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?
(more…)

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.

From a plummeting economy to the amazing U.S. Presidential Race, to Canada’s lowest voter turnout in history to the Canadian government being thrust into upheaval, 2008 had a little bit of everything.

As 2008 began, much of the world was already in the midst of a financial crisis. Storms swept through the world in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and still show no signs of slowing down. The economy in 2008 was characterized by stock and real estate market meltdowns, unprecedented bank failures, massive layoffs and rising unemployment, disappearing credit and historic government bailouts of the financial and auto sectors.

And unlike Harper’s reassuring words that Canada would remain unaffected, almost every major province was. British Columbia saw U.S. demand for lumber plummet with prices dropping below profitable levels. And their mining industry suffered as demand from China dropped and commodities took a nose dive. Oil-rich Alberta, once one of the richest provinces in the country, saw the price of oil drop 78% from its peak in July when it hit $147 a barrel. Now, oil hovers under the $40 a barrel mark. In Ontario, the auto industry fights for its life after receiving a $4 billion bailout from the Canadian government. Saskatchewan fared better than the rest as a result of its diversity in energy, agriculture and potash, but still declined as a result of lower commodity prices.
(more…)