The pomp and ceremony leading to the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States has started. Today he’s leaving Philadelphia by train, mimicking the trip that brought Abraham Lincoln to Washington. On Sunday in Washington there will be a concert with a “who’s who” of the music world performing, stars reportedly all eager to be a part of the celebration. Monday is Martin Luther King Day in the US, and Obama has asked for people to devote the holiday to community service. Tuesday is the inauguration, which Obama has indicated will be the most “open and accessible” of any held to date.

Like a lot of people watching the events from afar, I find myself thinking about a possible new age in the US. Obama is one of the best speakers to appear in quite a while, and it’s not hard to get pulled into the idea that something truly different and exciting is about to happen. Certainly he comes to the job with possibly more work facing him than many presidents have had: two wars on the go, an economy that is staggering on the edge of collapse, continuing conflicts in the world that the US must take a stand on, the need to be less dependent on oil, and hotspots like Iran and North Korea always seeking attention. The US, and to some extent the western world, is looking for great things from this man. Great challenges can bring out the best in a leader who is capable of handling them.
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The US Congress yesterday put off any bailout of the “Big 3” auto-makers and sent them back to their oak-paneled dens until they come up with better arguments. GM, Chrysler, and Ford had been looking for a $25 billion bailout of the industry, waving red flags warning that at least GM will have exhausted money by the end of December, and both it and Chrysler might be going into receivership by that time. Ford apparently has a bit more cash flow, but isn’t far behind.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The executives that turned up in Washington to plead for money just don’t have a clue. The executive offices of corporate America (not to mention Canada) have become so used to big-bucks salaries, Brooks Brothers suits, and chauffeured lifestyles, that when they have to humble themselves and come with cap in hand to government, they just don’t know how to behave. They might have gotten a warmer reception had not someone noticed that they all arrived on luxury corporate jets for the Washington meeting. Beggars apparently still can be choosers, and in their case Marshall McLuhan was quite correct: the Medium is the Message.

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In a column on May 5 of this year, I stated, “We will not see gas under $1.00 a liter again.”

It appears I was wrong. Error. In this strange crisis of the world economy we find ourselves this November, gas just fell below the one dollar mark for most stations in Nova Scotia a week ago.

Some “experts” (which maybe I thought I was until this point) are saying that when people get comfortable with the lower price, oil companies will be loath to anger us by raising it too quickly. They predict at least several more months at lowered prices. I make no prediction on that, having learned something at least.

The oil companies are capable of doing that, it seems. Despite pie charts being flashed around at gas stations showing us where the dollars go in the business, and how we apparently shouldn’t be blaming any of those people for high prices, I noticed that Exxon posted an almost record profit for the first quarter of this year, some 10.9 BILLION dollars. That’s not sales or anything like that, that’s profit. It was only outdone by the previous quarter, last of 2007, when their profit was $11.7 BILLION. The $10.9 is apparently $1,385 each second for the quarter, for those who are fascinated by such numbers, or $10,900,000,000, if you are impressed with that approach. Profit. And you thought the oil business was in trouble.

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If you have taken your eyes off the watch for gas prices rising at the end of the week, and the election warfare raging above and below the border, you might realize that most Americans have for the moment had their attention diverted from Sarah Palin (even before that interest waned of its own accord).

While the inability of opticians to provide copies of her frameless rectangular lenses might be one of the main crises of supply and demand for some people south of the border, many others have no doubt glanced at newspapers or accidentally landed on a news channel long enough to realize that their country stands at the precipice of what could be the worst financial failure since the Depression. According to some analysts, it could even be worse than the Great Depression, and with the global implications of the American economy in today’s world, it could be recession/depression almost worldwide.

I once heard the difference between Recession and Depression explained this way: when your neighbor loses his job, it’s a Recession. When you lose yours, it’s a Depression.
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The fighters are in the ring and the bell has sounded for the election bouts both north and south of the border. Although we anticipated a lot of low blows from both sides, so far that kind of approach seems to be coming mainly from one side in each election.

Despite the family man image of Harper in the sweater, his followers don’t seem to have fully accepted that look any more than the voters, and have blundered ahead into several errors in judgment as they coordinate attacks on Stephane Dion with few holds barred. The famous Puffin-Poop-Gate stumble will probably go down in the folklore of elections (link below) as just one of those things that “seemed right at the time”, blamed on an over-zealous web ad artist who got carried away. At least that’s where the blame landed, and if you can imagine an ad like that gets put on the air without someone much higher up approving it, you’re naïve indeed.

Harder to find humor in the slip-up where an important Harper staffer emailed Canada AM following the show appearance of the father of a Nova Scotia soldier lost in Afghanistan. The father decried Harper’s announcement of a 2011 pull-out, and argued that a fixed pull-out date made his son’s death in vain. The staffer responded that the father was motivated as a known Liberal supporter. I can imagine Harper’s comment when that story came out in the Conservative camp: “It could well be that his comments are politically motivated, but you just don’t say that about a father who has lost his son!”
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