Denis Lebel Nationalist

As newly elected Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean Conservative MP Denis Lebel told CPAC last night "I am a nationalist and Mr. Harper knows that." Well that says it all. Harper played the Mulroney nationalist card and has won over voters from the BQ as well as the ADQ.

In fact this can also be seen in Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot which went neck and neck all night between the BQ and the Conservatives. While the NDP came in third there. In playing the nationalist card Harper bought himself a round of support in rural Quebec. It is the nationalists in rural Quebec who voted Conservative as they do BQ.


The NDP on the other hand are now a viable left wing alternative to the BQ in Quebec. Their position on the War and the Environment resonated with voters in Outremont and will in other urban Quebec ridings come the general election. Mulcair's acceptance speech last night emphasized that he was the Peace Candidate first and then the Environmental Candidate. The war will be as big an issue as the environment come the general election and that bodes well for the NDP.

"Today, Quebec has chosen a new direction," NDP Leader Jack Layton told supporters in Outremont, and praised them for "making history and changing the direction of politics in Quebec and across Canada. For the future we are hoping that what people see here now about the NDP is something that we are going to be able to take to the ballot box, not only in the election here in Quebec but the rest of Canada as well, as people realize we are a national party with representation everywhere," he said.

The Liberals lost last night, in all three by-elections and thus they can no longer claim the mantle of the Natural Governing Party. They can no longer take Quebec for granted and will be forced to retreat to Ontario as their base. They are no more important in Quebec now than the NDP and anyone who says they are a player needs only look at their standing in Roberval and Saint-Hyacinthe after last night. Those are not big numbers.

In a Liberal nightmare scenario-turned-reality, the party lost a traditional Montreal fortress and was reduced to single-digit support in two other Quebec ridings. A party that owned the province through much of Canada's history has now fallen below what was supposed to be the nadir of the post-sponsorship election last year.

Francophones deserted the party in all three ridings on Monday. Their last remaining stranglehold on multi-ethnic, federalist pockets of Montreal was slackened.

And in Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean the Liberal candidate was high profile, a businesswoman who was head of the Chamber of Commerce, while the NDP ran a parachute part time candidate. She certainly lost big for the Liberals.

With high profile candidates the NDP can make a break through in the next election in Quebec while the Liberals will need to rebuild. Something they have failed to do for the past year. Petulant over Dion's victory, the Quebec Liberals abandoned the party to work for Charest and his victory should have been telling about the party's loss of power in Quebec. And last night was the result of their petulance.

The finger-pointing began before the ballot boxes even closed.

Some said it was incompetence on the part of Liberal officials. Others said it was the result of leadership rivals sabotaging the Liberal campaign.

Less than a year after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion moved to reunite his party after a winning a bloody leadership race, that fragile unity was in danger last night and questions swirled about his leadership ability after his party was shut out in three byelections — including the traditionally Liberal bastion of Outremont.

Liberal insiders recount a litany of organizational problems with the Outremont campaign, including an apparent power struggle between members of Dion’s entourage and personnel in the Quebec wing’s headquarters. For example, while some in the Quebec wing tried to keep Dion’s appearances in Quebec to a minimum, personnel in Dion’s office insisted on him making trips to his home province to campaign.

Fuelling the discontent even more was an article published over the weekend in which unnamed Liberal supporters of Dion and Michael Ignatieff traded barbs over whether the poor campaign was the result of incompetence, or of sabotage by Ignatieff supporters trying to undermine Dion’s leadership.

And so while the Liberals regroup some to lick their wounds and others to sharpening their knives. Good thing then that newly elected Saint- Hyacinthe MP Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac is not a Liberal.

Born in Vietnam, Thai Thi Lac was adopted by Quebecois parents and raised from the age of two on a local farm. She speaks French and reminded voters of her local roots by telling them during the campaign that, unlike the other candidates, she knows how to castrate a pig.

SEE:

Sept. 11 for Dion

Politics is Local

Quebec By-elections

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Sept. 11 for Dion

Dion in Outremont conceding Liberal defeat in all three Quebec by-elections, as seen on CPAC.

"When a general election comes we will remember this evening
of Sept 11 err Sept 17"

Uh oh Freudian slip.


And thanks to Far and Wide for setting up a live blog in on the by-election.

SEE:

Politics is Local

Quebec By-elections

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Stating The Obvious Redux

"the Iraq War is largely about oil." Allan Greenspan.

