But Americans shouldn't just think more about Canada. They should consider building on the two countries' free-trade deal and forming a more perfect North American union. It is past time for the U.S. and Canada to eliminate their border—either by creating a customs and monetary union or, more radically, by merging outright into a single nation-state or a European Union-style partnership.

Such a merger makes perfect sense. No two countries on Earth are as socially and economically integrated as the U.S. and Canada. They share geography, values and a gigantic border. Their populations study, travel and do business together and intermarry in great numbers.

Why Canada and the U.S. Should Merge, Eh?

There's a "perfect storm" of threats brewing, and it could slam the global economy as soon as 2013, according to Nouriel Roubini. Roubini believes that a slowdown in China, the damage done to Japan, the current debt crisis in Europe, and the emerging one in the U.S. have a one third chance of damaging the global economy.

Roubini, from Reuters:
“There are already elements of fragility,” he said. “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”

Roubini still believes we may escape the worst of this scenario, with the global economy bumping along, with weak growth. One of the big threats Roubini believes the world is facing is a hard landing in China. He sees that country's non-performing loan problem expanding, if it does not quickly reshape its economy around domestic demand.

Nouriel Roubini: This "Perfect Storm" Of Threats Could Slam The Economy By 2013

"We averted Depression in 2008/2009 by acting decisively. Now we can avert a lost decade by recognizing economic reality," Larry Summers wrote.

"The central irony of financial crisis is that while it is caused by too much confidence, borrowing and lending, and spending, it is resolved only by increases in confidence, borrowing and lending, and spending," he wrote in both columns.

--

Larry Summers: More stimulus needed

The research analyzes the causes of slow job creation in the period before the recession and during the recovery and the implications of these forces for future job growth. The research projects how the US labor force will evolve over the next ten years and creates different scenarios for job growth based on extensive analysis of sector trends. MGI's central finding is that a return to full employment will occur in only the most optimistic job growth scenario. This will require not only a robust economic recovery, but also a concerted effort to address other factors that impede employment, including growing gaps in skill and education.

The report offers a range of illustrative solutions based on lessons from US states and other countries that MGI hopes will add to the national conversation on jobs.
--
Interesting findings in the white paper.

An Economy that Works: Job Creation and America's Future

Welcome to the college of converts, Mr. Vice President. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

Mr. Gore's mea culpa underscores the degree to which ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers. Nothing proves this better than the coincident trajectories of ethanol and Mr. Gore's career.

Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany

WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration presses ahead with the health care law, officials are bracing for the possibility that a federal judge in Virginia will soon reject its central provision as unconstitutional and, in the worst case for the White House, halt its enforcement until higher courts can rule.
..

The novel question before the courts is whether the government can require citizens to buy a commercial product like health insurance. Because the Supreme Court has said the commerce clause of the Constitution allows Congress to regulate “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce,” the judges must decide whether the failure to obtain insurance can be defined as an “activity.

Administration Is Bracing for Court Setbacks to Health Law

The Department of Homeland Security is planning to get rid of the color-coded terrorism alert system. Known officially as the Homeland Security Advisory System, the five-color scheme was introduced by the Bush administration in March 2002.

Red, the highest level, meant “severe risk of terrorist attacks.” The lowest level, green, meant “low risk of terrorist attacks.” Between those were blue (guarded risk), yellow (significant) and orange (high).

The nation has generally lived in the yellow and orange range. The threat level has never been green, or even blue.
..

Conan O’Brien joked, “Champagne-fuchsia means we’re being attacked by Martha Stewart.” Jay Leno said, “They added a plaid in case we were ever attacked by Scotland.”

U.S. to Drop Color-Coded Terror Alerts

WASHINGTON—Government agents hired to drive nuclear weapons and components in trucks sometimes got drunk on the job, including an incident last year when two agents were detained by police at a local bar during a convoy mission, according to a report Monday by the U.S. Energy Department's watchdog.

The department's assistant inspector general, Sandra D. Bruce, said her office reviewed 16 alcohol-related incidents involving agents, candidate-agents and others from the government's Office of Secure Transportation between 2007 through 2009. There are nearly 600 federal agents who ship nuclear weapons, weapon components and special nuclear material across the U.S.

The report said two incidents in particular raised red flags because they happened during "secure transportation missions,'' with agents checked into local hotels and vehicles in "safe harbor," or secure conditions.

One of those occurred in 2007, when an agent was arrested for public intoxication; the other happened last year, when police handcuffed and temporarily detained two agents after an incident at a local bar.

Nuclear-Weapons Drivers Drank on Job, Report Says

Here are few data points that the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, offered in a Nov. 4 speech: “One-quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time. Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each year. ... One of the more unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was the release of a report by a group of top retired generals and admirals. Here was the stunning conclusion of their report: 75 percent of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.” America’s youth are now tied for ninth in the world in college attainment.
...

Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.

Teaching for America

(CNN) -- When Paul Martin became finance minister of Canada in 1993, the government was spending itself into a deep hole. Its spiraling debt was prompting observers to compare it to a Third World country. Martin unveiled budgets that steeply cut the $42 billion deficit and eliminated it in four years without long-term damage to the economy.

The example of Canada has been cited and debated as governments in developed countries around the world are looking for ways to cut spending and reduce the size of their debts. Britain has embarked on sweeping spending cuts with an eye toward Canada as a model. In the United States, the midterm elections focused attention on the size of the budget deficit.

Martin, a Liberal Party member who later became prime minister, says lessons can be learned from his nation's experience, though he says many differences exist between Canada's situation in the 1990s and the U.S. economy today.

--

America should consult Canada and learn from their approach and implementation to reducing govt debt.

From a Canadian official who did it: Cutting deficit is no easy task