It was a grave political error to invite Prime Minister Trudeau to the Finance Committee meeting. It was an even bigger error to show up to that meeting with nothing new to ask him, with no great revelation that could have put him off his messaging.
You had to know that he would show up extremely well briefed and they should have known that he would have kept his wits about him regardless of how belligerent they became.
They failed to do all of this and the result is their one-and-only chance to question the PM over WE came and went with the PM on top. He managed to get his message out without any interference by any of the Opposition MPs.
Of course the invitation to appear before the Committee was tendered in the belief that the PM would turn them down, as most PMs in the past would have done. That would have given the Opposition another talking point. I could imagine the panic that gripped the leadership of the Opposition Parties when Mr. Trudeau said yes. At that point the leadership of each party should have got together "in a room" and come up with a strategy on how to question him. Instead, it was amateur hour. None of the Opposition Parties strategized how to question the PM and so all they did was give him a free hour in which to present his side of the story.
Which brings us to the media. Thankfully for the Conservatives and the NDP the media has been pushing the same narrative as them. The media is invested in that narrative as much as the Conservatives and the NDP so they will not let the PM's testimony interfere with that. However, he is the PM so I suspect that what he said will receive a fair amount of attention in the media over the next few hours and that is not good for said narrative.
Oh yes, many would not have been paying attention to this outside of what the media was telling them. So, the first time that many might actually focus on this issue will be to see Justin Trudeau being his usual calm self answering questions from increasingly frustrated and belligerent Opposition MPs.
What about the future? The questioning of the PM was supposed to be the climax. The coup de grace by the opposition. Instead it was a dud. I am certain that they will do their best to keep this thing in the news but once the PM has spoken many will wonder why they would continue to talk about it. You accused the guy of all sort so things. You questioned him on them and he answered the questions. What else is there to say?
A final note, Mr. Trudeau looked like he became more relaxed as the time went on. Hell, a couple of times I would even say he was enjoying himself. I imagine that he went in wondering if they would throw a curve ball at him, some issue or accusation that had not been discussed before, that we would have had to field. As it became obvious that they had nothing new he began to relax.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
A short lesson on Contribution Agreements
The so called "We Scandal" has been occupying the Opposition Parties and the media for some time because, you know, we are not living through a global pandemic. Then again, the Liberals have no one but themselves to blame. If they would just screw up their handling of the pandemic and its economic fallout the Opposition and the media would actually have something substantive with which to criticise them.
Oh well, we are stuck with WE.
I have largely been ignoring the whole thing but I did listen to the public servants who set it up because if we were going to hear facts it would be from them. They did not disappoint.
One fact that stood out was the deal with WE was set up using a Contribution Agreement (CA). That is a key fact. Grants and Contributions are the main avenues for governments to give money to companies and individuals. As a result there are a great number of rules and regulations around providing them.
So what is a grant and what is a contribution? A grant is the government giving money to a recipient after they have met some set eligibility requirements. If you meet the requirements, you receive the funds and there is no control over how you actually spend the funds. Think of grants to university students. You may apply for a grant to help with your tuition but once you receive it you buy a new top-of-the-line stereo system instead. (No that is not what I did with my first student grant in the '80s, during my first year of university)
Contributions are an agreement between the government and a person or organization where the government agrees to provide funds to assist recipients in achieving objectives that align with the priorities of the government. There are eligibility requirements. If the recipient meets them they can then gain access to the funds. How the funds are spent are closely monitored by the government. CAs are legal agreements between the recipient and the Government of Canada.
The key to a Contribution Agreement is the recipient is not given any of the money upfront.
What did this mean for WE? Simple, WE signed a Contribution Agreement with the government to distribute funds to students. The amount was around $900 million but that money was not transferred to WE. It was set aside by the government so that WE could draw down from it to achieve the objectives of the program they were to administer.
Normally, when a recipient enters into a CA they must first prove that they have sufficient funds to achieve the project objectives without government assistance. The CA then stipulates how much government assistance the recipient can expect. Usually it is around 50% of the total. Example: if the recipient has a project that will cost $1 million they can ask for 50% of that from the government. In order to receive this money, however, the recipient actually has to spend the money and then make claims to the government, providing all of the necessary financial documentation, in order to be reimbursed some of their expenses. Usually those expenses include administrative fees, which are usually between 8 and 10% of the original amount and which are not included in the original. So using my example: the recipient would sign a CA for 50% of a $1 million project, for which they would be able to claim $550,000. If a recipient submits a claim for work not agreed to in the CA then it is rejected and the recipient is not reimbursed any funds for that work.
For the WE program it would be unreasonable for the government to expect the charity to have $900 million. As a result the CA was set up to provide WE with a series of cash advances. This does not mean the government just cut them a check. In order to receive the cash advances WE would have had to request them, providing a highly detailed plan of how they would use the cash advance. Once the plan was approved and they received the funds they would then have to track how they spent the funds and submit that to the government. The government would then review those expenses to be certain that they used the money as agreed upon in the CA and the documentation submitted to request the advance. If it was found that they did not use it as agreed upon THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THE MONEY BACK. The cash advances would never be for the whole amount available. WE would have had to submit several cash advance requests over the life of the program in order to receive the funds.
All CAs include plans for auditing how the funds are used by the recipient. If an audit finds that the recipient did not use some of the funds as agreed upon in the CA the recipient WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THAT MONEY BACK. And trust me, if you owe the government money as a result of contravening a CA they will be ruthless in collecting it.
This is a key point because regardless of the relationship of the WE Charity to any government official, or to members of their family, they would not risk putting themselves on the hook for owing the government money by using funds in a way that contravened a CA.
Or to put it another way the founders and the management of the WE Charity would have been taking a very big risk in misappropriating any of the funds made available for their own purposes.
So, the WE Charity was never going to receive $900 million without strings attached and the opportunities to cheat the government would have been almost none existent. Those are the key facts in this whole issue. Most of the rest is partisan BS.
Oh well, we are stuck with WE.
I have largely been ignoring the whole thing but I did listen to the public servants who set it up because if we were going to hear facts it would be from them. They did not disappoint.
One fact that stood out was the deal with WE was set up using a Contribution Agreement (CA). That is a key fact. Grants and Contributions are the main avenues for governments to give money to companies and individuals. As a result there are a great number of rules and regulations around providing them.
So what is a grant and what is a contribution? A grant is the government giving money to a recipient after they have met some set eligibility requirements. If you meet the requirements, you receive the funds and there is no control over how you actually spend the funds. Think of grants to university students. You may apply for a grant to help with your tuition but once you receive it you buy a new top-of-the-line stereo system instead. (No that is not what I did with my first student grant in the '80s, during my first year of university)
Contributions are an agreement between the government and a person or organization where the government agrees to provide funds to assist recipients in achieving objectives that align with the priorities of the government. There are eligibility requirements. If the recipient meets them they can then gain access to the funds. How the funds are spent are closely monitored by the government. CAs are legal agreements between the recipient and the Government of Canada.
The key to a Contribution Agreement is the recipient is not given any of the money upfront.
What did this mean for WE? Simple, WE signed a Contribution Agreement with the government to distribute funds to students. The amount was around $900 million but that money was not transferred to WE. It was set aside by the government so that WE could draw down from it to achieve the objectives of the program they were to administer.
Normally, when a recipient enters into a CA they must first prove that they have sufficient funds to achieve the project objectives without government assistance. The CA then stipulates how much government assistance the recipient can expect. Usually it is around 50% of the total. Example: if the recipient has a project that will cost $1 million they can ask for 50% of that from the government. In order to receive this money, however, the recipient actually has to spend the money and then make claims to the government, providing all of the necessary financial documentation, in order to be reimbursed some of their expenses. Usually those expenses include administrative fees, which are usually between 8 and 10% of the original amount and which are not included in the original. So using my example: the recipient would sign a CA for 50% of a $1 million project, for which they would be able to claim $550,000. If a recipient submits a claim for work not agreed to in the CA then it is rejected and the recipient is not reimbursed any funds for that work.
For the WE program it would be unreasonable for the government to expect the charity to have $900 million. As a result the CA was set up to provide WE with a series of cash advances. This does not mean the government just cut them a check. In order to receive the cash advances WE would have had to request them, providing a highly detailed plan of how they would use the cash advance. Once the plan was approved and they received the funds they would then have to track how they spent the funds and submit that to the government. The government would then review those expenses to be certain that they used the money as agreed upon in the CA and the documentation submitted to request the advance. If it was found that they did not use it as agreed upon THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THE MONEY BACK. The cash advances would never be for the whole amount available. WE would have had to submit several cash advance requests over the life of the program in order to receive the funds.
