Paulo Figueiredo: ‘PRA MÍDIA, SE ATENTADOS SÃO REALIZADOS POR PESSOAS NÃO BRANCAS, CULPE AS ARMAS’

It’s a tough slog. Increased small business’s participation in world trade, with emphasis on manufacturing, and improvement of the education system in the U.S. will go a long way towards job improvement opportunities.

From British Petroleum’s culpability in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, to the government Minerals Management Service that was supposed to be regulating offshore drilling and didn’t, to the healthcare industry busily finding ways to evade oversight, people have taken a backseat to profits. The “excuse” has been that it’s only “human nature” to avoid responsibility. But saying it’s “human nature” is like saying the sun will come up in the morning. It explains nothing and allows us to avoid having to take action and be accountable for our activities.

The US economy made some gains, when its GDP took a positive growth turn last quarter of 2009. However, the chairman of the US Fed feels that it was too early to assume that the recovery will last. His prime concern appears to be elevated unemployment, which is yet to end the negative cycle.

A pall of gloom seemed to have hit the US economy, with the US commerce department revising downwards, Q3 GDP growth estimates at an annualized rate to 2.2%, from the earlier 3.5%, which had been revised downwards to 2.8%. This suggests that the US economy did not grow as fast as earlier estimates had implied, dampening the positive mood that the economy had swung into.

It’s been one world economically, a global village, for years now. The competition between major countries is no longer fought on the high seas, or on land with vast armies, but in board rooms and markets.