The Shotgun
Saturday, December 19, 2009
David Suzuki makes no sense
Alberta Ardvark posted this video on his blog:
In the first part of the video Mr. Suzuki draws a comparison between the race to get to space and fighting global warming. He says that no one complained about the cost, but this is an irrelevant comparison. Lowering CO2 to the point that some scientists say that we need will cost trillions of dollars. If going to the moon cost trillions of dollars then yes people would complain about the cost.
He then goes on to say that going to space had positive unintended consequences, and he implies that so will decreasing CO2. Just because something is good doesn't mean that something else totally unrelated is also good.
P.S.
What is climate justice?
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 19, 2009 at 02:36 AM
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Friday, December 18, 2009
Gerry Nicholls on Canada in Copenhagen
President of Libertas Post, Gerry Nicholls, points out on CTV that Canada shouldn't care what people say about us around the world. He claims that Canada should care primarily about our own economic interests. Jean Lapierre is shocked that we should care more about jobs than about people's jobs than David Suzuki's good opinion.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 18, 2009 at 09:22 AM
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Carolyn Bennett: Sex toys need to be regulated
Toronto MP Carolyn Bennett is pushing for a law that would regulate sex toys.
What ever happened to the Liberal Party that thought that the government should stay out of the bedroom? I guess this isn't Liberal Party policy, but still the Liberal Party use to stand for some liberties. Now it stands for government in all aspects of our life.
The article I linked above gives Ms. Bennett gushing approval for tackling an issue that makes many people "giggle." Personally I haven't giggled at the word penis or sex since I was 12, and I'm willing to bet most adults can say the same thing. No this is not an issue about sexual liberation, or if sex should be discussed in public. It is an issue about personal freedom of choice.
The case that the pro-sex toy regulators have is extremely thin. Ms. Bennett was lobbied by a couple of sex shop owners; neither of which appear to be scientists. You can find something admirable in believing something and fighting to fix problems, if you like. But I would prefer to admire someone who believes in something that has evidence.
Where are the thousands of people dying in the street due to their poisonous dildo? Where is this great pandemic that requires urgent action?
Oh I do believe that too much of this chemical will hurt you. Too much of anything will hurt you; too much oxygen and water will kill you. The question is if enough of that chemical exists in the sex toys and is soaked into the body to harm an adult. Nothing in this article indicates that there is, nor have I ever heard of a study that claims this (if you have please link it).
So with no data indicating there is a risk, why would even someone who thinks the State should be our nanny support this regulation? Unless it is that regulation has become an end of itself.
Days like this I am very glad MPs have no actual power.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 18, 2009 at 09:07 AM
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What a Darling
A recession is when an economy not only ceases to grow, but contracts. Economic contraction means less wealth is being generated in one period of time, than over a previous period. If one's goal is to grow the economy - for it to generate more wealth - surely the last thing you should wish to do is punish those who generate the most wealth in society. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, doesn't see it that way. After having run up a historic deficit last year, all in the name of fighting the recession, he now needs to plug the enormous hole in the public finances. Taxing the rich, i.e. the most productive, is the politically expedient thing to do.
Mr Darling is considering levying a one-off windfall tax on bank profits and a super-tax on bankers who receive bonuses above a certain level, and indicated that he expected the rich to pay more in tax.
Taxing profits at 10 per cent would bring in about £2bn this year alone, but while both moves are said to be “on the table”, a final decision has yet to be taken and the Chancellor was discussing the options with Gordon Brown yesterday.
Mr Darling indicated there would be no back-tracking in Wednesday’s pre-Budget report (PBR) on the new higher rate of income tax — of 50p on earnings of more than £150,000 — to be introduced from next April.
Politics and philosophy would seem to have little in common. Politicians do, roughly, what they think will get them elected. What gets them elected are the views and values of the electorate. The Chancellor can get away with proposing so economically stupid a policy because of the widespread philosophy of egalitarianism. The belief that people are entitled to equal outcomes, regardless of talent or effort, partly underpins the progressive income tax system. Thus the more productive you are, the greater your "fair share" of paying for the public finances. Taking money from the rich is just part of evening the score.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 18, 2009 at 07:27 AM
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Rand Paul, Bailouts, and the Debt
Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul, is running for the Senate in Kentucky. In this speech he talks about the folly of the bank bailout, the need for term limits, the disastrous debt level, the need to balance the budget, and the Federal Reserve. What he says makes a lot of sense to me and I hope he gets the Republican nomination.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 18, 2009 at 05:59 AM
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Iron Man defends Property Rights
I don't like reading too much ideological messages into works meant for entertainment. Those who argue that Harry Potter is left or right wing are pretty silly. Still the beginning of this clip warms my libertarian heart.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 18, 2009 at 04:40 AM
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Prince of Pot Interview
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 18, 2009 at 03:08 AM
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Foreign Ownership of the Means of Chocolate Production
The somewhat erratic Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, says that the markets should decide who owns legendary British brand, Cadbury.
Hence the public outcry. And in the controversy there is a conundrum for Conservatives. There is a contradiction in Conservative thinking, a mixture a bit like a Cadbury Creme Egg. There is the surface toughness of free-market ideology, the hard necessity of exposure to international competition. Then beneath that is the gooey confusion of a general desire to protect old national institutions, and to honour icons of British culture, and to preserve time-honoured businesses and their dependants.
Which should a Conservative prefer? The hard bit or the soft bit? The reality is that, as with a Creme Egg, you can't have the one without the other.
It is now two decades since the public was seized with an almost identical patriotic angst about the takeover of Rowntree by Nestlé. Thousands marched, and newspapers protested; and eventually Nestlé won. Not every change has been good. I miss the old Smarties tubes. But it is thanks to Nestlé's global clout that Rowntree built a huge new Aero factory in York two years ago. It is thanks to Nestlé's marketing drive that the world is now exposed to a dizzying array of Kit Kats.
