The Decline of the Middle Class

The Middle Class built the West.  They are the reason why the G7 nations were able to get to the top of the economic pecking order and stay there.

Certainly after the end of the Second World War the Western World had to spend like crazy to rebuild.  It was almost inevitable that there would be an economic boom following the war while the rebuilding took place.  However, that building boom pretty much petered out by the end of the 1940s but instead of the Western economies sinking back to pre-war levels they continued to boom for decades afterwards and eventually the West amassed wealth that has been unprecedented in history.

This happened because in the 30 years following the end of the war the West did not only rebuild the infrastructure shattered by the war they also built the middle class.  Western governments went on a spending binge to assist ordinary citizens in their countries to take full personal advantage of the growing Western economies and corporations, either by necessity or by choice, compensated ordinary workers very well.  Indeed, for most of the middle of the last century a single income families was the norm and the economy grew at a healthy rate despite it.

The reason is simple of course.  With so many people making good wages and receiving assistance from their governments they had extra money to spend, on new homes, new cars, new consumer products, and that fueled the manufactuing boom that followed the immediate post war building boom, which further fueled the economic boom in a 30 year virtuous circle. 

All of this happened because governments were willing to spend money to support the middle class and corporations were willing to pay ordinary people sufficient wages for them to be able to buy their products.

All of that began to change in the 1980s.  With the backing of corporations Western political leaders began to rethink the idea of assisting ordinary people to navigate through the western economies and corporations began to be less generous with their compensation to ordinary people.  The reason why the corporations did this is because of the opening of markets overseas which reduced the need to them to depend on domestic markets to generate wealth.  The politicians did it largely because of ideology.

Fast forward to today and we see a middle class that is in sharp decline.  Most of those who can still claim to be part of that class are only able to do so because they are two income households that are maxed out on credit.  Most of them are one economic crisis, whether it be local, national or internations, away from economic disaster and a "demotion" out of the middle class.  Indeed, the US experience has demonstrated that one international economic crisis was enough to boot a significant portion of people out of the middle class, with very few prospects of climbing back up to that level.  That trend shows no sign of abating in the western economies.

The impacts of this should not be lost on us.  It is no accident that the Western economies are largely in decline.  It is no accident that what is left of the manufacturing base in the West needs to exploit the emerging markets in Asia in order to stay afloat.  Business decisions of Western corporations and political decisions of Western governments have greatly reduced the ability of domestic consumption to sustain Western corporations.

This is not sustainable for the Western economies in its own right but the emergence of China, India and Brazil as key economic players in the international economy could very well have a very profound impact on Western economies and on the West's status as the preeminate economic powers in the world.

I will discuss that in a later post.

Tragic Irony

Reports are that the gunman responsible for the school shooting in Connecticut yesterday used guns that were registered to his mother.

It is probably a reasonable assumption that one of the reasons why she had these guns was for protection.  That is what really stands out for me in this whole affair.  The guns she may have acquired for protection failed to protect her.  Indeed they were used against her.

Tragically ironic to be certain but wholely predictable.

The Liberals did not blow the Calgary Centre By-election

Three reasons why they did not.

1)  The by-election was in Calgary Centre, in Alberta.

2)  The by-election was in Calgary Centre, in Alberta.

3)  The by-election was in Calgary Centre, in Alberta.

Any Liberal who really believed that the Liberals could really take that seat from the Conservatives is truly delusional.  I would point out that at no time during the by-election was there any indications that the Liberals were leading in the riding.  There were indications that they were close, much closer than the Conservatives felt comfortable with I am certain, but they never closed the gap completely.

Of course, this does not stop many Liberals from wingeing and crying about how they blew it.  It is pathetic really.

The Liberal Party needs to renew itself to become relevant in Canadian federal politics again, that is a fact.  However, just as important, they need to regain the old confidence that they used to have.  There have been times, in the not too distant past, when the house was burning down around the Liberals and they would still exude a confidence, bordering on arrogance and that contributed to them escaping the problem(s) unscathed or bouncing back from them quickly.  Canadians might say they dislike arrogance in their politicians but the most successful ones in our history have had a healthy dose of it because quite frankly Canadians trust a leader and a party with a certain swagger over ones lacking that trait or perceived to be lacking that trait.  If anybody really believes that Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper enjoyed the success they did because people liked them and thought they were paragons of humility they are nuts.

I stated this before but I will state it again.  Liberals, stop buying what your opponents and the media are selling.  You have to stop validating the crap spewing from them.  None of your opponents are doing so why are you?  Stop validating the narrative against you change the narrative. 

Wingeing and crying after a loss of a by-election that the Liberals never really had a chance of winning is not the way Liberals are going to demonstrate to Canadians that they have the confidence necessary to run this country.

"The left-wing wanted me out."

Wow, hubris and paranoia all wrapped up in one nice little package.

It is astounding who people vote for these days.

They wouldn't be that stupid again would they?

I have been watching things unfold between the Ontario government and the public sector unions of Ontario and it is reminding me of 1994/95.

It was during this time that these unions hammered the government of Bob Rae over his efforts to reduce government spending.  You see he was imposing policies that resulted in public servants and other workers in the public sector losing some of their income due to forced days off and other measures.  We all remember the so called "Rae Days".  A lot of bad blood rose between the two of them and it is certain that it contributed to the trouncing Mr. Rae took in the subsequent election and the election of Mike Harris to a majority Tory government in Ontario in 1995.

By no means was that the only reason why Mr. Rae lost but the desertion of many of these votes from Mr. Rae caused a split in the non-Tory vote and it allowed Mr. Harris to come up the middle.

Of course the rest is history.  Instead of howling about forced days off the public sector unions could only watch in helpless frustration as Mr. Harris took the route all right-wing governments take and laid off public sector workers by the thousands.

Could history be repeating itself?  Could the public sector unions be so focused on the short-term that they are forgetting history?

Maybe they believe that they can do this because the Ontario NDP will win the next election.  If that is the case the leadership of Ontario public sector unions are idiots.

