The Rich and the Dead

"We are going to destroy everything, we as human beings," he says. "Our greed is going to kill us. And in the end, with all the money we are going to have, and nothing to eat, no water to drink, no air to breathe—what is the good of it? It's just a lousy piece of paper."

--Raymond Ladouceur, Ft. Chipewyan, Alberta

Chilling article here concerning the tar sands of northern Alberta...the Canadian boomtown.

Oil's sitting just under $129 (U.S.) a barrel, having more than doubled in the past year. There's an excellent chance the price will double again--or worse--over the next year, particularly if America attacks Iran.
In the United States, which imports most of its oil. this is an unmitigated disaster, and Wall Street is doing everything it can to forestall economic collapse. They may even succeed at that, although I have no idea how. Oddly enough, the campaign that never ends down there has taken scant notice, beyond the insane McCain-Clinton "gas tax holiday" proposal. While it's true that a President doesn't direct the economy, if it were me, I'd like my president to have a least a little understanding of how the economy works.
Up here in Canada, the skyrocketing price of oil is still a disaster...just not the financial disaster it is elsewhere. On a local level, up in Fort McMurray, Alberta, any ol' body can get a part-time job making $15 an hour to start, provided that it's radiating somewhere around 37 degrees. The wages scoot upward rapidly from there. It's not uncommon to head down to your local fast-food joint in "Fort Mac" only to find it closed, all the employees having been summarily "poached" by a competitor down the street. On a national level, our dollar used to be weighted by commodities: now it's positively buoyant. That high dollar is largely shielding us from all kinds of unpleasantness.
Of course, in the great rush to head off to seek your fortune, nobody will tell you that a basement suite rents for $3200 or more a month, as of this writing. And that high dollar is absolutely killing our manufacturing sector: why spend extra money to import something you can make in the States for less? Especially since, what with the economic downturn, whatever you're importing, the odds are people don't want it so bad, anyway?
No, we'd rather watch the TSE explore all-time record highs (it broke through the 15000 barrier today). Toronto's a 47-hour drive from Fort McMurray, after all. That's just far enough to keep the environmental catastrophe of the tar sands at bay.
The damage is sickening, and almost certainly irreversible. The companies will blabber on about all the "sustainable development" they're undertaking and how the environment is their highest priority...and seventy miles down stream, they're catching things like deformed walleye and, um, cancer.
But oh, the money, the money, the money!