No.10 – Better customer service Gone are the days, it would seem, that companies don’t have to work for your patronage. Many businesses, particularly banks, have noted an increase in customer satisfaction scores in the previous few months. And why is that? Well, as firms struggle for survival and scramble to regain the trust of the public, executives have placed the emphasis back where it should be: on keeping the customer happy. If you haven’t already, you should soon notice an improvement in customer service and much more attentive staff in shops, which is a definite silver lining to the recession. No.9 – Great travel deals The tourism industry was one of the first to feel the devastating effects of the recession. Bucking the trend, however, are local and small-scale tourism outfits who offer great value for those looking to tighten their belts. If you can’t afford a trip to the Maldives this year, why not look at some of the B&B offers right in your own backyard? And by supporting your local economy, you’ll feel that you’re doing your part to inject a bit of your very own fiscal stimulus. And who knows — thanks to this silver lining to the recession, you might even find that everything you needed was right under your nose to begin with. No.8 – Lower interest rates National interest rates are now at an all-time low, which clearly has major benefits for many of us. You might not be able to get a mortgage as the credit crunch continues, but if you’ve already got one, then your monthly payments are bound to get smaller during this economic slump — provided that you’re not on a fixed-rate mortgage. Now that the banks are bowing to government pressure to pass on these savings, those of us with tracker and variable mortgages can appreciate up to hundreds of dollars of savings a month — a silver lining to the recession for us all. No.7 – Surge in public creativity When times are tough, people want to forget all the gloominess and often look to pop culture for a form of escape. What we get, then, is the arrival of fresh and new forms of entertainment during periods of economic crisis. The Great Depression of the ’30s saw the advent of the detective novel and comic books, and it was also around this time that Hollywood experienced its first real golden age. Perhaps this recession will trigger a new wave of creativity, a silver lining to the recession for sure, and very soon we’ll all have better movies to watch and books to read. No.6 – Greater investment opportunities As firms go bust and property values plummet, new business opportunities emerge for enterprising risk-takers. These gambles usually require a certain amount of gumption, and of course the necessary capital, but opportunities certainly arise. Take, for instance, the availability of cheap property due to more than two million foreclosures in the U.S. real estate market — it may sound like a cliché, but who can really deny that one man’s loss is another man’s sliver lining to the recession? No.5 – Greater education opportunities Unlike the previous two decades in which young people sprinted to the job market as soon as they could, university graduates are now deciding to hunker down in grad school to become more qualified for when the economy rebounds. Universities have noticed this trend, and are offering new programs and expanding departments in an effort to encourage more people to carry on with their studies. No.4 – New infrastructure When the economy turns around — which it inevitably will — we’ll be able to enjoy the return of a skilled labor force. Buildings won’t be rushed through to completion, and we’ll hopefully never have to see bridges collapsing due to the dangerous combination of greed and incompetence. We can also expect an increase in the number of people who choose to learn hands-on skills like plumbing and carpentry, which is something that has been sorely missing from our generation of white-collar obsessed workers. No.3 – Cheaper booze You might not see “drowning your sorrows” as a productive countermeasure to the economic hardships we’re enduring, but there’s no denying the benefits of lower prices of drinks in bars and clubs — after all, we still need to enjoy ourselves. British newspapers have even been talking about the return of the £1 pint, a pricing phenomenon that hasn’t occurred since the late ’80s. No.2 – Return to a real economy Now that the recession is officially underway, there is no shortage of accusations and finger-pointing. One good thing that is sure to come out of all this, however, is a shift toward a more authentic economy, based on real things built by people with real ideas. You can wave goodbye to the Wall Street asshole who, for all the trouble he’s caused, won’t have a place in this new economic order. No.1 – New opportunities If you’re one of the many unfortunate people who have lost your job, you may find it difficult to see anything remotely positive coming out of these times. However, for every person in despair at a job loss, there’s another who sees it as an opportunity to reexamine what he’s been doing and discover the silver lining to the recession. The option to pursue new projects and acquire new skills has never been so apparent, and now people can get down to what they would be doing if they weren’t constricted by their day-to-day obligations. Western media often seems bent on striking fear into the hearts of people everywhere. And while it’s no fun to lose your job or see your property value tumble, there are a few genuine opportunities that arise during times of recession. It’s also good to recognize that this period of economic malaise will someday come to an end, and there are a number of important lessons that we can take from it. AskMen.com – Top 10: Silver Linings To The Recession
Gone are the days, it would seem, that companies don’t have to work for your patronage. Many businesses, particularly banks, have noted an increase in customer satisfaction scores in the previous few months. And why is that? Well, as firms struggle for survival and scramble to regain the trust of the public, executives have placed the emphasis back where it should be: on keeping the customer happy. If you haven’t already, you should soon notice an improvement in customer service and much more attentive staff in shops, which is a definite silver lining to the recession.
