Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. Continue Reading »
The new GM could fit in the trunk of a Volkswagen
In the bizarro backward-land that is the North American auto-rescue world, the industry would be saved by chopping it into an itty-bitty, teenie-weenie fraction of what it once was. Continue Reading »
By Kevin Libin National Post February 7, 2009.
By the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed his nation in his first radio fireside chat one March evening in 1933, America’s banking system was on the brink of collapse. A fifth of the country’s financial institutions were out of business. Citizens, nervous about losing their savings, had started a run on the remaining banks’ cash, preferring the safety of mattresses. Roosevelt, having ordered the banks closed, spoke to a rattled and frightened nation. There was, to be blunt, not much stirring in his words. Continue Reading »
By Peter Foster
National Post, January 29, 2009. 7:03 PM
The typically pretentious theme of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos is “Shaping the Post-Crisis World.” But didn’t Davos shape the pre-crisis world, and thus the crisis itself? The annual Alpine gabfest has long been the epicentre of ‘globaloney,’ a mixture of serious discussion, subversive ideas and outright flakery. It has certainly never — as some critics believe — been about promoting capitalism. Rather it has always been a mercantilist stew in which big businessmen, big government and big international bureaucracy get together to suck both the collective thumb and the collective teat. Its ideological heart is the impossible UN dream of “global governance,” and of a corporate sector moving “beyond” mere profits to take on the heavy mantles of social responsibility, sustainable development, Global Compacts and Millennium Development Goals. Continue Reading »
Jan 24, 2009 04:30 AM
David Olive
Toronto Star Business Columnist
As with all fads, we should be wary of the deficit chic that has turned the heads of even the most resolute deficit hawks. It will prompt the federal finance minister, Jim Flaherty, in his “stimulus” budget Tuesday to put Canada on the road to a $64 billion deficit over the next two years – surpassing the record $43 billion deficit of the early 1990s that Canadians sacrificed for years to eradicate.
And it’s unlikely to accomplish much. The main reason for this, I suspect, is that Canada is not in an economic crisis at all. Continue Reading »
By: Terence Corcoran:
Give Jim Flaherty high marks for rhetorical restraint: The words “shovel” and “ready” do not make it into the Finance Minister’s budget speech and appear only once in his massive 360-page budget plan. That’s where restraint ends, however.
Otherwise, there’s a shovel on almost every page. Within weeks, all Canadian taxpayers can expect delivery of summary budget documents accompanied by a shovel with a tag that says: Dig a hole, throw in $85-billion, and then hope you can get out of it when its all over, sometime in 2014, unless the fiscal winds shift and it gets deeper and you have to dig some more. Continue Reading »
Almost 20 years ago, I found the following story, as I recall, in one of those kid entertainment booklets at a McDonalds. I have always loved it, but think I have only just begun to understand why.
The Pig and the Bear decided to go into business. “We’ll make lots of money!” they thought.
The Pig baked a bushel of potatoes and the Bear fried a heap of doughnuts.
They went to the market place early in the morning to get the best spots. Nobody was around yet. The morning was clear and chilly. The Bear had a nickel in his coat. After a while, he went over to the Pig’s stand to warm up a little Continue Reading »
By Vaclav Klaus, from the Financial Times as printed in the Financial Post, 01/09/09.
It is a common feeling that the Czech Republic is taking over the European Union presidency at a rather complicated moment, even though almost all “moments” can eventually be called “complicated”. We should not panic and must say “No” to people who – by describing the current moment as an historically unique one – want only to manipulate us. Continue Reading »
Congress and the current Administration will soon determine whether to provide immediate support to the domestic auto industry to help it through one of the most difficult economic times in our nation’s history. Your elected officials must hear from all of us now on why this support is critical to our continuing the progress we began prior to the global financial crisis………………….
As an employee or supplier, you have a lot at stake and continue to be one of our most effective and passionate voices. I know GM can count on you to have your voice heard. Thank you for your urgent action and ongoing support.
Troy Clarke President General Motors North America Continue Reading »
Just like on the good old WWE grunt ’n groan Battles Royale of good vs. evil on TV Wrestling, we’ve got a knock down drag out tussle over our Canadian banks’ lending practices, at this time of financial stress and market illiquidity. It seems that the Canadian banks are not following the government’s script of cranking out bank loans to whatever customers come along, creditworthy or otherwise.
In the one corner is the tough guy team of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney (do I hear a chorus of boos?). And in the other corner is the masked duo of the Rating Agencies (read S&P, Moody’s, DBRS), and the Regulators (read OSFI), both of whom believe in sound lending practices, and the banks’ fiduciary responsibility to its depositors. At stake in this morality play are nothing less than the banks’ independence in assessing risk, and the shareholders’ confidence in the responsible operation of the banks’ day to day lending activities. Continue Reading »
