VP Harris, Do Not Choose Pete Buttigieg as your Running Mate

In my previous post I asserted that the nomination of Ms. Harris as the Presidential candidate for the Democrats will make them winning the White House more difficult than if Mr. Biden was the nominee. The reason is I believe that there are many who may really  dislike the idea of Donald Trump being President again who are also uncomfortable with the idea of a woman of colour being President. That could result in many of them staying home on election day, particularly in some of the states she needs to carry to win the election.

If she now turns around and selects an openly gay man as her running mate she can probably kiss the White House goodbye and the Democrats would probably lose both Houses of Congress as well.

While having those two running together is the proverbial wet dream for progressives on both sides of the border those very same progressives have to remember that not everybody thinks like them. Racism and homophobia are still very strong in the US, even amongst voters who identify as Democrat, so having both a visible minority and a gay person running together, along with the Presidential candidate being a woman could be a recipe for disaster.

It is unfortunate but that is the hand she has been dealt.

I am willing to accept the idea of such a ticket attracting alot of new young voters but history has demonstrated that while young voters may be becoming more and more involved in politics they still do not vote in numbers to really effect outcomes. So, if the Democrats are counting on the youth vote to act as a counterweight to those more dependable voters who would be uncomfortable with a woman of colour as President and a gay man as Vice President they could be in for great disappointment.

So please Ms. Harris, choose a middle aged, white guy, who is just a little right of centre as your running mate. Yes I know that they are already overrepresented in politics but they still reflect a sizable proportion of your electorate (and ours in Canada) so you cannot ignore their concerns and expect to win.

The Democrats just made their life a whole lot harder

An alternate title for this post could also be: "Is the US Ready to Elect a Woman of Colour as President?

As I stated in a previous post the election in November was going to be about Donald Trump and whether Americans wanted to have him back as President. Although he was up against an old man in Joe Biden I believed that Americans would again reject Donald Trump for the highest office in the land. More people hate Mr. Trump than love him and that would have carried the Democrats as long as they could bring out their vote. Yes, Joe Biden is an old man but, to be brutally honest, he is a white old man so many people who prefer such as President could safely plant their vote there if they were inclined to vote against Donald Trump.

Now that advantage for the Democrats is gone. There are many Americans who dislike Donald Trump, who would not vote for him, who would also dislike the idea of a woman of colour as President. This would be particularly true in some of the states the Democrats have to carry in order to win, Georgia being a very good example. That is unfortunate but that does not make it any less true. BTW, one of the strikes against Hillary Clinton was she is a woman. That was not the only thing that went against her but do not be so naïve to think that it was not a factor. 

I do not believe that those who hate Donald Trump and who would be uncomfortable with Ms. Harris as President will switch their votes. However, they may just decide to stay home. I do believe that the GOTV efforts of the Democrats in several key states will much more challenging. 

I believe that VP Harris would probably make a good president and looking at her resume she is not any less qualified than some of the other candidates who have won the presidency in the last 30 years but you cannot deny that her gender and colour will be a factor for a significant number of voters come November. I am not saying she cannot win but her path to victory is probably narrower than Joe Biden's would have been, the recent hype about his age notwithstanding.

The election was always going to come down to voter turnout. Whichever side is most successful in getting their voters to come out is going to win. The Democrats just reduced their chances of being the side that accomplishes that task.

Who Would Replace Donald Trump for the MAGA Crowd?

I have had this question percolated in my head for some time and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on the weekend caused it to gel.

The simple fact is even before the attempt it could be said that Donald Trump is an old, over weight man who could go at any time by natural causes. The same is certainly true of Joe Biden, except he is not over weight. Kind of makes you wonder just how broken politics is in the US that it cannot put up candidates that have more than an even chance living to 2028 but that is the topic for another post.

So when he goes what happens to MAGA? It is a fact that MAGA's only loyalty is to Donald Trump. It really is his own personal cult of personality. They have absolutely no loyalty to the Republican Party just like he has no loyalty to it. They only care about Donald Trump.

