To The "Thatcherite" commenter

You say that the "markets are beautiful......"

While the "Markets are beautiful", as you say, their 'beauty' can turn ugly as a result of the lack of proper Regulatory mechanisms put in place by a responsible, prescient and unbiased Fed Reserve, Treasury and a government dedicated to protecting the taxpayers' investments!

When Brooksley Born asked Greenspan in '98 to immediately "regulate the Derivatives Casino that was brewing toxic credit default swaps" and proliferating precariously so as to threaten the integrity of financial institutions in the U.S. and infecting the world, she also said "Fraud in the Market must be stopped".

Greenspan's response was "Fraud? What fraud? The free Markets can take care of fraud by themselves...no need to regulate"!!!

Would you say that this irresponsible Reaganite/Thatcherite was right or wrong? And who is now paying for his lack of wisdom and, as he put it to Congress, "I was wrong.....yes, I espoused a failed Ideology"!!!!

Sovereign nations are now attacked by the same "free markets" (Goldman Sachs and Hedge Funds speculative attacked euro's weakest link to prop up their failing U.S. dollar according to the Wall St. Journal's report of a secret meeting by GS and usual suspects hedge funds!!) that failed to protect U.S. citizens and now are threatening the financial stability of our world!

Just a little "ideological fallacy" by Greenspan, Rubin, Summers and Geithner, eh? Give me Brooksley Born's "Canadian regulatory perspective" any day. One of the reasons we as Canadians enjoy financial stability and prosperity (!) which is applauded by the world's economic gurus is that we have had governments in power that respected regulatory imperatives. Thank god, our biggest bank in '98 was not allowed that huge merger and expansion in its markets, and our fiscal prudence is continuing...

Please watch PBS's phenomenal doc. "The Warning"! It will really make you start counting your blessings as Canadian citizens....

Barry Stagg

I gave you a plus 'cause...you're RIGHT! (although I don't agree with your ideological perspective).....

slgam

While the "Markets are beautiful", as you say, their 'beauty' can turn ugly as a result of the lack of proper Regulatory mechanisms put in place by a responsible, prescient and unbiased Fed Reserve, Treasury and a government dedicated to protecting the taxpayers' investments!

When Brooksley Born asked Greenspan in '98 to immediately "regulate the Derivatives Casino that was brewing toxic credit default swaps" and proliferating precariously so as to threaten the integrity of financial institutions in the U.S. and infecting the world, she also said "Fraud in the Market must be stopped".

Greenspan's response was "Fraud? What fraud? The free Markets can take care of fraud by themselves...no need to regulate"!!!

Would you say that this irresponsible Reaganite/Thatcherite was right or wrong? And who is now paying for his lack of wisdom and, as he put it to Congress, "I was wrong.....yes, I espoused a failed Ideology"!!!!

Sovereign nations are now attacked by the same "free markets" (Goldman Sachs and Hedge Funds speculative attacked euro's weakest link to prop up their failing U.S. dollar according to the Wall St. Journal's report of a secret meeting by GS and usual suspects hedge funds!!) that failed to protect U.S. citizens and now are threatening the financial stability of our world!

Just a little "ideological fallacy" by Greenspan, Rubin, Summers and Geithner, eh? Give me Brooksley Born's "Canadian regulatory perspective" any day. And watch PBS's phenomenal doc. "The Warning"! And count your blessings as Canadian citizens....

For those who watched, the best exchange at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was between (Thatcherite) Greenspan and Ms Brooksley E. Born, the former CFTC commodities Regulator chief who tried to stop Greenspan/Rubin/Summers/Geithner gang from deregulating derivatives, but ultimately failed. Born lost the battle and eventually her job. (Now she's the winner of the JFK Profile in Public Courage Award!)

Geenspan's financially myopic support for the lethal financial DERIVATIVES instruments which triggered the crisis was inexcusable and due to his Thatcherite/Reaganite inability to conceive the damage as result of his Failure to Regulate Derivatives in 1998 when Born started her (failed) campaign to educate the "ideologically wrong" (as he admitted to Congress himself!) Greenspan.
Didn't Greenspan, being grilled at the Public Inquiry by the formidable and unlistened to Derivatives expert Brooksley Born.

It is this Thatcherite refusal to accept or foresee the absolute necessity for the Markets to be regulated that brought us in the current world-wide financial mess. So, please, let's look to the facts and not praise unwisely, as Greenspan recently admitted at the Congressional hearings, a "Failed Ideology"....

And please don't forget that 64% of all personal AMERICAN BANKRUPTCIES are caused by "inability to pay medical bills"....Guess our "socialist" single-payer (envied by our cousins down south) state is paying dividends for ALL Canadians. And, also, don't forget that we have a much better educated public in the True North Strong and Free--and thanks to the CBC programming and TVO. (Frankly, the only American channel worth watching is PBS, the rest if political propagandazing and .mindless Paris Hilton/Tiger/Jackson drivel....We must avoid Americanization of our media at all costs if we want to survive intact as a nation--before all our national assets are auctioned off like Nortel and Avro Arrow...

Darren

I, too, am glad CBC is funded by Canadians for Canadians. That's why it wins awards like no other. That's why Mike Duffy of the CTV's formerly biased programming was rewarded with a Senatorial job by our govenrment leaders. When Joan Donaldson formed Newsworld CBS's revenues started rising.
Anyway, why even argue this? The BBC is another success story. I'd rather watch BBC and European News than FOX and MSNBC Paris Hilton drivel any day!
Ontario Hydro and other successful local and federal corporations are doing fine and produce better results than privatized corporations. Americans learned the hard way that the Iraq war benefitted the outside contractors HALIBURTON who made billions from the inability of Bush Jr. to use his government and make civil servants part of the profit-making--instead we have Haliburton putting its billions in offshore and Swiss accounts while being also hired as "private soldiers" to fight the new Obama's Vietnam (AfPak) war that has created 3.5 million refugees in less than a year while Bush created 6 million refugees in Iraq with a million widowed mothers working as "entertainment club hostesses" for fat arab princes in Jordan and Syria. That's privatization at its most productive. We whine about it.

