Masih lagi mengatakan "YA" kepada Kapitalisma??

Daripada rentetan peristiwa yang dirakamkan saban hari, kita dapat melihat siri peristiwa yang menggerunkan kita sebagai umat. Kita dipaparkan dengan berita-berita antarabangsa yang meluahkan kegelisahan mereka tentang kejatuhan ekonomi yang nampaknya seolah tiada henti. Selepas kejatuhan demi kejatuhan, penutupan demi penutupan industri dan syarikat gergasi dunia, kini tiba masanya bagi mereka yang bekerja atau working class untuk 'melibatkan' diri dalam kehancuran ekonomi kapitalis yakni PENGANGGURAN.

Kita dapat lihat daripada bukti-bukti yang dikongsi sama ada di dalam dan luar negara bahawa pemberhentian pekerja seolah tiada hentinya.Kita pernah dulu memandang tinggi pada US dan kuasa besar kerana besar,kuat,teknologi tinggi serta strategi2 mereka dalam menghadapi sesuatu perkara/krisis.Namun, kuasa yang disanjung tinggi oleh umat hari ini hakikatnya dirundung malang.

Anehnya dalam kejujuran negara-negara kuasa besar ini, masih terdapat segelintir pemimpin kaum muslimin yang masih cuba menyembunyikan 'bangkai gajah di bawah karpet' dengan menyatakan bahawa 'ekonomi kita masih kukuh' dan sebagainya. Jika diperhatikan secara singkat dan tanpa penyelidikan yang concrete sekalipun, kita dapat merasakan keadaan sudah mula mendesak. Para peniaga kapitalis, hatta seorag penjual air soya sekalipun, mengeluh akibat kemelesetan yang berlaku sekarang. Pemberhentian pekerja berlaku dengan 'pesatnya'. Bagi industri-industri yang masih lagi cuba berdiri, menggunakan strategi pemotongan kos dengan hanya mewajibkan pekerja mereka bekerja 3 atau 4 hari seminggu. Industri-industri yang dahulunya, pantang lepa dengan masa kekosongan akan menekan pekerja-pekerja mereka untuk membuat kerja lebih masa, kini menyerah kalah dan memperlahankan operasi atas dasar pemotongan kos.

Mungkin ada yang menyatakan "Kita kat sini ok ja.Ada lagi benda nak makan. Ada lagi kerja.Syukurla!" Mungkin dari "sudut pandang mikro mengira perut sendiri", Ya, sepatutnya kita bersyukur kerana kurang merasakan tempiasnya. Namun, itu bagi perut kita dan keluarga kita. Bagaimana yang lain? Bagaimana yang lain di daerah kita?, Yang berniaga, Yang bekerja sendiri? Yang bekerja kampung? Itu daerah. Bagaimana dengan mereka di negeri lain? Kampung2 di negeri lain? Daerah di negeri2 lain? Bagaimana dengan negara lain? Kampung2 di daerah2 negara lain? Daerah2 di negara lain? Jawapan yang bersifat mikro perut sendiri atau lebih jelas dilabel sebagai 'asabiyyah' ini sememangnya, 'selfish'. Kerapkali kita menjawab 'Itu negara dia. Kita sini ok, syukurla'. Tidak pula kita memikirkan suatu hari, malapetaka besar menimpa kita, dan dimasa itu kita mengharapkan belas dari saudara seakidah, di luar sana, kita langsung mendengar jawapan mereka 'Itu negara dia. Kita sini ok, syukurla'. Apa perasaan kita agaknya?

Corak jatuh dan bangun yang relatif dengan sistem kapitalisma ini, dilihat sememangnya tiada henti. Dan setiapkali berlaku sedemikian, kita menjadi orang2 intelektual yang dungu, yang cuba memperbetulkan sistem yang jelas akan jatuh kembali, tanpa cuba meneropong kepada solusi total kepada permasalahan negara dan dunia. Sudut pandang penyelesaian hanyalah bersifat mikro dan bukannya menyeluruh. Kita sibuk memasang sistem penggera rumah yag tercanggih untuk mengelakkan rumah kita dimasuki perompak untuk yang keberapa ratus kali, tanpa melihat solusi untuk menghapuskan perompak itu yang menjadi punca permasalahan mendasar bagi rompakan2 yang berlaku.

