THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Here are short biographies of all 56 signers of the Declaration. The first, largest, and most famous signature is that of John Hancock. Most were well educated. All were well off.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

I take full responsibility!

What does, “I take full responsibility” mean?

Politicians use those words when a government function does not operate as expected. Doesn’t taking responsibility mean facing a punishment?

As reported on AOL.COM General Motors CEO Mary Barra addressing employees at the automaker’s vehicle engineering center said that the company has fired 15 people associated with those failures and disciplined five others. Earlier documents had revealed that GM knew of the Chevrolet Cobalt ignition-switch problems for more than a decade, but had done nothing to fix the problem.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (aka BP Oil Spill) was one of the worst oil disasters in history. More than 200 million gallons of crude oil was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days. BP CEO Tony Hayward was transferred to another job but were any of those working on the oil derrick fired? The answer appears to be NO.

The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy‘s Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed. Was anyone charged with a crime?

Shoddy care in Veteran’s Administration hospitals goes back to at least 1945 when President Harry Truman accepted the resignation of VA Administrator Frank Hines after a series of news reports detailing shoddy care in VA-run hospitals, according to a 2010 history produced by the Independent Inspector General. The latest action was the Veteran’s secretary resigning. Who is responsible for the loss of life?

This is all about people in high places not being held accountable for their actions or inaction. Not in every instance but too frequently when lives are at stake.

Ship captains seem to be the rare exception. Most recently the captain of the ferry, Sewol, sinking off the coast of South Korea, the captain of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, and the captain of the Exxon Valdez sinking off the Alaskan coast have all faced criminal charges.

Everyone who is connected with the loss of life should be held responsible. To me that means fines, penalties, and some jail time too!

Obama: Skilled Politician, Lousy Manager

Doyle McManus’ column in today’s Los Angeles Times on-line edition identifies the reality of the Barack Obama presidency. Given the history of past presidential failures can anyone do this job? What failures? Iran-Contra, Bay of Pigs, Hostages in Iran, Financial Meltdown, etc.

May 24, 2014

We don’t normally expect our presidents to pay close attention to how long veterans are being asked to wait for care in the vast medical system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But we do expect presidents to appoint Cabinet officers and other aides who can run the federal government well — well enough, at least, to prevent full-blown scandals from erupting.

That’s what the VA’s long-running scheduling problems have turned into after reports that veterans died while waiting for medical care — and bureaucrats apparently manipulated records to make their performance look good when it wasn’t.

No one can read the stories of individual veterans who suffered at the hands of the bureaucracy — like Edward Laird, a 76-year-old Navy veteran who lost half of his nose because he had to wait two years for cancer tests — without feeling helpless fury.

And those stories are certain to keep coming.

It’s an especially dangerous scandal for President Obama because it fits into an established narrative about his presidency: that he’s a skilled politician and speechmaker but a lousy manager.

The biggest problems Obama has faced in the White House — aside from unrelenting opposition from Republicans in Congress — have come not from making policy but from trying to implement it. The calamitous launch of his healthcare plan last fall is the biggest and most painful example, but it’s only one of several.

The 2009 economic stimulus plan’s “shovel-ready” projects that took months to start, the confused response to the 2010 BP oil spill, the flap over IRS scrutiny of conservative organizations, even the State Department failures that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi in 2012 — all were mainly lapses in management, not policy.

The president’s conservative critics have accused him, often wildly, of every sin they can think of, from diabolical conspiracy (in the case of the IRS) to dereliction of duty (Benghazi). But the charge that’s likely to stick is one that connects all those unrelated events to an underlying truth: Obama has never paid as much attention to the nitty-gritty of management as he has to making policy and campaigning for votes.

“Presidents get elected because of their rhetorical skills, but they succeed or fail based on their managerial skills,” warned Elaine Kamarck, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton who directs a center on public management at the Brookings Institution. “In this administration … somehow, there is no adequate communications system; the White House keeps getting hit by these unpleasant surprises.”

Until recently, Kamarck noted, the White House didn’t have a high-ranking aide assigned full time to monitoring how programs were being implemented. That’s one of the reasons for the failure of the healthcare website; the engineers foresaw it, but nobody high up was pulling that information out of them.

