Stephan Dion was tricked again - this time by his successor

I'm not really surprised in the media frenzy about the potential Coalition of Liberal-NDP-BQ to overthrow the Conservative government.

Canadians are seriously spit in this. However, lots of people from either side are equally puzzled by why the coalition is now, and why it was triggered by the budget. Particularly “why the seemingly innocent suspend of political party funding for 2 to 3 years”?

Well, I've written before about the Nov, 04th, 2008 election that Conservative triggered – an early election because they knew Canadian economy is going down, and did not want to risk being forced into election at the bottom of a recession. They were lucky and got some improvement in seating in parliament.

Well, maybe not that lucky.

Because they did not win a majority, an election at the worst of a recession is still (if not even more) a sure-call (a possibility is an understatement).

As expected, they had another minority - which means the oppositions can trigger another election as they want, and do it again in a year is not something oppositions really worry too much (about being blamed for triggering another election). So Tories are not in any position better than before the Nov 4th election, although they gained some seats. And with Stephan Dion already resigned, the next Liberal leader is likely harder to beat. Tories want (need) to avoid a 09 election as much as possible.

So, Tories thought about this plan: let's suspend political party funding in the name of cutting cost to fight recession for 2 years. Chances are by then, the recession is over, and since no funding means no campaign, and no election, Tories will be safe during the recession. Since it's in the name of recession, and election was just over 2 month ago, Tories bet oppositions will not bring it to another election due to this measure alone.

"How smart are we?" Tories must have praised themselves for presenting 2 options to opposition – either one of them seems a killer.

Well, it may be a “killer-either-way” if this was the Canadian politics before Michael Ignatieff.

No one will be happy to be presented 2 options they don’t like.  And oppositions really got upset. It's not really a good idea to trigger another election, but it's really not an option for them to give up the possibility to go into poll in the worst of this recession to take advantages of it.

So again poor Mr. Dion, who was the only non-interim Liberal leader that has never became a Prime Minister was a perfect figure for thwart Tories' plan. Mr. Dion is so eager to be PM he's willing to take any chance (well, he probably will never be PM by election anyways). So Mr. Dion accepted a proposal by someone who's running to replace him - go with a coalition proposal. This way they can avoid the measure of reduce funding for 2 years without going to the poll right-a-way.

This is really the smart move – you give me 2 options to choose from, I’ll jump out of the box and reply with a 3^rd way.  Now the table is turned (somewhat), Tory is the one being presented 2 undesirable options: give up the power now, or go to a poll in the worst of recession a year or two later.

IF this is a big “if”, the coalition is really signed, Tory will not have enough seats to just trigger an election at any time they want, so their best bet will be stay in power for now, rather than hope they can trigger an election at best time.

Basically, Tories “smart” little plan of freeze party funding for 2 years united 3 oppositions, and made themselves vulnerable to being overthrown.

However, this also created first coup of Canadian parliamentary history.  Which is only a good thing for an opposition party has no chance of being in power in any other ways.  This means, it’s bad for Liberal.

Well, for whoever’s sake, we have dear Mr. Dion.  As a lame duck Liberal leader, he has nothing to loose in such a coup.  And if it works out, great, if it doesn’t, god forbid, Mr. Dion will not return to Canadian politics anyways (he has no chance of return).  So it’s pretty much a “screw you or screw me, what I care” type of situation, where Mr. Dion has nothing to loose, he’ll not loose.

OK, Tory lost the game, Mr. Dion did not loose, but who is the winner?  Well follow the story, you will see on Dec 10 Mr. Ignatieff become the Liberal leader without a vote.

If you remember, Mr. Ignatieff lost to Mr. Dion during his first Liberal leadership bid.  One reason he did not win is Mr. Ignatieff does not have strong loyal senior party official’s support.  He spent most of his life in UK and US (he only returned to Canada 2005/2006 after decades of working abroad).