I would be willing to bet a sizable chunk of money that the NDP will not even get a sniff of power in the next Ontario election.  The reasons are many.  First, they are in third place in the Ontario Parliament.  It is exceedingly rare for the third place party to win an election.  Second, there is widespread perception in this province that the NDP cannot be trusted with power because of the cock-up of Bob Rae.  I do not agree with that perception but my disagreement and a toonie will buy a coffee at Timmie's.  Third, many Dippers saw the results of the Federal election and got all misty eyed over what Jack Layton did and they believe Ms. Horvath could do the same thing.  The problem with that is Ms. Horvath is not Jack Layton and even if she was I would also remind Dippers that Jack Layton did not win anything.  All he succeeded in doing is taking his party to Official Opposition status against a majority government, probably the most frustrating place to be in our political system.  Just ask the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance if you do not believe that.

During the next election the two parties most likely to form the government in Ontario are the Liberals and the Tories.  The question for public sector unions is which one would they prefer?  I can understand that neither option is particularly palatable and I agree with them that the Liberals are out of line imposing these policies in the high handed fashion that they are imposing them.  However, the Liberals are not laying anybody off.  If Tim Hudak becomes Premier of Ontario, he and the Tea Party wannabes in the Tory Party will follow in the footsteps of Mike Harris.

Does the leadership of the various public sector unions not see this reality?  Did the experience of the mid-90s not teach them a fine lesson?

My gut says no to both questions.  Like all politicians the leadership of these unions are not looking past the immediate concerns to the big picture.  They will probably continue to sow resentment to the Liberal government amongst their memberships so that when the next Ontario election rolls around the members of these unions will split their votes and allow Tim Hudak to win a probable majority government.

It is unfuriating that the unions have to take the treatment that the Ontario Liberals are visiting upon them.  It is also infuriating that there really is no viable, electable alternative to the Hudak Tories and the Randy Hillers of Ontario because I happen to believe that the Liberals could use a rest from government.  It's galling but it is what it is.  So, the public sector unions better realize that if they want to maintain the jobs of their members they had better work to prevent the election of a Tory government and the odds state that the only party able to do that in Ontario at this moment is the governing Liberals much to their and my chagrin. 

Lance Armstrong

After an extensive investigation and a great deal of time the USADA finally released its findings regarding allegations that Mr. Armstrong had cheated to win his seven straight Tour de France titles.  The report containing those findings was damning and it paints a very grim picture of cheating and deceit by Mr. Armstrong and the cycling teams he was a part of during those years.

Mr. Armstrong, his representatives and his supporters have all condemned the report as inaccurate and they rightly point out that he has never failed a drug test.  They have a point but the findings of the report were partially derived from sworn affidavits by individuals that were involved in the doping activities described in the report, individuals that specifically name Mr. Armstrong as a willing participant in these activities.

In all likelyhood their are some inaccuracies in the report because eye witness testimony can be wrong but the shear amount of witness testimony, from almost a dozen different people, makes it probable that at least some of the report is accurate and if even a small percentage of it is accurate it does not look good on Mr. Armstrong.

What is also working against Mr. Armstrong is the lack of an explanation of how he could have dominated a sport for over half a decade during a period of time which is widely known and documented as being a time of widespread doping activities by virtually all of the elite athletes in the sport.   This by no means proves he is guilty but it does raise questions which have not been reasonably answered yet.

Many of Mr. Armstrong's supporters have claimed that the USADA has been involved in a vendetta against him.  However, what is missing from such an argument is a motivation for undertaking such vendetta.  Again, there has been no reasonable explanation of why a government organization would go through the time, effort and money to "frame" Mr. Armstrong for the wrongdoing outlined in the report. 

Many of his supporters also point out that his cancer foundation has raised a great deal of money for cancer research so the rest does not matter.  There is no denying the good that he has done for cancer research and the success of his foundation.  However, to state that it makes the allegations against him irrelevent smacks of an "ends justifies the means" argument.

So what will this do to his legacy?  That remains to be seen.  Some will support him no matter what.  Others will condemn him no matter what.  Some that did not have an opinion one way or another will probably join those who condemn him but there are those who did not have an opinion before who will probably not have one now.  Only the fullness of time will tell us what impact the report will have on his legacy.

As for his personal reputation I would say it has been permanently damaged.  Although him and his supporters will always be able to point to his good works the USADA report will always be there casting a shadow over him and his work.

The Mayans are Right

I read a news story today where it was predicted that there would be a bacon shortage in 2013.

If that is not a sign of the end of the world I do not know what is.

Uninspiring

For several decades the electorate of Quebec could be roughly divided into thirty percent ardent seperatists, thirty percent ardent federalists and a mushy middle of about forty percent that are proud to be Quebecers but who are much more pragmatic when it comes to the question of being a seperatist or a federalist.

That means both the PQ and the PLQ have a base of roughly thirty percent and every election these two parties fight to win at least a plurality of the mushy middle.

What was interesting about the election results from last night is both PQ and the PLQ hung onto their bases but were completely incapable of convincing those in the middle to vote for them in significant enough numbers to give either one the decisive victory they were both looking for.  Interestingly, it was the CAQ that won the plurality of the middle but being the only party in the election without a discernable base it was not enough to unseat the other major parties as either the government of the opposition in Quebec.

The PQ won last night but there should be some concern about their inability to inspire enough of the middle to push them over the top to majority government.  As well, they should be very concerned with the fact that they did not even come close to the voting totals for the "Yes" side in 1980 let alone in 1995.  The PQ government will be working hard to try to remedy that in the coming months but they have a long way to go and they may be hampered by their minority government situation, although that is not a given as their chief opposition is leaderless and will be focused on internal PLQ politics for the next few months and the other big opposition party is new to the Quebec National Assembly and may take some time to get its bearings.

The PLQ should be very concerned.  Their base stuck to them not because they were happy with them but because they were afraid of the PQ.  Otherwise they were even less able to convince those outside of their base to support them.  That will probably not change in the foreseeable future so they could be in for a long time wandering the political wilderness and they will have to look over their shoulder at the CAQ.

The CAQ might have an opportunity.  I will admit that I did not follow the campaign as closely as I could have but I followed it enough to realize that they are a pragmatic party when it comes to the notion of separation.  They tend to better reflect the mushy middle in Quebec politics which is the largest segment of the Quebec electorate.  The fact that they were able to come from zero to almost three dozen seats in one election is something that is liable to keep party strategists from both the PQ and PLQ up nights.  If they can consolidate that advancement into the middle into a political base and convince enough anglophone federalists that they can be trusted not to seek separation in the future they could replace the PLQ as the Official Opposition and maybe even win government.  Their position in the National Assembly gives them that opportunity but it also puts them into the glare of a spotlight which might cause them to suffer the same fate as the ADQ, particularly as they try to navigate a minority parliament.

