Le contrarien rationel

Warren Buffett: de capitaliste à corporatiste

2012-02-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

Via Reason.com:

In the summer of 2008, when several investment houses and the government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac teetered on the brink of financial collapse, Buffett was “uncharacteristically quiet,” as the London Guardian observed. It was only on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on cash. Buffett’s play gave the investment bank a much-needed cash infusion, making a heck of a deal for himself in return: Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a share.

Wall Street was on fire, and Buffett was running toward the flames. But he was doing so with the expectation that the fire department (that is, the federal government) was right behind him with buckets of bailout money. As he admitted on CNBC at the time, “If I didn’t think the government was going to act, I wouldn’t be doing anything this week.”

Buffett needed the bailout. In addition to Goldman Sachs, which was not as badly leveraged as some of its competitors, Buffett was heavily invested in several other banks, such as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, that were also at risk and in need of federal cash.

Le Mythe pernicieux du 'Noble Primitif'

2012-02-15T04:51:00.000-08:00

Par David Deming:

The late Joseph Campbell maintained that civilizations are not based on science, but on myth. "Aspiration," Campbell explained, "is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization." Our technological society has been built on Francis Bacon's myth of the New Atlantis. Bacon was the first person to unambiguously and explicitly advocate the practical application of scientific knowledge to human needs. "The true and lawful goal of the sciences," he explained, "is that human life be endowed with new discoveries and powers." Writing in the early seventeenth century, Francis Bacon predicted lasers, genetic engineering, airplanes, and submarines.

Competing with Bacon's vision of a society based on science is the older and more persistent fable of the Noble Savage. The Noble Savage is not a person, but an idea. It is cultural primitivism, the belief of people living in complex and evolved societies that the simple and primitive life is better. The Noble Savage is the myth that man can live in harmony with nature, that technology is destructive, and that we would all be happier in a more primitive state.

Before Jesus Christ lived, the Noble Savage was known to the Hebrews as the Garden of Eden. The Greek poet Hesiod (c. 700 BC) called it the Golden Age. In the lost Golden Age, people lived in harmony with nature. There was no disease, pain, work, or conflict. Everyone lived in perfect peace. Insects didn't bite you. There were no extremes of temperature, and you could wander naked through the fields. If you happened to be hungry, all you had to do to satisfy your craving was reach up and pick a sumptuous ripe fruit off a nearby tree.

Doug Casey et le service social du profit

2012-02-08T14:38:00.003-08:00

Notice one more thing: making money honestly means creating something other people value, not yourself. The more money I want, the more I have to think about what other people want, and find better, faster, cheaper ways of delivering it to them. The reason someone is poor – and, yes, I know all the excuses for poverty – is that the poor do not produce more than they consume. Or if they do, they don't save the surplus.

-Doug Casey

Les présidents de la FED positionnent leurs portfolios pour se protéger de l'inflation

2012-02-03T05:20:00.001-08:00

Robert Wenzel rapporte:

Earlier this week I reported that New York Fed President Bill Dudley owned over $1 million worth of Treasury securities whose interest climbs with increasing price inflation.

Now comes word that Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher owns over $1 million dollars of gold.

One has to ask, do these guys take themselves seriously as inflation fighters if they have these kinds of positions in their personal portfolios?

It's a damn joke. It's like going to a doctor who has taken out and insurance policy that pays off on your death.

Goethe: Génie littéraire et scientifique, ainsi que libéral classique

2012-02-02T08:18:00.001-08:00

Par Hans Herman-Hoppe:

This year marks the 250th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Most Europeans know that he was the greatest of all German writers and poets and one of the giants of world literature. Less well known is that he was also a thorough-going classical liberal, arguing that free trade and free cultural exchange are the keys to authentic national welfare and peaceful international integration. He also argued and fought against the expansion, centralization, and unification of government on grounds that these trends can only hinder prosperity and true cultural development. Because of his relevance to the ongoing construction of Europe, I'd like to nominate Goethe as the European of the millennium.

La théorie du réchauffement climatique anthropogénique réfutée: verra-t-on le mea culpa??

2012-02-02T05:43:00.001-08:00

Par Nathalie Elgrably-Levy:

Il y a quelques jours à peine, un autre collectif, celui-ci composé de seize chercheurs de réputation mondiale, a signé un texte nous invitant à ne pas paniquer à propos du réchauffement climatique. Selon eux, il n’existe aucun argument scientifique irréfutable pour justifier l’adoption de mesures radicales de décarbonisation de la planète.

