statism watch

A spectre is haunting Europe… the spectre of John Maynard Keynes. Contrast and compare with the thought of Ludwig von Mises.

Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail
October 18, 2008

BRUSSELS — A week ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel found themselves strolling together through the cobble-stoned streets of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, a tiny village in the northeast of France, where they were attending a war-memorial ceremony.

The town is known as a place where French leaders, from the time of Charles de Gaulle, have gone to escape the world and restore their energy. There was much retreating and restoring to be done last Saturday: The previous day, their finance ministers had rushed home early from a Washington crisis meeting after stock markets had crashed dramatically and expensive national schemes to restore the credit system had failed.

None of the patchwork of plans appeared to work and the world economy was threatening to seize up. A few hours earlier, the head of the International Monetary Fund — a Frenchman — had declared that the world financial system was “on the brink of systemic meltdown.” Both leaders had been on the phone with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and they had agreed to follow his plan for governments to purchase major stakes in their countries’ failing banks, at huge expense. With that done, anything seemed possible.

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Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
October 18, 2008

OTTAWA — Precious lives and scarce dollars are being wasted on the futile war in Afghanistan, peace activists cried out during marches and rallies across the country on Saturday.

Dozens of anti-war activists paraded onto Parliament Hill to demand an end to Canada’s Afghan mission, part of a national day of action organized by peace groups that object to the human and financial costs of the bloody conflict.

Khalid Nasery was born in strife-torn Afghanistan and now calls Canada home.

The 28-year-old Ottawa student said it’s time for Canadian soldiers to leave his native country, painting the troops as pawns of U.S. foreign policy.

“They should pull out of Afghanistan,” he said. “It’s not the soldiers’ fault. I’m not against the soldiers, because they just follow orders. It’s the politicians who want to please the Bush administration.”

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Paul Koring, Globe and Mail
October 18, 2008

Ministers in the Harper government were presented with evidence that a Canadian citizen had been tortured in Sudanese jails, according to the sworn testimony of a senior Foreign Affairs official made public yesterday.

Abousfian Abdelrazik, labelled an al-Qaeda operative by the Bush administration and imprisoned in Khartoum at Canada’s request – according to secret Canadian government documents – has long claimed he was tortured.

Canadian diplomats have attached no credence to those claims.

But last March, while being questioned by Deepak Obhrai, Canada’s junior foreign minister, Mr. Abdelrazik lifted his shirt to show scars that he said were inflicted by whippings with cables. The marks were still clearly evident on his torso more than two years after the alleged torture.

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Job well done, boys. Fill your boots.

Simon Bowers, The Guardian
October 18, 2008

Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package

Demonstrators protesting in New York before the $700bn Wall Street bail-out earlier this month. Photograph: Nicholas Roberts/AFP/Getty images

Financial workers at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year – despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government’s cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany’s Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.

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