Eight things you should not miss this week:
1. George Soros’ new book to be launched tomorrow on why the global economic collapse he predicted in 1998 that never came is now at our doorsteps. The New York times article here and International Herald Tribune here. You can even watch an exclusive CNBC interview with Soros himself. (I love TV on demand through the Internet)
2. Food prices continue to spiral. If you think shifting from lugaw to pandesal is a good strategy, now you’ll have to think about another one. High food inflation is here to stay. It could put 100 million at risk globally, says the World Bank. Protests have already begun.
3. Despite bears running amok in global markets, OFWs continue to send money home but are channeling funds to more productive spending like vans for business purposes and homes.
4. Why selling your car and forgetting to transfer its insurance policy to the name of the buyer can be a very costly mistake.
5. Stocks and bonds in global markets, not just the Philippines, continued to wilt. Next week is not expected to be any better.
6. US consumers lost record sums to Internet crooks. No official figures yet for the Philippines.
7. America-in-recession donates $60 million to suffering children all over the world so far, and yes, Michael Johns got none of the charity. He sang his goodbye song and Idols in the running is now down to 7. (You can tell I have a teenager living with me, can’t you?) What does this all mean? Not Michael Johns, dear. The donations, of course. I wonder if Mr. Soros has an answer?
8. If you’re looking for a really good guy to fix your car aircon, go to Mang Mario in Bago-Bantay. He will fix it well and charge next to nothing. The guy’s a miracle-worker. He works inside a really old, sprawling house in a humble neighborhood, but on any day he would have 10 expensive cars lining his street. And you can google his name for directions to his house. I know, because I was a customer. How does he get customers? Only via word-of-mouth. Again, I wonder what Mr. Soros’ global economic collapse will mean to Mang Mario.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I have been trying to highlight this problem on my blog http://remitter.wordpress.com/
May 7th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Recession has had an alarming impact in Philippines already. It is getting quite difficult to control the prices of the essential goods like rice which is a staple diet. The speculation over the fates of several million OFWs working abroad has started worrying everyone in the country.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am
budget travel philippines aka paetechie, aha! taga bago-bantay ka!
April 15th, 2008 at 10:01 am
hvrds, do you think any of the monetary geniuses in the world saw this coming? just wondering…
April 14th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
that mang mario is really a celebrity in the car aircon repair business…dirt cheap and near my place
April 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Now that we have had the migration of the financial markets from the irrational exhuberance of equity, to fixed income to real estate and then to currencies and now to base and precious metals and finally to food grains what is next?
Now that deflationary expectations are taking hold in the U.S. asset markets and migrating over to the housing markets which is migrating over the the real economy whcih means the Fed will have to pump out more liquidity to save the real economy so the excess liquidty is pumping up all sorts of other markets around the world and now finally we have agricultural commodity inflation.
Milton Friedman would be proud on how monetary expansion has reached new heights since he said that always and everywhere inflation is a monetary phenomenon.
OIL, commodities and now food commodites are the new dollar.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:27 am
GODBlessUs, you can always invent a new one hehe. and it reads well too!
April 12th, 2008 at 12:21 am
sensya n po.. wala po yatang sayings n ganun.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:13 am
after this food shortages, i bet security risk will follow… there’s a saying na “walang sinasanto ang kumakalam na sikmura”. Sana, the govt will seriously focus dito at hindi lang band-aid solution.
TY GOD for today!