Insurers pull cover from suppliers to GM, Ford

This is not good news for the US auto industry:

Three big European credit insurers have removed cover from suppliers of troubled U.S. carmakers General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the Financial Times reported on Friday.

The withdrawal of credit insurance, which covers suppliers against the risk of the car companies failing, was undertaken by Euler Hermes, Atradius and Coface, which control more than 80 per cent of the world's credit insurance market, the newspaper said.

The three are refusing to write policies for suppliers trading with GM or Ford on credit, it reported, without citing sources.

From the Globe. If this is true (and in the absence of sources it's hard to separate facts from mere rumours) this is really big. Either a bailout or a nationalization seems inevitable; the US will not likely allow those companies to fail, and probably won't allow them to be taken over by Toyota or Honda either (assuming that those companies even want to make such a risky investment in this climate).

Blame China, say Paulson and others

Hank Paulson has an interesting take on the international economic crisis (from Bloomberg, via blazespinnaker in this iTulip thread):

In a sign the administration doesn't accept full responsibility for the world's woes, Paulson said yesterday that while the U.S. is ``well aware and humbled by our own failings,'' it wasn't alone in making mistakes. The ``lack of consumption and accumulation of reserves in Asia and oil exporting countries and structural issues in Europe,'' also hurt the global economy, Paulson said.

My emphasis. Right, so it's those lesser breeds without the law who are to blame, 'cuz they're not spending like drunken sailors the way good ol' Americans would when they come into some cash.

There seems to be a lot of "blame China" sentiment out there lately. Look at this one:

It wasn't that long ago that pundits were counting on China to rescue the world from economic calamity. Now, China may be poised to become a key source of the problem.

After a recent visit to China, Nobuyuki Saji, chief economist and equity strategist for Japanese investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, issued a report warning that China could be on the verge of pushing the world into a deflationary spiral. The problem? Swelling industrial overcapacity, which threatens to undermine prices both for China's exported goods and its imports of raw materials.

He estimated that China's production is running as much as 50 per cent below capacity, as many industries that have been expanding rapidly are now being hit by slowing demand both domestically and abroad. Based on his estimates, China alone represents 7 per cent of the global supply/demand gap.

"We believe that once Chinese companies start to fully factor in a 2009 recession in the global economy in terms of significant shipment and selling-price cuts, widespread global deflation will be inevitable," he said.

From the Globe and Mail, via bugsybrown. Expect to see a lot more of this in the near future.

Obama win spurs U.S. gun sales boom

Those crazy Yankees:

In John McCain's home state of Arizona, the recent economic downturn took its toll on The Don's Sport Shop.

Gun sales at the Scottsdale store slowed to a crawl last month, even as the state's hunting season rolled around. On an average day two weeks ago, shop owner Manny Chee was eking out only $2,000 or $2,500 in gun sales.

"The housing crisis has hit our state pretty hard," he said. "It was kind of like everybody's in limbo."

But Barack Obama is good for business. Last Wednesday, the day after Mr. Obama beat Arizona's own Mr. McCain to become the president-elect, Mr. Chee sold $30,000 worth of guns - mostly the semi-automatics the National Rifle Association claims Mr. Obama's administration will restrict.

"The election came, and now it's just a madhouse in here," said Mr. Chee, 31.

Between Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received 374,000 requests for background checks on gun buyers - 49 per cent more than the same time last year, CNN reported.

The NRA believes Mr. Obama would restrict handguns and raise taxes on ammunition, effectively quintupling the cost of bullets.

From here.

Remembrance Day

So it was 90 years ago today that WWI ended. It was supposed to be the "War to end all wars" but things didn't turn out that way. In recent years it has hit home harder for Canadians (and Americans), for rather obvious reasons. Until 2001, many would probably have called it "the day when we honour those who died so that we can have a holiday in November" (or in Ontario, not even that; almost everything there is open today, even schools). In the US it's called "Veterans' Day", and one can draw one's own conclusions about whether that reflects a difference in attitude between our countries. Tonight I'm going to watch my brother perform in Billy Bishop Goes to War, which is getting excellent reviews. All I know of it is the songs I've heard him play, but it sounds promising.