The total inability of either of the two established parties in Quebec to inspire enough people outside of their bases to vote for them is a cause for concern for both of them.  It is too early to assert that the results from last night is a portent of change in Quebec politics but both established parties should assume that could very well be a possibility and develop strategies with that in mind going forward. 

I do not know who is more foolish

It really is a toss-up.  Who is more foolish, the NHL owners or the NHL players?

Last year the league raked in $3.3 billion, which is more than the GDP of a significant number of countries around the world.  Yet the owners and the players would derail this gravy train, for the second time in less than a decade, because they cannot come up with a way to share that amount.

You would think that with revenues being that high they would realize that there is more than enough to go around and that everybody could come away being very wealthy.  True some would be wealthier than others but really everybody concerned would make more money than the average fan in their lifetime.

The owners first offer was outrageous.  As an opening gambit in a negotiation asking the players to take a 24% pay cut while ignoring ways the owners could assist some of their poorer brethren was hopelessly unreasonable.  I understand that opening gambits are supposed to be somewhat unreasonable but this one was unreasonable in the extreme.  I also realize that some of the teams in the league are having financial difficulty but alot of that could be resolved by pulling some of these teams out of non-traditional hockey markets and putting teams into places where profitable teams would be virtually guaranteed. 

The players first offer was clever as it gave the appearance of being conciliatory but it really was a outright rejection of the owners offer and their point of view.  I understand that the players want to keep the gains they have achieved in the last seven years but it is hard to feel any sympathy for them when the most untalented hack, whose only function on a team is to end the career of the stars on opposing teams, can earn a minimum salary of over a half a million dollars. (And if they are successful in their function enough times they get raises to over a million per year.)

If I were a betting man I would bet a fair chunk of money on the NHL season not starting on schedule in October and considering the two main negotiators are Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr I would bet that hockey fans will be denied an entire NHL season. 

What I would not bet on however is that either of the two sides suffering any consequences for their actions.  I imagine that fans will flock back and pay the outrageous sums for tickets, concessions and merchandise whenever NHL hockey restarts regardless of what happens in the next few months.

So I guess I should make an addendum to my opening question.  Who is more foolish, the NHL owners, the NHL players or NHL fans?

Legitimate Rape?

Really!!?

So what is illegitimate rape?  If a women gets pregnant as a result of rape does that mean she really wanted to have sex with the guy?

The truly frightening thing about this wingnut is he is already an elected representative which means a plurality if not a majority of the people he represents actually agree with him.

The sickness of American society

The world has yet again borne witness to a senseless mass shooting in the United States.  I have lost count of how many times I have read about and seen them in the media in the 40 or so years I have been alive.

The usual suspects in the United States are coming out of the wood work to decry this tragedy and to pin it on a single individual.  "This is just the act of one disturbed individual," they say.  "Increased gun control would not solve this problem," they say.  "If someone in the crowd would have had a gun themselves the death toll would have been much lower because they could have taken the guy down," they say, as if real life is like a Hollywood action movie.

To a certain extent I am beginning to agree with these people.  I believe most countries in the West have experienced this kind of tragedy at least once in the last quarter century but they seem to happen more frequently and with greater regularity in the United States.

The question is why?  Is it because of the ease with which it is possible to obtain firearms?  That would be the easy answer but all Western countries allow their citizens to own guns.  Certainly, they control them much more than the US but if someone like the suspect in this shooting wanted to obtain a gun they could do it.  Unfortunately, people with the intent to kill do not have a big sign on their forehead indicating as much when they go through whatever process they need to go through to obtain a firearm.

I believe there is a much deeper cause for the carnage we see on a regular basis in the United States.  As a society it is in a state of decay and when a society decays like that it produces the likes of yesterday's gunman.  It produces people who become alienated from that society and that alienation engenders a sense of isolation, an isolation that if allowed to grow and fester leads to a deep anger that will eventually need an outlet.

It is true that if guns in the United States were strictly controlled these individuals would still find a way of obtaining them and perpetrating these acts.  You only need to read and watch the news coverage from yesterday to see that this guy was rather methodical and patient in planning and implementing this act so a thing like gun control would not have prevented this tragedy.

Then again, when a society is in such a state of decay as the US it is folly to allow firearms to be so readily available, particularly firearms that have been designed with the single purpose of efficiently killing large numbers of other human beings like the ones uses yesterday.  Strict gun control would not prevent all of these tragedies but it would prevent many of them and it would probably reduce the death toll for those that were not prevented.  Gun control would also prevent many more of the more mundane actions that lead to the thousands of gun deaths in the US, the ones that happen every day as a matter of routine and do not make the international news.

However, Americans are not interested in that.  They have indicated many times by their actions that they consider yesterday's tragedy and the ongoing tragedy of thousands of guns deaths a year in the US as acceptable losses to maintain their "freedom".  Yes they will make all the right noises about how senseless and how tragic these shootings are but that has not prevented gun control from becoming the "third rail" in American politics. 

Most Americans do not see the deep decay in their society so there is no hope of the root cause of yesterday's tragedy being addressed and they also will not consider gun control as a way to reduce the carnage resulting from gun violence in their country.  So, we and they can continue to expect these mass shootings to happen again and again and I believe that deep down they are OK with that. 

A few more thoughts

To continue my post from yesterday.

F-35s  A while back I wrote a post questioning how the Harper government would react to the AG report that slammed their handling of this issue.  I stated that they had the opportunity to rethink the whole process for the good of the Canadian Air Force and for Canadians by reducing the amount of politics that had infested this file.  I also stated that they could do what Jean Chretien did and make the issue more political than it already is.  I questioned which approach the Harper government would take although I had a feeling that they would take the Chretien approach.  It appears I am right, which is not surprising because this government always lets politics trump good judgement and bad judgement for that matter.  Only two outcomes can come from this.  The Canadian Airforce will have to wait decades before they finally receive replacements for the F-18s or Canadians will be saddled with a huge bill for new fighter aircraft that will not meet all of the needs of the Canadian Air Force, which will have to make due with them for over 30 years. 

