Warren Buffet invests in a trend forecast.

The November 3, 2009 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal, published in Madison, Wisconsin, featured in its business section a story on how Warren Buffett, the second richest person in the USA, wants to purhcase an American railroad system, the second largest in the USA. He is willing to spend over $32 billion to purchase it. This caught my attention, because Buffett has focused on real estate in the past, not transportation. Therefore, I "drilled down" in the article.

Toward its end two facts jumped off the page. One, Buffet forecasts a huge surge in the price of oil, which will diminish the value of trucking as a source of delivery. Two, his proposed railroad acquisition is one of the major backbones for transporting food from the USA to export to China.

How does this apply to Canada?

First, railroads are central to the history of Canada. For instance, the late Pierre Berton's National Dream told the story of the building of the trans-continental Canadian National Railway which "stitched" together the provinces of Canada from sea to sea. This infrastructure still runs east and west, and Vancouver, British Columbia is the logical terminus for this railway system. Vancouver is Canada's gateway to Asia. Canada also has surplus food for export to Asia. Note how this trade goes east and west, not north and south.

If Buffett thinks the future of the economy is with China, which has money galore to spend, unlike the bankrupted USA, Canada, too, because of its railroads can profit from this trend.

Second, Buffet's forecast for a surge in the price of oil ought to enhance the value of the oil in Canada, e.g. the Alberta tar sands. Canada can profit from this surge if the good people of the USA can somehow wrest control of its government from the vampires on Wall Street and in Washington. These vampires work for international oil corporations, not the US people, and are at the drivers of the endless American overseas wars for oil in the Middle East. Of course, China, too needs oil, and it can pay "cash on the barrel" for it. Canada has railroads to move the oil.

In short, the future of Canada's prosperity is east-west, not north-south, trade. Its railroads, food surplus and oil can service Asia as surely as Warren Buffet's proposed railroad system.

Canada has looked to its transcontinental railroad system to hold the country together politically. History is going to repeat. Canada will look also to its transcontinental railroad network to reinvent its economy and detach it from the U.S., which is an economic Titanic.