Bagaimana perasaan kita apabila melihat rentetan peristiwa yang melanda dunia hari ini, khususnya dari sudut ekonomi? Apa yang kita dapat rasakan apabila melihat gambar penduduk negara veto dunia beratur dan bersesak hanya untuk mendapatkan 1 peluang pekerjaan?

Tidakkah kita sebagai graduan merasa risau akan nasib yang bakal ditempuhi oleh semua graduan yang sebelumnya iaitu susahnya mendapat pekerjaan, baik disektor swasta, kerajaan dan juga keusahawanan ?

Tidakkah kita yang sedang bekerja, merasakan risau akan ditimpa nasib yang sama seperti mereka yang berbaris didalam gambar diatas, baik yang sedang senang lenang bekerja dengan kerajaan, swasta atau berniaga sendiri?

Dan jika kita berjaya sekalipun menghadapinya, adakah kita boleh pastikan keadaan ini tidak akan berulang kembali pada generasi muda kita akan datang yakni anak2 kita, cucu2 kita?

Bukankah sejarah telah membuktikan kegagalan demi kegagalan apabila kita berhukum dengan sistem buatan manusia? Tidakkah kita memperhatikan amaran Al-Khaliq :

Apakah hukum jahiliyyah yang mereka ambil?Dan hukum siapakah yang lebih baik dari hukum Allah bagi orang-orang yang beriman? QS Al-Maidah 50.

Dan akibat daripada kegagalan kita memahami ayat Allah dan menerapkan hukumnya secara kaffah, maka Allah telah pun berfirman:

Telah tampak kerosakan di darat dan di laut disebabkan oleh perbuatan tangan-tangan manusia, supaya Allah menimpakan kepada mereka sebahagian dari akibat perbuatan mereka, agar mereka kembali ke jalan yang benar. QS Ar-Rum 41

Musibah apa saja yang menimpa kalian adalah akibat perbuatan tangan kalian sendiri. QS As-Syura 30

Maka bertanyalah kepada tuan empunya diri dan iman masing-masing.Apakah saat ini kita masih ingin berpaling dari ayat-ayat Allah? Atau pada saat ini, telah zahir kelemahan dan keterbatasan kita yang memaksa kita untuk berhenti dari melakukan penyembahan sesama manusia (berhukum dengan sistem buatan manusia) dan kembali menyembah Allah yang satu dengan mengembalikan semula apa yang hak bagi umat islam serta umat manusia seluruhnya yakni sistem ekonomi Islam, yang mana sistem ekonomi ini hanya akan terzahir apabila adanya sistem pemerintahan islam secara kaffah, dan cara untuk mengembalikan sistem pemerintahan islam ini adalah dengan penyatuan umat manusia dibawah 1 sistem yakni DAULAH KHILAFAH AL-ISLAMIYYAH.

Sebagai penutup, marilah kita renung akan ayat Allah dari surah Taha, ayat 124-127 yang bermaksud:

Dan barangsiapa berpaling dari peringatanKu,maka sungguh, dia akan menjalani kehidupan yang sempit, dan Kami akan mengumpulkannya pada hari kiamat dalam keadaan buta. Dia berkata, "Ya Tuhanku,mengapa Engkau kumpulkan aku dalam keadaan buta? Padahal dahulu aku dapat melihat?" Allah berfirman : "Demikianlah, dahulu telah datang kepadamu ayat-ayat Kami, dan kamu mengabaikannya, jadi begitu pula pada hari ini,kamu diabaikan. Dan demikianlah Kami membalas orang-orang yang melampaui batas dan tidak percaya kepada ayat-ayat Tuhannya. Sungguh, azab di akhirat itu lebih berat dan lebih kekal.

Wassalam.

Unemployment in US hits 25 year high

New York:The U.S. economy lost 651,000 jobs in February, the government announced Friday, as the unemployment rate soared to 8.1 percent, its highest level since 1983.

