QuickNews, Tuesday, Dec. 8.

The week ahead, Dec. 7-13. * Blame Teddy Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor. (NYT).

Did the "prosperity gospel" of modern American Christianity cause the Crash? (Atlantic)

 UPBEAT START TO HISTORIC CLIMATE-CHANGE SUMMIT

 
 
Greenpeace activists unfurl a banner on the facade of Parliament's West Block in Ottawa. The message is directed at Stephen Harper, prime minister, and Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal official opposition leader. In recent weeks, Greenpeace has rappelled the parliament buildings in London and Paris as well to display climate-change messages. In Copenhagen, one of many stylized globes throughout the city marking history's biggest climate summit, with more than 15,000 participants from 192 nations. The 12-day summit began yesterday.   

BROWN UPS THE CLIMATE-CHANGE ANTE | British PM sets bar higher for EU. Tells Guardian yesterday EU should pledge to cut emissions by 30%, not planned target of 20%, by 2020 from 1990 levels. Gordon Brown, who weeks ago was among first heads of state to say he would go to Copenhagen at a time when the talks seemed doomed, is still in the lead to be the political hero of this historic event. Obama, who conferred with Al Gore at WH yesterday and has a mini eco-summit at WH scheduled for Wednesday, is not far behind. His EPA yesterday declared greenhouse gas emissions a threat to human life, thereby giving itself the authority to monitor emissions, regardless of whether a climate bill now stalled in the U.S. Senate is passed or not. Bill Clinton urges Copenhagen participants to emphasize the upside of curbing climate change. Echoes Obama theme since last year's presidential campaign that green-tech jobs and investment will define 21st century. Clinton, whose post-presidency has largely been occupied with raising awareness and funds for climate-change progress, says global warming needs to be sold as an economic opportunity, not "a dose of castor oil you have to swallow." Spirits high in the Danish capital for the opening day kick-off. What a difference U.S. leadership makes. Canada, major CO2 emitter, effectively AWOL. Jim Prentice, environment minister, says Ottawa's widely condemned resistence to meaningful emission-reduction targets won't be changed by Copenhagen "hype." Globe says Canada in "climate doghouse." Twas ever thus, but no longer our dirty little secret. Canada yesterday awarded a "Fossil of the Day" by coalition of more than 450 eco-NGOs for its laggardness. Since our position is unlikely to change for the duration of the summit, we may end up bringing home 12 of these "trophies." Here's the official U.N. Climate Change Conference site for breaking news, calendar of events and more.

 
Richard Colvin, former Canadian diplomat, testifying to a Commons committee on Afghan detainee transfer practices, and the warnings he made to Ottawa about them. Right, Peter MacKay, defense minister, who responded to Colvin's testimony by mauling Colvin in Commons debate. Public-opinion polls a few days later found Canadians believed Colvin over the Tories by a 2-to-1 margin. 

RESIGN | 23 former Canadian ambassadors protest Tories' attack on Richard Colvin. Former Afghan diplomat exposed Harper government complicity in handing over detainees to Afghan National Army globally notorious for torture. Tories' instant reaction was attempt to discredit Colvin, rather than explain what Ottawa knew and when it knew it. In their letter, the 23 former ambassdors worry Colvin's fate will discourage candid reporting to Ottawa from foreign postings. Well, yes. Former senior foreign service officers rarely speak out in unison like this, but Defense Minister Peter MacKay's public vilifcation of Colvin prompted them to. "[MacKay] savaged [Colvin] in public, and ridiculed him. And that's not the way to treat a guy who's doing his job," said Paul Durand, former Canadian ambassador to the Organization of American States, Chile and Costa Rica. "He is not a whistleblower. He was hauled before a parliamentary committee and had to state the truth." It's MacKay, on whose watch the dubious 2006-era detainee handovers occurred, whose credibility is in tatters. He should resign until a public inquiry determines what exactly Canada knew about the real or likely fate of detainees it handed over to an Afghan army widely known to torture detainees for sport. Globe editorial on Tories' falsehoods.

 
Student supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi hold red roses during protests in central Tehran. Foreign press was ordered not to cover the event, and cellphone network and newspapers were shut down by ruling regime. (Photo: Reuters.)

