Serious Times, broken Spanish

Small town Mexico is an interesting place from which to watch world events. Everything seems so safely distant. I'm sure there are no words here for "terrorism" or "politically correct" or "financial collapse". There are none of the weekly shootings here that have become the norm in Vancouver and Toronto. Airplanes don't even fly overhead. (One green and white helicopter did appear the other day but no one seemed to notice.)

I wonder how many of us are curious about the financial collapse of the US? Bond insurers are being downgraded left and right and major banks won't be far behind. Trillions of vaporous dollars in rickety CDOs and their related derivatives are coming home to roost and are infecting their entire financial system. The bank reserves in the US are composed entirely of borrowed money. How much farther is all this going to go? As the US dollar continues its decline and its government takes the path of Brazil during their currency devaluation, how soon will it be before we all switch to a common currency such as the Amero, and how fair will the exchange rate be? Apparently Germans with their strong Deutschemark only got the equivalent of 50 cents on the dollar when they switched to the Euro. Did prices and taxes change equally? It seems unlikely. At the same time financial markets don't make any sense. Why would gold and oil fall when rates have been cut thus weakening the US dollar? Maybe I should be out digging for gold in the picturesque Sierra Madres instead of watching the markets.

I also wonder what it would be like to explain the concept of "politically correct" to a local Mexican. "It's like, you're supposed to think a certain way." "Like an engineer or a doctor who needs to get a job done?" "No you're supposed to watch TV and read the newspapers and hear what other people say and think like they do." "Oh you mean be sensitive to the family elders of your friends and respect their views?" Cultural differences. I suppose we do have our own version of politically correct here in a way, as you don't normally see gringos walking down the street with Mexicans, even though Mexicans are some of the friendliest people I've ever met and are more than eager to chat in broken English.

But for the time being I'm simply doing my best to learn some Spanish. For a serious dyslexic, that's no easy task!