janvier 2011
70 billets
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What you don’t know about Stephen Harper →
He has been Prime Minister for five years, longer than Lester Pearson. Not by accident, because in a House where the Conservatives have no natural allies, an accident is politically life-threatening. By tenacity. While he survives, he chips at the way the country is governed, avoiding grand gestures that could provide an easy target. It’s why he is determined to endure: because he needs the time....
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RUPERT MURDOCH - A PORTRAIT OF SATAN →
Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like the BBC
And sometimes the BBC doesn’t seem to like Rupert Murdoch either.
Following the principle that you should know your enemy, the BBC has assiduously recorded the relentless rise of Rupert Murdoch and his assault on the old “decadent” elites of Britain.
And I thought it would be interesting to put up some of the high points.
It is also...
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The end of US decline →
There was another round of the more-or-less endless debate about the decline of the US not long ago, focused on the weak employment growth that has characterized the current ‘recovery’. I expect that the obvious inability of the US to exert significant influence, in either direction, over the fate of client regimes in North Africa and the Middle East will provoke some more discussion among...
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Is Facebook making us sad? →
The researchers found that their subjects consistently underestimated how dejected others were–and likely wound up feeling more dejected as a result. Jordan got the idea for the inquiry after observing his friends’ reactions to Facebook: He noticed that they seemed to feel particularly crummy about themselves after logging onto the site and scrolling through others’ attractive photos,...
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Canada's productivity lag puzzles U.S. economist →
The reluctance of Canadian companies to bolster their sagging productivity despite years of nagging by policymakers is one of the great “mysteries” baffling economists.
Geoffrey Somes, a senior economist with State Street Global Advisors in Boston, says he is among those struggling to understand why Canadian businesses have been so slow to act — especially now.
He notes the dramatic...
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Hébert: It will take a campaign to break this... →
On Parliament Hill, all three theses have their supporters. I for one am inclined to share Anderson’s doubts as to the Liberal capacity to generate positive momentum out of what feels like thin air.
On that score, one of the few things the three pollsters agreed on was that Michael Ignatieff had so far not managed to frame an effective ballot question.
But at the end of the day, what matters...
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Lucien Bouchard à la rescousse →
L’arrivée de Lucien Bouchard ne dissipe en rien ce flou qui sert autant les entreprises qui veulent extraire du gaz que les groupes d’intérêts qui s’y opposent farouchement.
Ancien premier ministre recyclé en négociateur redoutable, Lucien Bouchard jouit encore d’un immense capital de sympathie auprès des Québécois, même si certaines de ses déclarations et de ses interventions récentes en ont...
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Revolt of the Elites →
Culture, not power, determines who attracts the epithet.
There are two opposed explanations for this situation. One would be that access to political, economic, and military power is today more meritocratic and open than access to filmmaking, humanistic academia, freelance writing, wine criticism, and so on. Do people no longer complain about the power elite because those with power are no longer...
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A Hefty Price for Entry to Davos →
Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow.
There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The...
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Paul Samuelson’s Secret →
A good thing, therefore, that in the meantime we have “Paul Samuelson’s Secret,” chapter three in More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, Sebastian Mallaby’s very interesting book about the origins and recent history of the hedge fund industry.
It turns out that the great MIT economist was influential in the creation of one of the earliest and most influential hedge funds....
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Faith as a substitute for savings →
The Catholic church is one of the world’s oldest insurance companies. When the Church of England split off in 1534, it took over the insurance operations. Religion as social insurance, Christian style, works as follows: individuals tithe, or give 10 percent of their income, to the church. In exchange, the church provides alms for the poor, that is, a minimal guarantee against destitution.
...
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Per-vote subsidy but a fraction of taxpayer... →
A fine-tuned fundraising machine is not without its costs to the taxpayer. A donation of $400 or less to a political party or riding association results in a tax credit of $300, or 75 per cent, more than twice the credit given to donations to charitable organizations. According to the Department of Finance, the cost of the tax credit in 2009 was an estimated $20-million. Assuming the credit is...
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Eaux troubles à la ville →
C’est la première fois que Gérald Tremblay est directement impliqué dans une histoire qui ne sent pas bon. La première fois qu’une ingérence du maire est documentée, grâce à un courriel que mon collègue André Noël a obtenu.
L’histoire tourne autour de la vente d’un terrain qui appartenait à la Ville. L’imposant édifice de l’ancienne gare Viger, rue...
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Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates... →
In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed -“An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.
Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters...
