So Maxime Bernier has publicly and spectacularly removed himself from the Conservative Party of Canada and he has indicated that he will form his own right-wing political party.
This really should not come as a surprise to anyone really. He was the front-runner throughout most of the Conservative leadership campaign, garnering the most votes on the first count, finally only losing the leadership by less than one percentage point after the prefered ballots were counted. There were rumblings of some irregularities during the voting and they were not put to bed by the party when they destroyed all of the ballots almost immediately after the winner of the leadership campaign was announced, preventing a recount.
Things settled down somewhat after the Conservative leadership vote although there were rumours of Mr. Bernier publishing a tell-all book about it that seemed to go nowhere after what appeared to be some back-room wheeling and dealing. This started to go sideways when Mr. Bernier was fired from the Conservative front bench, ostensibly for voicing his opposition to Canada's supply management system. What I found curious about that is he has never kept his opposition to that system a secret so why it suddenly became a problem last June was a mystery to me.
His crashing out of the Conservative Party this week solved that mystery. I believe not everything was all rainbows and sunshine within the Conservative Party since the leadership vote and it finally came to a head this week.
So how will this impact the next election?
Right off it needs to be stated that the most probable outcome of the 2019 election was a Liberal Majority government before the Conservative implosion. I will not go into the reason why at this time.
The events of the last couple of days increases that probability regardless of how this all shakes out.
If Mr. Bernier flames out and just disappears from the Canadian political scene Andrew Scheer will still be saddled with the burden of being the leader that could not keep his party together. Mr. Bernier had been a stalwart of the Conservative Party for years, he was extremely popular with many Conservatives and he is the most popular conservative politician in Quebec. Losing him is a big blow to Mr. Scheer's credibility and if he is not around it is an open question of whether the Conservatives win any seats on Quebec in 2019. Virtually every Conservative elected in Quebec attached themselves to Mr. Bernier's coattails in order to win their elections. With him gone and with no obvious replacement for him in the Conservative caucus the Conservatives could be in tough, in Quebec, in 2019.
If Mr. Bernier follows through on his assertion that he will form his own political party it could potentially spell political disaster for the Conservatives.
He has set himself a very daunting task of forming a political party with 338 candidates in just over a year. I doubt he can do it but he could probably find enough candidates to fill out the ranks in Quebec and perhaps Ontario. In all probability that would spell the end of Conservative hopes in Quebec at the very least and it could spell the end of Conservative hopes in both Ontario and Quebec. In both provinces a Bernier lead party would probably split the Conservative vote allowing the Liberals to walk away with many additional seats in both provinces. As I have stated here the Conservative movement is very weak in the country, even when it is united behind one party. If the movement splits that weakness is increased.
If Mr. Bernier does pull off forming his own party with a full slate of candidates then the Conservatives would be in deep trouble everywhere. A Bernier lead party would just need to siphon off 5 percentage points from the Conservatives and it would be bad news for them. Any more than 5 points and things would only get worse. Fifteen points and it is conceivable that the CPC only wins its Alberta bastion and a handfull of other seats in the West.
Many Conservatives, both the politicians and the Conservative cheerleaders in the media, have been downplaying the impact of Mr. Bernier's departure. However, watching them they seem to be doing so through gritted teeth. They are spinning this as best they can but I am certain that many of them do not actually believe their own spin. The events of the past few days have damaged the Conservative Party. Only the fullness of time will reveal to what extent it has been damaged and whether that damage will be short-lived or enduring.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
A Look Into the Future: The Pessimistic View
In my previous post I wrote about the possible Triple Whammy of Climate Change, the rise of China as the preeminant economic and political power in the world and the creation of a large number of unemployable people as a result of automation.
One or all of these three situations will occur in the next two or three decades and they will have an impact on the world. That impact could be negative or positive. This post will examine the possible negative impacts. A later post will examine the possible positive impacts.
First and foremost it has now been revealed by climate scientists that we have gone past the point of no return with regard to preventing "hothouse Earth". That is, global warming is going to get worse no matter what we do from now on. The only question is how bad it will be.
The most pessimistic outcome would be runaway global warming which changes oceans currents and completely changes the climate of the planet. In that case the combination of vast areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable and the possibility of the creation of "Canfield Oceans" could lead to a mass extinction that would include the human species.
That is not the most likely outcome but it is possible. A more likely outcome of runaway global warming would be large areas of the planet becoming unproductive and uninhabitable, leading to widespread famine and mass migration, leading to war. That in itself would lead to a mass die off of the human species, although not an extinction level event, with the resultant fall of our modern civilization, which would worsen the die off. The number of humans that would die in this scenario would be in the billions and we would be cast back into the dark ages. All of the progress we have achieved in the past 2000 years would be lost.
However, the human species is resilient and it has a very healthy survival instinct. As such, I do believe that our species will realize the danger with enough time to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gases and to develop effective eco-engineering technologies to prevent the worst effects of global warming and climate change. They will still be disruptive and destructive. Many human will die but our civilization will survive.
So humans will survive but they will still need to face the impacts of automation and the West will need to deal with the impacts on the rise of China.
Taking the pessimistic point of view I can see China changing the way the world economy works once they have achieved economic and political primacy. When the West was running the show all of the Western countries had to integrate their economies in order to create sufficient wealth to keep their populations generally happy and satisfied. The same in not true of China. They have a population of over a billion people and a large number of them are still not part of the Chinese middle class. When China reaches the pinnacle of the world economy it will be able to reach even greater heights just by elevating its own people into the middle class. It will not need to trade with the West in order to create wealth. Further, China is spending over a trillion dollars in Africa and Asia to help countries on those continents of develop. Like all aid this funding is tied to Chinese priorities. So just when they are rising the top of the economic and political heap they will have a further billion or two people beholden to them in Africa and Asia.
It would not be surprising if the Chinese close their economy and demand their client states to only trade with China and themselves when they overtake the US as the largest economy in the world. They will not need the West to generate wealth and the West has a history of abusing China in the past which may motivate the Chinese leadership to attempt to even the score. That would reduce the ability of the West to generate wealth at its current levels. In fact, it would probably cause the Western economies to shrink, if not totally collapse.
Then there is automation. If the Chinese move to freeze out the West from markets in Asia and Africa is combined with the impacts of automation then things would only be worse for the West. Huge numbers of people in the West would be in such dire financial straits that the destruction of the Western democracies would probably be inevitable. Automation will impact China as well but they will be in a better position to absorb those impacts.
I have stated in the space before that I believe a large segment of the ruling classes in the West see the negative impacts of the rise of China and increased automation and that they are preparing for it by concentrating wealth and power so that they will be able to ride out the coming economic and political upheavel in the West. I have also stated that there is another segment of ruling class in the West who believe that the negative impacts of these two events can be mitigated by investing in their societies and peoples and preventing the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands. These two opposing views will inform the political and economic debate in the West for the next couple of decades.
In the pessimistic view of the future those that would concentrate wealth and power into their own hands will prevail.
This is just one possible future that could result from the impacts of climate change, automation and the rise of China. My own opinion is that this future is the more likely one at this time. Those that would concentrate wealth and power into their hands are winning the debate so far. Hell, they are framing the debate, and history has demonstrated that he who frames the debate wins it almost every time. There is still time for the other side to push back but so far they have been completely ineffective. That could change in the next couple of decades but my gut tells me not to hold your brealth waiting for that to happen.
One or all of these three situations will occur in the next two or three decades and they will have an impact on the world. That impact could be negative or positive. This post will examine the possible negative impacts. A later post will examine the possible positive impacts.
First and foremost it has now been revealed by climate scientists that we have gone past the point of no return with regard to preventing "hothouse Earth". That is, global warming is going to get worse no matter what we do from now on. The only question is how bad it will be.
The most pessimistic outcome would be runaway global warming which changes oceans currents and completely changes the climate of the planet. In that case the combination of vast areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable and the possibility of the creation of "Canfield Oceans" could lead to a mass extinction that would include the human species.
That is not the most likely outcome but it is possible. A more likely outcome of runaway global warming would be large areas of the planet becoming unproductive and uninhabitable, leading to widespread famine and mass migration, leading to war. That in itself would lead to a mass die off of the human species, although not an extinction level event, with the resultant fall of our modern civilization, which would worsen the die off. The number of humans that would die in this scenario would be in the billions and we would be cast back into the dark ages. All of the progress we have achieved in the past 2000 years would be lost.
However, the human species is resilient and it has a very healthy survival instinct. As such, I do believe that our species will realize the danger with enough time to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gases and to develop effective eco-engineering technologies to prevent the worst effects of global warming and climate change. They will still be disruptive and destructive. Many human will die but our civilization will survive.
So humans will survive but they will still need to face the impacts of automation and the West will need to deal with the impacts on the rise of China.
Taking the pessimistic point of view I can see China changing the way the world economy works once they have achieved economic and political primacy. When the West was running the show all of the Western countries had to integrate their economies in order to create sufficient wealth to keep their populations generally happy and satisfied. The same in not true of China. They have a population of over a billion people and a large number of them are still not part of the Chinese middle class. When China reaches the pinnacle of the world economy it will be able to reach even greater heights just by elevating its own people into the middle class. It will not need to trade with the West in order to create wealth. Further, China is spending over a trillion dollars in Africa and Asia to help countries on those continents of develop. Like all aid this funding is tied to Chinese priorities. So just when they are rising the top of the economic and political heap they will have a further billion or two people beholden to them in Africa and Asia.
It would not be surprising if the Chinese close their economy and demand their client states to only trade with China and themselves when they overtake the US as the largest economy in the world. They will not need the West to generate wealth and the West has a history of abusing China in the past which may motivate the Chinese leadership to attempt to even the score. That would reduce the ability of the West to generate wealth at its current levels. In fact, it would probably cause the Western economies to shrink, if not totally collapse.
Then there is automation. If the Chinese move to freeze out the West from markets in Asia and Africa is combined with the impacts of automation then things would only be worse for the West. Huge numbers of people in the West would be in such dire financial straits that the destruction of the Western democracies would probably be inevitable. Automation will impact China as well but they will be in a better position to absorb those impacts.
I have stated in the space before that I believe a large segment of the ruling classes in the West see the negative impacts of the rise of China and increased automation and that they are preparing for it by concentrating wealth and power so that they will be able to ride out the coming economic and political upheavel in the West. I have also stated that there is another segment of ruling class in the West who believe that the negative impacts of these two events can be mitigated by investing in their societies and peoples and preventing the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands. These two opposing views will inform the political and economic debate in the West for the next couple of decades.
In the pessimistic view of the future those that would concentrate wealth and power into their own hands will prevail.
This is just one possible future that could result from the impacts of climate change, automation and the rise of China. My own opinion is that this future is the more likely one at this time. Those that would concentrate wealth and power into their hands are winning the debate so far. Hell, they are framing the debate, and history has demonstrated that he who frames the debate wins it almost every time. There is still time for the other side to push back but so far they have been completely ineffective. That could change in the next couple of decades but my gut tells me not to hold your brealth waiting for that to happen.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
A Future Triple Whammy
There are three situations that will have a great impact on Western society and according to what I have read all three of them will peak in about 25 years.
