Sunday Miscellany Sunday

In my peregrinations around the intertoobz this fine, wet morning I have come across a few bits and pieces that caught my fancy.

The Toronto Star, for example, reports that a VP of an investment firm has made explicit the underlying modus of investment firms everywhere. He's allegedly taken to holding up banks. I say allegedly out of deference to tradition, not to the suspect. He decided it was wisest to turn himself in after a perfectly clear surveillance photo of him was released last week. How much do you really know about the extracurricular activities of your investment adviser?

Another was these quotes embedded in a Thomas Friedman article in the NYT. Jeffrey Garten, professor of trade and finance at the Yale School of Management commenting on the fiscal meltdown in the US and some probable effects. “The next round of capital that comes in from abroad is going to be much more demanding and move into real assets. Being a bigger debtor nation means losing even more of our sovereignty. It means conducting our economic policies with an eye toward whether others approve. It means bearing the advice and criticism that we have dispensed ad nauseam to other countries for over half a century. It means far more intensive consultations with other capitals on our fiscal policies and our monetary policies.”

In the longer term more consultations with grownups in other countries is probably a net positive for the US. But that's not what struck me about what Professor Garten said. What struck me was his comment about sovereignty and the loss of real assets. Imagine if he was a Canadian making such assertions. The Fraser Constitute, the Canadian Conference Board and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives would be all over him like piss on a drunk guy's zipper. And we've been selling off real assets even thought we weren't a big debtor nation. Imagine how much more we can get rid of once Harper guides us back into the new IMF sponsored orthodoxy of exploding indebtedness. (The IMF will have to either endorse indebtedness or move out of the US.) But of course his comments weren't made about Canadian real assets so they don't need to swarm him. Besides, Garten probably doesn't have any particular sovereignty concerns when US firms gobble up real assets of other nations so even Stephen, nyah, nyah, nyah will get you ten.

The last thing I bumped into was this video from 1980. Paul Weyrich is the founder of the modern American conservative movement, Stephen Harper's "...light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world". Way back then he explained the motivation behind Stephen Harper's decision to impose picture ID requirements for voters in Canada.