We are in the midst of another global economic crisis. The current crisis is feared to be the worst of the century. If we track back our modern history, we would realize that a world economic crisis takes place once in every ten years ie,1988, 1998 & 2008.

What are the events that normally take place during an economic crisis?

1. Drop in property value

2. Drop in demand for non-essential goods and services

3. Drop in production of goods and services

4. Trimming and cutting down of the workforce where the extreme measure would be retrenchment

5. Banks would tighten their conditions for loans due to fear of bad debts.

6. The revenue of the government through taxes and others would shrink.

What are the possible causes of a world economic crisis? Whether you believe it or not, one or more of the following reasons would trigger economic crisis (please take a deep breath as the list is long) :

They are carelessness, greed, corruption, ignorance, selfishness, arrogance, fear, over- speculatiion, irresponsibility, conspiracies (passing the buck), intolerance, manipulativeness, protectionsim, deceptiveness, fraud etc.

The economic crises normally would have originated from the developed nations (mainly the West) either directly or indirectly but they affect the developing countries. Why? Because normally, the developed nations would have invested in the developing nations.

If a particular developed nation encounters an economic crisis, it would first reduce its foreign investment. If it gets worse, then this developed nation would either retrench its labour, downsize it local operations and at worst, close down its foreign operations. The foreign-based companies would normally been involved in manufacturing, trade and the service industries.

Malaysia, I would say, has a better resource composition as compared to Singapore and Hong Kong. We have well-balanced economic resources ie, petroleum, palm oil, manufacturing industries, trading and services.

Singapore and Hong Kong mainly only rely on manufacturing, trading and the services sectors. They lack natural resources and agriculture products which are considered safe and reliable investments in any economic climate. It for this reason, currently we are not as badly hit as Singapore and Hong Kong.

If the incoming prime minister introduces a proper financial strategy (identify, plan, implement and control ) Malaysia would not be severely affected by the current economic crisis.

It is very wrong to state that the whole world is affected by the current economic climate. In any dealing, if there is one country which is losing, then there must be another country which is gaining.

I strongly feel that the West would ‘wash their dirty linen’ (their accumulated losses and ‘hidden’ losses) during economic crises so that their weakness and un-professionalism go unnoticed or become unimportant. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all if the West purposely create economic crises for this purpose.

If this is true, then it is a serious crime against humankind. It is possible to assume that the recent economic crises are conspiracy of the West against the rest of the world. This could be due to the fact that the reserves and the trade surpluses of the Western nations are shrinking year by year.

It is disheartening to hear that the AIG, the failed US insurance giant, gave handsome bonuses to its top management very recently. This act exhibits their arrogance, non-professional attitude and utmost disrespect for the sentiments of business community. It was this very company which received quite a hefty bailout from the US government.

Another irritating factor is that a lot of large corporations instantly reported losses in the period prior to when economic crisis of 2008 crisis was declared. They also announced pay cuts and retrenchment unless huge bailouts were undertaken by the government. It looks as though that they were eagerly awaiting for the economic crisis to be announced.

Lastly , I would say that, most of these economic crises are due to human error ie, ignorance and selfishness. The economic crisis is also caused by panic, uncertainty and being flabbergasted . If is this sort of feeling lasts, then, the economic climate we become worse and it will take time to recover.

The most important step to improve the economic climate is positive thinking and to be optimistic . If the majority of the nations have these two main attitudes, certainly, we could see the beginning of an economic recovery.