Dutch Disease   Mr. Mulclair learned a valuable lesson.  Tactics that work in the closed politics of Quebec do not work very well in the open politics of Canada.  There are too many diverse interests in the broader Canadian political scene to allow for the type of politics he displayed recently.  Fortunately for him and the NDP he has three years to learn this and maybe he will break the streak of provincial politicians who become leaders of federal political parties only to crash and burn in a spectacular fashion.  I would not hold my breath though if you are an NDP supporter.  The irony of this whole situation is his arguments did have some merit but he just did not take them far enough.  The current government's focus on the resource industries while it criminally ignores the manufacturing industries in this country will come back to haunt them and the country.  If either of the Opposition Parties can come up with a way to bring that situation into focus in a more constructive fashion they would be doing Canada a great service.  (Don't hold your breath on that score however.)

Microphones in our Airports  Mr. bin Laden must be laughing his ass off in Hell.  With one act he managed to do what countless Soviet politicians, diplomats, soldiers, spys, and agent provoceteurs failed to do during half-a-century of the Cold War, namely, cause the people of the West to accept increasing limitations on their rights and freedoms.  I am certain that some old Soviet spymaster in a Russian nursing home is kicking himself for not thinking of paying international terrorists to strike directly at the US.  The irony of this situation is the Soviet Union was a threat to our political institutions and our way of life while bin Laden and his ilks have never been and never will be.  Which is not stopping elements of the ruling classes of the West, who have a more authoritarian bent, from hyping up the terrorist threat for their own political ends.  The government finally backed off from activating these microphones (for now) after they took a great deal of political heat over them but the fact that someone actually thought putting these microphones in place was a good idea speaks volumes on how much citizens of the West have accepted giving up their rights and freedoms in the name of "security".

An Omnibus Post?

This post is just some quick thoughts on some issues that have caught my eye over the last few weeks.

The Euro Crisis  It has been rather interesting to watch the slow motion destruction of the Euro.  The helplessness of the politicos in Europe to prevent it from happening is palpable as indicated by their elation at the Greek election results, which just staved off the inevitable.  What I find more interesting is how the conservative thinkers and politicians in the Eurozone will still not relent on the policies that they are demanding from Greece.  Do these conservatives really believe that the Euro will be saved by destroying the economy of one of the users of that currency?  Only an ideologue would believe such claptrap.  The only way the Euro is saved is if they show a little bit of flexibility.  If they do not they will just cause that which they are trying to prevent.

Egypt  The military is very clever in that country.  Throw their former boss under the bus during the revolution.  Delay elections as long as possible to allow the population to cool off and then rig the elections and the constitution to allow them to maintain the real power in the country.  The ones that thought they would be the beneficiaries of the revolution are left sputtering in rage and surprise and they and their supporters will certainly try to recreate the protests of the revolution but the majority of Egyptians will just turn away in resignation and nothing will change in that country.  I wrote a post when Mr. Mubarak was ousted last year that there would be no change in Egypt as a result of his ouster and sadly I was right.  Of course, now the military government will be completely illegitimate in the eyes of most Egyptians but they can live with that.  Such arrangements have worked well all over the world before so they see no reason why it cannot be made to work there. 

Syria  Mr. Assad is obviously not as smart as the Egyptian military.  He finds himself embroiled in a civil war whose outcome is far from certain.  The only certainty in all of that sad situation is the world will not intervene. 

Cheating during elections  There seems to be a pattern emerging with regards to the Conservatives not following election laws in this country.  They are not doing it as a party and it would appears that some individual candidates are not following them either.  We can expect the same from them in 2015 (2016?) so I wonder what the Dippers and the Liberals are going to do to counter that.

Supply Management  The Harper Government wants a seat at the table of the Pacific free trade talks and in order to do that he will probably have to put Canada's Supply Management System on the table.  That system is extremely popular in the rural areas of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  You know, those places where the Liberals have been moribund for more than a decade.  If the Liberals entertain any hopes of becoming relevant again they had better fight to protect the Supply Management System.  If they cede this issue to the NDP they are done and if they are so stupid as to actually side with those that will dismantle the system then we will be watching them suffer the same fate as the Progressive Conservatives, circa 1993, during the next election.  I know all of the arguments against the system as I have made some of them but those arguments have existed since the system was set up and it has still lasted for more than four decades.  The reason of course is obvious, those who benefit from it fight to keep it and they punish anybody who would seek to tamper with it.  Anybody who knows the realities of politics knows that facts and logic are often trumped by base politics.  That is the reason why I have seen John Baird and Randell Denley signs on the lawns of a subsidized housing community during previous elections.  If Liberals will finally accept that simple fact and conduct themselves accordingly maybe they can take advantage of any ill feelings that might arise in rural Canada to political benefit and hope that those centrists voters in urban Canada, who would never vote NDP, grow tired enough of the Conservatives to switch to the only other party in this country that they would trust the economy to, the Liberals. 

Quebec Student Protests are an Example of the Purest Form of Democracy

Warren Kinsella has already mentioned this over at his website but I thought I would throw in my two cents.

I have read several pundits and commentators over the last few days that have been quite critical of the student protests claiming that they are undermining our democracy.

Hell, Macleans even infers that the students have become the new "ruling class" in Quebec.  We could only wish there was some truth to that assertion.

It is no coincidence that the most critical pundits are those that are on the conservative side of the political spectrum.  In a previous post on this blog I mentioned that the balance of influence between corporations and individuals has been badly skewed in favour of corporations.  For conservatives they believe that is how it should be and any movement that might bring that balance of influence on to a more even keel is considered a threat. 

I would like to say that calling these demonstrations a threat to democracy is just a political tactic but my experience debating with conservatives indicates to me that a sizable number of them actually believe what the say.  They actually believe that ordinary citizens expressing their displeasure towards a government policy or just a government is somehow undemocratic.  Most of the time it is the organized fashion of the protests that they get hung up on.  Someone writing a letter to the editor or to their Member of Parliament is democratic but a group of people with the same goals organizing to push for the realization of those goals is not. 

As I have stated before I believe North America needs more examples of the type of democracy the students in Quebec have been engaged in.  Whether you agree with their demands or not they are demonstrating that ordinary citizens with a little organization and alot of committment can tip the balance of influence back towards ordinary citizens (at least for a little while) and remind the real ruling class on this continent that their grip on power is not as firm as they would like to believe. 

