Global Dreams

Kwende Kefentse, over at the Creative Class Exchange, captures the global hunger for change (CC):

Young people are definitely empowered by President Obama as a living example of change. It’s interesting, however, to see how hungry young Canadians are to play a role in and identify with this change. As neighbors to ground zero of the global Obama-wave, and a nation that is deeply interlinked with the U.S., it is natural and fair that we pose the question “where is our Canadian change?”, and not unreasonable that we would yearn somewhat for an Obama figure of our own - to give young people a sense that their voices participate as equals in their democracy. In this new vision of the North American dream, what will Canada’s role be and where will its youth place?

While Canada’s version of the dream is younger, less dense, a bit smaller, and more cautious, it is sturdy, perhaps a bit more agile, and has the advantage of being able to consider the trials and missteps of its older, bolder neighbor in order to innovate on that experience and those ideas - probably in a faster and more dexterous way as a result of being over 60 percent slimmer in terms of population and density. While we might not do the scaling up, we are in a great position to build the models. The climate will most certainly be ripe for the ideas.

Elsewhere at the Exchange, Richard Florida clearly wants to be nice about the stimulus proposals, but seems a little disappointed (see here and here.) Ryan Avent, Paul Krugman, and Mathew Yglesias are similarly disappointed about the infrastructure provisions.

After having a very small house filled past the capacity of a very large house, I am just now getting caught up with everything. So I won''t pile on. Keep in mind that we don't even have Senate language yet so who knows what will be in the final legislation.