It seems that USA is now in serious conflict with China over a number of issues. Some of the issues are political and some are purely business related matters. Now, Chinese government is very angry that Obama is meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama. This is perhaps one of the few problems that have put the US-China relationship in a lot of tension in the last few days.
The bad relationship of this time started with the announcement of Google that it suffered hacking attempts in China and it was pulling out of business out of China unless Chinese government decided to stop censoring the search results. In other words, Google wanted China to open up its internet and it is perhaps impossible because Beijing is run by a communist government.
Hillary Clinton, who is the secretary of states of USA, publicly supported Google and criticized Chinese administration for their censorship. This did not go well in China.
Then was the issue of selling weapons to Taiwan. More than anything, Chinese leaders got very annoyed with this matter. They even threatened to take actions against the US companies who would sell weapons to Taiwan. The permission to sell the weapons to Taiwan came from Obama and it was $6.4 billion worth of business. We know the history between China and Taiwan and we also know about the US involvement about the whole problem.
US government is also annoyed with some economic issues. For example, America wants Beijing to open up its market for foreign goods. Another matter that American leaders want very deeply is that Chinese government carries out some kind of appreciation to their currency Yuan. The price of currency in China is controlled by the government and China has kept the currency under actual value to support its export efforts. As a result, Chinese products are cheaper in other countries.
USA is also unhappy with China’s close relationship with Iran. USA wants to isolate Iran from the rest of the world but China is not with Washington in this matter. China has also announced that it will not appreciate the currency and will go on the way that helps its own people.
In the past, we have noticed that relationship between China and USA was not very good but both the countries continued doing business because they both need each other. So, I don’t see any kind of big conflict or crisis happening with the current bad relationship between Washington and Beijing.
Posted in News | Tagged China, Obama |
US President Barack Obama is under increasing pressure at this moment from the media, his own party and from the ordinary people to do something about the economy. The time of budget is coming very soon and Obama will have to think of the matter that the mid-term election for Congress is going to happen later this year. So, you cannot expect any tough measures to combat the economic problem. He will perhaps be forced to take some populist measures that may not be in the best interest of the economy but will help people in the short term. I think that more than Obama, the people have to decide that what they want. If they want a short term solution then they will have to suffer again. On the other hand, if they want to have long term solution then for the time being they will have to do more sacrifice and they will suffer now.
What I feel is that none of the two parties in USA at this moment have any vision for the US economy. The democrat and the republican leaders are perhaps confused and they are not sure what will be the best solution for the current crisis. I just hope that real state market does not see another boom because at this moment, many people are worried about their jobs. Any artificial mechanism to improve the US economy may backfire in the near future.
Posted in News | Tagged Obama |
At last, some good news for the US economy, as the rate of unemployment in that country has decreased to some extend in January 2010. Thus, stats for January 2010 are out and it is nice to see that now the unemployment figure is under 10% and actually it is 9.7% in January. Only 20,000 people lost jobs and it is s welcome news because in January 2009, more than 779,000 people lost jobs in a single month. So, it shows that there is now some kind of stability as far as job is concerned but the problem is that new jobs are not coming back.
The US economy is out of the recession to a large extend but still job creation is a major problem.
Posted in News | Tagged Jobs |
If you think that job creation was the biggest problem for President Obama then perhaps you are wrong because it seems that budget deficit is even a bigger problem. It has already reached to alarming level and something should be done as soon as possible. The main problem for president Obama is that at this moment, he has to think of saving the economy first and creating jobs. So, naturally he has to take some Measures that will boost the economy and create some but he cannot afford to take the budget deficit out of control.
President Obama has passed one year in office and there was a lot of expectations from the people who voted and elected him. Now, many people are perhaps disillusioned and Obama will have to work very hard to get back their support.
Posted in News | Tagged Obama |
Day before Yesterday, Barack Obama gave his state of the Union address. He tried to assure the people that his administration understood the misery of ordinary people. It is the year of mid-term election in congress and that is why, Obama mainly talked about the issues that American people want to hear most and naturally, American people want jobs now. He did not say that much about foreign policy and he mostly talked about economy.
The biggest challenge for Barack Obama at this moment is that although US economy has more or less come out of the global recession, many people are still suffering from unemployment. There is no sign of any job creation but some people are losing jobs every month. So, the first thing that he has to do is inject some jobs in the economy and it is becoming quite a challenge for him.
It is very easy to give a speech about the economy but it is another matter for a president or a government to create some jobs. I don’t think that it will be very easy for Obama and I am not hopeful for it that much. As I just said that it is not only the work of the government and in fact creating jobs does not only depend on government activities. There are many factors and one of the most important factors is that the private companies would have to sacrifice some and think of giving some benefit to the people. The main problem with US economy is that most of the private companies have to think of their share holders and if they can not deliver good profit then share holders will not be happy. As a result, when your only focus is profit rather then creating jobs, helping the national economy does not get any importance or priority.
