Eh...New Zealand is looking better all the time...

A week after the US Congress negotiated a truce, so the US did not default and send the world economy slowly spiraling downwards into an economic depression. (What a lot of people didn't understand, i.e. Ron Paul and his Tea Party cronies, is that it would not have happened immediately...any more than Black Friday in 2008 immediately caused a recession - it's the ripple effect.) The US is busy trying to appease its allies, actually I should amend that the US and Britain are trying to appease their allies. Apparently the British and the US spied on Europe together? OR did Britain just agree to spy on Italy? Anyhow that's what I was able to ascertain from a rather interesting NY Times article on the topic. France and Germany are furious, and this stopped trade talks until a solution could be negotiated. (Don't blame them.) I'd love to be listening to the negotiations. Negotiation fascinates me. Because in order to work effectively - both sides must feel like they've won. If they don't, they can't work together. A lot of people do not appear to understand that - and make it adversarial. It should never be adversarial, although of course it is.

From the NY Times :http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/world/europe/fallout-over-american-spying-revelations.html?_r=0

Fury over reports that American intelligence had monitored the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spread from there to other European leaders a day earlier and prompted calls to suspend trade talks with the United States.( Read more... )