Saturday, February 28, 2009

Meanwhile, back in the world of economic tumult…



It’s the kind of item that perhaps the New and Improved Daily News won't be giving much thought towards, but over at the Globe and Mail, they still think that such things as the Global Economic crisis is still worth a few columns.

While we may soon learn much more about the Lutheran Church bake sale or a local tree planting venture by service groups, outside the city limits and over at the Globe and Mail the unwinding of the economic order has become kind of an interesting little front page item all to itself for the last few months.

This week they featured a fascinating discussion with Professor Niall Ferguson from Harvard University, his current book, The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World, is currently what they would call the “hot” read on the non fiction charts, considered to be a must for anyone trying to understand the current crisis the world’s nations find themselves in this time of economic duress.

His article with the Globe, titled "There will be Blood", is rather chilling in it’s examination of the crisis to date and the fearful possibilities for the future. Developments which portend a longer than currently forecast downturn, Ferguson suggests that our governments are soft selling the dangers if not out right lying to the public in order to boost up our confidence, he sees the changes to come as ones that will see major upheaval and potential violence around the world as nations come to grips with the changes that are to come.

The article even spawned a discussion piece in today’s on line offerings from the Globe, with Ian Brown's article over the seemingly never ending stream of doom and gloom developments over the last few months. The topic of the piece being an examination as to how all of this discussion could become self fulfilling prophecy over the years as we received tsunami after tsunami of details as to the crisis at hand.

The articles provide factual information and balance,a great starting point for debate, exactly what a newspaper is designed to do, provide the facts and let the readers sort through the details, good, bad and ugly… Serving its readers in the best fashion by informing and allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions.

Considering the perceived turn of events for local journalism these days, it’s refreshing to find content that still treats the reader as though they are capable of handling the tough issues of the day and is not afraid to report and comment on them, power of positive thinking is one thing, but it won’t stop the evolution of world events.

Thankfully, the Globe at least still understands that through their portal Canadians still deserve to know what’s ahead and how to best deal with what may come.

It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who put things into perspective in the teeth of the last economic disaster when he said, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself…

The Globe articles are well worth the read and will provide some solid background on the debate, regardless of the tone or the nature of the material we can probably handle the bad news and find that its delivery to be helpful to our planning.

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