With the Vancouver riots exploding into mainstream media yesterday following something as economically trivial as a hockey game, I thought it would be worth a discussion about whether these riots are a sign of something much larger going on. Something bigger stirring about.
Canada and the United States are very different, culturally, but sooner or later the financial hens will come home to roost in Canada, just as they are in the US. When that happens, what does Canada look like?
At present, approximately 14% of the population of the United States survives on Food Stamps. That’s approximately 47 million people. Can you see the significance of that number? That’s substantially more than the entire Canadian population.
When you think of riots in countries like Egypt or Libya, they at least have a reason. With food costs at all-time highs, how far would you go to feed your family? Let’s say you lived on $5.00/day, and your food costs were $4.00/day. It’s a pretty crappy life, but at least you’re not starving. Now what happens when your food costs go to $6.00/day and your wage stays flat? How far would you go to feed your family? People in Egypt have a reason to riot. At the present moment, people in Vancouver do not.
When will that change? How much longer can the Federal Reserve try to print the US out of debt? How long can interest rates be held at all-time lows before inflation takes off like a rocket, sending food prices through the roof?
How long will it be before these people are rioting because they can’t feed their families, instead of their home team losing a hockey game?
Well knowing that there is a massive housing bubble going on in vancouver, i’d hate to see what happens when that pops and people decide its worth rioting about. Doubt it though. But its good to see that people in canada do have some fight in them, in comparison to the US. If they didnt have the food stamps in the US, i’d bet the riots would be there. As gerald celente always says, ‘when the money stops flowing to main street, the blood starts flowing on the streets’. But as the US falls, canada will be the largest effected because of the huge trade between the two countries.