Bloggy Business Today

After officially being adjudged the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama’s true colors have finally been revealed. He has had a mapped out plan from the start and mind you, unless you are in a country where the U.S. will benefit, consider yourselves in trouble.

Countries in Asia are not in the prime list. They are actually second on his agenda. Among the main countries that Obama has talked to are the ones who he will have certain itineraries, most notably helping lift the economy of the U.S. back on its feet like France, the United Kingdom and so on. As for the rest? No one knows what his real intent is.

The Philippines is far from the list. Not that I am siding with controversial Philippine President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo but it seems that Obama knows that the Philippines will only ask for aid and help from them. Apparently at the moment, the U.S. would rather save it for their own countrymen which is understandable. But is that fair? Isn’t that discriminating? You can just imagine one of his ignorant staff could have asked: “Where is the Philippines?”

Well, we have to wait and see in 2010. But from the things that are happening now, it doesn’t look good. I hate to say it but it looks like the motto of Obama right now is if you don’t have anything to offer, you are the least of my problems.

“I think [an Obama-Arroyo] meeting is unlikely because the president-elect, as I understand it, is not yet meeting with foreign leaders. He is busy assembling his Cabinet,” the US ambassador said.

The sidelining of the Arroyo call gave a glimpse of the importance of the Philippines to the United States at a moment of change of administration.

It is clear that the Philippines stands on the outer perimeter of US concerns in world affairs.

The first telephone conversations reveal the Philippines is not within the charmed circles of the Obama administration. It is a leper outside looking in.

It is imperative that Manila should rearrange its priorities vis-à-vis Washington. Obama is not our friend.

Source

[tags]philippine_president_gloria_macapagal_arroyo, barack_obama, 44th_president, countries_in_asia, president_of_the_united_states_of_america, motto, philippines, economy, united_kingdom[/tags]

One of the fascinating aspects of viewing the credit crunch that is going on around the world is trying to figure out if any parallels can be drawn between the different countries. While the credit crunch has most severely affected the United States and United Kingdom, at the same time many of the developed nations of the world (Western Europe, South Africa and Japan) have had their share of troubles as well. And because different analysts will hold different factors important in their analysis, anything that changes in another country might be construed as something that could change here.

Well, as far as Japan goes, things appear to be improving in the general economy. Loans are up, real estate is starting to look a lot more promising than it did a few months ago and even the unemployment rate is starting to come down. It was 4% in February, 3.9% in March and as April comes to a close it has been clocked in at 3.8%, showing a very distinct downward trend. How low it will go is anybody’s guess, but at the same time there are many people jumping on the bandwagon and stating that conditions in Japan improving might be a sign that things are going to improve in other places within the developed world as well.