So when he goes is there someone that can replace him? I know that some would try but I believe there is no one who would be able to take his place. Love him or hate him but Donald Trump is a larger than life figure, which is why he has been able to get away with all of the shit he has been getting away with since before he entered politics. So although there are many like him who would share his populist political outlook and who would be more than willing to lie their ass off for political advantage they would not have the same snake oil salesman vibe, being able to work up a crowd like Donald Trump. 

And really, a large number of MAGA are only involved in politics because of Donald Trump. When he goes so will many of them.

So when he goes the Republican Party will be in some trouble. They have completely alienated moderate Americans by embracing Mr. Trump and many MAGA's will turn away from politics. That would be a large number of voters not voting for Republicans. Then again, many of those who hate Donald Trump, who have only voted that last few elections because of their dislike of him, may decide to abandon politics as well. 

It could be a wash but I believe it would not be. Republicans are going to be more impacted by his disappearance  and for a couple of elections the Republicans would have to go through a period of adjustment to recapture more moderate Americans. Or not. After all, Donald Trump is just the logical extension of the Tea Party movement that took over the Republican Party a couple of decades ago. In all likelihood, the departure of Donald Trump would provide the Tea Partiers the opportunity to retake the Republican Party.

People Usually Vote Against Someone not for Someone

That is a simple fact.

I know several people who are Conservative supporters and all of them do not really like Pierre Poilievre. Indeed, I heard one of them call him a f&*%King asshole a few months ago. However, most of these folks absolutely hate Justin Trudeau so they will overlook the general assholery of Mr. Poilievre if they can get rid of PMJT.

I bring this up because of all of the wingeing over Joe Biden's debate performance last week. The doom and gloom is misplaced. I can pretty much guarantee that the reason he became president is not because the voters liked him and were inspired by him. He became president because people hated Donald Trump and wanted him gone. 

Donald Trump is a polarizing figure. Those who love him really love him but those who hate him really hate him. Unfortunately for him there are more people who hate him than love him. That was proven in 2016 and in 2020. I imagine that it will be true in 2024. He has not done anything in the last four years to reach out to those who hate him, in fact, he did the exact opposite. So the biggest threat to Joe Biden's bid for a second term is not voters turning away from him to Donald Trump but people who voted for him in 2020 deciding to stay home. Donald Trump will probably not gain any more votes than he gained in 2016 and 2020. All the Democrats need to do is convince those who hate Donald Trump to come out and vote and they will win.

In the Canadian context this voter motivation is the reason why Conservatives and their media allies are trying so damned hard to get Canadians to hate Justin Trudeau and have him resign. After all, there are countless examples of people voting against a party over voting for one. I can assure you that very few people felt happy voting for the Harper or Ford Conservatives or the Trudeau Liberals. Voters were just voting against people and governments they really did not like and in those cases enough people did so to bring about a change in government.

Judging by the increasingly shrill and strident calls for his resignation by the media I would say that they are not succeeding in turning Canadians against PMJT. Certainly, there is a small minority of Canadians who hate him for many reasons but they have always hated him and I would guess that their number is not increasing fast enough to the liking of Conservatives. As well, I would like to point out that the media is focusing exclusively on trying to get Canadians to hate Justin Trudeau but no one is trying to get Canadians to like Pierre Poilievre, including Mr. Poilievre himself. They are content to keep preaching to their base while working diligently to get Canadians to hate Mr. Trudeau. 

Yes, yes, yes, I know what the polls are saying but I also know that polls never tell the whole story and in many cases the story they do tell is often wrong. 

By the time the election rolls around in 2025 the Conservatives might be successful in their efforts to turn Canadians against Justin Trudeau, or that might just happen organically as a result of the sheer amount of time the Liberals will have been the government. However, at the moment, judging by the actions of the Conservatives and the media, they have not done that yet.

If they have not been able to do it and if Conservative opponents can be somewhat successful in reminding voters of why they do not like the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre then the next election will not be the shoe in for the CPC that most political commentators are saying it will be.

So in 2025 the ballot question is going to be who are the voters going to be more against? I am not even going to attempt a guess at this point.

Collective Bargaining Works When It Is Allowed to Proceed

Without going on strike the border crossing union managed to settle their labour dispute with the government. This despite all of the histrionics and gnashing of teeth by the Conservatives and their allies in the media, which now is pretty much the entire media.

