Enjoy your day.

QuickNews, Thursday, Nov. 26.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

An Afghan vehicle clears a NATO checkpoint northeast of Kabul that is run in part by French Foreign Legion forces. U.S. to tap allies for more troops. Photo: Jerome Delay, AP.

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU! | Obama seeks 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan from allies. Britain, Italy, Poland and Georgia likely to help, France and Germany won't, Canada and the Netherlands still committed to withdrawal. In TV address Tuesday, Obama will commit about 30,000 more U.S. troops, bringing American total to almost 100,000, and describe exit strategy that has U.S. out of Afghanistan no later than 2017 - 16 years after initial post-9/11 invasion.

CANADIANS DON'T TRUST HARPER ON AFGHAN DETAINEES | They believe the whistleblower. Richard Colvin's grim version of events trumps Harper's in believability by a 2 to 1 margin in survey by former Tory pollster Allan Gregg. Pollster says it was a PR blunder to attempt discrediting Colvin. Yet Tories persisting with that strategy, lining up career-protecting military and other officials to dispute Colvin testimony that for years has aligned with reports of human-rights groups.

A SPECIAL THANKSGIVING FOR U.S. BANKERS | Taxpayer bailout restores lavish pay. The idea, in the U.S. and Europe, was to prevent the bankers' self-inflicted wounds from triggering another Great Depression. The apocalypse was averted, but the public got stuck with the bill while the malefactors of great wealth, as Teddy Roosevelt called them, are hoovering up pre-recession-size bonuses. And fiercely resisting, with success, needed reforms to prevent an even bigger bailout down the road when the bankers are next consumed with recklessness - which happens every decade like clockwork. WaPo columnist Dana Milbank cuts to the nub of the bank lobbyists' special pleading: "Don't regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren't regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof."

"TOYOTA WAY" GOES AWRY | Former quality leader to recall 4 million vehicles. In latest Toyota stumble, company to repair faulty gas pedals that get stuck under floor mats in high-acceleration mode. Vaunted Toyota quality has suffered - this is the latest of several recalls over past two years - ever since firm decided to ramp up production to displace GM as top world automaker. Employees at hastily built new plants, especially in N.A., were not sufficiently trained in Toyota's quality-production methods. Global recession, which prompted Toyota to cut world production 50% for first six months of this year, might give company a chance to upgrade training at its newest assembly plants.

GM EXPANDS ONTARIO COMMITMENT | Will add employees to assemble Buick Regal at Oshawa. Redesigned Regal, Opel-engineered, has won auto-critics' acclaim in Europe. GM will also add employees to boost Oshawa production of hot-selling Camaro and forthcoming 2011 Camaro convertible. Company to will increase Ingersoll, Ont. output of popular Chev Equinox and GMC Terrain small crossovers. Even St. Catharines operations, especially battered by layoffs in recent years, to get new flexible transmission product. A fifth vehicle for GM Canada remains to be named under GM commitment in exchange for $10.5 billion in government rescue funds. But much of this largely unexpected increased activity is due to the popularity of models already assigned to Canada.

FORD THINKS SMALLER, NOT SMALL | Says smaller cars, not minis and micros, are the ticket. North American drivers insist on minimum comfort, capacity, power, while seeking higher fuel efficiency. "Just so nobody freaks out, we won't look like Europe," Ford spokesman reassures analysts. MarketWatch reviewer raves about reborn Taurus, which turnaround CEO Alan Mulally over-ruled subordinates in greenlighting after failure of blobby second-generation Taurus of the 1990s.

ROAD TO COPENHAGEN | Obama will go to climate change summit, Harper to join him. PM until yesterday adamant about not going, since no firm agreement will be struck until next year. But changed his mind this morning, citing what spokesman described as "critical mass" of other world leaders who will attend. Obama will bring commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. That's a big cheat on the 1990 baseline used by U.N. Also, Obama will duck out before the heads of state show up to collect his Nobel Peace Prize while he's in the neighbourhood.

ROBUST CANADIAN HOUSING | In stark contrast with U.S., housing supply is tight in Canada. Which means housing costs will rise here, since current low mortgage rates can't last forever, RBC warns in report. U.S. glut of housing inventory, after record housing bubble, will take years to wear off. But in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal supply is drying up, forcing price hikes and, one hopes, soon boosting new-home construction.

GIFT CARDS ARE A GIFT TO ISSUERS | Watch for cards with dormancy and other fees. Over past two years, Americans bought $185.4 billion (U.S.) worth of gift cards, and $14.4 billion (U.S.) was left unused. Think twice about whether these things will get used by recipient. At best, they're interest-free money for the issuer until redeemed. At worst, many cards expire or issuers demand fees for postponed usage.

SELL MORE COOKIES? | 16 of Ontario's 33 Girl Guide camps are slated to close. Roughly half of the Guides' camps will be sold or leases given up, after GG Ontario ran a $1.3-million deficit last year just on camp operation. With membership declining, most of the camps have been struggling for years.

CRY YOURSELF A RIVER | Seven reasons why crying is good for you. It helps prevent dehydration of eyes, kills bacteria, removes toxins and can elevate your mood, among other things. I feel justified now in making An Affair To Remember a quarterly ritual.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "If you want to kill any idea around the world today, get a committee working on it." -Charles Kettering, U.S. industrialist and philanthropist.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 23 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David

  

The dignified American.

U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.

As Dick Cheney would have it, when the U.S. president bows to a foreign leader, "our friends and allies don't expect it and our adversaries perceive it as a sign of weakness."

"I think it's fundamentally harmful and it shows in my mind that this is a guy, a president, who would bow, for example, who doesn't fully understand or have the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that I think most Americans have," he said recently on a conservative radio show.

Cheney concluded: "What I see in President Obama is somebody who bows before foreign leaders and spends his trips aboard primarily apologizing for U.S. behaviour. I find that very upsetting."

