Book Review: $uperHubs: How the Financial Elite & Their Networks Rule Our World

This is a book by Sandra Navidi.

One of the enduring conspiracy theories of both the Left and the Right is the idea that a small cabal of the super rich are actually working behind the scenes to "run" the world for their own benefit. The implication of this is this cabal collectively plans the activities they need to do in order to meet their objective. Such figures as George Soros are key players and they use such organizations as the World Economic Forum (the WEF) to accomplish their goals.

I have never bought into this. The financial system is just too complex and there are just too many players, with competing interests, in the system to make planned collective action feasible. However, there is no denying that the financial industry, and many of its key players, do seem to have an inordinate amount of power and influence in the world.

Ms. Navidi does a good job of explaining why. She explains that the financial system is not a collection of institutions but a collection of human beings, who run these institutions, who create, develop and grow vast networks of contacts, associates, colleagues and friends. In other words, it is though relentlessly networking that these individuals derive their power. Individuals in the financial industry work very hard to expand their networks and the power that they give them. For the most part the network influences those in it but some of the most successful networkers become superhubs and they gain the ability to move some of the the network in the direction they want it to go. There are many superhubs and the author introduces many of them to us in the book. She also identifies the WEF and its annual meeting in Davos Switzerland as a supercharged networking opportunity, which is why it is such a popular event for CEOs, politicians and academics.

The networks go beyond the financial system. They spread into the political theatre as well and the author provided several examples of the revolving door between the financial industry and politics. The one that sticks out is the story of Robert Rubin. He is considered a financial genius who started out as a bright light in the financial industry. His success there lead to him  being a key financial advisor to Bill Clinton, and the architect of the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act. Repealing the act removed the line between commercial and investment banks which was a great contributor to the financial crisis of 2008. He had left government long before the financial crisis hit but he was brought back by President Obama as an advisor on how to resolve that crisis. Yep, one of the (inadvertent) architects to the 2008 crisis was tapped to help resolve it.

On a superficial level this would seem to validate the cabal conspiracy theory but the author clearly demonstrates how this would be impossible. First of all, the sheer complexity of the global financial system makes this impossible. No one person, or group of people, no matter how connected they are, knows all of the ins and outs of the financial system, which would be a basic requirement to actually controlling it. Secondly, the author points out that the most powerful people in the financial industry are pretty much identical to each other. They all went to the same two or three universities, they are mostly middle-aged white men, most of them speak English, most of them are American and most of them rose up the industry ladder the same way. In short, they are familiar with each other and it is human nature to trust and to want to be around people just like yourself. We generally abhor differences. All that being said the author points out that despite this many of the major players in the financial industry can have different interests at any given point in time, which precludes widespread and ongoing collusion. The author identifies and details several examples of this.

Although it was not the intent of the book the author effectively debunks the conspiracy theory, although she still paints a grim picture of a homogenous group of men, who are completely clueless of what their decisions are doing to the broader economy and to society. She mentions that such a situation is probably not sustainable but she also mentions that the nature of networks is they are self correcting.

The biggest issue with the book is the author is an financial industry insider, although not a major player. Her livelihood depends on not offending people in the industry so she does not go very far in criticizing what she is writing about. Indeed, much of the book is her dropping names and telling personal anecdotes about them. The anecdotes are effective in demonstrating the points she is trying to make but she never really takes the gloves off in her criticisms. The closest she comes is the chapter on the almost total lack of female representation at the highest levels of the financial industry.

In the last chapter Ms.Navidi does argue that the dependence of the financial industry on the few superhubs introduces a great deal of fragility into the global financial system. As well, the increasing financial inequality in the world is leading to undesirable outcomes that could lead to greater unrest and increase the danger of another financial crisis that we may not be able to get out from under this time. Note that this book predates the election of Donald Trump and it was published just after the Brexit vote so she could not take those events into account in her analysis.

She acknowledges that the current situation is untenable in the long-term and that something has to change. Unfortunately, she places too much faith in the idea from network theory that networks are self-correcting so it will all work out in the end, probably creating some hardship along the way but nothing fatal to the system. My problem with that argument is the network is made up of people who are getting very rich as a result of the current system and they will resist any kind of correction. As with the rest of her argument Ms. Navidi stops short of suggesting the only real solution to the problem, namely outside intervention. There are too many vested interests for the financial system to correct itself. Therefore the impetus for change will have to come from outside of the system. Ideally, it would be well considered and incremental change proposed and adopted by governments but the change could also come from an explosion of anger and resentment from ordinary people and history has demonstrated that the outcomes from such events are always unpredictable.

Superhubs is a fascinating look into the world of high finance. We get to meet some of the key players in the industry, how they rose to become key players and how they maintain their positions of power. We get a glimpse of how the financial industry operates. It is obvious that the author has some misgivings about the system but she never goes very far in her criticisms of it. Her conclusion that things have to change is spot on but she never really looks past the self-correcting nature of networks to see how that change might come about. Who knows, maybe the movers and shakers in the financial industry will see the need for change and move it that way on their own. However, I would bet a great deal that such an outcome will not happen. Any change is going to come from outside, the only question being whether it will be controlled and incremental or a sudden change brought on by a crisis. 

Anti-scab Legislation

The Federal government introduced "anti-scab" legislation in Parliament last week. The legislation would make it illegal for federally regulated businesses to hire replacement workers in case of strike action by their regular workers.

I have noted in this space before that one of the reasons why workers have not benefited from the steady rise in productivity over the last 30+ years is the erosion of workers rights and the steady drop in union membership. The simple fact is businesses will not raise the wages of their workers unless forced to by minimum wage laws and collective bargaining creating upward pressure on wages in the labour market.

So it is heartening to see the federal government introduce legislation that will tip the balance a little bit back towards workers during collective bargaining. Of course, it does not go far enough. What really needs to be done is laws need to be passed that will make it easier for workers to organize. However, the level of government with that responsibility is the Provincial level and most of them are Conservative governments.

Indeed, the backlash against the legislation by conservative commentators and the business community has been predictable. It is also overblown. Even with this legislation businesses will still have the most power and the greater advantage during labour disputes. This just reduces that by a small amount. Of course, that will not prevent them from claiming all sorts of negative outcomes if the legislation is passed. They are completely unwilling to give up even a small part of their power and advantage.

The fact that workers have not seen any benefit from the increase in productivity was never sustainable and negative outcomes for the economy and businesses were inevitable. They seemed sustainable in the last decade or so because credit was practically free. Who needed wage increases when you could get money from the bank at negative real interest rates? That situation was always going to be reversed it was just a matter of when. The economic impact of the COVID pandemic just caused that reversal to be much more sudden and steep than if it would have followed a more typical business trend.  

With credit no longer being free the house of cards that was built on it is crashing down. The first victims of that destruction are the young people, which is not new as young workers are always the first victims of economic shocks. However, if you are a more mature worker you will not be spared the impacts. Higher interest rates will have an impact on you in due time. The banks will eventually reduce interest rates again. They have no choice because the economy is no longer structured to absorb high interest rates for long anymore. However, the days of negative real interest rates are probably behind us. So, if we want our purchasing power to keep up with inflation we are going to have to see our wages go up.

That is only going to happen if the balance of power between business and their workers becomes more even. The "anti-scab" law is a step in the right direction but more needs to be done.

Now the Polls are Just Becoming Ridiculous

Glancing through my political sights today I noticed a screen shot of a seat projection that had the Conservatives above 200 seats and the Liberals under 70.

After I stopped laughing I could not help but think that the pollsters and the pundits that report on these ridiculous polls are setting up some really big expectations for the CPC.

In the last few change elections, both Federally and here in Ontario, the party that won the election and replaced the sitting government started out trailing the incumbent or were tied with them. They did not have commanding leads going into an election campaign, they built one as the campaign unfolded.

With the Conservatives currently polling in the low 40 there is only one way the Conservative estimates can go. 

Down.

When it will happen remains to be seen and if my suspicions about polling companies are correct they will not go down any time soon. However, when the writ is dropped, and the polling companies will have to compare their estimates with actual election results, things could get rather sticky for them and the Conservatives.

