US Election: Fraud’s Ugly Head Materializing?

Despite the massive leads reported in favour of Barack Obama, a lot of stories are popping up concerning election fraud, voting issues and problems with electronic voting machines.

This BBC story is one of the earlier ones that I’ve seen, but a search on US election fraud (especially with What Really Happened ) will reveal that the problems are ubiquitous and should be something to be worried about.

Here’s another link. Are most of the reports are coming from outside the US? Stay tuned.

What will you do if the Cons steal another election? If you’re an American, will you finally do something to show your disgust?

Net Neutrality: TV Broadcasters Oppose Whitespace Program

In the US, TV broadcasters have officially filed their opposition to any plan to leverage available ‘white space’, or unused broadband wireless airwaves for public use. They argue that transmitting wireless broadband on white spaces could interfere with TV signals.

Original story here.

I’m not an expert in this field, but the claim that airwaves will interfere with broadcasters doesn’t make a lot of sense. For years, the strategy of cable suppliers has been to hook the cable into homes, creating a network that only they can control.

Now, with public white space, they’re claiming interference, but what would transmissions interfere with if all cable and ‘broadcast’ stations are deliverd through broadcast?

Anyways, that’s a tangent that will probably get me hung up on details that I’m under-informed on.

Instead, what struck me when reading this article is the idea that we should be looking into a similar program here in Canada, but the core consideration being a publicly-run and owned transmission network for broadband that would rival Bell and Rogers.

For a while, I’ve been preaching that the official mandate of the CBC should be expanded to make the Internet a social and public asset so that we don’t face issues like throttling and if we get our act together and elect the right government, maybe we’ll be able to do this. Don’t expect any miracles with the current government, though

Liberal democrats more active online

Research here.

This is an interesting article, but covers the US only.

Interesting why? Well, I suppose it’s because it offers up some hope for the world in that if we (being liberal democrats or activists) are actually more active than conservatives, we’ll eventually turn things around.

The only challenge is fragmentation. In Canada, during the last election, the number of activist causes, groups, campaigns and other efforts ranked in the thousands. For the first time, it seemed like everyone with a cause was out there vocalizing it.

However, in speaking, there is no listening.

I feel compelled to wonder if there’s some great aggregator of causes that can act as a filter for interested activists. If anyone knows of such a tool, please let me know. Of course, I’d also be interested to know your thoughts on the realistic feasibility of such a tool. Do we want ‘aggregation’ of causes or are we content with the islands that we create for ourselves? If it’s the latter, let me remind you that the Reformers, Alliance dudes, Conservatives and PCs all put aside any differences and organized under one banner.

Is there a way for us to do the same?

Responses to Call to Action on Financial ‘Crisis’

As a reminder, it’s my belief that the financial ‘crisis’ was manufactured by those who see a turning of the page of history. ‘They’ are taking action now to deplete the system of any financial / fiscal strength and are leaving the rest of the world to lick its wounds after the US election in November, one which will surely be historical in and of itself.

The financial ‘crisis’ is being generated by the gurus who brought us disaster capitalism and they won’t rest until the entire planet is indebted to them, mortgaged to the teeth so that the sole purpose of the planet’s inhabitants will be to pay interest for the rest of time.

I’ve been pushing the audience of this and other blogs to act, and the first article that I’ve found of interest is this one, provided by the Socialist Project . It is, in fact, a declaration of the International Political Economy Conference in Caracas, October 11, 2008. I’ve pasted the bulk of it for your review:

Academics and researchers from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Phillipines, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela participated in The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis, held in Caracas from the 8 to 11 October 2008. The conference stimulated a wide ranging debate on the current economic and financial health of the global economy, the new perspectives and the challenges to the governments and peoples of the South posed by the international financial crisis.

The meeting concluded that the situation has worsened in the last few weeks. It has progressed rapidly from being a series of crises in the financial markets of countries in the centre and has turned into an extremely serious international crisis. This meant that countries in the South are in a very difficult situation.

The crisis threatens the real economy and, if energetic and effective actions are not taken immediately, all peoples in the world could be drastically punished; especially the least protected and most neglected sectors.

The vulnerability of our currencies, the financial imbalances and the serious recession that looms large give the lie to the neoliberal myth about the benefits of deregulating markets and the solidity and trustworthiness of the existing financial institutions; the former also clearly bring into question the foundations of the current capitalist system.