All CAs include plans for auditing how the funds are used by the recipient. If an audit finds that the recipient did not use some of the funds as agreed upon in the CA the recipient WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PAY THAT MONEY BACK. And trust me, if you owe the government money as a result of contravening a CA they will be ruthless in collecting it.
This is a key point because regardless of the relationship of the WE Charity to any government official, or to members of their family, they would not risk putting themselves on the hook for owing the government money by using funds in a way that contravened a CA.
Or to put it another way the founders and the management of the WE Charity would have been taking a very big risk in misappropriating any of the funds made available for their own purposes.
So, the WE Charity was never going to receive $900 million without strings attached and the opportunities to cheat the government would have been almost none existent. Those are the key facts in this whole issue. Most of the rest is partisan BS.
Sunday, July 26, 2020
The Failing of Canadian Media
Last week the Global Television Network announced layoffs in its news division. This is just the latest announcement by the so called Main Stream Media about job losses. Job losses in the Canadian MSM can probably be called an epidemic by now as I do not believe any Canadian MSM organization has not laid people off in the last couple of years. And there is every indication that they will continue as most of them are still showing some financial difficulties.
So why is the MSM having such a hard time?
There are probably many reasons, not least of which, competition from non traditional sources of news available on the internet. However, I believe one big reason is the Canadian MSM has allowed itself to become propagandists for Conservative parties in Canada. That is a recipe for business failure.
Election, after election have indicated that Conservatives are a minority in this country. They are out-numbered by 2-to-1. So, catering to the minority it going to turn off the majority, which is going to lead to lower revenues and profits.
I am a case in point. I am political animal. I follow politics very closely and I used to watch many of the political news shows, like Power and Politics, quite often. Not any more. I have not watched any of those shows in a long while because they have just become a Conservative echo chamber. Even when they have a non-Conservative on the show it is usually a "Liberal" who has been out of politics for sometime and for whom the Liberal Party has moved on from. As well, I will no longer pay for my news. I do not watch TV news (although I did watch it for about 6 weeks when this pandemic really got started), I do not pay for any newspapers and I will not buy an on-line subscription either.
I am not alone.
By turning their backs on around 70% of their potential audience they essentially set themselves up to fail. Why are they doing this? Well, it is not a secret that much of the Canadian MSM are owned by ideologues who want to use their companies to push the conservative agenda in a quixotic attempt to convert Canada to a conservative country. So it is a race. What will happen first? Canadians will become more conservative or the MSM will essentially fail completely and become totally irrelevant. I would not take any bets on the MSM winning that race.
The funny thing is if a media company were to come along and actually just report the news without the propaganda it would probably make a killing. No spin, no sensationalism, no click bait. Just good old fashioned news that deals with the facts of the story and allows the consumer of it make their own conclusions. I would consume the news from such a company.
No industry can turn its back on 70% of its potential customers and expect to succeed. But that is exactly what the Canadians MSM has done. The outcome of the continued diminishing of the traditional MSM is inevitable unless they change that.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
The Conservatives Missed an Opportunity
A few days ago I wrote a series of posts on Facebook to provide some context around the announced $343 billion deficit from the economic update. I did that because that number is an eye opener. I do not fall for all of the doom and gloom hype surrounding the deficit and debt but even I was rather wide eyed when I saw that number. That number had collective Canadian sticker shock written all over it.
I believed at the time that the Conservatives and the media would jump all over that deficit and the shock it might have caused and keep on jumping all over it for days on end. Instead it only lasted a single news cycle and then quietly went away.
I know why. The Conservatives and the media could not resist a perceived scandal and they have such a low opinion of Canadians that they believe that we cannot pay attention to more than one thing at a time. So, they had to make a choice.
They made the wrong one.
Regardless of what the Conservatives and the media think, scandals, real or otherwise, do not have the staying power that they seem to believe they do. Unless a scandal takes place during or immediately prior to an election they usually do not have a real impact on where voters place their X on the ballot paper. No election will be held for at least another year. The COVID virus will prevent one from happening until it is behind us, with January being the best case scenario for that to happen. As well, none of the Opposition parties are inclined to trigger an election, for a whole host of reasons and the Liberals appear to be focused on governing instead of playing political games.
So, if the Conservatives really want to challenge the Liberals in a year or so they should be laying the groundwork right now and the announced deficit was a big issue in which to start doing that. Most Canadians have been well conditioned by the chattering classes to be wary of deficits and debt, even if that conditioning is predicated on advancing a false narrative about them. Although the current situation would have been used to justify the current deficit, a relentless campaign against it, over the next year, would probably have paid dividends for the Conservatives.
Preston Manning proved that. When he took over as the leader of the Official Opposition in 1993, leading the Reform Party, he launched a relentless campaign against the deficit. He was so single-minded about it that many commentators began to ridicule him about it but it worked. His campaign against the deficit forced the Chretien Liberals to address it. Mr. Manning's plan was pretty simple. Force the government to deal with the deficit, which would have forced them to make some very hard choices around taxes and spending cuts to get it done and hope that the choices they made would make the Liberals so unpopular that Canadians would give the Reform Party a shot. Unfortunately for Mr. Manning his timing sucked and he launched his campaign at the beginning of what would be a 15 year period of very healthy economic growth. The result was employment increased, with the increase in government revenue and the decrease in government expenditures, allowing the government to bring the deficit under control without the tough decisions Mr. Manning was hoping they would have to make. It was a contributing factor to the Liberals' victories in 1997 and 2000.
Give Mr. Manning his due. He was the leader of the last Official Opposition that effectively opposed the government. No Official Opposition party, of any political stripe, has been nearly as effective as the Reform Party was between 1993 and 1997.
Really effective opposition parties play the long game. They take one or two substantive issues where they believe the government will be vulnerable for the foreseeable future and they relentlessly push the government on them. It is a little risky because if they choose the wrong issues they hamstring themselves but it has proven to be the best way to steadily wear down a government. Instead, the current Opposition parties are just pursuing non-issues and personally attacking the PM. Although that might play well to the base and it might bump up the fund raising it is not conducive to long-term success.
Maybe when the Conservatives choose a new leader they will change tack and actually come up with a coherent line of Opposition but considering the candidates for that position I would not count on it. If they do not then the Liberals are the prohibitive favourite to win the next election.
I believed at the time that the Conservatives and the media would jump all over that deficit and the shock it might have caused and keep on jumping all over it for days on end. Instead it only lasted a single news cycle and then quietly went away.
I know why. The Conservatives and the media could not resist a perceived scandal and they have such a low opinion of Canadians that they believe that we cannot pay attention to more than one thing at a time. So, they had to make a choice.
They made the wrong one.
Regardless of what the Conservatives and the media think, scandals, real or otherwise, do not have the staying power that they seem to believe they do. Unless a scandal takes place during or immediately prior to an election they usually do not have a real impact on where voters place their X on the ballot paper. No election will be held for at least another year. The COVID virus will prevent one from happening until it is behind us, with January being the best case scenario for that to happen. As well, none of the Opposition parties are inclined to trigger an election, for a whole host of reasons and the Liberals appear to be focused on governing instead of playing political games.
So, if the Conservatives really want to challenge the Liberals in a year or so they should be laying the groundwork right now and the announced deficit was a big issue in which to start doing that. Most Canadians have been well conditioned by the chattering classes to be wary of deficits and debt, even if that conditioning is predicated on advancing a false narrative about them. Although the current situation would have been used to justify the current deficit, a relentless campaign against it, over the next year, would probably have paid dividends for the Conservatives.
Preston Manning proved that. When he took over as the leader of the Official Opposition in 1993, leading the Reform Party, he launched a relentless campaign against the deficit. He was so single-minded about it that many commentators began to ridicule him about it but it worked. His campaign against the deficit forced the Chretien Liberals to address it. Mr. Manning's plan was pretty simple. Force the government to deal with the deficit, which would have forced them to make some very hard choices around taxes and spending cuts to get it done and hope that the choices they made would make the Liberals so unpopular that Canadians would give the Reform Party a shot. Unfortunately for Mr. Manning his timing sucked and he launched his campaign at the beginning of what would be a 15 year period of very healthy economic growth. The result was employment increased, with the increase in government revenue and the decrease in government expenditures, allowing the government to bring the deficit under control without the tough decisions Mr. Manning was hoping they would have to make. It was a contributing factor to the Liberals' victories in 1997 and 2000.
