The statements, opinions, or views in the following articles may not necessarily reflect that of the Goan Voice Canada.

Optimism is the cure for the downturn
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7785564.stm
Viewpoint By Sir David Tang

Pessimism is the most serious cause for the global economic tsunami.

There is an ocean of people who are now feeling so depressed that not only have they become resigned to the fact that they are in deep trouble, but they have told everybody else that they are also in deep trouble.

Pessimism has an uncanny knack of being self-fulfilling.

No wonder almost every single quoted share in the world has gone down significantly, mostly by half, if not much more. Even the most solid companies, such as HSBC, which has no real exposure; or BP, which has significant oil reserves; or a company like Dell, which has an enormous amount of cash - the shares of these companies have traded down considerably.

That is the barometer of our general pessimism.

Big collapses

The present condition has also been a wake-up call for those who have lost sight of understanding the businesses in which they invest. Before now, there were far too many people out there trying to profit from the shuffling of papers and commodities and derivatives and options and hedging: really sophisticated instruments - but all too clever by half.

It just goes to show that having all these smart theories and ingenious ideas is no substitute for a solid business sense based on the fundamentals of supply and demand, with particular reference to the efficiency of the workforce; all those basic components that people such as Warren Buffett emphasise and are often ridiculed for. Let this depressing climate also be a reminder that if you grow big, you can collapse big. The higher you climb the harder you fall.

Think small

In this mania for globalisation, it might not necessarily be good to be absolutely massive. Just look at some of the banks and car manufacturers - they are huge, and they are in huge trouble.

What we all need to do is to sit down and calm down and go back to basics. And most important of all, shed our sense of pessimism. It is only with a sense of optimism, preferably accompanied by a sense of energy and laughter, that we will be able to pick ourselves up from a broken Humpty Dumpty. In particular, governments must immediately instigate infrastructure projects to increase employment, and they must force banks, particularly those that they have rescued, to lend to small businesses.

Without a general sense of gainful employment, from which the ordinary people at large can grow optimistic, we run a huge danger of increasing unemployment. But we cannot be complacent. We must stem growing unemployment and promote maximum employment. Jobs measure feelings more accurately than the Richter scale measures earthquakes.

Sir David Tang is the Hong Kong-born, English-educated entrepreneur who founded the clothing chain Shanghai Tang

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/7785564.stm

Watch out, Africa, Obama plans to paint the whole world green
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/opOrEd/comment/-/434750/507234
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Posted Saturday, December 27 2008

US President-elect Barack Obama continues to excite.

The star cast he has named to be his science advisers, and in particular his picking of Steven Chu, the 1997 Nobel laureate in Physics, to run the Department of Energy, has environmentalists in the US and the world swooning.

President George Bush’s administration displayed a peculiar hostility to science, rejecting all the research that showed that human activities were responsible for global warming, and scuttling all attempts to reach credible global carbon emissions targets. Now that his appointments suggest that Obama will finally get America working seriously on green technologies, alternative energies, and possibly even assume leadership in dealing with global environmental crises, Africa needs to pay attention to how that will affect it.

For all the talk of US decline, it will probably be towards the end of the 21st century before a China or India overtakes America in science, if at all. As many observers have noted, just as it did in 1941 when it threw its heart into the Second World War, if the US decides to make green technology work, it will. And because of its size, together with countries like Japan and Germany that are quite advanced in several areas of green technology, it could immediately make the goal of saving the world from an environmental disaster a realistic one.

That will mean any economy that wants to be competitive will have to retool with machinery that is more fuel-efficient, and shift to hybrid, electric or hydrogen-fuelled cars, and so on. With the new energies, large companies that are reliant on solar power to run their businesses can also use the same source to power their cars. All employees, if they shifted to solar-powered cars, would therefore “refuel” at work.

Many homes, likewise, will use solar electricity for domestic energy, and also recharge the car with it. Africa, which is already having trouble with infrastructure, could find that in eight years it will have to discard the ramshackle facilities it has built over the decades, for green ones. If the leading car makers will mostly be making vehicles that run on non-fossil fuels, and Africa has to import new cars (at least for its presidents and other Big Men and Women), then it will have to invest in green fuel delivery.

The alternative is that it will become a dumping site which will serve to set the continent back economically. Africa will need a lot of green specialists, and big money for these conversions, both of which it doesn’t have now and hasn’t started planning for either.

Hence the great irony: If Obama succeeds in pushing the science agenda (throw stem cell research in the mix) that environmentalists and other progressive forces in the world are looking to him to do and save the world, then Africa could be hit particularly hard because we aren’t prepared for this transition.

I know only two African presidents who have science advisers, but I am aware of many who are still steeped in superstition and witchcraft. In fact, Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh is the country’s leading medicine man, concocting “cures” for all diseases, from Aids to diabetes, in the State House kitchen sink!

