It seems that the world is in turmoil. Greece was on the verge of collapse – this time not by earthquake – when its debt surpassed the GNP of a superpower, the UK election system was thrown into disarray by election results that returned no overall winner and a volcano in Iceland grounded hundreds of flights worldwide.
The Icelandic eruption and resulting ash cloud had the dual effect of disabling the world’s aviation industry and increasing Icelandic exports from zero to several hundred thousand tonnes.
During the banking collapse the UK and other European countries, who relied heavily on Icelandic banks, kept shouting “Send us your cash.”
I think they misheard.
Now we have the possibility of a second, larger, volcano blowing. I’ve never been so glad I didn’t book that foreign holiday.
Meanwhile, in the UK, a general election produced some surprising results. The party that came third came out in control, the party that came second held on to power for a further week and the party that won, lost. They lost all credibility, they lost the chance to win back the house of commons with an overall majority at a time when Labour were at their worst in the polls, and now; after the party leader has commenced his 5 year squat at Number 10 Downing Street, they have lost their manifesto, their hatred of the Liberal Democrat Party and their credibility.
But there has been some gains; they have gained a huge budget deficit, increased unemployment and a liberal democrat deputy prime minister who for 5 days at least, held the United Kingdom to ransom while he could see what he could politically extort from the Tories and Labour.
And through it all, the losing party (or seconds) signed an historic bill to bail out the Greek economy, costing the UK tax payers a small fortune and handing that legacy over to the new government with a smile.
Through it all, it seems that nature has been quietly taking over. Canadian beavers are systematically taking on the Chinese in an effort to build largest object that can be seen from space, grey whales have been invading the Mediterranean Sea and blind piranha fish has magically re-appeared after being AWOL for 50 years in Brazil.
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the last three stories from the world news are far more important than any financial or power sharing story there is.