The argument goes just as well for oil, gas, coal, water, electricity and every other good or service. Those with long political memories will recall the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA). An icon of the Seventies Canadian Left. FIRA was the Trudeau government's ham fisted attempt to play dirigiste with the economy. The Canadian Encyclopaedia article reads:
The agency advised the government (through the minister of industry, trade and commerce) on what action should be taken, if any. In making its recommendations, FIRA took the following factors into consideration: the effect of the investment on employment and economic activity in Canada; the effect on Canadian productivity, technological development and product variety; the degree of Canadian participation in management; the effect on competition; and the compatibility of the investment with national policies.
In other words, it was a Can-Con requirement for the Canadian economy. Its spiritual origins, however, predate the Trudeau years, going all the way back to the 1870s and Macdonald's National Policy. The conceit of FIRA was that Canadians weren't smart or patriotic enough to defend Canada, the government had to do that for them. If foreigners - read Americans - owned Canadian industry, we would in short order cease to be Canadian. You are what you shop. A nation not as an idea, instead a nation as a government managed economic deal, in which Canadian consumers and taxpayers must foot the bill. For the good of the country, of course.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 17, 2009 at 06:57 AM
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The Modern Method
Robert Mayhew, an old Objectivist hand I met years ago, begins this book review, of a recent biography of Rand, with a very appropriate quote from Oscar Wilde.
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography. . . . Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. —Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” (1891)
What follows is an effective dissection of Jennifer Burns' Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. The problem, as Mayhew sees it, is not that Burns is hostile to Rand, simply that she fails to appreciate that Rand was, after all, a philosopher. Instead of attempting to analyze the system of ideas Rand proposed, Burns simply gives a series of disconnected opinions. She, so to speak, fails to see the forest for the trees.
Burns does acknowledge that “Rand and Hayek had very different understandings of what was moral” (p. 105), but she does not bother to ask and answer what those differences are, or how Rand came to her conclusions, or why Rand insisted so fervently that such questions matter. To Burns, Rand and Hayek had roughly the same political opinions—they were both pro-freedom of one sort or another—and they both used the same language. They may have differed on why they supported freedom, but surely they could have banded together to fight for common goals—if not for Rand’s unreasonable demands for consistency and proof.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 17, 2009 at 06:55 AM
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Everything is Thatcher's fault
Lesley Riddoch, a columnist for the Scotsman, explores what is to blame for the decreased gap between male and female lifespan.
The main objective of most girls in our nominally equal, but actually macho society is to be slim and attractive to boys. Smoking, laxatives and bulimia are used as calculated aids in the endless battle for weight control.
Standing in a restaurant toilet queue lately, I heard two teenage girls calmly discuss the likelihood of being able to "chuck" their meals without everyone outside hearing.
Bulimia is not a strategy so much as it is a mental sickness. Ms. Riddoch's lack of compassion here is part of the problem for these girls. Actually it is not just men but women who do it to each other. The harshest people I know when it comes to a girl's looks are other girls. Women notice physical deficiencies in other women that a man has never heard of. Yes boys can be cruel but they are not the only ones. So please don't blame everything on the supposed "macho culture."
Scotland's obsession with football doesn't help. Girls don't value their own physical activity, because adult Scots don't.
This is just confusing. How is an obsession with sports leading to a lack of value towards physical activity? Just because the leading football/soccer leagues are male does not mean women are discouraged from joining their brothers in a pickup game.
Appearance has certainly become more important than action. And Scotland's drinking culture has been lapped up by girls, who see their right to get trashed as a perverse measure of gender equality. Perhaps life for young ladies is so boring and constrained in one walk of life, and so stressful and demanding in another, that getting drunk and behaving badly is the only way to escape the crushing boredom of low expectations.
Umm....no...I'm pretty sure they drink because it is fun. To assign some sort of deep motivation for getting drunk is to completely misunderstand why the vast majority of people get drunk. And in case you missed it, that reason is that it is fun. Besides the desire to escape boredom is a common youthful quest that crosses both genders. Ms. Riddoch is merely jumping up and down on what is clearly her own hobby horse.
But tempting as it is to blame ladette culture for the declining relative longevity of Scotswomen, it doesn't actually stack up.
Wait what...huh...what the hell is she talking about? Why did she just spend 90% of her column saying that women are all a bunch of weak willed drunks that are ruled by men? If not culture then who or what is to blame?
It takes 30-40 years to develop lung cancer, so the premature deaths of today were the young smokers of the 1970s and 1980s. About that time, much of working life collapsed, courtesy of Margaret Thatcher, and a generation of men was famously made unemployed and unemployable.
Ohhhhhhh! It is Maggie’s fault! That makes so much more sense. After all, an entire generation hasn't been working since 1979, which clearly causes women to smoke more cigarettes.
Ms. Riddoch I apologies for thinking you were a loony.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 17, 2009 at 06:22 AM
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Let's give money to dictators, it's always worked before...right?
Kelly McParland at the National Post writes an excellent Column today. She (he?) points out that the assumption at Copenhagen is that poorer countries can be trusted to use the money allotted to them to fight climate change. I don't know about you but I'm not really willing to trust Hugo Chavez with my wallet.
Actually the history of foreign aid has demonstrated that we shouldn't be trusting them with our wallet. Money that was meant to help economic development has routinely been pocketed by tyrants and thugs. So why does anyone think that they can be relied on now?
When history has written the story of Copenhagen it won't be about the environment. It will be about the attempt of dictators to extort money from wealthy democracies.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 17, 2009 at 06:16 AM
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wildrose Alliance slams cuts to welfare programs, but offers no meaningful alternative
Wildrose Alliance Deputy Leader and MLA for Calgary-Glenmore, Paul Hinman, questioned the government Wednesday on its plans to reduce funding to social agencies and service providers.
