Wednesday-Night

Japan as number three: Watching China whizz by
Japan is now the world’s third-largest economy. Can its firms cope?
(The Economist) FIVE years ago China’s economy was half as big as Japan’s. This year it will probably be bigger (see chart 1). Quarterly figures announced this week showed that China had overtaken its ancient rival. It had […]

G8 Muskoka Official site
Globe & Mail G8/G20 site
G20 history – accounts for 85 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product
CBC G7-G8 video archives - great history
G8 Information Centre and G20 Information Centre  G8 Research Group
Policy Options
Globe & Mail G8/G20 Local View ; National Post Toronto G20 archives - not a very happy picture!
The […]

Innovation in emerging markets
Wednesday-Night.com Emerging markets

Meet the world’s next growth engine
(Financial Post) While the developed world grapples with the mass retirement of its baby boom generation, India is just welcoming its boomers into the workforce.
There, a demographic bulge will lead to an enormous labour force spike in the coming years, presenting India with a profound […]

Gordon Smith* comments on M D Nalapat
The last thing we need is a G12 competing with a G8
We must get beyond summit fatigue to better manage global interdependence
An important article was circulated this week by Xinhua, China’s official news agency, following on the G8/G20 meetings in Canada and the announcement that France will play host […]

John Ibbitson and Tara Perkins: How Canada made the G20 happen
The expanded group of leaders from Western and developing nations might never have existed, and certainly not in its current form, without a long, determined push from Paul Martin.
Paul Martin sat in Lawrence Summers’ spacious office in the Greek-columned U.S. Treasury building in […]

In Japan, new boss meets same problems as old boss
The ruling Democratic Party of Japan selected Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan to succeed Yukio Hatoyama to lead the party and the country, a move that will thrust him into many of the same problems that have flummoxed several Japanese administrations. Kan […]

(Economist special report) The world turned upside down
The emerging world, long a source of cheap labour, now rivals the rich countries for business innovation, says Adrian Wooldridge
IN 1980 American car executives were so shaken to find that Japan had replaced the United States as the world’s leading carmaker that they began to visit Japan to […]

With the guidance of Kenneth Matziorinis, Dr. Ioannis Bougas and other experts, so much of the evening was devoted to a discussion of events in Greece and the possible consequences for other vulnerable economies (known as the PIGS) of Europe that the related topics of governance and political events in the U.S. were left unaddressed until […]

Iran’s enduring turmoil
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reconfirmed in office, still faces a groundswell of bitter and spreading opposition
(The Economist) Many conservatives are, in fact, far from enthusiastic about their president. Even if he can withstand the opposition’s scorn, dismay and anger, he faces trenchant distrust within his own camp. A tussle with the supreme leader last […]