The Assault on EI Begins

Earlier in the week it was reported that the Conservative government is proposing changes to EI, which will make it more difficult for people to get EI and once they do get it make it more difficult to keep receiving benefits.  And in a particular case of nastiness they will make it really difficult for people who need EI more than once. 

Today, in both the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post we see stories about how EI is damaging Canda, particularly in the Maritimes and Quebec.

Coincidence? 

The government's proposed changes to EI and the defence of those changes by the two newspapers I mentioned is just typical of the conservative mindset.

For conservatives, people are not people, they are not even citizens.  They are just economic entities moving within the economy and they are to be handled in such a way as to make that economy as efficient as possible.  It would never occur to conservatives that those individuals who might not want to move from a high unemployment part of Canada to a lower unemployment part of Canada are people who have set down roots in their current communities.  They have family and friends, their families have their own roots and to throw that all away to move to another part of the country would be difficult, emotionally and logistically.  As well, many Canadians have bought into the conservative mantra that "jobs for life" no longer exist so they are hesitant to move because they may just have to do it all over again when the economic winds shift, as they always do. 

Conservatives also realize that people are also voters and they can vote against them if they pursue polices people do not want or agree with.  (The inconsiderate pricks, don't they know that conservatives and their corporate enablers have their best interests at heart.)  Again the conservative mindset is not to think of voters as people but they think of them as political entities to be manipulated, hence today's stories trashing EI.

Today was just the opening salvo of the assault on EI and I am certain we will see more of it in the coming weeks and month.  I will leave it up to others to discuss whether the Conservative government and their allies will succeed and whether they will suffer for it politically.

Quebec Student Strikes

One thing I have always admired about Quebecers is their lack of tolerance of their governments giving them what they perceive to be a bad deal.  It does not matter what group it is or the political stripe of the government that is committing the perceived wrong, they make it very difficult for any government to do so without consequences.

We are seeing that this mind set runs deep and it runs thoughtout the province, including in the youth.  I say good on them. 

On the merits of their case I cannot say that I blame the students for their actions.  They enjoy the lowest tuition rates in the country and they would like to keep it that way.  As well, they know that the proposed tuition hikes are only the beginning.  Once they start they will not stop.  They only need to look at all of the other provinces in Canada where governments have been raising tuitions for the last 20+ years.  The reason why they are doing so is the wet noodle reaction of student organizations to the proposed hikes.  The student organizations make all sorts of noise about "access to education being a right" but they never really took action to back up their words.

I daresay that this might not be a problem in Quebec.  The current proposal will be enacted because for the Charest government to back down now would be a political disaster but the events of the last four months will probably give future Quebec governments pause before proposing more tuition increases in the future.

Indeed, if the PQ Party has any political smarts left they should be planning on promising to roll back any tuition hikes in the coming election in an effort to take political advantage of a suddenly energized youth vote.

It is good to see that there is still one last jurisdiction on the continent where the people of that place are unwilling to let their government give them the shaft without putting up one hell of a fight.  Now if only the rest of the continent would follow their example.

Ah, so that's what it takes

I have always wondered what it would take to make the Harper government change its mind on one of its "signature" initiatives and now I know.

It takes a political two by four.  I had a feeling.

Canada needs to replace its F-18s.  No industrialized country can do without a fully capable air force.  I have no problem with the government's desire to buy new fighter/strike aircraft.  My problem is we can only do so once every 30 years or so.  As a result, it is imperative that we get it right otherwise we will be stuck with the wrong aircraft for a very long time.  That means the process should be designed to identify the operational needs of the Canadian airforce and then go out and find the aircraft that best meets those needs.

Although it is naive to believe some politics will not seep into such a process a government that lets politics take over the process is doing Canada a great disservice.

Now we get to see how this government reacts to this situation.  Will it react like the Chretien government did or will it do the right thing?

After the Chretien government cancelled the EH-101 contract it did its best to disqualify that helicopter from the running to replace the Sea Kings because they believed they would look like idiots to cancel a signed contract only to sign another one for the same aircraft a few years later.  (They would have been right.)  The only problem was the EH-101 met Canada's needs so they could not really disqualify it without cranking the process, which lead to lawsuits, which lead to so many delays in buying new helicopters we still have not replaced the Sea Kings.

So now we get to see what this government does.

Considering this government has proven it places political considerations above all else I think it is pretty safe to say that we are witnessing the beginning of the 'Sea King' saga all over again and that it will be another decade or so before the Canadian Airforce sees new figher/strike aircraft.

The Calgary School must be fuming

So after reading the budget put forward by the current federal government I am left with the impression that Stephen Harper's mentors in Calgary are probably wondering what it is going to take to have their ideas implemented by a Canadian government.

This first budget from the majority Conservative government was probably the only real chance for them to implement some of the policies that they fought for during their time in Opposition.  They had an opportunity to radically remake the Canadian government as they stated they wanted to do many times during the late '90s and the early '00s, while still having plenty of time to recover from any political fallout that might have occured. 

They did none of that.  Instead they crafted a budget that would have passed a minority parliament if it were necessary. 

The structure of the government that existed on March 29 still exists today.  True it is less well funded but otherwise it has not changed.  Any succeeding government to this one will not need to rebuild the government infrastructure if they want to improve existing programmes.  They will only need to increase the funding.

Even the reduction in the number of federal public servants is small when you compare it to the overall size of the Canadian federal bureaucracy.  As some media commentators pointed out the government did not even reduce the public service to pre-2006 levels.  That is, they did not get rid of all of the public servants that were hired under their watch. 

So, this budget is a rather mundane document, with two exceptions.

The first one being the reduction in the budget for the Canada Food Inspection Agency.  What is it with Conservative governments reducing budgets of agencies charged with protecting our food and water supplies?  The Harris government's decision to reduce the number of water inspectors in Ontario lead directly to the Walkerton tragedy according the judicial inquiry that was called to investigate that event.  That event was also a great contributor to the bath the PCPO took in the subsequent election.  You would think that the Harper government would have taken a lesson from that, particularly since that government contains so many former Harris cabinet ministers.

