The House is discussing another economic stimulus package right now!!!
Please email your congressman and tell them our economy depends on it.
Nancy Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
Hilary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact/
John Shadegg: http://johnshadegg.house.gov/Contact/ContactForm.htm
I wrote John Shadegg complaining of bailout plan and he wrote me an email "assuring" me it was the right thing to do. Needs to get BIT*HED at more I guess.
Shades of Schadenfreude
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The French, however, don't seem seriously worried about something similar happening to them. For one thing, it's too difficult to get a loan or a line of credit from French banks. And in his recent speech, Sarkozy promised that the state would step in if need be to protect personal savings. In response, the left-leaning daily Libération put Sarkozy on its cover, with the tongue-in-cheek headline: "Our Savior."
—Tracy McNicoll, Paris
China: 'We will make the same mistakes.'
China's delight at beating the United States in the Olympic medal tally finds no gleeful echoes when it comes to Wall Street's financial crisis. The Chinese are not crowing over the U.S. mortgage-induced meltdown; rather, they worry how it will affect them. "We don't want to see America go down because we depend on them," says Xu Zhaohui, a middle-school teacher.
So are China's banks at risk of contagion? China's banking sector is "one of the healthiest in the world," says Jing Ulrich, Chairman of China Equities at JP Morgan. Chinese banks are awash with liquidity, sitting on bank deposits from thrifty savers totaling $7 trillion. Banking analysts were not alarmed that China's two biggest retail banks had $280 million worth of exposure to bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Nor is there much sign of the domestic mortgage market triggering an identical, system-wide collapse. Although home ownership levels are as high as 80 percent in some cities—a sign of China's passion for property—many homebuyers pay cash. Ulrich says mortgage-holders seldom buy beyond their means, so a wave of defaults is unlikely, even in a slowing economy.
America's pain may even provide a useful lesson on the dangers of debt. Mortgages are new here, introduced just 10 years ago, and some worry that housing loans are eroding thrifty traditional habits. "Chinese people used to be unwilling to spend beyond their means," says college administrator Sun Huili. "People need to think about what's happening" in America, she warns. Thirty-six year old consultant Kelly Yu takes a more pessimistic view: "It's a good warning for the Chinese economy, but I believe China will make the exact same mistake in future". In her view, "Chinese are so crazy about wealth" that reckless speculation is inevitable.
China is suffering its own real-estate slump as a glutted luxury sector fails to find buyers. Ulrich predicts there'll be some busts, but thinks the medium-term impact could be healthy, finally pushing developers toward affordable housing for the masses. That may be so, but real-estate speculation has become a middle-class obsession. Xu owns three apartments, for instance. That means short-term instability is sure to make people nervous. Just following TV news on "unstable markets would really scare average people," says Yu, who advises companies on corporate social responsibility. Economists are upbeat about China's ability to ride out the U.S. financial crisis, but ordinary Chinese are not economists, and they're fearful.
—Mary Hennock
Germany: 'The crisis is far away.'
In Germany, politicians and the media commentariat are having a field day lashing out at American capitalism. But for ordinary Germans, the crisis seems like it's taking place on another planet. "America is a different world, where all kinds of people can get credit they shouldn't be getting," says Micky Gliese, a Berlin restaurant owner. "We Germans are different." Half the country rents, and many buy homes not on credit but with savings. Unlike in many other European countries, there's been no real-estate bubble to burst; prices only recently returned to early 1990s levels. There's no frothy consumer credit peddling industry—in fact, many people who got easy mortgages in America wouldn't even qualify for an ATM card. Most Germans don't even own stocks. "For me this crisis is very far away," Gliese says.
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