And all the U.S. media and pundits are all agog over this confession. Well duh, what did you think it was about? The funniest was to hear Chris Matthews on Hardball refer to Greenspan's analysis as Marxist. Hey I said that here.

Matthews: "So if you're in the European left and never liked Bush, to start with, now you got his Fed chairman say it's all about oil, you love it, right? This is the old Marxist analysis."

Yet some folks in the White House continue to live the lie, and remain in implausible denial.

In the book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan writes, "the Iraq war is largely about oil." The comments, released before publication, put Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the defensive as he made the Sunday talk-show rounds following major recommendations on war policy last week.

"I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't don't believe it's true," Gates said, appearing on ABC's "This Week."

But it was as much about oil then as it was being the first high tech war declaring the New World Order of the 21st Century. Just as this war was about oil and revenge.

Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune: "I think this is one of the reasons why what Greenspan says has so much resonance because this is the Texas oil crowd in the White House and so-"

Matthews: "The oil patch crowd."

Zuckman: "-people assume that a lot of what they do is motivated."

Matthews: "Okay let me ask you this. Exxon, Mobil, making tens of billions of dollars in profits this year. So the war worked out well for them right?"

Zuckman: "Yes and we can pay crazy amounts of money at the pump."

Matthews: "Should we put Exxon signs up over Arlington Cemetery and Mobil signs up there, like they have at baseball stadiums?"

And Halliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater too.



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Bank Run

While all those folks on the cable Business news channels in the U.S. and on Fox on the weekend were navel gazing over whether the U.S. economy was in a pending recession or not they missed this run on the bank. One caused by the U.S. mortgage meltdown.

Of course that's because it was in the UK. And banks were open on Saturday. BBC showed folks lined up outside the Northern Rock mortgage bank waiting to remove their deposits something not seen in any other market correction, err crash, since 1929. "Remember, 1928 was a credit bubble that popped in '29"

DR EAMONN BUTLER, ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE

My economics teachers used to say that the days of a 'run on the bank' were long over.

It might have caused problems in the 1930s, but modern banking controls and accounting had consigned bank runs to economic history's dustbin.

WILL HUTTON, THE WORK FOUNDATION

We are in the middle of a bank run.

We've never seen it on this scale in Britain - of a major bank - since the 19th century.

This is a sure indicator of a recession.

The firm has been withering under the harsh spotlight of media glare on the mortgage-lending mess, ever since it came to light Friday that Northern Rock needed a British central-bank bailout. Unfortunately, the bank built its lending business on taking in loads of short-term borrowings, followed by loan securitization and sales. Over the past few months, as credit markets have finally decided to reevaluate risk, both ends of that pipeline have gotten seriously clogged.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND HAD NO choice but to agree to provide emergency liquidity last week to ailing U.K. mortgage lender Northern Rock, even at the risk of being seen as supporting a bank with a flawed business model.

Clearly, Northern Rock's customers and the impact that the lender's collapse would have on the rest of the U.K. banking sector, the housing market and the broader economy have been uppermost in the BoE's mind.

The queues of customers outside Northern Rock's branches Friday, seeking to withdraw their savings despite assurances from the central bank and the government that Northern Rock (ticker: NRK.U.K.) is fundamentally sound, proves the point.

But investors aren't buying the idea that Northern Rock will weather the liquidity crunch. The stock was down 25%, to 483 pence (about $9.85), in late Friday trading in London, even though the bank is in no immediate danger of going under.

Northern Rock isn't guilty of reckless lending. The problem is that the bank, the U.K.'s fifth-largest mortgage lender, sources a large proportion of its funding from the wholesale market through covered bonds and the securitization of mortgages. Only 25% of its funding comes from customers' deposits, versus 65% for a typical U.K. bank.

This wouldn't happen in Canada, though the picture below is from the 1832 bank run in Montreal, because Purdy Crawford has ridden to the rescue.



See:

Sub Prime Exploitation

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

Wall Street Deja Vu

Housing Crash the New S&L Crisis

US Housing Market Crash

Tags
asset-backed commercial paper ,, UK
homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, Northern Rock , sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,

Politics is Local

If the Conservatives win the byelection in Roberval-Lac-St-Jean today it will be because this former BQ stronghold has seen a neighboring riding get largese from their Conservative MP Jean Blackburn, and because the Conservative candidate is a former Mayor who is personally popular as this CPAC report shows. Harpers coat tails will not count as much as local politics.

