I’m sure that every French dilettante who ascended the steps to the gallows during those cleansing day of the French Revolution were wondering the same thing as many titans of business are today.

“Why do they hate use so much? I mean really we’re not that bad.”

Yet, as U.S. public perception of big business rapidly turns from hero to villain, from placid Canada, nothing.

Oh, maybe I’m being a tad harsh. There is the slight grumbling of resentment and outrage. That sort of coffee talk indignation that ends at the finish of a mocha latte. But no marching in the streets. No mass calls for righting an egregious wrong.
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When Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully entered politics, it was proof that the American dream was still very much alive. The Austrian-born actor started his career as the star of Conan the Barbarian. He didn’t speak a word of English. From loincloth to politics, he is now the Governor of California twenty-one years later. Greased up to show off a glistening six-pack, he wore nothing more than a loincloth for covering. But that was okay.

A bare-breasted picture of Lenore Zann is apparently not. This actress and now NDP candidate in Nova Scotia is being attacked for her work on the tv show The L Word.
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Auditor General Sheila Fraser has made the assertive announcement that despite billions of tax dollars being poured into airport security over the past few years, an act as simple as a background check on the people who work there are run without much thought at all.

If at all…

Day to day, we are led to believe that there is a chance that authorities would not know if those working behind airport security lines were terrorists or drug smugglers.

Fraser’s latest report, zeroing in on wasted government money, includes an account of airport security clearance being granted to someone with assault and weapons convictions, and someone who was under investigation for a murder relating to drug smuggling at a large airport.
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In response to North Korea’s recent rocket launch, Barack Obama spoke in Prague and gave those in attendance a dandy piece of fiction: a world without nuclear arms. Imagine that. I can’t conceive how the United States, the most powerful country with nuclear arms, even attempts to spearhead a project of this magnitude. I find it ironic that the most nuclear dependant country in the world is championing an anti-nuclear arms cause. This is full of contradictions. The Americans didn’t win the Cold War because they flipped better burgers.

Barack even conceded that a nuclear free world will probably not even occur in our life time. Why champion this cause? More brownie points I suppose. It’s what they want to hear, and not what we need to happen. There are more important problems to solve such as Iraq, the economy and even the Russian territorial claims. Our world is too dependant on nuclear arms as a deterrent than ever before. At least it was simple before. In the Cold War, it was us or them. Now, there is a baker’s dozen worth of nations competing for nuclear supremacy. North Korea has nuclear technologies! Doesn’t this frighten anyone? If this really worried anyone, they should have done something about it when they had the chance. If we want to decrease the amount of nuclear arms, why don’t we make an effort to stop these rogue nations?

Why hasn’t Barack Obama learned to love the bomb yet? We need it on our side. You’d think all those years of Cold War indoctrination would have gotten to him. Apparently not. Perhaps the American government has moved onto death-ray technologies? I hope so.

“It’s very quiet now”, the agency receptionist told Ben, while pointing to a book to enter his details. “Please call me when anything comes up”, Ben replied, shaking his head from left to right as he enters his information into the agency diary. This is the common response Ben got when he went job hunting last week after unsuccessful job search online and having his email account flooded with the reply; “Unfortunately, we found a more experienced candidate, we are unable to offer you the position at this point in time. We will keep your information …”

However, whether Ben was qualified or unqualified, job shortages or losses are not limited to temporal and part time jobs as house hold names like General Motors, Chrysler and Canadian Television (CTV) also answered present in the job loss roll called with even far reaching implications.
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Remember when you used to trade marbles? Or baseball cards? Or whatever else you had that someone else saw value in.

How about carbon credits?

Bartering is still going on between countries though you don’t hear much about it. Probably because it falls outside the realm of the global financial order i.e. the IMF, OPEC, and other oligopolies and their various taxing authorities. They probably would not be amused at the growth of the bartering concept.

Recently I was speaking to some college students. We were talking about global bartering as a possible solution to unlocking the stuck banking system that is fueling the recession. After all, a small business can barter just about any product or service on the internet now. Why not countries?
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I don’t like economics. I don’t like the recession. It feels as if the media has latched onto a new hot-button issue and won’t let go. Every day it seems like another statistic related to the recession is being discussed without an ounce of optimism for an entire newscast. Keep in mind, I live in Alberta and we’ve yet to face the brunt of the recession. However, let’s be realistic and look at the Petro-Canada/Suncor merger as an example: did anyone talk about the jump in the markets? Not really. Why not? What have we got to hide? Looking forward to today with the G20 meetings, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of optimism. How are we going to face the biggest economic crisis in six decades? It’s obvious we can’t fix this over night but someone has to take a step in the right direction. I like the G20 event, I also noticed the markets have rallied around it (for a third day in a row too), why hasn’t anyone emphasized this? I think we just need some optimism to get the ball rolling.