"While we have warned the government for years that they need to reduce overall spending, they have chosen to cut front-line services for people with developmental disabilities - the most vulnerable people possible," said Hinman. "The government has an obligation to make sure that the most vulnerable in our society are looked after. For the Tories to make their first concrete cuts here is repulsive and disgraceful."
According to the Wildrose Alliance, the Tory government informed People with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) agencies, through emails and letters sent out on December 9, that they have until December 18 to present a business plan that will make "adjustments to current-year contracts."
"Instead of showing real leadership by rolling back the obscene wage hike that Premier Stelmach and his cabinet have received, or in cutting back on the explosion of costs in his own office, social agencies and charities are now taking the hit," added Hinman.
Taken from a press release today, the party said it would take a different approach to this issue, including the following:
1. Instead of expecting agencies that help the most vulnerable to meet the needs mandated by government, the first cuts should come in the Premier's Office and his costly public relations activities and ad campaigns.
2. Cut the expenses and cost increases in the Premier's Office and his Executive Office by at least 25 per cent and place an immediate freeze on all discretionary bonuses for the same staff. Instead of asking for money back from PDD service providers, perhaps the $40 million in discretionary bonuses paid out to senior government managers (over and above any contractual obligations) could be returned to cover these immediate needs.
3. Actually sitting down with the employees and service providers who help carry out an important mandate for people in need.
4. Asking for the agencies' help to reduce costs, identify outdated programs and monitor costs effectively.
5. Implement the findings of the Auditor General's 2009 report that noted that the government (NOT the agencies) has not put proper cost and monitoring controls in place for these third-party contracts.
6. Ensure that funding is targeted to outcomes and solutions for clients, instead of overly costly and constant re-assessments (different than monitoring and proper business controls) being carried out by government and outside consultants for the same thing.
"Instead, the Stelmach government is once again showing its willingness to break contracts that it has already signed and is hoping that the people who are affected by about a 10 per cent cut to the PDD budget will not speak out or that Albertans will forget this cruel Christmas cut," Hinman concluded.
In short, Hinman is looking for cuts in the budget of the Office of the Premier and more consultations with PDD service providers. These are good ideas as far as political ideas go – cuts to the Premier’s budget would weaken his political machine and consultations are a great way to avoid making tough decisions. But how will these suggestions bring the government closer to meeting its promise to bring Alberta back into a surplus position in three years?
The 2009-10 provincial budget contained a staggering $4.7-billion deficit. Eliminating this deficit will take tough political decisions, and those relying on government programs and paycheques will be hurt by these decisions in the short term. There is no avoiding this pain, if the province is serious about balancing the books. So the Wildrose Alliance must resist the urge to score political points. They should instead support any and all efforts to reduce government spending.
(If Hinman supports efforts to “reduce overall spending,” as he says, would that not include cuts to PDD services? Does it really matter that this cut came “first”?)
The Tories, however, are presenting a false choice to voters: reduce government spending or face crippling deficits. If the Wildrose Alliance wants to be an honest critic of the Progressive Conservative government, they need to offer a third choice: privatization.
Rather than let the government decide how much should be spent and on what priorities, government services should be privatized and defunded so that private citizens through private organizations can make these decisions. While it is necessary for government to spend less on social programs, it is not necessary for private citizens through private organizations to spend less. And the only thing needed to make this happen is to get government out of the way and make deep cuts to taxes, including oil and gas royalties.
This vision is what Dr. Marvin Olasky called “compassionate conservatism,” before this term was co-opted by welfare statists on the right. It’s an idea worth exploring if we hope to avoid a tug-of-war over government spending that will make deficit reduction impossible, and entrench bureaucratic programs that under-serve society.
Posted by Matthew Johnston
Posted by Western Standard on December 16, 2009 at 09:17 PM
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More on Antioquia Gold...
I wrote a couple of posts recently on the political situation in Colombia (here and here) and in this context mentioned a Calgary-based gold exploration company called Antioquia Gold.
Antioquia Gold is in the news again, and a friend wanted me to share this news with you. Click here if you’re interested in junior gold companies, as I am.
And click here if you're an anti-capitalist malcontent.
Posted by Matthew Johnston
Posted by Western Standard on December 16, 2009 at 12:33 PM
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With Conservatives Like These.....
Gerry Nicholls on the movement today:
These factions have emerged because “our guy” is in power and it has changed the movement.Whereas 25 years ago conservatives were united; today we are divided; whereas 25 years ago conservatives were confident and determined, today we are cautious and timid; whereas 25 years ago conservatives cared more about principle, today many conservatives care more about partisanship.
This is not good for the movement.
We have lost our voice.
And that’s bad because it means Prime Minister Harper and his government are defining conservatism.
For the average Canadian, Conservative polices represent conservative thought. That means the average Canadian now associates conservatism with big spending, big government, deficits and with those oversized novelty cheques.
That’s not good for conservatism, that’s not good for the Conservative Party, that’s not good for the country. So what can we do about it?
Well that leads me to the future of the conservative movement. What we conservatives need to do is push the “reset button.”
Reading Gerry's intro to this speech, I couldn't help but recall Tennyson's Ulysses:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
The nostalgia is palpable. In the good old days. They were, in retrospect, very good days. There was a genuine roll back in the frontiers of the state. More than this, there was hope. That dazzling possibility that we as a nation were at last leaving the twentieth century's Great Statist Detour. Rand observed that civilization is the process of freeing man from men. Until about a hundred years ago the general trend was in that direction. Governments staying or becoming small.