Is it not amazing that the government and union managed to come to an agreement despite all of the noise? Not really. I have always disagreed with PSAC's adversarial first approach to negotiations. They seemed to have never learned the old adage about attracting more flies with honey. However, they like to follow their process and that strike vote was just part of that process.

I am not surprised by the government's role in this. As usual they just got on with the business at hand and quietly resolved the problem.

We can say that the crisis was averted accept that there was never going to be a crisis. This does point out the stupidity of the CPC and in another time that would have been pointed out by our news media. However, since they all hopped on the "sky is falling" bandwagon they cannot point out Conservative stupidity without shining a light on their own.

So this whole thing further proves that if collective bargaining is allowed to happen without the government giving itself, or one side in the case of collective bargaining between unions and private companies, an unfair advantage labour disputes are often settled without disruptive labour action.

The NSICOP Report

The NSICOP released a special report on foreign interference in Canadian politics and it was much more useful than the public inquiry that was completed earlier this year.

The public inquiry was not very useful because it did not follow the money. That is how we are going to find out just how badly compromised our politics is by foreign actors, both governmental and non-governmental. Instead we got a report that did not tell us much of anything useful.

The NSICOP report on the other hand flat out told us that more than a few parliamentarians were witting and unwitting helpers of foreign actors in influencing our politics. They did not go into details because to do so would break more than a few national security laws but the message is clear. Some of our elected officials have both knowingly and unknowingly allowed themselves to be supported by foreign actors.

That is a very serious situation and it bears much more scrutiny. If we had a fully functioning Parliament all of the parties would be working together to get to the bottom of it and then coming up with new laws and regulations to reduce foreign interference in all of its forms.

Of course we do not have a fully functioning Parliament and I will not go into details as to why.

What I did find interesting was the thundering silence on the findings of the report from the CPC when it was published. It took them 24 hours to finally come up with an attack line and that attack line was that the government should release the names of the MPs. Of course they cannot do that because to do so would be breaking the law. So the CPC can safely continue to demand the release of those names knowing that the government cannot comply.

I do have a question as to why the Conservatives took this tack. I have stated before that none of the Federal parties would come out smelling like a rose if the names were released because I can pretty much guarantee that some past and current MP's, of all political stripes, have benefited in some way from foreign interference. 

So does the fact they took this tack indicate that one or more of the Conservatives MPs on the NSICOP informed Pierre Poilievre of the names and him seeing that his name was not mentioned or a very prominent Liberals being mentioned lead to their reaction? Or is this just Pierre Poilievre being himself and throwing shit at the wall hoping it would stick knowing that the government has no defence because they cannot legally release the names?

For now I am going to give the Conservative MPs the benefit of the doubt. The second option is typical Pierre Poilievre and I cannot yet think that the Conservative members of the committee can break the law so readily.

Of course, we cannot talk about this without talking about the media reaction, which has been as predictable as the tides. I have noticed that many in the media have parroted the Conservative talking points while downplaying the fact the government cannot release the names without breaking the law. Indeed, I saw one news report last week that completely omitted that fact. 

As I stated in my last post the government has to cut off all public financial support going to our media. The fact one news organization completely omitted the legal reasons for not releasing the names is obvious and overt misinformation. It is the right of the media to tell stories as they see fit. It says so right in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it is also the right of Canadians not to have their tax dollars to go to organizations that lie to them. 

In the end foreign interference will continue in our politics because no real measures have been taken to measure the true extent of it and its impacts in our politics, probably because all parties know they would be badly hurt if the truth were to really come out. As well, do not expect any of those MPs named in the report to ever see the inside of a courtroom as a result of the report findings. It's just not going to happen.

They are still talking about the changes to the capital gains tax

Too bad no one else is.

In my previous post I stated one of my laws of politics is whenever your opponent talks about your policy for longer than just a single news cycle they are worried that it might resonate with voters.

So here we see them still talking about one of the less remarkable provisions of the 2024 Budget. I realize that one of the reasons is the government is going to have a vote on the provision tomorrow but votes for government bills happen every week when the House is sitting. So why are they singling this one out? And why has there been low grumblings about this provision since it was announced?

