All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Hubris: extreme pride, especially pride and ambition so great that they offend the gods and lead to one's downfall.

In the aftermath of the stunning results of the U.S. election, the mix of emotions and hard-nosed analysis spans the spectrum from feeling sorry for the irrational and politically illiterate American voter to visceral fear about the consequences of their electing a thuggish buffoon as president. But common to all reactions, I suspect, is a smugness rooted in our sense of superiority -- as if our elites are somehow more attentive to the public interest and the lives of ordinary Canadians.

It's amazing what we gradually accept as normal -- even admirable -- in how we treat each other in Canada. Practices that were once seen as a repugnant surrender to government indifference, like food banks, are now virtually celebrated as a high point of citizen engagement and promoted as such by our public broadcaster once a year. And other practices, like hospitals and seniors' care homes that once had their own kitchens and cooking staff, are seemingly a thing of the past, a "luxury" that we have no hope of ever getting back.

As Bruce Cockburn's song suggests, the trouble with normal, is it always gets worse.

There is a glaring disconnect in the world between economic growth, and trade and investment agreements.

At the same time that Canada and other countries are pushing hard for huge multi-national deals -- the TPP, CETA and the U.S.-EU deal, the TTIP -- all the evidence suggests that global trade is on a long-term downward trend. Nothing in the near or middle term future suggests that it will recover to anything like its China-driven peak.

Financial Times analyst Martin Wolf recently argued bluntly that globalization no longer drives the world economy.