The first situation is that automation will destroy more than 50% of the existing jobs in the Western world by about 2040 to 2050. That is the net loss after taking into account the jobs that will be created in the same time period.
The second situation is, if current trends continue, the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy by about 2040. I have written here many times that when that happens it will have a profound impact on the Western economies and the societies underpinned by them.
It is believed that the greatest effects of climate change will begin to be felt around 2040, 2050 at the latest.
Just one of these three events will cause a tremendous amount of disruption within the Western world. The negative impacts of any one of these events would put horrendous pressure, not just on Western governments but on their very democratic foundations. It is conceivable that one or more of the Western democracies could fall as a result of the widespread unrest that would be generated by the impacts of just one of these events.
So, you have to ask what is to become of the Western democracies and societies when they could very well be faced by more than one of these events, maybe even all three?
My own feeling is none would survive as true democracies. They may have some last vestiges of democracy but fundementally all of the democracies will fade away to be replaced by something else.
We are currently feeling the beginnings of the impacts of all three situations and it is leading to widespread unrest. That unrest has to lead to the rise of demogogues and more authoritarian measures taken by governments to maintain "order". So far, they have directed those authoritarian measures at people from outside of their own societies but once the security apparatuses, which are currently directed at outsiders, becomes securely entrenched within their respective countries they will be turned inwards.
I have written here before that the current ruling elites in the West see the dangers posed by the three situations I described above. I have also stated that they can deal with this by reducing income and wealth inequality or they can handle it by concentrating economic and political power into their hands and use force to maintain order. Currently, the approach being taken by all of the Western democracies is the latter. That could change in the next decade or so but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will not. My fear is actually that it will accelerate.
Being north of 50 I will be around to see the transition of our democracies into authoritarian societies but I will probably be gone before the transition is complete. It is our children and grandchildren who will be the most impacted by the fallout of climate change, automation and the rise of China.
The first situation is that automation will destroy more than 50% of the existing jobs in the Western world by about 2040 to 2050. That is the net loss after taking into account the jobs that will be created in the same time period.
The second situation is, if current trends continue, the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy by about 2040. I have written here many times that when that happens it will have a profound impact on the Western economies and the societies underpinned by them.
It is believed that the greatest effects of climate change will begin to be felt around 2040, 2050 at the latest.
Just one of these three events will cause a tremendous amount of disruption within the Western world. The negative impacts of any one of these events would put horrendous pressure, not just on Western governments but on their very democratic foundations. It is conceivable that one or more of the Western democracies could fall as a result of the widespread unrest that would be generated by the impacts of just one of these events.
So, you have to ask what is to become of the Western democracies and societies when they could very well be faced by more than one of these events, maybe even all three?
My own feeling is none would survive as true democracies. They may have some last vestiges of democracy but fundementally all of the democracies will fade away to be replaced by something else.
We are currently feeling the beginnings of the impacts of all three situations and it is leading to widespread unrest. That unrest has to lead to the rise of demogogues and more authoritarian measures taken by governments to maintain "order". So far, they have directed those authoritarian measures at people from outside of their own societies but once the security apparatuses, which are currently directed at outsiders, becomes securely entrenched within their respective countries they will be turned inwards.
I have written here before that the current ruling elites in the West see the dangers posed by the three situations I described above. I have also stated that they can deal with this by reducing income and wealth inequality or they can handle it by concentrating economic and political power into their hands and use force to maintain order. Currently, the approach being taken by all of the Western democracies is the latter. That could change in the next decade or so but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will not. My fear is actually that it will accelerate.
Being north of 50 I will be around to see the transition of our democracies into authoritarian societies but I will probably be gone before the transition is complete. It is our children and grandchildren who will be the most impacted by the fallout of climate change, automation and the rise of China.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Homo Deus is Yuval Noah Harari's second book and while Sapiens was a look at the history of Homo sapiens, Homo Deus is a look ahead into the future.
It is a speculative book and the author admits that it is not prophecy but a look at the possible future of our species and our world.
This book is more provocative than his first book asserting some ideas that could be considered rather controversial.
As with my post on Sapiens I will not summarize the whole book. Instead I would point out three ideas in the book that stood out for me.
The first one is Dr. Harari points out why the very religious have such a hatred for the Theory of Evolution. As he indicates the very religious do not have any problems with other scientific theories such as Relativity. However, they really get worked up by Evolution.
As he points out the very religious believe that God created the universe and he created humans. When He created humans He infused them with the soul which gives us the ability to enjoy life after death.
The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, states that we arrived on this planet as a result of a random set of changes to our DNA over the course of millions, even billions of years. Since the Theory of Evolution indicates that we arrived at random, instead of by means of a higher power, that would mean the Theory precludes us from having a soul.
That is bad enough for the very religious but if you take the logic a little further then the Theory of Evolution could be used as evidence to deny the existance of God. If God did not create humans and give them a soul then you can legitimately ask the question whether He exists at all and plausibly say 'No". So, the Theory of Evolution strikes directly at the central tenent of all of the Abrahamic religions which would explain why those who cleave to those religions very closely would consider it a threat and would hate it as much as they do.
The second idea that stood out for me was he is yet one more author who sees automation as something that will fundementally change our socieites and our economies. He calls automation algorithms and he states that algorithms will eventually create a class of people he called the "useless class". These would be a large number of people who would not only be unemployed but they would be unemployable. They would be people "devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society".
This is not a new idea. It has been around for awhile but when we take it with the third idea that stood out for me it gains a fair amount of signficance.
A third idea that he points out is the 20th Century was the era of the masses. Governments needed masses of reasonably educated and healthy people to man all of the factories that produced all of the modern goods we consumed and to man the armies that were needed to fight the two great world struggles of the 20th Century. As a result, governments and businesses spent a tremendous amount of money on public education and public health care and created other tools to keep the masses happy enough so that they would quietly work away at creating our current societies.
Dr. Harari then points out that the era of the masses is probably coming to a close. With increased automation our societies and economies no longer need masses of people to man the factories. Instead the only workers that are needed are those trained to develop and maintain the algorithms. As well, militaries no longer needs masses of people achieve their objectives. They only need a small number of "super soldiers" (special forces) and people to maintain and develop the algorithms that are increasingly being used to run the worlds military orgaizations.
The question then becomes, if the masses are not needed for the factories and the armies, would governments, the owners of the algorithms (who stand to make billions) and business continue to be willing provide funding for the masses to become reasonably educated and to stay reasonably healthy?
Dr. Harari does not state any concrete responses to that question. However, you just need to look at the actions and policies of some of the more conservative politicians in the world and their allies in the business community to know that there are some who would abandon the "useless class". However, there are other politicians and business people who would not. The most interesting question that will need to be answered over the next couple of decades is which one of these two sides will prevail?
Those ideas are just three of many put forward by Dr. Harari in Homo Deus. I would highly recommend this book to anybody who would be interested in seeing one of the possible futures of our world.
It is a speculative book and the author admits that it is not prophecy but a look at the possible future of our species and our world.
This book is more provocative than his first book asserting some ideas that could be considered rather controversial.
As with my post on Sapiens I will not summarize the whole book. Instead I would point out three ideas in the book that stood out for me.
The first one is Dr. Harari points out why the very religious have such a hatred for the Theory of Evolution. As he indicates the very religious do not have any problems with other scientific theories such as Relativity. However, they really get worked up by Evolution.
As he points out the very religious believe that God created the universe and he created humans. When He created humans He infused them with the soul which gives us the ability to enjoy life after death.
The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, states that we arrived on this planet as a result of a random set of changes to our DNA over the course of millions, even billions of years. Since the Theory of Evolution indicates that we arrived at random, instead of by means of a higher power, that would mean the Theory precludes us from having a soul.
That is bad enough for the very religious but if you take the logic a little further then the Theory of Evolution could be used as evidence to deny the existance of God. If God did not create humans and give them a soul then you can legitimately ask the question whether He exists at all and plausibly say 'No". So, the Theory of Evolution strikes directly at the central tenent of all of the Abrahamic religions which would explain why those who cleave to those religions very closely would consider it a threat and would hate it as much as they do.
The second idea that stood out for me was he is yet one more author who sees automation as something that will fundementally change our socieites and our economies. He calls automation algorithms and he states that algorithms will eventually create a class of people he called the "useless class". These would be a large number of people who would not only be unemployed but they would be unemployable. They would be people "devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society".
This is not a new idea. It has been around for awhile but when we take it with the third idea that stood out for me it gains a fair amount of signficance.
A third idea that he points out is the 20th Century was the era of the masses. Governments needed masses of reasonably educated and healthy people to man all of the factories that produced all of the modern goods we consumed and to man the armies that were needed to fight the two great world struggles of the 20th Century. As a result, governments and businesses spent a tremendous amount of money on public education and public health care and created other tools to keep the masses happy enough so that they would quietly work away at creating our current societies.
Dr. Harari then points out that the era of the masses is probably coming to a close. With increased automation our societies and economies no longer need masses of people to man the factories. Instead the only workers that are needed are those trained to develop and maintain the algorithms. As well, militaries no longer needs masses of people achieve their objectives. They only need a small number of "super soldiers" (special forces) and people to maintain and develop the algorithms that are increasingly being used to run the worlds military orgaizations.
The question then becomes, if the masses are not needed for the factories and the armies, would governments, the owners of the algorithms (who stand to make billions) and business continue to be willing provide funding for the masses to become reasonably educated and to stay reasonably healthy?
Dr. Harari does not state any concrete responses to that question. However, you just need to look at the actions and policies of some of the more conservative politicians in the world and their allies in the business community to know that there are some who would abandon the "useless class". However, there are other politicians and business people who would not. The most interesting question that will need to be answered over the next couple of decades is which one of these two sides will prevail?
Those ideas are just three of many put forward by Dr. Harari in Homo Deus. I would highly recommend this book to anybody who would be interested in seeing one of the possible futures of our world.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens is a book by Yuval Noah Harari. It is a short history of the human species from its time as hunter-gatherers on the African savannah into modern times and a little beyond. I highly recommend it to anybody interested in how got here.
I will not try to summarize what he wrote. However, one thing that really stood out for me when I read the book is just how murderous our species is to other species.
Scientists agree that we are currently experiencing a mass extinction in the world. They even call it the 6th mass extinction. The evidence to support this is very compelling but one of the things that is misleading about it is science gives the impression that it is a recent phenomenon. That is, it has only been going on for a few decades or a couple of centuries at the most. Essentially, since humans discovered industrialization and science.
Dr. Harari points out that in actual fact the mass extinction began over 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens began to move out of their ancestral home in the African savannah to all parts of the globe. Dr. Harari points out that whenever Sapiens showed up in a certain part of the globe animals, plants, birds and other wildlife began to die off.
Whole species of animals, large and small, went extinct, usually just centuries after the arrival of Homo sapiens. This includes other species humans such as Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. In Africa, Asia, North and South American and Australia, whenever Homo sapiens showed up, native living species died off. The evidence is compelling that the causes of these extinctions was human activity. There does not appear to be any malice intended, although that could be debatable with regard to the other extinct human species, it was just ignorance and lack of awareness of our ancesters about their impact on the world around them.