If, as I suspect, the polls are not currently reflecting the true picture of the political situation in this country then the pollsters will have to begin showing that before an election if they want to be considered credible after that election. If their estimates are way off on election day they will never be trusted again and they know it. Plus, they will threaten their paying business of doing surveys since survey companies use political polling as marketing tools.

The implications for the Conservatives is their polling estimates will go down while the Liberals will go up and then the story will be the Liberals have the momentum, which could be a death blow to the Conservatives' election chances, particularly if it happens close to or during an election campaign.

There has been a full court press by the Canadian media to have Justin Trudeau resign as PM, although none of them have engaged in election speculation, despite massive polling leads for the Conservatives. That should be a clue by the way. I suspect the pollsters are on board with assisting the media in their efforts since they have no worries about their estimates being tested by an actual election. 

I also believe that the very sophisticated data management teams of the political parties have data indicating the true political situation in the country, which is why Justin Trudeau has not shown any indication of leaving and his caucus is solidly behind him. It also explains, that except for a few drive by suggestions by the Conservatives to the NDP, no pressure has been placed on the NDP and the Bloc to join the Conservatives in forcing an election. 

Mr. Trudeau probably has data telling him he can outwait the polling companies. Mr. Poilievre probably has data indicating that an election would not be the slam dunk the public pollsters are saying it would be. Either way both seem to be content to let things go on as they have been going on for the foreseeable future.

In an effort to push PM Trudeau out of his job our media could be overplaying its hand and in the end they could make things very difficult for Pierre Poilievre as we get closer to an election.

Book Review: The Expendables: How the Middle Class got Screwed by Globalization

I just finished reading this book by Jeff Rubin. I found it a bit of a slog because in several places he got basic facts wrong. For example, he states that those migrants who crossed at Roxhan Road in Quebec and then asked for asylum entered the country illegally. That is simply false. The vast majority of those who crossed were in the US legally but doubts about a change in their status during the Trump presidency convinced them to move north. They came to a designated border crossing, crossed the border, presented themselves to Canada Customs officials and then asked for asylum. None of that is illegal either domestically or internationally

It is hard to take a book seriously if it cannot get simple facts like that correct.

However, the central argument of the book is valid. The era of globalization, with its love affair with free trade agreements has certainly kicked the stuffing out of the middle class in the West. This book looks at the situation the United States, Canada and the European Union but its primary focus is the US experience. The author goes into great detail just how much of a negative impact that globalization has had on the middle class. There is no denying that central argument.

The problem lies in his proposed solution which is to introduce more protectionism into the international trading system. Anybody who has read this blog before knows that I am no fan of free trade agreements. They have never lived up to their promises. However, the historian in me also knows that when countries or trading blocks establish high trade barriers they protect their domestic industries but at the price of making their economies more brittle and less able to handle economic shocks. This was true almost a century ago and it is doubly true in the integrated world economy we have now. When I say integrated I mean the fact that everything is now done by computers. When you can transfer ridiculous amounts of money with just a few key strokes and you no longer have to worry about transferring the currency or precious metal to cover that transfer the level of economic integration is way too high to create economic islands.

That does not stop Mr. Rubin from trying to argue just that. He does so by arguing that President Trump's tariffs on China, the EU, Canada and Mexico brought back jobs to the US. There is some truth to that but the jobs brought back are a mere fraction of the ones lost. As well, when those jobs returned they usually did not return to the old locations, they returned to US states that have "Right-to-work" laws on the books so most of those returning jobs are not as high paying as the ones that left.

Mr. Rubin touches on one of the big problems caused by globlalization. Namely, the level of unionization in the West falling off a cliff in the last 50 years. That is exactly right. That situation created the condition where workers could not stop business from siphoning off the financial benefits of increased productivity over the last five decades from workers to themselves and their stockholders. However, Mr. Rubin fails to make that connection.

The promise of free traders has always been that there would be more winners than losers and programs to assist the losers would be created to make certain they were not left behind. That promise was broken from the start but that hardly matters because it was the wrong promise. Most of the jobs that have been lost in the West as a result of globalization have been manufacturing jobs. What has been left behind are mostly service jobs. They are the jobs that were supposed to replace the manufacturing jobs but they did so at much lower wages and benefits. So the promise should have been that Western governments would make it easier for service workers to organize to allow those jobs to really compensate for the lost manufacturing jobs. The level of unionization does not need to be high. As Mr. Rubin points out at the height of unionization in the US less than one-third of jobs were unionized but that was enough to create upward pressure on wages economy wide. If we reach those same levels we would probably see a similar result.

The simple fact is Westerners cannot compete on wages for the manufacturing jobs that have been offshored and while higher tariffs might change that it will not do so to the extent of bringing all of those jobs back and certainly not at the wages and benefits that workers in those industries used to enjoy. The solution lies in making the jobs that replaced those manufacturing jobs better paying and with more benefits. The true failure of globalization and free trade proponents was not doing that. Until they and Western governments are willing to facilitate that process the outlook of the ever shrinking middle class in the West will grow increasingly bleak.

That is the connection Mr. Rubin failed to make which is unfortunate because otherwise he made a good case for what is ailing the middle class and the fact that something needs to be done about it.

Crazy Like Foxes

In my previous two posts I asserted that the only way Israel realizes real security is by making an equitable peace with its neighbours and that not doing so and continuing with the never ending cycles of intense violence, followed by relative calms, is insanity.

That assertion assumes that the Israelis want to make peace and achieve that security and that all Palestinians want peace with Israel.

It might seem crazy to believe otherwise but history has proven that there are hawks on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian divide that do not want peace. These hawks believe that there is a military solution to the situation and if given enough time and resources they can achieve it.

It just so happens that Israel is being lead by one of those hawks and the Palestinians in Gaza are being lead by their Palestinian counterpart.

Mr. Netanyahu firmly believes in the military solution and Hamas has as a central tenet of its ideology the destruction of the State of Israel. Both are out to lunch of course. If Israel really could resolve their conflict with the Palestinians by brute military force they would have done so by now, and I will have unicorns fly out of my butt before Hamas destroys Israel.

However, one thing that this situation does for both is provide them with domestic political cover.

Mr. Netanyahu was having some really serious political trouble before last weekend. He was facing indictments and protests over the changes to Israeli institutions that would make it easier for him to undermine Israeli democracy. His counterpart in the Gaza Strip has the problem of not being able to deliver the most basic services to Palestinians in Gaza. In most other jurisdictions that would be a recipe for political defeat.

Then the weekend happened and all of this went away. Hamas will remind Gazans that Israeli actions are to blame for the hardships in Gaza and Mr. Netanyahu will be able to drape himself in the flag and claim that to oppose him would be disloyal to Israel. The fact he will use his sudden popularity to advance his authoritarian agenda, which will also allow him to quash the indictments against him should surprise no one.

In fact, this is not new. Both Hamas and Mr. Netanyahu have benefited greatly from the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza for two decades. They have been playing off each other the whole time and both have realized tremendous domestic political benefits. In other words the relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas has been a symbiotic one. That is not to say that they are having secret Zoom meetings to plan this relationship. It just means that both know their roles in this kabuki play and they are quite happy to play them

Which is why, despite all of the grand claims by the Israelis about destroying Hamas, nothing will really be changed by the latest round of violence. Many people are going to die over the next few weeks but in the end there will be no fundamental change to the underlying relationship between the Israeli government and the leadership of Hamas.

The Insanity is not Confined to the Middle East

Today I read that none other than our own PM Trudeau forcefully asserted that Hamas is a terrorist organization and not freedom fighters.

So what is the difference between a terrorist group and freedom fighters? Simple, you agree with the cause of freedom fighters and you disagree with the cause of terrorists. In general, both tend to use terrorism to achieve their political ends so really the only difference is whether you agree with the political ends of a given group.

After all, terrorism is just a political tool, used by a weaker force against a stronger force, in order to effect political change in the terrorists' favour. They use it because to attempt to actually go against the stronger force in a straight up military battle is to invite annihilation. As well, they lack the traditional, peaceful levers of power that can be used to effect political change.