Now, of course, Cheney's former boss George H.W. Bush traveled to Tokyo for Emperor Hirohito's funeral in 1989 and bowed to the casket. Cheney's former boss Richard Nixon bowed to Chairman Mao Zedong during his historic visit to China in 1972. But on meeting the Japanese emperor in 2007, then vice president Dick Cheney did not bow. Prompting his daughter Liz Cheney, comparing Obama with her father, to suggest Cheney would be a fine presidential candidate in 2012.

In no way oblique, what Cheney's saying, about Obama not "having the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that most Americans have," is that it's an American world and the other 97% of the planet's population just lives in it. But a poll by the Obama-hating Fox News, of all sources, found a vast majority of Americans think Obama did the right thing in showing respect for 128 million Japanese with that bow. And here's a retired U.S. admiral defending Obama's proper grasp of protocol.

Cheney's views aren't worth the pixels these words are written with. But those of old hands in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are, given that Obama still has to deal with them. And while much of what they know is no longer true, at least they're not clinically delusional.

For Leslie Gelb, Obama's recent nine-day Asian trip was a waste of time and may have undermined America's leadership position in the world. Gelb, too, believes it was wrong for Obama to bow to the Japanese royal couple and earlier to Saudi's King Faud. Probably the veteran of LBJ's Pentagon and Carter's State Department thinks it was a gaffe for Obama to shake hands with the bobby outside the door at No. 10, whom British PMs have walked by without acknowledgement for decades. Gelb describes these common courtesies to which Obama is given as disturbingly unscripted.

You're getting from the tone of this post, I hope, the derivation of the term "ugly American." It's not just the familiar U.S. meddling in distant affairs of which Americans know nothing, with horrific results for all concerned. It's the everyday arrogance of a certain American archtype.

Put it this way: Your first visit to a neighbour's house isn't the occasion to demand the kitchen be repainted and the knick-knacks be swept off the fireplace mantel. Certainly not if you're hoping to be invited for a return visit. And not if you want to befriend a neighbour whose future help you'd like to be assured of. 

But that's not how the Gelb ilk sees it. For them, mere face time is a waste of time. If a U.S. president troubles to visit the other side of the world, his inferiors - for that's how this school, pre-dating Dubya, still views other nations - must be made to offer up "deliverables":

Here's Gelb, in a Daily Beast article, "Amateur Hour at the White House":

Presidents take trips like this one only when they need breakthroughs and accomplishments on certain issues that can’t be agreed on without the pressure of an impending presidential visit. In fact, most presidents wouldn’t even commit to trips abroad without knowing that key deals would be finally agreed on and announced during the visit itself. The prospective visit is the power jackhammer to nail down the deals. Just take a gander at trips planned for Richard Nixon by Henry Kissinger or for George H. W. Bush by James Baker.

Obama’s travels were a chance to settle or make concrete progress on thorny issues like greenhouse-gas emissions, and the fate of U.S. bases on Okinawa, which the new Japanese government insists on moving. It was time to announce ways to gain fixes on the U.S.-South Korean trade treaty, long stalled in Congress. It was a moment to show that Beijing would actually make some mutually beneficial compromises on exchange rates or economic sanctions against Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Absent guarantees of progress on issues such as these, Mr. Obama should have taken a well-deserved vacation in Hawaii.

Hmm.

Hard to believe Gelb doesn't grasp how deeply loathed America is around the world. The Iraq war, supported by nations representing just 4% of the world's population, was one thing. Then came America's more recent export of a global recession originating with unsupervised Wall Street greedheads. For eight years, the U.S. has been AWOL on stem-cell research, multilateralism, trade-dispute reconciliation, climate change remedies...

And Gelb would have the new president, not yet a year in office, and coping with rather spectacular problems at home and two wars abroad, extract in his first visits with world potentates all manner of goodies that previous presidents have sought and failed to obtain for, in some cases, decades.

You really have to have been locked in a dark room for a long time not to recognize Obama's trip for what was intended, a fence-mending tour of world capitals to tamp down some of the distrust and outright hatred for the United States. And contrary to Cheney, Obama has used every occasion - from his maiden speech at the U.N. to his address in Cario - to convey the same straightforward message. Which is that America can't solve its problems without help, but the world can't solve its problems without America.

Which is testing the outer limits of assertiveness for an America so deeply and widely disliked in the current hour. So far, the tone of the new president's foreign-policy message has been near pitch-perfect.

America is the most "results-oriented" nation on the planet. It is impulsive. It wants immediate results. From the folly of launching a War of 1812-14 which the citizenry did not support to ignoring De Gaulle's prescient warnings to stay clear of Vietnam (and the French especially would know, having just had their clocks cleaned by the Vietcong), America has been characterized by an almost wilfull lack of deliberation and introspection. Hence Allan Fotheringham's long-ago tag, the Excited States of America.

The country now does have a contemplative president, which is what 11 years teaching constitutional law will do for you, among many other encouraging influences.

What the likes of Gelb don't get, despite decades of foreign policy experience, is that the rest of the world - manic Hong Kong excepted - is far more patient than the U.S. It wants to get to know you. Relationship-building is an end in itself. Patience and respect are paramount virtues. And no, we're not going to discuss the treaty/trade agreement/demilitarization thing you want from us today, much less agree to it. There will be mind games first, we will play with your head.

This is, for Americans, frustrating as hell. But it's how the rest of the world works, as North American businesspeople with dealmaking experience in Europe, Asia and South Asia can attest. Little at first is what it appears to be. One can only hope that time and persistent accumulation of knowledge will yield gratifying results. In successful foreign policy, there is only the long game. Obama gets that. But impatience for one-sided results inside the Beltway may yet hobble him.

 

 

Oh, Dana...

Dana Perino, last of Duya's press secretaries, was on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night, depicting the Fort Hood tragedy as a terrorist attack that Obama's not willing to label as such. And no wonder, since, as Perino went on to day, "We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

 

Except the ones on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fox being Fox, no one called Perino on her blunder.

Someone did, though, because Perino later responded on Twitter: "Last night on Hannity, I obviously meant no terror attack on U.S. post 9/11 during Bush 2nd term. We have the tools, just need to use them!"

