The Congo has taken over the top news spot..
We've even sent our Foreign Minister, along with David Millibands French counterpart.. off to try and broker some kind of cease-fire between the Tutsi rebel Chief General Laurent Nkunda and the D.R.C.'s elected president Joseph Kabila..
Best of British to both of them.. This 'war' ended officially five years ago.. and the word from a Congolese representative speaking from the UN to the BBC, the Congolese people want the hundreds of thousands of Rwandans who fled from their own country back in 1994. It was somewhat surprising to hear a diplomat speak with such candour.. for he clearly blamed all the current atrocities being reported on a few Government troops caught up in the moment.. perhaps if he'd known he could have cited Lt. William Calley and MaiLai.. however stressed the vast majority of these rapes..looting..killings..are the work of the rebels..
And then there's the UN Peacekeeping Force.. the largest deployment of UN troops in any theater at the moment..
Some 17 thousand of them, and by all reports, they're not sure who they should be firing at..
Tin.. Gold.. Oil Tar..
The Congo is well supplied with these, and fighting or no fighting, international interests are still mining and pumping out that tar. The country has the potential for providing an economy..establishing an infrastructure..developing beyond ancient parochial problems..
But that would mean those businesses already entrenched in active operations.. would have a stable government to deal with.. with Congolese resources demanding parity with the international commodities market.
However.. that is not the focus of the reporting.. We are concentrating instead on the humanitarian issues.. the problems of distributing supplies.. although the rebels have announced they will allow safe passage for relief transports.. Pictures of starving women and children act as the backdrop for reports from the refugee camps..
The latest news..broadcast as this is being typed.. is that rebel troops have attacked a refugee camp which was home to some 10 thousand former Rwandans..killed hundreds, and burnt it to the ground.
Now.
Cast your thoughts, or have a look, at African history as recorded by African scribes and oral tradition. Long before there was contact with any outside influence, a society developed. Perhaps what we might call a Feudal System, the various tribes frequently went to war. Warlords ruled their fiefs, and gave their allegiance to a central figure..The rich were rich.. the poor starved.. the middle class got by.. and, until Christian ethic came upon them, life itself was not 'sacred'. Their belief gave them a peace with death which fit the conditions in which they lived..
While the attitude towards death may have changed in some.. it certainly hasn't in others. And the system of government is much the same.. with the only difference being that those who use weapons have much better toys to play with.. and those in power are getting richer, faster.
It would seem that before the issues in the Congo can be seriously addressed, there must be an agreement for the repatriation of the Rwandan refugees..
Is not the cart before the horse here..?

Coming down to the final sprint for the tape in the US..
It's all been said.. but one point of interest here..
As this race comes to it's climax.. three reporters have been told that because increased campaign staff needed their seats..they couldn't fly with Barak anymore.
They were the reporters from the Washington Times, the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News.. all papers who have come out editorially in favour of John..
Good to have priorities.. the reporters from Glamour and Jet magazines stayed on board..

And never been one to dodge a miscalculation.. it must be said that according to recent reports.. oil is looking at a record drop in price over the next few weeks.. allowing petrol to come down from it's summertime high of $100Am/gallon at the pumps..
$64.61Am/barrel of light sweet is a far cry from the $Am100/barrel we saw just a few months ago..
Let's hope it filters down to the consumer in Britain, soon..

It's baffling, in a sense, how any political candidate can justify either the need, or the cost, of buying a full half hour on four of the five major American networks, plus simulcasts on several Spanish speaking stations.. for a political campaign message..
How such blatant waste of funds is not what the American public needs to see.. If, through media coverage and public appearances, and the scheduled televised debates, a platform cannot be explained clearly enough, then one would think judgements could be made through consideration of the degree of obfuscation, or candour, expressed in that explanation..
How many public charities, or community projects, could have been boosted by the donation of those funds.. And how much more impact would the publicity of such donations..of campaign funds.. have had on the public..
On 'Joe the plumber'..
Makes one wonder where priorities lie..
And begs the question 'is the Presidency something which can be bought..?'

