To send off our discussion of Cat’s Cradle, I thought I’d open up discussion on something that was very interesting in class. The idea of other, perhaps smaller, nations forming relationships with America based on their economic power is something that makes itself present in the novel (H. Lowe Crosby as a figure of American industrial capitalism and his interest in San Lorenzo and Vice Versa). This can correspond to many other nations relationships to America as an economic Superpower. Canada, in particular, seems to have a similar relationship with the US, though not to the same extent. However, in this period of economic turmoil for our faltering economic juggernaut southern nation, is this relationship changing?
In another sense, perhaps we could view the current predicament that the US is in right now as a form of “economic ice nine”. In some respects it is. The financial crisis took shape in a similar fashion as Vonnegut’s satirical device. Instead of a physical “chip” of ice nine, however, what is transmitted is the fatal idealized way of thinking that makes debt a necessary part of American life. In a sense, this idea is what inevitably brought America to its knees, there was no money left and huge banks like Lehman brothers were literally frozen; they could not continue to operate. If someone would like to expand on this issue or tell me a am completely off base with this interpretation, feel free.
Tony
I wouldn’t put myself as any sort of authority on the subject but I would say Canadian businessmen would disagree on your view of Canada piggybacking off America. Canada was one of the only countries in the world to fare the banking crisis quite well, the big 5 banks had the insight to stay away from sub prime mortgages in the United States well before economists were starting to tell of the warning signs.
I am aware that our lumber industry sells much of its product over the border, and being a big part of the British Columbia economy it may be a very salient issue to us but in 2008 as the recession was at its worst in the US, Job growth in Canada stayed positive and unemployment also stayed relatively low. The main issue Canada has is just about people being worried and cutting down on spending. Although it makes sense to cut down on spending it is bad for the economic climate we have created of consumerism. Where other parts of the world may still be unclear as to the direction of their financial wellbeing, Canadaian policies have created a relatively safe situation for the country as a whole.
I read an article about it but am not able to find the exact one so here is a link to the first hit that seemed relevant.
http://www.firedfornow.com/uncategorized/canadian-banks-envy-of-the-world-eh/
When I think of America’s and San Lorenzo’s relationship, I think of the one part when all of them just arrived on the Island and some of Crosby and “Papa’s” first words exchanged were, ‘we hate communists.’This just makes me think that in order to remain on good terms with the US, for one reason or another, many countries will do just about anything, all with regards to politics, in order to maintain their relationship. Sort of reminds me of Britain’s relationship with the US and how Britain has backed up the US in cases where every other single country in Europe was against.
Even as this economic crisis continues, and countries here and there are being drastically economically hurt, US’s relationships with some countries I believe is changing. But with regards to Canada, I think their relationship is more important than ever. Someone said in class that the US doens’t really need Canada,and I kind of have to disagree with that. I think the US does depend on Canada right now for many reasons, oil, lumber,etc.
I am pretty sure I was the one in class saying that the United States didn’t need Canada… maybe that was a bit extreme. But check out some of the numbers, cited in a report to US Congress, submitted by Ian F. Fergusson in 2006, more recently updated in 2008.
– “Trade with Canada represented nearly 18.5% of U.S. total trade in 2006, with Canada purchasing 22.2% of U.S. exports and supplying 16.4% of total U.S. imports last year.”
– “The United States supplied 65% of Canada’s imports of goods in 2006, and purchased 79% of Canada’s merchandise exports.”
– “…in the United States, the value of trade (exports + imports) as a percentage of GDP was about 21.8% in 2006, the comparable figure for Canada was nearly 60%.”
This data is old, and I don’t mean to get number heavy… The relationship may be necessary for both parties, but it’s clear that in terms of TRADE, the US would weather a world with no Canada far better than Canada would survive in a world with no US.
In regards to Tony’s thoughts on the financial crisis, it’s another issue entirely. I wouldn’t necessarily call the American economic ideology “ice-nine”, because it hasn’t really brought the entire world to its knees. Markets are recovering. Unemployment may still be in the shitter, but that may be more due to institutional and political reasons than pure economic ones.
Down south, it’s simply a more pure, less regulated form of capitalism. Markets fail, banks freeze, recession hits… but then the market recovers, just like it is now (like some of those banks that were frozen? now paying off some of those hefty loans issued by the US government).
What really is at play here is a fundamental difference in ideology. The US has a more conservative underpinning, where as Canada, as a whole, is more to the left. And thats the trade off: you either have an economy retarded by the mingling of government, but resilient to some of the negative capitalist forces, or you have an economy with thriving business and innovation, but prone to side effects of purer capitalism.
This may or may not pertain to the topic of discussion in this thread. But one thing I found interesting while reading Cats Cradle that the end of the world was brought on by a follower nation (San Lorenzo) and not one the “economic juggernauts” (the United States and Russia). Vonnegut made a point of mentioning in the novel that the United States government had obtained ice nine through Harrison C. Conners, and Russia had obtained it through Zinka the ballet dancer.
I thought this was interesting because this novel was written in the middle of the cold war where the end of the world was a very real possibility. With ice nine being analogous to nuclear weapons, is it possible that Vonnegut was somewhat recreating that scenario? With San Lorenzo paralleling Cuba, its possible that in the same way San Lorenzo had ties to the united states, Cuba had ties to Russia. The launching of nuclear weapons from Cuba could also be seen as somewhat of a suicidal act, since the US also had their out of country military installations that would have surely fired on the Russians.
Was Vonnegut trying to make a fictional world that paralleled the events that were taking place while he was writing? Or was he trying to say that it is dangerous to tie yourself too closely with nations in conflict? Or am I just rambling…. I don’t know. Thoughts?