I watch the news a bit.  Not much, just the headlines.  I don’t spend much time on it.  Too depressing and I have concluded that much, if not most of it, is lies anyway.  I don’t think I am alone in that.  I mean, think about it: the news is entertainment and is sponsored by advertising.  Like kid’s cartoons on a Saturday morning.  Even if what they say is even partly true, is it not surprising that every story only requires 30 seconds to tell?  And that nothing ever seems to happen most of the time in 95% of rest of the world?

Sorry, I could feel the blood rising……….a rant was looming………………..

But I do have an interest in the economy, I like to follow the goings on in the Middle East and Asia and, of course, I wanna see the latest ‘wardrobe malfunctions’. 

I am also fascinated by the United States.  But not in a good way.  It is not like I wanna go there.  Not anymore.  Certainly not to live.  To me, the whole country seems to be like a drunken bull or bear in a china shop.  You just know things are gonna get broken but will the whole place come down?  And these days, it seems, the beast is really staggering.

My guts tell me, however, that this is not yet the time for the system to collapse.  I don’t think you have to buy gold.  Buying gold may make you money over the short term but the money will still work.  So will your credit card.  It is when you have to use the gold to buy bread that it’s real value will show up.  That is when the system has collapsed. 

I have no real knowledge of anything but my guts have been right so far.  And this current financial debacle feels like just another couple of shelves of crystal going down.  Mind you, there is a lot of glass on the floor already…………

The books I am reading, tho, suggest otherwise.  They say ‘the end is nigh’.  I doubt very much that anybody knows and if there is one thing Capitalism is good at, it is ‘adjusting’.  This is a system that makes money when disaster strikes and makes money when the sun shines.  The one thing you can count on with Capitalism is the old adage about finding a silver lining in black clouds.  Hell, capitalists have found silver in black deaths!  Just  look to see how KBR/Halliburton/Blackwater made out like bandits after Katrina leveled New Orleans.  Capitalism has never met a disaster it didn’t like.

Somebody is making money these days.  

And it is that kind of survivability that makes me think that the beast will live long and (yech!) prosper. 

Don’t get me wrong: I want the world to prosper.  I like the world.  I’d just like a system that wasn’t quite so destructive to the environment and that was a bit more egalitarian in the wealth distribution.  But, then again, I don’t like sad movies either so my preferences don’t really count. 

Anyway: to the point………….finally, eh? 

Things are likely to get worse before they get better.  I just don’t see sunshine looming at the end of the day.  Not yet.  Certainly not in BC.  Worse, the people I read are forecasting more rain and freezing temperatures (well, some of them are forecasting unseasonal heat waves but the point is the economic weather forecast is not good).  I think that means that we will, once again, be ‘adjusting’.  We’ll be forced to use what we humans seem to have relied on for millenniums – the ability to adapt. 

And the point is that this next adjustment will be bigger than we, the post WW2 generation, have experienced to date.

At the very least, I think it is gonna cost a lot more to be a peasant.