And as the Pound Sterling slides to a 30 year low against the American dollar.. and the American Fed dropping interest rates to 1% with some saying further cuts might be expected..
We seem to be seeing a global move towards Keynsian economics..
Gordon, who said some 10 years ago that .."no responsible government should ever consider unrestrained borrowing to spend it's way out of a recession..", is getting closer and closer to the point wherein the Exchequer is going to follow countries the likes of Hungary in applying to the IMF for maintenance loans.
Some analysts are saying this 'downturn'.. soon to be a formal 'recession'.. could take a full two years to resolve.
Perhaps a tad optimistic. One would think that with the catastrophic damage our personal and corporate and governmental overspending over this past decade or so, a timeframe of four years would be closer to the mark..
And that depends entirely on what steps our respective global governments are willing to take, to recover the billions of £s spent on the recent bailouts.. and the billions more promised to small business through the loosening of borrowing restrictions at their banks..
That, by the by, is a move small business is still waiting to see..
However.. the fact remains that we have effectively.. all of us that is.. bought what amounts to 60% of our GNP is debt. Or, to be precise, our governments have bought these debts for us.
So.. as we watch the average price of housing falling..some 15% last quarter alone.. we may well think we have something to celebrate. But..what we are seeing is the falling value of the equity we hold on a good portion of the monies the banks have had pumped into their coffers to maintain liquidity..
That's our money disappearing.
And when the government allows us a tax cut which puts just a tad more disposable income in our current accounts.. something has to be cut from public services.
We've forgotten so much..
We've been seduced into abandoning the ethics that used to be a staple of our last stable economy.. those being 'don't buy what you can't pay cash for..' and 'there's no such thing as a free lunch..'
Perhaps.. as this is primarily meant to represent one man's view of contemporary society to be read by the sons of my sons.. we will manage to pull through, again..
That we will manage to defer the consiquences of our financial.. ecological.. political idiocy unto our grandchildren..
Be that the case.. apologies.

It's a funny old world we've got.. isn't it..?
Who would have thought 50 years ago that the India would be launching it's own rockets to the moon..
This one's a scientific fly-by.. three orbits and away..It's meant to map the moon more thoroughly.. But more significantly, it puts India ahead in their race to launch a manned mission to the moon..
India.. China.. So many people..
And how quickly things move these days..

Is it the Mayan Calendar which predicts the end of the world in 2012..?
Some odd ideas on how to please their Gods, but amazing astrologers..
Just another date to remember..

It's an odd thing.. what with the political pundits showering us with polls and projected state-by-state percentage rates.. and the prediction that John must take at least 6 key states.. and that overall it looks like Barak's ahead..
And the preparations for what's expected to be one of the largest voter turnouts in decades, with cautions of delayed results already even with the new computerised voting system..a trend one can only hope will never take the fancy of the House of Parliament by the way..
Considering the saturation depth the American public has been plunged into for these last few weeks..with political commercials outnumbering Pepsi or Pizza Hut.. with more money spent on Barak's campaign than has ever been spent before..this from Barak's own people..
Throughout the day there are going to be millions who normally would 'give it a pass..' who will, perhaps for the first time, head out to their polling stations..
They may go firm in their mind who they're going to push that button for..or they may go only with the 'feeling' that one or the other candidate should win.. and then there are those who won't really decide who they're going to vote for, until they stand for a moment in that polling booth..and envision the faces of John McCain, and Barak Obama.. and decide on the spot who they trust the most to handle 'the world of filth'..to paraphrase..that they each, individually, have to go home to.
It's been said before here.. but it's still one of my favourite Pierre Elliot Trudeau quotes..
When asked during one of his later campaigns by a reporter if he were worried about his apparent lagging in the polls.. he turned and said "Polls are for dogs..", and walked off without another word into the snow..
It was a winter day. None of us really wanted to hang around for a long question and answer anyway. We had our clip..
A slight digression.. but to return to the original thesis..
Americans, with no disrespect intended, are really not in a fit state to be making this kind of decision with all the rest of what's going on...and their prime mover, is fear.
It was a bad year in the mid-west.. floods.. record tornado's..freak weather.. that when all taken into consideration leaves you with a lower and expected overall crop yield.. and the end of a lot of farmers who's crops were destroyed..who haven't had the relief they were promised, such as it was..who can't pay their mortgage..
Canadian wheat's at a premium..
Where California..itself having the 5th largest economy in the world.. is asking the Fed for money.. Where recession is accepted, but the effects not quite understood..
Each and every voter who steps into their polling booths will either be committed..or undecided..
Yup.
But they'll all be afraid.

