The Big Picture - A Starting Point

The world is in constant motion.

The US Economy is under stress, the rest of the world is worried about it. Will it be something major for the history books? Or will it be just a bleep in the radar (or world growth charts for that matter)? This is probably the headline in many people's mind. Watching the news on a daily basis just keeps my mind turning: That's a good thing. By the way, the next President whoever he or she might be has quite a load to carry.

There is a world shortage of staple food. Didn't we get passed that with the Green Revolution? Are more green revolutions necessary? Jeff Sachs might have something to say about that, and how Africa is the place to do it in. If you haven't already, read his book, The End of Poverty, a real mind blower.

Speaking of Africa, What's going on in Zimbabwe? 100,000% Inflation? 2 weeks after voting took place, and still no results? Darfur...?

Moving on to South America, is socialism/communism taking on new life? A couple of weeks ago the whole continent almost erupted into war. Democratic Colombia, on a quest for ending its 40 year old war had to "invade" neighbouring Ecuador 1 mile into its border to take out a top rebel leader. Immediately, socialist friendly Venezuela urged Ecuador to send troops to their borders with Colombia. It was later learned that both these countries had ties with the rebels, and might have even talked about help on overthrowing the Colombian government. The plan would be to impose Venezuela's socialist government there as well. Can a socialist society really work in the globalized world that we live in? Aren't we too independent to risk untying a whole nation from world commerce (such as Cuba has)? Rumor has it Venezuelans can't even find milk on the shelves on the supermarkets. Wasn't the Soviet Union enough evidence for the impossibility of communism? Karl Marx was a great thinker, but many people really got his thoughts scrambled up.

So, Estern Europe, Is Medvedev taking over Putin, or as the Economist said a couple of weeks ago in its Cover Article, will Putin be directing the show from backstage? In this case backstage is the Prime-Ministership, so most people will be able to catch a glimpse of the director in action. Is this democracy, really? Moving around the area a bit, will Kosovo gain its independece?

Asia... This might take awhile, so I'll make it short. Tibet? Governments from all over the world boycotting the Olympic inaugural celebrations migh cause tensions... The middle east? Well, this is an issue that will last a while. The price of oil is past $110 a barrel ($110.14 on friday), and tensions between middle eastern countries, and between these countries and others on the western side of the world are not really helping with the issue. Although the price of oil is at record high, it seems to be causing less of a struggle than it did in the early 70's. The fact that many major economies' GDP is made up in a large part from services, and no so much by oil-dependent industries, might be the cause for this.

We could go on for a while, the world doesn't stop turning, except in the O'Reilly Factor set, according to Stephen Colbert!

This is (only a really small fraction of) the current state of the world. Let's take this as a starting point, and the set where our questions on economics and the thoughts that spin off from them are placed. This can only get better.