US and Others Facing Armageddon?

Smoky Lake Signal Article No. 186
August 31, 2011

Item:  Good News and Patriotic -

Congratulations to the Harper Government - adding the prefix "Royal" to the Canadian armed force's insignia is good news for the country and is a long time in returning.  For those who find such a bold action offensive - Stick it in your ear!

Item:  US and Others Facing Armageddon?

The August 22nd issue of MACLEAN'S Magazine splashed a headline across its front cover page:  THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISES - THIS COULD GET REALLY UGLY.  Another sub-headline on the cover page reads:  AMERICA IS DOOMED.  Within the pages of what is rightly called Canada's "national" magazine are two articles that are worth study and both relate to the world's current economic crisis.  The first article by Jason Kirby is entitled "This May Get Ugly" and describes Canada's economic state; how it survived the 2008 global recession unscathed (relative to others) and how Canada was able to come through it all without adding huge amounts to the country's national debt.  Canada was able to skirt the 2008 recession largely because of a more regulated mortgage market opposite the unregulated "sub-prime" mortgage market fiasco in the US that has largely collapsed.  Mr. Kirby goes on to say that Canada's close trade ties to the United States (worth noting, 75 percent of Canada's export trade is with the US) has made a difference in 2011 - now that the US is being forced into massive spending cuts.  Mr. Kirby says: "The US path to austerity now bears a resemblance to the two-stage downturn of the Great Depression" and that means Canada will be drawn into massive change, whether it likes it or not.  MACLEANS' second article by Mark Steyn is entitled "Get ready for Armageddon" (sub-titled: "The world's last superpower is on a joyride to oblivion") focuses on the astronomical debt issue in the United States and the unmanageable money problems in Europe.  Mr. Steyn observes that President Obama inherited a horrible economic situation and now that he is facing another election, has added horribly to the situation, making things much worse:  "Obama's response to his wastrel of a predecessor was to grab the throttle and crank it up."  In my view both Mr. Kirby and Mr. Steyn gave more than adequate DESCRIPTIONS of the global precipice that has emerged - the question is can a catastrophe be avoided?  What is needed are some ideas on how to avoid Armageddon - we need PERSCRIPTIONS!   As I have mentioned on a number of occasions in Whispering in the Wind; Canada's economic / social problems can be addressed through a strategy of NATION BUILDING - rather than letting the mega-globalized corporations operate in a laissez-faire environment, dictating the operations and workings of government.  And it is worth remembering a little bit of history - the last outbreak of laissez-fair-ism occurred in the Roaring 1920s and everybody knows what followed, the Great Depression of the 1930s.