The contributions made to the conference shone the spotlight on the way the crisis, which began in August 2007, has developed and on the failure of the ever larger concessions, bailouts and privileges provided by state intervention in developed capitalist countries to save the dregs of an already non-functional world financial system.

We denounce the attempt to make the overall world system carry the cost of the financial bailout thus aggravating the situation of poverty, unemployment and exploitation experienced by the world’s workers and peoples.

Neither the colossal state interventionism seen over the last few weeks to rescue institutions dismembered and drained dry by speculation, nor massive public indebtedness are plausible ways to get out of the crisis. The existing dynamic encourages new rounds of capital concentration and, if the peoples do not firmly oppose this, it is becoming perilously likely that restructuring will occur simply to save privileged sectors. This could mean there is a danger of capitalism returning to an authoritarian way of functioning, since in the North an increase in discrimination and racism towards immigrants from countries in the South has already been noted – which is something extremely regressive.

If the current restructuring the capitalist system continues down the same road, there will be enormous productive and social costs and the already fragile sustainablity of the environment may suffer even more damage.

The need to reform the international economic and financial structure is today unavoidable. Those who think this also believe that it is necessary to find a post-capitalist solution; in Venezuela this is referred to as Twenty First Century Socialism.

In a moment as critical as this, national and regional policies must give priority to social spending and to protecting natural and productive resources. States must introduce urgent financial regulation measures to protect savings, to keep stimulating production and must fight off the dangers implicit in a lack of regulation by immediately implementing exchange and capital movement controls.

It will therefore be essential to develop the highest possible degree of balanced regional complementation and trade integration by reinforcing industrial, agricultural, energy and infrastructural capacities. Initiatives such as ALBA and the Bank of the South must extend their radius of action and move their perspective towards that of a alternative form of greater integration which includes a new common currency. This is so we can move towards creating a new word financial architecture which will make it viable for the south to be involved in a different way in the international division of labour.

In this context it is necessary to evaluate a series of contributions and proposals from the social economy which seek to dignify labour and encourage local coordination to combat the impact of the crisis.

On an international level, we must not cease to demand a far-reaching reform of the international monetary and financial system; this entails defending savings and channelling investments into serving the Peoples’ essential needs. The continued re-emergence of a system which favours the central role of speculation, increases economic differences and especially punishes those countries and sectors which are least protected must be prevented.

Therefore new (multilateral) economic institutions must be created on new bases; they must have the authority and the instruments to be able to act against the anarchy of speculation. Hence it has become indispensable that national authorities intervene urgently in ways that challenge the basic workings of the market and protect the finances of the peoples affected. The crisis has created common interests among the peoples of all nations.

Based on these analyses and considerations, The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis has reached the following
Conclusions and Recommendations for Action

We begin with the following characterisation of the international economic situation;

We find ourselves in an unprecedented international situation. The economic and financial crisis has worsened and accelerated greatly in the last few days. Its future development, as well as being difficult to foresee could take on, from one day to the next, dramatic overtones.

The initial epicentre of the crisis was in the United States and on the stock markets but the crisis is now a world crisis which is affecting the whole financial system and is increasingly contaminating the productive apparatus. The crisis is having a particular impact now on Eastern and Western Europe.

In spite of the initial expectations that Latin America could remain outside the crisis and that it is “shielded,” there are already very convincing signs that the sub continent is certain to be affected. We can not only expect a prolonged decrease in foreign trade but are certain to be hit by a very violent financial crash – and soon. The more internationalised the banking system and stock exchange the greater its fragility.

We are making these suggestions well aware that in any crisis there are always winners and losers. We are strongly in favour of taking those measures which ensure the welfare and rights of our peoples, of citizens in general and not in favour of coming to the aid of the bankers responsible for the crisis as they are doing in Europe and the United States.

Given this new situation and the fact that it is worsening at an accelerated rate we think it is necessary to make the following recommendations for action, some of which will have to be implemented by taking urgent political decisions at the very highest levels.

Therefore, consideration should be given to calling an immediate Extraordinary Summit of Latin American and Caribbean presidents or at least of those of UNASUR. Either or both of these would be presided over by a large popular mobilisation of our peoples.