Give Mr. Manning his due. He was the leader of the last Official Opposition that effectively opposed the government. No Official Opposition party, of any political stripe, has been nearly as effective as the Reform Party was between 1993 and 1997.
Really effective opposition parties play the long game. They take one or two substantive issues where they believe the government will be vulnerable for the foreseeable future and they relentlessly push the government on them. It is a little risky because if they choose the wrong issues they hamstring themselves but it has proven to be the best way to steadily wear down a government. Instead, the current Opposition parties are just pursuing non-issues and personally attacking the PM. Although that might play well to the base and it might bump up the fund raising it is not conducive to long-term success.
Maybe when the Conservatives choose a new leader they will change tack and actually come up with a coherent line of Opposition but considering the candidates for that position I would not count on it. If they do not then the Liberals are the prohibitive favourite to win the next election.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Removing Confederate Symbols
I have always had a problem with the idea of removing Confederate symbols and statues of Confederate generals, in the United States, because the stated reason for doing so is they represent slavery and racism. That is a very simplistic and wrong view of the Confederacy and the Civil War.
The Civil War in the United States was not about slavery. You would not know that when you look at the superficial analysis of that war that dominates public discourse. However, if you look deeper you would understand that slavery was a symptom of the causes of the US Civil War not the actual cause. The reasons for the Civil War are the usual reasons why humans go to war, power and money. The third reason why humans go to war, religion, was not a factor for the Civil War.
Let's look at power first. The United States was formed by taking a bunch of former British colonies and forming them into a federation. A federation is a strong central government governing a group of states or provinces. The states have their own governments and their own powers but the power relationship between the states and the central government greatly favours the central government. The powers of the Federal and State governments for the United States are outlined in the US Constitution and at the time leading up to the Civil War the US federal government was pushing the limits of its powers quite hard. Many at the time believed that the US federal government was overstepping its boundaries and that sentiment was present in both the northern and southern states. As originally written the US Constitution left it up to the STATE GOVERNMENTS to decide whether slavery should be legal or not within their states. So one of the causes of the civil war was the power conflict between the US government and the state governments.
This is important because it had a great potential impact on the economies of the southern states. The economies of the northern states were largely based on industry and manufacturing. Certainly agriculture was an important sector of their economies but those states did not depend on it for most of their economic activity. In the industrialized north black slaves taking jobs away from white wage workers would have been a recipe for insurrection. So the northern economies did not need slavery to function well and had the luxury of abolishing it. However do not believe that its abolition came out of some altruistic impulse to help blacks in the northern states. If the northern states would have needed slavery for their economies to operate they would have maintained it and they would have had all sorts of legal precedent to allow them to do so. Just looking at a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857 (four years before the beginning of the Civil War and six years before the Emancipation Proclamation) proves that. That decision indicated that the Constitution regarded blacks as “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” (Dredd Scott vs Sandford, 1857). As well, keep in mind that abolitionists did not believe that slavery should be abolished because it oppressed blacks. They believed that slavery, as an institution, was wrong and needed to be abolished. The fact that slaves in the US were black had no bearing on their beliefs.
The economies of the southern states were more based on agriculture. Certainly they had some industry but the balance between industry and agriculture greatly favoured agriculture. For a time in the mid 1800s cotton was all the rage in Europe. Europeans could not get enough of it and the southern states were a great source of it. However, they were not the only source. Egypt and India both produced large quantities of cotton and were in direct competition with the southern states. Unfortunately for the southern states their agricultural economies were very dependent on slave labour in order to remain competitive with the other cotton producing regions. If they would have abolished it they would have been at a disadvantage in the cotton market which would have resulted in some serious economic hardship in the southern states.
The southern states found themselves up against a federal government they believed was infringing on their rights to regulate slavery and many believed that this was an actual strategy to impoverish the southern states so that rich northerners could swoop in and buy up the choice bits of the south that would suddenly become available. Which is exactly what happened after the end of the Civil War.
So the southern states broke away from the United States and formed their own country, the Confederacy. A confederation is similar to a federation except the power relationship between the central government and the state governments favours the state governments. This new country did what all new countries do, including creating an official state flag, the Confederate flag. And that is all it was, a flag to represent the new country. It was no different from the Union Jack, the french Tricolour or the Stars and Stripe, although the north regarded it as a flag of treason.
The northern states, the Union, did not accept the breakaway of the southern states and decided to reverse it by force but make now mistake that they did not do this to abolish slavery, they did it to prevent the breakup of the United States. So the people of the southern states had a choice. Surrender their newly founded country or fight for it. They chose to fight.
Which brings us to Confederate generals and officers who are commemorated by statues all over the southern United States. These men answered the call to fight for their country. They were not evil. They were men of good conscience who believed they were fighting for a worthy cause, the Confederacy and what it represented. Slavery was a blight on this new country but no other country in the world at that time or since as been totally free of serious blemishes so saying the cause they fought for was particularly wrong is just proof that the victors write history. As well, to state these men were racists and should not be commemorated is to ignore that their counterparts on the other side were just as racist. If you are going to pull down statues because the people represented by them were racist then you should be pulling down all statues from that time because racism was endemic during the early histories of the countries of North America. In fact, that is the primary reason why racism is still a problem today. Racism is not a recent phenomenon only our greater awareness of it is recent.
As a student of history I am offended that the symbols of the Confederacy have been stolen by bigoted and racist yahoos to represent their hateful beliefs but I am just as offended by those who let them do it. Maybe instead of surrendering them to the hateful bigots they should be taken back from them.
The Civil War in the United States was not about slavery. You would not know that when you look at the superficial analysis of that war that dominates public discourse. However, if you look deeper you would understand that slavery was a symptom of the causes of the US Civil War not the actual cause. The reasons for the Civil War are the usual reasons why humans go to war, power and money. The third reason why humans go to war, religion, was not a factor for the Civil War.
Let's look at power first. The United States was formed by taking a bunch of former British colonies and forming them into a federation. A federation is a strong central government governing a group of states or provinces. The states have their own governments and their own powers but the power relationship between the states and the central government greatly favours the central government. The powers of the Federal and State governments for the United States are outlined in the US Constitution and at the time leading up to the Civil War the US federal government was pushing the limits of its powers quite hard. Many at the time believed that the US federal government was overstepping its boundaries and that sentiment was present in both the northern and southern states. As originally written the US Constitution left it up to the STATE GOVERNMENTS to decide whether slavery should be legal or not within their states. So one of the causes of the civil war was the power conflict between the US government and the state governments.
This is important because it had a great potential impact on the economies of the southern states. The economies of the northern states were largely based on industry and manufacturing. Certainly agriculture was an important sector of their economies but those states did not depend on it for most of their economic activity. In the industrialized north black slaves taking jobs away from white wage workers would have been a recipe for insurrection. So the northern economies did not need slavery to function well and had the luxury of abolishing it. However do not believe that its abolition came out of some altruistic impulse to help blacks in the northern states. If the northern states would have needed slavery for their economies to operate they would have maintained it and they would have had all sorts of legal precedent to allow them to do so. Just looking at a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857 (four years before the beginning of the Civil War and six years before the Emancipation Proclamation) proves that. That decision indicated that the Constitution regarded blacks as “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” (Dredd Scott vs Sandford, 1857). As well, keep in mind that abolitionists did not believe that slavery should be abolished because it oppressed blacks. They believed that slavery, as an institution, was wrong and needed to be abolished. The fact that slaves in the US were black had no bearing on their beliefs.
The economies of the southern states were more based on agriculture. Certainly they had some industry but the balance between industry and agriculture greatly favoured agriculture. For a time in the mid 1800s cotton was all the rage in Europe. Europeans could not get enough of it and the southern states were a great source of it. However, they were not the only source. Egypt and India both produced large quantities of cotton and were in direct competition with the southern states. Unfortunately for the southern states their agricultural economies were very dependent on slave labour in order to remain competitive with the other cotton producing regions. If they would have abolished it they would have been at a disadvantage in the cotton market which would have resulted in some serious economic hardship in the southern states.
The southern states found themselves up against a federal government they believed was infringing on their rights to regulate slavery and many believed that this was an actual strategy to impoverish the southern states so that rich northerners could swoop in and buy up the choice bits of the south that would suddenly become available. Which is exactly what happened after the end of the Civil War.