One final note here..
It cannot be said that there religious leaders concerned with, and speaking out against terrorism..
Wednesday was thee opening of the 83rd session of Indian Philosophical Congress at Gujarat Vidyapeeth..and the need for emulating Gandhian principles amid concerns on growing violence and acts of terror dominated the first day discussions..
In the inaugural session, Gujarat Vidyapeeth Chancellor Sudarshan Iyengar pointed out that while the growth of consumerism is eating into the fabric of social ethics, "the social values are also greatly threatened by the rising greed of individuals, which is one of the basic causes of conflicts"...
Dr Iyengar inter-related the principles of anasakti (non-attachment) as explained in the Gita with the Gandhian ideology. He said the values like satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), brahmacharya (celibacy) can still provide a healing touch to the ailing humanity.
Indeed.

Interesting.
The man on the street here.. without exception.. will dolefully shake their heads, and bemoan the hard times to come..
But it's with an attitude that, for the most part, if we all go and put the kettle on.. everything will be all right..
Have a nice cuppa.. and ride it out..
Yet there are cases, the likes of one former bank employee, who have lost their homes, their possessions, their savings.. who now literally sleep in the back of their Toyota Corolla.. who wonder where their world went.
An incredible 33% of us.. those capable of work.. can't find jobs and depend on a government which has just poured billions of Pounds Sterling into basically nothing for their fortnightly support cheques..
On the Dole.. spending an hour or so a day a the 'Bru or the Job Center looking for work provided by companies cutting back, and a main street which is not even taking on extra staff for Christmas.
Now, the question begs, as our £'s value plummets and our Prime Minister agrees with the Chairman of the Bank of England that we are in recession.. what is going to be done..?
It has been mentioned here before that while it might well look as though we're heading into a 'global economy'.. Indeed the recent events bear credence to that with no exception.. all country's economy crumbling.. It would seem the push towards Keynesian solutions are being embraced, without any thought of when, and how, this will all be repaid..
When will disposable income become something a family has in hand.. rather on plastic..?
When will, within industry itself, will reasonable compensation be delivered for reasonable productivity..?
Now without any Luddite intent.. it must be asked when will we return to the ideal wherein a man, skillfully building a brick wall.. or another conscientiously making decisions which affect the futures of that builder and his mates.. will of necessity be paid at different scales, but on a curve that neither diminishes nor falsely elevates the importance of either..
That there will be class systems.. But ones with common civility and an inherent understanding that without the binman, the doctors garbage would eventually bury him..

Ahh.. we're all allowed flights of fancy sometimes..

'Gordon defends further borrowing'.. to paraphrase the BBC and every other report on this Keynsian binge we are about to embark upon..
And what else would we expect.. an united stance by the governments worldwide to justify the debt we're jumping into is the least, surely..
It's frightening the object lesson of what this policy leads to as provded historically.. perhaps most recently by the Bob Rae Liberal Democrat government of the Canadian province of Ontario..
For two years.. it seemed the economy was just fine again..
Then Standard and Poors relegated Ontario from a 'Triple-A' credit risk.. to an 'A'.
Imagine such a reassessment, on a global scale. Take into account the fact that the sheer size of the debt the world is preparing to effectively write off, the timeframe of the backlash will be exponentially shorter..
Ontario, at least, had the buffer of InterProvincial Transfer Payments to shore up the debt..
Not quite sure what would qualify as a global equivelent..

Keeping in mind this is a running commentary.. designed for the most part to aid my own memory.. for future reference..
Note: house prices are reported to have fallen another 5% last month, and indications are, the devaluation will continue..
Keeping in mind the government is in fact the largest owner of mortgage debt, through the controlling interest gained through bail-outs.. we're watching our own equity melt away..
But we wrote about this, quite a while ago..

Quite a body blow there.. for John's 'friend' Colin Powell to come out in the Obama Camp..
It seems as this election looms larger and larger in our windscreens, has lost some the interest it was generating over here.. The facts are, that while it may well be Barak in the Oval Office, and may god bless America if he is.. It still could be John.. and frankly the world might breathe just a tad easier for a moment..
But the problem of a world economy poised for collapse, is almost putting this on the level of voting to determine the Captain of the Titanic..
Steven Harper has his government, and his problems downstream from the American run-off, along with growing resentment from English speaking Canada concerning the 'special status' of the Province of Quebec.. and the perversity of the voters in that province to see what successive Conservative governments have conceded to them, and flock to support the Bloc Quebecois..
It is a situation Steven's going to need to address, and with the worldwide problems, dissent in Parliament along Anglo/Francophone lines is the last thing the country needs to see..
However.. Harper does have his government. And with judicious negotiations regarding northern energy potential, Canada, while technically officially in a recession now.. might ride this out..
A far better chance of keeping inflation under control than either the US or the EU has, certainly..