So if he goes back to the poll, chances are he may lost to someone has deeper political connection within Liberal party, or someone is weak that can be accepted by all fractions of Liberal Party like Mr. Dion who is chosen because everyone knows he won’t last long, so everyone has a chance to bid for the leadership soon. (Yeah, less than 2 years is still too short compare to most people expected).

Then here, we have a parliament prorogued, a 2 month window for the Liberal party to “put themselves together” a long enough time for Liberal to “unit around a new leader” but short enough for a vote to be “impractical”.  So the “natural” solution is succession plan, instead of Party wide vote.

Voila. We have Mr. Ignatieff as Liberal leader without a vote.

Mr. Ignatieff is the only winner of this crisis, with comment like “I’ll not look in to coalition…”

NDP and Bloc Québécois still chanting “coalition, coalition”.  Painting a weak image of themselves.

The 2009 budget will pass (maybe some changes demanded by Liberal in trade for support), Mr. Ignatieff will not want to be the Prime Minister of 2009, either by election or coalition.  Who wants to get the blame for the worst of the economy?  Only Mr. Jack Layton who has no chance of being elected PM will try to grab power at the worst of the economy.

Mr. Ignatieff will push Tory in to more deficit, so that during next election, he can easily attack Tory for being in the red.

And like it or not, Mr. Harper has no chance in next election.  Mr. Ignatieff is the single more competent politician in Canada today, he can easily win a game against 3, any 3.  Mr. Dion, so long, good luck, you picked Mr. Ignatieff to be your deputy and ensured your own doom.  It may not be a bad thing for Canadian though.  

What if media conspirate with President in power?

The ultimate shame for any media is pandering to the ones in power.

I would say the media favor the underdog is one of the key strength of the American system.
Normally, during an election, the opposition party should get more favorable coverage to counter the benefit of the incumbent’s power.

The problem starts when Mr. Obama has showed unstoppable momentum during primary, yet, media failed to switch gear. Instead most media starting to pose like “see, we are genius we knew he will win, and we will make history.” And most of them did. That’s a problem, media are the most powerful group of people in a democratic culture, and when the media forget “monitor the people in power”, instead enjoys “making the difference”, that’s dangerous.

I’m glad to see MarketWatch starting to re-think media’s behavior during primary and election, and that’s the hope of America. As Mr. Obama elected, he is going to be the most powerful person in the world. Close scrutiny of him (as the most powerful person) is the only protection democracy gives the people. If most of the media do not realize this like John did (if they keep singing “glory to the almighty king” song), America is doomed, because its media in essence give the person in power un-monitored authority.

Media’s mission is not to tell people who is angel and who is evil. Media’s mission should be closely watch the politician and tell people what they do and facts about them and let people decide who's angel who's evil. (unless you don't trust people, which is anti-democracy, or your just say whatever people like to hear which is pure popularism).

During primary and election, we saw media went out of their way (collectively, not necessary each individual) to cover Mr. Obama for his shortcomings. It’s this part, not the fact that too many media sing the glory song of Mr. Obama bothered me most. When it's clear that Mr. Obama is no longer the underdog, media still ignore and help covering his mistakes, makes me wonder will these same media be capable of monitoring the most powerful person in the world months later, or they will simple pandering to the powerful and become his tool in controlling the nation dare I say like in Venezuela?

I admit I've never been a fan of Mr. Obama – a person too hard to be criticized because he’s DONE nearly nothing significant (yet). While he’s super talented in preaching, talk is always much too easy compare to walk the walk. If you do something, chances are you will be criticized – just as Mr. Obama criticized Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain. So the best way of not being criticized is do nothing, Mr. Obama is the only candidate smart enough to do so, why the media collectively chose to be Mr. Obama’s aid in willingly not scrutinize him. Any fumble his opponent made, became big story, any fumble Mr. Obama made became compliment– “his human after all” – as if forgiving Mr. Obama (but not his opponents) is a gracious deed American should adopt.

When that was a mere unfair before Mr. Obama became President of US. It’s super dangerous after he assumes power. If the media continue to help President Obama cover (or demise) his fumble, or mistake, it’s the nation who will suffer the most.