ON THE BANKING SYSTEM

Given the collapse of the international financial system, states in the region should immediately take charge of their banking systems using controls, intervention and nationalisation without compensation following the principle enshrined in the new Ecuadorian constitution which forbids the state to accept responsibility for private debts. (Article 290, point 7: “it is forbidden for the state to accept responsibility for private debts”).

The reason for these measures is to prevent capital fleeing abroad, a run on currencies, the transference of funds from the branches of foreign banks to their head offices and to prevent banks from freezing credit by not lending the funds they receive.

The off shore banking systems of every country must be shut down, for under current circumstances, when liquidity problems are causing money to be siphoned off from the periphery, they are an extremely dangerous haven from regulations and fiscal controls.

The banks’ books must be opened; bank oversight must be strengthened as must the mechanisms of strict regulation which make the real situation of national banking systems transparent for they are the institutions into which the populations’ savings are deposited. (Given that financial services are public services) One of these measure must guarantee there is a minimum amount of domestic investment in the liquid assets of the system (coefficient of domestic liquidity).

Popular economic activities for development and not for profit must be encouraged and administered by populations living in the areas where such bodies are located.

If the state does intervene they must recover the costs of the bailout from the banks’ property and have the right to do so from the property of the shareholders and managers.

THE NEW FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE

The lack of coordinated monetary policies causes a “competitive devaluations” war which makes the crisis worse and unleashes rivalry between our economies thus preventing a coordinated response from the region and even creates structural threats to the progress of initiative towards integration, such as UNASUR. Therefore, clear signs that there will be a Latin American monetary agreement should be given which will straight away make evident the additional opportunities for “shielding” our macro-economies. Thus, defining a system of payment settlements based on a basket of Latin American monies will provide each country with additional sources of liquidity which will allow them to distance themselves from the logic of the dollar crisis.

Along the same lines as creating institutions to “shield” our economies we will need more coordination between our central banks and must go beyond neoliberal dogma by managing our international reserves in a much more efficient and timely way. So it is important to move forward on the proposal for a Fund of the South that is an alternative to the IMF with liquidity available for emergencies in exchequers (national treasuries) or balance of payments.

Making good use of the bigger surplus reserves of each country brought about by the creation of a payment settlement system (regional credit transfer rights) and by the existence of the Common Fund of the South, resources can be mobilised to get the Bank of the South up and running straightaway ensuring that it will function democratically and not reproduce the logic of the multilateral financial credit organisations. This bank must be the heart of this process of transforming the already existing network of Latin American bancos de fomento whose mission is the reproduction of productive apparati based on fundamental human rights. We understand all of the foregoing in way something similar to what was emphasised in the Quito Ministerial Declaration of 3 May of this year where it said “The peoples gave their governments the mandate to provide the region with new tools for integration for development. These should be designed on transparent, participatory bases and accountable to those who issued the mandate.”

It is essential to ratify exchange controls in the countries where they exist and to establish them where there don’t to protect reserves and prevent capital outflows.

In the context of the suspension of payments imposed by the crisis on the international financial system it is imperative that the countries of the region consider suspending payment of public debt. This measure is intended to temporarily protect sovereign resources threatened by the crisis and avoid an emptying out of the national treasuries

Latin America and the Caribbean should learn from what is happening in Europe where each country is trying to solve the crisis on its own. This makes it imperative to bolster the mechanisms of integration being developed in the region.

SOCIAL EMERGENCY

We propose that the widest possible degree of national and peoples’ sovereignty be exercised over natural resources, in order that they be rationally exploited and their prices defended to benefit the peoples.

We propose setting up a Regional Social Emergency Fund to ensure food and energy sovereignty right away and to deal with the acute problems of migrations and reduction in remittances. This fund could operate out of the Bank of the South or the Alba Bank.

Pursuant to the principle of not rescuing bankers but rather our populations, public budgets must be maintained for social spending and we must contemplate an increase in these budgets to combat the imminent effects of the international crisis on our peoples; our priorities are employment security, universal income, public health and education, housing.

Establishing anti-inflationary mechanisms, such as price controls which conserve and increment low wages and pensions, subsidies etc, which play a role in redistributing income and wealth.

FINANCIAL ORGANISATIONS.