I have heard some argue that terrorism does not work and in many cases they are correct. However the Taliban, the IRA, the Haganah, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang would take issue with such a sweeping generalization. The first two most would be familiar with. Both the Taliban and the IRA successfully used terror tactics to force a political change. It took time but they achieved their political objectives. They are not the only examples, they are just a couple most would be familiar with.

The other three might not be familiar to everybody. They were three organizations that fought for an independent Jewish state in British Palestine from the 1930s to the departure of the British from Palestine shortly after the Second World War. During that period the three groups carried typical terrorist tactics of bombings, assassinations and sabotage, killing more than 1000 military personnel and civilians between 1945 and 1947 alone. Their tactics worked and the British left Palestine in 1947 and the State of Israel was born.

For Israelis the members of these groups are considered to be freedom fighters. The British government of the day had a different view and the descendants of the people they killed and injured might also have a different point of view.

All of this is to say that things are not nearly as cut and dried as our PM stated today.

I stated in my previous post that Israel will not achieve true security until it makes an equitable peace with its neighbours, including the Palestinians. To make that happen the international community needs to put political pressure on the Israeli government to make the effort for peace. They also need to put the same pressure on the Palestinians to put their own house in order and to choose a credible negotiation team that can speak for all Palestinians in peace negotiations. All involved, Israeli, Palestinian and other interested governments must have the intestinal fortitude to ignore provocations by the hard-liners on both sides that would do every thing in their power to scupper any peace efforts. Both need to negotiate in good faith and create a process that will survive the inevitable bumps in the road. All need to be patient.

Israel will have to make more concessions than the Palestinians because they hold virtually all of the cards. There is not much the Palestinians can really concede that would result in an equitable peace. And an inequitable peace is not sufficient. History is full of examples of how inequitable peace only pushes war down the road and the resulting war is often much worse than the war that was ended by that peace.

Of course, none of that is going to happen for a whole host of reasons. Everybody is doing the same thing they have been doing for decades and expecting different results. The result is going to be the continued tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Insanity and the Belief it Cannot Happen to You

A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So we are again a witness to the insanity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the Palestinians attack the Israelis and they massively retaliate for a couple of weeks until they believe they "have taught the Palestinians a lesson", at least until the next time.

Nothing is ever changed by this cycle except for the victims who have to piece their lives back together after losing loved ones and property.

As usual official world opinion condemns the Palestinians for starting the latest cycle and that Hamas has again resorted to terrorism but it is never really that simple. They have been living under an occupation for decades, denied basic rights such as freedom of movement, a secure source of fresh water, food security, health care and having their land forcibly taken away from them. I would bet my house that not a single westerner would accept such a situation if they were in the same position. Hell, a bunch of yahoos took downtown Ottawa hostage in 2022 because the government had the temerity to suggest people get vaccinated and wear a mask during a global pandemic. Could you imagine how they would react if they had to live under the same conditions the Palestinians have to live under? And if the people forcing them to live under those condition enjoyed an overwhelming military advantage would they not resort to acts that would be considered terrorism? I will add my car to the bet and say it is a resounding yes.

This is not to excuse what Hamas has done and continues to do but it does explain it a great deal. If you would not live under the conditions the Palestinians are currently living under do not claim any moral high ground if they refuse to do so as well.

The funny thing is the Israelis have been both short sighted and insane during all of this. I cannot think of a single instance of one people forcibly occupying the territory of another people where the occupier wins in the end. In every case I looked up the people being occupied find a way to end the occupation and always by making it too expensive in lives and treasure for the occupier. It amazes me that the Israelis believe they will experience a different fate.

As well, the ambition, audacity and somewhat sophisticated nature of the latest Hamas attacks should give the Israelis pause along with the intelligence failure of the Israeli security forces in detecting and stopping the attacks before they started. If Hamas can do it once they will probably be able to do it again and maybe the next time will be even more ambitious. 

The simple fact is Israel will only know true security once it makes an equitable peace with its neighbours and that includes the Palestinians. Until it does that they will never be truly secure, no matter how capable their military and intelligence services. Europe saw centuries of warfare, culminating in two very large and destructive wars in the 20th Century and the European states only realized true internal security once they made real peace with each other and began to work together for a common cause.

However, successive Israeli governments believed and they continue to believe that there is a military solution to the Palestinian problem and as long as they believe that they will only feed the narrative Hamas has been pushing for decades denying both Israelis and Palestinians a chance a true peace.

So the latest round of violence is not the last round. The Israelis will claim victory in a few weeks, a relative calm will settle over Israel and the occupied territories once again, until the next round, rinse and repeat. Insanity.

A Practical Lesson to Demonstrate Why You Should Ignore the Polls

Last weekend I found myself in a conversation with a colleague of mine who asked how almost 30% of respondents to polls could still say they supported the Liberals. He seemed quite pleased with the Conservative lead but was still disappointed in Liberal supporters.

Being the political animal that I am I then piped up and stated that if an election was held on the following Monday the Liberals would probably win, possibly a slim majority.

Of course he was skeptical because he believed the polls but of course he only looked at the one part of those polls that was reported by our media.

So I explained it to him.

Anybody that has read this blog before knows my opinion of the public polls. However, I still used them for the first part of my argument. Although, the party support question shows a clear lead for the Conservatives the underlying numbers tell a different story. The PM still comes out on top as the best PM, the gap between his approval and disapproval ratings has grown but his approval rating is still above 35%. Those pollsters that ask about the appetite for change still show that only around 60-65% of respondents want change. If that 35% were to translate into actual votes then the Liberals would win a majority government. I also pointed out that the PM's underlying numbers are better than both Stephen Harper's and Jean Chretien's at the eight year marks of their governments.

Of course, we really cannot depend on the polls to provide us with much useful information. I just used it to demonstrate to him that the polls are not as reliable as he believes in telling us what is the actual political situation in this country.

I then asked him whether there was any speculation out there about a Fall election? The polls seem to be indicating that all of the Opposition Parties would feast on the Liberals in an election so there would be an incentive for them to bring down the Liberal minority government and forcing an election. However, such speculation is not evident. The Opposition will have at least eight opportunities to vote non-confidence in the government and so far this Fall no one is suggesting they will. Everybody and their dog is suggesting the PM resign personally but no one is saying he should resign his government and call an election. That should be a bigger indicator of what the real political situation is at the Federal level than the polls.

As well, I pointed out that political parties in great shape do not have their leader make a sudden and jarring change in their appearance and demeanour. Heck, Mr. Poilievre did not only change his appearance it would also seem that he hired a vocal coach to change his voice. They also do not spend millions of dollars on an advertizement campaign during the dog days of summer if their political situation is a good one.

I pointed out that both the Conservatives and the Liberals have developed rather sophisticated data science capabilities, where data professional collect data from a variety of more reliable sources than the public polls and then crunch the numbers to give their respective leaders an idea of the support for their party at the riding level. If those analyses matched what the public polls were telling us all of the political parties would be gearing up for a Fall election.

Finally, I pointed out that the Bloc seems to be fading a bit in Quebec. As the Bloc only cares about Quebec and they essentially have all of the seats they can really win there the incentive for Mr. Blanchet to tour Quebec during the summer is quite low. However, he did just that this summer, much more than last year. 

In both 2019 and 2021 the Liberals were denied a majority government because of the Bloc. If the Liberals can win just 10 seats from them in a future election and assuming they are able to win the same number of seats as they now hold in the ROC the Liberals would win a slim majority government. Yes there are alot of assumptions there but based on what we are currently seeing those assumptions are not unreasonable.

If you look at just one part of the public polls, without looking at other parts of them and how the political parties are going into the Fall, it looks gruesome for the Liberals. However, if you look at the bigger picture it is telling us a different story.

We are all Woke, Unless You Want to Live in North Korea

I am sometimes amused by some people who are against being "woke" when many of the arguments they use would have caused them to be labeled as "woke" 50 years ago and their belief that "being woke" is new or recent.