God bless America, hopefully the media will soon wake up like John did. Kudu to John, although I wasn’t very found of his coverage of Mr. Obama during election, being brave and bright enough to re-consider media’s frenzy about Mr. Obama is what American media really need now and John’s leading the way.

American: why it did and still matters?

In short, American’s influence to the rest of the world is not simply coming from its forces, and moral model (which not many people buy it except themselves). It’s because Americans BUY from other economies -- they are the biggest customer of nearly any other major economy and hence who make their product and service in American’s term, gets most business. That’s why US is still the lead, despite the dire desperation of Europe, Asia and Americans (i.e. France, Iran, Venezuela) leader to declare US’s collapse.


As the 2008 economic down turn was reported as led by American, the argument of collapse of USA is well back alive.

Well I think it was half truth, half bragging when Americans said American led the world into recession. It's true that American got in to recession first, but did American invaded Europe to force Europe go into recession? However, it’s true that when my customers (the biggest ones) suffer, my business suffers.

Of course when the self-esteem drives Americans to proclaim themselves the leader of everything, including recession, European and Asian are for once, happy to cede this battle of "leader".

Real truth is (not to offend European and Asian leaders), if American is not the leader, and every single other country was so good in managing their own growth without "lead" of American, why the recession affected you so much?

I've read so many articles claiming American secretly staged currency war to steal wealth from Japan to China; some claims American secretly stage currency war to undermine Europe or Oil export countries. All maybe true, except one thing, seldom the trick needed for any of these objectives are inline with one another (i.e. USD needs to appreciate to undermine Euro, while it needs depreciate to undermine China).

One wide spread idea is US “forced” Oil export countries to accept USD so to steal wealth from everyone who purchase Oil. A similar claim by handful Chinese economists made similar accusation of American purchase Chinese goods, let Chinese purchase their bond, then depress USD to steal wealth from China.

However, what they failed to say is American buys most Oil, and is the biggest buyer of goods from China. If you have to accept one type of payment, whose currency will you accept? Your biggest customers’ or the smallest? OK mystery solved. Americans do not need to force OPEC or China, India to accept USD, being their biggest customer, the export countries are more than happy to accept USD and ship goods (at least on the negotiation table, they may complain after the money is secured in their bank account).

In short, every country has their own interests to care, and if US does not pay too much attention to whatever a foreign country think is best for their interest, that’s why these foreign countries have their own government.

Another example is during Crude Oil crisis, Euro was appreciating significantly so that the Crude price increased affected Euro-zone much less than it affected US (because Oil is priced in USD, Euro can benefit from high Euro which values USD and Oil lower when Oil price in USD is very high). However, some European economists blamed US in forcing Euro to appreciate to undermine Europe’s export. Yeah, when Oil price falls, and Euro falls, some European economists blame US in undermining Euro’s value to undermine Europe. They are the one to blame no matter what.

Blaming other country “not taking care of me” is nothing short of self-centric selfishness. It is also a less obvious way of saying “I shall be led by thee”, although in a crying foul way.

Don’ get me wrong, I’m not saying US is good. Given the way they are burning their own and other’s money, I don’t know how long can they spend like this. And when they can’t anymore, it will really “lead” the whole world into deep depression as I guess no one else has the power and willingness to spend like that any more.

All in all, Americans are stupid in spending money they don’t have. However, the rest of the world is so much influenced by US, not because they force you (well they do enjoy being the “leader”), it is because they spend and the rest of the world gets paid.

Why I can't trust President Obama?

I've been telling people during US president election that I simply do not trust Mr. Obama. And since trust is a "thinking" rather than fact, so as you guessed I did not convince too many people.

Still, I'd like to document some of the evidence and will come back to this "untrusted" argument 4 years later. To see if I was wrong. (or those who scolded me in not trusting the president they loved were wrong).