The international financial crisis has revealed the complicity of the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB with transnational bankers who have caused the current collapse with its horrific social consequences. The loss of prestige of these bodies is obvious. This is the opportunity for the countries in the region to follow Bolivia’s example and withdraw from ICSID (International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes) and to take up Venezuela’s call to withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank and begin to help to build a new international financial architecture.

We convene a second International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis to be held in the first four months of 2009.

Caracas, 11 October 2008

What do you think of this declaration? Is there anything you would add? Is there anything that doesn’t make sense to you? Is it garbage? Given that this is a declaration for Latin America and protects the interests of Latin Americans, what should Canada do? Should we write our own declaration? Or do we hook our anchor to the sinking ships of the US and Europe? Is there a way to create international conciliation without dependence?

Tell me. Please post your comments below.

A Tape the McCain Team May Not Want You To See

Angry thugs. Threats of incarceration. All in a day’s work for a bunch of neo-cons that have to BUY volunteers.

For Whom the Bailout Tolls

This story offers a nice commentary on some of the excesses associated with the bailouts.

AIG, in particular, stands out. Words like greed and gluttony come to mind. Excessive greed. Excessive gluttony. Why these clowns were bailed out at all is beyond me.

There are "claw back" provisions in the big $700 billion bailout passed by Congress three weeks ago, requiring that financial institutions get money back from their senior executives, if the payments were "based on statements of earnings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to be materially inaccurate."

But the executive pay limits in the legislation apparently have so many loopholes you could fly a fleet of Gulfstream corporate jets through them. Oregon Congressman Peter de Fazio caught at least seven, "that will protect their outrageous paychecks and golden parachutes," he wrote fellow Democratic House members, adding, "Imagine how many more loopholes the Wall Street lawyers will find."

No doubt the nine banks into which the US is planning to inject billions in capital – again, all taxpayer dollars – have their lawyers searching for those escape hatches. Writing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati of the Institute for Policy Studies calculated that last year the CEO’s of those nine banks took home "on average, $32.2 million each, nearly triple the average CEO pay at the 500 biggest US companies. This is more than $600,000 a week." Apiece.

Bloomberg News columnist Jonathan Weil figures that since the start of fiscal 2004, the once Mighty Five of Wall Street – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – lost around $83 billion in stock market value. But they reported employee compensation of around $239 billion. In other words, the engineers who dug this disastrous hole paid themselves almost three dollars for every dollar they lost.

The cost to the taxpayer of all the bailouts, as calculated by the internet investigative newsroom ProPublica.org, is a whopping $8,750 per household, more than two and a half times what lucky us got to fork over 20 years ago during the savings and loan crisis.

But the masters of the universe are just fine, thank you, in no small part due to the tolerance and largesse of their guru, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, late of Goldman Sachs, where Forbes magazine reports that during a 32-year-career he accumulated more than $700 million. He said limiting compensation too punitively might prevent some institutions from participating in his plan to save the economy.

…

Testifying before the House Budget Committee this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke agreed that homeowners in jeopardy of foreclosure need help. "I agree that stopping preventable foreclosures is extremely important," he said. "I hope we continue to look for ways to do that."

But so far the government and the businesses bailed out haven’t looked very hard. They’ve done little or nothing and it’s every man for himself, devil take the hindmost. In his history of the 1929 market crash, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, "The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil."

In other words, virtually nonexistent, somewhere around zero. In other words, my fellow Americans, look out below. Do not ask for whom the bailout tolls. It tolls for thee.

Financial Crisis: Seeking a non-neo-liberal solution

I’ve done a little bit of searching to back up this request, but didn’t come up with much.

Basically, I believe that we have the wrong people at the table discussing the financial future of the planet. As these meetings transpire with folks like Sarcozy, Harper (&Flaherty), Brown, the IMF and the World Bank and other neo-liberal institutions, we put our fate into the hands of the people that created the crisis in the first place.

If that happens, things will get tremendously worse, and I do not use that word with any sense of hyperbole. Taxes will sky-rocket to pay for the theft that is happening on a daily basis, basic public services will be reduced or eliminated on a global scale and public infrastructure will be sold off at fire-sale prices to the only folks that are sitting on cash: the mega-corporations that are consuming the globe on our behalf. Expect things like tap water to become polluted and electricity to become an extreme luxury that only the super-rich can enjoy.