The second exception is the favourtism in this budget to the oil and mining industries over the manufacturing industries.  Resource extraction is not the answer to long-term economic health in this country.  Over 150 years of history should prove that.  They are too prone to boom and bust cycles and the Canadian economy needs a robust manufacturing sector to help mitigate the damage to the economy a resource bust will have.  Like governments that came before this one the current government has failed to realize that reality.  It will come back to haunt them and to haunt Canadians.

I do not know why the current government did not take a bolder approach in this budget and I can only imagine that many in the Calgary school are just as stumped as I am.

The Canadian Right's desire to copy the American Right

One of the features of the contemporary Canadian right that I have always found interesting is their desire to copy the issues and policies that are put forward by the right in the United States, particularly those issues and policies put forward by the far right in that country.

The Canadian right cleaves to the ideas of the American right on economic and fiscal policies, which is not surprising.  However, on such issues as abortion, same sex marriage, capital punishment, gun control, health care and other social issues the Canadian right tends to fall into step with the ideas put forward by the far right in the United States as well.  This is unique to the Canadian political right.  No other right wing party or government in the industrialized world makes any of these social issues a priority.  They tend to mimic the US economic and fiscal policy to a certain extent but they do not bother with the social issues.

Why is the Canadian right so enamoured with the ideas of the American right?

To a certain extent I can understand their desire to mimic the economic and fiscal policies of the American right.  Despite its troubles the United States still has one of the most dynamic economies in the world.  The Canadian right believes that such dynamism is the result of the low taxes and regulations on business in the United States.  So their argument goes that if Canada can set up a similar tax and regulation regime the Canadian economy will take off like the US economy.

On the surface this argument might have some merit but if you dig a little deeper it is patently false.  The US economy has been the driving force in the world economy for decades because innovation is the watchword for that economy.  Innovation in products, innovation in processes, and not being afraid to take risks is the reason for the dynamism of the US economy.  That was true during the height of the welfare state US economy of the '50 and '60 and it is true of the current Darwinian economic model in the US.

If Canada wants to have an economy like the Unites States the players in the Canadian economy will need to adopt such an approach to economic activity.  Canadian companies and government will need to be as innovative and as willing to take risks as those in the United States.

That's not going to happen.  Canadian companies and government do not take these kinds of risks.  They do not engage in that kind of innovation.  You just need to look at the history of Canada's economic activity, as I pointed out in my previous post, to see that. 

So Canada's right is barking up the wrong tree on the economic front.  Until there is a sea change in how business and governments approach economic activity in this country no amount of copying the US policies will create an economy as dynamic as the US economy.

On social issues I do not understand the Canadian right's desire to copy the American right.  Virtually all of the social policies that the American right pursues in the United States tend to resonate with a sufficient number of Americans to make it worthwhile to pursue. 

The same in not true in Canada.  None of those issues are front and centre in mainstream Canadian thought.  In fact, with the exception of health care most Canadian are quite content not to rock the boat by bringing up those other social issues that the right is so enamoured with.  As well, whenever these issues do break through the consciousness of Canadians their opinions tend to be different from those of the Canadian right.

Canada has unique issues that need to be dealt with in both the economic and social realm of Canadian society.  Perhaps, the Canadian right could use their energies to come up with original thoughts on how to deal with those issues instead of just regurgitating the thoughts and policies of their cousins to the south.

Canada, a country of losers?

For most of its existance Canada has been beholden to greater powers for any advantages that it has enjoyed.  This country has never really stood on its own two feet.

Since before Confederation Canada has always been dependent on other countries.  It was the British from before Confederation until the Second World War and it was the United States from the end of the Second World War to the present.

It is well known that for virtually all of its existence Canada's main source of economic activity is the extraction of resources and being a branch plant economy for the big US multinationals.  I could understand that this was probably necessary when our country was just starting out but you would think we would have moved on to something much greater as our country matured into an independent nation.

Of course that is not the case.  Our country enjoys the advantages of having a well educated population, and a modern, industrialized economy.  We should be making alot more noise on the international scene and on the world economy.  Instead we have not really progressed much farther than where we were in 1867.

We are still extracting and selling our resources to other countries to be processed, instead of processing them ourselves.  Very few of the companies that are doing this extracting are actually Canadian, which is no different that in 1867, except the companies doing the extracting are no longer British, they are American, Chinese and Brazilian.

Our biggest industrial companies are still subsidiaries of large American Corporations.  Whenever a Canadian company does rise to prominence within the Canadian economy it tends not to last long.  Nortel and JDS Uniphase are examples of that and RIM will soon be another example as it will either go bankrupt or be bought out by Apple or Microsoft in the near future.

Hell, we are seeing this everywhere.  I read yesterday of a Canadian company based out of Saskatchewan, called Viterra, which was just sold to a foreign company.  Viterra owned a sizable chunk of the grain elevators in the Prairies, as will as, port facilities in Thunder Bay and BC.  They sold the lot to a company based in Holland, a country justifiably well known for its vast tracks of rolling wheat fields.

Even in culture we are well behind the rest of the world.  Canada has a culture and has a tool to promote and highlight it in the CBC.  Canada in one of only a handful of countries that have a national broadcaster.  We could be using that to a great advantage but the opposite is true.  The fate of the CBC is actually unknown but there is a good chance that it will be privatized or it will just disappear into nothingness.

How can we as citizens of this great country allow this to happen?  Why are we standing by and watching it happening instead of putting a stop to it?  Why are we not demanding that Canadian resources be processed in Canada instead of just being dug out of the ground and shipped elsewhere as raw materials?  Why are we allowing successful Canadian companies to either disappear or be bought by companies from other countries?

Considering the wealth of human and natural resources this country enjoys Canada should be one of the movers and shakers in the global economy.  The fact that we are not is a sad testament to the collective failure of our society to leverage those resources to the greatest advanage of all Canadians.  Or to put it another way, just by taking the path of least resistance we have managed to grow an economy that is in the top ten in the world in size.  Just imagine what we could do if we actually took control of our economy and began making it work for Canadians.

Full circle in Afghanistan

A couple of weeks ago a US soldier went on a rampage in an Afghan village killing many civilians.  This was a tragedy and the reactions of the Afghan authorities was predictable.

