I’m not one to play Chicken Little but the situation in Europe appears to be intractable. For 18 months politicians and bureaucrats have been claiming to do something but so far little has been accomplished. To be sure, some holders of Greek bonds voluntarily took a haircut, central banks have acted in concert, and leaders in Greece and Italy are out but the situation just grows worse. Tomorrow marks the eight summit on the crisis this year.

The worst case scenario is a cascading collapse that makes the Great Depression look like Disneyland. Meanwhile net world debt just keeps on rising, up 11 per cent annually for the last decade, fuelled by low interest rates and people at all levels – from consumers to governments – who can’t rein in spending to match income. Barack Obama saved capitalism once; no one seems able to act this time around.

For ordinary Canadians the impact has so far been muted. Anyone with a mortgage is happy with 4 per cent money, but investors are stuck in a rut. Retirement portfolios have gone sideways or down with no likelihood of rising anytime soon. Play it safe with GICs and your return doesn’t match inflation.

The European Community was created so Germany didn’t go to war again with its neighbours. The irony is that the only way out would see Germany run everything. That sounds like victory without a shot being fired. And a lot of collateral damage to the rest of us.

It’s been six months since Sandy died. Anyone who has lost a spouse, a mother, a son, or a close friend knows what these past few months have been like. At first, I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t stay awake during the day. My stress levels were high. Tears would flow without notice. I saw a man on the subway carrying flowers I assumed he was taking home to his wife. That used to be me. I stood there and openly wept.

Family and friends have been very supportive. Without them, I couldn’t have made it this far. I worked in “our” garden most days this past summer. Sandy always called it her healing garden because she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after we moved to this house. She rebuilt what had been here and made it her own. Sandy always liked to move plants to new places; I was the designated digger. I used to call it “plants on wheels.” If she had been alive this past summer, I would have been moving all kinds of things. But, you know, everything came up perfectly. There was something in bloom from May to November. There were plenty of different heights, shapes, leaves, and colours. Her vision was finally complete although she could not enjoy it in the flesh.

I still wear my wedding ring. After 46 years of marriage, it’s just a habit. I keep fresh flowers on her bedside table. I come across notes she made and catch my breath. For a long while, I talked to her in the bedroom as if she were still there. I’ve stopped doing that because I know she’s watching. I don’t need to report.

Who knows how long this will go on. Probably forever in some form. And that’s OK, too. In fact, that’s exactly how I want it. It’s almost like Sandy never left. Almost.

For a time I was able to argue the Occupy Toronto situation either way. I agreed with those encamped at St. James Park that there are wrongs in society and within the economy that need to be addressed. But once attention has been drawn, then what? They have no plan, no leader, not even an ideology to keep them warm.

And yet I don’t want the rough-and-ready police response that we have seen in some cities. The protesters are not terrorists although they did charge through a few downtown office towers a couple of weeks ago. As a result, access for the rest of us was limited, security beefed up, and I had to be taken a circuitous back route to my destination because of all the locked doors. No big deal, and I was not much bothered.

But the ruling by Justice David Brown, released yesterday, has crystallized my thinking. I thought he wrote common sense when he said, “The Charter does not permit the protesters to take over public space without asking, exclude the rest of the public from enjoying their traditional use of that space, and then contend that they are under no obligation to leave. By taking that position and by occupying the park, the protesters are breaking the law.”

Nor have the protesters gained support from the Cathedral Church of St. James by arguing that church land abutting the park should be made available for their tents. No, said the Very Reverend Douglas Stoute, the land in question is not two separate pieces, it is a “seamless garment.” The church will obey the court’s ruling.

In fact, I guess I made up my mind about the situation when I walked through the encampment last Friday. It is familiar ground to me. I am a regular visitor, particularly during summer, when the garden is in full bloom. Any previous approval I might have offered the Occupiers evaporated when I saw what they had done to this beautiful space. To be sure, no flowers are in bloom at this time of year and the fountain is dry, but still it seemed an inappropriate use of the fountain to have a circle of protester sitting on its rim, winter boots scraping the bottom.

Worse, they have brought in items using heavy equipment that they ran across the park grass thereby creating muddy ruts. They have marred and marked the magnificent Victorian gazebo. They have damaged trees with wires and tie-downs. They have broken branches by pitching tents high above the ground. They have painted signs with no care or concern about the mess they left behind. Irrigation equipment has been rendered inaccessible and will be damaged if not properly prepared for winter.

These don’t look like crunchy-granola eco-people who care about the world, they just seem like the usual hooligans who have broken windows and torched police cars on other occasions. Here’s my bottom line. We have listened to you; now it’s time for you to listen to us. It’s time to move on … or be moved out. Your trespassing ways are no longer welcome.

The Conference Board of Canada has been harping about productivity for years, but their most recent figures are startling. Canadian productivity levels are only 80 per cent of what they are in the U.S., our largest trading partner. If Canada had kept pace with productivity growth in the United States during the last two decades, every Canadian would have $7,500 more in annual disposable income. Moreover, real GDP would have been 21.3 per cent higher, governments would have collected $31 billion more in revenue, and deficits would be less troublesome.