The latest grim scorecard on the U.S. workplace largely destroyed what hopes remained for an economic recovery in the first half of this year, and it added to a growing sense that all of 2009 might well be a lost cause.

Most economists now assume that the soonest the situation in the United States can improve is near the end of the year, as a $787 billion emergency spending program begins to wash through the economy, the world's largest.

President Barack Obama called the job-loss tally "astounding," but urged Americans to give him time to let his economic revival plans take root.

Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG, said "the current pace of decline is breathtaking. We are now falling at a near record rate in the postwar period and there has been no change in the violent downward trajectory."

Indeed, the monthly snapshot of the national employment picture worsened an already abysmal picture as the government revised upward the number of jobs lost in December and January. The economy has now shed at least 650,000 jobs for three months straight, the worst decline in percentage terms over that length of time since 1975.

Since the recession began in December 2007, 4.4 million jobs, or 3.2 percent of the total work force, have been lost. More than half of those positions - about 2.6 million - have disappeared in the past four months alone.

The dramatic acceleration of job losses has convinced some economists that the contraction under way reflects a fundamental restructuring of the U.S. economy. In crucial industries - particularly manufacturing, financial services and retail - many companies have opted to abandon whole areas of business.

"These jobs aren't coming back," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia in Charlotte, North Carolina. "A lot of production either isn't going to happen at all, or it's going to happen somewhere other than the United States. There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations. Firms are making strategic decisions that they don't want to be in their businesses."

For makers of U.S. policy, such a reality poses fundamental challenges to the traditional response to hard times. For decades, the government has reacted to economic downturns by handing out temporary unemployment-insurance checks, relying upon the resumption of economic growth to deliver needed jobs.

This time, argues Silvia, the government needs to put a much greater emphasis on retraining workers for careers in other industries.

In the auto industry, for example, annual U.S. car sales have dropped from about 17 million a few years ago to 9 million now. Even if sales increase to 10 or 12 million, that still leaves a lot of unneeded factories.

"That's a lot of workers that are not coming back," Silvia said. "That's a lot of steel, a lot of rubber, a lot of suppliers that are not coming back. It's really challenging to us as a society."

February saw another 168,000 manufacturing jobs eliminated, bringing losses during the last year to 1.2 million. In Michigan, where the troubles of the auto industry have been particularly traumatic, the unemployment rate sits at 10.6 percent, the highest of any U.S. state.

"The people who do what I do in the Detroit area are a dime a dozen," said Kim Allgeyer, 46, a machine toolmaker in Westland, Michigan, who was laid off in January from a company that made manufacturing assembly lines for the Big Three automakers. Since then, he has failed to find another full-time job, subsisting on day labor and one-week stints for contractors. He is thinking of moving to Louisiana or Mississippi to seek work as a shipbuilder.

"Who's going to put me to work?" he asked. "Where's the work at? It's just a great big black hole."

Much the same can said for financial services, which relinquished another 44,000 jobs in February. During the housing boom, banks hired tens of thousands of well-compensated traders, analysts and marketers to sell mortgage-backed securities and other exotic flavors of investments. That industry is unlikely to return to anything close to its former shape.

Retailers are shuttering stores as the previous era of easy money fueled by rising house prices and abundant credit gives way to a new period in which millions of households are being forced to confine their spending to their paychecks, limiting their trips to the mall. The economy lost 39,500 retail jobs in February, and has eliminated more than 500,000 over the past year.

The United States has been neglecting job training programs for decades, asserts Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project in New York. In current dollars, the country devoted the equivalent of $20 billion a year on job training in 1979, while spending only $6 billion last year.

The stimulus spending bill includes $4.5 billion in additional funds for job training. But under current programs, many of those eligible for training are given vouchers that cover only a semester or two at community colleges, while careers in growth industries like biotechnology and health care typically require two-year degree programs.

"We have to seriously look at fundamentally rebuilding the economy," Stettner said. "You've got to use this moment to retrain for jobs."

The job market still is not in as bad shape as it was in 1982, when the jobless rate peaked above 10 percent. Unemployment entering this downturn was somewhat lower than it was in 1981. But it is getting close.

