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News

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper seeks increased trade with India

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

 

Story here from CTV News.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent his first day in India selling Canada as a desirable place to invest and highlighting the need for greater trade ties between the two countries.

Harper visited the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi on Monday, the first stops on a high-profile, three-day tour of the country that is home to 1.2 billion people. It is his first visit to India as prime minister.

[…]He spoke about the advantages of investing in Canada, and he recited the many ties that the two countries share — including pluralistic parliamentary democracy, federalism and more than 1 million Canadians who claim Indian heritage.

Canada, said Harper, has “one of the most welcoming environments for investment in the world and has the resources necessary to meet India’s growing energy and infrastructure needs.”

While Harper talked much about investment opportunities in Canada, he downplayed any suggestion that he would be signing two anticipated bilateral deals that have been expected for some time.

“On the subject of nuclear energy, it is my sincere hope that our two governments will complete our bilateral nuclear co-operation agreement soon,” said Harper, alluding to a pending deal that was first announced back in January.

Harper said Canada is also “keen” to complete a foreign investment protection deal, but that too remains under negotiation.

Stephen loves his country, he doesn’t apologize for Canada when he goes abroad. He wants to reach out to other countries by signing trade deals, so that Canadians will be able to pay the lowest prices for imported goods, and will be able to export Canadian products to more markets. Meanwhile, Obama screws American consumers by shunning free trade deals and raising tariffs against other countries.

Stephen Harper on stage again, in Mumbai

In other news, Blue Like You reports that Harper also took part in a dance on stage at a popular Indian reality TV show.

Now, if only Canada could get a cricket team to participate in all the tournaments, as well as a rugby team, and a soccer team.

News

Washington Post: Democrat health care reform bill would reduce senior care

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Story here from the left-wing WaPo.

Excerpt:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

[…]…the report questions whether the country’s network of doctors and hospitals would be able to cope with the effects of a reform package expected to add more than 30 million people to the ranks of the insured, many of them through Medicaid, the public health program for the poor.

In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, “exacerbating existing access problems” in that program, according to the report from Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

[…]The report offers the clearest and most authoritative assessment to date of the effect that Democratic health reform proposals would have on Medicare and Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health programs.

Seniors voted 53 to 45 in favor of McCain over Obama.

News

Cato Institute talks with Jay Richards about Christianity and capitalism

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Did you know that the libertarian Cato Institute has a podcast? I like listening to it, even though I am not a libertarian on many issues. But I like their views on economics, government and liberty. I think that they are right on issues like school choice, consumer-driven health care, and global warming skepticism. In the episode of their podcast below, they interviewed Protestant theologian and philosopher Jay W. Richards on the relationship between Christianity and economics.

The MP3 file is here. (10 minutes)

The guy who does these podcasts is named Caleb Brown. Now, with a name like “Caleb”, I always thought that he must be some sort of Christian. Well, it turns out that he is a Quaker. And this is a shock, because Quakers are actually pretty socialistic on economic issues. But it turns out that Caleb is as concerned as I am that Christians are not more inclined towards capitalism. The fit between Christianity and capitalism is much more natural than with secular socialism.

Further study

To learn more about the relationship between Christianity and capitalism, check out this post (the second half is on capitalism).

Excerpt:

To understand what capitalism is, you can watch this lecture entitled “Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem” by Jay W. Richards, delivered at the Heritage Foundation think tank, and televised by C-SPAN2.

[…]If you can’t see the Richards video, here is an audio lecture by Jay Richards on the “Myths Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty“. Also, why not check out this series of 4 sermons by Wayne Grudem on the relationship between Christianity and economics? (a PDF outline is here)

And you can listen to Ron Nash’s course on Christianity and economics.