Those who protest will be imprisoned or beaten by hired mercenary thugs.

If you don’t believe me, dig into the history books a little. Chile in the 70s under Pinochet. In fact, most of Latin America in the 60s and 70s. Germany in the 30s. Poland in the 80s. Afghanistan and Iraq today. The list goes on.

Despite the doom and gloom, at the core of my being, I remain an optimist, but only if we collectivley accept the problem (as identified above) and then act on the issue, creating a solution that the rest of the world can stomach.

The are a lot of options. We can protest. We can rant in blogs. We can cry in our pillows at the end of the day.

However, I believe that we can also develop a plan that is bullet-proof, inclusive of all of the world’s citizens and not just a select few, and make it digital and open-source so that it grow organically.

As I mentioned at the outset of this article, I haven’t found a lot of work that’s being done in this space, so we need to act fast and we need to act in a comprehensive, agreeable manner.

I’ll host the discussion, I’ll organize the materials and I’ll even get together with anyone I know that has the pull to actually present something like this to the UN or other governing bodies. If I don’t do this, I won’t be able to sleep knowing that I’m not acting on the most disgusting level of financial corruption that the planet has ever seen.

So … who’s with me? I know from my site stats that there are hundreds of folks reading this blog and that they know tonnes of people who could also provide some input into this model. Our future depends on it.

By the way, we’ve got until the main summit in mid-November to present our views on this.

rabble.ca BETA site

rabble.ca has a beta site that is about to be finalized. Check here for details

rabble is one of Canada’s leading independent news and media information sites and if you don’t follow their content, you may want to. They’ve drawn in talent from across the country (and occasionally, the globe) and their authors and journalists have an exceptional reputation.

rabble is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to independent, progressive media in Canada and we need more – a lot more – sites like it. There are several publications and independent magazines sites like This , Briarpatch and The Tyee and the list is growing.

If you have a few favourite independent media sites, please list them in the comments. I’d like to start helping people find a complete inventory of these publishers so that we can start putting together a loose ‘network’.

In the interim, here are the details from their press release:

rabble.ca raises a ruckus and launches its new site today

News site also announces partnership with the Council of Canadians, United Steelworkers, and Douglas Coldwell Foundation

TORONTO, Oct. 23 /CNW/ – rabble.ca, Canada’s most widely read independent news media site, introduces three new strategic partnerships today and launches its newly designed website: you can find it at beta.rabble.ca.

"We’re very proud to be introducing new community partnerships together with this relaunch," said rabble.ca publisher, Kim Elliott. "In these challenging economic and political times, we are very pleased to introduce a new strategic partnership with Canada’s most influential activist-based organization, the Council of Canadians."

"rabble is a crucial resource for achieving media democracy in Canada in this era of increasing corporate media centralization," says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and outspoken advocate for media democracy. "That’s why the Council of Canadians supports rabble."

Also announced today are new partnerships with the Douglas Coldwell Foundation, partner on the soon to be released on-line Activist Toolkit, as well as with the United Steelworkers, who join rabble today as the sponsor of rabbletv – rabble’s cutting edge new media component featuring live and pre-recorded online video.

rabble.ca’s new website, which can be viewed at beta.rabble.ca, offers visitors an opportunity to provide feedback on the newly redesigned website, and introduces state of the art interactive features including the live streaming capacity of rabbletv, Canada’s largest progressive podcast network, and other interactive and sharing tools.

The new website is built on an open-source platform. "rabble.ca is happy to contribute back to the open source community it has been built upon," explained Elliott. "rabble.ca developers have released modules back to the drupal community for other organizations to make use of and to promote democratic media tools."

Building on their acclaimed and popular election blog, rabble will also be introducing regular blogs on the website. "With the election blog, for the first time, I felt like progressives in Canada had a real daily alternative to mainstream media analysis," explained Derrick O’Keefe, editor of rabble.ca.

"We intend to build on that and make rabble the ‘go to’ place for common sense analysis devoid of corporate media spin in this time of economic crisis and minority government."

rabble.ca chose to relaunch on Media Democracy Day, a day founded to challenge media concentration in Canada and to recognize the power of alternative media. Media Democracy Day activities take place throughout the day today at the University of Toronto, and conclude this evening with a roundtable debrief on the federal election, featuring Maude Barlow, Murray Dobbin, Jessica Yee, Anne Lagac?-Dowson and Duncan Cameron, and a celebration with LAL, Mraya (with Maryem Tollar) and Lorraine Segato at the Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto Ontario.

