statism watch

Mr. Falherty is wasting no time in promoting his agenda of global financial surveillance. Naturally, the infrastructure has to be in place in Canada before we can be beholden to the IMF. And hey, seeing as how the USA has a national securities regulator, it doesn’t seem as though the office is a particularly effective one.

Ann Perry, Toronto Star
November 23, 2008

Economic volatility helps the minister’s case but not all provinces are ready to jump aboard

For years, commissions and panels have recommended that Canada’s current patchwork quilt of provincial and territorial securities regulators be replaced by a single national watchdog.

But in some provinces – notably Quebec – the idea has always run aground on the shoals of resistance to federal encroachment.

Now federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty appears poised to forge ahead, citing current economic volatility. In the throne speech last week, the Conservative government said it “will work with the provinces to put in place a common securities regulator.”

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Jim Bronskill, Canadian Press
November 23, 2008

OTTAWA — New American rules intended to beef up air security threaten the privacy of Canadians, pose financial headaches for small airlines and could disrupt the plans of sun-seeking travellers, critics say.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is pushing ahead with plans to collect personal information about air passengers on flights passing through American airspace, even if the plane never touches down on U.S. soil.

The name, gender and birth date of Canadians flying from Toronto to destinations such as Cuba, Mexico or Europe will be transmitted by airlines to the TSA under its Secure Flight program, to take effect next year. The agency will then vet the names against security watch lists aimed at keeping dangerous people on the ground.

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BBC News
November 23, 2008

Executives of Citigroup, one of the biggest banks in the US, are in emergency talks with the US Treasury to gain much-needed funding, reports say.

The bank is also said to have contacted certain shareholders to assess their interest in increasing their stakes as as it faces an uncertain future.

Citigroup stock ended 20% lower on Friday as its board members met.

Last week the company announced 52,000 job losses worldwide on top of 23,000 job cuts previously announced.

No one from Citigroup was immediately available for comment.

There are fears that without further funding the bank might not be able to survive. Any money would be in addition to the $25bn injection it received in October from the US Treasury.

Options being discussed included a government cash injection as well as Citigroup selling some of its business, reported The Sunday Times.

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Martin Beckford, The Telegraph
November 23, 2008

Social workers set up a CCTV camera in the bedroom of a couple with learning difficulties in order to monitor their behaviour, a new report claims.

Council staff are said to have spied on the young parents at night as part of a plan to see if they were fit to look after their baby, who was sleeping in another room.

The mother and father were forced to cite the Human Rights Act, which protects the right to a private life, before the social services team backed down and agreed to switch off the surveillance camera while they were in bed together.

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The ‘Conservative’ mask slips a little further. To whom will we be paying the interest on these deficits? And how will that interest be funded? Through taxation after a deflationary crash and subsequent hyperinflation. We’ve been warned. But the warnings have not penetrated the media. It’s only now, as the economic trap is closing, that people are starting to get the picture. The central bankers have blown out the economy with easy credit again, just like they did in the 1920s… these bubbles act as massive wealth pumps, tools to centralize assets as they are inflated and subsequently dumped. What we’re seeing now, as Goldman Sachs moves their cronies into positions of power and Obama appoints Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary (who’s been calling for a global banking framework since he got back from the Bilderberg conference this year), is the consolidation of holdings of real equity as homes and land are foreclosed on in the US. What we need is another Andrew Jackson.

Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star
November 23, 2008

PM reveals economic conversion at APEC summit, hints at bailouts even for ‘badly run institutions’

LIMA–Against the backdrop of a collapsing world economy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday drew on memories of the Great Depression as he outlined his strongest arguments yet for the need to rack up government deficits.

He also hinted at his willingness to bail out “badly run institutions,” an intriguing reference at a time when the Big Three automakers are soliciting government aid.

“The world is entering an economic period unlike, and potentially as dangerous as, anything we have faced since 1929,” he said, in a speech to business moguls in Peru’s capital for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.

With central banks no longer able to keep the economy limping along, he said the world – including Canada – now faces “the classic circumstances under which budgetary deficits are essential.”

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CBC News
November 23, 2008

Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied in central Bangkok on Sunday, the start of what they were calling the “final battle” in a five-month-old street campaign to oust the administration.

“I fear nothing. We will not bow our heads to the dark power destroying our country,” said Cat, a 48-year-old businesswoman, among the thousands of protesters waving placards and shouting “fight, fight” inside the Government House compound they have occupied since late August.

The crowd, led by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) political group, planned to march to parliament early on Monday, where police have erected barricades and stationed trucks with water cannons.

A similar protest in October left two people dead and hundreds wounded, including scores of police, when officers fired tear gas to break up a rally aimed at disrupting parliament.

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