The current climate of sensitivity to others' race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. is just the natural progression of humanism, an ideology that has been around for almost 400 years and which is, with a few exceptions, the most dominant ideology on the planet.

Until about 400 years ago everybody had their station and found meaning by staying in their station. Peasants, free or serfs, were to serve their masters, usually a noble. That noble served a higher ranked noble and so on up to a senior noble, such as a King or Emperor and in Europe the Pope. Only they were given the right to find individual meaning in their life and to define their relationship with the universe. That is what is meant by the Divine Right of Kings. It is much deeper than just having the God given right to rule.

Then about 400 years ago some western philosophers started presenting the idea that we are individuals and that we all have the right to find our own meaning in life and the right to define our own relationship with the universe. These thinkers proliferated, their successors took inspiration from them to define a new ideology we now call Humanism and it spread beyond humanist thinkers until it permeated the political and economic thought everywhere.

Then around about 250 years ago a bunch of rich, influential men in 13 remote, backwater British colonies decided to base their new independent government on the principles of humanism. The statement that "All men are created equal." featured prominently in the document that they used to declare their independence.

Thus Humanism moved from the minds of philosophers into the real world. Of course, it started off as baby steps. When these men stated all men were created equal they were being literal. Only men had those rights, and only white men besides. They did not believe their slaves had those rights and they certainly did not believe women had them. As well, although they believed all men were equal they still did not trust them, which is why the US has an electoral college for electing the highest office in the land. They might have believed the masses had equal rights but they also believed that only people of their class could be trusted with electing the leader of the new country.

The funny thing is, that when the first thinkers first presented the humanist arguments they were roundly criticized by those who wanted to maintain the status quo. When the US was founded it was greeted with suspicion by virtually all of the other countries on the planet. They feared what it represented and they wanted it to fail. As well, in the beginning those who condemned humanism always did so by stating that humanists were going against God's will.

From those baby steps in the US, humanism has spread around the world and it dominates the politics of almost every country on the planet. North Korea is probably one exception but otherwise it is only one of very few. 

As well, for every step of progress of humanism there has been resistance. The slaves could not be freed. Men of colour could not vote. Women could not vote. People of different religions were a threat. Gays could not have the same rights as straights. All of these arguments have taken place and continue to take place around the world. Some places lag but humanism's march continues without pause.

Interestingly those who would slow or stop this progress always use humanistic arguments. They claim their rights are being stepped on. The latest example is the "Parents Rights" argument that has popped up recently in response to the idea that educators may not inform parents if their students come out to them but ask that they not tell their parents. Yes, sometimes they may invoke God but their arguments are completely humanistic. 

One thing the last 250 years has demonstrated is you cannot stop the progress of humanism. The bottle in which we would stuff that genie is long gone. So those folks who are bitching about the current "wokeness" of our society better get used to it. You are not going to be able to change it.

Suck It Up Millennials

Although I feel for the plight of millennials right now I am having difficulty with their sense of entitlement and the fact that they seem to believe their plight is new and unique.

I graduated from university in the middle of a major recession. The unemployment rate was around 10%. People who had established careers, who had 10-15 years of experience, suddenly saw their jobs disappear and they were forced to take entry level position, at half the salary, just to pay their mortgages, assuming they could find the jobs. While mortgage rates were coming down they were coming down from around a peak of 18% and they were still in the double digits.

As a result, I was forced to take a job that paid way below the average, had no benefits and provided me with no skills that I could use for a future job. I languished there for three years before the job market perked up enough for me to go looking for something where my degree would be useful. However, although I had the degree I did not have any experience so I had to go from gig to gig to build a resume, having no financial security for the 5 years it took me to do that. Finally, after close to a decade after university I found a career and the relative security that goes along with it. I call that part of my life the "lost decade" and although I am currently doing well that lost decade will have an impact on my retirement.

During that decade I lived in a dive apartment in a sketchy part of town because the rent was dirt cheap. I drove a beater that I prayed would stay together for yet one more year every year during that period. Buying a house was a fantasy. So what millennials are going through now is not new or unique.

However that does not stop them from having a sense of entitlement because between 1993 and 2019 the economy was in pretty good shape. The financial crisis of 2008 caused a short but sharp recession but the Bank of Canada lowering interest rates to below zero cushioned the blow for people and allowed for almost uninterrupted economic good times. In short, for much of the life of millennials they and their families had it pretty good.

Of course, it could not last and there were already signs that the good times were coming to an end before the pandemic brought that end much more quickly than anybody anticipated. Now millennials find themselves in the same position I found myself all of those years ago.

My advice to them is to realize that the world owes you nothing. Suck it up, do what you need to do to change your circumstances and realize that the change is not going to happen overnight. Oh yes, I would also suggest that you demand governments to change labour laws to make forming unions much easier. Vote for governments who will do just that. That is the only way you are going to be able to raise your salaries and increase your financial security. As well, use whatever power you might have to demand Universal Basic Income and again vote for governments that will establish it. That will help you and it might prevent a future generation from going through what you are going through now and what I went through a few decades ago.

Oppenheimer and Barbie

If you would have told me last year that I would use both of those names in a title of a post I would have called you crazy but here we are.

I saw both movies this week.

Oppenheimer is a fantastic movie. I already knew the history but the movie gave it life and it was compelling. However, as I was watching it I was reminded about just how fickle governments can be with those that help them as I remembered what the British government did to Alan Turing.

Both Oppenheimer and Turing were vital in the war efforts for the US and Britain. 

Without Turing's breaking of the Enigma machine it is probable that the British would have been knocked out of the war in 1943. You see, Alan Turing's work allowed the British to hear what the German navy command was saying to its U-Boats. That was huge factor in the allies winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Indeed, this historian would say it was the deciding factor. Without it the pressure on Britain would have come to a head in 1943 and they would have had to sue for peace. Which, of course, would have lead to a post-war history much different than the one we got.

It can be argued that Robert Oppenheimer saved the lives of 10s of thousands and maybe 100s of thousands of US servicemen and likely many more Japanese. The atomic bombs finally convinced the Japanese of the futility of continuing the war. 

Neither of these facts saved either one from the wrath of their governments once the war ended and they were deemed undesirable. Or more accurately, neither of these facts saved them from the machinations of narrow minded, stupid politicians. 

I found the Barbie movie to be uneven. Some parts made me laugh out loud while I found other parts just plain weird. Really I found the movie to be "meh".

I can see why some on the right are pissed at the movie though. The feminist message of the movie is about as subtle as a kick in the crotch. Then again, since Barbie has always been about teaching girls that they can be just about anything they want to be I have to ask why anybody would be surprised by the movie's message. 

Being a democracy everybody has a right to disagree with the movie's message but the over-the-top reaction of some on the right reflects more on them than on the movie. Here's a thought, why don't you come up with arguments to refute the message instead of crying about it? 

The reason of course, is because it cannot be refuted. The simple fact is the world has been run by men for the benefit of men for thousands of years. That has not changed but the feminist movement started nibbling away at the edges of that reality about 50 years ago and many men resent that. I have never understood why as nothing has fundamentally changed but I guess even a little change frightens some men. 

Personally, I have no problem with it.

I would highly recommend Oppenheimer. I would suggest you make of point of seeing it.

Barbie was enjoyable in some places but not in others but I would still say it is worth seeing if you have the opportunity. 

Of Polls and Cabinet Shuffles: Updated

Being a political animal I checked my usual sources to learn more about the cabinet shuffle today only to have the latest Abacus poll to be shoved at me.

On the face of it that poll is bad news for the Liberals, although if you look at the actual changes in the estimates compared to their last one you will note they are all within the Margin of Error, which means the changes are all statistically insignificant. Which makes sense since nothing has happened in the last month or so that would move the political needle one way or another.

Anybody who has read my blog before knows what I think of the public polls and that view has not changed. Quite frankly I do not believe any of them, regardless of whether they are good or bad news for the party I support.

Can someone please tell me why that when the Liberals have a good week or the Conservatives have a bad one a pollster always seems to come out with a polls that can only be interpreted as bad news for the Liberals. That has to be a coincidence, right?