IRAN'S DOMESTIC INSTABILITY | Regime forced to suppress still more student protests. In latest of several demos, at Tehran University and several other colleges, thuggish police beat up protesters yesterday while state shut down cellphone network so activists still angry over flawed June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can't communicate with fellow democracy advocates in other cities. Modesty requires the West to approach Iran realizing we know little about Iranian internal conditions. Having said that, waiting out an unstable status quo is an attractive alternative to external bullying that would almost certainly awaken national-unity sentiments that would trump growing internal dissent.

RUSSIAN NIGHTCLUB TRAGEDY DRAWS PUTIN'S IRE | PM excoriates local officials. These include fire marshalls whom, Putin hints, might have been on the take in failing to inspect frequently enough the Perm nightclub where 118 patrons died over the weekend. Putin also faulted the local hospital, which had insufficient supplies to treat the fire victims. With Putin and Medvedev around it's almost tough for outsiders to criticize Russia, since this pair does such a good job of that itself. Medvedev last month, in a high-profile speech to Duma, ripped the nation's cumbersome bureaucracy and rampant corruption, and Russian business sector's sloth in innovation. Another case where external pressure is adviseable in minor doses only, as Russia appears to be entering a period of self-criticism. China for now is a different story: euphoric over strong GDP growth, Beijing is convinced China can do no wrong. So stronger words with Beijing are appropriate within limits, especially as China finally seems intent on joining larger world community. Incidentally, not one BBC, NPR or other radio report of the Perm disaster that I heard failed to mention "Russia's notoriously lax fire regulations." Lax they might be. But it was only six years ago that 100 people died in a horrific fire that destroyed The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., preceded three days earlier, on Feb. 17, 2003, by a stampede at Chicago's E2 dance floor that killed 21 people as more than 1,500 patrons attempted to escape the over-crowded facility after a pepper-spray incident. In both cases, safety protections and regulatory inspections were inadequate and club owners went to prison. 

OBAMA WATCH | President says he'll be candid about Afghan conflict in his Nobel speech Thursday. Not that he was likely to ignore the elephant in the parlor in Oslo acceptance speech for Nobel Peace Prize, but it's been done before. On employment front, despite encouraging jobs report last Friday showing first decline in unemployment rate since beginning of U.S. recession in December 2007, Obama in speech today will outline additional proposed job-creation stimuli. These will include tax breaks for businesses that hire, and redeploying estimated $200-billion surplus from bank-bailout funds to finance job-creation projects. (Photo: Obama greets workers at Nestle Purina Pet Care plant in Allentown, Pa. on Friday.)

U.S. MEDICARE EXPANDED? | Senate Dems mull lowering Medicare eligibility to 55. Stunning move is response to GOP canard that seniors would suffer big reduction in benefits under proposed reforms. (Any losses would be minor, and many seniors would see increased benefits.) Dems also twisting "public option" all out of shape, contemplating Rube Goldberg idea of having a government agency merely monitor a public option that would be operated by private insurers. So the costly middleman and costly profit margins would remain, and the public option's appeal as the major device for lowering healthcare costs would, in this iteration, be a failure. But if Dem public-option holdouts like conservative Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) are to be won over, these are the kinds of sops to blockheads we're going to see. Atul Gawande, New Yorker contributor and surgeon, on how the Senate bill would contain spiralling healthcare costs. (This is the same Gawande who earlier this year wrote of wide disparities in medical costs among cities and regions for same-quality care, which was must-reading in the West Wing and Congress.)

ATHABASCA AND CARCINOGENS | Alberta water scientist discovers dangerous levels of toxins in Athabasca River. Faults Ottawa for under-funding federal monitoring. Enraged Alberta government accuses him of spreading mistruths, says its own monitoring is comprehensive and finds only tolerable levels of toxins in tar-sands effluent.