So apart from those horrific 45 minutes or so on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, which Bush could have prevented had he the wit to continue and accelerate Clinton's anti-al-Qaeda campaign (I'm skipping over all the flashing red lights), Bush's was a terror-free presidency.

Those al-Qaeda attacks in Bali, Madrid and London that could have been avoided had Bush not let Osama escape into the Afghan hills (the Pentagon refused an urgent request from U.S. ground troops for backup upon identifying the cave where Osama was for the moment lodged in late 2001) - they were just offshore incidents.

Critics have accused Perino of the same revisionist tactics that so defined the Bush era. I'm not sure. Perino admits to an uncertain grasp of seminal historic events.

In a 2007 press conference, Perino was asked about a parallel that Putin saw between Dubya's planned Central Eastern missile-defense scheme (since scrapped by Obama) and provocation of the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis by the previous year's comically inept U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion. From the extended non-answer Perino offered, some WH reporters wondered if Perino in fact knew what the Cuban missile crisis was.

Sure enough, in a subsequent guest appearance on NPR's popular "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me," Perino admitted she "panicked" over that question because she wasn't sure what the Cuban missle crisis was. "I really know nothing about the Cuban missle crisis," Perino said. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

Perino said she went home that night and asked her husband, "'Wasn't that, like, the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.'"

Not to beat up on Perino, more forthcoming and less gratuitous by far than her Bush-era predecessors, especially the arrogant Ari Fleischer (more recently cofounder of an anti-Obama agit-prop group).

After all, as an unnamed Bush official told author Ron Suskind, the Bushies worked in an alternate reality, and kept changing realities as needed. In the Bush reality, America's most traditional and powerful post-WWII allies - France, Britain, Germany - were "old Europe" that no longer mattered. The consequences of Tito's death and lifting the lid off the Balkans had not in fact happened, and thus weren't instructive of what might happen with Saddam's ouster and lifting the lid off the centuries-old animus among Shia, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq.

Students of history, Colin Powell excepted, the Bushies were not. Which is how someone who managed to get through grade school and university without knowing about the moment when the world came closest to a nuclear confrontation managed to become chief spokesperson for the leader of the free world.

   

Unsung heroes.

Undated photo from Canadian Press.

This is Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout, recently released by Somali kidnappers after 15 months' captivity in that lawless country. The native of Sylvan Lake, Alberta was touring refugee camps outside Mogadishu with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan and a Somali intepreter when they were kidnapped Aug. 23, 2008.

The kidnappers had no political agenda, they just wanted money. Amid the squalor Lindhout and Brennan were documenting with the assistance of their translator, the bandits demanded $1 million for themselves from Lindhout's family alone, imagining that all Canadians have that kind of money. After an horrific ordeal in which she was kept isolated and beaten and tortured, Lindhout, along with Brennan, finally were released recently after an undisclosed financial settlement.

These are the front-line journalists bringing us news of the world, often our starting point in taking humanitarian action ourselves, through places of worship, NGOs and groups we organize, and pressuring our leaders that attention must be paid and collective action taken.

In annual rankings of admired professions, journalists always appear at or near the bottom of the list. That would include Lindhout, whose day for 15 months consisted of "sitting on a floor in a corner, 24 hours a day."

"The [ransom] money wasn't coming quickly enough for these men, and they seemed to think if they beat me enough, then when I was able to speak with my mother [by phone every couple of months] I would be able to say the right thing to convince her to pay the ransom."

We have, among others, Alberta MP Bob Mills, who represents Lindhout's riding, and groups such as Reporters Without Borders to thank for Lindhout's renewed freedom.

Our daily preoccupation in North American newsrooms is with the waves of layoffs of journalists, of outsourcing, of bureau closings - of retreat from our calling of reporting the news from City Hall, the coroner's office, the courts, the ratepayers' meetings, the rank corruption of public officials in Kabul and Harare, the slaughter of innocents in Darfur, the progress of the Olympic flame as it makes its way across Canada (it arrived yesterday in Fredericton).

Even journalists, with traditional print and network TV audiences in long-term decline, and certainly the larger public think only occasionally of the danger to which their kindred spirits routinely subject themselves in covering news in places no longer so remote in our increasingly interconnected world. Events that matter to us more than ever, and will figure still more significantly in our lives and economies as this new century evolves. It is a century brimming with promise of eradicating suffering and injustice, economic and violent, as we learn more about our global community through the eyes of people as intrepid and brave as Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan.

Many journalists do not survive encounters with bandits, state police, corrupt officials, warlords.

Since 1992, 763 journalists have been killed while doing their jobs. It seemed we might never again experience the peak of the 84 journalists who died in 1994 when the Balkans and parts of Africa were in upheaval. But a new peak of 109 journalists were killed on duty in 2007. The death toll so far this year is 66.

You might be surprised by the "beats" covered by the fallen. War coverage claimed the lives of 36% of the journalists killed since 1992, but political coverage accounted for the same percentage of journalist deaths. Followed by corruption (21%), human rights (15%), crime (14%), culture (9%), business (5%) and sports (3%).

Amanda Lindhout kept her wits about her by imaging herself jogging the sea wall in Stanley Park. "That would keep me going," she said. When I'm next in Stanley Park, I'll think of Lindhout, with gratitude - of all those journalists whose curiosity enriches our knowledge and gives us the tools to act in forging a better world based on their first-hand witness to the facts on the ground.

Related

George Packer (New Yorker), war correspondent, on toll wars have taken on journalists this decade.

QuickNews, Wednesday, Nov. 25.

 New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

The Lieberose solar farm about 150 km southeast of Berlin, world’s second-largest solar power plant, takes up equivalent of more than 210 football fields. Germany and China are among leaders in solar panel R&D, manufacturing and application. Photo, Reuters. 

GLOBAL WARNING | Pace of climate change faster than expected, say experts. At worst, sea levels could rise up to 2 metres (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, endangering coastal cities from New York to Buenos Aires to Shanghai. Researchers report that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are almost 40% higher than in 1990. "Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change," said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.