Why NAFTA Sucks: DOW to Sue Canada for anti-pesticide laws

Original story here from Canadian Newswire.

This story is a little hard to figure out, but it seems like DOW, the company that gave us Bhopal and Napalm, is suing the government of Canada through a backdoor policy with NAFTA known as ‘Chapter 11′. Apparently, with Chapter 11, companies that are ‘wrongfully’ affected by the legislation of any Canadian body can seek damages.

I did a quick search on ‘Chapter 11 settlements’ and found this chart . While there aren’t many cases that actually have an impact on Canada (it’s actually the other way around), I’m surprised that this kind of mechanism hasn’t received more scrutiny in the grand scheme of things.

Does it protect Canadians or Canadian companies? I doubt it.

Does it prevent Canadians from doing what they want to do without facing challenges from US or Mexican companies? THAT’S the big question. What will happen in a fragmented marketplace when a conglomerate can claim that ‘local’ is illegal under the NAFTA? What about fair-trade policies? What happens when other pieces of legislation are brought into question, discouraging lawmakers from being proactive in the first place?

Obviously, for a legal expert, these seem like pretty naive questions, but for your average Canadian, these types of challenges and these mechanisms could be very damaging to new businesses and efforts to shift away from a traditional way of doing business (ie. the corporate, mega-co kind of way).

What are your thoughts on this?

CALGARY, Oct. 22 /CNW/ – Dow AgroSciences LLC today confirms that it has submitted a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration for breach of Canada’s obligations under NAFTA.

In filing this Notice, Dow AgroSciences alleges that the Government of Canada has breached its obligations under Section A of Chapter 11 of NAFTA, under Article 1105 (Fair and Equitable Treatment in Accordance with International Law) and Article 1110 (Expropriation).

Dow AgroSciences bases its claim on the actions of the Government of Quebec in starting a campaign in 2002 to ban 2,4-D, a Dow AgroSciences pesticide product, without any scientific basis for such a ban.

That ban went into force on April 3, 2006 despite the Government of Quebec’s own advice that there was no scientific basis for this ban and despite numerous attempts by Dow AgroSciences to work with the Government of Quebec in using a science-based, transparent policymaking framework for the decision affecting 2,4-D. The Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada are both parties to NAFTA.

"This challenge is aimed at ensuring that important public policy decisions are based on scientific evidence, predictability and a clear set of principles, and are managed within a transparent framework," said Jim Wispinski, President and CEO of Dow AgroSciences. "The actions of the Government of Quebec are tantamount to a blanket ban based on non-scientific
criteria, and we are of the view that this is in breach to certain provisions of NAFTA. We don’t welcome this step, but feel it is necessary given the circumstances."

Dow AgroSciences manufactures 2,4-D for sale to companies around the world, including Canada. Regulators in several countries, including Canada, the United States and in the European Union, have all reviewed 2,4-D on the basis of modern science and concluded that it is safe for use according to label instructions. On May 16, 2008, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency announced the results of an extensive review on 2,4-D. The
PMRA concluded that 2,4-D can be used safely according to label directions for a variety of lawn, turf and agricultural applications, and that the product meets all of Canada’s pesticide health and safety regulations, which are among the toughest and most stringent in the world.

The Notice of Intent was filed with The Department of Justice and is available online at

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/disp-diff/

gov.aspx?lang=en. Dow AgroSciences is seeking a $2 million CAD settlement, plus legal costs, in filing its Notice.

Banks to Sit on Cash

In the US, bankers are admitting that they will likely sit on most of the cash that they’ve received from their government, mainly because ‘no one is going to lend a nickel until the economy turns’.

So, as the media hyped up the ‘crisis’ and my dad nearly had a stroke because of the stress levels it induced, banks are going to sit on the sidelines and weather the storm … that they created.

In Canada, the Conservatives responded by handing over $25 billion in cash to the banks in exchange for questionable loans, freeing up assets to improve the level of liquidity. Again, are they just going to sit on this cash while the economy dwindles? If they are, what will it take to get them to mobilize and invest this money in Canada?

Source here.

Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Monthly Archives: October 2008