Between 1914 and 1940 Western Civilization seemed to engage in an orgy of statism. A plethora of "isms" proclaimed a new modernity free of the shackles of the old. The old liberals sought freedom of men from the state, the new liberals sought the freedom of the state over men. Whatever the flavour, the trend was for bigger and more intrusive government. The period 1940-2 was the statist nadir. It was at that moment that totalitarian states encompassed more of the developed world than at anytime before or since. God was now the state. The sheer spectacle of violence and suffering unleashed by such regimes, especially in so short a time, seems to have given civilized men pause.
Perhaps the state was not God. The lesson was only imperfectly understood. Having saved the world from tyranny, the British promptly voted in a socialist government with a thumping majority. Too much government was dangerous, but a moderate amount could do wonders. Even George Orwell, a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, agreed. Having stepped back from the precipice, the West began to edge toward it again. The next crisis, circa 1979, confronted the West with bankruptcy, and whatever horrors might follow that. By that time enough of an intellectual movement had developed to correctly - for the most part - diagnose the disease and propose effective cures. Yet the treatment went only so far as curing the immediate problem. Like conducting a triple-bypass. The patient, however, was continuing with a cholesterol laden diet. We now reach the Age of Obama, which feels rather too much like the Age of Nixon and Carter.
The poem Ulysses, being by Tennyson, is Victorian and optimistic. So it concludes:
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Words of advice to a new generation of small government activists. There is no point in being in power, if you're just going to do what the other guy would have done anyway.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 16, 2009 at 06:34 AM
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Canada could be the bad boy of Copenhagen
Gerry Nicholls at Libertas Post has some suggestions regarding Canada's strategy in Copenhagen:
* Leave a couple of tons of fresh Alberta tar sands on Denmark’s doorstep and ring the doorbell.
* Announce we plan to increase our greenhouse gas emissions, “just because we can”.
* Spice up the environmentalist protests in the streets of Copenhagen by unleashing a dozen or so hungry polar bears.
* During all meetings we should drink out of plastic bottles labelled “Melted Glacier Water.”
* Continually ask the question: “If global warming is such a problem how come it’s so darn cold outside?”
As amusing as these suggestions are there is a serious point to be made about Canadian foreign policy. Mr. Nicholls points out that Canada has traditionally acted, and thought of itself as, the nice guy of global politics. In normal society there are a lot ofbenefits to being a nice guy: people like you, are willing to help you out, and you can get satisfaction from kindness. These benefits don't really apply to the society of leviathans.
A Hobbesian state of nature does not exist nor has it ever existed (and Hobbes never claimed it did), but some evidence of the war of all against all can be seen in international politics. As much as some have tried to create international structures, there is still no law higher than the State. This means that there is no one to enforce the rules. States struggle against each other using game theories of force and manipulation.
In this sort of society the nice guy usually loses out.
Liberals have been bemoaning Canada's lost of standing on the international stage. Most Canadians will scratch their heads at this. At what point have we had a great deal of influence on the world stage? Please don't bore me with a recitation of the Suez Crisis. One moment of actual influence in a century hardly makes Canada a power to contend with. No Canada has no great reputation as a player, but really the only country that we need to have a good opinion of Canada is America.
So I fully endorse Mr. Nicholls' recommendations. They likely won't help anything, but it won't hurt either.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 16, 2009 at 04:01 AM
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cellphone Crusaders
The successful takedown of the tobacco companies, with films like The Insider and a historic 1998 settlement, has provided a template for a new generation of crusading busy-bodies. The link between cancer and tobacco consumption has been suggested for centuries, and proven for decades, prior to the 1998 settlement. Since at least the 1960s the general public has been well enough informed, by medical experts as well as government officials, of the dangers of the tobacco usage. It was more than a bit absurd to accuse Big Tobacco of hiding the dangers of its product, when these facts were widely discussed by the general public. The precedent established in the war on tobacco is being carried forward, now in the case of cell phone use. Not in arguing for an alleged link between cell phone usage and cancer, but between cell phone use and car accidents.
Long before cellphones became common, industry pioneers were aware of the risks of multitasking behind the wheel. Their hunches have been validated by many scientific studies showing the dangers of talking while driving and, more recently, of texting.
Despite the mounting evidence, the industry built itself into a $150 billion business in the United States largely by winning over a crucial customer: the driver.
For years, it has marketed the virtues of cellphones to drivers. Indeed, the industry originally called them car phones and extolled them as useful status symbols in ads, like one from 1984 showing an executive behind the wheel that asked: “Can your secretary take dictation at 55 MPH?”
“That was the business,” said Kevin Roe, a telecommunications industry analyst since 1993. Wireless companies “designed everything to keep people talking in their cars.”
Yeah, you know where this is headed. The poor darlings. No one ever told them it was dangerous not to pay attention to what you were doing, while driving a car. This article is part of the "guilt stage." Industry insiders knew it was dangerous! But did nothing! All for evil, wicked profits! Capitalism kills again!
The critics — including safety advocates, researchers and families of crash victims — say the industry should do more, by placing overt warnings on the packaging and screens of cellphones.
Yes, you read that right. They want warning labels on cell phones. My guess is that we are about 4-5 years away from the Great Cell Phone Settlement, where Motorola, Nokia and others will funnel billions into American State treasuries, under the rationale of funding health care for accident victims. In the nanny state, there is only one adult.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 15, 2009 at 07:44 AM
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Monday, December 14, 2009
The Fed’s money monopoly: Ron Paul
Here's the latest column from Congressman Ron Paul:
Last week, in the name of protecting the little guy from Wall Street, the House passed HR 4173 to increase the little guy’s false sense of security in the financial system. This mammoth piece of legislation would massively increase government regulation and oversight in the banking industry under the misguided reasoning that more government could have stopped faulty lending practices, when in actuality it caused them. This bill would also greatly increase the powers of the Federal Reserve, which too many in Congress still see as savior rather than perpetrator in this mess….
