Dec 08
21
The Times They Are A Changin
I was reading Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's column in the Telegraph (the UK paper, not the Australian one) this morning.
It brought home to me how fortunate we, who live in Australia, are. But it also underlines how blase we are too.
Most people in Australia have no idea of the potential of the Madoff scam in the US and the Greek student riots to turn into a tsunami elsewhere.
The article brings together the issues very nicely:
The IMF is calling for a fiscal boost worth 2 per cent of global GDP in order to help avoid social unrest in advanced economies.
Russia has re-introduced tariffs on cars, farm equipment and there have been street protests in the major cities. Jury trials have been suspended for political activity. India has introduced steel tariffs and of course to their north is Pakistan, which is a powder keg.
In China there are street protests too. Massive job losses as the global economy grinds to a halt and China's factories have no demand to enable their low margin high output strategy to continue.
The culprit in all of this is globalism.
The tectonic plates are grinding. And as with any earthquake of substance, if the tremors are strong enough, buildings fall down and people get hurt.
I think that Kevin Rudd gets it. And that is why he has been taking pre-emptive economic action with the stimulus announcements that he has made in the last few weeks.
But now as we head into Christmas and New Years and the summer holidays it will be easy to forget how connected we all have become and how that connectivity means that there is a need to massively change the way that we react to events.
As Bob Dylan so eloquently put it:
Please heed the call
Dont stand in the doorway
Dont block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
Theres a battle outside
And it is ragin.
Itll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.
Afterthought:
The irony of the collapse of globalization of course is that ultimately we all have to realize that we are indeed connected and collectively responsible for the well-being of the planet and therefore, each other.
Whether people want it or not, we have to have a world government of sorts to that we can have a global approach to climate change. So roll on January 20th and the Obama inauguration so that the rest of the western world can get on with moving forward. (No one is prepared to do very much while Bush and co are still around it seems. The Europeans have all the money, but the US still has all the guns).