Why has this happened? First off, productivity isn’t about people working harder or faster. Productivity gains occur when work is more efficient and people produce more with the same effort. It helps when machinery is up-to-date and when the goods produced have a high value added factor. Exporting wheat, crude oil, and logs, for example, doesn’t offer much value added. The BlackBerry does.

The problem is that too many Canadian manufacturers are lazy. They are content to supply local or easily accessed U.S. markets. For a large part of the last two decades a devalued Canadian dollar skated even the least efficient companies onside.

Just look at the automotive sector. We’ve had free trade with the U.S. since 1965 yet there are only a handful of Canadian companies that have built on that advantage to become global giants. After Magna, Linamar, and Wescast the rest are small potatoes.

We need a lot more driven individuals like Frank Stronach, Frank Hasenfratz and Mike Lazaridis with visions bigger than themselves who are unafraid to take on the world. Without such entrepreneurs and the necessary investment in technology, Canada will continue sliding into third world status.

Now that a second accuser has come forward to talk about sexual harassment at the wandering hand of Herman Cain, I think it’s safe to say that his run for the Republican nomination is all but over. With Texas Governor Rick Perry also sinking in the polls, it looks as if Mitt Romney will eventually prevail.

I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with an old friend, a Republican, living in the Deep South. There was a time when he couldn’t have voted for Governor Romney because of his Mormonism. “How can I support someone who thinks Jesus Christ was just another apostle,” he once said to me. My friend, who is himself deeply devoted to his own faith, has had a change of heart. He now thinks Romney will win the nomination and says religion should play no part in anyone’s decision. After all, church and state are supposed to be separate.

I formed my own positive opinion on Romney 18 months ago. He was coming through Toronto to promote his book, No Apology, at a question-and-answer session scheduled for Indigo’s flagship store at Bay and Bloor. Indigo CEO Heather Reisman couldn’t attend, so they asked me to stand in. I was to ask Romney four questions and the only constraint, according to his staff, was that I could not ask if he intended to run for president. Well, I thought, there’s my fourth question. He didn’t blink when I asked, simply stating that he was going to decide after Labor Day.

As I watched him sign books and work the delighted crowd of four hundred, I concluded that he was an excellent retail politician. While I don’t agree with many of his policy pronouncements, I have admired his performance in the recent debates. My prediction is that he will be the GOP nominee. And if the economy does not improve during the next twelve months, Mitt Romney will be elected the forty-fifth president of the United States of America. At least he knows where Canada is. He was born and raised in Michigan and has a summer property in Ontario.

I passed my neighborhood Shoppers Drug Mart today and noticed the life-sized Justin Bieber cut-out that had been in the window for a few weeks had been replaced by another display. I wheeled inside, hoping to buy or otherwise obtain Beebs for my granddaughter, a fan.

The cosmetician just rolled her eyes. Turns out I’m not exactly the only interested party. The cosmetician had recently attended a Shoppers gathering at which she’d learned the pop star’s cardboard cut-out had already been stolen from 36 Shoppers stores. The cut-outs are meant to promote the singer’s new fragrance, Someday, and according to the contract must be displayed in every store for a year.

The number of stores that have suffered losses must surely be higher now that a character called Sheena Snively stole a statue from a Yonge Street Shoppers live on MTV. In another instance, a women pulled up outside a store, sent her daughter in to grab his Beebness, then they all three drove off. Talk about your getaway cars.

The stories are legion. In Florida, a man was charged with theft for snatching a Bieber likeness. At my local Shoppers a man walked off with their copy for an appearance at his daughter’s birthday party then returned it later in the day. After that staff watched the target even more closely but somehow it was still stolen. A review of the surveillance cameras did not show the actual heist. That’s why there’s a new window display.

My son Mark, who writes the best blog in the country, has a solution. If there’s a demand, create a supply. He suggests making as many cut-outs as will sell at $175 each with all proceeds going to the two charities that Bieber has designated for receipts from the fragrance: Pencils of Promise and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Fathers and mothers everywhere would happily pay. Maybe even a few grandfathers, too.

At last, Rob Ford has done something normal for a holder of his high office. The mayor yesterday attended the closing ceremony of the Pan-Am Games in Mexico to accept the flag passed along to the next host city, Toronto.

What a disappointment he must be to those who voted for him. What a civic humiliation he is to the rest of us. And Toronto has had some looney-tunes leaders. William Dennison (1966-1972) once greeted a visitor by holding up a writing instrument and saying, “This is a ball point pen.” “I know,” came the reply, “I was educated at Oxford.” Talking about a trip to Africa, Mel Lastman (1998-2003) said, “I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.”

Those comments now seem like minor gaffes compared to Ford giving the finger to a woman who wanted him to put down his cell phone while driving or his expletive-filled tirade last week to a 911 operator. Nor, after a year, has he made any progress on his “stop the gravy train” election promise. He agreed to a four-year police contract that set a record and approved a police budget that’s the same as last year after demanding a 10 per cent cut.

Some people grow in office, others never should have been allowed in. We can only hope by the time the 2015 Toronto Pan-Am games comes to an end, that a new mayor is handing over the flag to the next host city. Meanwhile, all we can do is duck and hope any damage done is limited.