As I have stated before I have no faith in polling companies to be on the up-and-up with regards to their polling, especially outside of election campaigns. They have no incentive to be so. No polling company actually makes money conducting political polls. They use them as a marketing tool. So, a polling company could be like Nanos, who is the in-house polling company of Bell/Globe media. They can use that fact to sell their services to clients that will actually pay them on more than a cost recovery basis. 

If, on the other hand, the polling company is not employed by a media company they have to make their political polls stand out if they are going to be effective marketing tools. One way to do that is to be different from everybody else and claim they are seeing things differently from the rest of the "herd". There are no consequences for doing so when no election is taking place because their polls will never be tested against the actual results of an election. Therefore, they can publish polls that say almost anything if they wish.

We only need to look at the 2021 election to see this. Before the writ was dropped the polls were all over the place. Almost exactly one day after the writ was dropped the variance in the public polls disappeared. Suddenly when the testing of polls was imminent the herd regathered.

I have been saying for some time that if you want to see what is really happening in politics you need to look at what the political parties are doing.

For the Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre and his brain trust decided he needed a makeover. Political parties that are comfortable with their leader and message do not change the appearance and image of that leader.

For the Liberals they had a massive cabinet shuffle today. A superficial assessment of that shuffle would be that the Trudeau government is feeling the heat and they have decided that a major change is in order to salvage their political fortunes. There might be some merit in that argument. After all the government is not getting any younger and they can expect the next election to be their most difficult one yet.

However, you have to go a little deeper to get the whole picture and a deeper dive shows that the PM had to construct a cabinet where seven existing Ministers were dropped from cabinet. That is a seismic change and with the necessity to have a cabinet that is gender balanced and regionally and provincially representative combined with having to bring in seven new cabinet minister the need to make huge changes becomes clear. 

So the extent of the cabinet shuffle is probably a combination of the two, plus considerations that only the PM and his team would be privy to. Certainly their internal data is telling them that things are not a rosy as they were a few years ago but that should surprise no one, including them. As well, the need to integrate so many new ministers and meet the other needs of cabinet making required all of the changes that were made today.

By the way, the core of the cabinet did not change so that should also be taken into consideration when assessing the motivations behind the cabinet decisions. If their internal data showed that they were in real trouble there would have been changes in the core.

Update: I read in passing that when asked the PM stated that he would not rule out breaking the agreement the Liberals have with the NDP before 2025. I doubt they would but the fact he did not avoid the question (We are focused on serving Canadians and not on elections.) can also be taken as an indicator that things are not as bad as the public pollsters would have us believe.

Some Summer Thoughts

It is summertime so I am not paying as close attention to politics as I usually do but I have noticed a few things on which I can comment.

First, Pierre Poilievre's makeover is yet one more example of the underlying disrespect Conservatives seem to have for voters. He is the latest Conservative/Canadian Alliance/Reform Party leader to do so. They actually seem to believe that a politician's looks matter. It is one of the reasons why so many Conservative commentators are always going off on Mr. Trudeau's hair or socks. 

Of course they are wrong. Jean Chretien is by no means a dreamboat and he also talks funny in both official languages. Yet he beat a somewhat attractive blond woman to win his first election, then he beat a made over Preston Manning and he finally beat Stockwell Day, his wetsuit and his jet ski. Stephen Harper has the charisma of a turnip yet he beat three Liberal leaders. He could not beat Mr. Trudeau but contrary to Conservative belief it was not because Mr. Trudeau is good looking.

Mr. Chretien, Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau won their elections because they were perceived to be men with substance. When people of substance goes up against those without it they win almost every time.

I have seen some speculation in the media about what would happen if the Conservatives won the most seats but not a majority government in the next election. It has all been out to lunch. Just remember that political pundits get bored in the summer because nothing is really happening so they usually try to make something up to justify their jobs. Often times it is just good old fashioned election speculation, i.e. the government may call an election in the Fall. However, even they cannot sell such silliness this time because there is no way the PM is going to call an election and despite all of his bloviating there is no way Mr. Singh will vote non-confidence in the government any time soon. As well, there is no issue that the media can grab hold of and call a scandal right now.

So they have resorted to coming up with more and more convoluted arguments about how the Liberals can stay in power despite losing an election. It is all BS, not least of which because an election is not imminent so talking about the outcome of something that may not happen for two more years is pointless. So much can change before then. As well, all of their arguments go against how politics is done in this country, which is something all of them should know if they call themselves political pundits. 

Bottom line, the party that wins the most seats gets the first opportunity to form a government and seek the confidence of The House. If that is the Conservatives after a future election, but they do not hold the majority of seats, they will either dare the other parties to vote against a Throne Speech, triggering another election, or they will sell everything including the kitchen sink to the Bloc and win confidence that way.

It's fun watching Conservative commentators squirm when RWNJs overstep like they did in Belleville last week. They were spinning that event, what the protesters said and did and how the PM handled it so much that I would imagine all of them are suffering from severe cases of motion sickness. 

Climate change is real and its impacts are being increasingly felt with each passing year.

There will probably be a cabinet shuffle this week. Seeing that two years have gone by since the last election it is right on schedule. However, that will not stop some Conservative pundits from claiming it is a sign the Liberals are in trouble. Ignore them.

The June 19 Byelections

We had four byelections last Monday and the final results were the Liberals won the seats they were expected to win and the Conservatives won the seat they were expected to win.

That and the fact the the seat count in the House of Commons remains the same are the only things we can say with certainty. 

However, that has not stopped all sorts of people from trying to infer all sorts of things about the current state of Canadian politics from the results. Everybody is trying to read the entrails of the elections to come up with the bigger picture. It should surprise no one that the conclusions people are coming up with are supporting their preconceived notions.

It is true that the Conservative share of the vote was down for all of the byelections compared to the 2021 general election. That lead to a close race in Oxford and a blowout in the Winnipeg riding. If you look at the results it would seem that alot of Conservative voters decided not to vote.

The question then becomes why. For many it is an indication that many Conservatives are displeased with Pierre Poilievre and that this will not bode well for him during the next general election. Perhaps. Then again it could just be a combination of the usual low turnout for byelections with the fact all of the byelections took place in Liberal and Conservative strongholds. In such a situation there would be less incentive for Conservatives to vote because the results were pretty much preordained when the byelections were called. Why vote in a Liberal stronghold when it will not change the party who holds the seat? Why vote in a Conservative stronghold when they already have it in the bag? 

Of course, we do not know which is the truth. It could be that both situations contributed to the outcome or not. Regardless, coming to any sort of conclusion about the broader political situation in Canada based on the results Monday night is a mistake.

There are also questions about the accuracy of polls considering the byelection results. Are the polls accurate?

That's easy. No

Anybody who has read this blog before knows my disdain for the public polls. They were always next to useless and they have become even more useless because their MSM clients gave up reporting news long ago in favour of pushing narratives that would generate clicks and revenue. They are not going to pay for polling data that does not support their narratives.

Combine that with the fact there is no incentive for pollsters to be accurate in between elections, since their estimates will not be tested against the actual results of a general election, and you can safely conclude that the public polls can be safely ignored.

Passports, really?

How silly is our politics when the big story of yesterday was the release of the new Canadian passport? The amount of ink and bandwidth wasted talking about it was amazing. And yes I know I am adding to that with this comment but is was so preposterous that I just could not ignore it.

By the way I have passports going back 20 years. Each one is different from the previous one. So the fact they changed it this time is neither remarkable or significant.

New King, Foreign Interference and other things

Canada has a new King. He was coronated this past weekend. I am not overly excited about it but I am not overly unexcited about it either. For me, like many Canadians, the monarchy is just there. It does not impact my life one way or another. Which is why I am always wondering why the anti-monarchy crowd gets so worked up. Of course, they are even more worked up because they believe that the change from the Queen to the King will convince Canadians to come to their side. Maybe, but do they truly believe that it will convince them to actually go through the long and arduous process of turning Canada into a republic? I think not. I am certain most Canadians have better things to worry about than who is our Head of State. Note that most would not even correctly tell you who holds that title. Most are going to say the Prime Minister, who is our Head of Government but not Head of State.