L’impact de ce texte est toutefois marginal à côté du coup de grâce porté, presque simultanément, par l’unité de recherche sur le climat de la University of East Anglia (UEA), située au Royaume-Uni. On se souvient que ce sont principalement des chercheurs de cette université qui ont influencé le GIEC, les décisions de nos gouvernements et les propos apocalyptiques d’Al Gore. L’un d’eux, David Viner, avait même affirmé que les enfants britanniques ne connaîtraient pas la neige. On se souvient également que ce sont les chercheurs de ce même établissement qui ont été au centre du scandale des courriels (Climategate). On leur reprochait, entre autres, d’avoir dissimulé l’absence de réchauffement au cours de la dernière décennie.

Heureusement, la vérité finit toujours par triompher. Des chercheurs de la UEA viennent de dévoiler leurs dernières conclusions à la suite de l’analyse de données provenant de 30 000 stations. Le verdict est simple : il n’y a pas eu de réchauffement climatique depuis 1997! Vous avez bien lu, le berceau de la théorie du réchauffement climatique confirme que sa thèse était fausse. Son discours alarmiste était donc non fondé. L’édifice climato-catastrophiste était lézardé depuis plusieurs années. Avec les révélations de la UEA, il s’est complètement écroulé.

J’adresse donc quelques questions élémentaires à nos politiciens encore déterminés à sauver l’humanité : maintenant que vous savez que les chercheurs à l’origine de la thèse du réchauffement climatique sont revenus sur leurs affirmations et qu’ils confirment que la température n’a pas bougé depuis quinze ans, allez-vous à votre tour réviser vos politiques environnementales? Êtes-vous toujours résolus à saboter notre économie avec une bourse du carbone destinée à corriger un problème que vous êtes maintenant seuls à voir?

La thèse du réchauffement climatique est morte… un véritable leader ne pourra feindre de l’ignorer!

Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy est économiste senior à l'Institut économique de Montréal.
* Cette chronique a aussi été publiée dans Le Journal de Québec.

La Liberté de presse: prérequis pour une société libre

2012-01-29T12:39:00.000-08:00

Extrait de la Mentalité anticapitaliste de Ludwig Von Mises (1954):

Unlicensed printing is the lifeblood of literature.

A free press can exist only where there is private control of the means of production. In a socialist commonwealth, where all publication facilities and printing presses are owned and operated by the government, there cannot be any question of a free press. The government alone determines who should have the time and opportunity to write and what should be printed and published. Compared with the conditions prevailing in Soviet Russia, even Tsarist Russia, retrospectively, looks like a country of a free press. When the Nazis performed their notorious book auto-da-fes, they exactly conformed to the designs of one of the great socialist authors, Cabet.[1]

Au Québec, on voit grand!

2012-01-28T12:15:00.001-08:00

Par David Descoteaux:

Début d’année tout à fait normal au Québec. Cette société distincte qui ne reconnaît pas le concept de crise économique.

Le patron de l’Agence métropolitaine de transport, Joël Gauthier, a décidé de quitter ses fonctions. Le train de l’Est, c’était sa responsabilité. Le projet va coûter deux fois plus que prévu. Aucun problème! On va donner à M. Gauthier une prime de départ de 115 000 $. Le temps de le recaser ailleurs dans la fonction publique, j’imagine.

Ce n’est pas sa faute si ce fiasco va coûter 400 millions $ de plus. Ce n’est jamais de la faute à personne au gouvernement. En fait, c’est probablement votre faute, contribuables. En tous cas, c’est vous qui allez payer.

Direction Ville de Montréal. Le nouveau directeur général, Guy Hébert, va gagner un salaire de 300 000 $. C’est plus que Stephen Harper, et presque autant qu’Obama. Mais c’est justifié. Le talent, ça se paye. Son prédécesseur gagnait encore plus, et voyez comment Montréal est bien gérée aujourd’hui! De toute façon, on assomme les Montréalais avec des hausses de taxes depuis trois ans. Faut bien dépenser cet argent quelque part. « J’aurais même pu demander un peu plus », a dit M. Hébert. Il ne l’a pas fait. On appelle ça se sacrifier pour le bien commun. Bravo!

Payez, cochons!

