Obama - 1st Year From a Canadian's Perspective

Originally published on 2009-12-07
I am amazed at how quickly Americans have forgotten where they were when Obama took office just 11 months ago. The republicans had put the country to the brink of collapse( I blame them most because they are the ones put in place to ensure everyone else doesn’t do what they did). The USA was crashing taking the rest of the developed world with it. The potential for all banks crashing if something wasn’t done was almost 100%. If the banks crashed everything else would go with it. USA money would be worthless and unemployment could easily hit 75%++. Some countries had already taken over their banks due to the spin-off of the USA crash. To top it off the weak car companies were finally forced to bankruptcy looking like that sector was going to be destroyed which would take the USA in to a depression situation for sure. Of course there are the miscellaneous things like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Health Care, Unemployment.. the list goes on.

The final piece that I wish wasn’t there but do have to recognize is he is black. This undoubtedly has and will create difficulties within his own country. On the other hand I think it helps him in International issues.

This is the toughest position a US president has ever walked into by far in my opinion. As “a world leader” this US president has a responsiblity to think of more than his own country(although USA is his priority). Especially with whole countries like Iceland going bankrupt due to investments in USA. Previous presidents could say screw everyone else, he can’t.

So now you can remember SOME of the mess let’s look at where USA is 11 months later… The banks are making money and paying back their loans(made money on that one), the car companies went through orderly bankruptcies and came out leaner and meaner(might get money back), the unemployment appears to be peaking at 10.2%(no where near 75), AIG’s possible impact has been dramatically reduced(they alone were going to make everything collapse), housing market is stabilizing in some markets(at least not free-falling), the dollar has depreciated enough to start making USA exports competitive(was way over valued to make US products competitive) and possibly reduce cost of payment of debt. unfortunately (or fortunately – sell more USA products), imported products cost more.

That alone would be enough for most countries to praise the president. But Obama has done this while dealing with Health Care, Iraq and all the other issues noted above. The guy has been in power for 11 months and accomplished more than virtually any other president in their entire tenure. Cut the guy some slack. USA is lucky it is not in a depression and to avert a depression and start coming out of the crash within 11 months is awesome.

Are things perfect? Absolutely not. USA has just averted probably it’s worst crisis to date and all some are saying is “ARE WE THERE YET?”.  USA is not going to fully recover for years(if ever) but maybe you should be thankful that you are not where you were going to be if republicans were still in power.

Why not try asking some of the republicans why they didn’t do anything before? It was obvious to all of us, why didn’t they see and address the problem? They took the easy way out because they wanted votes, that’s why. Anyone with any legal/accounting background could see big problems coming. I am quite sure there were some staff in the offices telling them what they were putting in place was crazy. However, they got a lot of votes by implementing ways for people to buy houses they could not afford. There are a lot of people who were fine in their old house but were told they could sell their house and get bigger/better so they did, only to find they lost the house because they could not afford the upkeep of the new house.

I hope Obama moves to Canada after serving the USA and runs for Prime Minister. Many Canadians I know(including me) would vote for him.

My personal opinion on the reasons for the crash are multi-folded.

• I think the car companies were a problem that was going to happen anyway…Just happened sooner with the crash. 
• The US government created ways for people that could NOT AFFORD a home to get one, then instead of realizing the problems actually added more ways people could get homes they couldn’t afford.
• The real estate system for figuring out ways that people who could not possibly afford the house could buy it(knowing full well people would be kicked out of their house later). 
• The stock market packaged up these obvious bad debts and promoted them as safe and backed by the government(sort of) so they could sell them.
• The ratings agencies rated these junk assets way above their true value.  
• Everyone for assuming the price of real estate would never go down.
• People bought homes they knew they could not afford. Real Estate system played their dreams perfectly.
• Everyone else(like me) sat around and let them do it!!!!! WE KNEW BETTER!!!

There are a lot of pieces to this problem that didn’t occur in other countries, but they still crashed.  Mostly because of investments directly or indirectly in USA and USA’s sudden drop in purchasing their goods… countries like Iceland,China, Europe, Australia and especially Canada(85% exports go to USA). Countries that emulated some or all of the US model for real estate really got hit and they can’t afford or get a trillion dollar loan.

How many of you knew that something had to give when they came out with sub-prime and other loan options. Sure prices of houses were going up but that was an unrealistic supply/demand issue driven by the ability of those that could not afford houses to buy a house. The whole market was a farce. Without the artificial housing there is no need to build/sell all the products related to housing(a lot).  However, how many thought it would get as bad as it did? I didn’t… I thought it would be more localized to the USA and not as bad as things were at the worst times.

Cleanups - GlenCairn

In October 2008 I decided to take it upon myself to clean up a local community park I frequent. More specifically I decided to clean up the approximately 10 acres that most people use(park is over 100 acres). In this area many people partied and there were bottle caps, cigarette buts. more than 3 cases of beer bottles, cans and the normal junk you find floating around parks. This is a summary of my year of cleaning…

<=Some of the garbage picked up in the fall.