TODAY'S HEADLINES | Hunger and family homelessness on the rise in U.S. cities... Struggling Japan unveils $81 billion (U.S.) additional stimulus to head off double-dip recession...Toronto building permits up a stunning 42% in October, up 18% nationwide...Harper makes it official: Toronto, not Muskoka, to host G-20 next June 26-27. Second G-20 summit next year will be in Seoul. Doubly good news for Muskoka. It won't briefly be shut down to tourists, and instead will become refuge for Hogtowners fleeing security, protesters and entourages of 20 heads of state.. Scotiabank profit nearly triples. BNS is the last of our Big Five banking oligopoly members to report, on a spectacularly good year considering the global meltdown...Conrad Black's lawyers make last-ditch pitch today to U.S. Supreme Court to drop fraud charges...Possible foretaste of post-U.S.-occupation Iraq in string of Baghdad car bombs that kill 121 people...Resurgence in popularity of vinyl records and turntables... "New hottie outs tomcatting Tiger Woods" (I just like the tab Boston Herald's headline). And Orlando neighbors report that Elin Nordegren is no longer in the building. Counting the minutes before someone suggests Mrs. Mark Sandford as a roomie, or Mrs. John Ensign - no wait, don't think she's moved out yet...

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Nature never did betray / the heart that loved her." -William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey.

Courtesy, The New Yorker, Nov. 30 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   

 

 

I solemnly swear...

The Globe recently, and usefully, ran some oaths of ethical conduct now taken by business students at Harvard, the Ivey school in London, Ont. and so on.

This is a topic ripe for ridicule, of course. But the initiative is worthwhile, no less than the introduction of mandatory ethics studies at MBA mills about which I wrote in my first book, on corporate ethics, back when the Earth was still cooling.

Have a read of these oaths, and the above-average commentary that follows. My only fault with them is length. Americans like to codify things; Brits prefer a principles-based approach. We're somewhere in between. The trouble with rules, as the Americans discover over and over, is that the imposition of one is immediate cause by some to find the invariably present loopholes.

That's why the succinct oaths work best. For caregivers, it's "First, do no harm." Sir William Osler embellished that a bit with the sage, "Treat the patient, not the disease." That is, spend the time to observe carefully the patient, his body language, attitudes, changes in mood from day to day.

And for all of us, of course, it's the Golden Rule, to be found in variations in all the founding documents of all major world religions, from the Koran to the Torah to the King James version of the Bible. You can't beat the Golden Rule as both a starting and end-point in decision-making. Would I want to be treated like this? That's the general principle, to which I'd add the more strategic "First, do no harm."

The epidemic of white-collar self-interested recklessnesses that accounts for the current tens of millions of unemployed around the world today began with the mortgage broker in Tulsa who talked a young family into financing a house they couldn't afford. Would you do that to yourself? And the banks that endangered each other and thus the entire global system by playing hot potato with $250-billion packages of those same sure-to-sour loans were either had not thought of, or didn't care to dwell on, the consequences. If the trader at Bank of America took seriously the admonition to "First, do no harm," she would have chosen differently than to fob off the toxic assets to Deutsche Bank, en route to HSBC and thence to Switzerland's UBS, which alone took more than $40-billion (U.S.) plus in writeoffs on mortgages issued to income-challenged buyers of new, $450,000 split-levels in Santa Barbara.

It's worth noting that such personal commitments to the highest ethical standards do, or should, apply to regulators, as well. No less than the bankers, or any group of businesspeople overcome by a fleeting euphoria, they give in to peer pressure and dicta from on high - from politicans and lobbyists - to let this particular outrage pass. And the next one. Until collateralized debt obligations - "weapons of mass wealth destruction," as Buffett calls them - become the new norm.

As far as I know, only Richard Clarke, the U.S. counter-terrorism chief in the Clinton and early Bush era, apologized to the American people, in his introductory remarks in Congressional testimony, for failing to anticipate the events of 9/11. ("We let you down. Your government failed you.")

We've yet to hear an apology from any banker over events triggering the worst downturn in 70 years, and the first truly global one. Or from any regulator - and pretty much every one of them failed, also, from the Federal Reserve Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the exotic regulator that had only Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to oversee, and managed to be so thoroughly "captured" by the regulated that it bungled as well. No apologies from the lobbyist-influenced Congressional oversight committees, either.