So, the mass extinction that we are witnessing today began 70,000 years ago as our ancestors spread around the world. It had been slow and steady throughout those 1000s of years but in the last couple of hundred it has accelerated as we harnassed science to do our bidding.
Our ability to change the environment around us to meet our needs and our encroachment into areas of the planet that were inaccessible just a few centuries ago has been a death sentence for thousands of species in the world and it continues to be so as time goes by.
This fact was a revelation to me when I read it in Dr. Harari's book. Up until then I always believed that the mass extinction was a recent phenomenon but now I am aware that it has been going on for 10s of thousands of years. It puts a different perspective on it.
When I believed that it was a recent phenomenon I believed that we would be able to stop it. I reasoned that since we only started it a couple of centuries ago we could change our behaviour and stop it. I no longer believe that. I no longer believe the current mass extinction can be stopped. Although I am saddened by it I now believe the continuation of the current mass extinction is inevitable. It is just not in our power to prevent it. The simple fact is we as a species are a walking death sentence to our fellow creatures, particularly those in the wild, we always have been and we will continue to be so until we kill off most of the life on this planet or the planet decides that a major correction is necessary and we join those species on the extinction list.
Some would argue that we have evolved to the point where we should be able to stop the mass extinction. I do not believe that and you only need to see what is happening in the world to see that I have reasons for my doubts. We know what we are doing to our planet but not enough of us care enough to gather up the collective will to put a stop to it. The simple fact is we have not evolved that much in the last 2 million years. You take someone from downtown Ottawa and plunk them down into a hunter-gatherer society a million years in the past and, except for the lifestyle, our ancestors would be recognizable by our modern city dweller.
So, although I believe we still need to fight the good fight to stop the mass extinction I believe that we should also be resigned to the fact that it is a fight we cannot win. Maybe by some miracle Sapiens will suddenly change their ways but I do not believe that will happen. It is sad to see the destruction of species that I grew up learning about in elementary and secondary school but I no longer believe that there is anything we can do to stop it.
I will not try to summarize what he wrote. However, one thing that really stood out for me when I read the book is just how murderous our species is to other species.
Scientists agree that we are currently experiencing a mass extinction in the world. They even call it the 6th mass extinction. The evidence to support this is very compelling but one of the things that is misleading about it is science gives the impression that it is a recent phenomenon. That is, it has only been going on for a few decades or a couple of centuries at the most. Essentially, since humans discovered industrialization and science.
Dr. Harari points out that in actual fact the mass extinction began over 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens began to move out of their ancestral home in the African savannah to all parts of the globe. Dr. Harari points out that whenever Sapiens showed up in a certain part of the globe animals, plants, birds and other wildlife began to die off.
Whole species of animals, large and small, went extinct, usually just centuries after the arrival of Homo sapiens. This includes other species humans such as Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. In Africa, Asia, North and South American and Australia, whenever Homo sapiens showed up, native living species died off. The evidence is compelling that the causes of these extinctions was human activity. There does not appear to be any malice intended, although that could be debatable with regard to the other extinct human species, it was just ignorance and lack of awareness of our ancesters about their impact on the world around them.
So, the mass extinction that we are witnessing today began 70,000 years ago as our ancestors spread around the world. It had been slow and steady throughout those 1000s of years but in the last couple of hundred it has accelerated as we harnassed science to do our bidding.
Our ability to change the environment around us to meet our needs and our encroachment into areas of the planet that were inaccessible just a few centuries ago has been a death sentence for thousands of species in the world and it continues to be so as time goes by.
This fact was a revelation to me when I read it in Dr. Harari's book. Up until then I always believed that the mass extinction was a recent phenomenon but now I am aware that it has been going on for 10s of thousands of years. It puts a different perspective on it.
When I believed that it was a recent phenomenon I believed that we would be able to stop it. I reasoned that since we only started it a couple of centuries ago we could change our behaviour and stop it. I no longer believe that. I no longer believe the current mass extinction can be stopped. Although I am saddened by it I now believe the continuation of the current mass extinction is inevitable. It is just not in our power to prevent it. The simple fact is we as a species are a walking death sentence to our fellow creatures, particularly those in the wild, we always have been and we will continue to be so until we kill off most of the life on this planet or the planet decides that a major correction is necessary and we join those species on the extinction list.
Some would argue that we have evolved to the point where we should be able to stop the mass extinction. I do not believe that and you only need to see what is happening in the world to see that I have reasons for my doubts. We know what we are doing to our planet but not enough of us care enough to gather up the collective will to put a stop to it. The simple fact is we have not evolved that much in the last 2 million years. You take someone from downtown Ottawa and plunk them down into a hunter-gatherer society a million years in the past and, except for the lifestyle, our ancestors would be recognizable by our modern city dweller.
So, although I believe we still need to fight the good fight to stop the mass extinction I believe that we should also be resigned to the fact that it is a fight we cannot win. Maybe by some miracle Sapiens will suddenly change their ways but I do not believe that will happen. It is sad to see the destruction of species that I grew up learning about in elementary and secondary school but I no longer believe that there is anything we can do to stop it.
Monday, June 11, 2018
Justin Trudeau shows Leadership and Backbone
The last few weeks have shown that Mr.Trudeau does not shy away from the hard decisions and he is alot tougher than many of his critics will admit.
The first example was when he decided to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline. That whole situation was a no win one for the government. No matter which decision the government made they were going to piss off a bunch of people.
The ideal solution of course would have been for all of the stakeholders to compromise on the pipeline. The Trudeau government worked very hard to help the various stakeholders to find common ground and come up with an agreement but in the end one was not forthcoming. So, with the deadline looming the Trudeau government made their decision. Whether it is the right decision is up for debate and that debate will not be resolved any time soon. However, they did make a decision. They did not waffle, obfuscate or deflect. They made their decision and they are going to let the chips fall where they may.
The second example is the reaction of the federal government to the new tariffs that the Trump Administration is levying against steel and aluminum as well as the latest temper tantrum by Mr. Trump after the G7 summit.
The Trudeau government is planning on imposing their own tariffs and they have not wavered from that decision. The Trudeau government has answered Mr. Trump's insults with quiet resolve.
Make no mistake a trade war with the United States would not be good for either country but any impact would hit the Canadian economy much more than the US economy. That is just a simple function of the relative sizes of the two economies. Considering what is at stake it would be easy to capitulate but it should be obvious to everybody that if the Canadian government gives in now Mr. Trump will not stop. He would just push for more. He comes from an environment where you win it all or you lose it all. He does not do win-win.
For the last couple of weeks the Trudeau government has been tested like they have never been tested since they won power in 2015. As of today I would say they have passed those tests.
The first example was when he decided to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline. That whole situation was a no win one for the government. No matter which decision the government made they were going to piss off a bunch of people.
The ideal solution of course would have been for all of the stakeholders to compromise on the pipeline. The Trudeau government worked very hard to help the various stakeholders to find common ground and come up with an agreement but in the end one was not forthcoming. So, with the deadline looming the Trudeau government made their decision. Whether it is the right decision is up for debate and that debate will not be resolved any time soon. However, they did make a decision. They did not waffle, obfuscate or deflect. They made their decision and they are going to let the chips fall where they may.
The second example is the reaction of the federal government to the new tariffs that the Trump Administration is levying against steel and aluminum as well as the latest temper tantrum by Mr. Trump after the G7 summit.
The Trudeau government is planning on imposing their own tariffs and they have not wavered from that decision. The Trudeau government has answered Mr. Trump's insults with quiet resolve.
Make no mistake a trade war with the United States would not be good for either country but any impact would hit the Canadian economy much more than the US economy. That is just a simple function of the relative sizes of the two economies. Considering what is at stake it would be easy to capitulate but it should be obvious to everybody that if the Canadian government gives in now Mr. Trump will not stop. He would just push for more. He comes from an environment where you win it all or you lose it all. He does not do win-win.
For the last couple of weeks the Trudeau government has been tested like they have never been tested since they won power in 2015. As of today I would say they have passed those tests.
Sunday, June 10, 2018
The Weakness of the Conservative Movement in Canada
The assertion in the title of this post would seem very odd considering that just three days ago the Conservative Party of Ontario won the 2018 Ontario election very convincingly. However, a closer look at the results backs up my assertion.
The Ontario Conservatives had the best of conditions going into this election. The imcumbent party was deeply unpopular, there was a history of the Third Party being a disaster the one time they won power, and they had a centuries old voting pattern going their way.
So when the votes were counted did the results indicate that the Conservatives won an overwhelming victory?
No.
When the votes were counted it was revealed that the Ontario Conservatives won 40% of the popular vote, that is a minority of the popular vote and only 6 points ahead of party that came in second.
In fact if you look at the total Conservative vote and compare it to the total vote for the "progressive" parties, the Liberals, NDP and the Greens, you would note that the vote count for the progressive parties exceeded that of the Conservatives by more that 20 percentage points. The only reason why the Conservatives won is the progressive vote split.
This situation is my no means unique. It is the norm in Canada. Nationally and provincially Conservative Parties come under 50% in every election. Sometimes they enjoy a split in the progressive vote, and the First-Past-the-Post voting system allows them to take government but when the split does not happen they do not take government.
We only need to look at the recent history at the federal level to see that. Stephen Harper never won more that 39% of the popular vote in four elections. In three of those elections the split in the progressive vote gave him government, with the last one being a majority government. Then in 2015, that split disappeared, the Conservatives only won 30% of the vote compared to the Progressive vote of almost 70% and they lost government. That is, the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a margin of 2-to-1. But even when he won the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a wide margin.
So the Conservative movement in Canada is exceedingly weak and they know it. When Prime Minister Trudeau made his promise to change the way we vote the Conservatives freaked. During the debate about it, after the 2015 election, the Conservatives were the most strident and shrill in putting forward their position that any proposed change must be put to Canadians in a referendum. They know that the current voting system is the only way that they can ever win government. Any other kind of voting system, whether it be Proportional Representation, as favoured by the NDP and the Greens, or preferential ballot as favoured by the Liberals, would greatly reduce the splits in the progressive vote and put the Conservative Party in a nearly impossible electoral bind.
Some would argue that my assertion is wrong by pointing at Alberta and the West. Certainly, that part of the country is more conservative in its thinking but the total population of the West is less that the population of Ontario and even in the west the Conservative vote is not monolithic. There are pockets of strength for the Conservatives in this country but they are relatively small and concentrated and they do not disprove my assertion.
Others would argue that the Liberals have the same problem. They have never hit the 50% mark in winning any of their elections. That is true but the reason is that there are currently two other progressive parties that siphon off progressive votes during every election, the NDP and the Green Party. If they did not exist and there was only one progressive option available to Canadians it is an interesting thought experiment to think about the implications for elections in this country.
