STORM CLOUDS
Think you don't already have enough to worry about. Well, here are three looming nightmares any one of which could seriously throw 2010 into the dumper.
Russia: Vladimir Putin is bent on restoring some semblance of the former Soviet Union, using energy as his leverage. God help anyone who gets in his way. The one battle he can't win is demographics. The decline in births among ethnic Russians continues to accelerate. Meanwhile, potential environmental catastrophes abound. Impure water in Russia's cities is a disaster waiting to happen. The Aral Sea is disappearing before our very eyes. The Siberian permafrost is melting and releasing methane into the atmosphere. That is one of those tipping points that could push the climate over into uncontrollable change. We're back in the USSR, boy, they don't know how unlucky they are, boy.
Japan and Greece: As near as I can tell both of these countries are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, something that just doesn't happen in good families of nations. Should either or both countries do so, the impact both real and imagined on an already precarious global economy would be enough to drive everything else off the front pages. This is by no means a certainty, but the bankruptcy scenarios are in play and one can only guess at the mountains of money that would be redirected to deal with what would really be an unprecedented crisis: An entire country (or two) going broke.
The United States: Again, I don't profess to understand the details, but from everything I can read we could be facing an enormous aftershock in the U.S. residential and commercial real estate markets this summer. President Obama has signaled an end to support for banks to keep mortgage rates down. What happens after that is anybody's guess, but it could get very ugly. We could be facing yet another situation where mountains of money will be shoveled into fighting yet another economic crisis.
All of these problems may fade away if governments rise up and face them head on. I wouldn't bet on it. I'm thinking it is a pretty safe bet that at least one will come to pass. This is on top of the problems you read about every day. Something to think about as you listen to President Obama's State of the Union address tonight.
January 27, 2010
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