PIPE DREAM? | Ottawa to jointly finance $558-million CO2 pipeline. Idea is to inject CO2 into aging oil fields, squeeze more oil from played-out fields and sequester CO2 at same time. Sounds like a win-win, but technology isn't proven and enviros complain it diverts funds from R&D on alternative energy. Meanwhile, Australian opposition reaches agreement with Rudd government on CO2 trading scheme.

U.S REMAINS OUTLIER ON LAND MINES | America still won't sign treaty banning land mines. Treaty, spearheaded by Canada and others and now 10 years old, bans the use, production, stockpiling or export of anti-personnel mines. Treaty ratified by 156 nations. U.S., Russia, China and India among holdouts. U.S. spends more money than any nation on removal of land mines, which claimed 5,197 casualties last year alone, one-third of them children, but reserves right to use them. Describing renewed refusal to join treaty as "a default of U.S. leadership," U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a leading advocate for the treaty, said: "It is a lost opportunity for the United States to show leadership instead of joining with China and Russia and impeding progress."

 

Yesterday the last group of Edmonton-based soldiers returned from Afghanistan. Maj. Joe Boland twirls his son Markhus Boland, 4, at the Edmonton Garrison. Dianne Perry hugs her husband, Master Warrant Officer Edward Perry. Photos by Dan Riedlhuber, Reuters.

U.S. BANK BREAK-UPS | Increasingly popular notion wins backing of FDIC. U.S. keen to avoid ever again having to bail out banks whose size poses systemic risk and are thus "too big to fail." The big U.S. banks hate the idea, of course. And it's true, unless non-U.S. nations follow suit, American lenders would be at competitive disadvantage. And it does seem a drastic remedy, given how the healthy Big Five Canadian banks have proved that size and diversity of businesses (lending, trust, brokerage under one roof) isn't the issue. The issues are (a) lousy managerial risk management, and (b) under-supervision by regulators who failed to enforce existing laws and devise new ones for "innovative" risky products and services banks came up with during the unsustainable, record U.S. housing boom. Americans are looking for needlessly complex solutions to a simple problem here. (Illustration: The September 2008 collapse of New York brokerage Lehman Brothers triggered the global capital freeze that in turn deepened the worldwide recession.)

HIV AIDS PROGRESS, SORT OF | Global rate of infection is down. But mostly because of progress in developing world, notably sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, decline in infections has plateaued in U.S. and Europe, where complacency about safe sex has set in.

FULLER DISCLOSURE | Harper bends to pressure on Afghan detainee scandal. Ottawa will release additional "legally available" documents from 2006-07 period when Canadian Forces' transfer to detainees to Afghan National Army resulted in abused and often tortured detainees. "Legally available." You could run the Orient Express through that loophole.

BRAIN CRAMP | N.S. MP Gerald Keddy retracts slur on Halifax unemployed ("no-good bastards."). This is how it always goes, an outrageous utterance followed by a "clarification." Why not be a man and stick with what you really believe, that the jobless are lazy louts happily reliant on state handouts, rather than insulting our intelligence by trying to convince us you're not insensitive and unfit to serve in Parliament? Why not join the jobless, see what it's like, rather than living on the taxpayer's dime?

YET ANOTHER GM BRAND SALE FALLS THROUGH | Saab buyer bravely runs away. Swedish investor consortium with Chinese backing realizes only now that it hasn't the money or smarts to turn around failing niche automaker. Penske has backed out of buying Saturn. GM took Opel-Vauxhall off the market. And the Hummer sale to obscure Chinese firm is in limbo. The only brand the over-branded GM has rid itself of is Pontiac, which it reluctantly killed - on orders from Obama - since there were no buyers. Saab's fate, like Saturn, looks to be burial, since Stockholm adamantly will not devote a kroner to its rescue, unlike the four billion or so euros GM stands a good chance of extracting from European governments to repair the vastly larger Opel.

WAPO GIVES UP PRETENSE TO BEING IMPORTANT PAPER | Post kills last of its U.S. bureaus. Publisher justifies move, saying Post is not a national paper or "cable channel," whatever that's supposed to mean. Says paper will still cover the nation "as we always have" by sending intrepid reporters into the field. As if conceiving story ideas at WaPo office inside the Beltway is as good as tips from the soon-to-be-closed bureaus in Chicago, L.A. and NYC, where stories about the real America are far more easily identified and promptly reported.

ROBOTIC SURGERY | CAE teams with TSX-listed Titan Medical in robotic-surgery tech. Bedside manner not an issue since patients have been knocked out, but there's no one to sue. An ideal export to U.S., once perfected, to curb contribution that malpractice settlements make to spiralling healthcare costs.

THERE IS A GOD | Airlines finally fined for stranding passengers on aircraft. Culprits claimed they couldn't release passengers for lack of security in terminal. Irrelevant, say authorities, who correctly assert passengers could have been quarantined in terminal until security showed up.

An Andalusian horseman performs in front of a flamenco dancer during the opening show of Sicab the International Pre Horse Fair in Seville, devoted exclusively to Spanish thoroughbreds, Nov. 24, 2009. Photo: Marcelo del Pozo, Reuters.   

BABOON PLAGUE | Cape Town frets thieving critters will be a curse on World Cup next year. Natives know enough to roll up car windows, lock doors. But visitors will be gulled into feeding the "furry felons" whose proliferation and ransacking of cars whose unlocked doors they're able to open has become widespread nuisance.

YOUR R&D DOLLARS AT WORK | Australian researchers find that comfort food relieves anxiety in rats. Next step is to see if it works on humans. Oh, but wait - we already know it does. It's why my 7-Eleven restocks Doritos at five times the rate of Yoplait.

HONOURED SONGS | 25 tunes added to Grammy Hall of Fame. Latest inductees include Beach Boys' "California Girls," Louis Armstrong's "Lazy River" and the 1972 "Class Clown" album by George Carlin, who died last year. See complete list at www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Hall_Of_Fame. Oddly, despite list now numbering 851 in total, nothing from Celine Dion or the Dead Kennedys has made the cut.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit." -Sarah Palin to Marg Delahunty (Mary Walsh), when "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" caught up with the twit at a book signing in Columbus, Ohio. I suppose you think this is funny. But recall that not long after George W. Bush sent his greetings to "Jean Poutine" via Rick Mercer, then also of "This Hour," Dubya became U.S. president and set about dismantling his country's constitution.

