What's wrong with this concept and Canberras

So the drama queens in the US made a last minute deal. And they found their inspiration on how to solve the crisis over here in Europe: don't solve it, postpone it. So all what happened on Thursday was giving the can one massive kick and it rolled further until February 7. That's when the US will hit their new debt limit: 17 trillion $. For those of you who think all those Armageddon stories about the end of the financial system if the US would default (even if only technically and for a couple of days) is nonsense, here is what Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said just after the deal was reached: "the world economy escaped a potential catastrophe". So we can all breathe now for a couple of months and go through the same flirting-with-disaster again early next year. In the mean time you can be sure that some parts of the world have drawn their conclusion. I highly recommend reading what China published in Xinhua (China's official press agency): U.S. fiscal failure warrants a de-Americanized world - see http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-10/13/c_132794246.htm Bottom line, the US Dollar will no longer be the reserve currency of the world.

But don't we live in a strange world where we all hope the US will continue making debt so they and the rest of the world can continue to prosper? Isn't there something thoroughly wrong with this concept?


The bad thing about going to conferences (like I did past two week), is that they can be very boring. The good thing is you get to chat to some interesting people. One lunch I found myself talking to a former RAF pilot who flew the Canberra. It is one of those post-war designs that had a very long service life. The English Electric Canberra B2 started service with the RAF 101 Squadron in January 1951. It bowed out of service 55 (!) years later when the PR9 variant did a flypast at RAF Marham on July 28, 2006. The Canberra was still used extensively  in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've only seen the Canberra once. The picture below is from an airshow in Koksijde in the nineties. The awkward nose is because this is a  T Mk 17 electronic warfare variant (apologies for the grainy picture - film roles had to be developed in those days so no 10 Mb pixel quality).

And one more picture, this is from the model I have in my own collection: a Martin B-57 which was a license-built version of the Canberra for the USAF.