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Alternatives to Austerity - Stiglitz →
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, countries have been left with unprecedented peacetime deficits and increasing anxieties about their growing national debts. In many countries, this is leading to a new round of austerity – policies that will almost surely lead to weaker national and global economies and a marked slowdown in the pace of recovery. Those hoping for large deficit reductions...
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Irish Emigration Is Forecast to Accelerate,... →
Irish emigration will accelerate and exceed the worst of the 1980s, when the country was last mired in recession, theEconomic & Social Research Institute said.
A net 100,000 people will leave the country in the two years through April 2012, the Dublin-based ESRI said in its quarterly report. Some 35,000 people left in the year to April 2010 and 44,000 departed in 1989, the biggest outflow...
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Bloc aims for high-water mark in Quebec →
Si la tendance se maintient, the Bloc Québécois will win a majority of Quebec seats in the next election for the seventh consecutive time. The next election will also be Gilles Duceppe’s sixth as head of the party, making him the undisputed greybeard of the five federal leaders.
With Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton spending some time outside Ottawa on much-publicized tours, the Bloc Leader...
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Ireland Wields Stick Forcing Bank Bondholders to... →
Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is about to inflict more pain on bank investors. Unless they take it, analysts say worse may follow.
Junior bondholders in Dublin-based Allied Irish Banks Plc will decide this week on an offer to buy back more than $5 billion of subordinated debt at 30 percent of face value. Analysts at BNP Paribas SA recommend investors accept the package or risk getting “the...
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Goldman’s curious partnership … →
There’s long been an air of mystery surrounding the top echelon at Goldman Sachs (GS) — its so-called “partners,” a hold-over from the days before the company was publicly traded — including just who is a member at any given time. Now, thanks to a joint foonoted/New York Times analysis, we know just how male, American and rich the Goldman partners really are.
Now, for example, we know there have...
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Hébert: Quebecers have become more detached than... →
For the purpose of the study, respondents did not have to make an either/or choice between Quebec and Canada. Still, two-thirds of francophone Quebecers reported a strong level of attachment to Quebec but only 24 per cent boasted similar feelings toward Canada. For comparison purposes, the study notes that latter percentage is roughly similar to the percentage of the Spanish population that feel...
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David Descôteaux: petite leçon de plagiat pour un... →
David Descôteaux est journaliste économique. Sa tribune la plus connue est celle de QMI, où il oeuvre au JdeM et au Canal Argent. Il en connaît fort probablement plus que moi en économie, comme en témoignent les nombreuses distinctions qui figurent sous sa photo, sur son blogue. Je ne peux certainement pas lui donner de leçons pour ce qui est de l’économie. Mais j’aimerais, ici, le sensibiliser à...
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Why Europe’s periphery should restructure their... →
To use a US analogy, the choice facing Europe right now is whether to deal with its peripheral nations like Frannie, like AIG, or like General Motors.
The Frannie approach means a fiscal union: their debts are our debts. The AIG approach is the current “tough it out” one, where the hoped-for outcome is that a solvency crisis can be solved with liberal applications of government liquidity. But...
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The New Tribalism →
The rise of Chinese national identity, increasingly stripped of its socialist clothing, must be seen as the driving force behind the new tribalism. The country’s re-emergence as a great world power expresses the cultural ascendency not so much of Marxism or Maoism but of the Han race, which in only a few decades could control the world’s largest economy.
This represents a major shift...
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Money Can Buy Happiness—As If [Woody Allen] →
With the economy in shambles, his job gone after Lehman Brothers folded, Litvinov was tortured by indecision over the choice before him. Should he risk everything and buy Marvin Gardens, or leave his money in tax-free bonds until he passed Go? The Dow had plummeted another hundred points that day, and a colleague of his had collapsed with a heart attack while on Free Parking. Word was that the man...
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Budget Worries Push Governors to Same Mind-Set →
The dismal fiscal situation in many states is forcing governors, despite their party affiliation, toward a consensus on what medicine is needed going forward.
The prescription? Slash spending. Avoid tax increases. Tear up regulations that might drive away business and jobs. Shrink government, even if that means tackling the thorny issues of public employees and their pensions.
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Shipowners Increase Payments to Get Their Vessels... →
Shipowners facing a lack of business in the Pacific Ocean covered more of their customers’ costs to get their vessels to the Atlantic.
Costs on the C11 journey for shipments to Europe from Asia fell to minus $1,046 a day today from $958 on Jan. 14, according to the Baltic Exchange in London. The rate went negative on Jan. 13, a first for any dry-bulk journey reported by the exchange which...
