This article approaches the current financial state from a positive angle, according to the author provides it is actually fear and lack of confidence that is holding back the economy which otherwise is poised for substantial growth. An important reason which is holding back business managers from hiring or consumers from making more purchases is the lack of a clear picture of what the future holds. They should know that shrinking loan losses and strong earnings have left banks with a lot of cash which they can lend to qualified buyers.

The ten reasons provided by the author are serious and worth accounting for, they discuss facts like the market being already very expensive, increasing deflation which is affecting wages, people still being in too much debt, employment rates hovering around 60% which is lowest since the 1980s, and continuing foreclosures among others.

Source: Wall Street Journal

According to the results of the latest SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, small business owners are even more pessimistic about the economy than they were a couple of months back. They share the sentiment with consumers 67% of whom don’t feel good about the economy. This shows that most small business owners still don’t feel that they’ve left the recession behind irrespective of what economists say. This state of sentiments has received a further blow with consumers drastically cutting down on their spending in July.

The £35,000 cocktail referred to in the title cocktail was found being sold in a London nightclub in the winter of 2007 – the last boomtime Christmas for many shoppers in the years to come. The crash followed and we all know what happened. What the author drives to in this article is that one of the major causes of the collapse of the financial system was the heavily polarized economy. The divide between the haves and have-nots was horribly wide and getting even worse.

Downturns do not only damage a company’s business but can also have enduring negative effects on its talent. Aggressive head-count reduction does not only damage the morale of existing workers but also hurt the company’s reputation among potential employees. Moreover important training and employee development programs are also often sacrificed during downturns.

After the real estate industry collapsed in Japan in 1989, the country’s financial decision makers made a crucial mistake. They should have forced banks to declare their losses which would have in turn led to a fall in their stock prices and some towards bankruptcy. Instead these huge banks were allowed to pretend that their assets were actually worth the inflated values they assigned them. After Black September of 2008 the same policy was followed by Bush/Cheney and now by Obama. So the guilty continue to live without paying for their wrongdoings.

The Justice Department dropped its criminal investigation into wrongdoing by former executives of American International Group Financial Products even though there is considerable evidence for their guilt. This is not an isolated event as guilty executives from other companies like JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch have also been let of similarly and some like Howard Hubler from Morgan Stanley have been quietly released with severance packages valued at “tens of millions of dollars”.

The dilemma central to regulatory reforms is whether to opt for a robust financial system or leverage fueled economic growth. Increased regulation can alter relative valuation and reduce price volatility, if it’s effective it would also be able to reduce credit growth and drive sustainable macroeconomic growth.

The recession was tough on most companies, not all, period. Those that didn’t suffer the recession include Apple, Domino’s Pizza, Scottrade, Trek Bicycle and Salesforce.com among others. Luck? They were more than lucky; they excelled in the following areas – design, speed, cost, service, external and internal communication and purpose.

Source: Forbes

Commerce Department has collected data that shows a 1.6% growth in sales. Furthermore, almost every sector ranging from car dealers to building suppliers to clothing retailers to home furnishing stores registered growth. Chain retailers like Macy’s, Target and Gap showed double digit growth, while the auto industry saw an 24% increase in March 2010 compared to March 2009.

Source: Industry Week