Petit détour à la Société de Transport de Montréal (STM). Cette entreprise très lean, qui gagne des concours de beauté à travers le monde. La STM vient d’accoucher d’une idée tout à fait originale pour grossir encore plus : taxer les autres! Avec des péages, ou d’autres taxes sur l’essence, ou les deux! Fallait y penser. Ces gens-là (les cadres) ont vu grimper leur masse salariale de 17 % l’an dernier. Ce n’est pas pour rien. Ça prend des vrais leaders pour décider de hausser le tarif aux usagers chaque année ou presque, trois fois plus vite que l’inflation.

Vous préféreriez que les gens de la STM gèrent mieux les subventions qu’ils reçoivent? Qu’ils sacrifient une partie de leurs généreux salaires et avantages sociaux? Allons donc! Il vous reste encore quelques sous au fond de vos poches, on le sait.

Avant que j’oublie… Récession ou pas, les subventions aux entreprises continuent d’augmenter. Comme le nombre de cadres dans les réseaux de la santé et de l’éducation (pendant que nos profs et infirmières ramassent des miettes). Mais n’ayez crainte. On a envoyé une femme de Repentigny en prison parce qu’elle a remis ses livres en retard à la bibliothèque. Je le sens, l’ère du laxisme tire à sa fin.

Du talent

Vous avez l’impression de payer toujours plus cher, pour des services toujours plus médiocres? C’est dans votre tête. Voyez ça de manière positive : nous avons une bureaucratie et des intermédiaires qui possèdent une habileté hors du commun à capter au passage l’argent de vos impôts avant qu’elles n’arrivent à ceux qui en ont besoin. Notre talent rendrait jaloux les joueurs défensifs des Patriots et des Giants, qui s’en vont au Superbowl. Ici, on intercepte toujours le ballon avant qu’il atterrisse dans les mains du citoyen visé.

Je sais, la crise économique sévit. Dans le privé, les emplois se perdent à coups de milliers. Vous vous serrez la ceinture, et payez de plus en plus de taxes. Mais c’est normal. De cette façon, vous fournissez aux élites éclairées le confort nécessaire pour nous guider à travers cette tempête.

Il faut continuer de voir grand, dans notre parc jurassique québécois. Où nos scientifiques aux commandes ont complètement perdu le contrôle des monstres qu’ils ont créés.

Le prix Nobel de la paix prépare-t-il une (autre) guerre?

2012-01-26T06:38:00.001-08:00

Par Robert Wenzel:

U.S. Weighs Expanded Military Presence in the Philippines
The leaders of the U.S. Empire are like the energizer bunny, they just don't stop.

WaPo reports that the Obama administration is considering significantly expanding the U.S. military presence in the Philippines, two decades after the island nation evicted American forces from their biggest base in the Pacific. Such an expansion would be the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at surrounding China.

Someday a book will be written about the nutjob who wrote up the plan for the U.S. to control the world (as the country declines domestically).

Note to Obama: One of the key reasons the deficit isn't worse is because China has bought up a trillion dollars plus of the debt and helped keep US interest rates low. Do you really want to piss these people off?

L'Immobilier canadien: dégonflement de la bulle en vue?

2012-01-25T09:10:00.000-08:00

Par David Descôteaux:

Si vous doutiez encore de l’existence d’une bulle immobilière au Canada, l’étude publiée dimanche par la firme américaine Demographia pourrait vous en convaincre. Quelques faits saillants :

— le marché immobilier au Canada est aujourd’hui considéré inabordable, après avoir été un des plus abordables au début des années 2000.

— Dans l’épicentre de la bulle, À Vancouver, le prix médian d’une maison dépasse de 10 fois le revenu brut d’un ménage. (C’est le multiple qu’utilise l’étude pour mesurer l’accessibilité — un marché « abordable » a un multiple de 3). À près d’un million de dollars la maison en moyenne, Vancouver est la deuxième ville anglophone la plus chère derrière Hong Kong, sur un échantillon de 325 villes.

— La surchauffe atteint aussi Montréal. L’île a vu son multiple grimper de 60 % depuis 2004, pour atteindre aujourd’hui 5,1. Bonne chance pour y trouver une maison décente en bas de 300 000 $! Montréal se trouve maintenant dans le top 6 des marchés « sévèrement inabordables » au Canada, avec Toronto et quatre villes en Colombie-Britannique.

