A Land Far Away

We are all truly interconnected on this planet of ours. I suspect that we always have been, but that the connection is stronger now that ever before. The black death was a plague that originated in the East (from point of view). Some mutuation in an organism, it could happen anywhere and anytime, created a deadly disease and it went off around the world on its travels and eventually ended up visiting Europe and killing about a third of the population. Its journey took some time though – years.

Now diasters travel faster. At the moment I am keeping abreast of what is happening in the USA. Why, you may ask? Well, because of that interconnection. At this particular moment in time one set of politicans are threatening to not raise the ‘debt ceiling’ of the USA. This means that they are not going to settle their bills (more complicated than that). This means that the USA’s credit rating will fall, and this could lead to a crash in their economy, with will reverberate all around the world and crash the economy I live in. And, that is not exactly going well at the moment with the self-inflicted harm caused by our own set of charmless, idiotic politicians. The result is that the high cost of living could get higher. Joy. And this will happen all across the world.

I do wonder if they, the people in charge, really understand that the games they play will have a huge influence on the lives of the ordinary. It is not hyperbole to write that people could, and probably will, die because they are scrabbling for power. Budgets will be cut, money allocated to supporting the worse off will be reduced.

During the years of austerity imposed be the government of 2012 to 2019 there were an estimated 335,000 excess deaths in the UK. And, of course the deaths will fall on the parts of society that are vulnerable: the poor, the disabled, the ill, women, ethnic minorities.

All this because of the economic illiteracy and ideology of politicians.

It does, I suppose, provide one more thing to worry about. It varies the concern. I now have economic meltdown to add to the small matters of global climate change, war (thanks Mr Putin), nuclear war (thanks to anyone with nuclear weapons and a shaky grasp on sanity [that includes here]) and the next plague. The list could go on and on.

So, every cloud has a silver lining.