CANADA:

SELLING OUT CANADA WHILE HARPER JOKES:

The Harper Index has a recent article on last Wednesday's news conference, called by the evil dwarf Stevie just to keep his opponents in the news media off balance. One of the subjects "discussed" was the "hollowing out" of the Canadian economy by American takeovers. While the evil dwarf cackled that "Americans may have cause to complain about Canadian-led takeovers of American companies" the actual story is quite different. In the article at the Harper Index they quote economists Mel Watkins on the actual figures. While in the first half of 2007 American companies acquired only 61 Canadian companies as opposed to 159 American companies acquired by Canadian takeovers, the value of the takeovers were $118 billion in the case of American acquisitions as opposed to only $28 billion of Canadian acquisitions.

This is in the context of proposals to revise Investment Canada rules to prevent Chinese takeovers for "reasons of national security"- as if American companies are not involved in American foreign policy, often to the detriment of Canadian interests. It is also in the context of limiting takeovers by foreign companies that are state owned. The article concludes with a lament that Molly cannot agree with, that "Canada is the only major producer of oil and gas which does not have a state-owned petroleum company of its own". Molly does not think this a laudable goal for many reasons, and its inclusion seems to her to be the sort of genuflection to traditional social democratic statism that has no place in the modern world.

But all told a good article. To read it in its entirety go to the link highlighted above.