My own family were very lucky. My maternal grandfather was too young for WWI and too old for WWII, though he had a couple of brothers who were killed in action. My paternal grandfather might well have gone to war in WWII, had it not been for the fact that he was a tugboat captain on the Great Lakes, and as he worked in an essential service he was ineligible for the draft. On the other hand, the father of one of my friends fought in Korea while his mum and siblings pissed away the money he sent home. Despite this, he was never bitter about it, though he didn't talk about his combat experiences.

I'll leave off with the words of Charles Clarence Laking, one of the last veterans of WWI, who died in 2005 at the age of 106:

A clever lad, showing some independent spirit...

... though he'll get in trouble if he keeps this up:

Police in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, stopped a 9-year-old boy driving the family car alone to his grandmother's house Monday.

The boy had driven about 3 km — halfway to his destination — before being stopped, police said Thursday.

"I learned to drive by watching my father and at game arcades," the third-grader was quoted as saying.

As Monday was a national holiday, traffic was relatively light in the morning and the boy caused no accidents.

Police cautioned his parents to watch the car more carefully.

From here.

Mo. sixth-graders face discipline for 'Hit a Jew Day'

Really:

Several sixth-graders from suburban St. Louis are being disciplined for creating "Hit a Jew Day" and then hitting Jewish classmates.

Four or five students at Parkway West Middle School in Chesterfield could be suspended and undergo counseling for last week's incident, school officials told the Associated Press. Others who taunted Jewish students or encouraged others to participate face lesser punishment.

Officials said fewer than 10 of the school's 35 Jewish students were hit. One was slapped in the face and the others were hit mostly on the back of their shoulders.

"There is a mix of sadness and outrage," said district spokesman Paul Tandy. "The concern is a lot of kids knew about it and they didn't take action or say anything."

Via robbie_dee in this babble thread. It sounds like something from South Park, but unfortunately this is the real deal.

You might not like Obama's promises

Many Canadians were very pleased to see Barack Obama win the presidential election. I was among them, but only in a relative sense. You see, the US political scene is quite some distance to the right of its Canadian counterpart, and Obama is no exception, sadly:

He supports the death penalty for heinous crimes, while acknowledging that capital punishment is likely not a deterrent.

He is opposed to same-sex marriage, though noting that time may prove he's on the wrong side of history on this issue.

He wants more combat troops in Afghanistan, while vowing to take American soldiers out of Iraq within 16 months of assuming office.

He had himself baptized as a Christian in adulthood.

Barack Obama is not the Canadian version of a liberal politician, even while occupying the far left – as a United States senator – of the political spectrum. In Canadian terms, he'd barely qualify as a Red Tory.

From the Toronto Star. I'd still take Obama over Harper (or McCain or Palin, obviously), but in my mind Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe, Elizabeth May, and even Stephane Dion are far more progressive than he is. Although, if Obama were running in Canada instead of the US he might have adjusted his platform to suit the electorate. Certainly I have little doubt that if Harper were running in the US he'd be taking clear and strident positions against same sex marriage, and possibly abortion as well, and endorse the death penalty.

On a completely unrelated note, this story caught my attention:

The main drag looked like a scene from a horror flick last night after a leaky truck spilled 4.5 metric tonnes of chicken blood down Queen Street.

The tanker truck, headed from Schneider’s poultry plant in St. Marys to Kitchener, was headed west down Queens Street at about 11:30 p.m. when a valve broke off.

“We got the call first from a citizen who said there was a liquid on the road,” said Const. Glen Childerly of the Perth County Ontario Provincial Police.

“When we went there, we discovered it was blood. . . . There was blood everywhere and in spots it was three inches thick.”

The blood trail spanned more than five kilometers through the centre of town.

And I thought Halloween was last week...