So the southern states broke away from the United States and formed their own country, the Confederacy. A confederation is similar to a federation except the power relationship between the central government and the state governments favours the state governments. This new country did what all new countries do, including creating an official state flag, the Confederate flag. And that is all it was, a flag to represent the new country. It was no different from the Union Jack, the french Tricolour or the Stars and Stripe, although the north regarded it as a flag of treason.
The northern states, the Union, did not accept the breakaway of the southern states and decided to reverse it by force but make now mistake that they did not do this to abolish slavery, they did it to prevent the breakup of the United States. So the people of the southern states had a choice. Surrender their newly founded country or fight for it. They chose to fight.
Which brings us to Confederate generals and officers who are commemorated by statues all over the southern United States. These men answered the call to fight for their country. They were not evil. They were men of good conscience who believed they were fighting for a worthy cause, the Confederacy and what it represented. Slavery was a blight on this new country but no other country in the world at that time or since as been totally free of serious blemishes so saying the cause they fought for was particularly wrong is just proof that the victors write history. As well, to state these men were racists and should not be commemorated is to ignore that their counterparts on the other side were just as racist. If you are going to pull down statues because the people represented by them were racist then you should be pulling down all statues from that time because racism was endemic during the early histories of the countries of North America. In fact, that is the primary reason why racism is still a problem today. Racism is not a recent phenomenon only our greater awareness of it is recent.
As a student of history I am offended that the symbols of the Confederacy have been stolen by bigoted and racist yahoos to represent their hateful beliefs but I am just as offended by those who let them do it. Maybe instead of surrendering them to the hateful bigots they should be taken back from them.
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
Some Thoughts
First I am quite impressed with the quiet competence of the Liberal government.
Their efforts have kept the infection and death rates down to manageable levels and when this virus escaped China that is all that could be expected of any government. In addition, the financial assistance that the government has provided is assisting most Canadians in weathering the storm, at least for now. This thing could go on for a long time so we will have to see how the government continues to provide assistance.
I just read today that the government has finalized a contract to buy millions of syringes for when a vaccine is available. That is forward thinking during a crisis and it is these little things, away from the big headline events that indicates their competence.
For certain they have not been perfect but they have been good enough that none of the errors they have made have been sticking to them. The government's opponents have been trying to find fault but all they can do is rant and rave about things on the periphery, such as renovations to Harrington Lake or bringing forward the summer recess of Parliament by a couple of weeks. Although a new one is Mr. Trudeau's long pause before answering a question about the troubles currently gripping the US. Mr. Trump is becoming increasingly unhinged, as his re-election chances seem to be slipping away, so Canada has to tread lightly and Mr. Trudeau did that today while making a point.
A second thought is I am impressed with how well the Federal and Provincial governments are working together. The Federal government contributed a great deal to keeping infection and death rates down but they could not have done it without the full cooperation of the Provincial governments. Certainly, some of the Provincial governments have made some more pronounced missteps but by and large they have shown a high level of competence as well.
Canadians are interesting folks. They very much prefer competent governments over governments with "vision". In fact, a government in this country cannot advance their vision until they have demonstrated their competence in governing.
Donald Trump missed an opportunity. The COVID-19 virus was a golden opportunity to step up and demonstrate that he could handle an actual national crisis instead of just a self-inflicted political crisis. It would really not have been that hard to do. Justin Trudeau has demonstrated how it is done, along with a few other political leaders in the West. All he had to do was listen to the medical experts and calmly reassure Americans that they would get through this crisis. His base would have eaten it up because they take everything he says an does to be perfect but he would also have created alot of goodwill with non-aligned voters in the US as well.
No one should be surprised by the spreading unrest in the US. This has been building for sometime and it was only a matter of time before it exploded into a full blown national crisis. When you add the pressure of everybody living under the threat of a deadly virus then you are delusional if you believe something unrelated to the virus would cause some or all of that pressure to be expended in a totally different direction.
Donald Trump missed another opportunity with his handling of this crisis. Again, showing some empathy for people of colour and using his position to attempt to relieve the pressure would have put him in good stead with independents.
Usually, a sitting President does not lose their bid for re-election. Mr. Trump is in real danger of doing just that. The polls in the US show that Mr. Biden has a clear lead in the Presidential race. Yes, they said the same thing in the last election but in that last one Mr. Trump was the challenger up against a nominee for the incumbent party that had been in power for eight years. People were lusting for change as they often do after eight years of the same guy running the show. This time he is the incumbent. He is deeply unpopular outside of his base and he is widely perceived to have bungled the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is becoming more widely perceived that he is bungling the reaction to the current unrest in the US.
There is still six months until the November election and in normal times that would be plenty of time for him to recover and win it. However, these are not normal times. The COVID-19 virus is going to leave a permanent scar on the psyches of voters in the democratic world and how their governments have handled the crisis will be remembered when voters go to the polls. As well, the current unrest, in the US, is happening close enough to the election that it will not be completely forgotten by November. If the impression of voters remains that he bungled the handling of both not much could save him in November.
Their efforts have kept the infection and death rates down to manageable levels and when this virus escaped China that is all that could be expected of any government. In addition, the financial assistance that the government has provided is assisting most Canadians in weathering the storm, at least for now. This thing could go on for a long time so we will have to see how the government continues to provide assistance.
I just read today that the government has finalized a contract to buy millions of syringes for when a vaccine is available. That is forward thinking during a crisis and it is these little things, away from the big headline events that indicates their competence.
For certain they have not been perfect but they have been good enough that none of the errors they have made have been sticking to them. The government's opponents have been trying to find fault but all they can do is rant and rave about things on the periphery, such as renovations to Harrington Lake or bringing forward the summer recess of Parliament by a couple of weeks. Although a new one is Mr. Trudeau's long pause before answering a question about the troubles currently gripping the US. Mr. Trump is becoming increasingly unhinged, as his re-election chances seem to be slipping away, so Canada has to tread lightly and Mr. Trudeau did that today while making a point.
A second thought is I am impressed with how well the Federal and Provincial governments are working together. The Federal government contributed a great deal to keeping infection and death rates down but they could not have done it without the full cooperation of the Provincial governments. Certainly, some of the Provincial governments have made some more pronounced missteps but by and large they have shown a high level of competence as well.
Canadians are interesting folks. They very much prefer competent governments over governments with "vision". In fact, a government in this country cannot advance their vision until they have demonstrated their competence in governing.
Donald Trump missed an opportunity. The COVID-19 virus was a golden opportunity to step up and demonstrate that he could handle an actual national crisis instead of just a self-inflicted political crisis. It would really not have been that hard to do. Justin Trudeau has demonstrated how it is done, along with a few other political leaders in the West. All he had to do was listen to the medical experts and calmly reassure Americans that they would get through this crisis. His base would have eaten it up because they take everything he says an does to be perfect but he would also have created alot of goodwill with non-aligned voters in the US as well.
No one should be surprised by the spreading unrest in the US. This has been building for sometime and it was only a matter of time before it exploded into a full blown national crisis. When you add the pressure of everybody living under the threat of a deadly virus then you are delusional if you believe something unrelated to the virus would cause some or all of that pressure to be expended in a totally different direction.
Donald Trump missed another opportunity with his handling of this crisis. Again, showing some empathy for people of colour and using his position to attempt to relieve the pressure would have put him in good stead with independents.
Usually, a sitting President does not lose their bid for re-election. Mr. Trump is in real danger of doing just that. The polls in the US show that Mr. Biden has a clear lead in the Presidential race. Yes, they said the same thing in the last election but in that last one Mr. Trump was the challenger up against a nominee for the incumbent party that had been in power for eight years. People were lusting for change as they often do after eight years of the same guy running the show. This time he is the incumbent. He is deeply unpopular outside of his base and he is widely perceived to have bungled the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is becoming more widely perceived that he is bungling the reaction to the current unrest in the US.
There is still six months until the November election and in normal times that would be plenty of time for him to recover and win it. However, these are not normal times. The COVID-19 virus is going to leave a permanent scar on the psyches of voters in the democratic world and how their governments have handled the crisis will be remembered when voters go to the polls. As well, the current unrest, in the US, is happening close enough to the election that it will not be completely forgotten by November. If the impression of voters remains that he bungled the handling of both not much could save him in November.
Friday, May 22, 2020
The Pandemic could change how politics works
Which is probably why Conservatives in this country are so horny to bring back some sense of the old normal.
Let's face it. For the last 30 years the conventional wisdom for how to run the economy was some level of austerity. Government spending had to be controlled or it would really hit the fan.
