Recession Basics

As usual – Hi there,

   Information asymmetry – a situation in which one party in a transaction has more or superior information compared to another. This often happens in transactions where the seller knows more than the buyer, although the reverse can happen as well. Potentially, this could be a harmful situation because one party can take advantage of the other party’s lack of knowledge.

Source: investopedia.com

   Um, yeah, right. We all do know that. Basically, one party knows more than another. However, today, I would like to make the information more approachable for all of you. The fuzz about economic downturn has gone down, though, it is still very well present. For those of you, who have slept through all these months – I have good news. A summary of the past events. A dictionary of all the ‘fashionable-economic’ terminology. Numbers and dates within one click. Brought to you by BBC, not me, by the way.

Timeline: Credit crunch to downturn - click

   A look at how it all went wrong. What were the causes? Consequences? Actions undertaken? Results? Where do we stand right now? No one actually knows the answer for the last question, though for the former, there should be. And there is.

The layman's finance crisis glossary - click

   Mortgage-backed securities? Ponzi scheme? Rights issue? Some of these words you might have already come across, yet still have no idea what do they mean. No worries, this little dictionary with all the economics and business jargon shall explain you what each individual term mean in an easy to understand language. I swear. It won’t hurt. Um, maybe just a bit.

Global downturn: In graphics - click

   Millions, billions, trillions. We all can get easily confused while being faced with such a huge amount of numbers. In a link above, all the most essential bits are mentioned. No meaningless figures. Just what you really ought to know. Bit out of date (especially GDP and national debt forecasts), however still very useful.

Recession tracker - click

   Every month you hear about changing interest rate or rate of unemployment or GDP projection or all of them and many more. This little, yet extremely practical link will give you a great insight look into what is really happening, and what the current statistics are.

   Heh, so that’s it. Hope you really do have a look at those sites. And to finish off, a little quote,

‘Stupidity isn’t the lack of knowledge. It’s the wastage of it.’
   ~Jan Hoang Xuan

   So don’t be stupid and don’t waste the knowledge that is just in front of you. Convinced? Fine, now go and have some read. I will have some, too.

Cheers,
John A6

PS I know the quote was lame.