Bad management alienates even a president’s allies, Kamarck noted.

“His popularity can go down and stay down,” she said. “That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter in the last year of his presidency. That’s what happened to George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina.”

And now “that’s the narrative about Obama. It’s the narrative even among Democrats. They’re beginning to say, ‘Oh, we love everything he says; we just wish he could get something done.'”

In the case of the VA health system, problems many of us are learning about now have long been evident but never quite got fixed.

“This has been building for 10 or 15 years,” said Phillip E. Carter, an expert on veterans affairs at the Center for a New American Security. He said demographic surges of aging Vietnam vets, plus returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, were straining the system.

Even the specific problems of excessive waiting times and bureaucrats manipulating records aren’t new.

The VA knew that some of its medical centers had piled up huge backlogs in patient appointments by 2011. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, reported in 2012 that VA bureaucrats were fiddling with waiting time records. CNN reported in 2013 that at least six veterans died in South Carolina because of long delays in providing diagnostic tests. Charges of misconduct at the VA medical center in Phoenix, the incident that turned the problem into a scandal, have been percolating through the bureaucracy for more than a year.

So if Obama only learned of the depth of the problems from watching TV, as his spokesman said last week, something is amiss with his administration’s internal communications.

It’s possible to hold out some optimism amid these scandals.

“Every crisis is also an opportunity,” Carter said. “Fixes are available at the VA, and this is the time to put them in place.”

It’s even possible that the White House has learned some management lessons. After the healthcare website crashed last fall, Obama named a seasoned administrator, Jeffrey Zients, to take charge — and seven months later, the health insurance program appears to be working.

And two weeks ago, Obama created a White House post — deputy chief of staff for policy implementation — and filled it with Kristie Canegallo, an aide who worked with Zients on the healthcare crisis. “We have determined we need more senior-level focus on implementation and execution,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said in announcing her appointment.

Good call. Too bad it came too late to help some of those vets.

Merger and Acquisition Leads to Monopoly

What if there was just one phone company, one television service provider, and one company owning all the supermarkets? Do you believe that prices would be lower or higher?

This proposed $48 billion merger of AT&T with DirectTV along with the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger will enable two very large companies to become even bigger. The benefit will be reduced competition for the newly formed businesses. The impact will be higher cost cable and satellite TV service for the public. Unless the public is very vocal these mergers will be approved. The company lobbyists will begin making their rounds to congressional offices starting now. Every congressman needs to be scrutinized before the next election.

AT&T is a relatively small player in its offering called U-Verse television service. Their acquisition of DirectTV will make them a major participant in the TV service business. AT&T claims this will in no way reduce competition. That is the same argument Comcast makes in its proposed purchase of TWC. The consequences are more significant than merely permitting two or three companies dominating the delivery of television services.

There will be less competition and the decisions those companies make will determine the programs you watch.

Interestingly Morningstar, the on-line evaluator of stocks and bonds, does not believe there is any financial or strategic benefit in the AT&T acquisition.
“The biggest benefit to AT&T from this deal would be increased leverage in negotiating with content owners like Disney. By highlighting the fact that other pay television providers need to keep pace with Comcast and putting its own deal forward, AT&T is forcing regulators to consider a world with significantly increased concentration in media distribution.”

Consumer Reports lobbying arm, Consumers Union, says that neither of these consolidations are good for consumers.

Both Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice must approve this merger. The Washington Times reports that every single member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, holding hearings on the Comcast purchase of TWC has taken money from Comcast.

So if you were betting on the approval of that purchase, what do you believe the outcome will be?

Collusion – The Near Monopolies Control so Much of America’s Private Enterprises

Collusion: Synonyms are conspiracy, complicity, involvement, agreement, knowledge, consent, approval. Which of those words defines the U.S. congressional responsibility for just five major banks controlling most of this nation’s economy?

The United States government is a partner in the near monopoly of private enterprises that permeate our society. Don’t believe me? Read on.

Do you suspect there is price fixing in the price of gasoline in the United States? Here is a list of the major companies in the USA.

