About 2008 economic tragedies

[giangtran]

Dear all,
This piece of story is my inspiration after reading an article about the plight of low-income earners in crisis time. About 5000 workers have been unemployed in Vietnam since the 2008 financial crisis. With an uncompleted system of social security in Vietnam, the unemployed have to burden the misery of no jobs, no income on their own. They are the most badly affected victims of this crisis. When they have been driven into the corner, they are likely to do everything to maintain their lives, even bad things. This is the potential cause for social evils at this time. Therefore, among the various measures to recover the economy, the help for the unemployed should be taken great into consideration.

A CORNER OF THE SOCIETY IN CRISIS TIME

A heavy rain suddenly pours down Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, on a sunny afternoon in early March. Mrs. Lan hurriedly carries her basket of duck eggs into a shelter of a house nearby the street to avoid getting wet. The rain becomes heavier and heavier. Water accumulates more and more, spilling over the street. Mrs. Lan worriedly finds a higher place for standing, still holding the basket. This is her most precious means of making both ends meet each day. Looking at her full basket, she shakes her head in despair. It is unlikely that she will sell out the number of duck eggs Today under this weather condition. A day passes by with no income. With the thought of this, drops of tear fall out of her eyes unconsciously.

Two months ago, Mrs. Lan used to be a worker in an enterprise doing outsourcing work for foreign footwear makers. Much to her surprise, she and a lot of her colleagues unexpectedly were laid off. The board of directors gave out the explanation of some financial crisis that had a great impact on almost every company. It made her company lose a lot of big customers because demand for goods slumps dramatically. Her company, therefore, was obligatory to cut down on production and fire a lot of workers, including her. Since then, Mrs. Lan has participated in the army of street-vendors in the hope that this job would be only temporary until she gets a new one. Nevertheless, her hope gets fainted day by day. Very few companies want to take on more staff, especially casual laborers like her at this time. Mrs. Lan now is getting stuck into a hard life. She receives no grants for unemployment from her company or a state agency which is responsible for social security. The job of a street-vendor gives her an unsustainable income. When meeting such bad weather, she earns almost nothing, even gets loss. The so-called luck comes to her as she sells out all of her goods after going a long walk around the city and goes home with a little amount of profit.

The heavy rain has imprisoned her at this shelter. Not a passer- by takes care for eating something in this weather condition. Everybody is in a hurry applied himself in his own work. Rain is still dropping, which makes a white, vague sight in front of her eyes. Mrs. Lan looks at the rain, thinking what her next days will look like.

[giangtran]

I know that a lot of you specialise in Economics. Would you mind making some comments on this topic or sending your writing to share your view with us?

[giangtran]

Influences of the 2008 economic crisis on SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises, commonly known as SMEs in the trade, are considered the heart and soul of the world’s economy. They create, inspire and change fundamentally the human beings’ life. However, in this economic crisis, they are the most influenced objects. Many of them are on the verge of collapse.
As we all know, the economic recession is attributable to the credit crunch in the United States of America. The high rate of bad loans makes most banks lose confidence and afraid of lending money to households and enterprises, the majority of consumers of the market. The demand of consumption plunges sharply, causing a slump in the production, too. The whole economy gets stuck into a dim stage.
This apparatus has brought about a huge loss in to enterprises, the main force of production. They gradually lose big purchasers. The condition is not improved any more even when entrepreneurs find all ways to attract customers like reducing cost, lowering price and raising the product quality. Government’s support measures including interest-compensation, tax-reduction and tax-refund seem to be ineffective when enterprises have no orders. Especially, difficulty makes greater impact on the export-driven enterprises. Clearly, they can’t find business partnerships in external markets in such a global economic situation at the moment. They totally can’t rely on the domestic one, either because of the uncompetitive price and no brands or trademarks. If these enterprises want to make changes to meet the domestic consumers’ affordability, they have to start everything again, which is so costly and time-consuming. Therefore, any more present investment will be too risky. It is better to wait until the world’s economy revives.
To Vietnamese enterprises, they are also pulled into the complicated cycle of the world’s economy. They are facing up to the common difficulties that all in this world are doing. However, they exist and operate in the Vietnamese market, which owns the specific characteristics and own strengths. Domestic entrepreneurs should take advantages of these to make strategic plans for their next steps.

Source of reference:
1. http://vnexpress.net/GL/Kinh-doanh/Chun ... /3BA0CDA8/
2. President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, February 24th 2009