In every election in which Conservatives have won government, in the past 50 years, the same pattern has played out every time (except in Alberta and Quebec, which have different politics). A progressive party is in power, usually for a long time, and voters have grown tired of it and sought change. At that point the progressive vote splits between the progressive parties, and the Conservative parties then come up the middle. After a time, when the electorate gets tired of the Conservative government, the split ends and the Conseratives lose. In all cases, whether the Conservatives win or lose, the number of voters who vote for progressive parties far exceeds the number of voters who vote for the Conservative Party.
Over a century of elections has proven that Conservatism in Canada works from a position of weakness. They routinely capture a minority of the vote in every election, being outpolled by the progressive parties by huge margins. Their saving grace is the First-Past-the-Post electoral system and the split in the progressive vote. Without them it is an open question of whether the Conservatives would ever form a government again.
That is profound weakness.
The Ontario Conservatives had the best of conditions going into this election. The imcumbent party was deeply unpopular, there was a history of the Third Party being a disaster the one time they won power, and they had a centuries old voting pattern going their way.
So when the votes were counted did the results indicate that the Conservatives won an overwhelming victory?
No.
When the votes were counted it was revealed that the Ontario Conservatives won 40% of the popular vote, that is a minority of the popular vote and only 6 points ahead of party that came in second.
In fact if you look at the total Conservative vote and compare it to the total vote for the "progressive" parties, the Liberals, NDP and the Greens, you would note that the vote count for the progressive parties exceeded that of the Conservatives by more that 20 percentage points. The only reason why the Conservatives won is the progressive vote split.
This situation is my no means unique. It is the norm in Canada. Nationally and provincially Conservative Parties come under 50% in every election. Sometimes they enjoy a split in the progressive vote, and the First-Past-the-Post voting system allows them to take government but when the split does not happen they do not take government.
We only need to look at the recent history at the federal level to see that. Stephen Harper never won more that 39% of the popular vote in four elections. In three of those elections the split in the progressive vote gave him government, with the last one being a majority government. Then in 2015, that split disappeared, the Conservatives only won 30% of the vote compared to the Progressive vote of almost 70% and they lost government. That is, the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a margin of 2-to-1. But even when he won the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a wide margin.
So the Conservative movement in Canada is exceedingly weak and they know it. When Prime Minister Trudeau made his promise to change the way we vote the Conservatives freaked. During the debate about it, after the 2015 election, the Conservatives were the most strident and shrill in putting forward their position that any proposed change must be put to Canadians in a referendum. They know that the current voting system is the only way that they can ever win government. Any other kind of voting system, whether it be Proportional Representation, as favoured by the NDP and the Greens, or preferential ballot as favoured by the Liberals, would greatly reduce the splits in the progressive vote and put the Conservative Party in a nearly impossible electoral bind.
Some would argue that my assertion is wrong by pointing at Alberta and the West. Certainly, that part of the country is more conservative in its thinking but the total population of the West is less that the population of Ontario and even in the west the Conservative vote is not monolithic. There are pockets of strength for the Conservatives in this country but they are relatively small and concentrated and they do not disprove my assertion.
Others would argue that the Liberals have the same problem. They have never hit the 50% mark in winning any of their elections. That is true but the reason is that there are currently two other progressive parties that siphon off progressive votes during every election, the NDP and the Green Party. If they did not exist and there was only one progressive option available to Canadians it is an interesting thought experiment to think about the implications for elections in this country.
In every election in which Conservatives have won government, in the past 50 years, the same pattern has played out every time (except in Alberta and Quebec, which have different politics). A progressive party is in power, usually for a long time, and voters have grown tired of it and sought change. At that point the progressive vote splits between the progressive parties, and the Conservative parties then come up the middle. After a time, when the electorate gets tired of the Conservative government, the split ends and the Conseratives lose. In all cases, whether the Conservatives win or lose, the number of voters who vote for progressive parties far exceeds the number of voters who vote for the Conservative Party.
Over a century of elections has proven that Conservatism in Canada works from a position of weakness. They routinely capture a minority of the vote in every election, being outpolled by the progressive parties by huge margins. Their saving grace is the First-Past-the-Post electoral system and the split in the progressive vote. Without them it is an open question of whether the Conservatives would ever form a government again.
That is profound weakness.
Friday, June 08, 2018
2018 Ontario Election: The Usual call for changing the voting system
After the votes were counted it has been revealed that, once again, the winning party has won a majority government despite only winning a plurality of the votes.
The Ontario Conservative Party won around 75 seats by capturing 40 percent of the votes cast last night.
This has triggered the usual calls for changing the voting system, with the most popular call being for some sort of Proportional Representation (PR). The proponents of PR like to believe and would like you to believe that it is the "most democratic" method of electing governments. I disagree as I have written here and here.
In addition to the issues I outline in the two posts I linked to there is another major flaw in PR.
In Canada we do not elect parties or leaders. Certainly the leader and their political party take a prominent role during election campaigns but when I went to vote last night, in the riding of Ottawa West-Nepean, Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horvath were not on the ballot paper handed to me. Instead it was the names of my local candidates. If the local candidate that won last night turns out to be incompetent, a crook or a pedofile I will have the opportunity to kick his ass to the curb during the next election.
The same is not true in election done by PR. In most cases, when the votes are counted, the people chosen to become elected officials are chosen from party lists. That is, they never actually faced the electorate. Further depending on their stature in the party they may never have to face any electoral consequences even if they are incompetent, crooks or pedofiles. If they do not have to face the electorate directly then they can never be voted out. This is how Silvo Berlusconi managed to stay on as Prime Minister of Italy for so long despite the fact most Italians thought he was a crook. He never had to directly face voters. His party won enough of the votes to get the first crack at forming government and he was the leader of that party. His coalition partners always put the opportunity to have power ahead of any principle.
Some would argue that his party would face those consequences but that is not backed up by evidence. In a PR system a party losing an election, even by a large margin, is not always an inhibiting factor in the ability of that party to attain power or for an unpopular politician to stick around and continue to exercise power even if the majority of the electorate want them gone.
Look at the Ontario election. The Conservatives won 40 percent of the popular vote, the NDP 34 and the Liberals 19. In a PR system none of the parties would have the ability to form a government without help from one of the other parties. Unless, the Conservatives and the NDP were to decide on forming a grand coalition the most likely outcome would be either a Conservative or an NDP coalition government with the Liberals as the junior coalition partner. So in other words, despite the fact that Kathleen Wynne was personally unpopular with the Ontario electorate, her party would still be part of the government and she could conceivably hang onto the party leadership or at least hang on as a Member of the Provincial Parliament.
Incidentally, in the PR system coalitions become the norm. The partners in the coalition divide up the cabinet posts and political patronage positions between them. The dominent party takes most or all of the really important posts but the junior partner takes some significant post and exercises extensive influence on the decisions of the governing coalition.
Proponents of PR point to Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) as a solution to this problem. In MMP some political candidates face the voters directly as they do with the current system of voting. Unfortunately, this method will not elect the number of legislators equal to the popular vote. All parties would experience a shortfall of the number of elected members. As a result once all of the votes are counted and the popular vote is known the number of elected members is filled out to match the popular vote using party lists, creating the same problems as I indicated above.
The-First-Past-the-post voting system is not perfect. It certainly has some flaws, including some serious one. However, Proportional Representation voting systems have their own very serious flaws. Comparing the two it is a wash. Neither is perfect and neither is the "most democratic" method of choosing a government. If it were used last night the Conservatives would still be forming the government but the Liberals would probably be joining them despite the fact that 81% of the electorate did not want them to be anywhere near the levers of power in the province.
The current system has prevented just that. So although, 60 percent of the electorate did not want a Conservative government, 66% did not want an NDP government and 81% did not want a Liberal government. It did not do it perfectly but the current voting system did allow the electorate of Ontario to express their desires and achieve the electoral result that they wanted.
The Ontario Conservative Party won around 75 seats by capturing 40 percent of the votes cast last night.
This has triggered the usual calls for changing the voting system, with the most popular call being for some sort of Proportional Representation (PR). The proponents of PR like to believe and would like you to believe that it is the "most democratic" method of electing governments. I disagree as I have written here and here.
In addition to the issues I outline in the two posts I linked to there is another major flaw in PR.
In Canada we do not elect parties or leaders. Certainly the leader and their political party take a prominent role during election campaigns but when I went to vote last night, in the riding of Ottawa West-Nepean, Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horvath were not on the ballot paper handed to me. Instead it was the names of my local candidates. If the local candidate that won last night turns out to be incompetent, a crook or a pedofile I will have the opportunity to kick his ass to the curb during the next election.
The same is not true in election done by PR. In most cases, when the votes are counted, the people chosen to become elected officials are chosen from party lists. That is, they never actually faced the electorate. Further depending on their stature in the party they may never have to face any electoral consequences even if they are incompetent, crooks or pedofiles. If they do not have to face the electorate directly then they can never be voted out. This is how Silvo Berlusconi managed to stay on as Prime Minister of Italy for so long despite the fact most Italians thought he was a crook. He never had to directly face voters. His party won enough of the votes to get the first crack at forming government and he was the leader of that party. His coalition partners always put the opportunity to have power ahead of any principle.
Some would argue that his party would face those consequences but that is not backed up by evidence. In a PR system a party losing an election, even by a large margin, is not always an inhibiting factor in the ability of that party to attain power or for an unpopular politician to stick around and continue to exercise power even if the majority of the electorate want them gone.
Look at the Ontario election. The Conservatives won 40 percent of the popular vote, the NDP 34 and the Liberals 19. In a PR system none of the parties would have the ability to form a government without help from one of the other parties. Unless, the Conservatives and the NDP were to decide on forming a grand coalition the most likely outcome would be either a Conservative or an NDP coalition government with the Liberals as the junior coalition partner. So in other words, despite the fact that Kathleen Wynne was personally unpopular with the Ontario electorate, her party would still be part of the government and she could conceivably hang onto the party leadership or at least hang on as a Member of the Provincial Parliament.
Incidentally, in the PR system coalitions become the norm. The partners in the coalition divide up the cabinet posts and political patronage positions between them. The dominent party takes most or all of the really important posts but the junior partner takes some significant post and exercises extensive influence on the decisions of the governing coalition.
Proponents of PR point to Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) as a solution to this problem. In MMP some political candidates face the voters directly as they do with the current system of voting. Unfortunately, this method will not elect the number of legislators equal to the popular vote. All parties would experience a shortfall of the number of elected members. As a result once all of the votes are counted and the popular vote is known the number of elected members is filled out to match the popular vote using party lists, creating the same problems as I indicated above.
The-First-Past-the-post voting system is not perfect. It certainly has some flaws, including some serious one. However, Proportional Representation voting systems have their own very serious flaws. Comparing the two it is a wash. Neither is perfect and neither is the "most democratic" method of choosing a government. If it were used last night the Conservatives would still be forming the government but the Liberals would probably be joining them despite the fact that 81% of the electorate did not want them to be anywhere near the levers of power in the province.
The current system has prevented just that. So although, 60 percent of the electorate did not want a Conservative government, 66% did not want an NDP government and 81% did not want a Liberal government. It did not do it perfectly but the current voting system did allow the electorate of Ontario to express their desires and achieve the electoral result that they wanted.
