From the Telegraph….

The prospect of a trade war between the US and Europe is looming after “Buy American” provisions were added to President Barack Obama’s $820 billion (£573 billion) stimulus package.

The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects.

The Senate’s version of the legislation, which will be debated early next week, goes even further, requiring that any projects related to the stimulus use only American-made equipment and goods.

This chart from Marco Man says it all.

For those that don’t know, the Labor party (under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown) campaigned on a promise to end the boom and bust cycle that the irresponsible Marget Thatcher and John Major allowed on their watch. The chart above is not entirely fair (it only tracks the stock market) but it makes a valid point very clearly.

From the Daily Mail…..

Britain was just three hours away from going bust last year after a secret run on the banks, one of Gordon Brown’s Ministers has revealed.

City Minister Paul Myners disclosed that on Friday, October 10, the country was ‘very close’ to a complete banking collapse after ‘major depositors’ attempted to withdraw their money en masse.

The Mail on Sunday has been told that the Treasury was preparing for the banks to shut their doors to all customers, terminate electronic transfers and even block hole-in-the-wall cash withdrawals.

Only frantic behind-the-scenes efforts averted financial meltdown.

I don’t know if I believe anything that I read in the Daily Mail. But no body seems to be denying the quote. And it seems to me that anyone with large amounts of foreign exchange has to realize that if a crunch ever comes, they will get their dollars/euros when the British government is good and ready to let them. Given the example of Iceland, a lot of people have reason to be nervous.

From the Globe and Mail…

Listing your name on Canada’s new do-not-call registry could actually increase the likelihood that you will be targeted by unscrupulous telemarketers.

The Consumers’ Association of Canada says it has been inundated with complaints from people who have been called by scam artists after placing their telephone numbers on the registry, which went into effect last September.

The do-not-call list was created to prevent telemarketers from contacting people who do not want to be pestered with uninvited sales pitches. For companies to find out who they are not permitted to call, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sells the list online for a fee.

From later on in the article….

Penalties for misuse of the registry run as high as $15,000 for a corporation, or $1,500 for an individual. But it’s difficult to fine fraudsters who are based overseas – or those in Canada running a fly-by-night business.

(h/t Marginal Revolution)

From Fannie’s 8-K filling….

Fannie Mae (formally, the Federal National Mortgage Association) is in the process of preparing its financial statements for the fourth quarter of 2008 and the year ended December 31, 2008. Based on preliminary unaudited information concerning its results for these periods, management currently expects that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, acting in its capacity as conservator of Fannie Mae (the “Conservator”), will submit a request to the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) to draw funds on behalf of Fannie Mae under the $100 billion Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement entered into between Treasury and the Conservator, acting on behalf of Fannie Mae, on September 7, 2008, and subsequently amended and restated on September 26, 2008 (the “Purchase Agreement”). Although management currently estimates that the amount of this initial draw will be approximately $11 billion to $16 billion, the actual amount of the draw may differ materially from this estimate because Fannie Mae is still working through the process of preparing and finalizing its financial statements for the fourth quarter of 2008 and the year ended December 31, 2008.

If you are conservative and figure 10 Billion for Fannie and 30 Billion for Freddie, you have a 40 Billion dollar draw on the government in one quarter.

From Naked Capitalism….

Even if there were a rationale for Citi buying a corporate jet now (which I cannot fathom, given their horrid financial condiiton), why buy new? There are no doubt plenty of used jets for sale right now.

Another post on Naked Capitalism called Merrill Pay Down Only Slightly in 2008 From 2007 Levels has more along the same lines.

From the Times…

On Friday Qimonda, of Germany, became the first big chipmaker to file for insolvency. The world’s fourth-biggest manufacturer of DRAM memory chips, used mainly in PCs, said that a €325 million (£306 million) rescue attempt by the German state of Saxony, Infineon, its parent company, and a group of banks had not been agreed in time to save it. Qimonda follows Nortel Networks, North America’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, in filing for insolvency.

The semiconductor sector was in poor shape before the present downturn, with large players having spent lavishly in early 2007 on increased production to expand their market share, resulting in oversupply and price collapses. Cash-strapped manufacturers have cut output, but the weakness in demand has prevented any meaningful price gains.

From Slate….

Gettelfinger argued Toyota’s workers actually make $2-per-hour more than UAW workers, if you count bonuses. But … but. … Toyota did not go bankrupt. … Toyota hasn’t had to be rescued with $17.4 billion of taxpayer money. … If Toyota can afford to pay its workers $2/hour more than UAW workers–perhaps because it doesn’t have to build cars under the union’s legalistic work rule system–that’s great. It doesn’t mean Gettelfinger’s workers have a right to $28/hour if at that wage their employers can’t stay in business without an ongoing multi-billion dollar subsidy. I’m sorry if this seems obvious. It’s apparently not obvious enough. … P.S.: So will promoters of greater unionization now boast that with unions, workers can earn $2/hour less?

The last line is the kicker.

On a different note….

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

Two words: Social Security.

Now for the ugly…

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

“Canon has a very strong birth planning program,” says the company’s spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. “Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it.”

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.

At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan’s population, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Now I am all for babies as much as it is possible for a guy to be. But I dunno about working for a company that feels compelled to urge you to multiply. Business is Business and family is family. Still, the ugliest thing about the above story is that 1.34 figure. Japan no longer has the time to turn their birth rates around. They are doomed without massive immigration and I don’t see anyone in Japan willing to accept that.

From the Times….

A coalition of leading American exporters, including Boeing, Caterpillar and General Electric, is trying to stop a “Buy America” clause being included in President Obama’s $825 billion stimulus package.

The American Steel First Act would ensure that only US-made steel was used in $64 billion of federally funded infrastructure projects.

The money, earmarked for roads, bridges and waterways, is aimed at kickstarting the economy, but the initiative by steelmakers, which secured support last week in the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, is opposed by American exporters, who fear retaliation by foreign governments.

Their concern is given credence by the European Commission and by Eurofer, the association of European steelmakers, which said that it would urge the European Union to challenge the “Buy America” clause at the World Trade Organisation.

Also from the Times…

The head of the International Monetary Fund turned up the heat on China over its exchange rate policies on Monday, arguing that it was clear that the Chinese yuan was “significantly undervalued”.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s managing director, said that it was in Beijing’s clear interest to allow the yuan to strengthen on foreign exchanges and insisted that the fund had been straightforward on the issue and had repeatedly spelled out this assessment.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s intervention stepped up pressure on China over its currency only days after Tim Geithner, President Obama’s nominee as US Treasury Secretary, sent a tremor through markets as he signalled a potential shift to a harder line from Washington over the yuan.

From Slashfilm…..

Following up on our previous news regarding Monty Python material on iTunes, Mashable is now reporting on a staggering increase of Monty Python DVDs sold on Amazon soon after the Python crew made some of their their more popular material free on Youtube. And by staggering, I mean 23,000% worth. Mashable notes that Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to the #2 spot on Amazon’s Movie’s and TV Bestseller List, and you don’t have to be a genius to follow that the sales were probably influenced by the Amazon links found on all of their Youtube clips.

You also don’t have to be a genius to note that people who figure out ways of making Youtube work for them make more money then those who spend their time worrying about how Youtube is being used to pirate their clips.