My LRC Review of “When the Gods Changed” and other recommended weekend readings

This week, the Literary Review of Canada published my and Taylor Owen’s review of When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada by Peter C. Newman. For non-Canadians Peter Newman is pretty much a legend when it comes to covering Canadian history and politics, he was editor of the country’s largest newspaper and main news magazine and has published over 35 books. I also think the review will be of interest to non-Canadians since I think the topic of the decline of Liberal Canada are also true for a number of other countries experiencing more polarized politics.

Some other articles I’ve been digesting that I recommend for some Friday or weekend reading:

Why China’s Political Model Is Superior

This one is a couple of months old, but it doesn’t matter. Fascinating read. For one it shows the type of timelines that the Chinese look at the world with. Hint. It is waaayyyy longer than ours. Take a whiff:

In Athens, ever-increasing popular participation in politics led to rule by demagogy. And in today’s America, money is now the great enabler of demagogy. As the Nobel-winning economist A. Michael Spence has put it, America has gone from “one propertied man, one vote; to one man, one vote; to one person, one vote; trending to one dollar, one vote.” By any measure, the United States is a constitutional republic in name only.

Unattractive Real Estate Agents Achieve Quicker Sales

Before getting serious on you again, here’s a lighter more interesting note. I often comment in talks I give that real estate agents rarely use data to attract clients – mostly just pictures of themselves. Turns out… there might be more data in that then I thought! Apparently less attractive agents sell homes faster and work harder. More attractive agents take longer, but get more money. Food for thought here.

Andrew Coyne: Question isn’t where conservatism is going, but where has it gone

Another oldie but a goody. Liberal Canada may be dead, but it appears that Conservative Canada isn’t in much better shape. I’ve always enjoyed Coyne and feel like he’s been sharper than usual of late (since moving back to the National Post). For Americans, there may be some interesting lessons in here for the Tea Party movement. Canada experienced a much, much lighter form of conservative rebellion with creation of the Reform Party in the late 80s/early 90s which split off from establishment conservatives. Today, that group is now in power (rebranded) but Coyne assesses that much of what they do has been watered down. But not everything… to the next two articles!

Environmental charities ‘laundering’ foreign funds, Kent says

Sadly, Canada’s “Environment” Minister is spending most of his time attacking environmental groups. The charge is that they use US money to engage in advocacy against a pipeline to be built in Canada. Of course “Laundering” is a serious charge (in infers illegal activity) and given how quick the Conservatives have been in suing opponents for libel Kent had better be careful the stakeholders will adopt this tactic. Of course, this is probably why he doesn’t name any groups in particular (clever!). My advice, is that all the groups named by the Senate committee should sue him, then, to avoid the lawsuit he’d have to either a) back down from the claim altogether, or b) be specific about which group he is referring to to have the other suits thrown out. Next headline… to the double standard!

Fraser Institute co-founder confirms ‘years and years’ of U.S. oil billionaires’ funding

Some nifty investigative work here by a local Vancouver reporter finds that while the Canadian government believes it is bad for environmental groups to receive US funds for advocacy, it is apparently, completely okay for Conservative groups to receive sums of up to $1.7M from US oil billionaires. Ethical Oil – another astro-turf pro-pipeline group does something similar. It receives money from Canadian law firms that represent benefiting American and Chinese oil interests. But that money is labelled “Canadian” because it is washed through Canadian law firms. Confused? You should be.

What retail is hired to do: Apple vs. IKEA

I love that Clay Christiansen is on twitter. The Innovator’s Dilemma is a top 5 book of all time for me. Here is a great break down of how IKEA and Apple stores work. Most intriguing is the unique value proposition/framing their stores make to consumers which explains their phenomenal success as why they are often not imitated.