The 2018 Ontario Election: Historical Voting Patterns
The 2018 Ontario election is over and in a surprise to no one the Ontario Conservative Party won a majority government. There was some kernal of doubt during mid-campaign when the NDP overtook the Liberals and seemed to be poised to keep on going to overtake the Conservatives.
Of course that did not happen and it was always very unlikely to happen. The reason for that is the voters of Ontario have been alternating between Liberal and Conservative governments for almost a century. It is true that Bob Rae managed to break that pattern once but that was an exception.
Incidentally, that dynamic also exists at the Federal level which is why the Trudeau Liberals were able to jump ahead of the NDP in 2015 and take government from the Conservative Party of Canada.
One other aspect of this historical voting pattern is voters do not vote governments out of power after just one term. Again this dynamic works the same way federally
I am going to make a bold prediction just one day after the election. In 2022 the Conservative Party of Ontario will win another majority government. As well, the Liberals will reassert themselves and at least double their seat count during that election, and if things go really well, they will supplant the NDP as the Official Opposition.
As well, I am going to predict that the Federal Liberals are going to win the 2019 election. They will have to work for it but when the ballots are counted they will have another majority government, probably a reduced majority but a majority government none-the-less.
The historical voting pattern I mentioned is strong and nothing I have seen in the past 40 years would indicate that it is weakening. Indeed, I would say it is getting stronger. Ontario voters elected a Conservative government despite the facts that their leader is rather sketchy and the party never actually released a detailed election platform. Canadians ignored the NDP Official Opposition, the erstwhile government-in-waiting and handed government to the Third Party in the Federal Parliament.
There are no sure things in politics but it is highly unlikely that we will see a change in this pattern in the near future.
Of course that did not happen and it was always very unlikely to happen. The reason for that is the voters of Ontario have been alternating between Liberal and Conservative governments for almost a century. It is true that Bob Rae managed to break that pattern once but that was an exception.
Incidentally, that dynamic also exists at the Federal level which is why the Trudeau Liberals were able to jump ahead of the NDP in 2015 and take government from the Conservative Party of Canada.
One other aspect of this historical voting pattern is voters do not vote governments out of power after just one term. Again this dynamic works the same way federally
I am going to make a bold prediction just one day after the election. In 2022 the Conservative Party of Ontario will win another majority government. As well, the Liberals will reassert themselves and at least double their seat count during that election, and if things go really well, they will supplant the NDP as the Official Opposition.
As well, I am going to predict that the Federal Liberals are going to win the 2019 election. They will have to work for it but when the ballots are counted they will have another majority government, probably a reduced majority but a majority government none-the-less.
The historical voting pattern I mentioned is strong and nothing I have seen in the past 40 years would indicate that it is weakening. Indeed, I would say it is getting stronger. Ontario voters elected a Conservative government despite the facts that their leader is rather sketchy and the party never actually released a detailed election platform. Canadians ignored the NDP Official Opposition, the erstwhile government-in-waiting and handed government to the Third Party in the Federal Parliament.
There are no sure things in politics but it is highly unlikely that we will see a change in this pattern in the near future.
Sunday, June 03, 2018
Trump's Tariffs
As I have indicated here, here and here I do not believe the benefits of free trade are as great as it proponents indicate. Although it does have some benefits it also has some very large negative impacts on the lives and livelihoods of many ordinary people.
While I would not lose any sleep over the end of NAFTA it is still a treaty that is in place and all signatories to it are compelled to adhere to it. The same is true of the treaty that created the World Trade Organization or the WTO.
A country like the United States is expected to honour its international committments. If it does not it will have consequences for the US beyond a few jobs in the Rust Belt.
By not adhering to NAFTA and its committments under the WTO the United States has indicated that they cannot be trusted to live up to their international commitments. As the United States has many, many, many of them that could spell trouble.
The world is watching the US and there is increasing evidence to indicate that countries are moving to insulate themselves from the negative impacts of the words and actions of the current US administration. For the most part the other Western countries are stuck with the US. They can take some limited actions to mitigate risk but they really do not have any alternative but to work with the United States.
The same cannot be said of the rest of the world. Many of the US committments are with smaller, poorer countries that trade with the US and that provide US consumers with products that can be produced more cheaply that in the US. Many of these countries are probably wondering if the US is willing to risk a trade war with its closest allies what are they willing to do to their countries. Many if not most of these countries have probably been looking at alternatives that do not include sticking with the US and that search might be taking on an increased urgency.
I have stated several times in this space the China is actively working to replace the US as the predominent power in the international community. Using diplomacy and money it is buying influence in the world. It will actively exploit any action by the US that will allow it to pursue this objective. We saw it with the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear deal and I believe the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the US on its closest allies has provided another opportunity for China to expand its global influence. The pitch is obvious. "The US cannot be trusted to live up to its committments but China can be trusted. Let's talk about how we can help you."
The total dollar value of the tariffs that the US administration imposed on Canada is around $16 billion. The GDP of the Canadian economy is over $1 trillion so in the grand scheme of things the impact on the Canadian economy is manageable. Conversely, the total benefit of the tariffs on the US economy, which is 10 times bigger than the Canadian economy, will be negligable.
In short, the total economic impact of the tariffs will not matter but the blow these tariffs will have on the reputation and status of the US will be significant and it will have an impact on any efforts it will take to maintain its influence in the world.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
The Trans Mountain Pipeline
I am rather conflicted on how I feel about the announcement by the federal government about their buying of the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan. The reason for this is I can see both sides of the argument with regard to the pipeline.
On the pro-side petroleum products are pervasive in our lives. They not only heat our houses and provide us with a means of getting around they are used for practically everything we use. Unless you walk around barefoot wearing nothing but cotton, wool and linen you are wearing clothing whose fibres contain petroleum. The same is true if you use any kind of plastic. Virtually every plastic we use contains petroleum. In fact the list of everyday consumer items that use petroleum as part of the manufacturing process, excluding for producing the energy needed for that process, is too large articulate here.
That makes petroleum a valuable commodity and as Canada has a great deal of that commodity it is going to be pulled from the ground. That is a simple reality and there is no way to change that. When it gets pulled from the ground it has to go to market and the most efficient and safe way to do so is by pipeline. Note, pipelines are not perfectly safe but they are safer than the alternatives as the people of Lac Megantic learned a couple of summers ago.
On the con-side the pipeline in question is not going to be used to transport crude oil it is going to be used to transport diluted bitumen, or dilbit. Dilbit is nasty stuff. It is tar sands oil diluted with all sorts of chemicals to liquifiy it and then it is heated to high temperatures and shoved down the pipeline at high pressure. Further dilbit is heavier than water. So, if it spills into a body of water it does not float on the top waiting to be cleaned up it sinks to the bottom. For most bodies of water life begins on the bottom and it supports all other life above it. So, if dilbit were to destroy life on a significant stretch of seafloor all life in the ocean above would be destroyed along with it.
So both sides have strong arguments for and against. The problem is such arguments are almost always hijacked by the extremists on either side.
On the environmental side the extremists come off as a bunch of loonies. One of the arguments that I see alot from them is we need to ween ourselves off of petroleum products and shut down the industry. We can replace it with alternatives like solar and wind energy. Those two are fine examples of alternate ways to generate electricity but until someone finds a way to convert sunlight into material to manufacture the shirt I am wearing or to convert the wind into a container which I can use to store my left-overs, petroleum is here to stay.
Further environmentalists need to convince the broader public that being green will not cost them financially. It is another reality that most people, if they are faced with the choice of helping the environment or meeting their financial needs, will choose meeting their financial needs almost everytime. This is particularly true if the ecological costs will be felt in the future while the financial costs will be felt almost immediately. Many ecologists state that there is money to be made being green. I happen to agree with them but they are still going to have to continually work hard to prove that.
On the business side we see the typical shortsightedness that we have all grown used to seeing from business. As I stated above there is plenty of money to be made going green, even on endeavours that would seem not to be green at its inception but most businesses almost always take the opportunity to miss the opportunity to exploit that potential. As well, there are a large number of people out there who care about the environment. Many of them are motivated and well organized and they can play merry hell with any plans to develop projects like pipelines so business has an incentive to work with environmentalists to maximise their profits or even just to successfully complete projects.
Fortunately, there are pragmatists on both sides of this divide and perhaps they should be looking to work together so that they can demonstrate to everybody that the "choice" between the environment and the economy is a false one. There is no choice. They go hand-in-hand. Businesses can maximise profits considering the environment in their business processes and environmentalist can preserve the environment by helping business to pursue green practices in their business processes.
One note on the government buying the pipeline. I would have preferred that they did not do that but this is not the first time it has happened. For decades governments, of every political stripe, have been providing subsidies and bailouts to private companies in this country. It is a simple reality and it is not going to stop regardless of what politicians promise during election campaigns. So, since I cannot really do anything to stop this practice I am not going to really worry about it. By doing so I will probably live longer.
Oh yes, when is business in this country going to stop shipping raw materials to other countries for processing? One of my pet peeves is the Canadian practice of selling our raw resources to other countries, which then process it into a finished product and sell it back to us at a markup. We should be doing that ourselves. Unfortunately, Canada is a first rate country with a fourth rate business class, who do not have the motivation and the smarts to come up with new and innovative ways to make more money on the development of our resources.
So after all of this how to I feel about the government's decision? I am still conflicted.
On the pro-side petroleum products are pervasive in our lives. They not only heat our houses and provide us with a means of getting around they are used for practically everything we use. Unless you walk around barefoot wearing nothing but cotton, wool and linen you are wearing clothing whose fibres contain petroleum. The same is true if you use any kind of plastic. Virtually every plastic we use contains petroleum. In fact the list of everyday consumer items that use petroleum as part of the manufacturing process, excluding for producing the energy needed for that process, is too large articulate here.
That makes petroleum a valuable commodity and as Canada has a great deal of that commodity it is going to be pulled from the ground. That is a simple reality and there is no way to change that. When it gets pulled from the ground it has to go to market and the most efficient and safe way to do so is by pipeline. Note, pipelines are not perfectly safe but they are safer than the alternatives as the people of Lac Megantic learned a couple of summers ago.
On the con-side the pipeline in question is not going to be used to transport crude oil it is going to be used to transport diluted bitumen, or dilbit. Dilbit is nasty stuff. It is tar sands oil diluted with all sorts of chemicals to liquifiy it and then it is heated to high temperatures and shoved down the pipeline at high pressure. Further dilbit is heavier than water. So, if it spills into a body of water it does not float on the top waiting to be cleaned up it sinks to the bottom. For most bodies of water life begins on the bottom and it supports all other life above it. So, if dilbit were to destroy life on a significant stretch of seafloor all life in the ocean above would be destroyed along with it.
So both sides have strong arguments for and against. The problem is such arguments are almost always hijacked by the extremists on either side.