Maybe they're all waiting for someone to go first. Well, I have, as financial journalist who didn't see the epic catastrophe on the horizon, and warn about it. So Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox, Stan O'Neal, Chuck Prince, et al, anytime now. We already think the worst of you. An apology could only help your reputations.

QuickLinx 01.11.09

IT'S GOD'S FAULT

Bad driver? Blame your genes. (Reuters)

House or workplace are cluttered? Blame your genes. (Reuters)

Ransom note's in here somewhere.
 

BOOM TO BUST

Bereaving Las Vegas, arguably N.A. hardest hit by housing-boom implosion. (Der Spiegel)

In slumping Dubai these days, one of four cheques bounces in real-estate collapse. (Times of London)

In glittering Dubai, $166 billion (U.S.) in planned real-estate development has been scrapped as property values plunged 41% in 1Q alone. Boom was built on debt and nosebleed oil prices. Global financial crisis and slumping wellhead prices put the brakes to that.

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM

Why it makes no sense to lay off older workers. (Newsweek) 

It's not fun being king. Being boss is hard on your health. (Reuters)

Why helicopters are so crash-prone. Hint: they do things we don't ask of planes. (Slate)

Why websites are so confusing. Notes on navigating cyberspace. (Harvard Business Review)

Fox News isn't just bad. It's un-American. (Jacob Weisberg, Slate/Newsweek)

Why Canada's falling behind in clean-tech R&D. (Financial Post)

How MSM get sucked into believing political rumours that spread like wildfire on the Web. (New Yorker)

Newspapers just look dead. (Canadian Journalism Report)

Why it's sane for Kim Jong-il to be crazy. (Reuters)

Write your own caption. Remember that Gordon Brown, whom I'd also rather not see in the buff, has nukes too.
 

DEBATES

A Catholic balks at a thoroughly anti-woman Church of Rome. (Maureen Dowd, New York Times)

Charles Lewis responds to Maureen Dowd's "Nazi slur" on Pope Benedict, et al. (National Post)

Will California become America's first "failed state"? (U.K. Guardian)

California is thriving, despite setbacks. (Time)

California: Failed state. (John Judis, New Republic, Sept. 5, 2005)

End state: Is California finished? (John Judis, New Republic, Oct. 26, 2009)

BETTER LIVING CENTRE

Are you getting enough dopamine? An update on the motivator molecule. (New York Times)

Smile, already. You're depressing the economy. (Slate)

Seven tips if you're chronically late. (Slate)

Best-buy vehicles of latest model year, in 13 categories, starting at $21,000. (Toronto Star)

Review of the latest wave of smartphones, including BlackBerry Storm 2.0. (New York Times)

In defense of fast food: One man's unapologetic love affair with Burger King, Taco Bell, et al. (Newsweek)

In defense of candy: Meet a man who lives almost entirely on sweets. (New York Times)

Paul Rudner of New York's West Village: no veggies allowed.

PROGRESS

USDA push to get farmers markets' fresh groceries closer to you. (National Public Radio)

How new high-speed trains are making China smaller. (Newsweek)

Climate-change progress: Toshiba's new mini-nuclear reactors. (Reuters)

Electric cars are a step closer. (Euronews)

Put your dog on a diet, save the planet. (Toronto Star)

Deal with it: Biotech foods might be a cure world hunger. (New York Times)

The recession killed off grandiose "celebrity architecture." Good. (New York Times)

Centennial of Burnham's "Chicago Plan" - every city should all have been so lucky. (New Yorker)

The Magnificent Mile, the "front lawn" on Lake Michigan, these things don't happen by accident. It's called urban planning and Chicago's Daniel Burnham was one of history's best.
 

GETAWAYS, NEAR AND FAR

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York, Nov. 10 only. (Carnegie Hall)

Montreal's Oliver Jones, consummate jazz pianist, at Glenn Gould Studio, Nov. 14 only. (GGS)

Gordon Lightfoot, Massey Hall, Toronto, Nov. 18, 19, 20.

"The Magic Flute," Opera de Montreal, Place des Arts de Montreal, Nov. 19 only.