I cleaned the park once in the fall of most large garbage on land. Then came back in the spring to find just about as much garbage as in the fall. I then picked up all the large garbage again. This included some funky stuff like Kotex, condoms, bicycle, tires, boxes full of garbage and used diapers. I picked up all the large garbage on land but there was a lot of small garbage(like beer caps) still on th ground. This major cleanup ended with 6 large green garbage bags plus at least 20 small grocery bags full of garbage. Since I was driving my motorcycle I had no way of removing the garbage from the park so I stacked it all in one location figuring someone would arrange to pick it up. After 6 weeks I found out the official park reps, notified them and they finally arranged to have it removed about a week later. It felt really good to see the park much cleaner.

 More garbage collected.
Now I really got motivated… I decided to pick up every stick of garbage I could find. Over the summer I scowered the park for anything that looked like “non-natural” items and removed them. By August the park was spotless. Even the cigarette butts were al picked up. I started noticing that other people were picking up garbage as well and putting it with the stuff I picked up. Even better was there was dramatically less garbage being dropped. Don’t get me wrong there were some jerks still around(see below) but the majority of people were very good. The park had no garbage cans so I asked the reps to install one to reduce garbage. They agreed and put 2 large oil drum cans in place and chained them to a tree to stop theft. Things were great for a while until someone broke the chain and stole one of the cans. I informed reps but nothing was done(I even got attitude from one rep saying that garbage cans should not be there and what did I want her to do). This really upset me. It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying to help. So, I sat back and waited for what I knew would happen… Sure enough in about 2 weeks someone(I presume kids) tipped the remaining can over(now over half full of garbage others and I collected) and rolled it across the property into the river. In the process all the garbage fell out of the can onto the property(nice straight line at first). Needless to say I was not happy. I went back to the reps(the same one with attitude), informed her of the issue and requested the garbage be cleaned up. I was not going to do this primarily because this should never have happened if the rep would have acted in the first place. After 2 weeks someone finally came and picked up the mess and removed the garbage can. During this time I had not done any cleaning so I had to do another round of cleaning to return the park to pristine condition.

<= This picture shows SOME of the tires that were removed.

More pictures of other tires below. While cleaning up the land I noted there seemed to be a lot of tires in the river but decided to wait until the water got warmer to look at removing these. This was the biggest mess I found. In a 300 meter distance of river there were 17 car/truck tires(plus the 2 tires on land). I could not believe there were so many tires in such a short distance of water.

This picture shows some of the stuff taken from the river.

When I got around to the tires 3 guys on ATV’s helped by removing 3 of the tires at first. That meant I had a pile of 5 tires waiting to be picked up(2 from land). While waiting fo someone to pickup the tires some kids had a party and sure enough the tires were thrown into the woods and one ended up back in the water. The next day I went to the park and again I was not too happy. I found booze bottles and garbage everywhere. However at least someone had a garbage bag which was full of bottles, etc. A woman with her son were there looking for items he had lost while attending the party. I informed her of the situation but apparently her son was not involved. However, to my surprise a few days later I found the tires all picked up and piled again(plus 2 other tires were picked up). I like to think it was the son who came and cleaned up. I do not think he was the one making the mess but it was nice to think he cleaned it up. Now I finally got to the river. In addition to the tires there was a huge shovel(like one from construction trucks-not a hand shovel), bricks, bottles, cans and a few other trinkets. In one afternoon I took out all the rest of the tires and garbage, stacked them up ready for pickup and informed the reps. Also noted that it was important to remove them before some other kids decide to thow them back in the river. Two weeks later the tires were picked up.

So at this point(around August) I had cleaned up the river and land and everything was great(or so I thought). Sure enough I come back to the park and find an entire pick-up truck load of garbage dumped in the park(left picture). At least it was piled in one spot. Lot’s of boxes, a toilet, pipes, kids toys, binders, bottles, cans, etc. Again I was upset and went through the garbage to see if there was anything to identify the culprit. It appears they were very carefull not to leave any identifying papers. Given the amount of garbage I thought for sure I would find something. Contacted the reps again(must be getting sick of me by now) and requested it be cleaned up. While waiting for cleanup I noted several people had looked through the garbage looking for any identification so I know others were not happy about this either. The garbage was picked up and last I saw the park was clean again. At least no one threw more tires and garbage in the river.

I am in Florida now so I won’t know how the park is fairing until next spring. Hopefully it will be cleaner than last year  One thing this has confirmed to me is that people will keep things much cleaner if it is already clean. I definitely noticed the difference once the park was cleaned.

