2009, to be a real bad economic year

[sajiv]

The lack of fiscal stimulus by governments to tackle the global economic slowdown may make an already bad 2009 even worse, opined International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview on Sunday, Dec 21.

Strauss-Kahn was speaking to BBC radio. He was of the opinion that the IMF may need to cut its next economic growth forecasts, due in Jan, referring to '2009 as really being a bad year'.
"I'm specially concerned by the fact that our forecast, already very dark ... will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented," he said.

The IMF has called for fiscal stimulus, higher govt spending and temporary tax cuts, worth $120 trillion, or two per cent of global annual economic output, to fill the gap caused by slumping private demand following the credit crunch.

"The question of having social unrest has been highlighted by journalists- but it's only part of the problem," he said. "The problem is that all the whole society is going to suffer." "We've probably reached a point today where the quantity of money in the economy is fine globally. The question is even with this liquidity banks are very reluctant to lend. The main thing we have to do today is to restore confidence," he said.

[sajiv]

"Market economy has failed India"

Recession because of withdrawal of foreign investments

MADURAI: The large-scale retrenchment of employees and closure of commercial and industrial units have proved that market economy policy followed by Indian Government from 1992 has failed, the general secretary of State unit of Hind Mazdoor Sabha, C.A. Raja Sridhar, has said.

Talking to presspersons here on the sidelines of the diamond jubilee celebration of the national trade union centre here on Saturday , he said that the recession in India was because of the sudden withdrawal of foreign investments which the Government needed to stop. "Over 20,000 employees of the Tiruppur garment industry alone have lost their jobs. Similar is the case with employees of information technology industry and the gem industry in Surat," he said.

The Government should go back to social economic policy and try to take over the closed industrial units to provide employment to the over one crore people who have lost their jobs in the last four months. "Countries like New Zealand that went for privatisation was now back to re-nationalisation and India should follow suit," he said.

Though there was no retrenchment in Indian Railways, he said the privatisation policy had denied permanent job opportunity to many. There were around 22,000 vacancies in Southern Railway alone, he added. The State Committee president, A. Subramaniam, said that inflation was due to huge black money in the country. "If the Government took steps to bring out black money, there will be no need to look up for foreign investments," he said.

A procession of members has been planned in connection with the 27th State committee meeting on Sunday.