Click here to read the full article.
Posted by Matthew Johnston
Posted by Western Standard on December 14, 2009 at 11:49 AM
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73% of Canadians want global warming policy delay for economic reasons or doubts over scientific certainty
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy today released a COMPAS poll which shows most Canadians prefer to hold off on signing a global warming treaty in Copenhagen; reasons include concern over the economy and doubts about the sureness of the science.
In practice, few Canadians oppose signing such a treaty under any circumstance (14 per cent) while few also favour going ahead with it (25 per cent).
The largest cluster (51 per cent) favours postponement of signing--either until we can be more confident that the global economy is coming out of recession (25 per cent) or that there is strong agreement that the scientific research attributing climate change to humans is fully objective (26 per cent).
Thus, among Canadians with an opinion on the issue, 73 per cent favour postponing a decision (57 per cent) or not signing at all (16 per cent) while 28 per cent advocate signing a treaty at Copenhagen.
“Some doubt about when the global economy will recover from the recession and some doubt about the scientific arguments behind the push for a treaty on global warming are the chief drivers in causing Canadians to want the federal government to postpone signing a treaty,” observed Conrad Winn, president of COMPAS and principal investigator on the poll.
The poll was conducted across Canada on November 28, 2009; sample size was 1,000 and is deemed accurate to within approximately three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
To download a complete copy of the COMPAS poll and questions, click here.
Posted by Matthew Johnston
Posted by Western Standard on December 14, 2009 at 08:23 AM
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10%
That's the percentage of the current federal budget that is spent on defense. So about 90% of the federal budget is spent on stuff that has virtually nothing to do with the proper function of government. And they say there is nowhere to cut in the budget.
The war in Afghanistan has helped push federal government spending in this country to a 60-year-high, a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says.
The centre calculates that, for the fiscal year that ends in March, Canada will have spent a little more than $21 billion on national defence. That's nearly 10 per cent of all federal government spending.
The centre, a think-tank often associated with causes favoured by the political left, argues that military spending in Canada is disproportionately high and that it sucks up money that could be used for other government programs, such as environmental spending or foreign aid.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 14, 2009 at 07:17 AM
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Joementum
Governing as if he had a majority. Counting as if he'd never passed elementary school. Joe Clark in a nutshell. Allan MacEachen, the senior Liberal cabinet minister and Trudeau loyalist, gives his take on December 1979.
Success in politics involves reacting to opportunities created by your adversaries. That is what Liberals did 30 years ago following presentation of the December 1979 budget by Tory finance minister John Crosbie.
The socially regressive provisions of the budget, including the repugnant 18-cent per gallon gasoline tax, ensured from the beginning that the Liberal opposition would vote against it. That was an almost automatic decision. But engaging in an enterprise to defeat the government was, on the other hand, a daring and more complicated decision. In fact, it was the culmination of a process that had to be nurtured at each of several stages. The principal actors, and I was one of them, took it one step at a time, never quite sure if the ultimate goal could be reached.
Now having gotten beaten, albeit narrowly, by Joe Clark earlier in 1979, Pierre had submitted his resignation as leader in November of that year. The defeat of the Clark government took place on December 13th. Trudeau was on the way out until MacEachen, who just after the election had saved Trudeau from a caucus coup, engineered his return to power. Had Crosbie's budget passed there almost certainly would have been no NEP and no Charter. A handful of votes in the Commons at the right moment. I'll say this, had Stephen Harper been Prime Minister in 1979, Trudeau would have vanished quietly into the political sunset. Politics is called a game, but it's one that requires a considerable amount of skill to play.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 14, 2009 at 07:13 AM
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Saturday, December 12, 2009
I'll keep wearing my tinfoil hat
There's really no avoiding my slide into the tinfoil hat brigade. I say that in jest, but I fully expect most of the people reading this to come away with that conclusion. It's hard to put it any other way: the collapse of the United States is coming, it's real, and the chances to avoid the worst case scenarios from playing out are lessening by the day.
The problems are as clear as day. But most people don't consider them problems, insofar as they believe these problems have any real consequences.
The American consumer's saving rate is about -0.06%. Effectively it's zero; on average Americans have no savings. If you remove the upper 20% of income earners from the statistics, you start seeing scary figures of consumer debts averaging above $20,000--hundreds of thousands on average if you include mortgage debt, and about $180,000 more if you include public debt. The people at the midway point of the bell curve essentially have no capital, and their rate of indebtedness is increasing faster than their wage growth or prospects for wage growth. It's hard to imagine these people will die with anything but debt to their name.
Modern economic pundits, like those who grace Fox Business, CNBC and such, do not view these statistics as problems. Rather, they view these statistics, and I quote as "signs of America's credit worthiness".
These are the same people who also told us that there was no housing bubble back in 2006-2007, and that housing prices could rise forever. Their economic leader, Alan Greenspan, told us that we were in a new "goldilocks economy" and that the old rules of macroeconomics no longer applied.
While everyone now seems to agree that Alan Greenspan was wrong, they also still continue to think he was right at the same time. This is evidenced by the fact that economic and political pundits--save for whack-jobs like myself--are still selling the myth that the economic fundamentals are sound, that government deficits don't matter, consumer debt is a minor concern, and that hyperinflation ins't a risk.
When you cut through all the bad logic that underpins these assertions, they will ultimately fall back on this favourite cliché: "America has always pulled through in the past, so they'll pull through this" -- or the more ridiculous: "The world needs the US consumer, so the world won't let the US fail."
Neither of these arguments are logical and both of them are strong denials of reality. America has neither pulled through it's economic turmoil of the past (it's in the same bubble economy it's been in for over a decade), and the world actually doesn't need the US consumer.
