Economics

Introduction
The world economy today is a mixture of divergent economic trends. While some economies are experiencing robust economic growth, other economies are declining at a rather astonishing rate. The upsurge of the Asian economies has found the world flatfoot. On the contrary, the sudden economic decline of Greece has raised more questions than answers. The divergent trends in this economies offer a worthwhile discourse. Within this paper, discussion is taken into the possible causes of the divergent economic trend with possible reconciliatory course.

Economic trends in Greece and Malaysia
 Greece has been doing well economically until the state went into some political turmoil with the resignation of the prime minister. This made investor lack confidence in the government. The conservative rivalry also triggered an unprecedented fear from the investors. This nearly created an impasse. This political uncertainty contributed to its weakening political base.

Similarly, Greece has been seen as the most risky zone. In 2009 for example, it was projected that it could have a budget deficit of 6 over and above the European Unions recommended 3.  Greeces huge debt has brought about a fiscal imbalance. Given, this state Greece is most unlikely to access any financial assistance fro the EU states.

Greece has been suffering from consumer slowdown as a result of the low marginal propensity to consume resulting from increased dependence rates. This means the Greece government is not in a position to meet the short term revenue estimates. Consequently, this translated into increased taxes to bridge the gap. The Greek government has been engaging in an unnecessary over spending. This has been because of their socialists inclination.  This has also contributed to an ailing education and pension system. The two are major pillars in development hence crippling the Greek economy further. This prompted mass action that further crippled the economy through an unwarranted increase in the salaries of employees. Consequently this translated into high inflation at 23.

Greece is having high levels of corruption. Procurement procedures have been flouted leading to lack of confidence by both the donors and the foreign investors. However, even with all this challenges, there seems to lack political will for rooting out the vice1. Appointment of key positions in government has not been based on merit but political alignments. Greece has had a primary sector of production. This has made its employment prospects remain below par.  
 
Greece has also been suffering from very high population growth, 7 in 2006. This population growth has not been accompanied by relative growth in the employment creation levels. This has led to increase in the dependence ratio resulting in reduced investment prospects. The mountainous regions have been dogged with poor infrastructure leading to very high production costs. Besides, the economy has been mainly small scale leading to diseconomies of small scale. Greece has been earning a lot of foreign exchange from tourism. The general loss of confidence because of corruption, the uncertainty in the politics of the country scared away tourists this dealt a blow on its income prospects. This are the factor that have suddenly impeded the vibrant Greek economy to an almost stand still.

Malaysia on the other extreme end is among the world nations experiencing very high economic growth. Mainly, the robust economic growth has been attributed to the openness of the Malaysian economy. In the years 1989 through to 2007 the economy has been estimated at a steady growth of 7.6. In 2009 Malaysia recorded a growth rate of 8.4. Evidently, the growth prospects of Malaysia have remained impressive over the past 15 years.

The starting strategy of Malaysia was the import substitution strategy. Malaysia embarked on a campaign to reduce the volume of imports through encouraging local production. There exists consensus that the main stimulus was the openness of Malaysia to international economy, with restricted imports and expanded export.

The financial development of Malaysia played a major role in its development. Malaysia embarked on biased exchange policy that mainly favored it stabilization. It provided bottlenecks to its import policy and offered huge incentives for it export policy. Malaysia is believed to have charged the lowest duty on it export but with the highest import duty.

The per capita income of Malaysia has increases steadily over the last 5 years. This has been stimulated by the steadily increasing gross domestic product, which has been accompanied by decrease in population growth. As the GDP grows at 8.4 the population growth has been decreasing at 1.6. This has translated into a steady increase in per capita income.

The foregoing discourse brings into light the fact that economic growth has to be stimulated by a number of factors. From the two countries, it is evident that they have had divergent development policies. Besides, the economic environment has been quite different. While Greece has been loosing its international economic confidence, Malaysia has opened its economy to the world relatively fast. Greece has had a number of political innuendos arising from leadership struggles, at the extreme Malaysia has had peaceful transitional government with it level of transparency increasing steadily. The Greek government has had decrease in exports coupled with very high import volumes, presenting a deficit balance of payment on the other hand Malaysia has embarked on policies that have seen the imports reduce tremendously offering it a surplus balance of payment.

It can be deduced from the foregoing discussion that economic development has specific parameters within which it can take place. These parameters will traverse political, cultural, social and strategic planning. Where such impetus lack, it is most likely that economic development may not take place at the desired rate.