Le document secret qui a transformé la Chine...

2012-01-23T05:19:00.000-08:00

...d'un enfer collectiviste 100% planifié a une économie semi-libre qui est encore planifiée mais avec des poches saines de liberté économique.

Via Economic Policy Journal et NPR.org:

Current day China is a mixed bag of central planning and free market activity. There likely will be a great economic crash in China because of the central planning, which has resulted in things like 40 million plus vacant apartments. But China, even with this central planning, is much better off than during the complete planning of the Mao reign.

National Public Radio has this fascinating report on how, in part, China broke free from the Mao inspired chains:
In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up transforming China's economy in ways that are still reverberating today.

The contract was so risky — and such a big deal — because it was created at the height of communism in China. Everyone worked on the village's collective farm; there was no personal property.

"Back then, even one straw belonged to the group," says Yen Jingchang, who was a farmer in Xiaogang in 1978. "No one owned anything."

At one meeting with communist party officials, a farmer asked: "What about the teeth in my head? Do I own those?" Answer: No. Your teeth belong to the collective.

La citation du jour

2012-01-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

What moral system should government follow? The same one individuals follow. Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet. Do not foster vice. If governments would merely follow the moral law that all religions recognize, we would live in a world of peace, prosperity, and freedom. The system is called classical liberalism. Liberty is not complicated.

-Ron Paul, Liberty Defined, p. 211.

L'épargne et l'investissement: les formes de charité les plus efficaces, et les plus éthiques

2012-01-16T11:39:00.001-08:00

Par FA Harper, via Mises.org:

In this essay I shall be dealing, however, with one aspect of economic charity — a form inferior to charity of the mind and the spirit. People spend vast sums trying to do good with economic alms in forms which, to me, seem open to serious question. In their haste to do good and to bask in the glow of immediate glory as purveyors of alms, they are being exceedingly wasteful of the means of benevolence. The methods they use would come to appear unbenevolent, I believe, if they would view them by the test of alternatives in the longer perspective of economic science. That is the thought I should like to explore here, in honor of Professor Mises.

A certain Talmudical philosopher once offered us this apothegm:

The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity, and the best alms are to show and enable a man to dispense with alms.[1]
A profound observation! It deserves to be kept in mind constantly as we fumble along in attempts to do good to others.

Corée du Nord: Camps de travail forcé pour les citoyens n'ayant pas exprimé un 'deuil suffisant' à la mort de Kim Jong Il

2012-01-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

Via Economic Policy Journal:

More proof most government leaders are nutty madmen (North Korea edition)

PIK.TV reports:
North Korean citizens, who did not take part in the mourning ceremonies for the country’s late Leader Kim Jong-il, are facing up to six months in labor camps, Interfax reported January 11.

According to the South Korean media sources, “People’s Courts” took place all over the country starting December 29 to condemn those who did not show enough emotion after the death of “the great leader” Kim Jong-il.

The People’s Court hearings were reportedly over by January 8. The behavior of those people, who criticized the three-generation principle of ruling the country, was also a matter of discussion during the court meetings.

It was reported earlier that 2012 calendars were fully taken out of stores because the date of death of the late Leader Kim Jong-il was not marked in them.

Kim Jong-il died December 17 of a heart attack in his armored train. The North Korean government, now headed by his son, Kim Jong-un, has promised to continue implementing “the great revolutionary leaders’ ideas” with the aim of reuniting the Korean Peninsula.

La liberté économique: cause de la liberté d'expression artistique

2012-01-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

Via The Free Man:

In the early 1500s Albrecht Dürer was perhaps the most famous artist in northern Europe. A recent article in The Economist reports that he was also a shrewd businessman. In today’s world of popular artists — from Steven Spielberg to Lady Gaga — the pairing of business and “entertainment,” if regretted by some, is noncontroversial. But many still see the true artist and the profit-seeking business person as coming from radically different places.

Historically speaking, however, cases like Dürer’s seem to have been fairly common. Tyler Cowen explains in his book In Praise of Popular Culture, for example, that the artists of Renaissance Florence were men of business. Michelangelo and Raphael sculpted and painted timeless masterpieces for prelates and princes, but each had an eye for the bottom line.