And while all politics is local, it is also interesting that in CPAC's coverage of all three by-elections the top national issue discussed was Afghanistan.

Quebec By-elections

Carole-Anne Guay looks at the by-election taking place on September 17, 2007 in the Quebec riding of Roberval-Lac-St-Jean.

SEE:

Quebec By-elections

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Moral Turpitude Is Spelled Blackwater

This is what happens when you contract out your war to private armies.

"A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries-with equally profound strategic consequences. " Philip Bobbitt

- Iraq's Interior Ministry canceled the license of controversial American security firm Blackwater USA today after Iraqi officials charged that eight civilians were shot by company bodyguards accompanying a U.S. State Department motorcade the day before in Baghdad.

"It has been revoked," said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry. "They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action."

The decision marks Iraq's boldest step yet to assert itself against foreign security contractors, who arrived in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen accused by many Iraqis of speeding through Baghdad's streets and shooting wildly at anyone seen as a threat.

moral turpitude

1. depravity
2. (law) Any base or vile conduct, contrary to accepted morals, that accompanies a crime

turpitude
"depravity, infamy," 1490, from M.Fr. turpitude (1417), from L. turpitudinem (nom. turpitudo) "baseness," from turpis "vile, ugly, base, shameful," used in both the moral and the physical senses; of unknown origin. Perhaps originally "what one turns away from" (cf. L. trepit "he turns").

TURPITUDE - Everything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals, is said to be done with turpitude.

Moral Turpitude is a legal concept in the USA, which refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals"

Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy SEAL named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.

Erik Prince was political at a very early age and watched as his father used his company as a cash-generating engine to fuel the rise of what we now know as the religious right in this country, as well as the Republican Revolution of 1994. His father gave the seed money to Gary Bauer to found the Family Research Council. Young Erik Prince was in the first crop of interns to serve at the Family Research Council. They gave significant funding to James Dobson and his group Focus on the Family, which is now sort of the premier evangelical organizing network in this country, the “prayer warriors.”

Personnel

Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, and other business unit leaders are former Navy SEALs. Blackwater was founded and is owned by Erik Prince, who is also a former Navy SEAL.

Prince and Jackson are also major contributors to the Republican party. In addition, Prince was an intern in George H.W. Bush's White House and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992.

Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, was the Bush adminstration's top counterterrorism official when 9/11 occurred. In 2002, he famously stated: "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off." But Black is not alone, Blackwater has become home to a significant number of former senior CIA and Pentagon officials. Robert Richer became the firm's Vice President of Intelligence immediately after he resigned his position as Associate Deputy Director of Operations in fall 2005. He is formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.

In October 2006, Kenneth Starr, independent counsel in the impeachment case of Bill Clinton in 1999, represented Blackwater in front of the US Supreme Court in a case related to the March 2004 killing of four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, Iraq. In response to that event, Blackwater also hired the Republican lobbying and PR firm, the Alexander Strategy Group.

Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images

Blackwater USA contractors secure the site of a roadside explosion in central Baghdad in 2005. The U.S. Embassy said that the Blackwater convoy accused of killing eight civilians during a shootout on Sunday had come under fire, and some local Iraqi television accounts reported an exchange of gunfire at the scene in Baghdad.

The Iraqi government said Monday that it was revoking the license of an American security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said.

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country.

The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of "Little Bird" helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

The decision to pull the license was likely to be challenged, as it would be a major blow to a company at the forefront of one of the main turning points in the war.

The 2004 battle of Fallujah — an unsuccessful military assault in which an estimated 27 U.S. Marines were killed, along with an unknown number of civilians — was retaliation for the killing, maiming and burning of four Blackwater guards in that city by a mob of insurgents.

Tens of thousands of foreign private security contractors work in Iraq — some with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles — to provide protection for Westerners and dignitaries in Iraq as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war.

Monday's action against Blackwater was likely to give the unpopular government a boost, given Iraqis' dislike of the contractors.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani called the shootings "a crime that we cannot be silent about."

Many of the contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution.

"There have been so many innocent people they've killed over there, and they just keep doing it," said Katy Helvenston, the mother of Steve Helvenston, a Blackwater contractor who died during the 2004 ambush in Fallujah. "They have just a callous disregard for life."

