Insider / Outsider Perspective

All this doom and gloom on the news everyday about the state of the U.S. economy is making this crisis much worse than it already is by constantly reminding people of the terrible mess they're in. I like to know what's going on in the world, but this story is one I'd rather not read everyday. We already know we're in a pickle. Let me know when we've got a plan to get out of it. This is certainly not the end of the world. If we step back and look at the history of our economy, we know it has its ups and downs like a rollercoaster. At the moment we're experiencing what seems to be a near ninety degree free fall, but eventually the momentum will bring us back to the top of the next peak. However we'll need to be more patient than the three minutes it would actually take to finish the ride. This one wild ride might take a while, so sit back and try not to flail your limbs about or else you may lose an arm and a leg. If you're young, then relax. Your heart's strong and you've got time to recover from the nausea. If you're close to retirement, then frankly this is bad timing, but you're among the baby boomers, which means the government will have to step in and help, otherwise we'd see a revolt led by angry senior citizens. And besides they're good at bailing out people.

I've experienced two downturns already in the economy while working at a global financial institution (one when I first joined and the other now) and I've only been there five and a half years. This time is definitely much worse. A lot of layoffs have taken place in the U.S. especially with the business unit that primarily deals with the subprime market. This is actually where I started in the bank. We've seen some of the impact in the U.S. trickle here to the bank in Canada, but these are mainly departments that support the U.S. operations. Fortunately the department I work in supports the global IT community so our fate doesn't rest solely in the hands of the U.S. business. Watching the crisis unravel south of the border has perhaps made some Canadians nervous about their own job security and economy. It seems that we get weekly if not daily messages from the CEOs reaffirming that our bank is weathering the storm much better compared to other banks in the market and it has. The bank doesn't need any government help because it is sufficiently capitalized. This bit of news certainly gives me more confidence in the company's management.

Even though Canada's economy is faring much better than the U.S., it is still a main concern for many Canadians because of the close ties to the U.S. economy. It was a major talking point in Canadian elections, which was interesting to watch. From the whole campaigning until the election day, it seemed to occur all within a month. I'm not sure if this is due to the fact that this election was triggered by a minority government. Elections generally occur every four years here, but apparently it can happen anytime with a minority government. Also interesting is the number of parties in Canada. There's the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrat Party, the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois -- at least these seem to be the major ones. I'm still not entirely sure what they all stand for, but it doesn't matter because I don't have the right to vote here. Steven Harper was re-elected as Prime Minister, but it looks though a minority government remains, which will make accomplishing any agenda more difficult. Honestly I know very little about the political process here, which I feel rather dumb about compared to Canadians who seem to be very in tune with the U.S. elections. I don't know if Canadians would support Obama or McCain, but my feeling is most would support Obama. At least the one colleague I asked said that's who she would vote for if she could. Yes, I realize this is not scientific, but I'm biased. Watching the final debate last night, it seemed to me that McCain was desperate with the attacks he kept making at Obama. I don't think he realizes that all that attacking is actually making him look worse than better. McCain's pick of Palin to me shows a serious lack of judgement, which appears to me a political move more than anything. If you don't agree, just read some of what she's said here. It'll have your head going in circles. And McCain expects us to trust that she can jump in and run the country if something were to happen to him? Scary.