Over here.. it seems that we're plodding along, stumbling perhaps along with what's been happening on Wall Street..
Much scurrying between Paris and Berlin..London..New York and Washington..
It's the same problem..
How to successfully wipe out what could amount to $4trillionAm.. when all the bailouts in Pounds Sterling and Euros and Yen and Yuan are added up.. without ending up in a true Socialist State.
Everywhere.
Now it's possible they could make the debts disappear.. it's only numbers in computers after all.. and when there are so many zero's preceding the 3, or 4,
or 5.. well it ceases to be within the realm of reality..
That Free Market Capitalism will suddenly wake up one Monday morning, to find their capital debt was less than their net worth.. that the GNP of all the nations on the earth suddenly became enough, with International assistance in logistics, to support their populations.. That an honest wage was paid for an honest hours work..
Sure it could.

So if a tad of the shine has come off the enthusiasm concerning any of the elections we're going to be having in the West, it must be excused..
With Peter Mandelson as Finance Minister.. not Chancellor of the Exchequer mind you.. it's going to be interesting to see what spin we're all fed here over the next few months.. as heating costs really begin to take a bite..
And if we've learned anything over the centuries on these Islands.. it's that there is no form of government which can can wave a magic wand and make it all better..
And when in a bind like this.. it doesn't matter who's on what side of the House.
The whole of bloody Parliament had best be united in a feasable plan to put in place now.
It must be the same in the States. It doesn't matter who's in the White House.. It matters that all issues be treated expediently, and with total support from both sides Partys.
Still..
Governments have been known to lose billions in assets before..
Why not a few trillion.. worldwide.. in debts?

Last note for this early morning..
The US and India have finally signed a deal that will allow the sale of American nuclear materials to India.. ending a thirty year embargo..
One wonders now, what Pakistan will expect.. what quid pro quo will need be offered to assure Pakistani/American relations remain cordial..
Islamabad's already upset with American incursions into Pakistani territory from Afghan bases, in the pursuit of the 'War on Terror'..
The US is not that popular with the Indian man on the street.. as we have mentioned before, there is a decided leaning towards developing relations between the Indian and Russian governments.. But this deal could mean a fair amount of money coming into a country which will soon be dealing not only with the global economy collapsing around it.. but famine looming as a result of crop losses due to these last typhoons..

Interesting times..

They're calling it 'pocketbook campaigning' now.. with both John and Barak concentrating their campaigns on homegrown economics.
Truthfully, this economic crisis couldn't have come at a better time for this particular campaign.. What with it being a worldwide problem, rather than particularly American, the focus has been taken entirely away from Foreign Policy..
When the concern is with inflation.. recession.. market collapse.. Issues the likes of Iraq.. al Q'aeda.. get pushed to the back burners..
Point here.. if there is any proof needed the terrorists have achieved their goals, any question left in the minds of those still sceptical about the power they wield, let them simply look around..
Our typical Western knee-jerk reaction to what is a viable threat, is one of the contributing factors to our present economic position.
But.. twenty/twenty hindsight can only be used if the lesson is learned..
Generally, history is not given the credence it deserves..
However.. 'pocketbook campaigning'.. spiced with some exceedingly amusing vitriol..

Steven's campaign in Canada might lead one to believe that it's going to be yet another minority government.. and as if Canadians hadn't learned anything from the fiasco of Bob Rae's term of office in Ontario in the 90's, the New Democrats may again hold a hand in the game..
Ahh.. where's Mulroney when you need him..?

Economically..?
What's to say that's not been said.. much earlier.. right here..?
Stay with gold. If you're into futures.. invest in grains.. wheat..rye.. rice..
Especially rice.
Don't trust any currency..
With all these debts being swallowed whole by federal governments worldwide.. devaluation lurks..
Countries the likes of Russia and China have nothing to lose by unilaterally devaluating their currencies.. They hold vast trade surpluses with the West, and equally vast reserves of foreign paper..

It's going to be quite a ride..