On the environmental side the extremists come off as a bunch of loonies. One of the arguments that I see alot from them is we need to ween ourselves off of petroleum products and shut down the industry. We can replace it with alternatives like solar and wind energy. Those two are fine examples of alternate ways to generate electricity but until someone finds a way to convert sunlight into material to manufacture the shirt I am wearing or to convert the wind into a container which I can use to store my left-overs, petroleum is here to stay.
Further environmentalists need to convince the broader public that being green will not cost them financially. It is another reality that most people, if they are faced with the choice of helping the environment or meeting their financial needs, will choose meeting their financial needs almost everytime. This is particularly true if the ecological costs will be felt in the future while the financial costs will be felt almost immediately. Many ecologists state that there is money to be made being green. I happen to agree with them but they are still going to have to continually work hard to prove that.
On the business side we see the typical shortsightedness that we have all grown used to seeing from business. As I stated above there is plenty of money to be made going green, even on endeavours that would seem not to be green at its inception but most businesses almost always take the opportunity to miss the opportunity to exploit that potential. As well, there are a large number of people out there who care about the environment. Many of them are motivated and well organized and they can play merry hell with any plans to develop projects like pipelines so business has an incentive to work with environmentalists to maximise their profits or even just to successfully complete projects.
Fortunately, there are pragmatists on both sides of this divide and perhaps they should be looking to work together so that they can demonstrate to everybody that the "choice" between the environment and the economy is a false one. There is no choice. They go hand-in-hand. Businesses can maximise profits considering the environment in their business processes and environmentalist can preserve the environment by helping business to pursue green practices in their business processes.
One note on the government buying the pipeline. I would have preferred that they did not do that but this is not the first time it has happened. For decades governments, of every political stripe, have been providing subsidies and bailouts to private companies in this country. It is a simple reality and it is not going to stop regardless of what politicians promise during election campaigns. So, since I cannot really do anything to stop this practice I am not going to really worry about it. By doing so I will probably live longer.
Oh yes, when is business in this country going to stop shipping raw materials to other countries for processing? One of my pet peeves is the Canadian practice of selling our raw resources to other countries, which then process it into a finished product and sell it back to us at a markup. We should be doing that ourselves. Unfortunately, Canada is a first rate country with a fourth rate business class, who do not have the motivation and the smarts to come up with new and innovative ways to make more money on the development of our resources.
So after all of this how to I feel about the government's decision? I am still conflicted.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Conceding the world
I have argued a few times in this space that China is poised to become the premier power in the world, replacing the United States at the pinnacle of the international community.
It is in the interests of the United States to delay this transition as much as possible to allow the Western world to adjust to the new reality and just as importantly to allow the American people to adjust to it. Within a generation the American people will be faced with the reality that they and their country are not "touched by God" and "destined to rule the world". That fact will cause a great deal of angst amongst the American people once it becomes clear to them.
Which is why the decisions to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and to put the US embassy to Israel in Jerusalem are so wrong headed.
Make no mistake, the Chinese wants to replace the United States at the top of the international food chain. They are working very diligently to make it happen. For the most part they are doing it with money, which they have alot of and which they are spreading around very thickly in many parts of the world.
However, the Chinese are also going to take advanatage of any actions by the US government to allow it to use money and diplomacy to further their interests. The US gave them two openings this week.
The first is the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement and told the other signatories that they have to as well. Both China and Russia told the Trump Administration to piss up a rope. Therefore, any sanctions imposed by the US will be completely ineffective and all they will do is push Iran further into the Chinese camp. Iran is an important player in the Middle East so where it goes so goes its vassal states and organizations.
Fortunately for the United States Iran is not very popular with the Arab States. They could have acted as a counterweight to Iran in the region. However, it is going to be difficult to convince them to assist the US in pursuing its goals in the region after opening an embassy in Jerusalem. The US has always supported Israel over the Arabs and many of the Arab states have accepted that as the price of doing business. Putting an embassy in Jersalem, which is just as important to Muslims as it is to Jews and Christians is a real slap in the face to all Arabs, including those Arab states that have supported US policies in the region. A relationship that has been fraying for the better part of a decade is going to become even more threadbare and that is without the Chinese using the embassy decision to convince the Arab states that they have a better friend in China than the US, which you know they are going to do.
The Chinese are using money to buy influence in Africa, parts of South American and parts of Asia. Now the US has given them a diplomatic opening to increase their influence in the Middle East. Looking at the trend very soon the only influence that the West will be able to wield will be on itself. Large swaths of the planet that used to look to the West for assistance and guidance are being diligently worked on by China and very soon they will be the ones with the greatest influence in these regions.
The rise of China could create a new Cold War. If that is the case then the US is already well on its way to losing that war with the actions and decisions of the current Administration.
It is in the interests of the United States to delay this transition as much as possible to allow the Western world to adjust to the new reality and just as importantly to allow the American people to adjust to it. Within a generation the American people will be faced with the reality that they and their country are not "touched by God" and "destined to rule the world". That fact will cause a great deal of angst amongst the American people once it becomes clear to them.
Which is why the decisions to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and to put the US embassy to Israel in Jerusalem are so wrong headed.
Make no mistake, the Chinese wants to replace the United States at the top of the international food chain. They are working very diligently to make it happen. For the most part they are doing it with money, which they have alot of and which they are spreading around very thickly in many parts of the world.
However, the Chinese are also going to take advanatage of any actions by the US government to allow it to use money and diplomacy to further their interests. The US gave them two openings this week.
The first is the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement and told the other signatories that they have to as well. Both China and Russia told the Trump Administration to piss up a rope. Therefore, any sanctions imposed by the US will be completely ineffective and all they will do is push Iran further into the Chinese camp. Iran is an important player in the Middle East so where it goes so goes its vassal states and organizations.
Fortunately for the United States Iran is not very popular with the Arab States. They could have acted as a counterweight to Iran in the region. However, it is going to be difficult to convince them to assist the US in pursuing its goals in the region after opening an embassy in Jerusalem. The US has always supported Israel over the Arabs and many of the Arab states have accepted that as the price of doing business. Putting an embassy in Jersalem, which is just as important to Muslims as it is to Jews and Christians is a real slap in the face to all Arabs, including those Arab states that have supported US policies in the region. A relationship that has been fraying for the better part of a decade is going to become even more threadbare and that is without the Chinese using the embassy decision to convince the Arab states that they have a better friend in China than the US, which you know they are going to do.
The Chinese are using money to buy influence in Africa, parts of South American and parts of Asia. Now the US has given them a diplomatic opening to increase their influence in the Middle East. Looking at the trend very soon the only influence that the West will be able to wield will be on itself. Large swaths of the planet that used to look to the West for assistance and guidance are being diligently worked on by China and very soon they will be the ones with the greatest influence in these regions.
The rise of China could create a new Cold War. If that is the case then the US is already well on its way to losing that war with the actions and decisions of the current Administration.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
The governments we deserve
The Ontario election is underway and when all of the dust settles I imagine that we will have Premier Doug Ford leading a Progressive Conservative government.
Judging by what we have seen and heard from him in the early campaign and throughout his political life we can probably expect government polices along the lines of what we saw with Mike Harris, only being delivered by someone with alot less class.
In my previous post I mentioned that it is getting harder and harder for ordinary people to stay above water let alone get ahead. The ability of ordinary people, the so called middle class, to meet their basic needs, plan for their retirement and give their children a leg up for their future is eroding at a predigious rate. Hell, I read a survey last week that indicated that the majority of Canadians do not believe the next generation of Canadians will be as financially well off as the current generation. We all know that we are heading in the wrong direction. The signs are there but we cannot seem to figure out how to change direction.
So as a result many of those very same middle class people will vote for politicians who will pursue policies that will increase and accelerate that erosion, such as Doug Ford and the Conservatives. They will pursue the usual Conservative policies of cutting services and cutting taxes to the wealthy and corporations. Three decades of empirical evidence proves that such policies do great harm to the economy and the overall financial health of ordinary people but they do not care because their ideology states the opposite and Conservatives do not let the facts get in the way of their ideology.
So, the cycle will continue. The erosion of the ability of ordinary people to get ahead will continue, probably accelerating under Conservative policies, and the general malaise of ordinary people, as demonstrated by the poll I mentioned above, will intensify.
You have to wonder if and when there will be a breaking point.
Judging by what we have seen and heard from him in the early campaign and throughout his political life we can probably expect government polices along the lines of what we saw with Mike Harris, only being delivered by someone with alot less class.
In my previous post I mentioned that it is getting harder and harder for ordinary people to stay above water let alone get ahead. The ability of ordinary people, the so called middle class, to meet their basic needs, plan for their retirement and give their children a leg up for their future is eroding at a predigious rate. Hell, I read a survey last week that indicated that the majority of Canadians do not believe the next generation of Canadians will be as financially well off as the current generation. We all know that we are heading in the wrong direction. The signs are there but we cannot seem to figure out how to change direction.
So as a result many of those very same middle class people will vote for politicians who will pursue policies that will increase and accelerate that erosion, such as Doug Ford and the Conservatives. They will pursue the usual Conservative policies of cutting services and cutting taxes to the wealthy and corporations. Three decades of empirical evidence proves that such policies do great harm to the economy and the overall financial health of ordinary people but they do not care because their ideology states the opposite and Conservatives do not let the facts get in the way of their ideology.
So, the cycle will continue. The erosion of the ability of ordinary people to get ahead will continue, probably accelerating under Conservative policies, and the general malaise of ordinary people, as demonstrated by the poll I mentioned above, will intensify.
You have to wonder if and when there will be a breaking point.
Politics Matter
I have had more than a few conversations with people who do not believe this is the case. Their argument goes something like this. I vote in elections but no matter who is in power nothing really seems to change.
The problem with that argument is that 99% of politics takes place in between elections and behind closed doors.
If you do not believe me I would point to the fact that in every western democracy there is a broad and deep network of associations, thinktanks and organizations whose function is to push the points of view and the interests of businesses and corporations. These organizations along with the paid lobbyists that that businesses retain to represent them on specific issues cost Canadian businesses 10s of millions of dollars PER YEAR. Business, which is single mindedly concerned with profit, would not spend that kind of money on lobbying governments if they believed it would be ineffective, useless and not conducive to increasing their profits. Or to put it another way they would not invest that money into politics if they believed that politics did not matter.
All of this lobbying takes place outside of elections and for the most part it takes place where no camera or journalist is present to record it.
Lobbying is not evil. It is a necessary activity that helps governments to be effective and responsive to those they govern but it is also necessary that governments hear from a diversity of voices to maximise the efficacy of lobbying on policy making. In theory, when a government proposes a new policy all of those different voices weigh in and they rarely budge from their initial positions. It is up to government to find the compromise and remarkably that compromise almost always winds up being for the greater good. That diversity of voices has increasingly disappeared over the last couple decades with the result being that the voice of the business community has become the dominent one. It used to be that they were balanced out by Unions and other non-business interests but one of the objectives of the lobbying of businesses has been to reduce the ability of non-business interests in maintaining an effective voice with which to influence governments. That is one big reason why businesses and their allies on the right have been so relentless in attacking unions. While they are concerned about labour costs eating into their profits their greater motivation is to monopolize the ear of governments so that they will develop laws and policies that benefit them and only them. Unions are not perfect by any means and they are just as prone to stupidity as any other organization but they can provide alternate points of view which is crucial when making policy.