 

Courtesy: Politico.com. H/T: P.J. Dempsey.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David  

   

 

Enjoy your day.

QuickNews, Tuesday, Nov. 24.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29

 

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Obama to send as many as 35,000 more troops. In decision as early as Tuesday, Obama to announce deployment of additional troops, mostly to south and east, basically in line with Gen. McChrystal's original request 10 war council meetings ago. Will bring total U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000, a near tripling since Obama came to office. Long deliberations have mostly about devising an exit strategy. New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, former speechwriter for Carter, is eloquent on how Afghanistan is becoming Obama's Vietnam: it's no longer the "war of necessity" Obama rightly called it in 2002 when denouncing looming U.S. invasion of Iraq.

SO, WHO DOES INDIA LIKE? | PM Manmohan Singh lashes out at China, Pakistan, Afghanistan. Soft-spoken PM, best known as father of economic liberalization under Indira Gandhi, using occasion of Obama's lavish first state dinner for a visiting head of state to fault economic rival China for lacking human-rights values, the abundance of which in India is not self-evident; Pakistan for the Mumbai massacre (the attack was hardly sanctioned by Islamabad), and Afghanistan as long-time refuge for anti-India elements. Not to leave out U.S., which dare not give up fight against Taliban or entire region explodes. What sacrifice India, population 1.2 billion, is making toward regional stability - in blood or treasure - I'd like to know.

H-P PROFITS DECEPTIVE | Real story of tech giant's 3Q is plummeting sales, not profit jump. Company's 14% profit gain is mostly from cost cutting, while its core businesses, apart from services, are in the dumps. Sales of PCs, servers, printers all down, matching miserable performance of rival Dell.

U.S HOUSING BOUNCE, TOO | 10.1% jump in sales attributed to government assistance programs. Actual strength of market exaggerated by U.S. help for "first-time" homebuyers, which in fact means anyone who hasn't bought a house in past three years.

ALSO U.S CAR SALES | Outlook for U.S. volume downgraded to about 11.1 million units. That's up from this year, but far below 16.5 million average annual volume, and not enough for most automakers to generate a profit in N.A. market.

CRIB RECALL | B.C.-based firm recalls about 2.1 million baby cribs tied to several infant deaths. Stork and other makers of "drop-down" cribs under pressure for years over faulty design, in which infants can easily become trapped in gap between mattress and crib's adjustable sides.

PLASTIC BOLT-ON | BMO buys corporate business of Citi's Diners Club. Also announces 16% profit surge. DC a non-core asset for troubled Citigroup, which is shedding peripheral businesses as quickly as market will allow. Adds about $7 billion (U.S.) to BMO's U.S. lending business, a neglible sum. Well into U.S. banking crisis, none of Canada's Big Five, by now renowned for getting through crisis relatively unscathed, have yet to take advantage of the buyer's market in government-assisted takeovers of troubled U.S. lenders. There's valuable U.S. market share for the taking, and opportunities for TD, RBC and BMO to bulk up their modest U.S. presence, but none seem willing to do the work of buying and fixing attractive U.S. banks.

B.C.'s SHAME | Province tops others in child poverty. Advocacy group rips Victoria for lack of poverty-assistance programs.

DOT-COM EXUBERANCE 2.0? | Twitter expects to be profitable by next year. Revenue-shy social networking phenom expects to start pulling in ads in 2010, poised for acquisitions now that it's valued at astounding $1 billion (U.S.) despite meagre cash flow and assets that don't extend much beyond its name. More likely fate is takeover bait for Google or Microsoft.

WHITE ELEPHANT SALE | Toronto developer buys Pontiac Silverdome for 1% of original cost. Suburban Detroit eyesore has no major-league tenant. Buyer Andreas Apostolopoulos hopes to lure a soccer team, and good luck with that in soccer-mad America. He should be able to recoup his $583,000 purchase outlay with sale of naming rights alone - for stadium built for $55.7 million in 1975 - but lacks background in arena management. He'll do nicely on real estate flip if shell--shocked Michigan economy ever recovers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and the Circus games." -Juvenal.

 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David  

 

  

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 23.

CHINA MINE EXPLOSION | At least 92 dead in coal mine disaster in northeast China. Gas explosion on weekend claims scores of lives at Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang, Heilongjiang province. (Photo below: Relatives of miners await news from mine officials. Aly Song, Reuters.)

 

CAPSIZED INDONESIAN FERRY CLAIMS 26 LIVES | Another 17 passengers still missing. Overloading is common in ferries serving Indonesia's thousands of islands. Ferry off Sumatra had 296 passengers and crew but capacity of only 273 people.

ROSY CANADIAN BANK FORECAST | Big Five will finish out year with strong 4Q numbers. Banks begin reporting this week. Their capital ratios are among world's best. Collectively, will come close to matching last year's profits. Loan losses expected to peak 1Q or 2Q of fiscal 2010. (Photo: "Centre ice," King and Bay Streets in Toronto, head office location of Canada's Big Five banks.)

ENCOURAGING U.S. ECONOMIC OUTLOOK | Economists upgrade forecast for 2010. Chicago Fed chief sees jobless rate peaking early next year, at 10.5%, a bit higher than current 10.2%. Small businesses, whose job creation usually leads employment recovery, are borrowing again. NYT reports Obama's stimulus package has done more good than it gets credit for - pushing U.S. GDP into positive territory by 3Q, for instance, less than half a year after his inauguration.  

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Two unnamed Karzai ministers target of embezzlement probe. Actually, almost all of Karzai's ministers are under suspicion, probably including the defense minister who impressed Globe and Mail's editorial board - in that paper's lead story this morning - with complaint that Obama is dragging his heels on more troops. CP has rather horrifying report on how Afghan detainee abuse has been routine for decades. Corrupt government, sadistic police force, army culturally allied with Taliban, and women treated even worse under Karzai than Taliban - this is what we're fighting and dying for in propping up Afghan government whose legitimacy is recognized by few locals or ISAF troop-contributing nations. Damned right Obama's thinking twice about more troops.