NAFTA (well OK, you know I'm Canadian)
During Primary, Mr Obama had a NAFTA-gate. When he talked to blue collar workers in Ohio, he mentioned he'd like to re-open NAFTA. Then later his advisers advised Canadian government that's just a "talk", won't be a "walk".
Ironically, when the Canadian government tried to defend itself (and Mr. Obama) in telling journalists "don't worry, it's just a political pose", it became a "scandal" for the Canadian government (NDP and it's associates accused Canadian Tory government of tarnishing Mr. Obama's image) -- so the one who told the truth was wrong, and the one who "talk the talk but not walk the walk" is correct? (this is yet another perfect example of political correctness.)

Well, next, he spoke to Hispanic crowd and said Hispanic Americans have learnt English, it's time that "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish". Politically it's not wrong(again), but if you agree that United States is a free country that many people came from lots of places and already speak more than one language, you will doubt it's fair that the general American should be required to learn another language. Here in Canada, both English and French are OFFICIAL languages, yet, you seldom find politician forces local resident to learn the other one. It's amazing that he can pitch the politically correct statement to the correct audience (one of his unbeatable ability). However, political correctness is only as correct as politics -- it's not really fair. Yes, it please the Hispanic group, but should a Japanese decent learn to speak Japanese, and so do all other Americans? Or should the Japanese parent make sure their children also speak Spanish? (Oh, sorry, I forgot there are not enough Japanese immigrants in US that can sway the election result...)

And then he spoke about his race, he first repel his mother's "whiteness", then wanted to check if Bill Clinton is a real "black president" by examine the poor old guy's dance and singing. And then when his pastor's nothing less than hatred speech broke out he gave a speech to "all Americans" asking for a peaceful racial relation. I do not think his race should be an issue at all, as the president race is choosing one individual not one race to lead America. It's his campaign, not his opponents played his race card most often, and if he thinks his race does not give him advantage in the race, he's either lying or too dumb to be trustworthy. In a country where his race is most popular in sports, music and Hollywood; where his race occupies the center of "human rights" where his race is also in the center of fighting against "discrimination" means he sails in the wind of maximum espousal minus the obligation to be scrutinized (any criticize is deemed as racial discrimination), I don't see why he thought it's not an advantage.
I'm really sad that Colin Powell did not run and even sadder in hearing Colin supported Mr. Obama -- a very trustworthy figure supported least trustworthy one (in president races). It should have been the reverse (I doubt Mr. Obama has the courage to do what Mr. Powell did though).

Mr Obama is really good at writings and speeches that fume enthusiasm. It's an ability not may people have, Bill Clinton is one, Adolf Hitler is another example. (to egg bone pickers:)Not to mean Barack or Bill are similar to Adolf Hitler in every way. Just like I breath air and Adolf Hitler breath the air too, as a human Adolf Hitler does share many similar quality with all the rest of us and as a successful politician in election (he went in to office by election), he did have some ability as some other successful politicians, either evil or angle.
Mr. Obama is very good at pitching targeted message to different groups and apparently this ability gave him an image of "for everyone". Also his wonderful writings and speeches ignite lots of passion. However, managing a country is not exactly the same, you cannot manage different groups differently (that's called discrimination), and passion can be a dangerous thing (lots of German were passionate for Adolf Hitler, is an example).

I would hope Mr. Obama will not do much damage to the world. Although as Canadian, we love and hate US, it's not to our own benefit to see US collapse because Americans buy our product more than we ourselves do. But hey, after all America is a foreign country, if someone has to collapse, it'd better be them than us.

Good luck our American friends, the key problem of democracy is it ensures people will get what they want (assuming people knows what they need). It has been proven false by so called democracies in mid-east elected many extremists (like Hamas in Palestine). It's likely the stupid Bush's export of democracy is resulting in a backlash (or revenge shall we say) that Americans are suffering from the Democracy themselves again and again (well electing Bush in is already one of such suffering). At least they probably will stop exporting democracy in several years.

