Finance Today

WORK MORE FOR LESS PAY

This has been the motive of many multinational IT companies for the past couple of years after the recession had swept across the globe. The perks have been cut and the work cost has been standardized. It has been a tough time for the IT professionals who had been enjoying all these days with sinecure jobs. But no longer, the jobs are sinecure. One has to be a sedulous worker in order to earn a good salary. With the market conditions improving, the IT sector is getting better as the employees are keeping their finger’s crossed for a better salary.

Steve Jobs-CEO Of Decade!

Steve Paul Jobs is a US businessman born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California, with a net worth of $5.7 billion in 2006. Apple had approximately 22,000 employees with annual sales of $24 billion and the company’s stock had increased by 70% over the course of a year. He is the Co-founder, current chairman and CEO Apple, Inc. In his early years, Jobs was adopted as infant and grew up south of his birthplace Cupertino. Jobs graduated from Homestead High School and later joined Reed College in Portland, Oregon but was dropped out after one semester. In 1980, Apple went public with the success of Apple 11 personal computers. Jobs appointed John Sculley as CEO, a former executive of Pepsi, but in 1984 Jobs left Apple because of droop in sales and growing rift between Sculley and him. Jobs founded NeXT Computer Company in 1986 which was obtained by Apple in 1996, allowing Jobs to finally become the CEO of Apple. After the departure of Gil Amelio, Jobs became the provisional CEO. Jobs regained the trust of board of directors for his design developments and introduction of iMac led to growth in sales. With iPhone and iPod, Apple became household name and Apple was re-established by Jobs as one of the cutting-edge tech company. Pixar Animation Studios, where he was formerly chairman and CEO, was purchased by Disney in 2006 and appointed as one of the director of board with single largest shares of 7.4% in Disney. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and on January 14, 2009, Jobs wrote a letter that his “health related issues were more complex than originally thought” and proclaimed 6months leave of absence until the end of June 2009. Tim Cook temporarily became the CEO of Apple with Jobs still involved in major strategic settlements. In April 2009 jobs underwent liver transplant in Tennessee Hospital. In 2007, Jobs was named Most Powerful Businessman by Fortune Magazine and one of the Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine. In 2008, Jobs was 82nd on the 2008 Time 100 list.

INDIA’S AID TO THE UNITED STATES

One would always wonder that India has been an economically backward country compared to the US and how does it aid in the United States economy. Well, the true potential of India has been in its manpower. With more Indian students going to pursue their higher education in the states, American government is looking to utilize this opportunity to stabilize its economy during this recession period. With many foreign students immigrating to the United States for pursuing their higher education, the government has recognized a way of making money without much difficulty. However the quality of education has been the reason of the large student count. America would hope to increase the student count in the future.

FINANCE DURING FESTIVAL TIMES

It is during festival times that people buy many products which they share among the family and friends. It is during these festival occasions that many small scale people are able to make good profits. As for established firms, they make more profit during the festive occasions. Each employee gets a bonus wage for the month which he/she spends on their family members for clothes and food. With the nuclear families more prominent these days, one does not to have to share many things with their huge family. However, in many families expenditure continue to be more than the income. Festivals bring happiness but it is limited these days.

SWISS GROWTH AMIDST RECESSION

The Switzerland, shortly known as the Swiss has had great development strides in the last few years. The Swiss knives and watches are the most famous things that a tourist could buy. In addition to this, milk products such as Cheese are quite famous. However, the most famous things when it comes to Swiss are the global banks it has. Swiss banks have always been meant very rich people across the globe. It is considered a prestige to have a Swiss bank account and only very rich and powerful people are able to do so. The black money of various people living across many countries is considered to be stored in this bank. However, the bank does not give any information about its customers to anyone, including top officials in the world. The interest amount in this bank supports the Swiss government to a great extent. Hence, even amidst the recession Switzerland has been able to maintain good economy and does not face crisis at any point of time soon.

Is Terrorism leading us Further down the Lane of Recession?

World is going down with the thought of recovering from recession. What better way can one find remedies to a problem? The answer would be the cause of the problem. Assessing on the causes for the current recession one can talk a lot on bank crisis, stock market crash, unpaid credits and all finance stuff. But the major factor contributing is terrorism.