Another factor is the people. USA is a consumer based economy and here a lot depends on what people think. On the one hand, because many people are out of jobs so consumer confidence is not that much. On the other hand, US people have to perhaps become more educated about their economy and have to spend the money in a wiser way so that more jobs can be created. In fact, the people have to remember that they have to think of some good ways that can help the US economy and can help to create jobs. I do not see any effort from Obama administration in this regard. I think that president Obama and his colleagues should try to educate the American people about economy more and advise the people for spending the money in a way that can benefit the US economy in creating new jobs.
Because of these reasons, I think that it will be very difficult for Obama to create jobs in large number in 2010. However, I do not want to blame him because he was at the wrong time and wrong place. He got a lot of popular votes but he inherited a recession that he had nothing to do with. After all, Obama administration was not the cause of global economic recession or US economic recession. Even it did not start at his time but when he started his presidency, he had to forget other things and deal with this problem alone.
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Posted in News | Tagged Jobs, Obama |
I think that it is a very risky move from New York Times. It is planning to go behind a paywall from 2011. It is the most popular website in USA and it has a rich tradition that goes back to nearly 160 years. It is finding itself increasingly under pressure because of falling revenue from advertisements and subscription.
I think that the main problem is that those who are at the top at New York Times are unable to understand the new reality that has emerged after Internet became popular. Blogging perhaps changed the way we get news. For example, I am living in a country which is in opposite time zone of New York and it is now 3 AM in my city. I am writing about this topic because it is of some interest to me. In the past, I wanted to write something like this but I did not have any scope.
What New York Times and other major newspapers should try to do is to tap in to the market and attract people like me who have the passion for news.
Posted in News | Tagged Newspaper |
I just like to direct you to read the following two reports:
Apple seeks ban on U.S. Nokia imports
Kodak sues Apple and RIM over iPhone and Blackberry
From the headlines, it is perhaps clear that these are serious accusations. Well, the problem is that the boundary of tech companies is getting redefined. For example, traditionally Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer or Kodak is not in the mobile phone sector either. However, with iPhone, Apple has emerged as a serious player in the mobile phone industry. On the other hand, now a days, mobile phone sets can take good pictures and thus, companies like Kodak has some interest in this sector.
The idea of convergence in technology is happening rapidly. We will see these kind of complains more in the coming years.
Google’s problem with Chinese government has perhaps an unlikely loser- Microsoft. This conflict between China and Google has now resulted in bringing more media attention towards the security vulnerability of Internet Explorer browser as it is now clear that the hacking against Gmail happened in IE. As a result, German government has issued a statement asking the citizens not to use Internet Explorer.
BBC reported:
The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google’s systems.
Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers’ increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.
However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.
If some other governments in Europe follow the example of German government then the market share of IE may suffer to some extent.
Posted in News | Tagged Microsoft |
At this moment, Obama administration has got a dilemma in its own hand. It has proposed to put a new kind of tax on the banks because the banks got a lot of taxpayers’ money during the economic recession. But the bankers have opposed it and they have got the support of the Republican Party leaders. Opponents of Obama feel that it is politically motivated and it would not bring any benefit to the ordinary people.
It is the time of election in later this year and the democrats are looking to keep their majority intact in Congress. Many people in USA are very worried for their jobs as the unemployment figure is hovering around 10% consistently. So, they expect that their president would do something about it. There is a lot of resentment against the banking sector because many ordinary people think that the banking sector is the main culprit behind the economic recession.
The bank’s got a lot of bailout money from Obama administration and they have paid almost half of it. So, they are not happy with the new proposal because they feel that they’re unjustly and unfairly targeted. Their logic is that they have become successful in repaying the government the money that took an even they paid interest for it. The government instead should target those sectors like the auto industry who were not successful in paying back the taxpayers’ money.
Many of the Republican leaders have opposed this move by the Obama administration and they argue that in the end, the banks will take the money from the people and this way, it is only the ordinary people who will get all the harm instead of getting any benefit.
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Posted in News | Tagged Banking |
2009 might have been a bad year for most companies but Samsung has seen a good turn around in the 4th quarter. There is prediction that operating profit of up to $3.44 billion is going to come for the company in the last quarter of 2009. It should be mentioned here that Samsung suffered loss in the fourth quarter of 2008. Well, at that time, the world was entering in to a very kind of recession and now, the global economy slowly but steadily going out of the recession.
Good news for Samsung share holders. 2010 is also likely to be a strong year for the company.
Posted in News | Tagged Samsung |