What I found more surprising was the Western media reaction to it.  Not too many years in the past they would have acknowledged the tragedy of the event but they would have downplayed the significance of it on the broader implications for the war.  That was not the case this time.  I was surprised at how many media commentators, in the US and in Canada, who are staunch supporters of the war, who stated that this presented President Obama with an excuse to pull US troops out to Afghanistan (with NATO right behind it) and who stated that he should take the opportunity.

I believe that the media have finally acknowledged to themselves that this war is unwinnable.  I would have preferred if they would have come to this conclusion six or seven years ago when that fact first became apparent but I guess better late than never.

It did not have to be this way of course.  It became very obvious to anybody who could look at the situation on the ground with any degree of objectivity that the Taliban was not going to go away after its ouster as the Afghan government. 

The West should have acknowledged that fact and reached out to the more moderate elements of the Taliban to invite them into the new government of the country.  People do not want to lead that country for the good of its people they want to lead it so that they can have a share of the spoils of the rampant corruption of the government.  If the West would have offered a share of those spoils to moderates in the Taliban they would have probably accepted.  That would probably have had the advantage making the last few years alot less bloody for Western forces and it might have had the added advantage of splitting the Taliban, perhaps weakening the hardliners enough to push them to the fringes.

Instead of course, George Bush decided to try to destroy the Taliban, a task that is as impossible as any effort to destroy the Democratic Party.  The result was over a decade of war and the radicalization of the Taliban.  If there are any moderates left in the Taliban they have no power or influence and they will not be able to stop the civil war that will erupt in Afghanistan after the West finally withdraws.  A civil war the Taliban has a very good chance of winning by the way.

We all know that George Bush and his band of neo-cons had a very simplistic view of the world and they bear a great deal of the responsibility of the ongoing tradegy that is that war.  However, the allies that joined Mr. Bush in this ill starred endeavour should have known better.  Although it probably would have fallen on deaf ears they could have attempted to convince the Bush Administration to take a different tack.  Instead they did nothing and in some cases actually enabled the Bush Administration strategy, the actions and rhetoric of the Canadian, British and French governments being particularly noticable in this regard.

So now we have come full circle.  The Taliban won a civil war to rule that country after the departure of the Soviet Union and it is poised to do the same thing again after the departure of Western forces.

Rogue

My two cents on the Robocall troubles that have hit the Conservatives in the last couple of days.

The fact that Stephen Harper had to answer questions about the actions of the Conservatives the day after the story broke and the fact that records show that his personal campaign paid money to Racknine is cause for concern for the Conservatives.  When PMs become personally involved in potential scandals it usually is not a good thing for the party at large.

Considering these robocalls occured in up to 27 ridings it is very implausible that a single campaign working, working on a local campaign, could have found the time and the resources to pull this off by himself.  Anybody with any knowledge of how the nitty gritty of electoral politics in the country works would know this.

I include the media in that group so I wonder if they will pursue the truth of this scheme with as much vim and vigour as they pursued the truth in past Liberal government scandal?  I am not holding my breath.

More of the same

After about a year and $75,000, Don Drummond finally tabled his report on how to eliminate the Ontario government's budget deficit.

Coming as no surprise to anybody his prescription was for deep cuts to government services.  That is what we got for the money Ontario taxpayers paid for his services.  Talk about a waste of money.  Really, all Premier McGuinty had to do was ask Tim Hudak for his opinion of what needs to be done to reduce the deficit and he would have provided the same advice as Mr. Drummond but it would not have cost taxpayers a penny.

There were two glaring oversights in Mr. Drummond's advice.

One was perhaps that the Ontario government should consider raising taxes.  Although in fairness to Mr. Drummond his brief expressly stated he was not to consider that option, which I believe speaks volumes about the priorities of the McGuinty government and has me questionning whether his time has come to be replaced.

When the Canadian government was enjoying all of those budget surpluses (you remember those it was only 7 years ago even though it feels like a lifetime) Conservatives and the business community claimed that this was evidence that Canadians were overtaxed.  Well, if governments are running deficits is that not evidence that Canadian are undertaxed?

Government services cost money.  Doctors, teachers, government bureaucrats, cops, judges, etc. do not work for free.  They seem to believe that they should be paid for their time and efforts in serving the citizens of their country, province or city.  (The bastards!)  If you are unwilling to pay them then you can expect to receive less services.  That fact seems to be lost on those who use those services.  They seem to expect that if it comes from the government it should not cost them anything.  So, they demand these services but resent paying the taxes necessary to pay for them.  Politicians in their infinite stupidity pander to that expectation instead of educating their electorate on the basics of economics.  The result is these politicians have to provide these services because their citizen's demand them, they cannot raise sufficient taxes to pay for the services because their citizen's also demand low taxes, so these politicians have to borrow money to make up the difference.  This goes on until someone points out the deficits are getting too big and have to be reigned in, which prompts a government to take measures to do that until the inevitable backlash against service cuts reaches critical mass and the deficit cycle begins again.

If any politician finally shows the courage to point out to the electorate that they cannot have good government services and low taxes at the same time I will vote for them, regardless of their political stripe.  It is about time we all grew up and realized there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The other oversight of Mr. Drummond was he could have pointed out that budget deficits are not the end of the world.  There is not a single government within the G20 that is not saddled with government debt.  Indeed, the debt to GDP ratio for these countries have been rising steadily for decades.  As well, budget deficits are the norm while surpluses are the exception.  None of the G8 economies are running surpluses right now and many of them are running rather substantial deficits.

Has the world economy ended as many deficit hawks claim it would if deficits are left unchecked?  Of course not.  The only developed country that is showing any imminent signs of problems is Greece and those problems are more linked to its integration into the Eurozone than just deficits.  There are other countries who are suffering under similar debt and deficits burdens as Greece that are doing just fine.

There is, of course, a limit to deficit financing.  It cannot go on forever without some consequences but no one ever tries to really objectively define those limits.  Mr. Drummond would have done Ontarians a great service if he would have taken a crack at defining those limits for Ontario.

There is no magic bullet for eliminating the Ontario deficit or any deficit.  All options should be on the table for dealing with it, from service cuts, to tax increases, to accepting a reasonable amount of deficit financing.  Mr. Drummond's report only provides us one option which is why very few of its recommendations will eventually be implemented.