Imagine the money involved in carrying out daily explosions occurring all over the world killing so many people and causing damage to property. Though there are people mostly have personal grudge or offensiveness against certain issues join these kinds of groups but people in large numbers do join for the greed of money. Had this money be invested to build a company to employ people suffering from food and hunger, country’s progress would have uplifted.

Government has to spend a lot for recovering from a terrorist attack. Such attacks cause more of a mental fear but the monetary expenses on these attacks could not be neglected. Many countries have to spend more in the military forces due to day to day attacks of these terrorist groups. The solution to this one might be a strong step taken by the United Nations Security council to stop these terrorist from bringing havoc in the normal life. Countries may form alliances and formulate a policy to resolve the issue of terrorism. That is why all major countries are alarming against terrorism and are dedicated to over throw terrorism from this world.

World Trade Report 2009 – Caution on Protectionism

In the recently conducted world trade Organization meeting in Singapore World Trade Report 2009 was released. The economist have revealed that progress will be very gradual in Global trade as most of the countries like U.S., Japan, UK, EU etc are under severe economic crisis. Whereas countries like China, India etc have shown signs of increase in profit.

The agenda of the meeting was mainly concerned over the fact that the trade between countries should continue on a reformed trade policy to ensure that the cracks of recession should not get deeper in the world of business. An air of caution was spread against protectionism. This term “Protectionism” explains that countries are holding back on their annual imports from various countries. This step is taken in order to curb the expenditure of a country in the period of recession. But World Trade Organization cleared it out in the meeting that it is kind of Tit for Tat situation for countries who adopt protectionism as their trading policy. If a country holds back on imports from a certain country in reply there is greater probability that the country will have problems in exporting too. There by in cause of saving money the country’s revenues also get affected.

A intermediary solution may be sorted out by the foreign trade ministers of the countries to ensure open world trade where trading though be in lesser quantity but the trading partnerships among countries should be restored in order overcome recession.

INCREASING PRICES

The recent times have seen an enormous increase in the prices of consumer goods. The prices that have sky rocketed is that of precious metals and real estate. Even the food prices continue to go up due to the increase in fuel prices and the uncertain monsoon. The demand for all products are increasing and even with the rates going up, the production units are finding it difficult to meet the demand. A recent survey conducted by a popular magazine shows us statistics that in another five years, the demand for vegetables and groceries would triple whereas the number of farmers would reduce by twenty five percent.

The increase in demands has certainly affected the economy of the nation and it has lead to inflation. Due to growing demand in many nations, the export has been reduced, thereby making the economy handicapped. The only concern about the future is that would there be much land used for cultivation as now because these lands are being used for construction of factories or malls. Hence the progress made by the entire globe has taken many strides into the future where it has mainly aimed at achieving things that are not in hand while ignoring the essential needs of human being.

PERSONAL FINANCE

People are the major players the in field of economy. How would a common man act to this period of recession? Well one thing is certain that he would rethink of all his financial decision that he would have reserved for the future. The major step back for him is that the curb in the expenditure he makes as if a curfew implied in the city. It’s a fact that number of consumer goods sold at the global level have come down to a considerable level. So people are being cautious about their expense of money. The prices have gone up and at the same time the perks have been cut, thereby creating a deadlock between the customers and providers.

Investments should be carefully made. The number of people investing in gold and precious metals has gone up where as real estate has found a slump. People may invest more in bank shares rather than a company’s or IT firm’s shares. People are now being forced to do hard work in less pay and their allowances has been cut down. Talking about the software industries job assurance is a concern and job security also comes under scrutiny. People are hoping that things would become better sooner or later and life will be back on track.

NATURAL RESOURCE

A country’s growth in terms of economy lies in identifying and using the available natural resource in a profitable way. Every corner of earth is hidden with something or the other under the cover of land such as oil, petroleum, precious metals etc. countries have been successful in discovering these resources and helped themselves in their cause of growth. But the real question is how long will these resources last? According to geological reports oil and precious metals will last around 250 years approximately. Already oil prices seem to hit sky high making it costlier day be day. Countries importing it have great expenditures to make. With recession making its role play in the business markets, countries have a great difficulty in meeting the demands.

Thinking of alternatives is to replace the natural resources by the use of other non-renewable resources. It will give a boost in the economy and help in countering the recession also. For example replacing vehicles running on fuel with vehicles driven by battery or bio-gas which may be a cheaper way of transport. This will help in reducing pollution and less fuel to import for other purpose. But still researchers are finding other alternative sources of energy to replace the depleting resources being used.