Now.. Gordon's stressing these are not 'crisis meetings' he's having with the Chief Financial Officers of several banks.. of course Alistair's there as well.. presumably to rubber-stamp whatever agreement is announced later this evening..
It seems the meetings held this past weekend were basically pointless.. with those participating making unilateral financial guarantees as soon as their respective planes landed.. Fear seems to be the prime mover in the EU these days..
And we can all take hope from the British Chamber of Commerce's announcement that we're already in recession.. and we can expect unemployment in these British Isles to increase by.. get this.. 33% over the next couple of years..
Now I'm sure there are those who would blame television..
But in truth.. we have put ourselves in this position..
When there are those daft enough to accept a mortgage worth five times their annual gross salary.. When we blithely spend money we don't have, provided by banks who's only purpose is to make money, and expect to float along spending our futures for immediate gratification..
What did we expect..?
We complain about our relative governments incessantly.. yet we vote them into power..
We complain when it's difficult to get onto the 'housing ladder'.. when market demand forced prices through the roof.. Yet we took on the debt..
We thoroughly commit ourselves to a 'throw-away' culture..
And we expect there to be no cost?
Oddly enough, those who will weather this crisis with the least loss, are those with little or nothing to lose. Those on government pensions have their income tied to the rate of inflation.. And while, at the moment, there are calls for the Fed to set the stage and lower interest rates next month, there will come a time in the not too distant future when inflation will set in with a vengeance..
The interest rates in inter-bank loans is already above 15%.. How long do we expect to be immune..?
There's a Government announcement 'poised' for release..
More when we've heard what the substance is..

It is disturbing..
Watching governments worldwide buying private debt, and effectively expunging it, should have the man on the street concerned.. at the very least..
But it appears, for the moment at least, is an almost irrational sense of relief..
The fact action is being taken.. until the recession really kicks in.. is seemingly enough to placate the middle-class..
They see literally trillions of dollars.. Euro's.. Pounds Sterling.. being 'injected' into a system which had allowed itself to become so debt-heavy.. so entwined with paper value, as opposed to realistic equity..
One might as well say 'thrown away' as 'injected..
Are any of the economies involved in these bail-outs solvent in themselves..?
We had France.. Italy.. Germany.. and the UK meeting in Paris this weekend to decide
how much money they can get away with printing.. India's Finance Minister was there as well..
With the outcome today of Germany guarranteeing all bank deposits and.. let's use that word again..'injecting' 50 billion Euro's into a morgage company/bank bailout..
This will put enormous pressure on Gordon to effect the same measures here, and why not..?
'In for a penny..', as they say..
The pundits seem to have reached agreement on a term of 6 months..give or take.. for the markets and the High Street to bounce in and out of recession.. there is consensus on inflation, and the universal effect it's going to have on consumers worldwide..
How this arbitrary timeline was arrived at is a masterwork of spin.. Truth be told, there can be nothing more certain than an inflationary spiral.. increasing unemployment..until the waste and paper debt is paid for..
Six months would appear to be somewhat optimistic..
Especially when we take the coming chnges in administrations.. Canada.. the US.. the UK..
Might be a power shift developing in North Korea.. and Pakistan is still ajusting to the vacuum left by the departure of Mussharraf..
Fun times ahead..

And on our own political scene.. we much extend that pre-eminent Doctor of Spin, Peter Mandelson, back in Cabinet in charge of the nebulous Portfolio of 'Business'..
Leaves quite a wide mandate there..
Peter will certainly prove to be amusing, if nothing else..

Interesting. While Joe came through as a capable.. likeable.. trustworthy..
So did Sarah..
Where Joe may have had more facts and figures at his fingertips.. Sarah had enough in her arsenal to answer.. and to pose counter-point..
Taxes.. climate change.. Pakistani nuclear aspirations.. the economy..
They, and this is the important point, neither made any gaffes.. neither fell into the many pitfalls a media confrontation might have produced..
And perhaps more significantly, Sarah didn't lose.
Not to say Joe did..
But it cannot be said that the Republican candidate was no less capable than Hillary was, in any of her appearances..
If this election goes to the Democrats, it would not have been because of their Vice-Presidential candidate's performance tonight.