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s managing editor for convergence and new products. E-mail: cobbo@nation.co.ke

Will the U.S. Remain Number One?
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/economics/hot_eco_topics/default/09-01-14/
January 14, 2009 - Kip Beckman
Principal Research Associate
Economic Services

Imagine a country locked in a war that went badly wrong with a financial sector that was draining resources from its industrial sector. Observers started writing books and articles claiming that the nation was in decline and was about to lose its status as the number one country in the world. If this sounds like the United States of today you would be wrong because it is, instead, Great Britain in 1905. The war in question was the Second Boer War and the crisis in confidence that gripped the country at the time led to a dramatic election in 1906 that saw the Liberals dethrone the Conservatives in a landslide. While the new government implemented a bold set of reforms, Britain’s decline continued and within four decades a new country across the Atlantic Ocean with greater industrial and military strength supplanted Britain as the most powerful country in the world.

Is the United States of today heading for the same fate that befell Great Britain at the turn of the 20th century? Many feel that it is and point to huge debt levels as the main culprit responsible for the rot slowly engulfing this once great super power. Debt helped engineer the housing crisis that has left around 16 per cent of home owners under water with mortgages larger than the value of their homes. The need to deal with future debt levels will constrain governments as they attempt to deal with a looming Medicare and Social Security crisis resulting from the aging of the population. The historian Niall Ferguson contends that the British Empire was undone by imperial overreach while the U.S. Empire is unraveling because of financial market overreach.

Not so fast. Before writing the U.S. obituary it is important to note that this is certainly not the first time in recent memory that pundits have predicted the downfall of this country. At various times between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s, Europe and Japan were supposed to supplant the United States as the number one power in the world. This never happened as Japan experienced its own housing collapse and then failed to make the necessary adjustments to its banking sector to prevent a decade long battle with deflation. Europe has never been able to match the dynamic nature of the U.S. economy mainly due to the inflexible labour markets.

Unlike Japan, the United States is quickly dealing with the crisis engulfing its financial sector and, while an economic recovery is many months away, the flexible nature of the economy should enable it to eventually emerge largely intact. It is important to remember that the U.S. economy is incredibly resilient as evidenced by its ability to emerge relatively unscathed from terrorist attacks, accounting scandals, wars and a contested presidential election in the early to mid 2000s.

The other point to consider is that the United States could remain the number one power in the world simply by default. Is there another country in the world ready to take over? Some point to Russia due to its vast supply of natural resources. However, if natural resources equaled wealth then the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria would be rich countries today. The rapid decline in oil prices is exposing numerous problems in Russia’s economy. Oil production is set to decline because some of its major oil reserves are depleted due to a lack of investment. Over the long-term, Russia must cope with a declining population that will require a huge influx of immigrants in order to generate strong economic growth – an influx that could easily inflame existing ethnic and religious tensions.

China is the most likely country to unseat the United States but it is decades away from attaining this objective. It remains a developing country with widespread poverty and a financial system that is clearly under stress. The double digit growth of the past decade will not last and China must find a way of attaining more balanced growth going forward. Also, it is not clear that a system combining a measure of free market economics with an authoritarian central government that doesn’t allow dissent can remain viable.

The question posed in the title is, “Will the U.S. Remain Number One”. The answer, unequivocally, is “yes”.

US losing ‘war for hearts and minds’ of Muslims
http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/12/top5.htm
From The Dawn - Karachi
By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Jan 11: The Gaza conflict appears to have widened the traditional divide in the United States between the left-leaning liberals and the mainstream politicians and has also dealt a severe blow to US efforts for winning the hearts and minds of Muslim masses.

For the past two weeks, anti-war groups have been holding protest rallies against the Israeli aggression almost daily. The biggest rally was held outside the White House on Saturday, which brought tens of thousands of people from across the United States. Most of the participants were the same who come to all anti-war rallies. And the main organisers — Brian Becker, Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney — are known anti-war activists.

What is new is the participation of a large number of Muslims and Arabs. Even a cursory look at the names of the organisations associated with these rallies show how the Gaza conflict has mobilised the Arabs and Muslims against the Israeli aggression.

The organisers of these rallies included the Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, American Muslim Task Force, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awda — International Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Council on American Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine, American Muslim Alliance, US Palestinian Community Network, Iranian-American Friendship Committee and the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

And they were able to bring thousands of their supporters to the rally. Protesters waved Palestinian flags, wore keffiyeh — a traditional Palestinian headdress — and some even came in shalwar qamiz.

This marked a change in the attitude of the US Muslims and Arabs who traditionally stay away from political activities, preferring instead to focus on their businesses and professions. “There goes Bush’s campaign to win Muslim hearts and minds,” said a protester who identified herself as a member of the group called Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.

