Global Financial Crisis - Essay Example

How would you advise your community to handles or address the current national and global financial crisis. The current global financial crisis has created problems for many people. People in the community have lost their homes; others may be losing their homes and everything they own. The crisis has become the talk of everyone in the world and the stock market keeps rising and falling as if it is the breath of life in the world. As Americans we are faced with a further financial crisis that looks very much like it will put us into a depression that is greater than the one that happened years ago. We do not understand what to do and quite frankly people are very afraid. We are attempting to elect a new President who promises that he will change things. He says it will take awhile for change to happen and we understand that, but we want to know that we will be safe. Unfortunately there is no way to really guarantee safety. The economic crisis has created problems all over the world because of bad choices that big business has made. First we are hit with the collapse of the mortgage system which created a stop in the housing market boom. Next we have the problems with the three big automobile makers. All of this threatens the society as a whole and has deep ramifications with the rest of the world because of their ties to the United States. Although there are many reasons why this has happened and much speculation about it, as a nation we can only hope that we will survive it somehow. Big business may survive but it is the little guy -- the individuals who work hard and give up their dreams to work a job everyday for someone else -- that may or may not survive. It would seem that the only way that the financial crisis can be helped is if people come together as a nation and attempt to resolve the crisis. The problem is that the last eight years have so broken people that they are afraid that their word is not going to mean anything. People in the United States used to come together to help a cause. They used to be able to band together and fight certain situations. In 2000 and 2004 they attempted to do this in the presidential election. By 2004 they found that their word may not mean anything when the popular vote elected a new president but the Electoral College brought the same president back into office. Although we cannot blame the president for all of the woes that we are experiencing as a nation, we can say that he hasnt really helped. Enter a new president who is promising change to the nation. He was elected because people mobilized around his cause. Everyone knows we need change and for one last time people registered to vote in droves and people pushed the issue of change. Many people went out and campaigned to get him elected and he is to become the first African American President. This is something that no one ever thought possible. The important thing to note is that people rallied around a cause that they found important. They understood that if we were to live in America as it once was that we would need change. This current trend seemed to be something that America was waiting for and that they could wrap their minds around. This also reminded me of how people used to be in the 60s when they could protest about such matters. In order to put this into perspective I looked at the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Both of these men have words to say about how we should govern our lives and how we might get through a crisis like this one. They both felt it would help if the community would mobilize around a cause. As an example, King emphasized that if the Negro was to be set free and have equal rights he must come together in peace and nonviolence in order to get his basic needs met. He spent his entire life mobilizing the black community in order to get the South to understand that they could not treat blacks as second class citizens. He was successful at getting the right to vote and to help blacks get on a more equal footing with whites. Malcolm X pointed out that in order to stop crime and violence the world needed to more equally distribute wealth. He felt that the Negro would have to be more militant in the situation by going into their communities and spending money. He felt that this was the only way to mobilize people so that they would have the economic power necessary to have their needs met without violence. I would think that only way that we can deal with the economic crisis that is upon us is to mobilize. We have seen where people have created a process to GO GREEN so that they will not have such a reliance on fossil fuel. This was one step that people took to deal with the rising gas prices. The second step was to mobilize to elect a new president. These are good starts but even President Elect Obama says that any change will take time. What people need to do is stand tall and start helping each other. If we are to get through an economic crisis people must find ways that they can help their neighbors or their friends and also be mindful to help strangers in need. Martin Luther King, Jr. said this in many ways. Although he suggested these things in relation to blacks, he also looked at any person who was disenfranchised. He suggested that a Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged might be in order so that "the full resources of the society would be used to attack the tenacious poverty which so paradoxically exists in the midst of plenty" (King, 1966, p. 129). He suggests that if this happened it might bring about skills that even those who were unskilled could have and it would bolster the economy (King, p. 129). We are seeing that this is true with the workers today. As an example, the current economic crisis is showing that people are losing jobs at a tremendous rate. If the automobile industries go under, they will add millions of people to the unemployment lines again. This is not something that anyone on this level anticipated. The only way that they will be able to sustain themselves is by getting new jobs. However, this means that the millions of unskilled workers will either have to find a new unskilled job or they will have to be retrained. President Elect Obama says that this can be done if businesses will take on more people. Again, this is a need for communities to mobilize to make sure that businesses take advantage of the need to help people survive. According to the World Bank Group (2008) the "global financial crisis could significantly set back the fight against poverty" (p. 1) because of the "tighter credit conditions and weak growth" that all countries are experiencing. Because of this people are being forced into poverty because of the high food and gas bills. Next the utility companies are saying that they have to have another increase that will make utilities difficult for people to maintain (Shah, 2008). Malcolm X also spoke to the fact that people should mobilize. He is quoted as saying that black people would have to come together in order to "get free from this form of exploitation and oppression" ("Message To the Grass Roots", 2004). He was talking about people getting out from under the economic crisis and the oppression that the whites put onto the black man, but this is something that we can think about today. On another note, a website called Solidarity is calling for people to come together in the current economic crisis. They suggest that people come together to do several things to help each other. Here are a few of their suggestions: 1. Hold public meetings and events to discuss the financial crisis. 2. Organize to stop foreclosures and evictions. 3. Demand that the government rewrite mortgages to show their true value. 4. Extend unemployment benefits, and create national healthcare ("Understanding" p. 3). It seems that all people understand that if we are to get through this economic crisis then we have to come together as a nation and start to help. Even Chinese President Hu Jintao is calling for businesses in China to help. At an APEC Summit of CEOs he suggested that the business community is "a major player in promoting world economic development and sound and stable international economic and trade relations" ("Chinese President", par. 2). As a nation the United States has many intelligent people who are available to create a stronger peace within it. If people could come together and help each other they would find better alternatives than relying on the government for more welfare programs. We could pool money together to help those in need of housing and food. The challenge is that we have all become so afraid that we will not have enough for ourselves that we do not want to share our resources. However, as time goes on we may find that this is the only way to make sure that we have what we need overall. If we look back in history when people helped their neighbors, used barter and trade for goods and services and treated life as an opportunity to "pay it forward" we were in a much better situation. References Chinese president urges business community to help tackle financial crisis. Financial Daily. Retrieved December 3, 2008 from http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6538428.html Haley, A. (1964). The Autobiography of Malcolm X As Told to Alex Haley. NY: Ballantine. King Jr., M. L. (1963). Why We Cant Wait. NY: Penguin Message to the Grassroots 40 years later: 1963 - 2003.(2004). Retrieved December 3, 2008 from http://www.brothermalcolm.net/studyguide/message_sg.htm. Shah, A. 5 (November 30, 2008). Global Financial Crisis 2008. Article posted to http://www.globalissues.org/article/768/global-financial-crisis. Understanding and Responding to the Economic Crisis. Solidarity. Retrieved December 3, 2008 from http://www.solidarity-us.org/pdfs/talkingpoints.pdf World Bank Group. (2008). Global Financial Crisis Responding Today, Securing Tomorrow: Background Paper prepared by the World Bank Group G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy. Retrieved December 3, 2008 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:219728 85~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html. Read More