I can see four reasons. The first is in my first sentence of this post. The simple fact is taxing the wealthy is a popular idea. Most ordinary Canadians see no problem with it. Added to that is the fact that most Canadians will never be impacted by this provision. So they are not going to get worked up about it, despite the efforts by those opposed to it to make them care. The trotting out of doctors and assertions that some Canadians will take a hit when they sell their cottages is not going to have the impact they hope it will. Most know that doctors are going to be fine financially regardless of the changes, most people do not own cottages and they also know that rich people will be paying more.

The second reason is this provision is going to directly impact those who are pushing to have it canceled the most. Namely, the wealthy, which includes the owners of our media. Our media has been trashing the Liberals for almost a decade but the fact that the owners of them are going to take a hit explains why I have yet to see a media outlet give equal time to the benefits of the changes. The media is obsessed with "both sides" of every issue but for some reason not this one. The obvious bias, probably at the behest of the owners of our media, further cements in my mind that we need a complete overhaul of the media landscape in this country. The government can probably go along way towards bringing that about if they would stop all subsidies and financial support to the media. The media has been purveyors of disinformation and misinformation for quite some time and I believe that we taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay for that. Stop all support and let the chips fall where they may.

The third reason is the wealthy are actually being forced to pay more. Make no mistake, these changes will not put any of them in the poor house. Hell, they will not even see a single change to their lifestyles. However, the wealthy have been calling the fiscal shots in this country for more than three decades and having their demands be ignored by the government must be disconcerting. 

Which brings me to reason number four. The continued breakdown of the Conservative Consensus. Since 2015, the Liberal government has raised taxes on the wealthy at least twice before the 2024 budget and they actually introduced a new "tax" in the form of putting a price on carbon. Further they have not suffered any political harm from any of it and it appears they will not suffer too much harm from the changes in the capital gains tax. As well, they have not suffered from running deficits, while substantially increasing government spending. None of this would have been accepted by Canadians 15 years ago. (Nor would the recent anti-scab legislation) Now they are and that must really be freaking out those who benefited the most from the Conservative Consensus. Incidentally, that breakdown is probably one of the reasons why our media has been so damned hostile to the Liberal government, not the only reason but certainly one of them. Those that own the media and those who benefit from the Consensus want to maintain it and they are doing their damnest to convince Canadians that it is in their interest to maintain it and not succeeding very much it would seem.

At any rate the vote will happen tomorrow and the changes will be the law of the land. There is no way the NDP, which supports higher taxes for the wealthy as a matter of general principle, are going to vote against higher taxes for the wealthy. (Yes I know, famous last words and all of that, but I do not think they want to commit political suicide.)

The 2024 Federal Budget

One of my rules of politics is if a political party's opponents are loudly and repeatedly condemning a policy or a Bill in Parliament it is because they know that it could resonate with Canadians.

I am reminded of this rule by the continued reaction to the 2024 Budget.

Really, in most cases the budget is in the news for a single news cycle and then the media and the Opposition politicians go back to talking about the banal and the inane. That was not the case this time.

My favourite so far is some of the doctors being trotted out by the media to show the "error" of the changes in the capital gains taxes. I recall seeing one doctor, who is younger than me, stating that the changes could cause doctors to close up shop. The idea of course is to try to scare Canadians into rejecting a policy that only impacts a very small minority of Canadians by claiming it could lead to a doctors shortage. 

Of course, if you just use a small amount of critical thinking yo would realize that the main source of income for doctors is practicing medicine. If they stop doing that no amount of capital gains will compensate for that lost income. So closing up shop is not really an option, unless you were planning on retiring soon anyway. 

Then there is the old chestnut that doctors will head South. Again, a little critical thinking will help you realize that the American Medical Association might have a say in that plan and the cost of developing a new practice in a new country is much more than the loss in capital gains that would result from the very modest changes in the 2024 Budget.

There has been some talk about the deficit but the 2008 financial crisis and the cost of the COVID supports in 2020-2021 has demonstrated that the old deficit bugbear is not to be feared. Throw in the fact the deficit hawks only complain about deficits when they pay for social programs but are strangely quiet when they pay for tax cuts and you can safely ignore them.