The current Federal government is showing that this does not appear to be true. It is spending like a drunken sailor to support Canadians during these hard economic times and the sky is not falling. Indeed, many people are realizing that if the government was not doing what they are doing things would be much worse. That is one advantage to living next to the dumpster fire to the south. Canadians can see for themselves what could have been without the current government support programs.
The problem for conservatives in this country is Canadians might get used to this and they may decide they do not want to go back to the old ways. As I stated here the breakdown of the Conservative consensus that has dominated political and economic discourse for the last three decades or so has already begun. I stated that it could break down completely in the next decade or so. This Pandemic could accelerate that and the longer the government has these programs in place the greater chancees that the acceleration of that process will occur.
Unfortunately for the Federal Conservatives they decided to be visible instead of relevant during the crisis so they have put themselves out of contention to prevent that acceleration. Although, they are trying by trying to pin the lack of enthusiasm for going back to work on these programs instead of the fear of a deadly virus still stalking the land. So, it is up to the Conservative government in the provinces to try to stop it. That could very well be a reason why both Ontario and Quebec have decided to begin opening up their economies even though the evidence that they have managed to gain control of the pandemic situation is decidedly mixed. And if anybody believes that politics, both micro and macro, are not playing any part in the decisions that all governments have been making in the last three months I would like you to contact me. I am planning on building a bridge between Vancouver and Shanghai and I need investors.
In the short term the other consideration for the Federal Conservatives is the longer this pandemic continues to disrupt the lives of Canadians the larger the scar on the psyche of Canadians will be. In normal times a disaster is on the front pages for a few days and then life goes on only leaving scars on those most effected. This may not be the case for the pandemic. It is impacting all Canadians and its impacts are still being felt. It will be remembered the next time Canadians go to the federal polls and how the different parties acted during the crisis will be remembered. So, Conservatives are hoping that going back to some kind of normalcy will reduce the scarring and give them a chance in the next election. My guess is the longer this goes on the less of a chance they have of winning. Indeed, there will come a time when they may not even be able to be competitive.
Of course, that may change if the government blows the recovery but again the longer this goes on the more tolerant Canadians may be to accept Liberal economic policies for the recovery and not the usual Conservative policies that we have seen in the past. And if this really goes on long enough we could reach the tipping point where that situation becomes permanent and the Conservative consensus collapses.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Film Review: Planet of the Humans
I watched this film last night on Youtube and I found it very interesting. When I checked out my usual political sites today I saw that alot of people are highlighting its critique of the environmental movement and the alternative energy industry, many indicating that this film proves that they are all a lie and therefore can be ignored.
These people missed the whole point of the film.
The key message of the film is humans, as a species, are consuming the resources of the planet at an unsustainable rate and that the alternative energy industry is being sold to us as a way to allow us to keep doing that without facing the consequences. In essence we are being told that if we handle global warming and climate change things will be alright and we will not have to worry about all of the rest, such as the destruction of biodiversity, the polluting and emptying out of our oceans and global deforestation.
The film points out the the focus on climate change and renewable energy sources is not a panacea. Indeed, it points out that big oil is behind much of the renewable energy boom, as they continue to make big profits from it. That is not a bad thing. Until we come up with a new way of organizing ourselves economically the profit motive will be necessary to change behaviours.
Unfortunately, that message is lost in the film's over-the-top critique of the green energy industry. The film is 1 hour and 40 minutes long but only focuses on its key message for about 15 minutes. The rest is spent trashing the green energy industry and some environmentalists.
Much of the critique is off base. The film maker mentions that solar panels and wind turbines require fossil fuels to manufacture and to install. This is not a revelation as some would like us to think. We live in a world addicted to fossil fuels. They are everywhere and in everything. The whole point of green energy is to provide an alternative way of generating energy than fossil fuels. If a country requires 100 mW of energy each year and 25 mW can be generated by green energy then that is 25% less fossil fuel being burned each year with the commensurate reduction in the production of GHGs. Yes, GHGs would have been emitted during the manufacturing and installation of the green energy systems but those are upfront costs that would be canceled out over the life of the system. It cost me a sizable chunk of money to have new windows put into my house 10 years ago but the savings on my heating and cooling bills in the last ten years have offset that cost and the windows should be good for another 15 years.
The other assertion of the film is the green energy systems, such as solar panels and wind turbines have a life cycle of only about 10 years. That is just silly. Everything made my humans has a life cycle. Nothing we make lasts forever. Everything we make requires regular maintenance and eventual replacement. Too expect anything less from green energy is an extremely unfair expectation. Further, like everything else, as demand for something increases the greater the innovation that goes into the product. Such innovation can increase the life cycle of any product.
The one critique of the green energy industry that makes sense is its critique of the burning of biomass. As the film indicates that is just burning wood. There is a reason why humans switched from burning wood to burning coal. Coal provides more energy per tonne. To revert back to burning wood to produce energy is silly and it is counterproductive because it means we have to accelerate the deforestation of the planet in order to produce this energy.
The maker of the Planet of the Humans could have been much more balanced in his approach to proving is initial thesis. It is true that global warming and climate change are not the only environmental challenges we face. Human action is presenting us with a whole host of environmental challenges which if they are not addresses, and soon, could have a profound negative impact on our civilization and maybe even our species. Unfortunately, the film maker missed an opportunity to better highlight that reality.
These people missed the whole point of the film.
The key message of the film is humans, as a species, are consuming the resources of the planet at an unsustainable rate and that the alternative energy industry is being sold to us as a way to allow us to keep doing that without facing the consequences. In essence we are being told that if we handle global warming and climate change things will be alright and we will not have to worry about all of the rest, such as the destruction of biodiversity, the polluting and emptying out of our oceans and global deforestation.
The film points out the the focus on climate change and renewable energy sources is not a panacea. Indeed, it points out that big oil is behind much of the renewable energy boom, as they continue to make big profits from it. That is not a bad thing. Until we come up with a new way of organizing ourselves economically the profit motive will be necessary to change behaviours.
Unfortunately, that message is lost in the film's over-the-top critique of the green energy industry. The film is 1 hour and 40 minutes long but only focuses on its key message for about 15 minutes. The rest is spent trashing the green energy industry and some environmentalists.
Much of the critique is off base. The film maker mentions that solar panels and wind turbines require fossil fuels to manufacture and to install. This is not a revelation as some would like us to think. We live in a world addicted to fossil fuels. They are everywhere and in everything. The whole point of green energy is to provide an alternative way of generating energy than fossil fuels. If a country requires 100 mW of energy each year and 25 mW can be generated by green energy then that is 25% less fossil fuel being burned each year with the commensurate reduction in the production of GHGs. Yes, GHGs would have been emitted during the manufacturing and installation of the green energy systems but those are upfront costs that would be canceled out over the life of the system. It cost me a sizable chunk of money to have new windows put into my house 10 years ago but the savings on my heating and cooling bills in the last ten years have offset that cost and the windows should be good for another 15 years.
The other assertion of the film is the green energy systems, such as solar panels and wind turbines have a life cycle of only about 10 years. That is just silly. Everything made my humans has a life cycle. Nothing we make lasts forever. Everything we make requires regular maintenance and eventual replacement. Too expect anything less from green energy is an extremely unfair expectation. Further, like everything else, as demand for something increases the greater the innovation that goes into the product. Such innovation can increase the life cycle of any product.
The one critique of the green energy industry that makes sense is its critique of the burning of biomass. As the film indicates that is just burning wood. There is a reason why humans switched from burning wood to burning coal. Coal provides more energy per tonne. To revert back to burning wood to produce energy is silly and it is counterproductive because it means we have to accelerate the deforestation of the planet in order to produce this energy.
The maker of the Planet of the Humans could have been much more balanced in his approach to proving is initial thesis. It is true that global warming and climate change are not the only environmental challenges we face. Human action is presenting us with a whole host of environmental challenges which if they are not addresses, and soon, could have a profound negative impact on our civilization and maybe even our species. Unfortunately, the film maker missed an opportunity to better highlight that reality.
Monday, April 20, 2020
WTH is Andrew Scheer doing?
I really have to wonder what he is doing by being so obtuse with regard to having in-person meetings during an global pandemic. It really is a no win strategy. So why is he doing it? As I have indicated politics is changing during this global pandemic and it would appear that Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives have not realized it. Why?
I see four possibilities.
He really is as thick as some people believe. However, that does not make alot of sense. He did win the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada and you do not do that without having some smarts. So his actions and words are calculated.