USA

76 Stations

BP (Arco)

Chevron

Conoco

Exxon

Mobil

Phillips 66

Shell

Texaco

In your neighborhood the prices are never more than a few cents apart.

How difficult would it be for Chevron, Mobil, Shell, and Arco (the stations in my area) to meet discretely on a golf course and agree on the pricing? The answer is it wouldn’t be too hard.

Few companies have a true monopoly in any market. More common are “virtual monopolies” or “near-monopolies” that exist due to geography or brand recognition. When consumers hear the term monopoly, the first thing that comes to mind is often price-fixing. Unfortunately they are correct. Jello Brand gelatin desert has a near monopoly. Intel processor chips had a near monopoly in PC computers. Bill Gates and his immediate inner circle earned an over the top fee for his Office programs. To this day he is still either the richest man in the world or nearly so.

During the Senate hearing on Comcast’s takeover of Time Warner Cable, Sen. Al Franken said the cable giant has over 100 lobbyists making its case. That is one lobbyist for every senator. Consumers Union says over 264,000 people have sent messages to congress asking that the merger be stopped. Comcast current share of the cable industry is estimated at 30%. Time Warner Cable current share of the cable industry is estimated at 19%.

The Kroger Co. is a major retail food market company that simply keeps growing larger and larger. The company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is the latest posting on their web site. “We are delighted to welcome Harris Teeter to the Kroger Family of Stores.” That company owns Thumb Stores; Heritage Farms Dairy; HarrisTeeter Supermarkets, Inc. That company has stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Maryland and Delaware. With the exception of Maryland and Delaware, Kroger already has Kroger stores in those states. So whether you shop at Harris Teeter or Kroger you are shopping at the same company. Kroger ownership is widespread under a variety of names: Kroger, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, QFC, Ralphs, Food 4 Less, Smith’s, and now Harris Teeter. This is not a complete list. Kroger Co. also approached Safeway about buying part of its operations. Kroger’s share of the entire retail food sales is unknown but the company has the largest share of the U.S. market.

Ticketmaster competitors are nowhere to be found. The company seems to have a lock on all sales of tickets for concerts, live theater, and sporting events. As an Example I logged into the Hollywood Bowl/Los Angeles Phil and found the web site’s basic address is Ticketmaster.com. Their fee is 8% to 10% of the price of the tickets. The only option to avoid the fee is a visit to the box office. There is no alternate sales agent. Ticketmaster had a more or less monopolistic position in the ticketing market after the purchase of its main competitors Ticketron and Live Nation.

LensCrafters is owned by Luxottica Group S.p.A. That company is the world’s largest eyewear company, controlling over 80% of the world’s major eyewear brands. Its best known brands are Ray-Ban, Persol and Oakley. This company was featured in a 60 Minutes program. The company owns

Sunglass Hut International
LensCrafters
Pearle Vision
Pearle Opticians
Sears Optical
Target Optical
OPSM
ILORI
Bright Eyes
Budget Eyewear
Cole Vision Care
Optical Shop of Aspen
Surfeyes
Laubman & Pank
ICON
Grand Optics LLC

Eyeglasses that are either plastic or wire frames cost almost as much as a computer.

Everyone is a victim! Our elected government is a partner in this crime!

A Super Power Proves Its Strength

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Makes a Fool of Himself and the United States

This video has an indistinct sound track

The White House imposed asset freezes on seven Russian officials, including Putin’s close ally Valentina Matvienko, who is speaker of the upper house of parliament, and Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin’s top ideological aides. The Treasury Department also targeted Yanukovych, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov and two other top figures.

The EU’s foreign ministers slapped travel bans and asset freezes against 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine.

Somehow I don’t think that’s much of a problem. Not from the least threatening Secretary of State in American history. Hillary Clinton was more threatening in her sleep than John Kerry is after four cups of coffee and three Belgian snubs.

But still John “Unbelievably small strike” Kerry took the time out to reassure Vlad that America was not threatening him.

John Kerry, “We hope President Putin will recognize that none of what we’re saying is meant as a threat. It’s not meant as a – in a personal way. It is meant as a matter of respect for the international multilateral structure that we have lived by since World War II and for the standards of behavior about annexation, about secession, about independence and how countries come about it.”