The tourism industry was one of the first to feel the devastating effects of the recession. Bucking the trend, however, are local and small-scale tourism outfits who offer great value for those looking to tighten their belts. If you can’t afford a trip to the Maldives this year, why not look at some of the B&B offers right in your own backyard? And by supporting your local economy, you’ll feel that you’re doing your part to inject a bit of your very own fiscal stimulus. And who knows — thanks to this silver lining to the recession, you might even find that everything you needed was right under your nose to begin with.
National interest rates are now at an all-time low, which clearly has major benefits for many of us. You might not be able to get a mortgage as the credit crunch continues, but if you’ve already got one, then your monthly payments are bound to get smaller during this economic slump — provided that you’re not on a fixed-rate mortgage. Now that the banks are bowing to government pressure to pass on these savings, those of us with tracker and variable mortgages can appreciate up to hundreds of dollars of savings a month — a silver lining to the recession for us all.
When times are tough, people want to forget all the gloominess and often look to pop culture for a form of escape. What we get, then, is the arrival of fresh and new forms of entertainment during periods of economic crisis. The Great Depression of the ’30s saw the advent of the detective novel and comic books, and it was also around this time that Hollywood experienced its first real golden age. Perhaps this recession will trigger a new wave of creativity, a silver lining to the recession for sure, and very soon we’ll all have better movies to watch and books to read.
As firms go bust and property values plummet, new business opportunities emerge for enterprising risk-takers. These gambles usually require a certain amount of gumption, and of course the necessary capital, but opportunities certainly arise. Take, for instance, the availability of cheap property due to more than two million foreclosures in the U.S. real estate market — it may sound like a cliché, but who can really deny that one man’s loss is another man’s sliver lining to the recession?
Unlike the previous two decades in which young people sprinted to the job market as soon as they could, university graduates are now deciding to hunker down in grad school to become more qualified for when the economy rebounds. Universities have noticed this trend, and are offering new programs and expanding departments in an effort to encourage more people to carry on with their studies.
When the economy turns around — which it inevitably will — we’ll be able to enjoy the return of a skilled labor force. Buildings won’t be rushed through to completion, and we’ll hopefully never have to see bridges collapsing due to the dangerous combination of greed and incompetence. We can also expect an increase in the number of people who choose to learn hands-on skills like plumbing and carpentry, which is something that has been sorely missing from our generation of white-collar obsessed workers.
You might not see “drowning your sorrows” as a productive countermeasure to the economic hardships we’re enduring, but there’s no denying the benefits of lower prices of drinks in bars and clubs — after all, we still need to enjoy ourselves. British newspapers have even been talking about the return of the £1 pint, a pricing phenomenon that hasn’t occurred since the late ’80s.
Now that the recession is officially underway, there is no shortage of accusations and finger-pointing. One good thing that is sure to come out of all this, however, is a shift toward a more authentic economy, based on real things built by people with real ideas. You can wave goodbye to the Wall Street asshole who, for all the trouble he’s caused, won’t have a place in this new economic order.
If you’re one of the many unfortunate people who have lost your job, you may find it difficult to see anything remotely positive coming out of these times. However, for every person in despair at a job loss, there’s another who sees it as an opportunity to reexamine what he’s been doing and discover the silver lining to the recession. The option to pursue new projects and acquire new skills has never been so apparent, and now people can get down to what they would be doing if they weren’t constricted by their day-to-day obligations. Western media often seems bent on striking fear into the hearts of people everywhere. And while it’s no fun to lose your job or see your property value tumble, there are a few genuine opportunities that arise during times of recession. It’s also good to recognize that this period of economic malaise will someday come to an end, and there are a number of important lessons that we can take from it.