“If you also look at the huge anti-war rallies in the Arab world, you can see that the US has lost the war for hearts and minds,” she said. “I came because there are innocent children dying daily in Palestine. The American people need to know the truth,” said 13-year-old Razan Ali, a Palestinian-American from New York.

The protesters also marched to the headquarters of The Washington Post to protest “its hard pro-Israeli line”, before heading to the offices of construction equipment giant Caterpillar and military contractor Lockheed Martin. The organisers pointed out that each Israeli tank in the Gaza invasion was followed by a Caterpillar bulldozer to flatten thousands of homes. Lockheed Martin manufactures the F-16 fighter jets that Israel uses to bomb targets inside Gaza. But such protests have had little impact on the mainstream politicians in the United States who remain solidly behind Israel.

While the Bush administration last week abstained voting for a UN Security Council resolution which called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the US Congress overwhelmingly endorsed the Israeli plan for a military victory against Hamas. The two moves gave Israel the support it needed to ignore the United Nations and continue its military strikes in Gaza.

Earlier this week, the US House of Representatives adopted a resolution, titled “Supporting Israel in Its Battle with Terrorist Hamas”, by 390 votes. Only five congressmen voted against it. A similar resolution in the Senate, co-sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, was passed unanimously.

The G.O.A. Vision Report
See G.O.A. Toronto website www.goatoronto.com for full report

Selected Topics:

• Introduction
  The Goan Overseas Association (G.O.A.) in Toronto conducted an assessment in the form of a survey and a workshop in 2007 to assist in better understanding the needs of the Goan community in order that a new vision for the Association and plan for the future could be developed.
  
  The survey was the first part of the assessment which enabled individuals from the Goan community (members and non-members of the Association) to provide feedback and ideas on areas such as social events, needs of the new immigrant and senior citizen groups, volunteer involvement, communications and customer service. This survey, completed by 161 individuals, was made available in hard copy format in the March 2007 Pulse and then on-line through the G.O.A. web site from May 2007 to January 2008.
   

• Listen to the People
  Currently, the G.O.A. is perceived largely as a social club with a shallow provision of services (22% of survey respondents said they do not see value in being a member). The Association is in a position where it must demonstrate to the Goan community that it is listening to their needs and appreciates their involvement in the Association. There is a perception that services are delivered according to what matters most to those on the Executive committee; that money is not being allocated to meet the needs of the community; and that participating in areas like soccer at Viva Goa, cultural dancing at events, and as a member of the Executive Committee are exclusive.
   

• Find Common Ground
  Members of this community, young and old, indicated the desire to have a common meeting place. A familiar space that hosts regular activities holds memories, which in turn cultivates community. An important consideration in selecting a venue(s) is to understand that our community is spread from east to west, north to south of Toronto.
   

• Provide Value for Money
  The community appreciates a good quality experience and value for money as it relates to community events. The overall quality of an event is important, from the spaciousness of a venue to the taste of the food. There is an opportunity for the G.O.A. to institute consistent standards across all of their events in the areas of event promotion, venue selection, food, alcohol, entertainment and agenda.
   

• Special Needs within the Community
  Senior Citizens
  Senior citizens in this community are looking for more frequent opportunities to connect with their social circle (46% of the survey respondents who are seniors indicated the reason they do not attend G.O.A. events is that their friends do not attend). They want an easy way to meet up with other seniors on a regular basis (60% of the survey respondents who are seniors belong to a Goan seniors group).
  
  Their focus is on their health, happiness and overall well being. This includes their spiritual well being as well. This group cited value in attending information exchanges for seniors on topics of interest like health. As mentioned, their faith is a very important part of their lives, so the G.O.A should look to providing opportunities that integrate the social aspect with a religious experience.
  
  They are looking for smaller, informal gatherings that allow them to engage one another in conversation and have fun. Activities such as cards, whist drive, walking tours and line dancing were recommended.
  
  Finally this group realizes that they may need to consider the option of living in a retirement or nursing home. Their hope is that the G.O.A. will help to bring members of this community together during the search process for this home. Their quality of life would be increased if they had the opportunity to spend these years of their life with other Goan seniors who understand and share their religious values, traditions and culture.
   

• Closing
  The insights from these members of the community indicate there is an opportunity now to clarify the objectives in the G.O.A. constitution, making changes where necessary so that it speaks to the needs of the community. These revised objectives and the findings in this report should inform a new vision for the G.O.A. and a plan for future programming. In order for the G.O.A. to provide a successful service to its community and create value for people to become members it must carefully consider the community’s insights and recommendations, as well as create a supportive infrastructure to execute on its plans.