Article: http://business.financialpost.com/2011/09/25/canada-vulnerable-to-global-downturn-harper-warns/

The Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Harper claimed, “The Canadian economy’s export-driven base is “very vulnerable” to the global economic slowdown.” Canada’s economic strength is pretty good compared to other countries, except its export. That is the main factor that affects Canada the most. Mr. Harper and British Prime Minister David Cameron appealed that key nations should take actions to deal with debt crisis in Europe for the sake of avoiding impacts from it. France received an open letter from South Korea, Mexico, etc, because they want France to “ensure global stability by reducing debt level in the Euro zone.” Canada is America’s largest energy supplier (oil); however, the recent request to go with $7-billion pipeline raised some environmental concerns in U.S. Fortunately, there would be no intensive influence to U.S. natural resources by the study from U.S. State Department. Canada’s economic situation would be hugely hit if the United States refused to construct the pipeline.

From my point of view, Canada’s economic policy is strong, and it makes the country “benefit from both a modern industrial sector and a strong commodity sector.” Nevertheless, its export is still vulnerable, which requires the government to adopt more efficient measures in order to prevent it from debt crisis.

Oswald Gruebel(CEO) of United Bank of Switzerland has resigned due to a rogue-trader. Mr. Adoboli, as the one who caused the United Bank of Switzerland to loss $2.3bn, was arrested and charged with false accounting and fraud last week. The loss results in more blocks for the bank, especially it is still in the period of recovering from the economic recession in 2008. Mr Villige said, “The Investment Bank will be less complex, carry less risk and use less capital to produce reliable returns.”

I think UBS board meeting should be scheduled as soon as possible in order to tackle the urgent situation. In addition, the rogue-trader might lead the bank to lay off employees for alleviating the impact from his disastrous miscalculations. Also, UBS may choose to take less risk, it means that they are going to have a smaller balance sheet and less capital. UBS is facing a big test, and they have to come up with a plan to reduce effects of this scandal deadly.

Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15046385

The picture above is the milk powder from Sanlu Company in China. In 2008, the scandal of Sanlu Company shocked people all over the world for overusing melamine (a harmful chemical substance for increasing protein content) in their milk powder. Thousands of babies became victims by  their unethical behavior, even some of babies died or got renal failure. The reason why Sanlu did such an immoral thing towards its consumers was because they wanted to meet China’s  standard for protein content. Adding melamine to their milk products was the open secret among milk powder companies, and Sanlu was a representative example which reflects a conflict between business ethics and a country’s standard.

Personally, China’s regulation about protein content is obviously higher than other counties, but its motive is innocent. In market, however, almost no companies are willing to increase their costs to achieve the standard, therefore, Sanlu had to use melamine although it has no ethics. In this case, the Government of China is supposed to consider the cause for this whole tragedy. At the same time, milk powder companies should keep their basic business ethics for customers and their market in China. It is related to life, after all.

Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7845545.stm

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