people you work with or for, so understanding the personalities in your sphere of influence and adapting your own approach can mean the difference between winning over colleagues and clients or hitting roadblocks.
Businesses who discount the importance of personalities do so at their own peril. It’s not uncommon to see boardrooms bringing entire companies to a complete standstill because members of the team cannot work with each other.

Personality grouping is now gaining such prominence that many businesses are basing entire business models and organisational charts around the outcomes of employee and client psyche-testing.

For the average worker, the impact of personality differences may not have the same reverberations, but should be addressed in the same way. The key to a smoother working life is understanding what makes you and your colleagues tick and finding a manageable balance.

There are those in the office who seek self-glory. They blatantly and shamelessly communicate their successes in front of the entire team including management. If possible they will also steal your successes and claim them as their own.

To ensure you receive the kudos you deserve, manage how your contribution to the project is communicated, being careful with how you deliver the message so you are not also seen as ‘blowing your own trumpet.’ This can be done by sending an email to provide everyone with a ‘heads up’ on the progress of a project and inviting people to come to you with any questions. Doing this reminds people that you are the owner of the project and the main driver.

CONTROL FREAKS
Control freaks are micromanagers who cannot let go of work and find it hard to trust the delegation of work to others. The best way to counter this is to gain their confidence and respect. This can be achieved by being pro-active and chasing them for completed work, being rigid with deadlines and ‘managing up’. Make sure you document all pieces of work and ensure there is a clear allocation of duties. After every meeting or conversation, regardless of how casual it is, send an email to confirm who is responsible for what.

Complainers walk around the office with drooped shoulders and dragging their feet. Every request for work is a major effort. Quite often they will feel hard done by and believe they have been assigned the bulk of the work. Whether you are a colleague on the same level or a manager, you need to take a strategic approach when dealing with a complainer. Try to remove emotion when liaising with them and keep your temper well under control. Investigate whether there is any merit in what they are saying. If not, talk to them in private and explain the scope of the project. Once they understand that everyone is under the same pressure, they may reverse or reduce their feelings of being victimised.

Enthusiasts can be great at bringing innovative ideas to the table and their energy can spread to other members of the team. However, they also need to be managed otherwise, they may leap at a new idea without paying necessary attention to details. Enthusiasts may also start with a full head of steam but will lose interest in the minutiae, resulting in an incomplete project.

‘OFFICE FRIEND’
The ‘office friend’ is someone who needs to be the ‘nice person’ and wants to get along with everyone. They are big on building relationships but find it hard to push back on work or disagree with a decision they think is wrong. They are often more eager to appease others than speak their own mind, which can be to the detriment of the team or project at hand.

They are often people who struggle to say “no” during a negotiation. The best approach to take with the ‘office friend’ is to explain that they will receive more respect from team members in the long run by actually providing valuable feedback rather than agreeing for the sake of it.

For an effective team, there needs to be a mixture of personalities. While it is important to know the personalities of those around you, this knowledge is useless unless you know your own. This is a challenging first step but with some honest self-analysis, it will go a long way to helping you build your relationships with key colleagues and clients. Being aware of your own personality and others will help you balance those that may be creating difficulties to fulfil their own objectives and the goals of the organisation.

Article contributed by Mastura Diana Jaffar, managing director of DBM Malaysia, which offers human resources solutions.

Beautiful Flower Teddy Bear & Dog