Marvellous "Paul Gaugin, Paris 1889" show at Cleveland Museum of Art, Oct. 4-Jan. 18. (CMA)

Paul Gaugin, "Breton Girls Dancing, Pont Aven," 1888. On loan from National Gallery of Art, Washington.

 

MADE YOU LAUGH

Who knew the oboes have it in for the violas? (Shouts & Murmurs, New Yorker)

The man with but a surname takes a mate with no name at all. (Shouts & Murmers, New Yorker) 

TV critic Matthew Gilbert's 14 most-annoying TV characters of all time. (Boston Globe)

She tops one reviewers' list of most annoying TV characters of all time.

 

More U.S. right-wing lunancy.

Remind me never to win an award - or do anything - of which Peggy Noonan disapproves.

The former Reagan speechwriter, who parlayed that long-ago job into a columnist post at the WSJ and a regular spot on Sunday morning talking-head TV, has gone, well, bonkers, over Obama's Nobel prize.

Bear in mind the president himself has said "I'm not sure I deserve this." He promptly announced he would donate the $1.4-million prize money, And he accepted the award "on behalf of America and its values" - not quite what the folks in Oslo had in mind, I am sure. For all that, looney right just can't get over the infamy of a fellow American deemed worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

I can't - I don't imagine anyone could - do justice to Noonan's cry for help, her completed application form for self-admission to a dry-out spa where her delusions can be gradually drawn out, possibly through leeching, and "processed," as they say in the Therapy World. Noonan, in a WSJ column headlined "A Wicked and Ignorant Award" (the overtly Catholic Noonan is a theocrat who frames public policy according to her moral worldview), seems to think the Oslo committee's selection is an attack on America, or at the very least a denigration of it:

For instance: The Peace Prize judges won't see it this way, but America has gone to Europe twice in the past century to fight for peace. This is an old concept, and has to do with killing killers so they can't kill anymore. It cost America a lot to do this, and we kept no territory, as they say, beyond the graves where our soldiers lie. America then taxed itself and gave its wealth not only to its allies but to its former adversaries, to help them rebuild. We didn't actually have to do this. We did it to make the world better. We did it to foster peace. (They should give us a prize.)

America hasn't just helped the world, it literally lit the world with its inventions, which are the product of its freedoms. The lights under which the Peace Prize judges read, and rejected, the worthy nominations? Why, those lights were invented by an American. The emails the committee members sent to each other, sharing their banal insights on leadership? They came through the Internet. Who invented the Internet? It was a Norwegian bureaucrat with a long face and hair on his nose and little plastic geometric eyeglasses? Oh wait, it was Americans. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are healthy because they have been inoculated against diseases such as polio. Who invented the polio vaccine, an enfeebled old leftist academic in Oslo? Nah, it was a man named Jonas Salk. He was an American.

Well, so were Nobel recipients Pearl S. Buck, Milton Friedman and Martin Luther King. Americans have dominated the Nobel economics and science prizes the way the NYT cornered the Pulitzer since that prize's inception. Americans took both Nobel's awarded in economics this year. So from whence comes this idea that the Nobel committees have it in for Americans?

America in the mid-20th-century fought in two theatres to protect America from the terrifying encroachment of fascism. The subsequent Marshall Plan was self-interested, a humanitarian imposition of American free-market values on a continent where communism was still widely potent. And a means of creating an economically and politically stable buffer between the U.S. and the emerging new U.S. enemy, the Soviet Union. It most definitely was not charity, something we "didn't actually have to do." The postwar U.S. policy of Soviet containment, as conceived by George F. Kennan and quickly adopted as U.S. policy for two generations, required it be done to protect America's national security and corporate interests.

That's the bizarre part of the column, dashed off by an American patriot who wears her parochialism on her sleeve but is ignorant of the recent history of her own homeland. Then Noonan's rant turns into a fact-checker's nightmare.

Many innovators share credit for electricity, going back to Ben Franklin. But the alternating currrent in Noonan's household - and by which the Norwegian judges read - was developed by Nikola Tesla, a Croatian. (Edison developed direct current, more dangerous and unsuitable in most non-industrial applications.)

