A Difficult Coming Decade

While I am at heart an optimist I am also a realist try that on for a contradiction . Starting off with my own country the New Zealand government isn't going to spend its way out of the current economic slump . Even if that were possible this isn't your normal recession because to a much lesser extend the economy is not being fuelled by personal debt and a run away housing market . The National lead government is only telling a half truth about the rise of personal debt in New Zealand becoming a problem in the last decade . The introduction of student loans or in other words higher education was no longer free was a fatal turning point . A generation was endowed with the idea that personal debt is the norm . This is in spite of the fact that my grandparents lived thou the Great Depression and World War Two . New Zealand elected leaders won't ever address the infrastructure problems that the country has and that prevents economic growth . The carbon emission trading scheme and the GST hike have driven up the cost of living .

In a wider sense the bail outs have doomed the global economy to a decade of stagnant economic growth . Even Australia where Chinese demand for Natural resources kept the economy a float the bill for the recovery from the flooding is something like twenty billion dollars . In the US domestic terrorism is coming to the forefront . The Tea Party movement will likely be infiltrated by domestic terrorists the ramifications of this are huge . Many of that movements supporters will not bail they will go along with the terrorists .

As an emerging power China is in danger of running out of clean drinking water due to a lack of environmental controls . The world as a whole will continue to grow more unstable . To those who don't want the US to play a role in world affairs be careful you may get what you wish for . In the transition period going between India and China going from emerging to genuine superpowers and the US economic problems can only produce an unstable world . Just look at the kind of things that happened in the Balkans after the fall of the Soviet Union . In the middle east the US buying less Oil from Saudi Arabia spells trouble for that regime . The regime in Saudi Arabia needs oil revenue so it can the westerners who run the power stations and other infrastructure in that country . Ironically the Saudis have a cultural distrust of foreigners . Take the functioning infrastructure out of Saudi Arabia and every nut job terrorist group will be looking to come to the forefront in a possible civil war . The time frame for Saudi Arabia could be gradual so it could be two to three decades before we see its full effects .

To be honest I don't have any enlighten answers but I do know that it is time that I started up my small vegetable garden again .

Rising living costs are going to be a part of the coming decade . Small Vegetables gardens in peoples backyards don't pose much threat to the monopoly that the supplies of food have . Personally I would like to see a return to WW2 style victory gardens around my local community . Even if you could get thou the over burden of local government regulation it would only take one dishonest person out there to ruin the concept .