The fallacy that only the US consumer is adequate to fuel global capital expansion is one of the biggest lies that politicians, business folk, and economists have sold to themselves and others. Rather, the US consumer is costing the rest of the world money. China isn't making money off the US anymore.
To draw an analogy: Say you walk into Best Buy and want to buy a new big screen LCD TV. But you have no money. So the store manager says, that's no problem: we'll advance you as much credit as you need to buy it. So they lend you the money to buy the TV. But then you come back and buy tons of other stuff. You tell the manager you don't really have any way of paying him back, but since you're such a big customer, he needs your business. So he just keeps lending you money, so he can keep selling you stuff.
This situation makes no sense. But modern economists tell us that it makes perfect sense when it comes to China; if China stops lending us money, we won't be able to buy their imports. So we're taking China's money and their goods. It stands to reason that China might ask itself at some point how this is beneficial to them.
People ask: who will China make all those high quality electronic goods for, if not the US consumer? Nobody ever stops to think that maybe the Chinese consumer serves as an adequate replacement.
The argument is that Chinese consumers cannot afford to buy their own goods, because they can not afford to pay hundreds of dollars for iPhone's and iPod's and big screen TVs. That might be partly true. But there's room for those prices to come down. Without the need to transport the goods across an ocean, and the fact that many of those products have ridiculous mark-ups. The iPhone is estimated to have mark-ups as high as 40-60%. There's plenty of room for those prices to come down and be sold to a relatively poorer Chinese citizen, who actually has savings to spend--relative to the American.
The world does not need the US consumer. The US consumer is a liability for the world. And every US dollar that goes to China, is more and more, getting trapped in China's ever-expanding currency reserves. They have nothing to buy from America.
The theory that America will simply export "high-value services" to China is not exactly panning out, the last time I checked the trade balance.
I may be wearing a tinfoil hat. But at least I do not practice economic voodoo, where the forces of supply and demand don't matter, consumer debt doesn't matter, trade deficits don't matter, and that the US consumer is a gift to the world. You go on believing that. I hope it works out for you.
Posted by Mike Brock on December 12, 2009 at 03:21 PM
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Wildrose Would Form Government
In which we see Mr Stelmach looking nervously over his shoulder:
The surging Wildrose Alliance party would form the next provincial government in Alberta if an election were held tomorrow, according to a new poll of decided voters that gives the right-of-centre party a double-digit lead in popular support over the long-ruling Tories. A new Angus Reid Public Opinion survey of 1,000 Albertans suggests 39% of voters would cast a ballot for Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Alliance.
The fledgling party is pulling away from Premier Ed Stelmach's Progressive Conservatives, who were tied with David Swann's Liberals for second place with the backing of 25% of decided voters province-wide, according to the poll.This is just one poll. A general election is some time off. Yet the party is only two years old and is already being considered a plausible party of government. They have only one MLA in the Alberta legislature. The party leader is a television journalist and ex school board trustee. At first glance this is akin to a AAA ball club beating the New York Yankees.
Wildrose has benefited enormously by defections from the ruling Progressive Conservative Party, giving it unusual bench strength for such a young party. Incumbency has its downsides - the electorate blames you for everything - but its key advantage is money and organization. The canvassers, the poll workers, the riding executives, the grunt work of politics few know about yet is essential to winning seats. Nearly forty years of electoral dynasty, the longest in the province's history, seem to have made the ruling Conservatives sclerotic. Their response to this poll, and more widely to the increasingly credible threat of the Wildrose Alliance, will give Albertans a sense of how nimble the Tory giant remains. The Ontario PCs ruled for an unbroken 42 years (1943-1985). Their Albertan cousins are only about four years away from that mark.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 11, 2009 at 07:29 AM
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Vancouver stifles free speech for the sake of the Olympics
The Globe & Mail is reporting that a Vancouver gallery was forced to remove a mural that was anti-Olympic. The city claimed that it was graffiti but apparently murals have been displayed for a long time without complaint from the city. It was only when city officials didn't approve of the message being displayed did they take action.
The City of Vancouver's actions here are baseless. They are taking steps to protect the Olympic image in the face of significant local opposition. So let me ask you, what is more important? Free expression or a track and field competition? City officials should get their priorities straight.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 11, 2009 at 06:52 AM
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Parliament security bans free speech
The Toronto Star is reporting that Greenpeace t-shirts have been banned from Parliament Hill. This is in response to the illegal protest by Greenpeace earlier this week. Such an excuse is not a good enough reason to trample on the Freedom of Expression.
I'm no fan of Greenpeace, but I don't see why people wearing their t-shirts should not be allowed in Parliament. A spokesperson from the Speaker's office said that it was a routine precaution and went on to say:
"When someone is invited in as a member of the public in either the chamber or a committee, they're invited in as an observer, that's it," she said. "They're not a participant, they're an observer."
First of all you aren't invited into the chamber, we as the people have the right to see what our Parliament is doing. Yes when we do visit we must understand that we are observers, but how does wearing a t-shirt make you a participant? Is it because of the political message of the shirt? I own several t-shirts that make political statements, including one that mimics the Coca-Cola logo by saying "Enjoy Capitalism." Does wearing that shirt make me a participant?
No of course not, the reason is because members of that organization pissed off Parliament's security. They made them look incompetent, so they are cracking down on anyone who may be associated with Greenpeace.
It should be pointed out that not everyone wearing a Greenpeace shirt is a member of Greenpeace. My shirt that I mentioned before is a Bureaucrash shirt, but I have never been a member of Bureaucrash. I wear the shirt, like many that wear Greenpeace shirts, because I support the organization (and find the shirt amusing). Basically Parliament security is accusing Greenpeace supporters of being troublemakers just because they support Greenpeace.
