What's New

Here is what you may have missed in the news.

BORDER ROAD GAMES

At the Mayor's big event on Saturday, I admit that I did not go. I was not "summoned" by His Worship as residents along the corridor were so I thought I could not attend.

However, an inside source who attended the 2 hour harangue told me that when a resident asked if the presentation and materials presented were going to be on the City website, Mayor Francis said yes and that he thought it was on the web but that it would be up shortly.

Naturally I went to the City's site to read it but it was not there. In fact, I am writing this at 7 PM on Tuesday night and it is still not there. How can that be?

Do you think that it might not be posted until it is too late for DRIC to comment on it while they were in town? Could the Mayor be afraid that they might point out any inaccuracies or out and out errors?

No that cannot be it. There must be some technical reason why it was not posted in a timely fashion.

SCHOOL DAYS

You may have been surprised when I said that the Mayor treated Councillors like school kids when he scolds them at Council. Now I have absolute proof that Council on Mondays is a kindergarten!

Take a look at Council's calendar for 2009 telling them all the days on which there are school holidays so they can get their time off with their parents!

NEMAK FIRE

Looks like Ontario Realty Corp. made a good decision when they suggested that the jail not be built in Brighton Beach:

• "Nemak fire
  No one injured in the evening blaze at aluminum plant
  
  Windsor firefighters investigate a fire at the Nemak of Canada Corp. plant near Ojibway parkway in west Windsor Sunday night. Fire crews were called to the aluminum plant at 5:30 p.m. after employees reported smoke in the building. No one was injured."

Isn't that plant near where the DRIC bridge and plaza is proposed to be located? Right near all of those power plants! Close by the salt mines and brine wells.

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

I am sure that you read Senator Kenny's article in the Star: "Defence spending key to cross-border trade."

Interestingly enough, he does not argue for a new DRIC crossing this time around when he talks about border problems. Rather he identifies the real cause of border difficulty: The American dirty little secret as he calls it:

• "Everyone also knows that Americans are by far our most important customers, but we're having trouble selling to them lately.
  
  It's not just because the U.S. economy is sagging or that the Canadian dollar has been overvalued. U.S.-Canadian border crossings are clogged. One suspects American politicians are thrilled that the thickening of the border reduces Canada's attractiveness as an investment for firms that want to serve American as well as Canadian markets. After all, if the borders are a problem, why not locate in the U.S. instead?
  
  Those clogged borders are non-tariff barriers to trade. What to do? It's going to be a chore to convince a Democratic administration with a protectionist mantra that it is in both countries' interests to make those border crossings workable again."

I guess that the good Senator forgot that he was supposed to slam the Ambassador Bridge.

WHY CITIGROUP FAILED

From the New York Times:

• "When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent."
  
  
• “They pushed to get earnings, but in doing so, they took on more risk than they probably should have if they are going to be, in the end, a bank subject to regulatory controls,” said Roy Smith, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “Safe and soundness has to be no less important than growth and profits but that was subordinated by these guys.”
  
  
• "To make matters worse, Citigroup’s risk models never accounted for the possibility of a national housing downturn, this person said, and the prospect that millions of homeowners could default on their mortgages. Such a downturn did come, of course, with disastrous consequences for Citigroup and its rivals on Wall Street."

Just you wait and see...With this push to infrastructure being our salvation in the economy and P3s financed from groups such as pension plans investing in illiquid projects at overpriced amounts that make no sense like the DRIC project, expect Government bailouts of bankrupt plans to protect the pensions of seniors!

CALL CENTRE LOCATIONS

Can anyone guess which locations were visited by the description in the Star:

• "The search for office space was focused on two primary sites - an office building just a few blocks south of the downtown and another location about 10 blocks to the west."

HO-HO-HO

Forget about sending our best and brightest out West. Eddie should call his onion friends in Germany and supply our people for these jobs:

• Germans face critical Santa shortage
  
  BERLIN - Wanted: Cheerful, chubby men, preferably with fluffy white beards and no criminal record, ready to work hard for one month.
  
  Germany is running out of qualified Santa Clauses and needs to recruit and train them fast, a leading job agency says.
  
  Germans are trying to shut out the financial crisis by taking comfort in traditional festivities, and there is an acute shortage of Santas to entertain children at shopping centres, Christmas markets and private parties."

Froehliche Weihnachten!