Le rôle pernicieux de l'État dans la mort des langues locales

2012-01-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

Par Danny Hieber, via Mises.org:

The history of the world's languages is largely a story of loss and decline. At around 8000 BC, linguists estimate that upwards of 20,000 languages may have been in existence.[1] Today the number stands at 6,909 and is declining rapidly.[2] By 2100, it is quite realistic to expect that half of these languages will be gone, their last speakers dead, their words perhaps recorded in a dusty archive somewhere, but more likely undocumented entirely.[3]

What causes this? How does one become the last speaker of a language, as Boa Sr was before her death in 2010? How do languages come to be spoken only by elders and not children? There are a number of bad answers to these questions. One is globalization, a nebulous term used disparagingly to refer to either global economic specialization and the division of labor, or the adoption of similar cultural practices across the globe.

The problem with globalization in the latter sense is that it is the result, not a cause, of language decline. Another bad answer, encompassed in the former definition of globalization, is trade and capitalism. Trade does not kill languages any more than it kills any other type of cultural practice, like painting or music. Trade enhances the exchange of cultural practices and fosters their proliferation; it does not generally diminish them. Historically, regional trade has fostered the creation of many new lingua francas, and the result tends to be a stable, healthy bilingualism between the local language and the regional trade language. It is only when the state adopts a trade language as official and, in a fit of linguistic nationalism, foists it upon its citizens, that trade languages become "killer languages."

Le NDAA: Un petit pas pour Obama, un grand pas pour Big Brother

2012-01-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

Via The Atlantic:

Obama Makes It Official: Suspected Terrorists Can Be Indefinitely Detained Without a Trial

Témoignages du cuisinier de Kim Jong Il

2011-12-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Il est clair que le train de vie du 'Dear Leader' était sans comparaison possible avec celui de ces sujets, ces derniers vivant dans une abjecte pauvreté sous un état policier très répressif.

Par The Atlantic (ceci n'est qu'un petit extrait):

From 1989 through 1991 I was invited often to Kim Jong Il's official residence. There he kept a very large liquor cellar. Famous liquor brands from around the world were lined up, maybe about 10,000 bottles in all.

At the time, Kim Jong Il drank Johnnie Walker Swing for whiskey and Hennessy XO for cognac.

The liquor cellar also had a karaoke set, a piano, and a round table that could seat fifteen or sixteen people. There, I remember, we often sang together the Japanese song "The Bride in Seto."

Un 'geek' attrape quelqu'un qui vole chez eux...

2011-12-21T19:37:00.000-08:00

...avec un système de caméra de surveillance lié à son iPhone, le tout coûtant 50$!

Via Economic Policy Journal:

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2011

$50 Motion Detector Camera Catches a Crook
NyPo reports:
A computer whiz yesterday busted a brazen burglar at his Manhattan pad — all while sitting at his work desk six blocks away.
Levent Cetiner, 30, an IT ace at the School of Visual Arts in Gramercy, had set up a motion-detection camera in his West 21st Street apartment that sends him real-time photos of his home by e-mail when triggered.

“I live on the top floor and thought it would be easy for someone to come in off the fire escape,” Cetiner told The Post.
“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

But sometime early yesterday afternoon, it snapped a photo of José Perez-Quinonez, 30, of West Harlem climbing into Cetiner’s fourth-floor window in Chelsea, authorities told The Post.

The high-tech gadget — which Cetiner bought online for about $50 — then promptly sent the picture by e-mail to him.
The stunned Cetiner immediately called 911 and raced home.

He arrived to find his apartment locked and Perez-Quinonez allegedly still inside rummaging through his belongings, snatching his laptop computer and iPad.

“I couldn’t get in because he locked the deadbolt from the inside,” Cetiner said.

The frantic gizmo geek said he then pounded on the door and shouted: “You’re being recorded, and the police are on the way!”
About a minute later, the cops arrived, and Cetiner used his smartphone to show them the picture of Perez-Quinonez scrambling into his top-floor apartment through a window off the fire escape.

La citation du jour

2011-12-17T11:51:00.001-08:00

Champagne Socialism: Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow.

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Les auteurs de South Park: libertariens et irrévérencieux

2011-12-17T10:48:00.004-08:00

Par Jean Philippe L. Risi, via le Québécois Libre:

South Park, la série télévisée fort connue de Matt Stone et Trey Parker, aura attiré beaucoup de controverses en 15 saisons. C'est en effet depuis 1997 que les quatre enfants protagonistes de la petite ville de South Park au Colorado observent des situations dignes de Monty Python. Mais puisqu’il s’agit d'un dessin animé, est-ce approprié pour un jeune public?