"PUBLIC OPTION" NOW CENTRE STAGE IN U.S. HEALTHCARE DEBATE | Dems win first Senate vote. But Saturday's 60-40 vote, with all Republicans opposed, is only "end of the beginning." Lieberman of Connecticut vows he will vote against a final Senate bill that includes the public option. But minus the new government-run "public option" insurer, reform largely amounts to a windfall for private insurers and Big Pharma. (Photo: Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) debate healthcare reforms yesterday on "Meet the Press.")

FUTILITY OF MICROSOFT TRYING TO "BUY" NEWS | In talks with Murdoch to take WSJ off Google. Rumoured deal would have Murdoch demand Google drop WSJ, New York Post and other News Corp. properties, with Microsoft's rival Bing engine getting exclusive access. But "exclusive" content migrates within 30 seconds, by most estimates. I noticed last night, for instance, that Reuters carried a rewritten Sunday New York Post exclusive that Jamie Dimon is tipped as Geithner's replacement, and a detailed synopsis of a Sunday NYT editorial calling on Goldman Sachs to turn over its bonus pool to Treasury to retire national debt.

SWINE FLU PEAK? | CDC reports H1N1, like most outbreaks, shifting east to Mideast, Central Europe. May have peaked in North America, but flu levels still far higher than usual at this point in flu season. Vaccine continues to be in shorter supply in U.S. than Canada.

 

One of the estimated 14,000 to 25,000 vacant homes in once-flourishing Buffalo, N.Y.  

BLIGHT ON BUFFALO | Decay of Rust Belt city "a slow-moving Katrina," says local official. Former industrial powerhouse has lost half its population, or 300,000 people, since 1950. In some recession-hit neighbourhoods, only 20% of the houses are occupied.

CLIMATE-CHANGE COST | Experts say $28 trillion (U.S.) in property damage to port cities by 2050. That would be result of expected 0.5%-metre rise in ocean levels as Greenland ice pack melts.

WIKI EXODUS | Thousands of Wikipedia contributors are quitting. All of the most important, most easily researched topics have been done. And remaining contributors are alienated by accumulation of rules restricting new entries and editing/updating of existing ones.

McDONALD'S LOSING LUSTRE | U.S. same-store sales down in October. Recession has finally caught up with Golden Arches, victim of high unemployment that has curbed out-of-home meals. Also, its McCafe concept has not been the blockbuster it expected. In Canada and at its U.S. outlets, Tim Hortons acted quickly on the McCafe threat, matching Mickey D in ubiquity and diverse menu offerings.

Honda Insight and Ford Escape. Which would you choose for your motor trip from Toronto to the Laurentians? On poor sales of small cars: "This doesn't mean Americans don't want fuel economy," writes auto critic Jerry Flint. "It may mean that vehicles that were small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable are still small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable."

NOT SO FAST | Forbes columnist breaks with consensus that small cars are next battleground. Notes that among heaviest casualties of current auto slump have been small cars. Industry volume is down 27% to September. Meanwhile, Yaris sales are down 40%, Aveo down 30%, Accent down 40%, VW New Beetle down 50%, Scion 1C down 60%. Meanwhile, sales are off only 10% as a group for small crossover SUVs: Honda CR-V and Pilot, Toyota RAV 4 and Venza, Ford Escape, Chevy Equinox and Dodge Journey.  "Americans drive more than Europeans and Asians," writes Jerry Flint, auto writer since 1958. "And thus it's reasonable that we want cars to be more powerful and more comfortable since we spend a lot of time in them. Larger vehicles are as a rule safer than smaller ones (another important topic on which government candour is lacking). Large vehicles carry more people, groceries and vacation stuff. What good does it do to move people into subcompacts if that kills carpooling? Cars will get smaller. How well they sell is another question." Flint also notes the up to $10,000 (U.S.) higher cost for going from gasoline to hybrid version of same vehicle (you're buying a car with two engines, after all; only plug-ins are all-electric) - one reason Honda's Insight, its smallest hybrid, sold just 16,000 cars YTD, about half what Honda expected.  

SNOOKERED | Travel website names ROM "Crystal" among world's 10 ugliest buildings. Joins "Beehive" in Wellington, N.Z. and Paris' Center Georges Pompidou. ROM head William Thorsell sold board and donors on what turned out to be inferior knock-off of celebrity architect Daniel Libeskind's own recent addition to the Denver Art Museum, which actually is mostly glass. For engineering and cost reasons, ROM "Crystal" is just a few strips of glass on metal cladding that has the allure of a construction-site outbuilding. Libeskind is pictured below in Denver; his ROM monstrosity at Inright.

  

INDIA LABOUR WOES | "Social contract," strong unions and GDP slump bring rampant labour unrest. Has sometimes turned to violence as strikes up 48% over last year at factories attempting layoffs, which go against Indian culture. Foreign employers hit by labour disruptions this year include Nestle, Nokia, Honda and Hyundai Motor.

CANDY WAR | Nestle joins Hershey, Ferrero and Kraft in pondering takeover bid for Cadbury. Kraft bid is hostile but would have easiest time with regulators. Nestle might try to play white knight. But candy giant Nestle (Kit Kat, Aero, Coffee Crisp, Smarties) would be forced to shed some of its own and Cadbury's brands to satisfy EU anti-trust authorities, maybe Canadian and American, as well.

CARCASS PICKED CLEAN | Ciena to pay bargain $769 million (U.S.) for core Nortel assets. Former pipsqueak rival to Nortel beats out bid by Nokia Siemens for bankrupt Nortel's optical networking and carrier ethernet business. Nortel once had a market cap north of $200 billion (U.S.). This one is up there with the Avro Arrow as a Canadian industrial tragedy.

Kate Moss in promotion shot for her Topshop collection. 

KATE MOSS GIVES COMFORT TO "PRO-ANOREXIC" MOVEMENT | Being a waif trumps eating. Moss endorsement last week of anorexics' motto raises new questions about how widespread is anorexia. Incredibly, so-called "pro-anorexic" websites outnumber by 5 to 1 sites for recovering anorexics and healthy dieting.

