Monday, August 22, 2011

Global Economic Slump: Politician's Fault?

From Washington, D.C.'s faulty bipartisanship to the EU leaders' inability to tackle the region's looming debt crisis, are our elected officials ruining the global economy?

By: Ringo Bones

Ever since the faulty bipartisanship of Capitol Hill had inadvertently lowered the United States' credit rating for the first time in history since credit rating agencies began setting shop 70 or so years ago. The S&P downgrade of the United States' credit rating due to the "11th Hour" approval of the two parties in the Capitol Hill to raise the US government debt ceiling now made everyone harbor the perception that our elected officials lack the leadership skills to lead us out of the global economic slump. The fallout of the political infighting in Washington, D.C. had made every major stock exchange centers around the world in a free-fall hitherto unseen since the 2008 global subprime credit crunch. The EU leaders' inability to reach a consensus in tackling the looming Eurozone debt crisis also had shaken the confidence of investors around the world. So is the fear and panic stricken global securities markets rather caused by politics?

The US Credit Rating downgrade from Triple-A to Double-A status - from the securities traders' perspective here in South-East Asia - has been perceived as the most damaging of all. The looming EU debt crisis comes in at a distant second. Even the People's Republic of China - now the world's second largest economy - has now been calling for a replacement of the US dollar as the principal global currency in basket of currencies. Will all of this spark a change for the better?

2 comments:

April Rain said...

Christian Terrorists at the US Republican Party - like John Boehner - are to blame. My investment portfolio now consists of safe-haven investments like gold and the Japanese yen. Maybe one day some pissed-off Japanese will stab me with a katana for making the value of their currency uncompetitively high.

Ringo said...

Too bad the Capitol Hill infighting over the lack of bipartisanship in raising the debt ceiling caused the S&P downgrade of the United States' credit rating for the first time ever eventually showed the true colors of the US Republican Party.