Actually maybe it isn't about the supporters of Greenpeace but the message. The Star article said that a reporter was allowed to enter with a Greenpeace shirt if she agreed to turn it inside out. So obviously they aren't trying to exclude Greenpeace supporters. It is the message of Greenpeace that they are trying to keep out; not dangerous individuals that could disrupt Parliament, but the ideas that Greenpeace represents.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 11, 2009 at 03:29 AM
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
Get her! She's not a witch!
Government can be insane sometimes and the law is no exception. In today's Globe & Mail there is a story of a woman being arrested for pretending to be a witch. She is accused of having defrauded a lawyer out of a thousand dollars by claiming to be possessed by the ghost of the lawyer's dead sister.
She is clearly guilty of fraud. She said that she was something that she wasn't and was given money based on those false pretenses. So I don't understand why the police thought that she should be charged with this peculiar and little used law against pretending to have supernatural powers.
I once went to a lecture where the professor claimed that the civil court would be better at dealing with matters of justice than the criminal court. He pointed out that O.J. Simpson was not found guilty in a criminal court but was brought to some justice in a civil court. He also commented that codifying laws make for oddities and anachronism that brings about weirdness in the justice system. He said that we would be better off by returning to the pre-19th century legal system of common law tradition.
Maybe he was right.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 10, 2009 at 08:13 AM
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Speaking of Overcriminalization
I think this is called "sending a message." What kind of message is something else:
She was nabbed when a worker saw her shooting video during the movie, Rosemont police said.
Managers contacted police, who examined the small digital camera, which also records video segments, Cmdr. Frank Siciliano said. Officers found that Tumpach had taped “two very short segments” of the movie — no more than four minutes total, he said.
Tumpach was arrested after theater managers insisted on pressing charges, he said. She was charged with criminal use of a motion picture exhibition. She remained jailed for two nights in Rosemont’s police station until being taken to bond court on Monday, where a Cook County judge ordered her released on a personal recognizance bond that didn’t require her to post any cash.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 10, 2009 at 07:06 AM
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Living in Harmony
Say what you'd like about Stephen Harper, and I've said some nasty things, he has an uncanny knack for tossing grenades into crowded rooms, and coming out unscathed.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's formal support for the Conservative government's HST bill could spark an open revolt among Liberal MPs who fear a voter backlash, the Star has learned.
Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday it will be a whipped vote, meaning even those MPs opposed to the harmonized sales tax for Ontario and British Columbia are to toe the party line.
The Grits nailed their colours to the mast on sales tax harmonization sometime back. Harper's deal with the Dalt, and BC's Gordon Campbell, over harmonization has made a theoretical policy position a concrete reality for the Liberals. While, in theory, harmonization makes a lot of sense, in practice it will be tax grab. Income tax rebate checks a short-term sop, not offsetting the long-term boost in revenues for provincial coffers.
The trick with harmonization is that provincial sales taxes, which are riven with politically engineered exceptions, must be consolidated with the GST, whose remit is far more encompassing. You pay tax on things you didn't pay tax on before. The never popular GST is a raw nerve for many Canadians. Even if the technical details are not fully understood, the HST looks and feels like a tax grab. An administrative measure for the federal government, is a keenly divisive issue in two battleground provinces. Luckily for the federal Tories, both provinces are governed by parties with the Liberal brand name on the cover. Since it is up to the provinces to adopt the HST or not, the political cost is entirely on the shoulders of Queen's Park, Victoria and as splash over the Leader of the Opposition. This has backbenchers running for cover. Beneath the bad hair cut, the enormous brain plots.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 10, 2009 at 07:05 AM
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Peter MacKay can be safely gotten rid of now
John Ibbitson makes a case for why Stephen Harper will refuse to kick Defense Minister MacKay out of cabinet, even if he deserves to be booted. Though Mr. Ibbitson may be right in his over all argument, I disagree with one of his points:
Third, and most important, Peter MacKay is a partner in the Conservative coalition. Don't forget that this government is in office only because Mr. MacKay agreed to merge his Progressive Conservatives with Mr. Harper's Canadian Alliance back in 2003. Firing Mr. MacKay would split the party.
In 2005 Peter MacKay threatened to split apart the Conservative Party. At the convention Scott Reid campaigned to change the leadership rules to a one member one vote system, instead of the current riding based electoral college. This was seen by Mr.MacKay, and others, as an attack on the PC section of the party. So in response Mr. MacKay threatened to lead a revolt.
It was a dramatic moment at the convention. It led to one of the media's favourite stories of Stephen Harper, his kicking a chair across a room in anger. Yet that was also four years ago and a lot has changed since then. The Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives are now very much entwined into a single party. The Conservative Party is no longer so weak that one man can split it apart.
The most significant change is that the Conservatives are in government, and they are unlikely to be out of government any time soon. Being securely in government is the greatest uniting factor for any political party. It means that loyalty will be awarded with patronage and dissenters will be left in the cold.
In short Mr. MacKay can no longer lead a revolt because he has nothing to offer his potential followers. His chances of becoming Prime Minister isn't exactly overwhelming, especially if he breaks away to start his own party. So there would be littleopportunity for him to reward those that remain loyal to the old PC name.
If the Prime Minister really had to or even just wanted to, he could easily take the axe to Minister MacKay.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 10, 2009 at 05:49 AM
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
To Boldly Go Where No Socialist Has Gone Before
The Bridge of the Chilean economy (H/T Quot'd).
