Averting a slump: it's the politics, stupid

Submitted by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

LONDON/MUMBAI: Tata Steel is seeking to sell Britain's biggest steelmaking business, putting thousands of jobs at risk in an industry that once dominated Britain but has been brought low by falling prices, high costs and Chinese competition. After a marathon board meeting in Mumbai, Tata said it would draw a line under its almost decade-long foray into Britain's steel industry, exiting the country entirely. The move could have an impact on Britain's closely fought vote in three months over whether to stay in the European Union.

In the aftermath of another inverse-whirlwind session in Brussels which has set the date of the UK's EU referendum for June 23, below are comments on the vote from British political and business leaders, courtesy of Reuters: DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

Over the course of any given day, the average person sees plenty of odd behavior. A bizarre outfit or a strange conversation, an unfamiliar gesture or anything, really, that doesn’t fit into the realm of acceptable behavior. One of the most common breaches, one of the things that tends to give us pause more than anything else, is something — or some things, really — that we like to call stupid. That thing that happened. That thing that person did. It was SO. STUPID.

The United States faces potential trade sanctions from Canada and Mexico after the World Trade Organization ruled on Monday it had failed to bring its meat labelling regulations fully in line with international fair trading rules. The WTO said the United States had not done enough to change its labelling rules, requiring retailers such as grocery stores to list the country of origin on meat, after it lost an earlier WTO challenge.

(Nicholas Wang)

Ontario’s most senior bureaucrat says he was shocked to learn that a top aide to former premier Dalton McGuinty allegedly oversaw a “criminally stupid” plan to delete emails about the gas plant scandal. “I was extremely, extremely surprised to learn that there’s an allegation that the actions had crossed from a stupid idea, to something really stupid, to what the OPP were telling me was potentially criminally stupid in that context,” cabinet secretary Peter Wallace told a Queen’s Park committee Tuesday afternoon.

VANCOUVER — Ottawa is warning it may impose tariffs on everything from orange juice to bread if the United States doesn’t change a meat-labelling policy that Canadian beef and pork industries say is costing them more than $1-billion a year. The federal government has released a long list of agriculture and other products that could be affected by Canada’s retaliation in an ongoing dispute over U.S. country-of-origin, meat-labelling rules.