He is seeking revenge on the Conservative Party because they dropped him after the last election. He may very well believe that he reduced the Liberals to a minority and added more seats for the Conservatives and that earned him another shot. He is wrong of course. As I have explained in this space before the seats he gained were traditional Conservative seats that only switched because of the general disgust with Stephen Harper in 2015. As well, it was the Bloc that denied the Liberals a majority government.
He is trying to sabotage the electoral prospects for Mr. MacKay, the front runner for his replacement because Mr. MacKay stuck a knife into him just one week before election day in the Fall.
The problem with both of those reasons is we would be seeing a rebellion by the Conservative Party and the Conservative caucus if he was doing this. He is a lame duck and they know it. If they thought this was a personal vendetta against them or a possible replacement they would shut it down pretty quick.
Which, I believe, brings us to a very probable reason. If you look at his actions and words and those of other Conservative mouth pieces on the Hill and in the media they are directed squarely at their base. The interesting thing about their base is they are true believers and they do not tolerate the Liberals, full stop. Therefore, they would not tolerate the Party cooperating with the Liberal government. So, it is a bit of a case of the tail wagging the dog. Of course, as late as last September the Conservatives could have ignored the base for a short time and then worked to get them back when things began to return to normal but the Fall election demonstrated that the core of the Conservative base is in Alberta and Saskatchewan and after the last election Wexit parties popped up. I believe at least one has been certified in Alberta and they reduce the Conservatives room to maneuver. The Wexit parties will be targeting traditional Conservative voters and they will be looking for openings offered by the CPC to exploit in order to do it. Any hint of the CPC working with the Liberal government could be that opening. So what we could be seeing is the Conservative Party attempting to shore up its Western base, potentially sacrificing votes in other part of the country.
I see four possibilities.
He really is as thick as some people believe. However, that does not make alot of sense. He did win the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada and you do not do that without having some smarts. So his actions and words are calculated.
He is seeking revenge on the Conservative Party because they dropped him after the last election. He may very well believe that he reduced the Liberals to a minority and added more seats for the Conservatives and that earned him another shot. He is wrong of course. As I have explained in this space before the seats he gained were traditional Conservative seats that only switched because of the general disgust with Stephen Harper in 2015. As well, it was the Bloc that denied the Liberals a majority government.
He is trying to sabotage the electoral prospects for Mr. MacKay, the front runner for his replacement because Mr. MacKay stuck a knife into him just one week before election day in the Fall.
The problem with both of those reasons is we would be seeing a rebellion by the Conservative Party and the Conservative caucus if he was doing this. He is a lame duck and they know it. If they thought this was a personal vendetta against them or a possible replacement they would shut it down pretty quick.
Which, I believe, brings us to a very probable reason. If you look at his actions and words and those of other Conservative mouth pieces on the Hill and in the media they are directed squarely at their base. The interesting thing about their base is they are true believers and they do not tolerate the Liberals, full stop. Therefore, they would not tolerate the Party cooperating with the Liberal government. So, it is a bit of a case of the tail wagging the dog. Of course, as late as last September the Conservatives could have ignored the base for a short time and then worked to get them back when things began to return to normal but the Fall election demonstrated that the core of the Conservative base is in Alberta and Saskatchewan and after the last election Wexit parties popped up. I believe at least one has been certified in Alberta and they reduce the Conservatives room to maneuver. The Wexit parties will be targeting traditional Conservative voters and they will be looking for openings offered by the CPC to exploit in order to do it. Any hint of the CPC working with the Liberal government could be that opening. So what we could be seeing is the Conservative Party attempting to shore up its Western base, potentially sacrificing votes in other part of the country.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Politics During a Global Emergency
The current emergency situation is not like anything anybody has ever seen.
For the most part national emergencies are really regional emergencies. Excessive flooding in Winnipeg or Gatineau, wildfires in Red Deer, or some other natural disaster that impacts 100s of thousand people are what usually constitute "national emergencies". None of these are to be sneezed at. They are indeed serious situations where quick action by governments will save lives and livelihoods. However, their impact outside of their region is non-existent. Certainly, people not impacted are sympathetic but they continue to live their lives as normal saying a little prayer "But for the grace of God....
In these kinds of national emergencies politics pretty much goes on as normal. Certainly at the beginning the government has the monopoly on media coverage as the initial shock sets in but very soon afterwards people settle into the new normal and politics follows suit.
This situation is different. All Canadians are impacted by the COVID 19 virus emergency. No one and no region has been spared. Further the emergency is relentless. Day after day and night after night we receive more bad news and we are being asked to make huge sacrifices that could last months. There has been no let-up. Further it is slammed home every day that Canada is not the only country impacted by this. It is global. It is unprecedented.
All of that should be enough to convince our political and ruling class that the very nature of politics is changing with each bit of bad news. Gone are the days when Canadians are going to care about little things. All they care about is the virus and its impacts. Are their family and friends safe? How am I going to pay the rent? Where can I get much needed groceries? In short the concerns of Canadians and others around the world have become primal.
Unfortunately a significant number of our political and ruling class does not seem to grasp this fact. They just don't get it. Fortunately, they are outnumbered by those who do get it and thankfully they are the ones responsible for navigating the country through these time.
At some point in the future all of this is going to pass. It might not seem that it will but it will. When it does some semblance of normalcy will exist but the scar this is going to leave on the collective psyche will not fade quickly. Neither will the memories of voters when it comes to who stepped up during the crisis and who did not.
So my advice to those who are still playing politics like we are not living through a deadly global pandemic is to stop. All of the "unwritten rules" for politics that existed a few short months ago are gone. If you do not figure this out and adjust to it you will pay a price in the future and it could be a heavy one.
For the most part national emergencies are really regional emergencies. Excessive flooding in Winnipeg or Gatineau, wildfires in Red Deer, or some other natural disaster that impacts 100s of thousand people are what usually constitute "national emergencies". None of these are to be sneezed at. They are indeed serious situations where quick action by governments will save lives and livelihoods. However, their impact outside of their region is non-existent. Certainly, people not impacted are sympathetic but they continue to live their lives as normal saying a little prayer "But for the grace of God....
In these kinds of national emergencies politics pretty much goes on as normal. Certainly at the beginning the government has the monopoly on media coverage as the initial shock sets in but very soon afterwards people settle into the new normal and politics follows suit.
This situation is different. All Canadians are impacted by the COVID 19 virus emergency. No one and no region has been spared. Further the emergency is relentless. Day after day and night after night we receive more bad news and we are being asked to make huge sacrifices that could last months. There has been no let-up. Further it is slammed home every day that Canada is not the only country impacted by this. It is global. It is unprecedented.
All of that should be enough to convince our political and ruling class that the very nature of politics is changing with each bit of bad news. Gone are the days when Canadians are going to care about little things. All they care about is the virus and its impacts. Are their family and friends safe? How am I going to pay the rent? Where can I get much needed groceries? In short the concerns of Canadians and others around the world have become primal.
Unfortunately a significant number of our political and ruling class does not seem to grasp this fact. They just don't get it. Fortunately, they are outnumbered by those who do get it and thankfully they are the ones responsible for navigating the country through these time.
At some point in the future all of this is going to pass. It might not seem that it will but it will. When it does some semblance of normalcy will exist but the scar this is going to leave on the collective psyche will not fade quickly. Neither will the memories of voters when it comes to who stepped up during the crisis and who did not.
So my advice to those who are still playing politics like we are not living through a deadly global pandemic is to stop. All of the "unwritten rules" for politics that existed a few short months ago are gone. If you do not figure this out and adjust to it you will pay a price in the future and it could be a heavy one.
Thursday, April 02, 2020
Politics During a National Emergency
For many the notion that politics should be put aside during a national emergency is considered a truism. However, there are actually very few who actually believe that.
For the most part that idea often depends on who is in power. If the party you like is in power then any politics that challenges that party during the emergency is tantamount to treason.
Of course, objectively politics is not off limits during a national emergency. Indeed, if done right it can actually be beneficial to the nation going through the emergency as it can force the government in power to constantly improve its approach to mitigating or resolving the emergency. I would point out that Federal elections were held in Canada during both World Wars and the governments of day, during those periods, both had to endure political crises.
Which brings me to the current situation in Canada during the COVID 19 pandemic. One political reality during such emergencies is the government sucks up most of the political oxygen. This is particularly true in the current situation with the Prime Minister and the Premiers having daily briefings. They are front and centre each day, usually without the bother of the opposition parties or the usual trivial issues that opposition parties and the media like to focus on and blow out of proportion during normal times.
