Wednesday, February 9, 2011

There is a world out there

It is not our fault. Really. Due to our busy schedule during the week and also during the weekend doing our household chores leaves very little time to look beyond our own towns, cities and states, unless it affects us directly. Although we (meaning the U.S. government) have been involved with the outside world (beyond our borders) since the inception of our nation, but it is recently that the world events have started to affect us directly even when we are unaware of it. Before the first gulf war of the 1990s, we were pretty much insulated about the outside world but after the cold war ended, we have come face to face with direct competition with other emerging nations.

The effect of small events outside the U.S. directly affect us like higher inflation in China will affect our budget and less buying of our treasury securities will force the U.S. to raise the interest rates offered to investors (mostly foreigners) which in turn will affect rates on all things bought on credit. Our problem then is less interaction with the outside world since few of us travel outside the U.S. so we feel that outside events does not affect us directly, but with the advent of the 9/11 attacks that are no longer the case (will be discussed later). So I urge people to keep themselves knowledgeable about world events and travel more outside the U.S. to have the feel about how other people views American citizens and their government.

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