The political interference in our politics issue has resurfaced again this week. It happened because a Conservative MP said something in the House and said something different outside of the House, about something that allegedly happened in 2021, for which he gave a pretty good explanation back then. Why he decided to bring it up a second time is pretty clear. By the way since the events he described reportedly happened to his family how are they still alleged events? Did they happen or not? 

If I were PM I would finally just say "Fuck it" and establish a Royal Commission on all foreign influence on our politics. Choose three former justices and have them look into all sources of foreign influence. Include direct foreign interference by other governments but also look at how foreign actors are influencing our politics by following the money. Look at the media, charities, think-tanks, political parties and social media. In two years, publish a report that provides a comprehensive picture of foreign influence on our politics and leave it up to Canadians to decide which kinds of influence they are OK with them and which they are not, maybe during an election campaign.

It took a few days but the government did throw out a Chinese diplomat after it was revealed he might have been involved in activities diplomats are not supposed to be involved in. The media and the Opposition are criticizing the government for the delay but taking such action is not done on a whim. The government had to do its due diligence before taking the decision, particularly since the diplomat in question works for the second largest country on the world. Of course the media and the Opposition know this but that will not stop them from blaming the government when China retaliates in the coming days because that is just how dishonest they are.

The Liberal Convention happened on the weekend and like all recent Liberal Conventions it was uneventful. (Contrast that to Conservative ones which are always shit shows.) The only really controversial thing to come out of it was Liberal members passed a policy resolution that if implemented would force newspapers to have to back up stories they publish with traceable information sources.

Of course, some in the media are screaming this would be an attack on freedom of the press but they fail to mention that such a requirement is actually what is taught in journalism school and it is supposed to be something of an industry standard. If a newspaper were to publish a story stating that a certain brand of toothpaste prevented all forms of cancer, without backing it up with evidence, it would be roundly condemned. So why is it OK for journalists to quote anonymous sources when publishing stories on politics? By the way, such a requirement would help all politicians. It was anonymous sources that derailed the political career of Patrick Brown in 2018. It was anonymous sources that gave the Senate Expense Scandal the legs to bring down Stephen Harper.

In short, making certain that journalist are only publishing verifiable facts from traceable sources is not a bad thing, regardless of the topic of a story. And maybe it would bring some honesty back into journalism again. 

Incidentally, I would love to see a "truth in advertizing" laws passed for political ads as well. Just like it is illegal for a toothpaste company to untruthfully claim its product prevents cancer it should be illegal for a political entity to lie or misrepresent facts for political purposes. Being unable to tell bald face lies in political advertizements might actually force political entities to talk about the relative advantages and disadvantages of policy again.

As well, it might also prevent some of the negative outcomes we have been seeing recently. It was lying in advertizing that lead to the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, the January 6 insurrection in Washington and the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada. In other words, if you want to reduce the effectiveness of populists in our politics make it illegal for them to lie.

And no, lying is not free speech or free expression.

Interesting Conversations

My wife celebrated her birthday a few days ago and we had some friends over for a small gathering to help her celebrate.

One of the friends who attended is Rob. He would fit the profile of a Conservative supporter. He is a 60 year old, white straight male, with a high school education who worked for 35 years in the trades. If we are to believe the polls (which I don't) he should be a lock for the Conservatives.

Rob knows that I am a political animal so of course politics came up when we talked. Two topics of note came up. 

The first was the Chinese interference controversy. He had no idea what that was all about despite the fact that media had been talking about it for weeks at that point. He was aware of it but could not provide any details. That just goes to show you how useless is our media in actually informing people, even when some in that same media would have liked to use the controversy to bring down the Liberal government. In the end he had no opinion one way or another about how it impacted his thinking.

The second topic was the Freedumb Convoy of  2022 and I have to say his opinion surprised me with just how much it pissed him off. He had nothing but contempt for them and he even got the nuance that they were trying to overthrow the government. He even used the word "coup" to describe it. He was also very aware of Pierre Poilievre's support for the Convoy and he had nothing but contempt for him as well.

This is just an anecdote but if the Conservatives want to win the next election they have to gain the support of people like Rob in urban ridings like mine. It would appear that he has failed in at least one case.

Things are not Going as the Conservatives had hoped

The Conservatives in this country were hoping that the allegations of Chinese interference in the 2019 election would do to the Trudeau Liberals what the Sponsorship Scandal did to the Martin Liberals.

Of course they were always dreaming because the Sponsorship Scandal was actual, provable wrongdoing by people working for the Liberal Party of Canada, while the stories we have been seeing in the news about Chinese interference have been based on unproven allegations and innuendo. I have stated many times that in the 40+ years I have been observing Canadian politics there have only been two instances of true corruption at the Federal level. One of those instances was the fiasco of the Sponsorship Program. Although it was a good idea it was hijacked by unscrupulous people who helped themselves and the Liberal Party to some of the funds of that Program. The Liberals deserved their fate for that event.

The Chinese interference in our political system is not the same. No one party has benefited from their interference. All parties, at both the Federal and Provincial level, have probably benefited from it and I would wager a fair amount of money that none of them knew they were benefiting from it. I refuse to believe any politician in this country would knowingly take support from a sometimes hostile foreign government.

However, the Conservatives were hoping that they could infer just that by focusing on one such instance in 2019. That is why they want a Public Inquiry that focuses on only that one instance. Anything beyond that would only prove that they have also been compromised by Chinese interference in our politics, which would waste a scandal that would finally bring down the Liberals. It was never going to happen but the current iteration of Conservatives in this country have never let reality get in the way of a good story.

So any action by the government that did not give them that one focused public inquiry was always going to be met with outrage. That and the fact that the Conservatives have decided their best hopes of winning an election is to stoke that outrage in their followers. Hence the reaction to the announcement that David Johnston has been appointed the Special Rapporteur.

At the risk of prejudging his recommendations I think it is safe to say that he will not recommend just focusing on that one instance in 2019 if he decides that some sort of public inquiry is necessary to get to the bottom of foreign interference in our elections. 

In the end the idea that a public inquiry into foreign interference in our elections would bring down the Liberals was always something of a pipe dream. 

It must be exhausting

Sometimes I almost feel sorry for Pierre Poilievre just like I did with Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Scheer.

Him having to go full QAnon Trump on his twitter feed this past weekend followed by his capitulation in making the three MPs, who attended and had their pictures taken with a known neo-Nazi, suffer any consequences must be taking its toll.

All of the recent leaders of the CPC have had the same problem. They feel it is politically necessary to keep the most ardent MAGA Conservatives happy. They are a minority of the party and society but they are loud and they have the emotional maturity of a toddler. Really, if Mr. Poilievre does not constantly pay attention to them and their perceived needs and constantly validate their warped view of the world they throw a collective temper tantrum and make his life Hell. As an aside, it should be noted that they have not impacted Mr. Trudeau or his government one whit despite their best efforts. It is the CPC who they hurt the most and that is remarkable.

For some reason Mr. Poilievre and the leaders before him seem to go along with this and they do not even try to push back. 

I think the reason why is the misreading of the Harper victories. Remember that the CPC was only created in the early 2000s. They have gone through 7 elections and only won three of them. And two of those three were not very decisive victories. 

Finally, in 2011 Stephen Harper won a majority government for them. The way he did that was to throw red meat at his base for the first half of that election before pivoting to appeal to more moderate Canadians in the final three weeks. Helped along by an inept Liberal campaign and the collapse of the Bloc in Quebec, to the benefit of the NDP, and the CPC majority was born.

The CPC wanted to use the same strategy in 2015 but it was very apparent by the time they should have pivoted that victory was probably not going to be theirs so they just campaigned to save the furniture.

Both Mr. Scheer and Mr. O'Toole wanted to do the same in 2019 and 2021 but their efforts were always scuppered by their own followers.

The problem is the more rabid base of the CPC was not as big, loud and influential in 2011 or 2015 as it is now. Stephen Harper was able to pivot away from them during the 2011 election and subsequent government without too many problems. In short, the CPC was a different beast then.

