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• In this time of Obamarama, Bill Cosby deals some tough love to the black situation in the States
• “Radical feminist” bloggers on Pandagon reviews summer blockbusters from the Hollywood patriarchy in lieu of saying anything meaningful now that Hillary’s both finished and racism
• In other asinine American news, the Ivy admissions game grows ever worse
• Do you want to be able to survive a nuclear blast?
• Or would you rather be flushed down the drain afterwards via a method used by serial killers and the US Government?
• If SETI doesn’t find greys, it might find God instead.

An excellent talk, well worth the full listen:

1337hax0r

So, the big question of the week is: “Will the Canadian dollar reach parity or near parity by the end of the year or, barring that, within a year from now?” Well, a good number of the economists have said that it is becoming more and more likely:

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto also sees the psychological momentum building.

“We’re into this world where strength begets strength, and I do think there is something to the fact that the markets are homing in on that parity level like a laser,” he said in an interview. “I think speculators and investors alike have the parity level in their sights.”

By contrast, some other analysts see parity as a bridge too far for the loonie.

Currency specialist Ian Stannard at BNP Paribas in London is one of the skeptics. “I don’t think we’ll quite get to parity, maybe just shy of it,” he said when reached in London on Monday. “Parity would be a very big level.”

His bet is that the loonie could strengthen to the $1.03 (Canadian) or $1.02 range – that is, about 97 cents (U.S.) to 98 cents – before the U.S. dollar rebounds.

Now, going on a limb here, I say that most of the growth over the last 5 years has been based on commodity prices:

 The Canadian dollar is considered a commodity currency, since Canada is a large producer and exporter of base metals and fossil fuels. The loonie often rises and falls on the strength of resource prices.

Heck, you can see a very high pearson correlation between the oil price and the value of the dollar over the last few years when you compensate for a bit of noise from politics and the neverending American war on everything. So, basically, the question is not “Will the dollar reach parity?”, but rather “What is necessary for the dollar to reach parity?”

Well, If the Democrats in the states don’t get a backbone and the war in Iraq continues to get worse, then the American dollar will continue it’s neverending slide and naturally the Canadian dollar will be worth more. This is especially certain if the war gets worse in Iraq, and the oil prices worldwide continue to climb. As well, the current unsustainable levels of debt in the States contributes to the devaluation of their dollar. All of these ensure a stronger Canadian dollar, especially considering how well our economy has been doing over the past few years and the fact that the manufacturing sector is not being hurt anywhere near as bad as the naysayers claimed it would. Basically if the American economy continues to tank, I could see the dollar reaching parity by this time next year. How come do I feel it won’t reach it by Christmas? Well, last year showed the price of oil dropping quite drastically around September. This was a very unusual occurrence, but one I feel will repeat this year as well, and thus lower the dollar a little over the winter. However, once the spring thaw comes, so shall the prices go up. Of course, this is all assuming there is no natural or political disaster which leads to more instability in the oil producing regions of the world.

As well, the possible nudging of the interest rate up a notch will help the CAD reach parity as well.

Now, while I don’t trust American economists as far as I can throw them, they are claiming that all will be rosy once again in the states:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicted Tuesday the economy will rebound from an anemic performance at the start of the year even if the housing slump continues.

Economic growth in the first three months of this year nearly stalled, logging just a 0.6 per cent pace. It was the worst quarterly showing in more than four years.

However, Mr. Bernanke said he believes some of the forces that figured prominently in that poor performance — including a bloated trade deficit, cutbacks by businesses in inventory investment and weak federal defence spending — “seem likely to be at least partially reversed in the near term.”

I agree with the fact that the Dems might be able to reverse some of the disastrous planning in government, and thus bolster the economy a little. However, with a wild-eyed monkey who pounds his chest and claims “I AM THE PRESIDENT” able to veto anything the Dems do, and the fact that the current Democrats can be a spineless group of cowards when it comes to confronting the president, I would be surprised if much of the forces that led to a poor performance change anytime soon.

So basically to answer the question: Will the CAD >= USD in the near future?

I say, if the Conservative budget does not screw up that badly in Canada, and the American economy continues it’s downward spiral into oblivion, then yes we’ll reach parity and beyond. However, I will have to wait until Fall and see what happens worldwide to say for sure.

1337hax0r

Apparently, Harper made an announcement today that his government would spend money on their strategy to “boost private research and development with its new science and technology strategy.” Well, while I was reading this article and looking at the picture, I thought, “Where have I seen this before?” (Emphasis mine)

“Canada has long been a leader in science and technology achievements, but we’ve got some work to do to put ourselves back on the forefront of innovation,” Harper told a gathering of researchers and investors at Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.”

Well, I found it… It’s almost exactly the same thing Martin said over a year ago during the elections: (Emphasis mine)

“Canada must be at the forefront of the innovation economy,” he said in Markham, a town north of Toronto.

While the picture isn’t the best, that is Paul Martin in the front there.

So basically, from what I can see, Harper annouced, using almost the same words as Paul Martin, that he would do exactly what Paul Martin promised to do during the last election.

Perhaps this explains why the Conservatives’ homepage has so many stories on the Liberal party.

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Probably the best talk I’ve seen all year.

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h/t Respectful Insolence

Mixing Memory has a video up of one of the coolest whiteboards I have ever seen. I cannot wait to get one of these installed in my office. Especially if you can program it yourself to do even more things perhaps even mathematical things… :D

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This is a personal post, so if you don’t care, don’t read.
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The economist has a truly fascinating article about the way to have a paternal state that allows the government to work with society in a beneficial way without having an outright nanny state (Which seems to be both the Con and Lib mentality these days).

It’s definitely worth a read if you are interested in interesting and new political ideas.

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I don’t think I have done a meme in a while, and I was tagged by Unrepentant Old Hippie, so what the heck…

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