Of coarse, lets not forget the End Time prophesies:
Wars and rumors of wars
Cataclysmic events fortold: flooding, locusts, frogs, rising oceans
One world language and monetary system
The Mayan calendar ends Dec 21 2012 with
Are all these world events (physical, fiscal and natural) pointing to an unavoidable end? Should we rely on governments to handle debt crisis when they are voted in by people who can't even balance their cheque-books between paydays? Nobody wants to lose government services, or pay more taxes but if something isn't done soon then even us in Canada could be the next in line to accept a handout from the IMF. What happens in the end? Is the next era the one where societies are bank-run? Oh, but banks are bailed out by government with their own money on loan. Oh my, what a conundrum!
Here's the Stats:
Canada owes over 814 billion dollars to the Bank of Canada which equals to $25'000 per man woman and child. My immediate family owes $150'000.
In Zimbabwe, a baby is born into $36'000 debt with what chance to repay? 34% of working age adults are inflicted with AIDS. What chance do they ever have of paying off that debt?
Germany has a national debt of 1.8 trillion, meaning every citizen owes roughly $22'000 per citizen.
The Police States of America owes $25'000, roughly the same as Canada, only we're better looking.
The IMF loans money at the astonishingly low rate of 3.5%. That's fine if you're buying your first car or even house, but Canada, if bailed out would still owe $28b a year just in interest, roughly $863 per person. So basically the IMF is a debt consolidator on a global scale.
So as the world financial system collapses around us, what are we going to do?
2 comments:
Hi Taylor 2,
Usually I would commence my excessive commentary by insulting Taylor 1 while pretending like I'm the Financial Man. Well, as T2 (that stands for Taylor 2 if you couldn't fly with my dope lingo) well noted, 2010 was a year of much financial pain and suffering. In addition to not insulting T2, I would also like to compliment him on being so technologically savvy. How did you embed that photo, mang? In all seriousness, thanks for revitalizing Blip Invest.
The world economy is indeed in a state of 'uncertainty'. Although it has been almost catastrophic (I can attest to this personally as a coffee shop owner) there are still many stable parts. In some ways, the global financial events have done wonderful things. Here are a few:
-people have realized that they should take control of their finances. Whether they actually do anything or not remains to be answered.
-people found out that banks,governments and even the housing market can fail (the latter most surprising to most!)
-businesses (like mine) have been forced to work much harder while reducing costs to compete. Therefore, only the strong remain standing - much like any previous recession
-Layoffs and tough employment conditions has forced entrepreneurship to resurface.
-People have been forced to hear the words 'asset-backed' and hopefully realize that it's not 'ass-backwards' that the reporters were saying. Thanks to 'sub-prime lending' people now realize that you shouldn't borrow from Taylor 2 to pretend like you have assets so that you can borrow further from Disposable Joe!
I would not take the position of the total pessimist on national debts. I know that it is possible to have a national surplus. In fact, it's almost intriguing that theoretically a country could become an international financial institution to other countries and collect a wack of interest to further feed their surplus! What a sweet prospect for Canada. Let's do it. That said, it is greed and selfishness that feeds the debts. Focus on weeding that out of all levels of government and things would change quickly.
Canada, by the way, happens to have a lot of resources including the ever-coveted oil and potash (which, by the way, is not another word for roach).
May good financial skills follow you.
T1
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