The Internet was indeed a U.S. creation, tracing its roots to the Darpanet, developed by the Pentagon to enable scientists to exchange information among university computers worldwide. The Internet as we know it, however, is the World Wide Web. The Web made the information superhighway, as it was once quaintly known, useful to Noonan and billions of others by assigning an address to each of millions and then billions of Web pages. Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman working at the Swiss-based CERN labs, invented the Web.

Antibiotics were first identified by a Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, and the first antibiotic treatment by Alexander Fleming of Scotland, whose Adam Smith contributed mightily to the American ethic of raw capitalism. Shakespeare didn't set foot in the New World. The composition commonly known as the New World Symphony was written by a Czech. Commercial banking was perfected by Italians, investment banking by the Rothschilds. Television was invented in Russia, as was The Nutcracker and The Cherry Orchard. A Canadian invented standard time and the BlackBerry, The internal combustion engine, still in ubiquitous use worldwide, was invented in the 1880s by German's Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz independent of each other. The theory of relativity and modern psychoanalysis were pioneered by an ethnic German of Swiss nationality and an Austrian, respectively. A Spaniard gave us Don Quixote. The rocket propulsion systems behind the Apollo program orignated with the genius in rocketry of the Germans and Russians. The plastic hula hoop, an icon of 1950s America, was invented by an Australian, Alex Tolmer. One could go on.

Noonan, like Madonna, invented herself. I'll grant that.

 

Today's top news, Friday, September 18.

Obama abruptly scraps Bush's planned East European missile-shield defense scheme. Marks an end to Bush policy of rewarding friends, punishing enemies. (Poland, where some of the missiles were to be based, was a member of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, but lately has turned cold on hosting the missile sites.) Kremlin is exuberant about reversal, citing missile threat countless times as obstacle to Russian cooperation with U.S. on everything from containing Iran's nuclear ambitions to Obama's goal of reducing global nuclear stockpile. Slate's longtime military columnist Fred Kaplan lauds Obama move as removal of longtime, needless irritant in U.S.-Russia relations. Atlantic's Marc Ambinder agrees.   

Dimitry Medvedev, Russian president, and his U.S. counterpart earlier this year during a multilateral summit.

Canada mourns loss of 131st soldier in Afghanistan mission. Like majority of fatalities to date, Pte. Jonathan Couturier, 23 (left), is victim of roadside improvised explosive device (IED). Pte. Couturier had written family that Afghan mission is futile. U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) cautions against Afghan quagmire. Time's Joe Klein asks why U.S. forces are in violent Helmand province (adjoining similarly dangerous Kandahar, where Canadians are concentrated). Echoes of Canadian Senator Colin Kenny's statement last weekend equating the Afghan mission with Vietnam, for which he was widely criticized. 

Harper missed opportunity to get America's attention, Star's Jim Travers argues, by strengthening trade ties with China.

Seven one-industry mill towns, six in Canada, hit by planned AbitibiBowater shutdowns.

Pelosi reverses earlier reversal: U.S. Speaker now once again backing "public option" new government health insurer.

"Socialism" rife in America, Christian Science Monitor columnist dares to point out.

Wells Fargo, belligerent in criticizing bank bailouts, turns out to be one sick puppy, burdened with "non-performing loans" far in excess of industry average. But not to worry overly: Warren Buffett is Wells' biggest investor. Better hope for Oracle's sake U.S. banks are on the mend - and evidence suggests they are not, especially - since Berkshire has big stakes in U.S. Bancorp, Buffalo's M&T Bank and Goldman Sachs, as well.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate economist, says recession won't truly end - "if we're lucky" - until 2012. Draws distinction between GDP upturn - official indicator of recession - and lingering unemployment. A vital point, since recovery won't be "real" until everyday folks sense it is. And for now, new study shows almost half of U.S. households have suffered job loss or pay cuts. And older Americans say they expect they'll have to keep working well into their retirement years.

Siemens sets goal of jumping to No. 3 from No. 6 in windpower equipment. And Denmark unveils world's biggest offshore wind-turbine farm. As earlier noted, world's biggest solar-panel factory to be built in China. Bottom line: N.A. is trailing in one of the 21st century's biggest new industries.

Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik threw the switch yesterday to start 91 wind turbines in the North Sea off of Denmark with total capacity of 209 megawatts, enough to power 200,000 homes. This is one of seven offshore wind farms built by wind-turbine pioneer Denmark.

Palm Pre smartphone a respectable seller, but latest financials suggest it won't save former trailblazer Palm, long ago eclipsed by Nokia, Apple and RIM.

Green shoots: U.S. housing industry recovering; household wealth improves for first time in two years; consumers cautiously re-opening their wallets, no longer shunning brand-name goods for private-label. Credit-card giant Discover reports higher earnings despite industry-wide default epidemic.

By wide margin, more Swedes trust Ikea than church, survey shows. Meanwhile, venerable "Big Mac" world price index giving way to the "Billy bookcase global cost-of-living index," based on an Ikea staple. At $64.33 (U.S.), Canadian price for a Billy is a bit above the world average of $60.09 (U.S.)

Mary Travers, 72, one-third of legendary 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, dies after long battle with leukemia.  

In 1966 video below, Peter, Paul and Mary do a lovely job covering Gordon Lightfoot's classic "Early Morning Rain." From left to right, Paul Stookey, Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers.   

________________________

Quote of the day

"The attacks on President Obama are often bitter and mean-spirited and his approval ratings, his popularity, are sinking like a stone. Still, he fights on...Fifty years from today, Americans will revere the name, 'Obama.' Because like his Canadian predecessors, he chose the tough responsibilities of national political leadership over the meaningless nostrums of sterile partisanship that we see too much of in Canada and around the world today." -Brian Mulroney at a Tory gathering last night in Montreal, equating his poll-rating woes with Obama's. So far, Obama's public-approval ratings have sunk "like a stone" to between 47% and 53%, depending on the poll. As I recall, Mulroney's public-approval nadir, post-GST and just before political retirement, was about 9%.

 

Excommunicate the bastards!

Day 653

We know the way to discipline bad behaviour on Wall Street. You rescue, at fabulous expense to the taxpayer, the institutions they jeopardize with their recklessness and greed. You sign off on their outrageous pay packages "going forward." And you dawdle over reforms that would end the too-big-too-fail syndrome that gives financiers a safety-net-incentive to put self-interest ahead of prudence.

 

The 16th-century Dutch had a different approach toward rogue bankers, as author Simon Schama describes:

 

"Bankers were excluded from communion by an ordinance of 1581, joining a list of other shady occupations—pawnbrokers, actors, jugglers, acrobats, quacks, and brothel keepers—that were disqualified from receiving God’s grace. Their wives were permitted to join the Lord’s Supper, but only on condition that they publicly declared their repugnance for their husband’s profession! Their families shared the taint and were only permitted to join communion after a public profession of distaste for dealing in money."

 

Reuters blogger Felix Salmon, who brought this to my attention, notes how times have changed and an adjustment would be required:

"Given that Mammon has long since triumphed over God, I reckon most bankers these days would happily give up communion in order to be able to continue to make their seven-figure bonuses. Maybe we should try banning their children from attending expensive private schools instead."

For the purposes of this blog, the inception of the Great Recession in the U.S., the epicentre of the crisis, is taken as the start date for the global slump. The U.S. has been in recession since December 2007. 

Today's top news, Monday, Aug. 31.

Day 645

Bill Clinton tells adoring, capacity crowd at CNE he hopes U.S. will follow Canada this year in adopting universal health care. "I hope [late U.S. senator Ted Kennedy's] lifetime dream that America finally will follow Canada, and every other advanced nation in the world, in providing affordable health care to all of our people will pass," former U.S. president tells audience of 12,000 Saturday at CNE's BMO Field. Photo: Darren Calabrese, CP.

Why Canada was late entering recession, is early to emerge. Analysis shows without reliance on exports, Canada might have dodged this downturn, as it did the post-9/11 slump. Sum total of recessionary damage: 414,000 lost jobs, first export deficit in decades, massive hangover in future from deficit-financed stimulus.

