Saturday, August 20, 2011

BELIZE WONDERS, WILL A WORLD FINANCIAL COLLAPSE HAPPEN

BELIZE WONDERS, - WILL THERE BE A GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN

People of Belize, in Central America, are kind of smug about their survivalist potential and self sufficiency in food these days. With nice Spring type climate all year round. The idea of a World Financial re-adjustment doesn´t frighten them, though it might be awkward and inconvenient.
That said, Bill Lindo wrote a nice article on his idea of the coming financial collapse to the world system in the Amanda newspaper of August 17, 2011 online.
Not that I totally agree with his arguments and conclusions mind you. It was interesting that ING ( Dutch ), the holder of our sugar factory debts and on which ING in their desperation are expected to foreclose and shut down, the one and only sugar factory of Belize in another six weeks. It was interesting to note, that ING itself is bankrupt and will collapse itself in a year or two. That indeed EU inter-bank lending has been frozen for some time, and the result many speculate, will be a collapse of the European Union by 2012 and the end of the Mayan Calendar. A Mayan forecasted cycle of world change and historical upheaval. As part of the Mayan Empire we respect that. Our El Caudillo, elected dictator, Dean Barrow even claims to be part Mayan. He certainly has the nose to prove it. We can take pride in that locally. Belize being a major part of the modern Mayan Empire.
The UK is coming out of Europe looking pretty good, though they are in economic distress right now. They seem to have taken the right steps to avoid a collapse of their governing system. They did not join the EU money system and the new government of PM David Cameron, has taken the bull by the horns, the bit between the teeth, so to speak and cut government budgets in one fell sweep by 50%. Since the UK was itself bankrupt, the resultant pain they are experiencing right now, can only last another year and after that the UK should get dramatically better by 2012, whereas the EU is expected to more or less collapse, or die the death of the thousand cuts.
What Bill Lindo sees as a world financial collapse, I see more as a European collapse and a shift from the old Imperialist countries, to the far East. Lot of rising countries replacing Europe right now as the major world players. Brazil, China, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, even tiny Belize in it´s small way. Venezuela is already making the moves to ensure financial safety and the first move to bring home $100 billion of GOLD bars is under way, from Europe, the UK in particular. All in all, popular socialist El Caudillo, President Chavez in Venezuela has 313 tons of gold to bring back to Venezuela, a move in the right direction. I will never forget the biggest bank robber in history, Joseph Stalin of Russia, who at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1937, while his communist rabble held Spain in thrall, convinced them to ship on three freighters, all Spanish gold bullion reserves, to St. Petersburg, Russia for safekeeping. Spain NEVER got their GOLD BULLION back EVER, either.
The USA our biggest trading partner and to whom our money is fixed as a standard value. If you buy USA money it costs you $2.28 Bz currency, but if you sell US currency here, you only get $2 Bz. The USA is very broke. Their debt is enormous and indeed their whole financial system is based on fictitious paper money printing, or debt economics. That said, their economy is the largest in the world and their innovative technical inventions and productivity when they get around to it sometimes, will probably rescue them in the long haul. Since our money is tied to theirs and they are our major source of trading economically, one can only doubt we in Belize will see any hiccups, or problems with our money, or economy. There might be a downturn again in tourism as their economy adjusts to circumstances. Periodically they get rid of their older factories and workers and these persons get put on welfare programs. Then a new generation take over and build their economy up again in a cycle. Cold blooded, but it works in the big picture. Certainly inflation is a threat to us a bit. Their economic hiccups will certainly make our tourism section of our economy nervous, though right now, we seem to be doing okay.
Bill Lindo sees the World Financial system exploding. I see it as shifting to new financial players. This seems to be the Far East. Though the American continent, 34 countries are very strong economically in the world. Between us in Belize and our neighbors, we in Belize are gradually getting economically stronger. Indeed, as Belize becomes part of Southern Mexico and our neighboring Central American countries and separate more from the intellectually challenged, fancy rhetoric speaking CARICOM politicians, or losers in CARICOM, our future and markets for anything we can produce with our small population is looking very wealthy.
Generally speaking the world economy is dispersing to new producers, away from the traditional European Imperialist industrial countries. Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico are the biggest success stories in our hemisphere. Russia has yet to find her place in the world economy. Russia, still being like Canada, a basic raw commodity exporter. If Russia EVER got their new democratic capitalistic system working, they can also be a major world player. There are some game changing technologies online in the laboratories and research universities around the world, but mostly in the USA. That country having literally tens of thousands of universities. Many of which are practical and inventing new things. Our University of Belize is trying to change to a research development mode, but finds themselves unable with pure academic types in charge. It takes about 15 years to get from the laboratory to the commercial market place. Bill Lindo claims in his article that our tourist economy is still down 36%. Whether or not that is true or not. THAT section of our economy is going to get hit, again and again, so it behooves us to make the changeover to light manufacturing and exporting, to diversify our economic base. The world is adjusting, our Mayan Empire historically and cyclically forecast it, and as far as I can see, since we have separated from CARICOM and moved to our local geographical region, we seem to be on top of our game. As population and education get bigger and better, we are doing well, and I do not expect with our climate and location in the tropics that we are going to suffer overly much, it Europe goes down the drain, financially speaking.

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