Oh, by the way, the real key benefit of democracy is if someone does the job badly, he (and his party) gets punished by being voted out of office and that's exactly what happened on Nov 4th, 2008 - after screwing up the country for 8 years, Bush and Republicans are voted out of office. However, the positive meaning is backlooking - it's the punish of Republican that pose the biggest benefit (in the long run), voting in Demo? It might be better if Hilary was the Democratic nominee.

The REAL reason behind the 2008 Financial crisis (no, it's not disaster captalism...)

It’s not simply “greed”. You and me we are all greedy, we know we need to control it.
Capitalism does not equal to greed, it should be “acknowledge the greed in ourselves and manage it”.
Free market does not equal to regulation-free, it should be a fair play ground protected by regulation like anti-trust laws. Without regulation protection, it’s not free market, its market for big bad guys freely intimidate small good guys and others.
Globalization forced companies of free economy to play with super huge players from controlled economy – a game of controlled economy.
It’s not a failure of capitalism. Actually to the exact opposite, this failure of 2008 is a failure of the betrayal of capitalism.


Thank you for spend your time on yet another crisis reasoning analysis.
Well, I have to do it because I (just as every other analyst) think no one gets it yet.

Let’s be clear, don’t say it’s simply “Greed” caused 2008 financial crisis. You and me we are all greedy, and we all know from day one that those Wall Street fat rats are greedier. This is no news. We knew it so well that nearly every single mature free market country in the world has “anti-trust” laws. But in a globalize world, there are so many loopholes and incentive for governments and enterprises not to control the greed (yes, Wall Street call it lack of risk control, as a nation, it is lack of greed control).

First, Capitalism and Socialism.
While these 2 words have been widely used by extremists on both sides in justifying their “fight against…” they are widely misunderstood by vast majority (sometimes intentionally misled by the “leaders” who wanted to benefit from the misunderstanding).

I’m in no business to challenge any of the super power to redefine these two words, but just for the sake of economic discussion, let’s clarify the usage of them in pure economic arena:
Capitalism means free economic environment, entrepreneurs sort out business issues with minimal intervention from political powers; and collectively, they form the core of a jurisdiction’s economic.
Socialism means controlled economic environment, political power forms the majority of the economy and controls most of the economic activities, and the jurisdiction’s economic power is an associate of its political power.

Which one is better is a long debate that I do not anticipate a conclusion any time soon.

The issue at hand is both sides seem think their “baby” is perfect. No! None of them is perfect; both of them have their strength and weakness.

For efficiency, controlled market is definitely the winner, just think about several people lifting a heavy weight, if all the participants work on one single command, it’s much easier to accomplish the work. On the opposite, if each single individual do things as they like, some lift, some push, some sit on it, some lift early some come late, the work probably won’t be done anytime soon.
In a Controlled market, all participants need to follow strict orders (in addition to rules). So they can concentrate vast resources of their economy in a few players to make them bigger than if they operate in a free economy.

What’s the weakness of socialism? Just check any financial media, how many ideas on how to run the economy you see each week? When lack of ideas (often conflicting) is never a problem, there is only one controller (in most case, the government). So whose idea is to be implemented? Yes, this is the BIGGEST problem of controlled economy – choose which one idea should be practiced and kill all others. Since there is a fundamental weakness of “Selection”, at the end, the idea that triumph is usually the one of a political iron fists – either an “elected by mistake” like Adolf Hitler, or arbitrary like Joseph Stalin.
The truth that most “controlled economies” are run by socialist countries is observed by many. It’s much easier t choose in an arbitrary system than a free market system. Problem is at the end, most of these efficiently controlled economy machines were misused to efficiently crush their country instead of build wealth, they did serve those small groups in power well during the course though.

Where “controlled economy” short is where free economy shines. The free economy allows (actually promotes) enterprisers to carry out their own ideas. So instead of the super power pick one idea, everyone put their ideas into real world practice, and see which one works best.

OK, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It addresses arbitration issue, it does bring efficiency issue. Since not all the ideas are really good, some efforts are voided in proving “only good on paper” ideas will fail, hence “wasted”.

