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Is NAFTA Unraveling?

Despite the perceived strong relationship between the United States and Mexico, NAFTA is increasingly becoming threatened.  The latest round of trouble began with certain unions in the US lobbying to block the free truck transportation instituted by the terms of NAFTA.  President Bush instituted a truck pilot program but was delayed/stopped by Congress in 2007.

Now, on March 18th, Mexico instituted a 45% tariff on 90 agricultural products from the United States.  Let us hope that President Obama does not pander to his labor/union constituencies by condoning protectionism and allowing this dispute to continue.  Now, more than ever since the recession began, the United States needs free trade.

Full article here

George W. Bush in Calgary

The former President shows the same class as he has done before.

Alberta – Former President George W. Bush, making his first public speech since leaving office in January, says he wants Barack Obama to succeed and that it’s “essential” to support the new leader.

Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in Tuesday’s speech, saying the new president has enough critics and that he “deserves my silence.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama’s decisions threatened America’s safety. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

“I love my country a lot more than I love politics,” Bush said. “I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”
(Source)

During his time in the White House he didn’t lash out at his opponents, no talks about lists of political enemies, no attacking liberal/democratic profiles like the Obama administration have done with the conservative profile Rush Limbaugh. And now after his presidency he takes the same classy stance towards the democrats. I would lie if I said that I didn’t miss him in the White House, and the young Obama administration have a lot to learn.

And as if the horrible treatment Bush received while in office wasn’t enough the left continues to show it’s lack of class even after his presidency:

Four people were arrested in downtown Calgary on Tuesday during a protest outside the building where former U.S. president George W. Bush was making his first official speech since leaving office.

Two men were charged with obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest. Another man was charged with breaching the peace, while the fourth was issued a ticket for violating a public behaviour bylaw, said Duty Insp. Rob Williams of Calgary police.
(Source)

Like wood

Gordon Brown can’t have an easy time right now. Dreaming about nuclear disarmament and having to take tough questions from David Cameron once a week. And like that’s not enough even Nick Clegg, the Lib.Dem leader, also mocked the PM.

Mr Cameron proceeded to call Mr Brown “a complete phoney”, a remark the Speaker, Michael Martin, forced him to withdraw, and which in any case was not quite right. For Mr Brown looked genuinely and authentically wooden.

Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats, proceeded to embarrass Mr Brown by blaming “the culture of frenzied target setting” for “the horrific events that occurred at Stafford general hospital”.

It is a bad day for Mr Brown when he is beaten not just by Mr Cameron but by Mr Clegg and we suspect that last night in the bunker some even more frenzied target setting was taking place.
(Source)

 Update:

The Fed Still Has Ideas

After exhausting its conventional methods of combatting recession, the Federal Reserve is still doing all that it can.  Bernanke has really come into his own as Chairman, and it seems that stock markets, especially in the United States, are responding quite favorably to him.  He is providing the economic leadership that the Obama administration obviously is not.

Full article here.

Bonuses, Bonuses, Bonuses

Jonah Goldberg says this so much better than I do. I agree with most of his column and might add my own thoughts tomorrow when I’m not as tired.

Hats off to Larry Summers. The president’s chief economic advisor told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that there’s nothing to be done about the fact that American International Group is contractually obliged to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to thousands of employees, some of whom helped ruin their company — and, to some extent, the national economy. “We are a country of law; there are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.”

From what I can tell, the bonuses do stink — although some are as small as $1,000 and presumably go to people who had no significant part in the credit-default-swap-derivative mania of recent years. But let’s assume that they’re all gratuitous. Summers was still right.

New Impromptus..

..by Jay Nordlinger. One of my favourites and always worth a read.

PETA in action

PETA launched a campaign against Jamie Oliver. You will need to click the link to see the picture from the “event”, I’m not posting it here (For obvious reasons).

Two million britons without work

High numbers:

Figures from the Office of National Statistics released today show 138,400 people joined the dole last month, pushing the number of unemployed to 2.03 million.

In a blizzard of terrible data, the number of people who began claiming jobless benefits in January was revised higher to 93,500 from 73,800. City economists had expected a jump of 84,800 for February and the month’s increase is the fastest since records began in 1971, and leaves the unemployment rate at 6.5pc.

On Obama’s presidency

Simon Heffer writes about Obama’s first fifty days here:

With the aid of the conservative media, the public is being alerted to the pork – or to what are now being called the “tea parties” being funded by the $787 billion, but which will do no real good to any but a small minority of Democratic client-groups. There is a rising consciousness here that money is being wasted, that Mr Obama is simply spraying it around, and that America is at risk of bankruptcy.

[...]

Mr Obama has shown little evidence that he has connected with the tens of millions in his country for whom hardship is not theoretical. Six hundred thousand people a month in America are going on the dole. Much of the $275 billion – perhaps as much as $200 billion – earmarked for the mortgage industry will go to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rather than provide direct support to those whose homes are being repossessed. The pawn shops, the half-finished and overgrown housing developments on the edges of towns, the roads to nowhere and the new proliferation of beggars and down-and-outs on the streets of New York (I have not seen so many here since the 1980s) are a growing testament to the President’s challenge. He has yet to prove he is equal to it.

The column by Heffer is a good one and gives an excellent description of Obama’s challenges that lay before him. It can be seen in polls, like the one in my previous post, that the democrats keep losing confidence and after the inauguration there’s been a big increase in people not satisfied with the presidents work. The promises of bipartisanship and that Obama would bring change to the political scene seems to have gone out the window.