Barrel Strength

Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez charged for refusing to take a breathalyzer test.

Who, you wonder? Just ask CBC typist and parliamentary ghost-writer Krista Erickson.

Central planning at its finest!

I was interviewed on Al Jazeera TV yesterday, for a report titled “China’s Empty City.”  It centered on Ordos, Inner Mongolia, where a whole new city, constructed along central planning lines by the Chinese government, has been completed but stands entirely empty.  The reporters at Al Jazeera originally approached me because of my recent blog post on “China’s Quality of GDP.”  It’s one thing to write about massive state-sponsored construction projects that achieve GDP growth targets without necessarily creating any real value, but a couple of TV images can be worth a thousand words in illustrating the point.

You can view the report by clicking here.

It’s worth noting, as the report says, that despite the fact nobody lives there, virtually all of Ordos’ new apartment complexes are sold out — precisely what I was talking about in “China’s Real Estate Riddle.”

This will be one department that might prove difficult to cut for the Greece government, especially if they can’t find the employees.

He also discusses an administrative office called Kopais, named after the lake of the same name near Thebes, which was established in 1957. The purpose of the office was to prepare for the draining of the lake so that roads could then be built in the lakebed.

In that same year — which is now over half a century ago — the lake disappeared forever. But there are still 30 employees working at Kopais today. When employees retire or are let go, their positions are filled with new employees, who are paid monthly salaries of up to €2,500 ($3,175). They supposedly work on drainage issues, but no one knows exactly what those issues are or who benefits from their work.

There was a time not too long ago when “sane, smart people like Sullivan” were fond of opining as follows.

For the last 21 years, we have been following a similar social experiment between different styles of capitalism: more regulated and less regulated. Several western countries including Ireland and Iceland, as well as some of the Baltic countries, got rid of many regulations, particularly regulations regarding finance. For a while, their economies were shining stars, but now they are a mess. The US and Britain, the least regulated large economies, are now suffering greatly as well from the financial bubble. While Old Europe (to steal a phrase from Don Rumsfeld) is not nearly as affected by the recent debacle.

Are we beginning to learn another one of history’s lessons?

How is that European experiment today?  Let us see the headlines in the last 24-hours.

Romanian retirees protest against pension cuts

Panic Buying Of Physical Gold In Europe Threatens Depletion Of Austrian Mint

Europe’s fiscal Fascism brings British withdrawal ever closer

Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull France out of the euro

Euro Breaks 14-Month Low Set Before Bailout Plan Was Unveiled

German Cabinet considers funds for Greek bailout; ECB suspends its ratings on Greek debt

Spain PM gets serious on debt… finally

Europe enters era of belt-tightening

Sully, how about going back to investigating the Palin pregnancy?

Update

Merkel says situation in Europe is serious

Volcker Sees Euro ‘Disintegration’ Risk From Greece