for what it’s worth
I work for a Canadian company that does a lot of business internationally. While a lot of the money brought in is either European or Asian, the bulk of our clients still remain in the US.
This used to be a good thing, until the US dollar just started to drop , oddly enough in conjunction with the Iraq war. Now economists will tell you, that war generally can be a good thing for the nations economy…triggers spending, results in higher GDP … apparently, not this time. Now there is so much irony in this concept, I can’t possibly begin to make fun of it enough here.
Take a looksie at this fun graph. Now I know you can’t really see all the detail, like date and time and specific unit score markers… but really the thing is that they all point down in value.
Anyhow, before the major value shift of the US dollar, buying our software in non-Canadian currency was a good thing. We got more value out of it, as our company is based in Canada.
I always hear stories of people traveling to parts of the world with US cash “back in the day”, and it was as if US tourists were of alien descent, trying to share their advanced technologies in a place where things were obviously dumbed down.
“you mean, you can get HOW many cheeseburgers back home for the same amount?”
“I swear, I think one pair of Levi’s can make a down payment for a condo in this shit for country.”
Now that those days have changed, I sorta wonder how we’re handling ourself when we travel. Every 5 or 6 months SNL does a funny skit, I think this is a good one for this post. I mean … what’s the American dollar but a washed out past celebrity anyhow?
[youtube 4jI4xI6gf3E]
it’s been my belief for some time now that 9/11 — the crazy igniter switch of this war in Iraq that’s intended to protect American freedom and spread Democracy like a hooker’s legs on a Saturday swing shift was…intended? designed? okay, how about, accepted? It was accepted as an excellent springboard to launch the campaign of Operation Frozen Americans. Travel, particularly overseas became harder — not just due to legitimate acts of newly legalized racial profiling, racism and other suchly delights, but also due to the fact that prices went up. In the eyes of America’s lambs, everything became expensive becasue gas and oil became expensive and gas and oil became expensive because war makes that happen and war has to happen because that man with the moustache might send his pet Tigers over here to eat us up one-by-one in an effort to take over the world. Truth is, we export more than we know and import more than we “should” — that is, for a country of independence, we sure do spend a lot of money in other countries in order to satisfy our needs. By keeping the lambs at home in the states, it would be easier to mask the reality that we are indeed a country solely of capitalism who accepts democracy as a mere side effect of marketing campaigns that keep capitalism thriving. Much like anything, the more you spread and smear something around, the thinner it gets and the weaker it becomes. Our biggest weapon, our biggest ally, our only asset and our only lifeline is money. That money has been spread so thin due to countless efforts to buy the entire world up, that its integrity, much like a net that is trying to carry the entire planet Earth, has become compromised. US money has become so weakened because those overseas managed to take it from us when it actually held value, held more value in it then we did, and those who couldn’t get it from us went to those who did get some from us and found ways to get it some from them. By keeping us stuck here in our own backyards, it has become hard to see how far we have fallen. No really, I’m not paranoid…why are you looking at me?