Live by the sword

The Conservatives are up in arms over the Vickileaks twitter feed and all I can ask is how does it feel to be on the receiving end of a dirty trick?

Since 2004 the Conservatives have been getting bolder in using dirty tricks as part of their political strategy, the latest being the disinformation campaign that was launched in Irwin Cotler's riding a few months ago.  At first they were a little more circumspect as they remembered what happened to the Federal Progressive Conservatives after their highlighting of Jean Chretien's face in an ad campaign in 1993.  That ad campaign probably contributed to the eventual destruction of that party and the Conservatives knew it.  However, as they realized they were not suffering any negative political fallout from these tactics they became much bolder.

Did the Conservatives really believe that their political opponents would not notice this and begin copying these tactics?

Personally, I have to say that it is about time someone started doing it.  The constant wingeing and complaining about Conservative tactics without retaliating was starting to irritate me.

I have stated here on several occasions that conservatives in North America are playing for keeps and that they will resort to any tactic that they believe will advance their agenda.  I have also stated here that it is about time progressives began to stop trying to play fair and start playing to win.  As much as we would all like to believe people respect you when you turn the other cheek it is a false belief.   

So to Conservatives everywhere I say that you are the ones that let this particular Djinni out of its bottle so stop complaining when it comes back to bite you.

Do the Republicans really expect to win the White House?

I have been following the presidential election down south and I can only conclude that the answer to my question is not really.

Despite the troubles that President Obama has been having throughout his first term it would appear that the movers and shakers in the Republican Party have abandoned any real attempt to take it away from him.  They do not seem to believe that his troubles will be enough to allow them to turf him so they are not really going to try.

Evidence of that can be found just by looking at the candidates for the Republican nomination.  None of them really fire the imagination.  None of them really seem to have any innovative or original policy ideas, just Republican Party boilerplate.  None of them seem to have the political stature necessary to unseat a sitting president, even one as disappointing as President Obama during a protracted economic downturn. 

I really have to wonder about the judgement of the decision makers in the Republican Party on this.  After all they only need to look at President Clinton's election in 1992 to know what is possible.  The Democrats did not have any expectations of winning the White House that year but they had to put up someone so the big names stayed out of it and allowed a bunch of unknowns to run for the nomination.  The expectation was President Bush would win his second term and then one of those big names could run against Dan Quayle after that.  They were wrong of course and a relatively unknown Governor from Arkansas won two terms and the opportunity for the big Democrat names was lost.

President Obama is vulnerable.  He has been largely ineffective during a long economic downturn.  Despite this the Republicans do not seem to be really trying to take advantage of the situation and they seem to be content to allow him to retain the White House for one more term.

Iran is not a threat to peace

Stephen Harper disagrees with me of course because I read it on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen this morning.  He goes so far as to state that Iran wants to acquire and USE nuclear weapons.

Such asinine statements coming from the leader of our country just left me shaking my head.

Of course his statements are partly the result of Iran's building of nuclear reactors and the assumption that they are being built to manufacture nuclear weapons.  Any assertion that they are building them to satisfy their need for electricity is ignored because, the argument goes, once they build them to produce power it would not take much to convert them to produce weapons.

The thing with that argument is the same is true of all countries that use nuclear power.  Once you have a working reactor it is really a small step to move it from producing electricity to producing weapons.  Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Scandavian states, just to name a few, are just six months away from the capability of producing nuclear weapons.  All it would take is the decision to do so and the conversion of their reactors would be completed in about half-a-year.  That is why is is not illegal under international law to build nuclear reactors to the point where they can produce electricity.  If it were there would be no legal nuclear reactors anywhere.  A country only gets into legal trouble if it converts those reactors to produce weapons. 

Of course, people will say that this is Iran so they cannot be trusted to play by the rules.  Fair point although I would point out that they are no more guilty of breaking international rules as many other states that are considered more "respectable".  However, from a practical point of view why would Iran want to build nuclear weapons?  To use them?  Of course not.  One of their greatest enemies is Israel and that country already has hundreds of warheads and the means of delivering them.  Iran has none of either so why would they begin building them and spark an arms race where they would be beginning such a race so far behind that they would lose it before it really began?  If they ever actually tried to use them they would face a massive counterattack from Israel and probably the US.  I know that many judge Iran by the statements of its president, who is somewhat of a loon, but we all know that the real power in that country lies with clerics behind the scenes and they have proven to be very pragmatic folks over the years.  They will not risk their Islamic Revolution by being so stupid as to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.  Iran's government stated last month that they have no interest in making nuclear weapons.  I happen to believe them because to do so openly provides them with no advantage and a great deal of disadvantage and they would not be able to do it in secret.

Stephen Harper also made his statements as part of the ongoing campaign by hawks in the west, who want to attack Iran, trying to bring public opinion on to their side.

Hopefully they will be completely unsuccessful.  If the goal of any attacks on Iran is to stop their nuclear development program they would likely fail.  Iran is a modern country with a sophisticated arms industry feeding a sophisticated armed forces.  They have a very capable air defence system that would play merry hell with western airforces and their armed forces are large and they are geared towards one goal and one goal only; to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.  Given unlimited time and resources the West would prevail of course but the cost would not be cheap.  The current western tactic of dropping bombs on their enemies from a safe altitude would not open the Strait if Iran closed it.  The west would have to put both planes and ships into the danger zones and they would lose some of them.  Western public opinion probably would not react too badly to the occasional news of lost airplanes but I do not believe the same could be said to daily reports of aircraft losses and the loss of one or more ships during a war with Iran.

Then there is the economic impact.  In general, the economies in the west are teetering on the edge of another recession.  Taking actions that would probably cause the cost of oil to double or even triple would not help matters.  That would probably cause public opinion towards a third war in that region of the world, in a decade, to sour rather quickly.

Iran is no angel in the international community but they are not the devil either and they are not lead by a bunch of suicidal individuals bent on taking their enemies to Hell with them in a rain of fire.  They bear watching as they develop their nuclear power capability but the overblown rhetoric that we saw today from Mr. Harper and from others in the West during the past few months is not useful at best and dangerous at worst.  It could very well provide the hawks in the various western capitals the cover they require to begin a war with Iran that would result in the unnecessary loss of life of many Western military personnel as well as causing great economic upheaval that would result in the unnecessary loss of livelihoods of a great many citizens in the West.