That leave the opposition parties in a bit of a pickle. In that situation the opposition parties have a choice. Try to be visible or try to be relevant. Being visible is just that. Try to bring some attention to your party even for a little bit so as to remind voters that you are still there. It often has to take the form or partisanship, which can backfire badly during a national emergency. Being relevant is actually contributing to resolving the national emergency. Unfortunately, being relevant usually means that an opposition party has to work with and assist the governing party, which usually results in the governing party receiving all of the credit while the contribution of the opposition party is not as noticed.
Being visible is easy, particularly in the era of social media. Being relevant is much harder because it usually involves behind the scenes actions and can be thankless in the end.
So with that in mind what have our federal Opposition Parties chosen?
Looking at the Conservatives and the NDP I would say that they have chosen to be visible instead of relevant. At the beginning they really could not do anything. However, as the situation has progressed they are attempting to be more visible by attacking the government. Some of their attacks are targeting holes in the government response but they are doing it is such a way that what they are saying can be dismissed as partisanship. As well, their desire to attack the government is getting in the way of logic. Who would have thought that the Conservative Party of Canada would announce that they are going to vote against a wage subsidy for businesses unless the government drops the Carbon Tax? A political party that is supposed to be pro-business is going to vote against a proposal to assist business, during a catastrophic national economic emergency, in order to attempt (and fail) to have a signature government policy reversed.
Then there is the NDP. It is trying to be visible by attacking the government for things it cannot change. As with the Conservatives the NDP attacks do not pass the logic test. The NDP demanding a rent holiday seems to make sense, on the surface if, like the NDP, you consider all landlords to be large faceless corporations, However not all landlords are corporate entities so a rent holiday could actually hurt alot of small landlords. In short, the issue the NDP brings up is a legitimate one but it is much more complex and nuanced that will require much more complex solutions than the one they are pushing.
Then there is the media, a defacto opposition to the government. Polling has indicated that Justin Trudeau's middling approval ratings coming out of the last election have skyrocketed into 2015 territory again with the commensurate rise of the Liberal Party in the polls. Some polling companies have indicated that if an election were held today the Liberals would cruise to a comfortable majority government. That just cannot be for our corporate media. They have been working very hard since 2004 to bring the Liberals down and their steady hand during this emergency is putting a real damper on that effort. So, they are starting to try to find ways to undermine the government's popularity and they are doing it the way they have always done it, by setting up straw men and then knocking them down. A few weeks ago I wrote a post that praised the media during the beginning of the COVID 19 emergency. I had a notion back then that they would revert to form and I was right. If this does not convince the government to find a way to break up the virtual media monopoly in this country I do not know what will. It is easy to do really. Start taxing foreign owned media companies, like Postmedia, like they are actually foreign owned instead of like they are Canadian owned, as Stephen Harper decided to do years ago. That should cause those owners to shed the otherwise money losing media companies which will be bought up by others in Canada, although not as a whole like now but in pieces, leading to a diversity of voices again in our media.
One cannot talk about the Opposition without looking at the Bloc Quebecois. They have decided to be relevant instead of just visible. By all accounts the economic relief package passed last week was passed because the Bloc worked with the government behind the scenes to improve the bill. The same looks like it is going to happen the next time Parliament is recalled. The Bloc is not nearly as visible as the other Opposition Parties but their contribution is actually helping to improve the government's response to the multi-faceted problems the current national emergency presents. For now the Bloc is reaping some benefit from it if you believe the polls. It would appear their stock is rising in Quebec, the only part of the country they care about and it could be because of their approach to dealing with the government.
Of course, for both the Bloc and the Liberals their current rise in the polls could become a fall at any time. The psyches of Canadians are very fragile right now so their opinion of any political party could change on a dime at any time.
Politics during a national emergency is normal. However, the backdrop of a national emergency increases the political risk for all parties playing that game. It will magnify both the positive and the negative actions of political parties. As well, the sheer magnitude of this particular emergency could cause voters, with otherwise short memories, to remember both actions that help and harm years down the line when they go to the polls. The very big challenge for opposition parties is to attempt make certain what little attention they do receive during the national emergency will be remembered as helpful. It is early yet but so far I would say that two out of three of them have not succeeded in meeting that objective.
For the most part that idea often depends on who is in power. If the party you like is in power then any politics that challenges that party during the emergency is tantamount to treason.
Of course, objectively politics is not off limits during a national emergency. Indeed, if done right it can actually be beneficial to the nation going through the emergency as it can force the government in power to constantly improve its approach to mitigating or resolving the emergency. I would point out that Federal elections were held in Canada during both World Wars and the governments of day, during those periods, both had to endure political crises.
Which brings me to the current situation in Canada during the COVID 19 pandemic. One political reality during such emergencies is the government sucks up most of the political oxygen. This is particularly true in the current situation with the Prime Minister and the Premiers having daily briefings. They are front and centre each day, usually without the bother of the opposition parties or the usual trivial issues that opposition parties and the media like to focus on and blow out of proportion during normal times.
That leave the opposition parties in a bit of a pickle. In that situation the opposition parties have a choice. Try to be visible or try to be relevant. Being visible is just that. Try to bring some attention to your party even for a little bit so as to remind voters that you are still there. It often has to take the form or partisanship, which can backfire badly during a national emergency. Being relevant is actually contributing to resolving the national emergency. Unfortunately, being relevant usually means that an opposition party has to work with and assist the governing party, which usually results in the governing party receiving all of the credit while the contribution of the opposition party is not as noticed.
Being visible is easy, particularly in the era of social media. Being relevant is much harder because it usually involves behind the scenes actions and can be thankless in the end.
So with that in mind what have our federal Opposition Parties chosen?
Looking at the Conservatives and the NDP I would say that they have chosen to be visible instead of relevant. At the beginning they really could not do anything. However, as the situation has progressed they are attempting to be more visible by attacking the government. Some of their attacks are targeting holes in the government response but they are doing it is such a way that what they are saying can be dismissed as partisanship. As well, their desire to attack the government is getting in the way of logic. Who would have thought that the Conservative Party of Canada would announce that they are going to vote against a wage subsidy for businesses unless the government drops the Carbon Tax? A political party that is supposed to be pro-business is going to vote against a proposal to assist business, during a catastrophic national economic emergency, in order to attempt (and fail) to have a signature government policy reversed.
Then there is the NDP. It is trying to be visible by attacking the government for things it cannot change. As with the Conservatives the NDP attacks do not pass the logic test. The NDP demanding a rent holiday seems to make sense, on the surface if, like the NDP, you consider all landlords to be large faceless corporations, However not all landlords are corporate entities so a rent holiday could actually hurt alot of small landlords. In short, the issue the NDP brings up is a legitimate one but it is much more complex and nuanced that will require much more complex solutions than the one they are pushing.
Then there is the media, a defacto opposition to the government. Polling has indicated that Justin Trudeau's middling approval ratings coming out of the last election have skyrocketed into 2015 territory again with the commensurate rise of the Liberal Party in the polls. Some polling companies have indicated that if an election were held today the Liberals would cruise to a comfortable majority government. That just cannot be for our corporate media. They have been working very hard since 2004 to bring the Liberals down and their steady hand during this emergency is putting a real damper on that effort. So, they are starting to try to find ways to undermine the government's popularity and they are doing it the way they have always done it, by setting up straw men and then knocking them down. A few weeks ago I wrote a post that praised the media during the beginning of the COVID 19 emergency. I had a notion back then that they would revert to form and I was right. If this does not convince the government to find a way to break up the virtual media monopoly in this country I do not know what will. It is easy to do really. Start taxing foreign owned media companies, like Postmedia, like they are actually foreign owned instead of like they are Canadian owned, as Stephen Harper decided to do years ago. That should cause those owners to shed the otherwise money losing media companies which will be bought up by others in Canada, although not as a whole like now but in pieces, leading to a diversity of voices again in our media.
One cannot talk about the Opposition without looking at the Bloc Quebecois. They have decided to be relevant instead of just visible. By all accounts the economic relief package passed last week was passed because the Bloc worked with the government behind the scenes to improve the bill. The same looks like it is going to happen the next time Parliament is recalled. The Bloc is not nearly as visible as the other Opposition Parties but their contribution is actually helping to improve the government's response to the multi-faceted problems the current national emergency presents. For now the Bloc is reaping some benefit from it if you believe the polls. It would appear their stock is rising in Quebec, the only part of the country they care about and it could be because of their approach to dealing with the government.
Of course, for both the Bloc and the Liberals their current rise in the polls could become a fall at any time. The psyches of Canadians are very fragile right now so their opinion of any political party could change on a dime at any time.
