Smell the coffee

How on earth are we going to get out of this crisis when our politicians can’t even talk to each other.

I know that many Brits joke about not liking the French but this is no time for the leaders of both countries to engage in a war of words. Britain has decided to veto the new EU treaty and France does not like that. It is likely that France will be downgraded from its tripe A credit status which will affect the countries ability to borrow money. The French say that is not fair and that Britain should be downgraded first: Britain naturally thinks otherwise.

In the meantime The United States and China are engaged in a tit-for-tat trade battle. China has decided to put a tariff on high performance US cars and in retaliation the US says that China ignores trade rules, subsidises its own companies, discriminates against foreign companies and has poor intellectual property protection. Interestingly, most of the things Pam and I have bought recently from clothes to It equipment have come from China. It seems that nowhere else in the world is either capable of making anything or, more to the point, everywhere else the cost of production is too expensive. I bet a lot of the things Yankees buy come from China as well!

The reason we got into this crisis is because we all became too greedy. We wanted more than anyone else, paid ourselves more, borrowed more, bought more and now we are licking our wounds. That is the reason why China is doing so well, they didn’t get greedy but that might not last.

Unless countries work together in agreement, the economic crisis will just get worse for all of us. Those countries that think they are immune and don’t need to contribute to the solution will go down with the rest. As my wife would say, “wake up world and smell the coffee”.