THEY WERE NOT AMUSED (2)

While American stock markets are down, they are not alone. Canadian markets are down, too, following the American lead. To put it simply, I'm losing my retirement savings, along with a lot of Americans.

The current American difficulties are certainly not President Obama's fault. He inherited a huge mess from the Republicans, particularly Bush the Younger (meaning Dick Cheeney). The Republicans were committed to increasing spending while not increasing taxes; they still hold that kind of approach. That is simply living in a fool's paradise. If a government doesn't have the tax money, it can never repay its debts, and the nation is eventually strangled, economically, and then socially.

People are getting edgy, not just about the debt problem in America, but the debt problem in Europe as well.

Within the European Union, five countries on the edge of default: Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy. It is noteworthy that Greece, even with it's austerity measures passed, is still a concern. Many key leaders now fear that Greece may not have done enough. Iceland is still in trouble. Even Britain is having difficulties; continuing difficulties.

Nobody in Europe seems to have a handle on just how bad things could be over there, or if the current "fixes" will really fix anything.

So this isn't just an American problem. It's a problem of lavish spending through programs which were not set up in a sustainable manner, in many countries.

And with the loss of jobs in America, largely due to outsourcing, the world continuing to see the emergence of a new phenomenon. Incomes in other countries, such as India and China, are starting to rise, particularly in urban setting. The emerging nations of Asia are well along the path towards having economies as strong as the United States.' Some of the emerging nations in Africa are moving up as well, but they're still well behind the Asian nations.

What will happen depends on the speculators and traders, who effectively control the stock markets. I believe we are going to see a second dip of recession, or, at the very least, a very long-term recovery. Canada, while burdened in the 2008 recession, has strong banking regulations, which helped blunt the blow. Yet our unemployment rate is just over seven per cent, down from almost nine per cent in 2010. America's unemployment rate is just over nine per cent. It was above ten per cent a while ago, nearly double the post-World-War-Two average of 5.7 per cent.

I don't know where this is going to end. But we "ordinary people" in North America are going to see a lot more problems before real stability returns.

So, for the foreseeable future, I expect most of us will continue to be lumped in the group of "not amused."