Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched an early election campaign with dreams of a majority government dancing in his head. He also wanted to blunt the impact of a Democratic victory in November’s US election that would potentially boost liberal-leaning politicians across North America.  

All eyes are back on Washington following the US House of Representatives’ failure to pass a financial rescue package Monday. Optimism about elected officials’ ability to respond efficiently and effectively seems to have buoyed investor sentiment, as Asian markets recovered from early swoons overnight and US indexes posted triple-digit gains off Tuesday’s open.

It’s two Paulson Plans and several less grandiose patches later and we’re still trying to contain the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The historic decline in real estate values--the destruction of the “forever up” property value dream--is the widely acknowledged source of today’s problems, but right now the focus, properly, is on arresting the contagion before we start talking depression rather than mere recession.

Yesterday, it was widely reported that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ruled out the use of government money to rescue troubled financial institutions. But his statement during a press briefing leaves some room for maneuvering.

In August 2006, New York University economist Nouriel Roubini predicted a subprime crisis and subsequent recession. In September of that year, he burdened a gathering of the International Monetary Fund with his bearishness. And Roubini was profiled in a recent New York Times Magazine feature headlined “Dr. Doom.”

“Two consecutive quarters of declining GDP” is often employed by time-pressured journalists as the “technical definition of a recession.” We’ve covered this territory in this space a couple times, most aggressively here.

Diane Francis sends word that Brent Fullard of the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors has formalized the anonymous-tough-guy-Tory talk quoted in Ottawa’s political daily The Hill Times in April: Fullard has challenged Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to a debate, offering him 90 minutes to defend the Tax Fairness Plan. Fullard will rebut; he’s also pledged to underwrite a CAD50,000 minimum donation to charity to provide a little motivation for Flaherty.

Don’t stop reading; you’ve heard this all before, but now it seems both combatants and, more importantly, their audience, are prepared for battle.

Expedition officials compared the act to Neil Armstrong’s planting of the American flag on the moon, and the US Geological Survey determined, to a degree that should satisfy United Nations Convention on the Land of the Sea requirements (should the US eventually ratify it), that there’s not much ground for resource disputes in the area.

Predicting the price of oil next week, next month or next year is about as Quixotic a venture as can be undertaken by even the most diligent expert. And engaging in such forecasts is even more counterproductive for individual investors focused on the long term; you don’t enjoy the romance of headline-grabbing statements or electric cable TV shout-fest appearances, and, most important, it’s an impractical exercise.