Any spare change?

So, I'm no financial expert, just a guy trying to do the right things. Like many people I have savings that rely on the health of the financial markets so I've been as concerned as the next bloke about the plummet of the numbers over the past few weeks. There's been a lot of talk about the sub-prime crisis, the broken financial system, government bailouts, looming recession, financial crisis, etc etc.


But let's be clear on one thing: this whole thing was caused by bad business practices. This is a crisis of greed.


A stable society places it's trust in the law, government, health, education and finance. If we act within the law we expect to live in relative freedom and safety, and we also expect that those who do not obey our laws are punished appropriately. We trust those whom we elect to represent our needs. If we are sick, we expect to be given competent and appropriate care. We expect to be educated without bias or propaganda. And, when we give our money to banks or to investment institutions, we trust that those bodies will temper their decisions and actions with objectivity and morality.

What we are seeing now is a betrayal of that trust in the banking system. In the U.S., the constant drive for financial growth-spurts and elephantine profits has resulted in a plague of sub-prime lending. In short, money was thrown at borrowers who were unlikely to pay it back.

And that is the root of the problem; very simple but requiring a complex fix.

When it became clear that this course of action would affect some executive bonuses, the banks tried to fix the problem by putting the financial equivalent of short skirts and lipstick on the debts and pimping them off to other banks and brokerages as attractive investment vehicles. Again, greed was the driving factor, making a quick buck out of the common man's misfortune.

But this was like putting a band aid on leprosy and, very quickly, these investments were dumped like the crack whores they were. Investors moved into commodities for safety, driving the prices of oil, grain and others through the roof. Banks reigned back on lending to each other and to businesses, which suffered or died, as did some major U.S. financial institutions. The rest of the financial world, being an active participant in the credit market orgy, felt the same pain as the money-men realised the mistakes they'd made.

But this orgy between the banks, this selfish, lazy, inbreeding has produced offspring.
What we have now is a six-fingered, buck-toothed, sloping-foreheaded financial system that has low intelligence, doesn't really understand what is going on and is easily swayed by outside suggestion.

Which brings me to the subject of George Bush.

It's interesting to consider that George's eight-year term has been bookended by two of the biggest crises the world has ever known. It started with 9/11 and ended with the near collapse of a financial system that, if it did go down, would take most of us with it like a suicide bomber.

Think of your pension, savings, mortgage, ability to borrow money. Think of how society would react if these things were suddenly lost.

It would be easy to blame George for this, last great exclamation mark on his presidency but it wouldn't be fair. This has a much more fundamental cause, that being our perpetual drive for growth, it being the fact that the very mechanics of our society are based on greed, on making more money than the other guy, on the mantra of EBITDA and on the paradox of the investor as being both served and screwed.

It would be nice to think that a better way could come out of all of this but it won't. The mother of all corrections will occur (helped along by those dumb taxpayer schmucks) and we'll all carry on, buying SUV's and MP3's, ignoring the third world and worrying about China (who, if you're American or European, you now owe a lot of money.)

I would worry about it more, but I'm going to play on my XBOX360.

If You Had a Robot, Would You Want it to Suck or Blow?

We just bought one of those iRobot Roomba things that cleans the floor for you. What's next, a pill that turns into a roast-beef dinner when you pour a drop of water on it?

To think that it is now possible to buy a "robot" that actually does something useful! I hear iRobot's next product will be a Prime Ministeroomba.

I was sceptical about the concept of a totally automatic vacuum cleaner robot at first but this does actually seem to work, not to mention the added value my kids get by following it around and patting it. It's appearance is a bit dissappointing, no mechanical claw arms or red glowing eyes and not on single laser-phasor-plasma-deathray thing and the bugger hasn't said 'exterminate' once since we turned it on but I suppose you can't have everything.

A robot vacuum cleaner - my, how times have changed; I can remember when we used to sprinkle bits of bacon on the floor and let the dog lick the carpet.

59.1%

Well, the election is over. Thank goodness for that.

And who won? Well, nobody really.

So, what changed? Ehm, well, nothing really.

On Tuesday, Canada had a minority government with a Conservative Prime Minister and today it has, yes you guessed it, a minority government with a Conservative Prime Minister.
Actually, something did change; the parties and the country spent a lot of money on an election that changed nothing. But at least it 'cleared the air' as Jim Prentice said on CBC radio this morning.

Cleared the air?

That's like me demolishing my house and building a new one because I had an argument with my wife in the kitchen.

I also heard some radio pundit say that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Aberta and BC are now resoundingly Conservative. Surely a bit of a stretch when you consider that only 59.1% of the electorate voted. The only resounding thing about that is the lack of belief in democracy.

But, actually, democracy is working, just not in a good way.

Consider the scenario: on the Right you have the Tories, one party, a leader with stoic hair, a clearly understandable manifesto-of-the-me, something that people might not like but, at least, they get it.

Then, on the other side, there are three parties with very similar ideologies, the Liberals, the NDP and Lizzy's Green Party, who are all trying to do the right thing for society but with different approaches. They also fight just like three siblings, one bald, one with penchant for childlike simplification and one who can hardly speak English.

So, people have a choice: vote for a single right of centre organisation or dilute your vote into tense pool of leftism.

For many liberal-minded citizens, this choice is unnaceptable so they just haven't bothered. In this case, the Left has diversified just too widely.

So, is there a solution? I think the only way to restore voter willingness will be a reduction of the number of parties on the left, either through consolidation or attrition but the question is, does the left have what it takes to do the right thing for Canada?

We shouldn't have to wait too long to find out; there is already talk of another election in "a year or two" - those crazy pundits.
Hey, what else are we going to spend our surplus on? America has the sub-prime crisis - perhaps Canada will be the first country in history to experience an election-led recession.

This Post is Approved by Agents Acting for the Badminton Party

I was driving home on Monday night listening to CBC radio when I found myself in the cutthroat world of the political broadcast. Apparently, CBC reserves a 10 minute slot, from 8.50pm to 9.00pm, for parties to push their messages, free of charge. Predictably, about half the slot was taken up with the Tories radio ad (one of those that's supposed to sound like a real call-in show but doesn't) which was repeated twice just to make sure the listeners are doubly pissed off.

Then there was some woman whose manifesto was based upon her belief that America, Canada and Mexico are trying to create some evil superstate (presumably to be called Camerico - A Halliburton Country).

Then came the Marijuana Party whose desire for political office seems to revolve around the legalisation of an illegal recreational drug. I couldn't help wondering if this is the best use of the political process; create a party and try to get elected to federal government because you disagree with something that's illegal. I mean, there are things I would like to do without being arrested but I would never dream of starting a Speeding on the Highway Party or a Naked Party or even a Bagpipes after 11pm Party.

Just how badly does this guy want a spliff that he would try to appropriate the system upon which we rely to provide us with security, stability and the chance to look down our noses at America, just so he can get a guilt-free high? It just seems so selfish; I want to get stoned, Man, and I want the WHOLE country to know it! And believe me, he did sound stoned on the radio.

Forget the common good, ending poverty, fair and free health care, affordable housing, the environment and the economy; let's just have a political system based on things we like to do; I'll tell my son to form the Bakugan Party, my wife to campaign for cheap shoes and I'll work tirelessly to have sleeping late on a Sunday written into our national legislation!!!

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there are enough jokers in the 'proper' political parties; if want a joint that badly, join the Liberals.