Twelve years later the "right wing nut jobs" are the tail that wags the CPC dog. If Mr. Poilievre has any hope of hanging onto his job, let alone winning an election, he has to keep them happy, which is impossible when their whole political identity is to be profoundly unhappy. They are not going to let Mr. Poilievre pivot when it becomes necessary. 

And the situation is only getting worse. Mr. Scheer had this problem when he was leader but it was worse for Mr. O'Toole and it is becoming even worse for Mr. Poilievre. If an election does not happen until 2025 I can only imagine how much worse it will become for him.

Maybe, just maybe, he will push back and try to get a grip on the party. Then again, I have always questioned his political acumen so I am not so certain he will be able to do it. If he does not he could very well squander the opportunity to take advantage of a government that has been in power for a decade and for which many Canadians could be convinced to move on from if they like the alternative.

I imagine that the next few months and years are going to be even more exhausting for Mr. Poilievre.

Book Review: Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline

I finished reading this book which was written by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbotson. 

There are two major schools of thought around our species' demographic future. There is the "pessimistic" view which roughly states that the world population will continue to climb throughout this century until we hit 11 billion people by 2100, with all of the social and environmental problems that would come along with that. Then there is the "optimistic" view which argues that in fact our population will peak around 2050 or so at around 9 billion before dropping off to around 7 billion in 2100. This book, as the title implies, falls squarely in the "optimistic" camp.

The authors do a very good job of explaining the opposing point of view and they acknowledge that the main proponents of that point of view, the demographers of the United Nations, have a very good track record of predicting demographic trends. Even though they only spend a little time on it they still present a compelling argument for believing the "pessimistic" view could be our future.

Then the authors refute that point of view in a way that is rather unique when it comes to writing about demographic trends. They combine statistics with personal interviews. The authors traveled the world to speak to people. They spoke to rich Europeans, poor Brazilians in the favelas of Sao Paolo, professionals in Nairobi, Mexican migrants in the US and Aboriginals in Austrailia. This leads to them pointing to a possible correlation of low birth rates with increased urbanization, increased education and the usual increase in living standards that goes along with both. They rightly point out that in all regions of the world birth rates are coming down, including in India, China and Africa, the places many demographers point to to argue that we are facing a demographic bomb. 

Once they have established this they spend a good part of the book writing what the implications of it could be to the various parts of the world. In some places the implications could be dire as depopulation and the aging of what is left could make it very difficult for countries to remain prosperous and stable. 

Being Canadian the authors argue very persuasively for the Canadian approach to immigration as the model to follow to mitigate the impacts of declining birthrates.

The books conclusion very effectively pulls together the various arguments contained in it into a very plausible vision of what the world could look like in 2100 and what may happen between now and then. It is speculative but the speculation is largely backed up by the arguments and facts presented in the book. In just a passing sentence they suggest there might be a correlation between urbanization, female empowerment and and political and economic development. That would be something that might bear further exploration.

However, (there is always a however) I found the book somewhat lacking in three areas.

The first was the book does not break any new ground. Although their method of reaching their conclusions are rather unique the arguments they make and the conclusions that they draw from them are not new. Although breaking new ground was probably not the purpose of the book anyway.

The second is their assertion that the United States will probably go through the century escaping the most negative impacts of the decline in population. They base this argument on them believing the US will continue to take in immigrants, with all of the positive impacts that come from that. This book was written in 2018 so it was before COVID and before it became obvious that MAGA had metastasized out of the White House to the Supreme Court, Congress and many States but the two authors are political commentators so they should have at least considered such a possibility. As well, it is argued in the book that as birth rates goes down around the world and living standards go up the number of people actually wanting to emigrate to other countries, the US or otherwise, will be greatly reduced. That puts a spanner into their argument about the driver of the US's continued success.

Finally, while being plausible their view of the future may be a little too rosy. Certainly their arguments support their views but alot of things would have to go right in order to achieve that future, which cannot be safely assumed. Currently there are 7 billion people on this planet and we are killing off other species at a prodigious rate, emptying and polluting our oceans, denuding the last of the major forests on the planet and consuming other non-renewable resources, such as rare-earth minerals, at an unsustainable rate. Even the authors agree that the world population will hit 9 billion people in the next few decades, which will probably only exacerbate these problems. By the time we get to the 7 billion people in 2100 the only nature that may be left could be in those small areas of the world protected by governments. The rest of the world will probably be dominated by us and the plants and animals that we have domesticated. At the end of this century there may only be as many people living in it as there are now but those 7 billion people may be living in a much less hospitable world.

All that being said this book is well worth the time to read, especially if you only have a passing interest in the topic of the book. It is a very accessible. It uses statistics to prove its arguments without getting bogged down in them and the writing style is easy to understand and follow without resorting to dense science speak and jargon. It is a book you can start to read at 1pm and be done by suppertime and have a good understanding of the issues and arguments surrounding the future population of our species when you are done.

Pierre Poilievre has a NAZI Problem

Let us state right off the hop that Pierre Poilievre is not a Nazi or a fascist. He may be an opportunistic career politician with limited real world experience, with no idea of how to actually form policy, with extremely limited political acumen and completely lacking in political scruples but he is not a porn star...Sorry, channeling my inner Grandpa Simpson...but he is not a fascist.

However he does have a problem with them.

He is not unique. The old Reform Party always had a certain percentage of supporters who had fascist tendencies.  The were very much in favour of using the power of government to control everything from who you slept with to deciding what is art to only financially supporting the industries they favoured. They have always seemed comfortable in the Party and the Party really did not do a whole hell of alot to discourage them. The fact a very heavy white English Christian only thread ran through this crowd should surprise no one. When the Reform Party gobbled up the Progressive Party of Canada that wing of the party came along with it.

Stephen Harper knew this when he took over the Party as its first leader and he was at least adept at keeping them at bay. Let's be honest though, he made promises to them and then broke them as soon as he won government. Of course, when Stephen Harper was the leader we did not have social media and that wing of the party was much smaller and much less radicalized. Oh yes, Stephen Harper also did not have the Peoples Party of Canada stalking him on his right flank. It should be noted that Mr. Harper's betrayal of the more far right members of his base laid the groundwork for the creation of the PPC. His short term strategy to stay in power had longer term consequences for the party he left behind.

So Pierre Poilievre would not be able to do what Stephen Harper did even if he had the political smarts to do it. So now he has to deal with an ever radicalized and loud group on his right flank while also trying to convince more moderate Canadians that they are not what the CPC really represents.

That goal was complicated by the Convoy (you know what I am talking about). That event laid bare for everybody to see that there was an element of our society that does not believe in Canadian democracy. They parrot democratic rhetoric but that is only to cover up their fascist tendencies. It is to his ever lasting discredit that Mr. Poilievre rode the publicity generated by them and actively courted their support to win the leadership of the CPC. They have been a millstone around this neck ever since he won. Watching him trying to keep them in the CPC tent while also trying to entice more moderate Canadians to his side has been fun to watch, since he is failing at both to a certain extent.

What Pierre Poilievre might really need to do is to completely cut ties with this wing of his party. Doing so will certainly be a gift to the PPC but what he loses on the right might help him gain support in the centre, particularly as the Liberal government gets longer in the tooth. If he had any political instincts at all he would be working towards that.

That brings us to the dinner where an avowed fascist, representing an avowed fascist party in the European Parliament, was the guest of honour and where four members of the CPC were attendees of the dinner. One of those Members is a person who ran for the leadership of the party, twice, is a senior member of the shadow cabinet and who would probably be a senior cabinet minister if the CPC wins government. Some are saying that they did now know who the MEP was but she attended that dinner in Alberta so all of these MPs would have had to travel to attend it. All of that would be on the government dime which means the trips would have had to be planned. No MP is going to go through that effort unless they know exactly why they are doing it. So their protestations are bullshit. They attended this dinner because they agreed with the views of the MEP and thought it would be worthwhile to listen to her and meet her. To most Canadians this is unacceptable and it will further remind them of their unease with the CPC as being a home for Canadians with extreme right wing views, something that has haunted the CPC since its creation. 

