Mankind is presently facing two of the greatest challenges that it has ever encountered – a world economy that has almost collapsed and a global ecosystem that is on the brink of being uninhabitable if we do not change immediately.

It may seem like we’ve suddenly been hit by a double-whammy, but the inevitability of these crises have already been observed, discussed and warned for many years prior to self-fulfilling themselves. The root of both these problems may be traced back to man’s greed and selfishness, weaknesses from our inherent makeup that will drive us to our own destruction unless we can wake up to what’s going on.

The recent global financial and environmental crises are powerful events to help us alter our mindset about a lot of things. If we look at them from a positive light, they are in fact what we need to force us to change.

The economic recession has brought about lower wages, relatively higher living costs and a depleted standard of living which has led people to be more open to lifestyle changes, especially if they are financially beneficial.

Combined with government efforts to promote green initiatives, the current global financial crisis may turn out to be the last hope of shocking us out of our ecological complacency.

Research studies indicate that men with higher levels of the testosterone will make riskier investments compared to the counterparts who have lower levels of the sex hormone.

When you combine this finding with the fact the financial markets are dominated by capitalistic male egos, the picture becomes clearer as to how we got ourselves into the present economic crisis.

If the capital markets are indeed influenced by the hormone levels of its participants, it’s not surprising that it operated with such an irrational exuberance to ultimately cause the financial meltdown.

So, does this mean that we could have avoided the current crisis if the trading pits were full of women instead of testosterone loaded men?

Well, the female sex is generally more responsible and rational but if fluctuating hormone levels come into play, we might end up with the same turbulent markets that make no sense as well.

In fact, the money is actually being spent on a website redesign as there’s already an existing “website to foster greater accountability and transparency” in the use of funds covered by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at www.Recovery.Gov.

So, why do we need a multi-million dollar site to report on how much money the government is spending, especially as we’ve already got one?

In an announcement from the General Services Administration, officials mentioned that the new site will allow “taxpayers to see where their dollars are being spent” but failed to reveal pertinent details about the deal where apparently only 59 companies were eligible to bid for the contract.

Although the Recovery.Gov site is supposed to create greater transparency, the management of its own redesign has certainly been surrounded by secrecy and too many unanswered questions.

As for accountability, it’ll be interesting to see how anyone justifies spending US$18million on a website upgrade.

UPDATE:

As it turns out, the contract’s price tag may be quite understandable if we take a closer look at the details:

1. The current cost of the redesign is only US$9.5 million. US$18 million is the total value of the contract including the possibility of an extension through to 2014.
2. US$9.5 million is still an enormous sum to develop a website when you consider that the technology licensing cost for UsaSpending.Gov (a larger site which tracks the entire Federal Budget) was only US$600,000. Using this as a reference, it may be reasonable to assume that a fair value for the project may fall in the region of US$2 to 3 million.
3. Further investigation reveals that there is a very tight deadline on the project, where the contractor has less than 60 days to deliver a finished product. OMB Watch explains that this could be a major reason for the high cost.

In view of the expedited timeline, the premium included in the project cost may be more understandable, even if it’s still unacceptable.

Here’s a list of Economic Stimulus Plans which have been announced to date:

1. United States: US$787bn
2. China: US$586bn
3. Japan: US$516.3bn
4. Brazil: US$283.3bn
5. EU-wide: US$254.6bn
6. Germany (2nd): US$67bn
7. France: US$33bn
8. Canada: US$32bn
9. Poland: US$31.4bn
10. Britain: US$30bn
11. Germany (1st): US$29bn
12. Australia: US$28bn
13. Malaysia: US$18.9bn
14. Hungary: US$15.7bn
15. Singapore: US$13.6bn
16. India: US$8bn
17. Indonesia: US$6.3bn
18. Vietnam: US$6bn
19. Mexico: US$5.8bn
20. Egypt: US$5.4bn
21. Israel: US$5bn
22. Russia: US$5bn
23. Chile: US$4bn
24. Argentina: US$3.8bn
25. South Africa: US$3.6bn
26. Thailand: US$3.3bn
27. Norway: US$2.9bn
28. Italy: US$2bn
29. Finland: US$2bn
30. Portugal: US$2bn
31. Sweden: US$1bn

Note: This does not include the IMF Plans for Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Pakistan and Iceland.