Yest, there are exceptions, but guess which system is producing more for our taxpayers bucks? Single-Payer Healthcare in Canada. And if you read the N>Y. Times you'd see that 65% Americans envy the Canadian system where our GPD portion is only 10% while the Americans are at 18%. There's your argument for "efficiency" for Canada's "sad state of privatization"....Let's be fair and less partisan. Look to the facts.

Tired of the Insults

This is a good post. I feel, as a moderate, that certain "conservative values" are, in fact, the very same values of the CityLibbers you describe and you have a darn good reason to sometimes feel "left out". We tend (I'm often guilty of this) colour our comments for "quick effect" and accuse some one with different views than ours a "wingnut". It is offensive,insulting and, mostly, even though people don't bring this up: UNCANADIAN to vilify someone because of their beliefs. I think the reason the Liberal party (yest, I've voted for them twice in my lifetime and may hold my nose and vote for them again the next time) has been the 'governing party' for years is that they were able to "take the pulse of the electorate" and act much like a "magnet" to attract positions and get voters from all political affiliations.
I think Harper is probably now waking up to this fact and is trying to do the same. I personally feel that Tommy Douglas defined Canada with our Healthcare system that, unlike the U.S. does not cause 64% of all bankruptcies to be the result of inability to pay "medical bills" as in the U.S. (this is statistically proven). We have a lot to be grateful for in this land as we're blessed with a moderate world view (thanks to having a multi-party system where unlike Amerians we do a CHOICE.

Your views would be welcome by the Hillary Clinton Campaign back in 2008 where the so-called "rednecks" were accused, in a professorially arrogant tone caught at a San Frisco multi millionaires Speech engagement!) by Oama as being "bigoted, gun-clinging to their religion and disliking those unlike them"! This was a truly condescending remark that failed to take into account the fact that the Ivory Tower Obama was applying for a job way "above his paygrade". Anyway, Clinton took the more moderate and more realistic way and found that her umbrella got big enough to accommodate ALL Americans. She would have been successful had it not been for the media's biased, and kid-glove treatment of the most inexperienced, unrealistic and inept candidate while bashing Hillary as a "'wingnut" crowd pleaser, etc. It was ugly. We as I said are blessed in this land with democratic principles that in the past half century have made us the wonder of the world! All we need is to work together and stop acting like bullyboys in the schoolyard--all parties! And not lose sight of our mediator role in interntional affairs where Canada has shined....

So, may we prosper in this century....and keep our blessings intact while appreciating them more....
You'd

Gosh, I only thought I'd register my objections to an importation of Bush-style "patriotic" fever news from our southern cousins. I just don't want MY taxpayers dollars spent on advancing the Rush Limbaugh/GlennBeck/Palin agenda of economic and social myopia that brought their land to the edge of bankruptcy!
Now, if Chretien had gone along with Bush Jr. and spent $55 billion on the Iraq War he'd have joined, and if Tommy Douglas back in the 60s did not enlighten our P.M. Lester (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the middle east time bomb clicking at the time!) so Canada would be spending only half (10"%) of its GDP on Healthcare rather than the Yankee's current 18%.....and if ....

if 64% of all Canadians filing for Bankruptcy did so as result of their "inability to pay their medical bills" (as the current situation stands in America).....

You're darn lucky me man you got a multi-partite system of Govenrment here in our Great True North Strong and Free, and not a shortsighted elitist pseudo-conservative CRAP (conservative/Reform/alliance/party) party that "erodes democratic institutions and has a ruthless tactician as its leader" (accoridng to that great socialist rag THE ECONOMIST in its Jan. 10 editorial!)....

Praise Canada and where its leaders have taken us, together with foresight from Chief Dief (who shunned Yanks after they falsified CIA reports to convince Canada to scrap our great Avro Arrow!), great diplomat Lester Pearson, great preachy Tommy Douglas (whom you can thank for not attributing any Canadian bankrutpcy to "medical bills"), Trudeau who, thru his Multicultural Policy rushed Canada into the global sphere that we live in now....

You got a lot to thank the Libs and the NDP and the Bloc (who have acted with more grace and civilized chutzpah than the whole partisan, screaming Baird-bunch of neoCon neanderthals on the Hill...History be your guide, friend.

How true, Dot!

Kory is on the payroll of the PMO and he looks less and less "objective" in his professed route to a new journalism career, for which he is supremely unqualified, and as you so wisely stated, he 'falls short of his own standard"! His motives are not as pure as he'd have us believe! I'm sure Harper and his gang of Christian nationalists (thank God for Marci McDonald's new book that awakens up the most lethargic Canadians among us..) have something evil up their sleeves and Kory is just the messenger of things to come.

God Save Canada from the Americanization (Jerry Springer-time) of our Canadian news. I don't want to be forced to pay a darn penny of my wages for these Republican prayer sessions! I think Canadians are....."a cut above" the unthinking American propagandizing of the news....hope i' m not proven wrong with this Kory playboy backed by big money! And please don't think that I am a Liberal card-carrying member. I am not!

Great and most accurate comment, Robert!

We no longer subscribe to cable companies that feature FOX or CNN...At least, CBC, Global and even CTV now that they got rid of Senator Mike Duffy and Tom Clark's on board, are far more professional in one hour than in a full year of FOX/CNN pablum....