Calamity!

Just curious. No need to answer, but I like to hear.... Are we in recession? Is Canada in trouble financially, because someone is dropping the ball here. I can't tell whether or not we have a real problem because every time you turn around some "official" somewhere is saying everything is alright. Then the next day someone else is crying out in anguish "Stock's are dropping! The economy is on the downturn! There's a fly in my financial soup!"

I cannot honestly for the life of me figure out if there is actually a problem here. I mean I check the financial section of the paper and glance over the headlines, and it's awash with doom one day, then nonexistent the next. If there was a soundtrack to this mess it wouldn't be profound like John Williams "The Imperial March", but be more like the theme song from "The Benny Hill Show". I mean that's what it amounts to right about now. I can hear that song playing and envision the traders at the TSX, or NYSE running about furiously waving their hands buying, selling, laughing, and crying, all because of how the markets are in turmoil. You would think that with all the supposed problems, hype, and miscellaneous tripe that the press has put out in the last month regarding the perceived crisis, that there would be a lot of dead executives on Wall Street. Sure if it's bad enough they would be jump out of windows left, right, and center. The sidewalks would be littered with high class suits getting their pockets searched for loose change by the very people they likely ripped off in the first place. But I'll get to the poverty bit later on....

If this is a true crisis, then I'm sure there will likely be severe repercussions to those responsible for causing it.... I can't believe I just said that.... I know what you're thinking. "C'mon Freeman, get real. No one is going to pay for screwing up the world." Yeah. I agree that it was a naive comment, but I slam my fist into the keyboard thusly : gfiphqwe, and cry out "Dammit it's what should happen!" But you and I both know that it ain't gonna happen. It's a cruel world in that regard, when overly complicated social, political, and financial rules take precedence over simple truth, and will. Punishment would never be doled out to those responsible for losing nations millions in currency, putting tens of thousands of people out of jobs, and creating more poverty than could possibly be healthy. You would almost think that governments are in it for themselves, as opposed to the very people they are supposed to govern. Whoa! Hold the phone here! This smacks of conspiracy. You can't be serious Freeman! Say it ain't so! Yeah, I'm serious. I'm not sure anymore where big business ends, and government starts. When you have people running the country that are lining their pocket books on the side, you have to question their motivations. I would have thought that to be a politician you would have had to want to serve the public, but in this day and age that seems to be less the case. I have to wonder what would happen if the Prime Minister of Canada, or even the President of the United States were paid one dollar a year, and were not allowed to have any business ventures or involvement. Well that's a kooky idea. I mean after all the PM is housed, looked after medically, has better security on his home than most bank vaults, and can travel where ever he needs to be. He's fed, clothed, and well looked after. I'm pretty sure he doesn't pay rent on 24 Sussex Drive, and that there's gas in the plane if he needs to travel. As well his driver keeps the car fueled up, and the cook makes sure there's food in the kitchen. Wow. So all he needs to do is get dressed in the morning, and primp and preen for the days work. Interesting. I wonder if he's worried about financial turmoil. From of the sounds of it he's likely getting a nice fat pay cheque anyways, so even if the country stood on it's head over the money problems of the day, I think he would be alright. Now you have to ask yourself: "What's his motivation?"

So here we are at or near the bottom. I don't exactly feel the soft squishy landscape of Wall Street fat cat corpses as I walk to the corner store, but as I look in my wallet nor do I see moths eating away. Where's the looming crisis. Or maybe it's only a crisis if rich people are affected? Well now, I'm just full of ideas aren't I. Crazy ones at that. I mean after all rich people are rich because they have a tonne of money right? If there's a problem they just dip into their savings to buy that new yacht. No crisis there. Meanwhile Joe Sixpack stands in line at the food shelter, waiting to get some food for the kids. Never mind last week he was "Joe The Plumber", and had a decent job before all this mess happened. It's OK though, because after he gets his food he'll go looking for work. But soon it won't be found. Joe will meet others like him in the food line, and slowly realize that there are WAY more poor people than rich. Maybe then something will start to change, because after all when you hit rock bottom the only way to look is up. Look up. Look up at the rich people who are still on top after you lose your job, your home, and everything that seemed familiar, friendly, and made life wonderful. He's still got it. But he ain't sharing it.

Final ominous word: When we're all broke and in the gutter because the Capitalist system robbed us; the working class, of everything we own, maybe it's high time we stopped letting the money run everything. It's brought us nothing but heartache after all. As well it's divided us as a society, which is damnable in it's own right. So maybe instead of waiting for those Wall Street financial wizards to jump out of their windows because they lost 60% of everything they had invested, maybe we should just push them out. After all, they cost us 100% of everything we had.

Just me throwing it out there.

Freeman