"There's been no place to hide," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh. "Everybody in every industry has lost jobs or is feeling insecure about whether they're going to keep their jobs or how their company's going to do."

The government's broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment was 14.8 percent in February. That includes some of the people who have stopped looking for work because they do not believe they can find jobs. It also includes part-time workers who want to be working full time.

"There was a huge increase in uncertainty and a huge hit to confidence which caused a large rethinking among businesses," said Ethan Harris, co-head of U.S. economics research. "That caused a big downshift in employment."

Similar crises, like the stock market crash of 1987 and the near-collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, saw dysfunction continue to grip markets for about six months, Harris said, suggesting that this episode may be nearing an end.

But history also shows that when fear lifts, the economy returns not to normalcy but to wherever it was when the crisis began, Harris said. That means that even if order is restored to the financial system, the economy will still be staring at a recession.

A return to sustainable growth, economists say, depends on how soon the Obama administration can manage to put together and execute a credible plan to remove the bad loans choking the balance sheets of financial institutions.

"The 800-pound gorilla is whether we face up to the bad loans in the financial system," said Alan Levenson of T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.

David Leonhardt in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/06/business/jobs.php?page=1

Malaysia Unemployment Rate May Increase

The effect of massive job loss in the US may hit Malaysia soon, possibly increasing the national unemployment rate, which sits at 3.5% as of the year 2007. US is rapidly going into the recession mode as the weakening of the US dollars continues.

As far as the US economy is concerned, no news is good news at the moment.

On March 2008, the US employers cut 80,000 jobs, which is the biggest cut in employment in 5 years. The figure is also much higher than the expected 50,000 as anticipated by analysts. The huge figure has resulted in a spike of unemployment rate to 5.1% compared to an already steep 4.8% in February 2008. Workers in various industries and specializations including banking, manufacturing, construction, retail, property & real estate, hotel, accounting & finance, engineering, legal and other services have been affected with the job cuts.

Citigroup, the holding company of Citibank, suffered their worst loss in the history of its establishment, recording a stunning $10 billion quarterly loss recently.

US-based and multinational companies operating in Malaysia may take similar action to their counterparts, responding to the weak economy by cutting their expenditures. And this could mean cutting the size of the workforce, laying employees off.

In 2007, under the 9th economic plan, the Malaysia government has launched a series of mega-infrastructure projects, including the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER), Iskandar Development Region (IDR), East Corridor Economic Region (ECER), Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) and Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE).

The cluster of projects has been touted as a backbone to propel the national economy and answer to the unemployment rate, which has been showing a somewhat yo-yo performance in the recent years. However, with the change in the political landscape across the nation, such objectives and implementation are yet to be assessed.

Table: Malaysia Unemployment Rate 2003-2007 (Source: IndexMundi.com)

Unemployment Rate Can Go Higher Than 4.5%

Last year, the Second Finance Minister, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed predicted that the country’s unemployment would not go beyond 4% in year 2009.

Then the Malaysia Institute of Economic Research, MIER, came out with a more realistic assessment, indicating that the jobless rate can reach 4.5%.

And most recently, economist Datuk Dr Zainal Aznan Yusof predicted that Malaysia unemployment will continue to climb at an alarming rate and at one point will hit the 6.0% mark.

With the country’s working population now stands at 11 million people, 6% would mean that more than 600,000 people will be jobless. If comparison with the United Kingdom and United States were to go by, the 600,000 is a sensible estimate. For both UK and US, their governments expect more than 1 million people in their countries to become unemployed this year.

Electronic and manufacturing are the two most highly hit industries, with most layoffs coming from the two sectors. However, other companies from all other sectors have begun, and will face similar financial difficulties in the next coming few months. As a result, people who will be losing their job will come from all range of industries.

Datuk Dr Zainal expects the unemployment rate to recede to about 4% in year 2010.

http://skorcareer.com.my/blog/

China bankruptcies create cracks in global supply chain

HONG KONG: China's hopes for a speedy export recovery from the global crisis could be undermined by the weakest links in its powerful supply chain - smaller companies too damaged by the downturn and credit crisis to get goods to market.

