Commentary on evil, why Ron Paul is wrong, the wisdom of crowds, dark clouds in decline of China’s trade surplus, Germany on the brink, and Bob’s promise (kinda).

Evil lurks everywhere but in Japan stuff always seems a little different.

New York Times -- Trail of Shadows: ‘People Who Eat Darkness,’ by Richard Lloyd Parry
I opened this book as a skeptic. I am not a lover of true crime, and as a parent I recoiled from the lurid tale of a 21-year-old English bar hostess in Tokyo who was drugged and dismembered by a serial sex offender.

Guaranteeing equal pay for equal work isn’t communism.

Economist -- Protecting individual rights is not Stalinist
THIS week Republicans in the Senate once again blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would take further steps to guarantee access to the legal system for women who charge they've been paid less than men for doing the same job.

Leadership in droves.

Mckinsey Quarterly -- The social side of strategy
Crowdsourcing your strategy may sound crazy. But a few pioneering companies are starting to do just that, boosting organizational alignment in the process. Should you join them?

Going from a country ranked about 130th in per capita income (1980) to about 80th today was the easy part, and the rise and fall of China’s trade surplus is proof.

Economist -- The retreat of the monster surplus
China’s current-account surplus is on the verge of extinction.

Europe waits Germany’s verdict. Which shadow will history cast, 1923 Weimer or 1933 Berlin?

Financial Times -- Berlin is ignoring the lessons of the 1930s
Is it one minute to midnight in Europe?

Related.

Globe and Mail -- Germany must lead to solve euro zone crisis
A grand bargain is needed to save the euro, a bargain much easier to describe than to execute.

The Post piles on. (ed’s note – Bob, and the Liberal Party, could have been spared this if the Board had gone to the membership to relieve Bob of his promise: On Bob and More On Bob). 

National Post -- Leadership questions leave us in a Rae daze
With its pending decision, as it has been widely reported, to “allow” interim leader Bob Rae to run for the leadership, the Liberal Party national executive is opening exciting new fields for semantical research.

National Post -- Bob Rae should decide not to run
A minor kerfuffle erupted in the political twittersphere yesterday evening following a report claiming the Liberal Party of Canada’s national executive had decided it would “allow” interim leader Bob Rae to run for the permanent leadership, and that Rae had decided to go for the permanent job and had a team organized and in place.

 

When this is the real story in Ottawa.