Friday, February 29, 2008

Reality vs Fiction, the recession is here vs what's recession?

Let's face it, north America is bottled into an economical suffering that was announced five years ago when the mortgages bubble was soaring high like a kite, especially in Canada. Now the markets seem puzzled over what is going on, and why did it happened. The US dollar is weak as the economy rose up only 0.6% so far, and it seems there is no way out even if tax cuts and empty promises are thrown out of the White House on a weekly basis. Wars abroad are costing billions of dollars, not only to the United States, but to the rest of the world too.

Globalization, tailored to make wealthy the rich country only, it's now biting back with huge problems that have no resolution, and banks are struggling to keep up as the national American debt is going up and the no warranties are made to bay back, thus no credit is available to the average population to purchase houses, cars and make investments. Money is disappearing, burnt by the greedy markets that continues to pursue relentless profits over anything that can be milked, it is a take no prisoners policy.

There are rules in this economy, or so they want us to think, but who makes the rules, and who enforce them? Nobody has a clue how the economy really works. Why should they? The more chaotic it is, the more hard is to understand, and keeping everybody confused serves as a way for the markets and who controls them to do whatever the want.

Yes the US is in a recession, according to Merrill Lynch. The USA are having major job losses and their currency is weaker and weaker every day. Everybody acknowledges it, but president George W. Bush, who is more worried to do public relation to his country than face the fact that US economy is sinking and is harming the rest of the world. Inflation has gone up in Europe and so in north America, the end of cheap food, oil, and supply is over; but we fail to recognize it, and pretend that everything is fine. Ignoring the global financial crisis won't make it go away!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

As the world turns another page...

... nothing will probably happen. Tuesday February 19th 2008, Fidel Castro declared he won't accept another turn in the presidency over Cuba, with a letter written to the communist party newspaper. This means that his reign over the Caribbean island is over, exiled Cubans were celebrating in Miami, and in the Cuban district in the major cities. US president George W. Bush made a short speech, while visiting Rwanda, stating that the White House will help Cuba to recover, and that he accepted Castro's resignation. But many are skeptic over what will really change after Fidel`s 49 years presidency, the longest in the world. Raul Castro, the brother, is more likely to step up and replace the presidential position, while Cubans oped for a radical change that would let them out of the everlasting embargo, that is strangling the country since Castro rose to power in 1959 . If Cuba has its sanctions lifted, this will mean that a new more modern revolution will change the island, opening the boundaries to international affairs and relationships, and maybe update itself from a half-century of missed opportunities. Off course we will probably see a total change of Cuba from how we know it now. The old cars, the colorful decorated buildings, and the hand made cigars are risking to become extinct, replaced by major corporate chains of fast-food and foreign brands; like an habitat being polluted by the outer environment. But what will happen to the health care that is the envy of the world, or to the globalizatino-free society that has been living with their own products for many year? Is the ending of the Castro era a real positive factor, or we failed to understand that the only communist thing in Cuba is just the adjective that the world has been used to describe a corporate-free country?