Helvenston is now part of a lawsuit that accuses Blackwater of cutting corners that ultimately led to the death of her son and three others.

The question of whether they could face prosecution is legally murky. Unlike soldiers, the contractors are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

Khalaf, however, denied that.

The embassy also refused to answer any questions on Blackwater's status or legal issues, saying it was seeking clarification on the issue as part of the investigation, which was being carried out by the State Department's diplomatic security service and law enforcement officials working with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military.

Is there even a license to revoke? Buzz on the contractor street is that it isn't clear how this development will affect Blackwater. Allegedly, Blackwater doesn't have a "license" to revoke, and its contracts with the State Department and CIA may not be immediately affected. This could play out in an interesting (albeit depressing) powerplay between the al-Maliki, Iraq's Ministry of Interior, and the U.S. Government.

The issue of accountability is a troubling one, however, as Scahill reveals the Blackwater operatives are essentially above the law in Iraq. They can’t be prosecuted under military law because they’re civilians. But they have little to worry about from civilian law in the chaos of Iraq.

At one point in the book, a politician confronts a military official and claims Blackwater agents can get away with murder, and the official more or less admits he’s right. It’s a point that’s highlighted by another video featuring an alleged mercenary shooting people at random on a highway in Iraq (YouTube link).

It was inevitable. Private military contractors have been involve din all sorts of questionable incidents, since the very start of the Iraq enterprise. U.S. military officers frequently expressed their frustrations with sharing the battlefield with such private forces operating under their own rules and agendas, and worry about the consequences for their own operations. For example, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the US 3^rd Infantry Division (responsible for Baghdad area) tellingly put it two years back, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath.”

Karel Prinsloo/AP, File

A U.S. private security officer, with his face covered against dust, on board a Chinook helicopter in Iraq.

Blackwater Guards Accused of Past Deaths

By DEBORAH HASTINGS – 2 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — In the past year, employees of the Blackwater USA security firm have been involved in other incidents in which they were accused of killing civilians and security forces in Iraq.

On Dec. 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

The contractor had gotten lost on the way back to his barracks in the Green Zone and fired at least seven times when he was confronted by 30-year-old Raheem Khalaf Saadoun, an official in the vice president's office said on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation.

The contractor fled after the incident. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy, where Blackwater officials arranged to have him flown home to the U.S., said American officials.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said earlier this year the company was cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department and the FBI. She declined to provide further details.

In May, Blackwater guards under contract to the State Department were involved in two other shootings in Iraq.

In one, a Blackwater guard shot to death an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a security detail near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, enraging Iraqis. At the time, Tyrrell said the guard acted lawfully and appropriately, given the incident reports and witness accounts.

A day earlier, Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces exchanged gunfire on the streets of the capital. A passing U.S. military convoy intervened and stopped the fighting.

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill describes the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army.

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....
"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)

SEE:

IRAQ- THIS WAR IS ABOUT PRIVATIZATION

Bad News For Bush

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout

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Capitalism and Islam

Dubai World Begins MGM Mirage Tender

Ah good old capitalism it will make a believer out of Muslim businessmen yet.

Dubai's proposed purchase of a 9.5 per cent stake, as well as a 50 per cent share in MGM's $7bn CityCenter project, for a total outlay of $5bn, stunned the gaming industry when it was announced last week.

They invest in gambling while prohibiting it to believers. Making money off the vices of the infidel.

While it won't be just another day at the office, Nevada gambling regulators say they're ready to dig into a mass of paperwork to be filed in the $5.1 billion investment that the Persian Gulf state of Dubai is making in MGM Mirage.

The deal marks the first time a state has applied for a Nevada gambling license. And the applicant is part of a Middle Eastern emirate that strictly forbids gambling for its citizens.

Notice there has been no hew and cry about Dubai World buying MGM. Nope not a peep. Of course Congress is off on holidays. But what about Lou Dobbs? Nope not a peep.

MGM needs the investment money with credit drying up because of the sub-prime melt down.

Las Vegas Not Exempt From Money Woes

A silver lining to this means the hotel workers can be assured that management will meet their contract demands. MGM Mirage workers: Unions approve contract


While on the global level it means the Gulf States, UAE, are using Dubai to create Arab capital to compete against other national capital. Since they have little in the way of military power in the region, they are amassing capital to compete with the other imperial powers.