Yes, yes, I know the argument that tax cuts are supposed to be better for the economy than government spending but that is ideological BS of the highest order. The simple fact is tax cuts and government spending are one in the same, just ways to get money into the economy. They both have their place but if the objective of a policy is to assist people with finding affordable housing then investing in programs to do that will be much more effective than a $200/year tax cut.

I have read the budget and it is actually quite ambitious, more ambitious than that last couple at least. I do not agree with all of its policies but I am all for the government taking real action on some of the issues that they outline in the document. It is about time.

Now if only this government could screw up the political courage to finally do something other than pay lip service to finding out whether and how the auto-fuel companies are colluding on price. When every company raises their prices by 20 cents all on the same night, within minutes of each other, a case could be made to suspect collusion and to go beyond the usual pro-forma inquiries that happen when the auto-fuel companies get too greedy.

The Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics Inquiry

I read that the inquiry is hearing witnesses. I am not paying much attention to this inquiry. I will wait for the final report. However, I will say that if that final report does not include any attempts to follow the money then the whole thing is a colossal waste of time.

I am not going to attempt to guess the final outcome except for two points.

The first is no federal political party is going to come out of this smelling like a rose. There are many foreign actors that do not like democracy and they want to discredit it. They really do not have any allegiance to any Canadian political party. They choose targets of opportunity regardless of partisan considerations. If the inquiry discovers those situations all of the political parties at the federal level will have red faces. There are other foreign actors that have a preferred Canadian political party and it will be interesting to see if the inquiry identifies them and who they are supporting.

The second is the reaction to the final report will be along partisan lines. That is, each political party will grab hold of the parts of the report that hurts their opponents and benefits them. As well, we can expect our largely Conservative media to play up any foreign interference that either benefited or was perceived to benefit the Liberals while they play down or ignore interference that benefited the Conservatives. 

In the end we will have to see what is in the report and then it will be up to us voters to decide what we consider to be legitimate political actions by foreign actors and what we consider to be illegitimate foreign interference in our political system, institutions and processes. 

Him, Her, They, Them

I was born a male. That is, I have certain genitalia typical of the male of the human species and I am unable to bear children.

I am also a man. Is there a difference?

Yes. With rare exceptions there are only two biological sexes for our species and every other mammalian species. That fact cannot be disputed. However, your biological sex at birth is not the only determinant of ones sex or gender. Psychology plays a much bigger role.

I am not a man because I have certain sex organs. I am a man because I think like a man, I feel like a man and for lack of a better phrase I identify as a man. Sexism, feminism and all sorts of other "isms" only exist because we have a brain that allows us to have values and beliefs about ourselves and our world. I believe I am a man but, here is the kicker, I do not know why I believe that. I do not know the reason that when I was young I believed I was a boy and when I became old enough I started to believe I was a man. It just happened. Maybe it was genetic. Maybe it was the environment I grew up in. I cannot be certain.  

So if the biggest part of being a man or a woman is in our heads why are people surprised that some might not be able to reconcile how they feel about themselves with their biological sex? There are over 7 billion of us on this planet so it stands to reason that some of us would not be wired like everybody else.

Looking back at my childhood I can recall some kids that did not fit the mold of being typical boys and girls, as dictated by the norms of society. Could they have been having difficulty with their gender identities? We know back then that talking about that kind of thing was a one way ticket to trouble. We know that gays and lesbians did what they had to do to avoid being persecuted so I would not be surprised that those who were atypical genders would have to do the same thing, or more likely, they had no way to really process their feelings in a useful way so they just suffered and did their best to cope.

Alot of time has passed and now people can be more honest with themselves and they have the freedom to explore themselves with less fear of persecution. That is probably why it seems that this phenomenon seems to have come upon us suddenly. We know that homosexuality was much more prevalent than outward appearances made it appear so it would make sense that the same can be true of atypical genders.

The biggest fear that homosexuals created amongst us straight folks was that being around them could cause their homosexuality to rub off on us, or worse yet our children. I feel that same fear is being felt about people with atypical genders. To which I say, stop worrying. It does not rub off. If their existence is causing you to doubt your own gender it is not because them it is because of your own psychology and it has been proven again and again that no amount of persecution of someone will allow you to reconcile the conflict you may be experiencing.

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.