By the way if you believe that your interests align with the business community in any meaningful way you are naive. Any alignment is coincidental and transitory and government policies made exclusively for their benefit will not benefit you in the long run.
What has been the result? Well, do you feel safe in your job? Do you find it becoming more and more difficult to keep your financial head above water? The Canadian economy is booming , in a relative sense, do you feel that you are personally benefiting from that boom? Or is there always a little bit of fear in the back of your mind that your economic wellbeing is beyond your control and that through no fault of your own it could go off the rails at any time?
A more concrete example of how politics matters. In the current Ontario election I am certain electricity prices will be mentioned a few times. It should be noted that the foundation for the current high prices for electricity was laid in the 1990s when the government of Ontario decided to deregulate the electricity industry in the province. The problem was the electricity industry was a monopoly and it still is. So the government essentially gave a monopoly a free hand to set prices without any interference or accountability. If you have ever played the game of Monopoly it should not be too hard for you to figure out that such actions would lead to higher prices and they have been rising ever since. Incidentally, politicians will be talking about how to deal with high electricity prices in Ontario in the coming weeks. If any solution to high electricity prices spouted by a politician does not include the phrase “re-regulation of the Ontario electricity industry” they are talking out of their ass. The government gave up the power to stop the rise in electricity prices and to hold the electricity industry accountable for the high prices over 20 years ago. That is how it will stay unless they are willing to take back that power, which no Ontario political party has indicated they are prepared to do.
The funny thing is governments (of all political stripes) and business know that the imbalance is causing problems for ordinary people. They know it is creating a general malaise with citizens but they are unwilling to change course for a host of reasons. So instead they seek to distract and misdirect. Really, does anybody find it odd that one of the defining issues of the 2015 federal election was a piece of cloth worn by few thousand Muslim women? The economy was in the shitter but the niqab dominated the election campaign for weeks.
Will things change? No. For that to happen ordinary citizens need to be willing to become more involved in politics in between elections. They will need to be willing to make the effort of maintain sustained pressure on those who govern us to look out for out interests. Hell, ordinary citizens will need to figure out what their interests are for themselves instead of listening to what politicians and the media say are their interests. However, that will not happen. A few of us will try to influence politics for the benefit of the greater good but the majority will carry on in quiet desperation and do nothing.
The problem with that argument is that 99% of politics takes place in between elections and behind closed doors.
If you do not believe me I would point to the fact that in every western democracy there is a broad and deep network of associations, thinktanks and organizations whose function is to push the points of view and the interests of businesses and corporations. These organizations along with the paid lobbyists that that businesses retain to represent them on specific issues cost Canadian businesses 10s of millions of dollars PER YEAR. Business, which is single mindedly concerned with profit, would not spend that kind of money on lobbying governments if they believed it would be ineffective, useless and not conducive to increasing their profits. Or to put it another way they would not invest that money into politics if they believed that politics did not matter.
All of this lobbying takes place outside of elections and for the most part it takes place where no camera or journalist is present to record it.
Lobbying is not evil. It is a necessary activity that helps governments to be effective and responsive to those they govern but it is also necessary that governments hear from a diversity of voices to maximise the efficacy of lobbying on policy making. In theory, when a government proposes a new policy all of those different voices weigh in and they rarely budge from their initial positions. It is up to government to find the compromise and remarkably that compromise almost always winds up being for the greater good. That diversity of voices has increasingly disappeared over the last couple decades with the result being that the voice of the business community has become the dominent one. It used to be that they were balanced out by Unions and other non-business interests but one of the objectives of the lobbying of businesses has been to reduce the ability of non-business interests in maintaining an effective voice with which to influence governments. That is one big reason why businesses and their allies on the right have been so relentless in attacking unions. While they are concerned about labour costs eating into their profits their greater motivation is to monopolize the ear of governments so that they will develop laws and policies that benefit them and only them. Unions are not perfect by any means and they are just as prone to stupidity as any other organization but they can provide alternate points of view which is crucial when making policy.
By the way if you believe that your interests align with the business community in any meaningful way you are naive. Any alignment is coincidental and transitory and government policies made exclusively for their benefit will not benefit you in the long run.
What has been the result? Well, do you feel safe in your job? Do you find it becoming more and more difficult to keep your financial head above water? The Canadian economy is booming , in a relative sense, do you feel that you are personally benefiting from that boom? Or is there always a little bit of fear in the back of your mind that your economic wellbeing is beyond your control and that through no fault of your own it could go off the rails at any time?
A more concrete example of how politics matters. In the current Ontario election I am certain electricity prices will be mentioned a few times. It should be noted that the foundation for the current high prices for electricity was laid in the 1990s when the government of Ontario decided to deregulate the electricity industry in the province. The problem was the electricity industry was a monopoly and it still is. So the government essentially gave a monopoly a free hand to set prices without any interference or accountability. If you have ever played the game of Monopoly it should not be too hard for you to figure out that such actions would lead to higher prices and they have been rising ever since. Incidentally, politicians will be talking about how to deal with high electricity prices in Ontario in the coming weeks. If any solution to high electricity prices spouted by a politician does not include the phrase “re-regulation of the Ontario electricity industry” they are talking out of their ass. The government gave up the power to stop the rise in electricity prices and to hold the electricity industry accountable for the high prices over 20 years ago. That is how it will stay unless they are willing to take back that power, which no Ontario political party has indicated they are prepared to do.
The funny thing is governments (of all political stripes) and business know that the imbalance is causing problems for ordinary people. They know it is creating a general malaise with citizens but they are unwilling to change course for a host of reasons. So instead they seek to distract and misdirect. Really, does anybody find it odd that one of the defining issues of the 2015 federal election was a piece of cloth worn by few thousand Muslim women? The economy was in the shitter but the niqab dominated the election campaign for weeks.
Will things change? No. For that to happen ordinary citizens need to be willing to become more involved in politics in between elections. They will need to be willing to make the effort of maintain sustained pressure on those who govern us to look out for out interests. Hell, ordinary citizens will need to figure out what their interests are for themselves instead of listening to what politicians and the media say are their interests. However, that will not happen. A few of us will try to influence politics for the benefit of the greater good but the majority will carry on in quiet desperation and do nothing.
Monday, January 15, 2018
The End of NAFTA?
Donald Trump has stated that he may just invoke the withdrawal clause of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Something he said he would do during the 2016 US elections.
That has frightened more than a few of the ruling class in this country. They have not begun to preach doom and gloom about it because doing so will not swing Donald Trump one way or another. It would be different if someone in Canada was making these statements.
So, would the ending of the NAFTA really be that big of a deal? Probably not.
Free trade existed between our countries before the NAFTA and it will continue to exist after it is gone. At the time the NAFTA was ratified in North America over 85% of the trade between Canada and the United States occurred without any government interference. The NAFTA and the previous Free Trade Agreement were designed to create free trade for the remaining 15%. Since then the amount of trade that now takes place without any government interference is greater, although not as much as the NAFTA proponents would have us believe. It is now around 90%.
In other words the impact of the NAFTA on the Canadian economy has not been that great and its demise would not be such a disaster for the Canadian economy. Certainly, those sectors of the economy that are most vulnerable to American protectionism would suffer somewhat but over all things would proceed pretty much as business as usual.
In fact, there might even be some hidden benefits to the end of the NAFTA. With the NAFTA, an individual company can sue the Canadian government if it believes that a government is pursuing policies or laws that interfere with the ability of that company to sell its goods or services in Canada. In effect, that has hamstrung Canadian governments when they might have wanted to pass more strigent environmental, labour, health and safety laws and regulations. Further, the more conservative elements of our society have been slowly eroding our single payer health care system and the more progressive elements of our society have not been able to reverse them because once a part of the health care system was privatized it became subject to the NAFTA. So, reversing the privatization was impossible because American or Mexican firms could sue a government, under the NAFTA, to prevent it.
Without the NAFTA progressives in this country would have more freedom to reverse some of economic policies and laws pursued by conservatives without having to worry about running afoul of the treaty.
Which brings me to one of the reasons why the ruling class in this country is so frightend of the end of the NAFTA. I am certain they realize that the actual negative impacts on the Canadian economy would be manageable. What really frightens them is some progressive government may just decide to use its new found freedom in ways that they would not like.
That has frightened more than a few of the ruling class in this country. They have not begun to preach doom and gloom about it because doing so will not swing Donald Trump one way or another. It would be different if someone in Canada was making these statements.
So, would the ending of the NAFTA really be that big of a deal? Probably not.
Free trade existed between our countries before the NAFTA and it will continue to exist after it is gone. At the time the NAFTA was ratified in North America over 85% of the trade between Canada and the United States occurred without any government interference. The NAFTA and the previous Free Trade Agreement were designed to create free trade for the remaining 15%. Since then the amount of trade that now takes place without any government interference is greater, although not as much as the NAFTA proponents would have us believe. It is now around 90%.
In other words the impact of the NAFTA on the Canadian economy has not been that great and its demise would not be such a disaster for the Canadian economy. Certainly, those sectors of the economy that are most vulnerable to American protectionism would suffer somewhat but over all things would proceed pretty much as business as usual.
In fact, there might even be some hidden benefits to the end of the NAFTA. With the NAFTA, an individual company can sue the Canadian government if it believes that a government is pursuing policies or laws that interfere with the ability of that company to sell its goods or services in Canada. In effect, that has hamstrung Canadian governments when they might have wanted to pass more strigent environmental, labour, health and safety laws and regulations. Further, the more conservative elements of our society have been slowly eroding our single payer health care system and the more progressive elements of our society have not been able to reverse them because once a part of the health care system was privatized it became subject to the NAFTA. So, reversing the privatization was impossible because American or Mexican firms could sue a government, under the NAFTA, to prevent it.
Without the NAFTA progressives in this country would have more freedom to reverse some of economic policies and laws pursued by conservatives without having to worry about running afoul of the treaty.
Which brings me to one of the reasons why the ruling class in this country is so frightend of the end of the NAFTA. I am certain they realize that the actual negative impacts on the Canadian economy would be manageable. What really frightens them is some progressive government may just decide to use its new found freedom in ways that they would not like.
Friday, January 12, 2018
The Republican Tax Plan and the Western Position in the World
Just before Christmas the Republicans in the US Congress passed a tax plan that by all accounts was grossly unfair to ordinary Americans by taking money from them and giving it to corporations and the wealthy in the form of huge tax cuts.
They did this despite the fact that all accounts also indicate that the plan was hugely unpopular, not just with Democrats but with Republicans as well. Some would ask why they did this as it would seem to be political suicide. However, I would point to the fact that Roy Moore only lost his election bid by 22,000 votes even though the final few weeks of that campaign occurred at the height of the debate about the Republican tax plan. In other words Republican voters in Alabama knew what was coming but they still voted for the Republican candidate in droves. If Mr. Moore had not had accusations of being a sexual predator hanging over his head the would have won in a walk despite the fact that his voters would have been voting to screw themselves.