Qatar Offers $2 Billion to Buy Nasdaq’s Share in London Stock Exchange

SABIC Concludes Purchase of GE Plastic Business

They are using their capital to further their own political agenda in the region;Gulf’s Federation of Chambers of Commerce Welcome Free Trade with Iran

And typical of capitalism they have created a metropolis a capitol of capital in the region; Dubai.

Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Growth and Challenges of State-Sponsored Investments

A combination of an unprecedented volume of oil revenues in the last three years and a staggering American trade deficit have been the main causes of foreign exchange reserve buildup in countries around the world—specifically in the Gulf region (oil revenues) and East Asia (current account surplus). As economist Michael Pettis explains, “…it seems reasonably certain that what has powered the [globalization] boom in the last decade is the recycling of the massive U.S. trade deficit. As central banks and sovereign funds accumulate reserves as the flip side of the U.S. trade deficit, excess U.S. consumption is being converted into global excess savings.”

China and the Gulf countries, excluding Kuwait, actively ensure the growth of their respective sovereign wealth funds by holding down their exchange rates in order to retain the dollar amount of their funds, which draw on dollar-denominated oil revenues. Kuwait is the only Gulf country to have un-pegged its currency from the dollar as a measure to combat inflation. Saudi Arabia does not consider it in its interest to follow suit.

In addition to rapidly accelerating oil revenues, capital appreciation and dividends on initial country investments caused incomes to snowball long before the SWF became an investment vehicle. For instance, the father of Dubai’s current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, defied skeptics by investing a large part of the emirate’s oil revenue into developing the Jebel Ali Port in the 1970’s. The port is now one of if not the world’s busiest ports, and has firmly established Dubai as the region’s trading and transit hub.

Dubai World Ports Might Offer IPO of $4.2 Billion

On the other hand, the QE2's future is settled. Sold for $100 million, it will become a hotel permanently docked in Dubai, and many past passengers view that as a good thing.

Halliburton Spin-Off Positive

The KBR spin-off and an increased push in the Eastern Hemisphere through a headquarters in Dubai are both positive developments for Halliburton (NYSE: HAL). The spin-off of the high volume, low margin KBR business removes distractions, improves operational focus, and makes Halliburton a pure-play on the oilfield service market.

Ahmed Lotfy relocates to Dubai, strengthens Halliburton’s regional presence

Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) announced today that Ahmed Lotfy, Senior Vice President – Eastern Hemisphere, is relocating to Dubai following the opening of a second corporate headquarters office for Halliburton in the centrally located Gulf city.

Gone are the days when the oil sheikdoms simply amassed personal wealth and engaged in conspicuous consumption. Now that capital is being used to take on the imperial powers at home as the case of MGM and OMX show and by attracting their TNC's, like Halliburton, to Dubai.

Changing Patterns of Investment in the Gulf Region: The Case of Dubai

The massive increase in oil revenues in most of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait—has created unprecedented opportunities for the building of infrastructure, the provision of social services and, at the same time, for investments overseas.

These investments have been channeled through two principal pipelines—acquisition of assets and the purchase of shares in high quality financial and industrial firms. According to the London daily al-Sharq al-Awsat of August 13, the Gulf countries have channeled $140 billion into overseas investments in the last three years. In a relatively short time, some of the Gulf countries have become respectable actors on the international financial scene.

At the same time, a hospitable investment environment, the privatization of state-owned entities and the prospects of mutually profitable deals have attracted a massive influx of Western financial services and industry to the Gulf region. The opening of the real estate market for foreign investors, particularly in Dubai, has created a massive construction boom which is fueling economic growth at a rapid rate.

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the investment activities of Dubai, and how an enlightened and entrepreneurial leadership has turned what was a small desert outpost just a few decades ago into a bustling metropolis with a vigorous economy that is subject to both envy and emulation.

In contrast to the earlier oil booms of the 1970’s and 1980’s, however, these countries are not squandering their oil revenues on spending sprees, but rather are focusing on diversifying their assets and buttressing their fiscal solvency through massive investment schemes.

Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, in particular, exemplifies the investment trends of the Middle East, mostly on account of the fact that it is an investment powerhouse out of necessity. The emirate seeks to open itself to and extend its reach within international markets in order to hedge any risk it faces due to the steady decline of its oil and gas reserves, which are expected to reach depletion within twenty years. Dubai currently has a strong penchant for the real-estate sector, but is learning to thoroughly diversify its assets in its search for some high-yielding financial instruments.