Pas vraiment, puisque l'auditoire visée est évidemment adulte. Qui plus est, l'avantage du médium est que les créateurs peuvent se permettre un certain niveau de vulgarité qui ne passerait pas avec une méthode plus traditionnelle. Les premières saisons présentent des scénarios assez surréalistes et vulgaires, quoiqu'on remarque déjà que les figures d'autorité sont d'une stupidité effrayante. On y affiche également une grande quantité de stéréotypes qui ne servent qu'à choquer les lobbys sociaux traditionnels ‒ pensons au chef de cafétéria de l'école, qui est un homme noir chantant comme Barry White à toutes les deux minutes.

Peu à peu, on commence à y voir des critiques sociales très claires et dirigées. Lors de la quatrième saison, on y parodie ouvertement la notion de « crime haineux » lorsque des agents fédéraux traînent en justice l'un des enfants qui a insulté un de ses camarades de classe de race noire. « La prochaine fois que tu intimides une personne à l'école, assures-toi qu'elle soit de la même couleur que toi », lui explique un juge après la délivrance d'une sentence de deux ans dans un pénitencier juvénile.

De l'éducation sexuelle à l'école au traitement des mourants aux soins palliatifs, de l'immigration illégale à l'homosexualité en passant par la régulation du taux d'urine dans les piscines publiques, un ensemble de sujets concernant la société civile et le gouvernement y sont abordés avec humour, vulgarité et désinvolture, d’autant plus que l'ensemble des positions du spectre politique américain y sont sérieusement ridiculisées.

« We find just as many things to rip on the left as we do on the right. People on the far-left and the far-right are the same exact person to us », explique Trey Parker lors d'une entrevue.

South Park: message

2011-12-17T10:48:00.003-08:00

South Park: message

2011-12-17T10:48:00.001-08:00

Le Disneyland fantôme de la Chine...

2011-12-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

Par Robert Wenzel:

I am not making things up when I say a good chunk of China's GDP is fake. Things have been built in China, through government planning that register as part of the phenomenal GDP, but have no real value, like 30 to 50 million vacant apartments.

Here's the latest. China has a fake deserted Disneyland-type amusement park. David Gray writes at Reuters:
Along the road to one of China’s most famous tourist landmarks – the Great Wall of China – sits what could potentially have been another such tourist destination, but now stands as an example of modern-day China and the problems facing it.

Situated on an area of around 100 acres, and 45 minutes drive from the center of Beijing, are the ruins of ‘Wonderland’. Construction stopped more than a decade ago, with developers promoting it as ‘the largest amusement park in Asia’. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field.

Pulling off the expressway and into the car park, I expected to be stopped by the usual confrontational security guards. But there was absolutely no one to be seen. I walked through one of the few entrances not boarded up, and instantly started coughing. In front of me were large empty rooms and discarded furniture, all covered in a thick layer of dust, along with an eerie silence that gave the place a haunted feeling – an emotion not normally associated with a children’s playground...

All these structures of rusting steel and decaying cement, are another sad example of property development in China involving wasted money, wasted resources and the uprooting of farmers and their families...
Click here for pics of the deserted "Disneyland"

The Chinese crash that is going to hit the stock market is going to be very loud. Not only are there empty apartments, children's amusement parks, but also train stations, airports and super trains.

Le Canada: plus de similitudes qu'on pense avec la Grèce

2011-12-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Via Hardcore Value:

George Athanassakos is a finance professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. For those Canadians who are lucky enough to have started value investing at a young age, aim for this program. For most of us who are passed the formal education stage of our life check out the Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing where George is Chair. There are some tremendous in-depth videos with well known value investors (Watsa, Chou, Klarman just to name a few).

George recently wrote an article for the Globe titled Can Canada go the way of Greece. Check out the full article on Globe Investor but I want to highlight some of the key points.

An overleveraged economy: Although Canada has a low government debt to GDP level when you add in household debt Canada is actually worse than Greece. "203 per cent for Canada vs. 195 per cent for Greece. In fact, Canada is in the top five countries in the world when you include government and household debt; Greece is not." (I talked about household debt here.)

George also mentions the future promises of social programs and CMHC's insane mortgage liabilities (Canada's Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, which I briefly wrote about here.)