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 […]

Leonard Cohen Poet-in-residence at Westmount High
With a background of the soundtrack of some of the poet’s wonderful songs, Ginette Sauvé Frankel introduced Jack Locke, poet, founder of the Foundation for Public Poetry, and  editor of “Leonard Cohen You’re Our Man - 75 poets reflect on the poetry of Leonard Cohen.  It is indicative of the […]

The Economy - What went wrong & What’s next? II ; PBS Frontline coverage of The Meltdown
A year later, the analyses,  justifications and theories emerge
Wall Street’s Near-Death Experience
(Vanity Fair November 2009) With the implosion of Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, the realization dawned: Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs could be next. In an excerpt from […]

See IMF  and World Economic Outlook Reports ; The world after the (bailout) vote
Nations seek IMF crisis funding
The credit squeeze is spreading to emerging market economies, forcing them to turn to the IMF for emergency balance of payments financing, managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn confirmed yesterday.
His comments came amid mounting fears that Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and […]

The doom and gloom which naturally surrounded the discussion of the world economy was alleviated by the most welcome return of Vithal Rajan, who has spent a number of years in India building organizations to empower the poor, notably the Dalit or ‘Untouchables’. He is a firm believer in microcredit because it gives the […]

June 2, 2008
The World Is Upside Down
Roger Cohen, NYT Op-Ed
See the developed world as depending on the developing world, rather than the other way round. Understand that two-thirds of global economic growth last year came from emerging countries, whose economies will expand about 6.7 percent in 2008, against 1.3 percent for the United […]

An unexpected treat … Chil Heward will be bringing his son Geoffrey, Senior Vice-President and Director of G.F.G. Heward.
Geoff began his investment career over 25 years ago working in London England as an Equity Dealer on the London Stock Exchange for Cazenove and Co, returning to Canada with Merrill Lynch […]

NAFTA/Mexico
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has proven beneficial to both United States and Canada, but apparently less so to Mexico where companies, even large ones, are mostly family owned and the personal financial well-being of many Mexican families depends, to a great extent, on Mexican expatriates sending money home from the U.S. […]

January 28, 2008
Davos Diary: The schmooze of the world
Extreme brainpower meets extraordinary wealth at the annual World Economic Forum. Sean O’Grady reports from the plutocrats’ playground. Having followed much of the serious Davos coverage over the past days, we can recommend this somewhat light-hearted look at the events from The Independent
January 26, 2008
Japanese PM […]

Analysis of the 2007 Financial Subprime Crisis, by Jacques de Larosière
“Markets have been surprised by the eruption, on the 9th of August 2007, of the financial crisis. But a number of analysts had drawn the attention on the risks stemming from the co-existence of excessive liquidity, overextended institutions and an extreme sophistication of financial products. […]