Incredibly, devastating global downturn too short-lived to result in meaningful reforms in financial-markets behaviour or new system for worldwide coordination to avert next catastrophe. We could quote an anti-capitalism hippie weirdo freak on this, but warning comes from expert at one of world's most venerable investment banking firms. In note to clients, Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, writes:

"The crisis is of historic proportions by many metrics. Yet in some ways it was not strong enough to force a restructuring of the world economy...The failure to take advantage of the crisis to put economies on a more balanced footing will have far reaching consequences..."

New Japanese government takes office today amid uncertainty. After breaking decades of near-monopoly rule by LDP, Yukio Hatoyama-led Democrats take office with little governing experience. Israel meanwhile indicts former PM Olmert on fraud charges. Olmert’s three predecessors in office faced corruption allegations.

Opel saga taking bad turn for Magna. GM stalling for time, as I've previously surmised, in hopes of clinging to Opel-Vauxhall once new German government elected late next month. Sources speculate German Chancellor Merkel (left) snookered by Detroit. Further evidence "new GM" refuses to focus on key N.A. market is $293-million deal to flesh out its Chinese offerings, adding trucks to its Chinese line-up of cars and minivans.

Green shoots: IPO boom in offing. Hyatt Hotels and Dollar Stores among giants poised to tap equity markets this year, after two years of pent-up demand while markets slumped.

Scotiabank and BMO chief executives detail their strategies in a global market still fraught with uncertainties.

In stunning reversal, Florida posts net drop in population latest 12-month period. Sunshine State, fourth-largest, has only known growth over past century. But lately hard hit by foreclosures, job losses, and net out-migration. William Frey, demographer at Brookings Institution, tells NYT:

“I don’t know if you can take a whole state to a psychiatrist, but the whole Florida economy was based on migration flows.”

Small but discernible exodus of Facebook users. Commercialism, arrogance, and privacy fears have turned many users against the social-networking site for adults. Facebook defector Leif Harmsen tells NYT:

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us. It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

Reading blogs ranks second only to social-network visits among adult Internet users. Close to 40% of Web users are regular blog readers. (See chart at left.)

In San Francisco marathons, runners shunning Nike and other special-purpose shoes for thin togs that literally fit like a glove or going barefoot. They point to studies showing expensive running gear has little effect on performance.

EU members as, and sometimes more, productive than U.S. despite more generous EU holidays. Against average of 25 days off in U.S, EU average is 34.4 days, with the most pocketed in Lithuania (41), France and Finland (40 each). Yet OECD finds Belgium (30) and the Netherlands (28) are almost 2 percent more productive than the US, while Luxembourg (32 days) is whopping 27% more efficient. Even France is just 2% less productive, despite 37-hour work week.

Newsweek wonders if the epidemic of proven and alleged plagiarism - from Harvard students to debut novelists (Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life) to high-profile pundits (Maureen Dowd) - is an unavoidable tic. "Could they be guilty of psychological sloppiness rather than fraud? Could the real offense be disregard for the mind's subliminal kleptomania? And if it is real, is unconscious copying (or "cryptomnesia" to those who study the phenomenon) preventable?"

Ted Kennedy's written message to Pope Benedict XVI, conveyed by Obama on Vatican visit several weeks ago, partially revealed during late senator's funeral Saturday:

“Even though I am ill, I’m committed to do everything I can do to achieve access to health care to everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life.” 

 

Funeral procession for late U.S. senator Ted Kennedy makes its way to Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday.

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Quote of the day

"I think it's a real city of the future. I think having that big windmill ... is a signal to people from all over the world that make the journey from the airport [to] downtown that you're interested in the future. I like it because it's a diverse city. I like it because it's a friendly place." -Bill Clinton, asked during the Q&A session of his CNE appearance Saturday what he best liked about Toronto, where he has been a frequent visitor since retirement from the presidency in 2000. Toronto's one power generating windmill, a demonstration project that most days produces enough power to heat a birdhouse, is near BMO Field, where Clinton spoke. 

For the purposes of this blog, the inception of the Great Recession in the U.S., the epicentre of the crisis, is taken as the start date for the global slump. The U.S. has been in recession since December 2007.