A very good piece from The Globe and Mail, it’s an old interview with Niall Fergusen (from April) where he isn’t too optimistic about the length of the economic crisis.

The global crisis is far from over, has only just begun, and Canada is no exception, Mr. Ferguson said in an interview…

Policy makers and forecasters who see a recovery next year are probably lying to boost public confidence, he said. And the crisis will eventually provoke political conflict, albeit not on the scale of a world war, but violent all the same.

There will be blood, in the sense that a crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic [conflict]. It is bound to destabilize some countries.

And he concludes with this bit…

We just don’t have an improvement of standard of living of the sort we’re grown used to. And indeed if you have a more equitable redistribution through the tax system, which Obama is committed to, it might actually be no discernible downside for middle America and lower-class Americans. So many of the benefits of the boom went to the elites. If you have a lost decade plus redistribution, it may not be that dramatic a change for many, many people. People just have to get over the fact that their wealth wasn’t worth what they thought it was in 2006. Whether it’s their stock market portfolio or their housing. If we simply go back to where we were, in 2005, that’s surely not the worst thing that could happen to us.?

Also noteworthy is his comments about how much political power has been ceded back to congress from the executive branch. I guess that’s what happens when a legislator is elected to the presidency… he still has his legislative mentality.

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