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James Macdonald on US sovereign default →
As the southern states regained power in Congress they might have refused to honour war pensions to Union veterans unless an equivalent provision was made for Confederate soldiers. Or they might have demanded equivalent treatment for the war debt of both sides. The amendment put exiting debts, agreed while the Confederate states were not in the Union, out of bounds of discussion. The most striking...
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Stuxnet Worm Used Against Iran was Tested in... →
The gruff Mr. Dagan, whose organization has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists, told the Israeli Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015. That represented a sharp reversal from Israel’s long-held argument that Iran was on the cusp of success.
The biggest single factor in putting time...
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Can Europe Be Saved? - Paul Krugman →
Europe is in deep crisis — because its proudest achievement, the single currency adopted by most European nations, is now in danger. More than that, it’s looking increasingly like a trap. Ireland, hailed as the Celtic Tiger not so long ago, is now struggling to avoid bankruptcy. Spain, a booming economy until recent years, now has 20 percent unemployment and faces the prospect of years of painful,...
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The curiosities of euro zone CDS and pricing... →
The policy responses in Europe in the past year have been cancerous in that, in contrast to how banking crises are usually dealt with – good banks are consciously separated out from bad banks, through the various bailout programs in Europe, the bad government balance sheets are effectively merged with the good government balance sheets. Such a process is deemed necessary by Eurocrats, in the name...
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Why do we need maturity transformation? →
The problem which needs to be solved here is that money-market funds are in the business of maturity transformation: the funds are instantly available to investors in the funds, but they’re lent out for non-negligible periods of time. As David Merkel says, “financing illiquid assets with liquid liabilities is unstable, and begs for bankruptcy at the first significant loss of confidence.”
Merkel’s...
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Valeurs mobilières - Bernier s'élève contre le... →
Le député conservateur Maxime Bernier s’élève publiquement contre le projet de création d’une commission nationale des valeurs mobilières, une initiative chère au gouvernement Harper. M. Bernier soutient que le projet ne respecte pas la Constitution et constitue un empiétement sur un champ de compétence provincial. Dans une lettre ouverte publiée aujourd’hui, le député de Beauce...
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Europe must look beyond Portugal →
Leaders have signalled that beyond Portugal, a red line is drawn: the market will not be allowed to threaten Spain. In a just world, there should be slight cause for worry. Madrid is making progress to bring its deficit under control. But the bond market acts on fear, and is capable of driving itself into a panic. Europe’s defence of Spain, should it come to that, is shrouded in silence.
...
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Canadian Banks May Buy SunTrust, Zions as `Fire... →
Canadian banks, involved in a record $15.9 billion of acquisitions last year, may target U.S. lenders such as SunTrust Banks Inc., Zions Bancorp and Regions Financial Corp. to expand abroad, analysts said.
SunTrust, Georgia’s biggest bank, would “fit the bill” for either Royal Bank of Canada or Toronto-Dominion Bank, which have consumer-banking operations in the U.S. Southeast, said Pri de Silva,...
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Déficit: La quête du Graal →
Il est vrai que le Québec est proportionnellement plus endetté que ses voisins, mais un échéancier budgétaire plus serré est-il nécessairement garant d’une plus forte croissance économique, comme le soutient le premier ministre? Il ne manque aucune occasion de vanter la bonne performance du Québec au cours de la dernière année. Il y a certainement lieu de s’en réjouir, mais il faudrait...
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Downturn's Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in... →
Even at times of high unemployment in the past, wages have been very slow to fall; economists describe them as “sticky.” To an extent rarely seen in recessions since the Great Depression, wages for a swath of the labor force this time have taken a sharp and swift fall.
The only other downturn since the Depression to see similarly large wage cuts was the 1981-82 recession. But the...
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STATE OF THE UNIONS →
In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they’d never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. Businesses, of course, saw this as grim news. But the general public applauded labor’s new power, even in the face...
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Diss Capital - "Interview" with Karl Marx →
Karl Marx, in London for a book signing, stumbles off the Eurostar and straight into an interview with Paul Mason at a café in King’s Cross. How does the credit crunch fit with the guru’s theory of crisis?
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My awards for management guff - Lucy Kellaway →
At the beginning of every year I hand out prizes to companies and individuals who have shown the greatest flair in butchering the English language or in talking through their hats during the previous 12 months.
Every year I observe that the quality of the jargon has been the best yet, but in 2010 it was so outstandingly good it has shifted every paradigm in the book.
