However there's a storm a blowin' of a different kind - a global kind -it's the global storm of total economic and capitalist collapse and unfortunately this storm shows no sign of abating, in fact to the contrary - this global storm of total economic capitalist collapse is gaining in momentum every day, hour and second...
After much research into the very complicated matter of the global storm of total economic collapse, I have come up with an explanation which though basic makes it relatively easy to understand why many of the worlds economies are in financial dire straits -
1) Developed countries were able to borrow money at relatively low interest
on the counting the chickens before they've hatched assumption that the said countries would always be able to repay the money they had borrowed cheaply
2) At the time (pre Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008) due to the low cost of borrowing, developed countries thought it made sense to run a deficit because their economies could grow faster than the low cost debt that was acquired to pay for such economies
3) Many developed countries fell prey to the counting the chickens before they've hatched syndrome and now alack alas these countries cannot repay their loans
4) Hence new debt becomes more expensive thus on the balance of probabilities making it nigh near impossible for some developed countries to ever be able to repay their borrowing
5) As some countries aren't able to repay their debts this in turn raises interest rates which in turn makes it highly likely that even more countries wont be able to repay their debts and so the wheel of the economic downturn slows down to nearly stopping point
6) Once a countries total economic output lessens, there isn't as much money coming into a country
7) Developed countries though, still need to spend roughly the same amount of money, thus causing a shortfall which is unfortunately why the cuts are here to stay...
On a national and global scale governments are thrashing out ways to deal with the very complicated matters of their countries debt crisis's and here in the UK the guv'ner - Mervyn King used a biblical analogy when he warned of 7 lean years - so the global storm of total economic collapse will take a long time to calm.
So dear reader as you can probably deduce, the global and the local are not so far removed from each other - in short what is good for the goose is good for the gander and this means that you and I and everyone else can do a little bit to help the country we live in and our own local economy/ies at Christmas time, just by doing simple things like buying a Xmas tree locally from the grocers or a nursery
and making an effort to buy Christmas gifts from local shops instead of buying the most expensive presents to keep up with the Jones's and acquiring (even more) personal debt - as great as Christmas is, be wise when it comes to spending and try not to get into debt for the sake of Christmas...'til I write & you read again x