One of the prime reasons I wrote this is to motive others to do something. Sure there are headaches and often you feel like “why me” but the feeling of accomplishment and giving back to the community far out ways the problems. Will I do it again…. YOU BET! I am looking at doing the same thing in this and other parks for next year. So get out there and help clean up an area that you frequent. Forget about “others”. Sure they made the mess. One thought that really helped me stick to it was thinking about the number of times I dropped garbage(accidentally or not) plus the times I was not aware I dropped garbage. Let’s not forget I smoked as well. I thought this is making up for some of the mess I personally have created(others cleaned up after me). I am quite sure you can think back at times when you weren’t perfect. Especially when you were younger… Ever smash bottles with rocks?

The Environment

Updated 2009-11-25
The problem is still the same, we are just 6 years later. The effects of global warming are escalating and various environmental issues are getting larger. Species extinction i at the highest rate ever. Even the frogs and bees are dying. Things are not looking good. All our alarms are ringing yet we are still debating the issues. Maybe we are wrong and global warming is not an issue but the mass extinctions, disappearance of the ice caps,  and record-breaking extreme weather around the world doesn’t point that way. Our planet is in trouble and we need to take care of it NOW not next decade. We can’t even get our government to agree to reduce emissions so it is unlikely we can rely on them. Greenpeace’s militant actions are starting to look like a necessary evil to get any attention from governments. 

Published 2003-03-10
The environment should be the number one priority of every human. Without our environment we die, simple. You would think that business would focus on this and be more environmentally friendly. After all, the decisions are being made by people. So why does business continue to create products and packaging that are so environmentally unfriendly? Simple, money!

Money seems to cloud our vision. We know numerous things that are bad for our environment but we still use them. We knew when they were first created there would be future problems. Take cars, styrofoam cups, and virtually all packaging. I can’t call this a lack of vision since from the beginning we new these would create problems. It is greed that has motivated our decisions. The usage of environmentally unfriendly products saves money. Maybe less product is damaged or spoiled but it is a cost decision. I don’t think larger issues like environmental impact even come into the equation. Business is slowly changing but the real problem creators have put their spin doctors on the case and have twisted reality so the public doesn’t know what is real. 

As long as consumers buy the product business will make it. However, with multiple companies making virtually every product the consumer has much more power. What products you buy makes more difference than you think. If you buy environmentally friendly products that use minimum packaging business will make the change or go bankrupt. Either way we all win.

The 3 R’s
Why is it everyone seems to have forgotten about 2 of these. Everyone knows “Recycle” but what about “Reduce” and “Reuse”? There is a much larger bang for the buck with either of them. Remember when most liquids came in reusable bottles? Remember when people were buying fuel-efficient cars and driving less? Remember rationing in wars? My parents seem to be the last generation that recognize the importance of reducing and reusing. Current marketing promotes single use, disposable products with no regard for environmental impacts.

Packaging
It’s weird that product packaging accounts for more garbage than the actual products. Unfortunately packaging is almost exclusively a consumer problem. We demand the pretty package, every cookie be individually wrapped and other stupid things. If everyone bought items that were not packaged(like bulk food) business would adjust. Since packaging costs money most businesses would love to avoid it. Unfortunately as long as packaging sells business has no choice. Standardizing which packing material can be used and how needs to have more practical implementations.

Human Waste
A great natural resource going to waste. On top of that we are removing the best natural filters available… bogs and marshes. Using marshes to purify the water and create top quality soil has been demonstrated to exceed expectations so why aren’t we doing it? Even the modern toilet is a poor method for handling this resource. Contaminating gallons of water to dispose of what should be considered a valuable resource is not feasible. Even worse we use clean fresh water instead of recycled water.

Water
Is there anyone that thinks there is an unlimited supply of fresh water anymore? So why do people act as if there is. We water our lawns, flush toilets & clean our walks with fresh tap water. We pour all types of toxic cleaning solutions into water, dump oils and other contaminants, and more or less use waterways as garbage dumps. Toxic solutions have been found in virtually all underground water sources. Perhaps the oceans are showing the impacts we have seen in Canadian lakes due to things like acid rain. There are now many lakes in Canada that have no fish or other living animals due to this pollution. If so we can only expect there to be less fish available.

Cradle To Grave
This concept is long overdue. It is simple… You make it, your responsible for the environmental impact throughout the life of the product. Including impact to manufacture, use and dispose of the product. When a product comes to market it is assessed for environmental impact and charges are applied to cover these hidden costs society currently pays. Products are continually reviewed for impacts and charges are adjusted accordingly. Companies that create unique problems must provide solutions BEFORE the product can be released for sale. This transfers responsibility from society to the rightful owners. Furthermore it would reflect a more accurate “true cost” of a product.

We can no longer dump garbage somewhere else. I hope we have learned that everything happens in our backyard. The problem can be created on the other side of the world but we still feel the effects. This is a global problem that requires ground roots implementation. No one government or business is going to make a change but millions of us screaming in politicians ears can get some action. The longer we wait the harsher the impacts will be.

We have the ability to eliminate garbage and clean the air, water and land. Now we need the commitment.