FRAIL MAIL | U.S. Postal Service in crisis after posting $11.6 billion (U.S.) in losses 2007-09. Volume of mail carried fell 13% in fiscal 2009. USPS wants to cut employer pension contributions and drop cherished Saturday service, eliminated eons ago by much healthier Canada Post.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Let's make cars people want to make out in again." -Chrysler turnaround tagline, as announced at a presentation for analysts and the auto press earlier this month, reported in current Business Week. And couldn't be further from the truth, except for the gymnastically adept, since the "new Chrysler" is to be built around Fiat minicars.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

  

The week ahead, Nov. 23-29.

               
  
 

Key events of the week ahead.

 

Summary: Wednesday data dump in Washington will gauge state of U.S. joblessness and consumer spending, along with bargain-shopping melee of Black Friday lasting through weekend. Big Five Canadian banks begin reporting what are expected to be strong results. Widespread talk, from U.N. to EU to Australia, about global warming in lead-up to Copenhagen climate-change summit in December. In a U.S. Thanksgiving-shortened week, stock prices are bound to be volatile. In sports, Vanier and Grey Cup championships decided this weekend.

 

MONDAY

 

  Oz PM Kevin Rudd and BofE chief Mervyn King.

 

General

 

Canada: Former Toronto lawyer Stan Grvmovsek, first person to be sentenced for insider trading under the criminal code (39 months), is in Manhattan court today asking that his Canadian prison term cover his offenses in U.S. as well.

 

U.S.: 37th Emmy awards for television tonight.

 

Eurozone: EU environment ministers meet to finalize negotiating position going into Copenhagen climate-change summit.

 

Australia: Parliamentary votes begin on controversial climate-change laws, through to Thursday. PM Kevin Rudd hoping for a victory to take to Copenhagen climate-change talks in December.

 

Economy

 

Canada: Statscan releases September retail sales report, outlook on labour and incomes, and quality of employment in immigrant labour market. 

 

U.S: Ken Feinberg, Obama's "pay czar," speaks at National Press Club, D.C., at noon.

 

Britain: CBI, the U.K. employer group, hosts luminaries including IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner, French finance minister Christine Lagarde and U.K. Conservative Party Leader David Cameron. Interesting mix of British and Continental leaders will talk economic outlook and progress on global financial-market reforms. Also, Mervyn King, caustic chief of the Bank of England, has a speech today. With luck King will continue pressuring global banks to stop resisting needed reform.

 

Eurozone: Manufacturing surveys will show strength of Eurozone's emergence from recession over the summer.

 

India: Reuters summit boasts who's who of Indian business, including reps from industrial giants Tata, Reliance, Wipro, Mahindra Satyam, and the country heads of Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Ford. Talk will be durability of Indian economic recovery, financial-sector reforms, political risk (corruption), and prospects for India's export-driven software-services sector.

 

Australia: New vehicle sales and other leading indicator reports.

 

Mexico: Expect 3.5% drop in September retail sales, following 5.5% drop in previous month.

 

Earnings reports: Campbell Soup, Hewlett-Packard, Tyson Foods, Sun-Times Media. 

 

 

TUESDAY

 

Al Gore in Toronto; Indian PM Singh visits White House.
 

General

Canada: Al Gore in Toronto on climate-change implications for business, at Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place, 8 p.m., proceeds to David Suzuki Foundation. 

U:S.: Indian PM Manmohan Singh visits Barack Obama at the White House. Former finance minister, father of India's economic liberalization, hopes to finalize Bush deal whereby India gains access to U.S. civilian nuclear tech and fuel in return for inspections of its civilian, but not military, nuclear facilities. Singh also urging U.S. to keep fighting Taliban in Afghanistan, and pressure neighbouring Pakistan to crack down on its militants. "We have been the victims of Pakistan-aided, abetted and inspired terrorism for nearly 25 years," PM told Washington Post ahead of meeting with Obama. "We would like the United States to use all its influence with Pakistan to desist from that path."

Britain: Public inquiry into U.K. role in lead-up to Iraq war begins, in London.

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases September employment insurance claims.

U.S.: Revised 3Q GDP will likely show growth of only 2.9% in that period, when U.S. officially emerged from recession, down from initial report of 3.5%, accounting for last week's report of larger-than-expected trade deficit. Also, closely watched University of Michigan consumer confidence survey, and S&P/Case-Shiller September and 3Q index of new-home prices. Conference Board releases its consumer confidence index for November. Plus weekly crude oil inventory numbers.

Germany: Ifo Institute's November business climate survey, expecting slight rise from October.

Brazil: Expect $2.8-billion (U.S.) deficit, following $2.3-billion deficit previous month.

Mexico: Forecast October jobless rate of 6.2%, down slightly from previous month's 6.4%.

Earnings reports: Bank of Montreal, George Weston 3Q earnings call, Zale (U.S. #1 jewellery chain), Heinz, Hormel (Spam), Medtronic, Barnes & Noble, Borders Group, Dollar Tree, J. Crew, American Eagle Outfitters, Brocade, TiVo, Warner Music, Hillenbrand (caskets), Eaton Vance. Also, Agnico-Eagle's CFO on raising capital in tough times.

Diversions

TV: "Frontline: The Card Game." Documentary on dubious practices in the credit-card industry. PBS, 9 p.m. Film Noir night on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The Big Sleep, 1946 (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall) 2 p.m.; Gaslight, 1944 (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman), 11 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

 Bellwether Deere & Co. reports earnings today.

 

General

U.N.: Yvo de Boer, U.N. climate chief, gives webcast news conference on his expectations for Copenhagen climate-change summit.  

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases 3Q financial corporate performance. OLRB hearing on whether Vale Inco's use of non-striking workers is legal. Shareholders of Calgary-based EnCana will approve today a split-up of the firm into separate natural gas and integrated oil companies. No wonder new Sir Norman Foster-designed HQ tower not named for EnCana, but called Bow Tower - tallest in Western Canada. Move calculated to boost share value of separate firms - "unlock shareholder value" is the usual term - but will make the two widely held firms more vulnerable to takeover.