Although some sources at the time said the Chilean economy was "run by computer," the project was in reality a bit of a joke, albeit a rather expensive one, and about the only thing about it that worked were the ordinary Western Union telex machines spread around the country. The two computers supposedly used to run the Chilean economy were IBM 360s (or machines on that order). These machines were no doubt very impressive to politicians and visionaries eager to use their technological might to control an economy (see picture at right.) Today, our perspective will perhaps be somewhat different when we realize that these behemoths were far less powerful than an iPhone. Run an economy with an iPhone? Sorry, there is no app for that.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 9, 2009 at 09:00 PM
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Whigs and Tories
Or libertarians and conservatives. Daniel Hannan splits the difference:
Set aside a couple of slightly recherché issues, such as drugs. On the biggies – school choice, Euroscepticism, tax cuts, welfare reform – we all agree. And the reason we agree is that the current state of Britain is so far removed from what either a conservative or a libertarian wants that any disagreements can be comfortably postponed. It’s as though you were driving from London to two adjoining streets in Aberdeen: almost the whole route would be identical. As my old history tutor used to observe, the differences between Tory and Whig can safely be deferred to after the grave.
Hannan makes a very important point. Even once an idea has achieved a critical mass in the culture, it usually requires a broad tent political party to implement. The sort of freedom that libertarians and classical liberals are seeking is far removed from the modern political consensus. In this they do share common ground with conservatives. Yet the differences, even at this stage, do matter. In planning how to decontrol, you need to prioritize.
One of the first things a libertarian / classical liberal government would do is end the Drug War. In terms of the sheer wastage of life, liberty and property, there are few things that quite rival the Drug War. It is also the one major reform that would incur the lowest immediate social cost. As the experience of Portugal strongly suggests, ending the Drug War will have very few, if any notable negative side effects. Scrapping the welfare state immediately, on the other hand, would impose an enormous cost on its dependants. In the long run they are better off as independent members of society, or as wards of private charity. A humane approach to social policy reform would, however, allow time for adaptation and adjustment.
Posted by PUBLIUS on December 9, 2009 at 07:03 AM
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Bernier's Comeback!
My favourite former Minister may be back in Cabinet before Christmas, according to columnist Don Martin. I think that there is a strong case for the likelihood of Maxine Bernier's return. There has already been evidence of Stephen Harper rebuilding bridges with the popular MP.
Mr. Bernier has two advantages that makes him impossible for Mr. Harper to ignore him.
1. He has staying power. Even with the scandals of the last Parliament, Mr. Bernier has proven that he can win his seat and keep winning it.
2. He is from the Quebec City area. Any Conservative majority government is going to be partly built on Quebec City. A charming and well known Minister from the area could make all the difference.
So why is this such good news? Why am I excited about Minister Bernier? His videos demonstrate his deep understanding of Freedom and Responsibility and also there is his long time support for the flat tax. Such ideas are a welcome addition to the highest levels of government.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 9, 2009 at 06:36 AM
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Debate in Scotland about Prostitution
The Scottish Parliament is considering legislation that would increase the criminality of prostitution. The idea is to attack the "demand" for purchased sex. This law is based on a similar law recently passed in Sweden and would make it illegal to purchase or attempt to purchase sexual favours.
The Scotsman presents two different perspectives to the question: Should vice laws be tightened? (These are selected portions of the article)
Yes:
But that impact also directly affects the families of those involved and the communities where this appalling trade takes place.
In a great many cases, these communities will be living in a state of fear and anxiety because of the criminality that surrounds prostitution.
Organised crime plays a massive part in perpetuating prostitution in this country and elsewhere. Ruthless criminals see only profit in the sale of people for sex. They have no concept of the devastation they cause – if they have to control and ultimately ruin the lives of others then it is a price that has to be paid.
No:
THE "End Prostitution Now" campaign is unrealistic. We have seen similar strategies in the past, it's something that's been happening not just for decades, but millennia.
There have been various attempts to criminalise buyers and organisers of prostitution, and Glasgow City Council has been building towards this campaign since 1999. They have been looking for other local authorities to support them, but there is no consensus among councils on this issue.
Research suggests that the type of legislation being proposed will only increase the vulnerability of women – a review of the legislation in Sweden found that sex workers had been subject to increased violent attacks.
In Sweden, women have been forced to use their own private residences for selling sexual services, but often they are reported and then made homeless. If this legislation goes ahead here, it will see the indoors industry in Glasgow multiply enormously.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 9, 2009 at 05:52 AM
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If you don't want cancer drink beer!
This from the Scotsman...
...I will never get cancer.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 9, 2009 at 05:34 AM
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Could NDP fortunes in Quebec mark the end of separatism
It has long been said that Quebec politics does not operate under Left-Right competition but Federalist-Separatist competition. As much as I deplore the terms left wing and right wing, there is some truth to this.
The usual party cleavages are around the role of government. Even when parties are relatively similar in their conceptualization of government, they differ in the details of what they want government to do. Should this subsidy go to that person or that person? Should taxes be cut or should wealth transfer be increased? Should government regulate the personal habits of individuals, if so what habits should be regulated?
These debates take place in Quebec but their party system does not revolve around them. Instead their party system revolves around the question, should Quebec be independent?
On either the federal or provincial level, voters in Quebec cannot avoid this issue during elections. Even if you are voting for the PQ to support their health policy, you must be aware that you are voting for a separatist party.
The NDP have traditionally been squeezed out from this debate. The Liberals staunchly support federalism, the Conservatives usually support a more decentralized federalism, and the BQ support independence. There isn't much room for the NDP to contribute. Even when they try they lack credibility because they have never held office at the federal level. The fourth party could hypothetically have influence on many areas of public policy, but what could they possibly do to influence a constitutional debate?
Yet for the past few years we have been witnessing a rise of the NDP in Quebec. Perhaps this is a sign that the old debate is beginning to lose its sizzle. Quebec voters who dislike Harper are looking for an alternative. They don't seem to like Mr. Ignatteiff much and in general they will "park their vote" with the BQ as a sort of damn all vote. Still the NDP are doing better in Quebec than I have ever known them to. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that they are on the cusp of a breakthrough in Quebec. If so let us hope it comes at a cost to the BQ and to separatism in Quebec.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on December 9, 2009 at 02:40 AM
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