It's Time To Be Brave

The age of turbulence is now coming.

Few weeks ago, financial giants Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and AIG was bailed out by the US Federal Reserve to save it from following the path of Lehman Brothers. While Bank of America already acquired Merrill Lynch and one of the largest mortgage banks in America is about to be sold, the rest of the world is asking, who will be next?

The US government is trying to save all the financial institutions but the question is: for how long?

What is currently happening has been predicted already. The US is now experiencing economic recession and the rest of the world is not far from being affected.

What happened to the Lehman Brothers has greatly affected Asian Countries. Even if the US Federal Reserve has bailed out AIG, investors lost confidence and a lot of plan holders are already canceling their policies. People are already pulling out their investments for fear that it might evaporate soon.

Before the news of the fall, we learned about the "chaos" that is already shaking the financial market. Our investor/CEO friend from the US already expressed worries a week before the news broke out. He said that what is about to happen will be ten times bigger than the Asian Market Crash that happened in 1997 and now, his company has been greatly affected.

With what is currently happening, I cannot help but think, how many Filipinos are really aware of the impact of the current financial crisis in their lives?

I got a call from my mom worrying from what she heard from the news about AIG. She said that she couldn’t imagine that a top Fortune 500 Company is now in the brink of bankruptcy. She also told me that the relatives of all my childhood friends who have worked and lived in the US for almost 20 years are now coming back in the Philippines and start their businesses here.

There is eight straight months of job losses this year in the US and just this August, around 84, 000 job losses happened in one month alone. Merrill Lynch has 60,000 employees while Lehman’s has 25,000 employees, and all of their jobs are in jeopardy. Learning that thousands of employees has been laid off in the US, I now see a lot of Filipino Workers abroad coming back here in the Philippines.

The financial integrity of the world is now being challenged. According to Allan Greenspan who was the former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve for the past 20 years, “this is the worst economy I have ever seen”. He said that this is just the beginning and a lot more top financial institutions will collapse in the near future.

The reason for the fall of the Lehman Brothers was because of heavy investments on real estate, which lead to becoming "toxic assets" or rotten mortgages. People can no longer pay. Now, the US is calling on to the world to save the banking system.

What I got from this is a great lesson and that is, preparation.

Banks will continue to merge. If the US Federal will continue to save all this falling financial institutions, it is the employees who will suffer. The money that was used to bail out AIG came from the taxpayers. If this will continue, employees should no longer wish for their retirement funds. A lot of Filipinos working abroad will come back in the Philippines without available jobs for them. US companies operating in the Philippines will pull out. I just went to Subic few months ago and one of the employees working at the airport said that this December, Fed Ex is already scheduled to pull out its Asian Hub from Subic to China. UPS has already scheduled its transfer as well while news of the pull out of the world’s largest chip maker Intel, is already sensed.

This only means that more people will be downsized. In fact, one of my engineer friends who is working in one of the top leading supplier of semiconductor interconnect services in Laguna said, that 700 employees was laid off from their jobs this year.

Robert Kiyosaki predicted this already, only this is happening earlier than expected. Learning this, I am very grateful to have learned about trends and found the perfect Information Age business taught in the books of Robert Kiyosaki.

What is happening now in the financial world is actually happening in Cashflow 202 game and the funny thing is, whatever happens in the market, my business is not affected.

The Industrial Age is about to end. This is the reason why the world is experiencing turbulence that never happened before. Until people open up their eyes to the truth, to what is happening, it will be too late to get their acts together. The information age is taking control and the one important thing people must start doing, is to arm themselves with the right information and the right financial education.

The key now is preparation. Having the right information and the being in the right trend prepares everyone in this country for the best that is about to come. This is now the time to be brave and get smart because it is going to get exciting. It is a great time to be wealthier and become financially smarter.

This is the time to prepare for the ride of the lifetime and be brave.

Marsel Fuertes-Tomambo