Can Foreign Policy Affect Your Life?

The Economist's travel section, "Gulliver", serving business travellers, not your average Commie-Socialist-Red Rag, warns us about the dangers of perimeter security.

Now U.S. homeland Security can stop Canadians and others travelling from Canada to other countries, not simply to the U.S. of A.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/02/no-fly_lists&fsrc=nlw|gul|02-22-2011|gulliver

Of course it's "all for the greater good", isn't it?

Dawood Hepplewhite, a name sure to freeze anyone's heart with fear, is a Brit not allowed to travel to his home from Canada by air until the British High Commission intervened and cleared him for travel even though he is still on the Homeland Security No-Fly List.

Of course what do those silly Brits know about terrorism! Oh, and neither are they part of the Perimeter Security accord.

NYSE all About Derivatives

The Los Angeles Times reports "Derivatives business is driving deal for NYSE" .

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nyse-20110215,0,2851128.story

That suggests it is no longer enough to plan securities issues such as equity shares in your company. It seems your CFO and board of directors is well advised to look beyond that to where your company's securities will be positioned in the next stage in their development in investment banking.

What impact does the making of derivatives based on your company's securities have on your shareholders and on your company's ability to go back to equity markets should the need arise.

This could be for mergers, acquisitions, growth or whatever normal business eventuality you face.

Is it possible to imagine your company's securities, ownership or debt, as support for derivatives created on that base? If so, what effect does that have?

What factors can you control that will change the outcome of derivation?

Should you in fact drive the creation of derivatives yourself?

Is it, therefore, better to remain a closely held privately financed company or a widely held publicly financed company, financed through a stock exchange?

Are you relevant to your government?

David Brooks in today's New York Times examines people's "Quest for Dignity".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/opinion/01brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

He relies on his years of reporting on popular uprisings and marches in his country, in Egypt today and around the world over the years.

I add to his conclusions by suggesting another important foundation for the thinking that brings about these great transitional or return to philosophical roots movements.

We know that our governments are always relevant to us. They set and enforce the rules of commerce, put enabling infrastructures into place and other activities that reflect how we see ourselves behaving as a community of common cause.

Governments can enable or disable all or parts of all that.

But are we relevant to our governments? Do our governments take our aspirations and needs into account as they plan and deliver their actions in our names? Have they set up the means for including our knowledge and opinions into their decision-making processes?

I think the people of Egypt today have determined that the answer to the question, "Are we relevant to our government?" is a resounding "No!".

We in Canada experience similar aspects the same continuum. We have a federal government that has spent millions of dollars of our money to gain access to information about us to see how we are reacting to their decisions and actions after the fact.

That same government continuously thwarts the efforts of citizens to access information about their actions, even though we ask after the decisions have been made and implemented in our name.

We who live in Alberta have for years faced the same characteristics of governing. Interestingly the current federal government's philosophy is rooted in that same Alberta fertilizer.