Fifty percent of the survey’s respondents, in fact, believe that their organizations’ financial outlook for the year will be more difficult than in 2009. The NFF study also indicated that 80 percent of these organizations expect to see a rise in the demand for the services they provide.

Part of this lack of funding is being blamed on congress’ failure to pass legislation to correct the expiry of the federal estate tax which was scheduled on January 1. Data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) shows that as the estate tax was reduced from 2001 to 2007, the percentage of wealthy decedents that left part of their inherited estate to charity declined along with it. The tax-lapse could actually be hurting charitable efforts and non-profit organizations.

Local governments are also said to be hurting non-profit organizations by reducing the budget on essential services and leaving non-profits to take up the slack. Some local governments are also reportedly holding off on payments contractually owed to non-profit organizations for delivering services.

According to a report by the National Council of Nonprofits, this in combination with the recession has “pushed many nonprofits to the brink.” The council also reports that non-profits “operate as invisible yet indispensable economic engines.”

The power of philanthropy is much more considerable than most perceive it to be. Philanthropists have a great responsibility to take care of society and humanity.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Philanthrophy.

The new draft also fails to provide any long-term goals for emissions reductions, the peaking of emissions, and long-term financing to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change. It stated only that the provisions were “to be elaborated” with reference to an earlier draft issued last Friday, which contained a range of emissions targets.

The new draft comes as leaders from over 100 countries arrived in the Danish capital to hammer out a plan, but the talks have been slow going due to tensions over who should cut carbon dioxide emissions and who should pay for it.

The draft was issued the day after the group of 77, which includes poor countries as well as large emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil, walked out of the talks, accusing industrialized nations of trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol.

The walk out prompted a suspension in the official negotiations Monday, and the chairman of the conference appointed five different working groups to advance consultations on the more complicated issues.

The global climate summit in Copenhagen seeks to find a new agreement on international rules to limit global warming after 2012. Developing countries want to keep the structure of the Kyoto Protocol – which requires developed nations, but not poorer countries nor the United States, to cut greenhouses gasses – with a new document to supplement it.

It is my opinion that since developed nations have been historically responsible for most global emissions of greenhouse gases, they must also take the lead in combating climate change by abating their carbon emissions and providing money and technology to poorer nations.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about the global climate summit

Even as the Treasury attempts to lock in low interest rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent masses of homeowners into default on their mortgages during the last housing crunch.

With the national debt now over $12 trillion, the government’s tab for servicing the debt should exceed $700 billion a year in 2019 (up from $202 billion this year) even if annual budgets shrink dramatically. Other estimates have been much higher.

As problematic as the issue of rapidly escalating interest payments may seem, it is just one of many hurdles facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means. The surge in borrowing over the past several years may or may not have been a necessary response to the financial crisis, but there is little doubt that the United States’ long term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.

We are now faced with the challenge of climbing out of two very deep holes at once – as debt-ridden consumers, and as taxpayers whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone. The competing demands could embitter political debates over the size and scope of the government, the trade-offs between taxes and spending, and the bottom line questions about who ultimately should bear the burden. And regardless of who’s to blame in the end, inflation, higher interest rates, and rollover risk cannot be entirely handled by clever debt management strategy.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Economy

Joseph Stiglitz, a former Nobel Prize winner in economics, made waves yesterday when he argued against Bernanke’s claim. Stiglitz, in an interview with Daily Finance, said that ” we would be lucky to be out of the recession by 2012…2010 may be a year of positive growth, though far weaker than would be necessary to get unemployment down significantly.”

The current unemployment rate has remained a sticking point for many of the assessments of the economy, including Bernanke own view. The lack of new jobs created provides a frightening scenario for the world’s wealthiest countries, who are in desperate need of tax revenue to pay for the stimulus measures undertaken to right their respective economies.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “high unemployment in the world’s wealthiest countries could last years,” ensuring that the crater left by last year’s events would be much deeper than most experts had hoped.

Stiglitz’s view makes job creation the number one factor in any recovery, a fact which echoes much of the rhetoric of President Obama around the time of the stimulus bill’s passage. Stiglitz also came out to condemn the practice of trading in complex derivatives by saying they do not serve the “common good” in any meaningful way.

This Nobel Prize winner’s analysis should not be dismissed as naysaying, but rather be looked upon as a challenge for the private sector, which may have the power to infuse the economy with the kind of projects designed to put people to work. Without an improvement in unemployment at some point in the next two quarters, the futures outlook could be grim.

[image via Seattle Municipal Archives]

Here in the U.S., we’ve certainly witnessed our fair share of anger over the bonus structure currently in place in the finance industry. After last year’s hasty first round of bailouts, and the subsequent fallout over much of that money being used for bonuses, golden parachutes, and other forms of superfluous cash-buttressing, Americans were clearly ready for some decisive reform. Europe, similarly, has called for a change in “bonus culture” since the collapse began in earnest around this time last year.

Still keen on keeping some sense of laissez-faire, the United States and Great Britain have been tepid on the idea of hard and fast bonus regulation, whereas Germany and France have “demanded a tough line,” according to an article in The Economist. The tough thing about this issue is that bonuses can be taxed at higher rates than the baseline salaries of high-earning bankers.

In response to any global policies curtailing bonus culture, the big banks of the world will likely raise salaries to ensure the best talent doesn’t simply set up shop in a country capable of providing bigger bonuses. In any case, the challenge will be to keep tax revenue flowing in from the bigger earners, whether that means a change in the tax code, or simply more aggressively taxing whatever bonuses do get passed out. Needless to say, it will likely be a while before anti-bank sentiment dies down worldwide.

[image via Gregory Warran]