The current generation of economic and industry ministers in the Gulf region is largely composed of men who began their careers in the private sector. This correlates with efforts in almost all MENA countries to increase the privatization of state-owned entities in an attempt to create an “open market” atmosphere. As the Middle East daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on August 8, 2007, an international investment firm in Kuwait noted that privatization trends in Gulf countries—which are competing amongst themselves to become the next global “financial capitol”—are reflected in the flow of private capital into publicly traded stocks and other financial instruments. In 2006 this amount totaled $7.07 billion, which was a 61.6% increase over the previous year.

The Carlyle Group LP says that the Middle East is now the “hot spot” for private equity deals, and HSBC reports that as much as one third of all project finance involves Middle Eastern projects. Dubai is a particular hub of this activity. The chief executive of oil services company Halliburton has recently opted to relocate at least part of the company’s corporate and executive headquarters from Houston to Dubai. Other prospective buyers of property in the emirate include Oracle, Cisco and Microsoft.

Expanding Horizons

While Western banking, financial and information technology industries are rapidly being drawn to the Gulf countries, Gulf investment is not necessarily giving preferential treatment to the Western hemisphere that has largely responsible for its explosion of financial power.

While it is true that various emirate companies invested $3.5 billion in the US last year, many of those same companies are also shifting their interest to Asian markets on account of the falling dollar and for the sake of diversification:

- Dubai International Capital and DIFC Investments are working to extend their reach into Pakistan, India and South Korea.

- Istithmar’s real estate arm, which is part of the Dubai World group of companies, plans to increase the 5% of its assets it has invested in Asia to 30% within five years.

- The Dubai government firm Emaar is responsible for the housing boom taking place across Asia, most recently securing a deal to construct a 1,200-hectare project, set on the pristine Mandalika Beach, estimated at $600 million in worth.

- Remaining oil exports in the Dubai are being used to help launch the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, a joint venture with Nymex that is to create a futures market for Mideast crude oil exported to Asia.

- Dubai Ports World, in its attempt to double its capacity in 10 years, is developing terminals in China, India, Vietnam and Pakistan.

These investment patterns place the Gulf region, and especially Dubai, in a unique position. As relationships increase in number and depth within certain markets, namely Iran and China, diplomatic ties with Washington and Europe will probably occasionally feel a squeeze.

SEE:

At Least It's Not Dubai Ports

Calgary Fraud Funds Dubai Boom

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Ezra Levant Does Not Speak For Me

Hey Fellow Albertan does Ezra Levant Speak For You?

Well he sure as hell does not speak for me.

Let CBC know.

Dear Eugene Plawiuk:

I write to acknowledge your e-mail which I am sharing with Sharon Musgrave, the Producer of "Politics" so that she may be aware of your concerns.

Yours truly,

Vince Carlin

Ombudsman, CBC

If you agree post this on your blog

Hey CBC

Does Not Speak For Me!

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GST Cut Falls Flat

Here is a new definition of Flat Tax.
A tax cut that lands flat, as in flat on its face.

Last year's GST cut did not stimulate increased consumer spending or the economy and, unlike some other tax cuts, will not pay for itself in the long run, a new analysis has concluded.

"Do tax cuts pay for themselves? Well, certainly the GST reduction didn't," Global Insight said in an analysis Tuesday of the costs and impact of the one-point cut in the sales tax rate by the minority Conservative government to 6% from seven last July.

"The relationship between GST revenues and consumer expenditures reveals no significant evidence of stimulated consumer spending," concluded the analysis, based on Finance Department fiscal reports that run through June 2007 -- the first 12 months since the Harper government carried through on its election promise and cut the GST.

"A cut in almost any other kind of federal government tax would have been more effective in stimulating economic growth and would have resulted in it getting more of the lost revenue back," Dale Orr, the think tank's chief economist, and author of the report, said in an interview.

Among the tax cuts that would be the most effective in stimulating economic activity and boosting future revenues would an income-tax cut, which as well as leaving people with more money to spend, would encourage them to work longer and harder to earn more, Mr. Orr said.

However, he noted that the Conservative government instead raised personal income taxes in its first budget.

"That was done specifically to finance the GST cut," Mr. Orr said.