The deeper question I have is why the Republicans decided to head in this direction at all? It seems very mean spirited and shortsighted. I think a clue to a reason why can be found in a previous post of mine here.
I have argued in this space before that a change is coming to the economic pecking order in the international community. China is slowly but steadily gaining on the US economy and it is on track to overtake it within the next decade or so. It was slowed by a recent recession but that was only a temporary delay in progress and not a permanent slowdown. Further the actions of the American government and business are only accelerating the change.
I have further argued that once China overtakes the US as the largest economy in the world things are going to change drastically in world politics. There have been many changes in which country has dominated the world economy over the last five to six centuries but the one thing that they all had in common was the change was always from one Western country to another. That is, countries with similar outlooks with regard to religion and philosophy took over from each other. Hell, the last changeover was from Great Britain to the United States, two countries that were similar in many ways including speaking the same language.
The next change is going to be from a Western country to an Eastern country, which has totally different outlooks on the world and world history. As well, there is a history of the West abusing China in the not too distant past that I am certain is on the minds of a few leaders in China.
For this reason I believe as China gains power it will change the way the world economy and world politics works and it will change them in ways that will be detrimental to Western countries. It will not be vindictive it will just be China centric and since it will increasingly be in a position to call the economic and political shots there will be very little that the Western countries will be able to do about the Chinese approach.
The ability of the Western world to generate wealth at its current rate will probably be greatly reduced and many of these Western countries will fall out of the top tier of economies in the world. I believe the US is one of those countries. Certainly it will remain the largest economy in the Western world but it will not have the heft it has now in the broader world economy. In other words, the Western countries are poised to become 2nd world countries.
As a reminder of what that means I will explain. Since the end of the Second World War the big Western economies were the First world countries. They called the economic shots and established (imposed) the Bretton-Woods system on the world economy.
The Second world economies were relatively wealthy countries within the world economy but they were completely beholden to the First World for that wealth. It was only through the liberal trade practices of the First World that the Second World countries could maintain their wealth generating capability for they had no power to affect the world economy in their favour on their own. That is the direction the West is currently heading. In the not to distant future they will no longer be in a position to impact the world economy to the same extent they now can.
There were two things that were very common about 2nd world countries in the past. The first is that, although they were relatively wealthy that wealth was heavily concentrated in the hands of a very small political and economic elite. The ordinary citizens of these countries tended to be poor, often desperately so. The second feature of these countries is they tended to have authoritarian political systems were these very same elites used the power of government to continually concentrate what wealth their countries generated into their hands.
That appears to be the direction the West, in general, and the US, in particular, are headed. The political and economic elites are taking steps in the US to contentrate power and wealth into their hands at a prodigious rate. They are not even trying to disguise it anymore. As well, authoritarianism is becoming more rampant in the US and it is spreading from the top down. It was not surprising to see a teacher being hauled away in handcuffs for questioning the salary of a school superintentant when it should have been. It should be noted however that this is not just a US phenomenon. We are seeing it happening in other Western countries, just not as enthusiastically as in the United States.
A big change is coming in the economic and political pecking order in the international community. A change whose magnitude has probably not been seen in centuries. It is going to have a profound negative impact on the wealth generation abilities of many of the countries that are currently on the top rung of the world economy and it is likely going to knock them off of that top rung. In other words the economic pie is going to become much smaller in these countries which means there will be much less to go around. I believe some in the West have already seen this and they are taking steps to be certain that they will have a much bigger portion of that pie once it begins to shrink. That might explain the actions of the Republican Party in the United States.
They did this despite the fact that all accounts also indicate that the plan was hugely unpopular, not just with Democrats but with Republicans as well. Some would ask why they did this as it would seem to be political suicide. However, I would point to the fact that Roy Moore only lost his election bid by 22,000 votes even though the final few weeks of that campaign occurred at the height of the debate about the Republican tax plan. In other words Republican voters in Alabama knew what was coming but they still voted for the Republican candidate in droves. If Mr. Moore had not had accusations of being a sexual predator hanging over his head the would have won in a walk despite the fact that his voters would have been voting to screw themselves.
The deeper question I have is why the Republicans decided to head in this direction at all? It seems very mean spirited and shortsighted. I think a clue to a reason why can be found in a previous post of mine here.
I have argued in this space before that a change is coming to the economic pecking order in the international community. China is slowly but steadily gaining on the US economy and it is on track to overtake it within the next decade or so. It was slowed by a recent recession but that was only a temporary delay in progress and not a permanent slowdown. Further the actions of the American government and business are only accelerating the change.
I have further argued that once China overtakes the US as the largest economy in the world things are going to change drastically in world politics. There have been many changes in which country has dominated the world economy over the last five to six centuries but the one thing that they all had in common was the change was always from one Western country to another. That is, countries with similar outlooks with regard to religion and philosophy took over from each other. Hell, the last changeover was from Great Britain to the United States, two countries that were similar in many ways including speaking the same language.
The next change is going to be from a Western country to an Eastern country, which has totally different outlooks on the world and world history. As well, there is a history of the West abusing China in the not too distant past that I am certain is on the minds of a few leaders in China.
For this reason I believe as China gains power it will change the way the world economy and world politics works and it will change them in ways that will be detrimental to Western countries. It will not be vindictive it will just be China centric and since it will increasingly be in a position to call the economic and political shots there will be very little that the Western countries will be able to do about the Chinese approach.
The ability of the Western world to generate wealth at its current rate will probably be greatly reduced and many of these Western countries will fall out of the top tier of economies in the world. I believe the US is one of those countries. Certainly it will remain the largest economy in the Western world but it will not have the heft it has now in the broader world economy. In other words, the Western countries are poised to become 2nd world countries.
As a reminder of what that means I will explain. Since the end of the Second World War the big Western economies were the First world countries. They called the economic shots and established (imposed) the Bretton-Woods system on the world economy.
The Second world economies were relatively wealthy countries within the world economy but they were completely beholden to the First World for that wealth. It was only through the liberal trade practices of the First World that the Second World countries could maintain their wealth generating capability for they had no power to affect the world economy in their favour on their own. That is the direction the West is currently heading. In the not to distant future they will no longer be in a position to impact the world economy to the same extent they now can.
There were two things that were very common about 2nd world countries in the past. The first is that, although they were relatively wealthy that wealth was heavily concentrated in the hands of a very small political and economic elite. The ordinary citizens of these countries tended to be poor, often desperately so. The second feature of these countries is they tended to have authoritarian political systems were these very same elites used the power of government to continually concentrate what wealth their countries generated into their hands.
That appears to be the direction the West, in general, and the US, in particular, are headed. The political and economic elites are taking steps in the US to contentrate power and wealth into their hands at a prodigious rate. They are not even trying to disguise it anymore. As well, authoritarianism is becoming more rampant in the US and it is spreading from the top down. It was not surprising to see a teacher being hauled away in handcuffs for questioning the salary of a school superintentant when it should have been. It should be noted however that this is not just a US phenomenon. We are seeing it happening in other Western countries, just not as enthusiastically as in the United States.
A big change is coming in the economic and political pecking order in the international community. A change whose magnitude has probably not been seen in centuries. It is going to have a profound negative impact on the wealth generation abilities of many of the countries that are currently on the top rung of the world economy and it is likely going to knock them off of that top rung. In other words the economic pie is going to become much smaller in these countries which means there will be much less to go around. I believe some in the West have already seen this and they are taking steps to be certain that they will have a much bigger portion of that pie once it begins to shrink. That might explain the actions of the Republican Party in the United States.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Byelections
I have not read any of the commentary on the results of the four by-elections last night but I do know that the Liberals won three of four.
So, if the MSM is true to form many of the political pundits in this country will be claiming that the Liberals had a terrible night last night.
I have stated many times before in this space that by-elections really do not have any predictive power for what will happen during the next general election but it does my heart good to know that that media pundits will always find a way to make any result look bad for the Liberals, regardless of the outcome. It injects a certain constancy and predictability into an otherwise chaotic life.
So, if the MSM is true to form many of the political pundits in this country will be claiming that the Liberals had a terrible night last night.
I have stated many times before in this space that by-elections really do not have any predictive power for what will happen during the next general election but it does my heart good to know that that media pundits will always find a way to make any result look bad for the Liberals, regardless of the outcome. It injects a certain constancy and predictability into an otherwise chaotic life.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Is Freedom of the Press obsolete?
A provocative question to be certain.
However, I believe it needs to be asked.
One of the key requirements for a healthy democracy is a well informed citizenry. It is quite simple. If they are well informed about what is happening in their country citizens will be better equipped to keep those who would govern them on the the right path and they will be better equipped to make certain that their governors are working for the greater good.
The opposite is true. If they are not well informed then citizens are very vulnerable to the words and actions of charlatans who are only in politics for their own very narrow self interests.
The key function of the media or the press is to provide citizens with the information to help them discern fact from fiction. To help them identify the charlatans, avoid electing them and safeguard their rights and freedoms
For more than a couple of decades the main stream media has failed in this very important task. They long ago gave up any semblence of informing their audiences of what is really happening in the world preferring to "inform" their audiences of faux scandals and fake controversies in the effort to make profits. Infotainment has replaced real news and we and our democracies are much poorer for it.
That was bad enough but currently many in the main stream media have begun to act more like propaganda vehicles for individual political parties instead of objective observers of events. This is not a favourable development for democracy. Propaganda, its latest incarnation being faux news, by its very nature is a direct threat to democracy. Propaganda is what autocrats use to legitimise their rule. Propaganda is what those who would curtail our rights and freedoms use to convince us to allow them to do just that.
Freedom of the press was created as a method of keeping our governors honest and to prevent them from setting themselves up as kings. It was created to safeguard democracy. If the press is no longer willing or able to perform that function then the whole concept of a free press is called into question. If the press is going to become an enabler of those who would take away our democratic rights then the concept of a free press might need to be eliminated all together. At the very least controls may need to be applied.
Of course, that does create the paradox of attempting to safeguard democracy by eliminating or severely curtailing a key democratic right. How to square that circle creates a real conundrum. One that I cannot solve in this space but there must be some big thinkers out there who could explore it.
However, it should be noted that with modern information technology there should be no real need for a media filter being placed over what governments do anymore. A more robust use of the internet by government departments to inform citizens of what they are doing would go along way towards providing them with the information they need to keep their governors honest. The same is true of those arms-length governent organizations set up to oversee governments. They now have the ability to report directly to the citizens of their countries without relying on the media. They should begin making much greater use of this capability. There are a great number of details that would need to be ironed out to make certain that government organizations do not use this media in a self-interested fashion but it is doable.
The western democracies are being eroded away. It is not happening quickly but it is happening. A ban on what certain women can wear here, the right for labour to organize there, ever so slowly the rights that our forefathers fought for are melting away like the glaciers of the world. The press, the one institution that could help us to prevent and reverse that trend, is failing its duty at best and contributing to the erosion at worst.
It is time to begin rethinking the sacred nature of the concept of The Freedom of the Press.
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