As collapsing sales to recession-hit Western markets weigh on China's economy, bankruptcies pose a growing risk to its export machine, threatening everyone from suppliers of crucial parts and materials to companies that transport finished products.

Struggling Chinese exporters are facing higher costsand need to keep closer checks on suppliers, and a shrinking pool of financially healthy companies to deal with is limiting their vaunted flexibility, slowing down delivery times.

"The financial crisis is creating a situation that is unparalleled. If a Chinese company cannot sell to a Hong Kong company, which in turn cannot sell to, say, a foreign department store, each of their businesses will be affected," said Satpal Gobindpuri, a partner in Hong Kong at the DLA law firm. "It's creating a domino effect."

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that 670,000 small companies have closed across China because of the global crisis.

In addition to tumbling exports, companies have been hit by a squeeze in credit markets. About 90 percent of world merchandise trade is funded by trade finance, such as letters of credit.

A report Wednesday showed that factory output and new orders had returned to mild growth in February after shrinking for four months, though analysts cautioned about reading too much into the rise.

Wing Fung Optical International of Hong Kong, which makes sunglasses and eyeglass frames in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, has seen sales skid 25 percent in recent months as demand shrank in its key markets, Italy and the United States.

But its director of business development, Raymond Chan, said recent bankruptcies among suppliers posed a bigger risk to the company.

When a parts supplier went bust recently, sending Wing Fung scrambling to find an alternative source that could offer the same quality, delivery on a U.S. order was held up by two weeks - a delay that could have cost Wing Fung its customer.

"Delivering on time is crucial if we want to stay competitive," Chan said.

Adding to the problem is that many owners of small businesses in China arerunning away and leaving their companies in legal limbo, often just posting a notice on the factory door. Customers are left in the lurch with no chance of getting back any money owed or receiving goods they have ordered.

"They see no point in winding up operations properly if they don't have assets to pay creditors and workers," said Gobindpuri, the Hong Kong lawyer.

The risk-consulting company Kroll said it had seen a surge in demand for checks on Chinese suppliers. Red flags include workers not being paid on time or being laid off, delays in delivery times and a sudden shift to a new business.

"If a supplier is moving into another area of business, they're doing it for a reason," said Jack Clode, the Kroll managing director of business intelligence and investigations. It also means the existing "customer may no longer be a priority."

Clode, who foresees a sharp increase in factory closures in China this year by midsize Western companies as their domestic demand evaporates, said financial strains were also prompting suppliers to cut corners with cheaper materials.

Wing Fung, the eyeglass maker, has cut its number of suppliers by a quarter in recent months, dropping those that are late paying their bills. It also said it was extending credit to longstanding, reliable suppliers who are having short-term financial difficulties.

Chinese manufacturers are also growing worried about the health of their customers in the West as economies there worsen.

For the first time, Kroll is being asked by Chinese companies to conduct due diligence on Western customers.

"Li & Fung set off alarm bells," said Clode, referring to the Hong Kong blue-chip, global supply-chain manager.

Li & Fung sources goods for Wal-Mart Stores, among others, and is the biggest creditor of KB Toys, the former leading U.S. toy retailer.

When KB Toys filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, Li & Fung was owed $5 million.

Wing Fung was also caught last year when an Italian wholesaler suddenly went out of business. The Hong Kong company is still awaiting payment for goods, but does expect to be paid eventually, which is not the case with its bankrupt Chinese suppliers.

While rising bankruptcies are raising the risk of doing business in China, the country is unlikely to lose its status as a low-priced global trade center, not least because many companies are focused on the country's huge domestic market in the long run.

A survey of multinational companies in China, released this week by the U.S.-based management consulting company Booz & Co., showed that 90 percent of 108 respondents said they had no plans to relocate from China, up from 83 percent in a similar survey a year ago. Executives cited China's domestic market as the main reason for staying put.

The chip maker Intel recently announced it would close plants in Malaysia and the Philippines but would stay in China, relocating from Shanghai to Dalian in the northeast and Chengdu in the west, where land and labor costs are lower.

Wing Fung has also considered shifting within China rather than leaving.

"Everything is available in China, all the parts," Chan said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/05/business/yuan.php?page=1