U.S.: Busy day for key stats: Closely watched initial claims for jobless benefits from Labor Department expected to show slight dip to about 500,000. Commerce Department releases durable goods orders, personal income and spending, and new-home sales volume for October. Fed releases minutes from Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of Oct. 3-4. Fed watchers expect gloomy downgrade of earlier jobless forecast for 2010, up from low- to mid-9% range. Fed has already forecast higher-than-usual unemployment through to 2011, and will want to see several quarters of robust GDP growth and easing of jobless claims and unemployment rate before abandoning its near-zero key lending rate.

Japan: Export and small-business confidence figures will gauge strength of nascent recovery. Also Bank of Japan deputy governor Yamaguchi has speech today.

China: Longyuan, China's biggest wind power generator, kicks off roadshow for $2.2-billion (U.S.) initial public offering - a test of global investors' belief in alternative energy's profit prospects.

Germany: GfK consumer confidence index.

Britain: Revised GDP to show 3Q contraction was not as severe as initially reported. But laggard U.K. economy, still a holdout to positive GDP growth, will keep pressure on Bank of England to spur recovery.

Italy: Consumer confidence for November, retail sales for September.

Mexico: 3Q $2.47-billion (U.S.) deficit expected, following $454-billion (U.S.) deficit previous month. Move to deficit caused by lower remittances, seasonal tourism weakness, slip in trade figures.

Earnings reports: Tiffany & Co., Delphi Corp. (U.S. #1 auto parts), Deere & Co.

Diversions

 

TV: "Geologic Journey: The Great Lakes," CBC documentary, 9 p.m. Naomi Klein (Shock Doctrine) guest on CBC's "The Hour," 11:05 p.m.

 

THURSDAY

Hajj piligrimage begins today through to Nov. 30

General

Canada: CFL Player Awards announced. Honourary degree recipients Eleanor Wachtel and Richard Pound speak at McGill convocation.

Saudi Arabia: Annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, begins today in Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina. (Until Nov. 30.)

China: Omega World Cup of Golf at Mission Hills, near Shenzhen, hosts teams from 28 nations. (Until Nov. 29.)

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases report on September payroll employment, earnings and hours, and international travel stats.

U.S.: Thanksgiving national holiday; markets closed. Eighty-third annual Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade (9 a.m., CBS, NBC) alters route from Broadway onto 7th Avenue.

Germany: Consumer price index (CPI).

Japan: Employment, consumer prices and retail-sales stats.

Brazil: October jobless rate expected to be 7.5%, easing from previous month's 7.7%. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday he expects economy to add 1.3 million payroll jobs by year-end.

New Zealand: Business confidence and trade stats. 

Earnings reports: Mosaid Technologies, Gottschalks Inc.

Diversions

TV: "Doc Zone: Carbon Hunters." CBC documentary on carbon trading market: It's worth billions, but will it curb global warming? 8 p.m. Michael Moore (Capitalism: A Love Story) guests on "The Hour," 11:05 p.m. Grace Kelly night on TCM: To Catch A Thief, 1955 (Cary Grant), 8 p.m.; High Society, 1956 (Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra), 10 p.m.; The Swan, 1956 (Alec Guinness, Louis Jordan), 12 a.m.; Wedding in Monaco, 1956 (documentary footage of Kelly's marriage to Prince Rainer of Monaco), 2 a.m.
 

FRIDAY

  Summiteer Harper; Black Friday shopping spree.
  
General

Canada: Stephen Harper at Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Economy

Canada: Statscan releases 3Q balance of international payments.

U.S.: "Black Friday," traditional first day of holiday season sales. Wal-Mart will be open 24 hours through weekend to prevent repeat of crowding that killed one employee last year, rival discounters Target, Best Buy and others to open at 5 a.m. today. Expect 77 million U.S. shoppers today alone and $43 billion in sales - about 6% of total holiday-season sales over the three days. Obviously analysts, who expect rise or fall of about 1% from last year, are monitoring consumer buying power. But last year was misleading - Black Friday-weekend sales were up 7%, but entire season sales were down more than 3%, the worst showing since records were kept. In 2008-09, 45 U.S. retail chains have gone bankrupt. (The Black Friday term refers to the period of the year when retailers' books finally start showing black ink, or a profit.)

Eurozone: Consumer and business confidence data, plus inflation expectations.

Germany: Import price stats.

France: Consumer confidence for November.

Italy: Wages report.

Japan: CPI figures will confirm deflationary trend warned of by government last week, likely a 2.2% decline in prices in October. This will pressure a reluctant Bank of Japan to buy government bonds. Also, key jobs and household consumption figures released for the sluggish Japanese economy.

Switzerland: KOF industrial sentiment index.

New Zealand: Inflation forecast.

Diversions

TV: John Irving, Morgan Freeman and U.S. political satirist David Cross guest on "The Hour," CBC, 11 p.m.

 

SATURDAY

Canada: Queen's University Golden Gaels and University of Calgary Dinos compete for Vanier Cup, championship of Canadian university football.

Diversions

Steely Dan at Place des Arts, Montreal.

SUNDAY

Manuel Zelaya, hoping to be reinstated as Honduran president.

General

Canada: Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders compete for Grey Cup, CFL championship, at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, 6:30 p.m.

Honduras: Emergency presidential election to end crisis that began with June military coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya, now holed up in Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. Brazil and Argentina say they won't recognize election results unless Zelaya is first returned to power. U.S. has insisted Honduras' Congress should vote on Zelaya's reinstatement, but it won't do so until after the election. Zelaya has urged supporters to boycott the vote.  

Equatorial Guinea: Voters in tiny, oil-rich West African nation will re-elect Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president for 30 years since coming to power in a coup. He is doubtless hoping to improve on his 2002 outing, when he captured 97.1% of the vote.

 

 

Sources: Canadian Press, Reuters, Financial Times (U.K.), Forbes.

 

Click on images to enlarge.