Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 04:30 PM
Here are a few business news stories...
Bloomberg.com - December 31, 2008 - "Journal of a Plague Year: Faith in Markets Cracks Under Losses"
"It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out."
Timesonline.co.uk - February 11, 2009 - "Global stock market losses total $21 trillion"
"When equities bottomed on 21 November 2008, the MSCI World index had fallen 55 per cent since 31 October 2007. This worked out at a global loss of $21 trillion, or $ 21,000 for every individual in the developed world."
Foxbusiness.com - March 09, 2009 - "Internet Gambling Yield Passes US$20bn: Online Gambling Shows Resilience in Face of Recession"
"The total global interactive gross gambling yield surpassed US$ 20bn for 200... [More]
Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 02:06 PM
Well, the European Commission
completed an investigation recently and realized that America's stance against online gambling is, in fact, contradictory to WTO rules.
In other blockbuster findings, the Commission was astounded to find out that sub-prime mortgages are bad investments and that it just might someday be possible for a black man to be elected President of the United States.
Wow. How much did they pay for this investigation? Hopefully not a lot, because they could have found most of this out simply through browsing my
archives.
Anyway, this is obviously the EU's polite way of reminding the incoming Obama Administration that there are some easy ways for America to make friends with the international community.
It'll be interesting to see if this topic gets raised during
Obama's first official trip to Europe as prez.
Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 01:48 PM
Well, I just got back from a few weeks of vacation and I already need another.
I took the family down to Cancun for a week, and I can't really complain about that. It was warm, and that's what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, I was also looking for some relaxation, and when you are vacationing with two spirited kids (aged 3 & 6), it just is never as relaxing as it looks in the brochures.
Our trip to the local market took months off my life, but I'll leave that for the autobiography.
Anyway, the topper was returning to Nova Scotia and having to wade through a snowdrift in my driveway, wearing flip-flops no less, just to get to the door.
I don't know if it's my age or what, but I'm getting really tired of winters. Granted, getting this much snow this late in the
winter spring is rare in Nova Scotia, but I'd rather if it was NEVER, instead of just rare.
Well, either way, I guess I'm back on the clock, so I'd better start blogging.
Posted Tuesday, March 10, 2009 08:31 AM
President Obama's nominee for the office of US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, seems to have already painted himself into an online casino corner.
No sooner had he agreed to pay his back taxes - I didn't realize there was a choice - than Kirk stated in his confirmation hearing that the Obama administration wanted to ensure "the strongest possible enforcement" of trading rules.
Hmmmmmm. That should spell good news for online gambling, no?
After all, the WTO has already ruled that the USA is violating international trade rules with regards to its stance against online gambling.
Now to be fair, when Kirk made these comments it was in the context of trade deals with Asian countries and not in respect to online gambling.
But if the Obama Administration truly wants to be viewed by the world as a principled and honest government, well, then it can not pick and choose which trading rules it wants to enforce.
No, it would have to follow ALL of the rules.
And that means that A... [More]