Flaherty to be hit by 2x4 (made in china)

I cannot even fathom the news out of China today.  It seems that FinMin Flaherty has decided to sell Canada to the Chinese in exchange for having a ScotiaBank branch across the street from Mao's tomb.

I have spent a great deal of time in China, I have done business in China and I have been screwed by Official China more times than I know what to do with.

If Flaherty imagines that Canadian banks are going to be welcome to operate as equals in China, I like some of what he is smoking.  The truth is that in a manged economy where ALL spending flows from a central point, being a prestigious Canadian bank, no matter how well run, will be a pimple on an elephants ass in China.  If your goal in life is to cash travelller's checks and operate an ATM, then China is for you.  If you want to get into the auto and home financing business in China -- good luck.

Canadians need to learn a whole lot more about the world outside of North America if they want to compete.

Here is why Canada is going into the manufacturing dumper!

I ordered a product from the US two weeks ago.  The product is not available from any Canadian manufacturer so it should fall under a simple program wherein duties are not payable and clearance should be straight forward.

The product was shipped by the geniuses of logistics (I am being sarcastic!) at UPS.  The package left Indiana at 8:38 on April 10.  That was a Friday.  By April 13, Monday, it was in Windsor, Ontario waiting for customs clearance.  Here is where the genius begins.

Even though the package was clearly marked with the name of my broker, UPS called me at 7:30 AM to ask if I wanted them to clear the package.  When I pointed out that we had a broker named on the documents the answer was, "Oh ya.  I see it now."  This is business as usual for UPS as they make more profit doing a simple clearance job than actually shipping the package.  We continue.

Now that UPS was aware of the named broker, which is also located in Windsor,  they decided that the package need to be sent to another location for clearance.  They sent it to Fredericton, New Brunswick, bypassing Ottawa, the ultimate destination, en route.  Once the package was in Fredericton, UPS then sent it back to Windsor so the Windsor-based broker could clear it.  Once again the package flew right over Ottawa on its was back to Windsor.

By April 13, at 11 PM, the package finally cleared customs and was sent to Concord, Ontario for delivery.  Don't forget, I am in Ottawa... not Concord.  I am wondering if I will ever see this package or should I will it to my grand kids?

So here we are.  A simple package has more miles on it than my SUV and that's only in the span of a few days.  This product is needed to complete a project which is under a strict deadline.  With the way UPS has pissed around, the project is in jeopardy.  And you really have to wonder if UPS needed to incur the extra expense of shipping the product from Windsor to Fredericton and back again.

Dopey!