It will take a couple of viewings of this Vice-Presidential debate to read the body language..the intonation.. and the substance of either candidate..
Palin seems to be well composed.. Biden may well be leaning too much on the mistakes of administration even the Republicans are distancing themselves from..
Points made on both sides promising social services.. each with their own method of raising the $AMthree trillion..
Point and counter point..
It must be said though.. Palin's a lot better looking than Biden..

There's another debate taking place north of the 49th Parallel tonight..Canadian Tory Leader Stephen Harper takes on Candidates from 4 other Parties..expecting to be under vitriolic siege from rivals, but, will keep his cool..according to Tory sources.
“We're not going to try to respond to every sneer or accusation,” a Conservative source said..we're going to try to keep it prime ministerial..erring perhaps on the side of calm.”
That means he will try to maintain the same muted body language he used in the French language debate Wednesday night..
Steven is expected to more carefully defend his plan for the economy in the face of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's five-point action plan to address the country's finances.
“It's to keep taxes down, keep inflation down and making sure we don't spend ourselves into a deficit with irresponsible new spending. That's how you weather the storm.”.. is the Conservative platform..
And what's more convincing an argument.. is the Conservatives will running on their record when it comes to the economy, which includes tax cuts that amount to $40-billion per year by 2012 – including faster tax writeoffs for machinery– and a $1-billion community adjustment fund for smaller communities as well as a $250-million fund to help automakers..
The Dion economic plan, meanwhile.. unveiled during the French-language debate Tuesday night, is an attempt by the slumping Liberals to gain momentum and win back right-leaning supporters by contrasting themselves with the Tories' laissez-faire approach to the economy...
The plan, which overshadows Mr. Dion's controversial carbon-tax proposal, is also an overt attempt to hearken back to the Liberal Party's glory days.. their 1993 election win, and subsequently successful action plan to slay the federal deficit.
But that was then.. and this is now..
However..it proposes an acceleration of already-promised infrastructure spending to juice the economy and a series of huddles with regulators, economists and premiers to discuss what should be done about the spillover effects of the U.S. financial meltdown. Questions would include whether Ottawa needs to toughen up its financial-system regulations..
These are actions will of necessity take place, regardless of who's in majority on Parliament Hill..
Watch the results of this election.. a mere matter of days away..

Interesting developments in Pakistan.. with Pakistani agreement now to limited American incursions in Pakistan in pursuit of al Q'aeda and Taliban..
But India's expressing concerns..

Now.. at this point it's mere conjecture as to what the next move is going to be on the World Economic Markets..
Certainly a surge.. perhaps a brief one while speculators play their games..
But the Game's far from being close to an end..
The piper still awaits his payment..

It's being called 'a surprise move to resurrect President Bush's $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan,'..
Yup. It would have been far more of a surprise had the Senate not slated a vote on the measure for Wednesday..
There is though, the expected final concession from George, in the form of an added tax cut plan... mind you that's already been rejected by the House..
The move to add a tax legislation — including a set of popular business tax breaks — risked a backlash from House Democrats insisting they be paid for with tax increases elsewhere.
But by also adding legislation to prevent more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from eating the alternative minimum tax, the step could build momentum for the bailout from House Republicans. The presidential candidates John.. and Barack intend to fly to Washington for the votes, as does Joe Biden.. the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
One would think this plan.. will be passed..
Without it, frankly, the US won't have a 'Main Street'.. let alone a viable 'Wall Street'.. to protect anymore..
It's a 60 percent majority needed in Congress for this Bill to pass.. It would be difficult for the House to reject the measures twice..
It would be a move that will drop the US in terms of global economic clout for quite a few years.. one which will demand a re-thinking of the American image of the 'world police'.. and the most charitable nation on earth.. one which require the American man on the street to re-think the definition of the 'American Dream'..
But without it, the US will lead us all, kicking and bemoaning.. into economic chaos.
The time has come for all free economic systems to bite the bullet.
There may well come again a time when we can once again do something to alleviate the suffering endemic in the underdeveloped countries.. and when we will be able to afford the luxury of interfering in repressive foreign regimes..
But, it's a responsibility which must be born by the individual.. through private donations. Not a responsibility of the government for the now.. We can't afford it.
Even Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, in his small corner of the world, in a country who's economy is growing at an impressive rate.. has set forth economic plans for his region which are stringently parochial..
We could take a lesson.
We're working on plans to shut a barn door, after the horses have bolted..
It's encouraging to see at least one politician in a developing nation.. bringing up the learning curve..