So in short, free economy gives us freedom and does not suppress ideas so at least some effort will be put into the right direction but some efforts will be wasted in testing out not-so-good ideas; on the other hand controlled economy gives us efficiency, but the struggles in putting the efficiency in to the right (let alone the best) direction.

How about the commonly mentioned “self correction” or “let market sort things out by itself” in free economy? Well, you know what? The “self correction” or the natural selection of economy comes through “let the unfit die”. The best thing of a free economy is everyone can start their venture as they like; the best thing for free economy is those who do not fit the (new) environment fail.

THIS IS WHAT REALLY FAILED IN 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS – BIG FINANCIAL FIRMS IN THE NOTION OF “TOO BIG TO FAIL”, DID NOT FAIL when they did wrong, and did not fit new financial environment. They should have failed much earlier if they were not as big as they were in 2008. A hundred smaller financial firms would have much less power in creating and sustaining the bubble led to the 2008 burst (so would have much less blow to the economy as it did).

Yes, my point is IF there were lots of small financial firms instead of “big nine”, and we let those unfit ones fail during the past years, we would have recovered from the (much shallower) crisis already. The problem is we don’t have enough financial firms to fail. The truth is the “big nine” are controlling our financial systems in such a way that (at least in financial area) it’s no longer free. And they were allowed to become “too big to fail” so at the end, political power has to intervene to support them.

When some people due to their hidden agenda (usually for their political gains) misled people to think “Capitalism” equals to “Greed”, I want to point out, Capitalism is actually “Acknowledge greed and manage it”. The failure of 2008 was because in the decade leading to it, the so called “free world” refused to admit its greed and failed to manage it.

How did that happen? Globalization – or more precisely, the globalization of greed.

First, enterprises are for profits, and that’s expected. This was one of the features of capitalism so that wealth is built and incentive is provided for enterprises to expand economy. Greed needs to be managed, so that a level play ground is provided to all participants and preventing the big players to leverage their power to suppress smaller players.
This is a key to capitalism; because without a level play ground, the economy will never be free – it will become a place for the big players freely intimidate smaller, newer players. There are regulations, acts, laws passed by mature democracies – outlining what can or cannot be done whether it is a one person self employed start-up or hires a quarter of the population of a state.

Big enterprises will always try to avoid the “manage” – the regulations of mature countries. The word they coined it as “globalization”. Yes, as most of the people has complained about globalization is not about cheaper goods, it’s about regulation avoidance (and more, we will go there later).

This is no new gimmick though. Long well known to the general public, some companies (lots of sea shipping companies) move their registration to a no-name island to avoid tax. However, before globalization, it’s not feasible for a domestic company to do so while still enjoy domestic treatment and access to local market.

Globalization allows all the benefit with no obligation. You can operate in one country, but use another countries regulation to perform things that are not allowed in the home country. All good planed for the big companies uh?

Second, once the market is open to globalization, big companies suddenly see competitors that are HUGE. Why? Because in those controlled economy, some of the players are monopoly and even government subsidized to control their domestic market. Let’s make up a hypothetical example: in US there are two dozen big air companies, while in China and India, each has a population quadruples American’s has only two air companies. Think about the size of their air company – even if each Indian or Chinese consumes 1/10 air one American does, each of their air company is about 5 times of an average American air company.

OK, so in the name of “patriot”, American companies going global are tolerated to be “bigger”. Don’t forget, those foreign monster enterprises run in a controlled environment, and they don’t fail (their government either own, or back them). And in the name of globalization, enterprises in free economy have to compete with them, and became too big to fail. These big companies from free economy are now playing a game that is not free, even though you those big companies are registered in US.

So basically the globalization is like playing football and soccer (and baseball, hockey, basketball you name it) in the one field. It does benefit those (who think themselves) are good at mix and match, but all the rules are no longer as written in stone as they used to be – most “multinationals” are not regulated by one (free market) jurisdiction any more.