“So we very much hope that President Putin will hear that we are not trying to challenge Russia’s rights or interests, it’s interest in protecting its people, its interests in its strategic position, its port agreement. None of those things are being threatened here. They can all be respected even as the integrity of Ukraine is respected, and we would hope that President Putin would see that there is a better way to address those concerns that he has that are legitimate, and we hope he will make that decision.”

Those are the words of the Secretary of State (Secretary of Foreign Affairs) of the one claimed super power in the world. The United States apologizes to Russia for taking a minimal action. It’s an action so small that no one will notice that it happened.

Is it any wonder that the world holds contempt for the United States?

Unemployed – Explained by two eminent economists

So how can over 873,000 people come off the unemployment line when there were only a little over 114,000 jobs created?

Luckily I found a transcript of a conversation between two eminent economists discussing this very
question!

Here we go, the recent unemployment report explained —

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 7.8%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.

COSTELLO: You just said 7.8%.

ABBOTT: 7.8% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 7.8% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 14.7% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 7.8%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 7.8% or 14.7%?

ABBOTT: 7.8% are unemployed. 14.7% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how the current administration gets it to 7.8%. Otherwise it would be 14.7%. Our govt. doesn’t want you to read about 14.7% unemployment!

COSTELLO: That would be tough on those running for reelection.

ABBOTT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have administration supporters stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like the Economy Czar.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like Obama.

O Canada, you sensible land!

You may already know that the U.S. dollar and Canadian dollar are almost identical in value . Currently the US dollar will buy about $1.10 Canadian. Just a few months ago the situation was reversed. Toronto and Vancouver homes are as expensive or more expensive than the same property in Los Angeles. Their housing boom tracked the U.S. boom before 2008. The exception is they did not experience the melt down. The price of homes has continued to rise throughout Canada. To quote the Financial Post: “Home ownership a passion for Canadians. It is a passion for ownership that has put Canada in the elite company of countries with estimates that more than 70% of households now own their own home.”

O Canada, you sensible land!

By Jay MacDonald · Bankrate.com

Monday, May 9, 2011

Posted: 9 am ET

What’s the best way out of our bubble-bust-bubble mortgage muddle that has resulted in a record 2.87 million American foreclosures last year alone? The answer may lie due north.

O Canada, you have no doubt watched our housing-driven Great Recession with the stern if sympathetic eye of a schoolmaster who well knows the fate of all undisciplined schoolboys.

During our financial meltdown, not a single Canadian bank failed. Less than 1 percent of Canadian mortgages are in arrears. And this in a land that doesn’t even afford its homeowners the courtesy of a tax break on their mortgage interest!

I was gob-smacked by a recent McClatchy report out of Toronto with the headline, “Canada’s mortgage system works.” Of course, compared to our system, falling as it does somewhere between a faulty pachinko game and three-card Monte, most of the developed world could make the same claim.

Canada owes its housing stability in large part to a conservative regulatory environment that holds its 71 federally regulated lenders to stricter underwriting standards and larger reserve requirements for potential losses than does its U.S. counterpart.

There is no Canadian equivalent of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, which purchase mortgages from banks and bundle them into bonds. Did I mention that Fannie and Freddy have been in government conservatorship since mid-2008?

As far as tax incentives go, Canadian homeowners are allowed an exemption on capital gain from the sale of their primary residence, period. Yet their homeownership rate is equal to or greater than ours here in Sud Moosejaw.

Stuart Gabriel, a finance professor at UCLA, sees it this way:

“They’ve insisted all along on the more rigorous mortgage underwriting, and because of that never found themselves originating subprime and no-doc mortgages … some very basic items such as stringency of underwriting seem to go a long way.”

Indeed. Now I’ll grant you, corralling a total of 71 lenders for 34 million citizens may be a tad easier than wrangling 8,000-plus FDIC-insured lenders serving 310 million. But it’s still ironic that Canada’s conservative mortgage system is unfazed while our “free market” version – and I use those quotation marks intentionally – has resulted in the largest financial meltdown since the big one.

O Canada, please send some of your common sense our way as we attempt to dismantle our house of cards and start over. Hopefully with two-by-fours.