Insured workers pay GST which was intended to address the national debt, yet we have not received any evidence that all those funds are doing that. Insured workers then pay GST for servicing the national debt, pay income taxes to fund programs and serve the national debt and then workers and employers pay down the national debt yet again through their EI premiums - not voluntary contributions!

VAT (value added tax) and GST (goods and service tax) are two of the fastest growing taxes globally, a new report launched today by PricewaterhouseCoopers demonstrates. The report, Shifting the balance –the evolution of indirect taxes, offers an insight into the growth of indirect taxes and focuses on a number of key themes such as the shift from direct to indirect taxes, barriers to business and the need for reform, litigation, and the use of technology in indirect tax compliance.

It suggests that this could reflect a global trend by governments to focus on the certainty of revenues from VAT/GST and a desire to shift compliance costs from tax authorities to businesses. The report describes how, in light of the evolution of indirect taxation, there is a further challenge not to be forgotten. VAT systems can be regressive in nature and also potentially inflationary. It recommends that governments considering the introduction of such systems to enhance global tax competitiveness, need to bear in mind measures that will ensure a level of welfare for the lower paid individual taxpayers, including the potential for applying reduced tax rates or even zero tax rates for basic goods and services or those supporting other social aims, such as relieving the burden on the elderly or disabled.

SEE

Tax Cuts For The Rich Burden You and Me

Tax Fairness For The Rich

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Quebec By-elections

As fellow blogger Gone Green In Alberta points out CTV has a media bias in its Quebec By-election polls when it comes to the Green Party.

The Greens are ahead of the Conservatives in Outremont. But you wouldn't know it from the way it is posted.

The Greens are ahead of the Liberals too, in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, again you wouldn't know it from how the poll is set up.

And the only poll that is unaffected is that of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, where they are neck and neck with the NDP.

And Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean is the only riding the NDP is not ahead of the Liberals.

It is not just NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair who is popular in Outremont, and Quebec in general, it is also Jack Layton who has scored well in polling of Quebecers.

In Quebec, support for Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe now sits at 17 percent (up 1 point), compared with 29 percent for Stephen Harper (down 3 points), 18 percent for Jack Layton (up 3 points) and 10 percent for Stéphane Dion (down 2 points).



Leader Approval. There have been some shifts in the approval ratings of the party leaders over the past three months. The proportion of Canadians approving of the job being done by Stephen Harper has fallen below the 50-percent mark for the first time since he became prime minister and now stands at 48 percent (down 6 points from March). Approval of Stéphane Dion has declined once again to 38 percent (down 2 points) and the proportion expressing disapproval of him has risen to 48 percent (up 5 points). Jack Layton has the highest approval rating of any of the party leaders at 56 percent (up 2 points), and a similar share of voters in Quebec approve of the job being done by Gilles Duceppe (53%, down 3 points). Approval of Elizabeth May has dropped three points to 42 percent.

Which leaves Dion as the dud. And it doesn't help when the dud chooses his doppelgänger to run. But then Dion has been more of a similcarum of a leader than a real leader.

The biggest loser of all, if Mulcair pulls it off, would be Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. The loss would be a devastating blow to his already shaky leadership.

"If his party underperforms, Dion -- as an untested leader -- will take the biggest hit," wrote Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert on Friday.

"By all indications, Dion's candidates in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot and Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean are not even in contention for second place."

The degree of pressure on a leader also depends to a large extent on how closely the party's candidate in a by-election is identified with the leader.

This plays heavily in Outremont because Coulon was handpicked by Dion, who also blocked Justin Trudeau from the nomination, though some Liberals maintained Trudeau would have been the party's best hope in the riding, said Antonia Maioni, director of McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada.

"Dion's claim was that he'd win back Quebec, and this is what potential Liberal voters are going to look at, and more so people in the party. If he fails to capture the riding, one of the safest Liberal seats in the province, it's not going to play well outside Quebec."

"Coulon is sort of Stéphane Dion's alter ego," said Antonia Maioni, a political scientist at Montreal's McGill University. "He's like Stéphane. An academic, quite reserved, very well spoken. And so in many ways, this is not only a by-election, but it's also a referendum on Stéphane Dion because he's chosen someone who resembles him the most."

SEE:

Rudderless Liberals

Layton and May Winners

Ms. Joe Clark

Waiting For Dion

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