Yes, my point is the 2008 failure was not due to a failure of capitalism as some people dimmed. It was a failure of capitalism to play its own game. It was dragged into a totally different game – it can only maintain a domestic free market, while allowed and encouraged its enterprises to compete with controlled-economy super powers. In short, globalization forced you to play a different game, the rules protecting fair play are no longer available and you failed, is that a surprise? Now that allowing an unfit US company to fail is less a natural selection process – was it failed due to unfair competition environment, or really due to it’s own weakness?

Do I sound like anti-globalization? No, I’m pro-globalization – the globalization of markets, not greed. To promote globalization, one need to understand, those regulations to protect level play ground do not necessarily exist in places beyond US soil. Here is the play book.

First of all, where goes free market where goes regulation to protect real “freedom”. Yes, totally unregulated market is not a free market as it gives big players unfair advantage. Both the US and EU have anti-trust laws those are some of the regulations in place. Governments of free market countries are technicians who maintain a level play ground. They are NOT players. So “globalization” can extend to these market as long as all parties agree on coordinated measure in protecting fair play principle, and allow natural selection to work.

Yes, globalization can only go to the extent where “fair play, nature selection” regulations (anti-trust and others) can be extended to. And with globalization, “patriot” need to be out of the picture (as far as free market goes). Because the biggest benefit of globalization is a bigger market, more market participants hence more idea to try out. The bigger the market, the less likely it is to be influenced by single player, and better survival chance for good ideas (if regulated coordinately and correctly).

Second, for those countries that cannot provide same level of fair playground for all participants, (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China), specific risk management should be put into place to protect free market will continue to be free (from big player intimidation) – only open comparable domestic market in exchange for market entrance to the counterparty’s, and allow only clearly segregated subsidiaries of US company to operate in those countries. These subsidiaries are NOT allowed to operate or influence home country (the US). Their bloom or fail should be clearly separated from free market operations of similar products and services – these subsidiaries can die without affecting it’s parent company and cannot influence it’s parent company’s home operation. Similar rules should be imposed on foreign companies from controlled-economy.
This is to ensure that the advantages or disadvantages of a company resulted from operating in a controlled economy will not be brought back to free market environments. We’ve mentioned the advantages of controlled economy is it’s efficiency – they can concentrate resources of the whole country in certain big company of theirs. This efficiency when allowed to operate and compete in free market, will undermine the single most important feature of capitalism’s “Self-heal” function – they and their competitors will be too big to fail, hence preventing innovation and natural selection.

All in all, the real cause of the 2008 financial crisis cannot be simply blamed on “greed”. That’s a feature we all inherited from our human nature. It cannot simply be blamed on capitalism as the crisis was formed exactly because capitalism was not playing out.
It was because of the greedy and irresponsible push of globalization that pushed American economy into direct contact with control economy where greed is not managed by regulations guaranteeing level playground.
To compete in such an unleveled ground with huge foreign firms (have you ever heard sovereign wealth fund?), “patriotism” then allowed American enterprises (financial firms in the case of 2008 crisis) to avoid normal market natural selection process and causing them to become too big to fail.

Sub-prime mortgage? It’s just the unlucky first little back street blowup happen to be too big for the big financial firms to cover up. Given the way financial firms were operating before the crisis, if it’s not Sub-prime, it would be something else blowup – they’ve been operating as if there is no free market regulation at all for too long.

Canada Heading for recession?!

Like it or not, the Canadians are racing the Americans for an election.
Canadians are likely going to poll on Oct 14th, beating America's November schedule for a vote.

As Liberal leader Stephen Dion suggested, the Canadian conservative government wanted an election now because the economy is heading south (following the lead of its southern neighbor). So if the conservative stick on to its preset election date (Oct 2009, they even passed a law for that), they may face a much tougher election environment.

Statistics show that governments rarely got re-elected during economy recessions. While it's not always the incumbents fault, during economy downturn, people wants to change. Not necessarily mean they suddenly knew what they want, just like on a gambling table, even changing chairs would be tried when loosing money.