However this event might also be a perfect opportunity to break with that wing of the CPC, if Mr. Poilievre had the political acumen and guts to take it. By removing all of these MPs from caucus and forcefully denouncing the views of the MEP he would create a sea change in the CPC and he would set up a shift of the Party to a more moderate conservative party. It could be that what he loses on his right he would regain in the centre.

Then again maybe not. It could be that the whole of the conservative movement in this country has grown more radicalized and the number of Conservative voters who would desert the party would be much higher than I am assuming. 

I am not certain at this point but I suspect that the CPC rank and file has grown more radicalized. I believe that "moderate" conservatives are a dying breed and that breaking with the really radical elements of the party would cost votes that could not be recovered from moderates.

In which case we can repeat that Pierre Poilievre really does have a NAZI problem.

Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics

Allegations of interference in the nomination of a Chinese Canadian Liberal candidate in Toronto, by the Chinese Government, before the 2019 election have surfaced.

On the face the allegations are hard to believe. First they are all based on anonymous sources, quoting documents that have not been released to the public and those anonymous sources are from CSIS. That is an organization where leaking operational data to the media carries heavy jail time if someone from that organization is caught doing so. Hell, people from CSIS are even forbidden from actually admitting they work for CSIS. Second, the meat of the allegations is a CSIS official briefed a senior member of the Liberal Party about suspicions of the candidate being supported by the Chinese government. It should be noted that a CSIS official would not brief anybody until it went through a rather comprehensive approval process and the particulars of that meeting would be recorded by both CSIS and the officials in the Party. Judging by the details in the news story it would not take long for both CSIS and the Party to figure out who was involved in that meeting, which means the journalist outed his source by publishing those details. I am no journalist but I am pretty certain that journalists are not supposed to do that and I am pretty certain that he would not do that. That sort of brings into question the verity of the whole scenario described by the journalist but he need not worry because neither CSIS nor the Party will produce any evidence to confirm or deny his allegations on national security grounds. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

That has not stopped Conservative supporters in a couple of media outlets from calling for a public inquiry into the whole thing. Such an inquiry would be pointless because the MP involved in the allegations would have the right to see the evidence against him, which is held by CSIS, and they will not release that evidence to a public inquiry. Of course, any inquiry could legally compel CSIS to release the information but that would severely damage CSIS's relationship in the Five Eyes, the partnership between the intelligence agencies of Canada, the US, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. That in turn would actually compromise Canadian security much more than what was described in the news story because it would cripple the ability of CSIS to gather intelligence but who cares if it would be an opportunity to own the Libs.

On the other hand some sort of public inquiry on the broader issue of foreign interference, all interference not just this one allegation, would be an eye opening exercise. After all I would bet my house that such interference has been going on for decades. That will not happen either because it would also be pointless. 

This story has been circulating social media for a couple of days but so far we have not heard a peep out of the CPC. You would think they would be all over this. The reason for this is they are probably aware that they have been receiving assistance from foreign actors for years. They did not invite it and there is really nothing they can do to stop it but with the state of Canadian politics right now people would assume the worst, which they do not need because many already assume the worst. That has not been helped by revelations that several CPC MPs, including a senior member of the Shadow Cabinet had dinner with an avowed fascist member of the European Parliament. (More on that in another post)

So here we are. Who knows where this will go but I am certain that a public inquiry will not be called and those very same Conservative commentators will scream cover-up, with the rubes eating it up. 

A word about Chinese interference in our politics. One of the issues exposed by this leak and the reaction to it is how petty and provincial is our politics. The Chinese do not care who is leading Canada because they consider the Canadian government to be largely irrelevant in the international community. There goal is not to influence Canadian policy. China is the second largest economy in the world, they are endeavouring to make it the largest and they are spending alot of money and effort to increase their military might. In short they are trying to become a superpower, if not the superpower, and the biggest obstacle to that is the Western democracies. They still set the agenda for international relations and China wants to change that. One way to do that is to undermine the political and democratic institutions of the Western democracies.

So the petty details of how they might have interfered in the nomination process in a single Federal riding are not relevant except in the context of their overarching goal. It is piecing together that bigger picture using these individual instances that we should be focusing on, or more precisely the Canadian intelligence community should be focusing on, and not going down a rabbit hole of a single instance.

The Ukraine War, One Year Later

If you would have told me this time last year that the Ukraine war would still be going on in a year I would have disagreed with you. While I did not believe Ukraine would just roll over I also did not believe that they would be able hold as long as they have.

A few months after the war started and when the Western media was saying that Ukraine was actually winning the war I stated in this space that they were probably overstating the case. Since then the Ukrainians have recaptured some territory but the Russians have still not gone away. Indeed, they have dug in for a long war.

Western media and many commentators are still saying the Ukrainians are winning and the Russians are losing. I am not so certain. From what I am seeing neither side is winning right now. It has descended into a war of attrition and the winner will be the one that can last the longest.

The Russians have the manpower advantage. They can keep calling up reservists and throwing them into the fray. Yes, their casualties will be high but so will be those of the Ukrainians, who do not have the manpower reserves of the Russians. The hope that the Russian people will grow tired of the war and boot Mr. Putin is probably false hope. If he is still there now he will probably be staying.

The Ukrainians have the money advantage. They are receiving financial and military support from the West that should allow them to hold out much longer than if they did not. The Russians on the other hand are short of both money and military equipment. I noticed in a non-western media report last week that the Russians are starting to deploy their third string tanks. That is the new units being formed to continue the war are going into battle in tanks that were obsolete when Pierre Trudeau was PM of Canada. Having them go up against Western first line tanks and modern hand held anti-tank missile systems is a recipe for much death and destructions amongst Russian tankers.

So it is a question of which one will no longer be able to sustain the war first. Will the Ukrainians just run out of men to fight? Or with the Russians just run out money and equipment? 

I do not know the answer but I can say that the longer this goes on the weaker the Russian strategic position becomes. That will not change regardless of the eventual military outcome of the war. Then again, the Ukrainians are not going to come out of this war in great shape either and I would bet a sizable chunk of money that if they do prevail the same Western governments that supported them militarily will be alot less generous with funds to help them rebuild.

Like I said I do not believe that either side is winning and in the long run both will probably come out losers of this war.

Die Media Die

I have stated in this space before that I believe it is time to rethink the idea of freedom of the press and it looks like they are in the process of eliminating themselves from the national landscape. The latest example is the layoffs reported by the National Post a couple of weeks ago. For a news organization that was bare bones before the layoffs we can now say they are cutting the bone now. They are not alone. Everywhere we look the media in this country is showing signs of distress and the only thing that is keeping them afloat is support from the government, the same government they have been assiduously trying to overthrow for almost a decade.

Of course the reason for their distress is simple. I have stated before that the media in this country cannot turn their backs on around 70% of their audience and readers and expect to be successful. But then again that is to be expected when you consider that all of our news media, with the exception of the CBC, is owned in part or in whole by American business interests. These business interests are pursuing the same business strategy as they are pursuing in the US, namely appealing to conservatives and nut jobs where it works somewhat because there are sufficient numbers of them to make such a strategy viable. These companies are trying to pursue the same strategy in Canada even though our political culture will not sustain such a strategy. They are doing this for ideological reasons instead of business reasons, hoping to make Canada more "conservative" but they are not succeeding and they are running their companies into the ground in the process. 

The Liberal government could accelerate this process by stopping all support to these companies. If faced with tons of red ink in their ledgers these American businesses will abandon the Canadian market pretty quick. Sure they may hate Liberals but they hate losing money even more.

Some would argue that such action would leave Canada without a news media. No, it would leave us with a changed news media. There is always demand for news. We need to be informed. If the current group of media organizations cannot make a go of it something will rise up to take their place. In fact, the competition for the Canadian media space would be so fierce that the replacement media companies would have to be innovative and develop business models that are completely different from the current legacy media, which still has not really adjusted to the current news environment, trying to maintain a centuries old model instead of really embracing the opportunities presented by the internet.

So, I wish the legacy media would just hurry up and die already and/or the government should facilitate that by eliminating support and subsidies for them. The sooner that happens the better off all of us will be.