AskMen.com – Top 10: Silver Linings To The Recession
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages. The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month. Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed. “We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?” Financial Rescue The pledges, amounting to almost two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up about 18 months ago. The promises are composed of about $1 trillion in stimulus packages, around $3 trillion in lending and spending and $5.7 trillion in agreements to provide aid. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps. Federal Reserve lending to banks peaked at a record $2.3 trillion in December, dropping to $1.83 trillion by last week. The Fed balance sheet is still more than double the $880 billion it was in the week before Sept. 17 when it agreed to accept lower-quality collateral. The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15; brought down Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; and led to the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp. The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve. ‘All the Stops’ “The Fed, Treasury and FDIC are pulling out all the stops to stop any widespread systemic damage to the economy,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Inc. in Dallas and a former senior economist at the central bank. “The federal government is on the hook for an awful lot of money but I think it’s needed to help the financial system recover.” Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and FDIC and interviewed regulators, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort. Commitments may expand again soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner postponed until tomorrow an announcement that may invite private investment as a way to clear toxic debt from bank balance sheets. Measures that have been settled include a new round of injections of taxpayer funds into banks, targeted at those identified by regulators as most in need of additional capital, people briefed on the matter said. Program Delay The government is already backing $301 billion of Citigroup Inc. securities and another $118 billion from Bank of America. The government hasn’t yet paid out on any of the guarantees. The Fed said Friday that it is delaying the start a $200 billion program called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, to revive the market for securities based on consumer loans such as credit-card, auto and student borrowings. Most of the spending programs are run out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Geithner served as president. He was sworn in as Treasury secretary on Jan. 26. When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. The Federal Reserve so far is refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return. Collateral is an asset pledged by a borrower in the event a loan payment isn’t made. Fed Sued Bloomberg requested details of Fed lending under the Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral. Arguments in the suit may be heard as soon as this month, according to the court docket. Bloomberg asked the Treasury in an FOIA request Jan. 28 for a detailed list of the securities it planned to guarantee for Citigroup and Bank of America. Bloomberg hasn’t received a response to the request. The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.
Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
Financial Rescue
The pledges, amounting to almost two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up about 18 months ago. The promises are composed of about $1 trillion in stimulus packages, around $3 trillion in lending and spending and $5.7 trillion in agreements to provide aid. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps.
Federal Reserve lending to banks peaked at a record $2.3 trillion in December, dropping to $1.83 trillion by last week. The Fed balance sheet is still more than double the $880 billion it was in the week before Sept. 17 when it agreed to accept lower-quality collateral.
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15; brought down Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; and led to the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp.
The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.
‘All the Stops’
“The Fed, Treasury and FDIC are pulling out all the stops to stop any widespread systemic damage to the economy,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Inc. in Dallas and a former senior economist at the central bank. “The federal government is on the hook for an awful lot of money but I think it’s needed to help the financial system recover.”
Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and FDIC and interviewed regulators, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.
Commitments may expand again soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner postponed until tomorrow an announcement that may invite private investment as a way to clear toxic debt from bank balance sheets. Measures that have been settled include a new round of injections of taxpayer funds into banks, targeted at those identified by regulators as most in need of additional capital, people briefed on the matter said.
Program Delay
The government is already backing $301 billion of Citigroup Inc. securities and another $118 billion from Bank of America. The government hasn’t yet paid out on any of the guarantees.
The Fed said Friday that it is delaying the start a $200 billion program called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, to revive the market for securities based on consumer loans such as credit-card, auto and student borrowings.
Most of the spending programs are run out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Geithner served as president. He was sworn in as Treasury secretary on Jan. 26.
When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. The Federal Reserve so far is refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return. Collateral is an asset pledged by a borrower in the event a loan payment isn’t made.
Fed Sued
Bloomberg requested details of Fed lending under the Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral. Arguments in the suit may be heard as soon as this month, according to the court docket. Bloomberg asked the Treasury in an FOIA request Jan. 28 for a detailed list of the securities it planned to guarantee for Citigroup and Bank of America. Bloomberg hasn’t received a response to the request.
The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Bloomberg.com: News
