Australian team slumbered to number 3 spot in ICC rankings recently after some quaggy performance against India and South-Africa in 2008-2009। The worst doesn’t seem to be over yet as the kiwis are now thrashing kangaroos on their home soil. New year has started and brought new worries both to Team Australia and World economy.
The recession in the global economy is much like Australian performance in 2008। The year 2008 started will of promises but as it progressed sharp declines were witnessed due to sub-prime crisis. The housing disaster swiped the books of some of the biggest names of the world including Lehman Brother, General Motors, Aig, Freedie Mac and Fannie Mai etc.
The Federal Reserve is fighting hard to drag the economy from deflationary progression cutting the interest rates to near 0%। Bank of England cut its base rates by 50 basis points recently to 1%. Stimulus packages have been announced one after another to increase the flow of money in the system and assist banks to provide more credit to the consumers. The latest effort was from US President Obama which asked the senate to pass $ 800 billion plus package to boost the domestic growth.
Indian government also provided stimulus to the slowing economy by providing $ 4 billion in spending। The coming budget will also focus on the streamlined growth in all the sectors of the economy. To ease the pressure from the shoulder of consumers government also recently announced cuts in petrol and diesel prices.
During all this Nonfarm payroll fell sharply and the unemployment rate rose from 7।2 to 7.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported on 6th Feb 2009. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007; about one- half of this decline occurred in the past 3 months. In January, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.
Outlook:
The summer of 2008-09 will be remembered as the Australian team's toughest in nearly 15 year. After the humiliating defeat against the proteas (S.Africa) and India, how Aussies keep their winning instinct alive will be a million dollar question.
On the same path how the global economies cope up with the mounting trade deficits will be a case study on its own !!!!
With many thinking optimistically of the recession to continue. I am hopeful both Australia and Global economy will revive with a bang for which they are known for by end of 2009 !!!!!!!!!