So, even if it's not a great strategy for the Tories, probably better than wait till next year - the problem is even if they can form another minority government, the oppositions can still trigger an election on the worst month of the Canadian economy, so it's just a waste of tax payer's money.
Don't argue oppositions won't dare the Canadian for a second vote in a year, with 3 oppositions share the blame game, it won't be too hard for them to pull the trigger (again).

What interesting is the the firmness on the governing party's push for an election, it seems that they are very sure the recession is coming, so sure that they'd rather risk being blamed for triggering an election, for defying their own legislation on fixed election day, for the risk that they may become opposition again. . .

So much so the resilience of Canadian economy.

John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin, Out smart his rivals?

McCain's pick of Palin as his running mate is a very interesting one. While you can see strong opinions from both extremes, criticizing out numbers support.
Not a bad thing for McCain though, this is (probably, if he really picked Palin with the reason I think he did) what he wants.

OK, McCain is running for US presidency, and who is he running against? Mr. Obama? that's a political correct answer, not the real world answer though. In reality . . .
He runs against the American media super power. Yes, in America, there is media freedom, however it doesn't give every person equal weight of express though, those who controls media outlet get heard (or read) much more frequent than the average you and me, and they control the society (you may argue they are unconsciously while doing this).

It's not that media hates McCain (even if they do, it doesn't matter), it's who can generate more reading (or clicking in case of online media). For someone 72 years old, pretty much all about him is known and there is not much "news" to be made. And as an self portrayed underdog (Mr. Obama once proclaimed being black does not make his run for candidacy easier - which is not exactly true - even politically) Mr. Obama is much better a story generator for media and media will like to help him win cause that'll be the biggest news they can report "history been made" and anything President Obama would do can be reported as "the first..." like "the 1st black American president's footprint as been taken . . .", etc.

So recognizing this (supposedly he knows he's boring), what's McCain's can do? Bring Mrs. Palin is enough to win back media? No, not that simple. As the other camp as a "1st African American" on the top spot of the ticket, bring anything to the 2nd spot on his ticket probably will win over enough attention - being woman is not enough to bring media to his side.

What McCain really want is a mirror of Mr. Obama - a working class, non-traditional white-male Washington politician, young, inexperienced, and draw to the parties fundamental base. Mrs. Palin won McCain's selection because she is the Obama of Republican.

While Obama camp (out of surprise) attacked Mrs. Palin's inexperience, guess who's laughing? Mr. Obama? No, Mr. McCain is laughing, "if my 2nd who is same as you is not experienced enough, why do you think 3 years older, male, black makes you experienced enough?"

And apparently consciously or not, Mr. Obama is running a charming campaign, not a policy campaign. And media definitely defined this direction for him - if you talk about policy, who can keep awake reading till the end? Do some charming things please.

And what to you think about "Change" campaign. Forget about "positive" campaign, a "Change campaign" has an implication - if it has been positive why change? So there much be some negative so that change is needed. That's all work well until now.

Unfortunately, media fall into Mr. McCain's trap right away. (see the link) While I've seen more than one article saying "reck-less!" given McCain's age, it is POSIBLE this inexperienced 1st time governor lady will be come president in case McCain died. Well, isn't it also saying it's reck-less to elect a 1st time senator to be president directly? Well they can argue the tiny differences but that drags the Obama supporters into the "boring" discussion of detail, no longer charming. That's all Mr. McCain needs - he does not need to argue to such a degree that all his opponents shut up (no one will ever) all he needs was make the difference harder to argue, and that will strip the halo effect from Mr. Obama, and any attack (not necessarily from Mr. Obama's camp, but from media who still want to help Mr. Obama - so they can generate more readings) will be easily deflected to apply to Mr. Obama too. - I know there are always differences that Obama camp can argue, but this argument is no longer charming, no longer black and white.

Smart move Mr. McCain. Don't know if it's smart enough to save your campaign though.

I guess we will see.