Laplandica

…should be scaring everyone in the world! Its increase is affecting all of us and it’s reality is truly blood-chilling. My thoughts went quickly to a blog I recently wrote defending a Shetland blogger who declared that money can’t buy happiness. As well, I just wrote about how outdoor skills can be useful to everyone for future needs.

So, what does finding happiness and outdoor skills have to do with the American debt?

Photo- Pleasure boat sales at the Cleveland Sport Show 2006

According to a spectacularly interesting website by Michael Hodges, the American debt, “…defined as the sum of all recognized debt of federal, state & local governments, international, private households, business and domestic financial sectors, including federal debt to trust funds - but excludes the huge contingent liabilities of social security, government pensions, Medicare and other government off-budget items.” comes to an estimated total of $48 trillion, or $161,287 per man, woman and child! (Read page 2- What is 1 billion?)

Mind boggling, isn’t it? How will America pull it off?

With these circumstances, it would be difficult to defend any logic that America, and countries hooked-up into its economic system, will not wind-up bankrupt given time. It doesn’t take any special amount of education for that thought. For some reason, I have visions of a new Dark Age enveloping the earth. Economic bankruptcies! Climate change! Wars over fresh water! The apocalypse?

Photo- Tanzanian orphan collecting grasshoppers for breakfast 2005

So, as we consider our own consumption attitudes, other nation’s exploitation of third world peoples and other nation’s waste of the earth’s resources for unnecessary “things”, let’s also consider the true meaning of happiness and how we can better get along with our lives, with nature and with the outdoors using skills we’ve learned. We may all need them someday!