Juggling Dynamite

One of the many sources of flux and uncertainty in the world are the elections taking place in Britain today. Who ever gets elected will have a hell of a job ahead of them. Poor leadership and complacency in the masses brought the world to its present problems. Strong leaders and concerted action are needed to bring us back to health.
Deep and dramatic spending cuts are needed in the UK. The sooner the better. The economy is accelerating toward a fiscal brick wall with no detours. There are no easy choices for leaders or voters. Hopefully British people are up for the challenges ahead. Unlike Greece, Britain has a staunch-upper-lip image of rough scrabble folks who can put their head down and lean into adversity when needed. Easy times of free-flowing credit the past few years may have weakened their resolve; but hopefully the Brits can find the strength to dig in and overcome. We need them to find their legs and help pull the global economy back out of the ditch. Honest, tough, leaders and workers will all have to pull this cart together to get us back on a sustainable track. We should all wish the Brits well today. See an excellent piece on players and possible outcomes in the election in the New York Times today: As Britain goes to polls, economic clouds hover.
Meanwhile debt has now turned into death in Greece. Protests against the Greek austerity plans have devolved into violence. Three people died Wednesday after a bank went up in flames. The building was torched during a march against the spending cuts and tax hikes imposed as part of the IMF-EU bailout agreement. Startling images encapsulate the mood of the country.
Sadly, I fear there will be more of this to come in several countries as working people everywhere see that there are no magical solutions to the issues at hand.

More evidence that Canadian real estate and Canadian banks have not escaped scandal amid the excessive lending and lax standards of the past few years. CBC reports a fraud suit just filed by BMO on a large fraud ring that bilked the bank out of millions of mortgage dollars over the past few years. Other Canadian banks have also suffered losses from fraudulent transactions. Stay tuned. More losses and law suits to follow, and especially as Canadian real estate prices trend lower in the months ahead.
See: The National clip : a huge fraud ring
and Bank of Montreal alleges huge mortgage fraud. (Hat tip: Paul G.)

Bill Black spoke to Bill Moyer's Journal (in Moyer's last week with PBS, retiring at age 75): Watch the clip from April 23, 2010 here.

“Fraud is deceit. And the essence of fraud is, “I create trust in you, and then I betray that trust, and get you to give me something of value.” And as a result, there's no more effective acid against trust than fraud, especially fraud by top elites, and that's what we have.”