so, the american enterprise institute, of all people, now has the impertinence to lecture us on how those lefty canadians have a more solid banking system than that last bastion of free markets to their south. and all those colourful, authoritative graphs, too; explaining exactly what happened, while conveniently ignoring why. don't they lend an air of authenticity and legitimacy to the argument?

did it ever occur to them that perhaps there may be an alternative and even obvious explanation? think, why have the socialized canadian provincial health systems (remember, each of the provinces has its own, it is not a national medical plan) been able to deliver world-class health care at a lower per capita cost than the usa's private insurance ripoff machine. that should be a no-brainer, particularly since every western democracy, not to mention a host of non-western non-democracies, has been able to do that too.

the answer is staring us in the face, as soon as we take off the ideological blinders. canadians do not tolerate a criminal business oligarchy to commandeer the electoral system and lobby the government to give them carte-blanche to do anything they please at the expense of the middle and working classes. we have regulated our financial community to provide credit at fair but profitable prices. of course, the usual excuse from south of the border is that it is only the misguided effort to provide lower income groups with credit for housing that is solely the cause of this. This sounds like pure racism to me, only thinly disguised as sound financial management. blame the victim. it works every time, eh? if you don't like the way things are working out, put it on the powerless.

all those middle and upper income types that came rushing to pig out on the cheap credit giveaway on wall street and real estate and got screwed by the suits in the suites get off scot-free with a clear conscience; they can now blame their premature stint on the dole and their underwater mortgages on the poor. not a peep from the aei shills on the condo-flipping yuppies and greedy developers that led the rest of the lemmings off the financial cliff. and of course, the financial wizards and their washington allies that masterminded the whole fiasco get bonuses, tax breaks and bailouts for their sound business judgment. well, you do have to hand it to them. they are the ones who really understand how american capitalism works.

oh, and thanks for a great hockey game, yanks. we're going to savour that one for a long time.