Politics during a national emergency is normal. However, the backdrop of a national emergency increases the political risk for all parties playing that game. It will magnify both the positive and the negative actions of political parties. As well, the sheer magnitude of this particular emergency could cause voters, with otherwise short memories, to remember both actions that help and harm years down the line when they go to the polls. The very big challenge for opposition parties is to attempt make certain what little attention they do receive during the national emergency will be remembered as helpful. It is early yet but so far I would say that two out of three of them have not succeeded in meeting that objective.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Anti-Vaxxers in the First World
A new television program premiered a couple of weeks ago called Transplant. It is about a Syrian doctor who is a refugee and who is hired to work in the emergency room of a major Toronto hospital. Each episode is about how he has to adjust to doing things the Canadian way.
In last week's episode one of the cases he had to deal with was a child with diphtheria because the child's parents were anti-vaxxers. There was one exchange in the episode between the Syrian doctor and one of his Canadian colleagues about vaccinations in Syria. That exchange ended with the Syrian doctor stating that in his country you have to fight for vaccines.
That exchange highlighted to me that the "choice" not to vaccinate your children is a typical First World choice. Really, in the First World the vast majority of people receive vaccinations as a matter of course, creating a herd immunity, and providing anti-vaxxers with a partial shield from the consequences of their stupidity. Such a "choice" is not available to people in the Third World because they may not have access to vaccines to begin with and when they do they take the opportunity to vaccinate themselves without question.
This further reminded me of the "choice" vegetarians and vegans make. Only in the First World do we have such an abundance of food that people can make dietary choices. Swear off meat? No problem, there is plenty of food out their to replace the protein, vitamins, minerals and fats that are provided by it.
The same is not true in much of the world. In alot of places non meat food is the only food available and the only source of meat is also the animal that is needed to plow the fields where the crops are grown. Therefore, if that animal goes so does the ability to grow their food and any food security that might have existed.
I have a problem with anti-vaxxers. Any measures that can be taking to force stupid parents to vaccinate themselves and their children should be taken. I do not have a problem with vegetarians, although I do like to remind the ones that take on a holier-than-thou attitude of the fact that their choice is a luxury of living in one of the richest countries on the planet so they should be a little more humble about it.
In last week's episode one of the cases he had to deal with was a child with diphtheria because the child's parents were anti-vaxxers. There was one exchange in the episode between the Syrian doctor and one of his Canadian colleagues about vaccinations in Syria. That exchange ended with the Syrian doctor stating that in his country you have to fight for vaccines.
That exchange highlighted to me that the "choice" not to vaccinate your children is a typical First World choice. Really, in the First World the vast majority of people receive vaccinations as a matter of course, creating a herd immunity, and providing anti-vaxxers with a partial shield from the consequences of their stupidity. Such a "choice" is not available to people in the Third World because they may not have access to vaccines to begin with and when they do they take the opportunity to vaccinate themselves without question.
This further reminded me of the "choice" vegetarians and vegans make. Only in the First World do we have such an abundance of food that people can make dietary choices. Swear off meat? No problem, there is plenty of food out their to replace the protein, vitamins, minerals and fats that are provided by it.
The same is not true in much of the world. In alot of places non meat food is the only food available and the only source of meat is also the animal that is needed to plow the fields where the crops are grown. Therefore, if that animal goes so does the ability to grow their food and any food security that might have existed.
I have a problem with anti-vaxxers. Any measures that can be taking to force stupid parents to vaccinate themselves and their children should be taken. I do not have a problem with vegetarians, although I do like to remind the ones that take on a holier-than-thou attitude of the fact that their choice is a luxury of living in one of the richest countries on the planet so they should be a little more humble about it.
COVID 19
Canada and the world are on edge as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. There is probably not a single person in Canada that has not been impacted by it at this point.
Maybe you have kids who are off of school for the next three weeks. Maybe you are a university student who is now taking classes on-line and you are probably looking forward to taking on-line exams. Maybe you are just missing hockey, basketball or any other activities or sports that have been cancelled as a result of the outbreak.
Maybe you are someone who has contracted the virus or you know someone who has.
Personally, I have been told to stay home from work and not go back until further notice. Having time off is great but it is less enjoyable considering that I cannot go anywhere.
I am not an expert on infectious deceases but I have the feeling that this is going to get worse before it gets better. Then again maybe it will not. I really do not know and I do not believe anybody knows.
In order to get some idea I am forced to consult the media. I do not trust the media as far as I can throw my car and I have not paid for news in over two decades. That includes watching commercial news stations such as CTV, CBC or CNN. Unfortunately, I have no other choice in the current situation. Fortunately, I have found them to be stepping up their game during this outbreak. I am finding the information that they are imparting to be informative and for the most part they are steering away from the hyperbola and sensationalism that the media always engages in during a crisis. Perhaps they have realized that this pandemic is sensational enough on its own without them trying to pump it up any more to increase their ratings and revenues.
One thing I will say however is there are still journalists out there who cannot seem to resist the urge to editorialize or give "advice" to governments, either during the stories themselves or in so called "opinion" pieces. The editorializing is always critical of the actions of a government and I have no idea on what basis the "advice" is being given.
To those journalists I say STOP. This pandemic is a once in a century event. The last one took place in 1918 when the only way to cross oceans was on ocean liners that took almost a week to travel from Portsmouth to NYC. There are no templates for how to handle this in the jet age. Everybody in government, the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the outside experts, like doctors, are flying by the seat of their pants trying to come up with ways to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. There are no right answers on how to do that and how the pandemic unfolded in one country is of limited use in deciding how to handle it in another country because there are way too many variables.
Further, you are journalists. You are trained on how to communicate information. You are not trained in anything else. I went to Carleton University in Ottawa, which has a journalism school, and all of the journalism students I knew took courses like political science or history as their electives. They did not take science classes and they certainly did not take medical school classes because Carleton does not have a medical school.
For the most part the journalistic habit of giving advice about something they know little about is more amusing than anything else. However, it is not amusing in this situation. It is a simple fact that we are going to have to trust the experts, and the governments they are speaking through, to guide us through this and that means we should not be overly critical of them at this point. The time for that will be when it is over and the postmortems on how the pandemic was handled begin. This applies to all governments, regardless of their political stripe, whether it be the Trudeau government, the Ford government or the Trump administration. Regardless of your personal opinions of those governments I am reasonably certain that all of them are trying to do the best they can under nearly impossible circumstances.
How this outbreak will progress is anybody's guess. If, in January when this virus first hit the headlines, someone would have told me that Italy, two-thirds of a continent away from ground zero of the outbreak, would be as devastated as it has been I would have labeled that person a loony. So all we can do is hunker down, take care of each other and listen to the experts who are talking through our elected officials. When we all come out on the other side in a few months we can then take a critical look at how those governments handled the situation.
Maybe you have kids who are off of school for the next three weeks. Maybe you are a university student who is now taking classes on-line and you are probably looking forward to taking on-line exams. Maybe you are just missing hockey, basketball or any other activities or sports that have been cancelled as a result of the outbreak.
Maybe you are someone who has contracted the virus or you know someone who has.
Personally, I have been told to stay home from work and not go back until further notice. Having time off is great but it is less enjoyable considering that I cannot go anywhere.
I am not an expert on infectious deceases but I have the feeling that this is going to get worse before it gets better. Then again maybe it will not. I really do not know and I do not believe anybody knows.
In order to get some idea I am forced to consult the media. I do not trust the media as far as I can throw my car and I have not paid for news in over two decades. That includes watching commercial news stations such as CTV, CBC or CNN. Unfortunately, I have no other choice in the current situation. Fortunately, I have found them to be stepping up their game during this outbreak. I am finding the information that they are imparting to be informative and for the most part they are steering away from the hyperbola and sensationalism that the media always engages in during a crisis. Perhaps they have realized that this pandemic is sensational enough on its own without them trying to pump it up any more to increase their ratings and revenues.
One thing I will say however is there are still journalists out there who cannot seem to resist the urge to editorialize or give "advice" to governments, either during the stories themselves or in so called "opinion" pieces. The editorializing is always critical of the actions of a government and I have no idea on what basis the "advice" is being given.
To those journalists I say STOP. This pandemic is a once in a century event. The last one took place in 1918 when the only way to cross oceans was on ocean liners that took almost a week to travel from Portsmouth to NYC. There are no templates for how to handle this in the jet age. Everybody in government, the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the outside experts, like doctors, are flying by the seat of their pants trying to come up with ways to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. There are no right answers on how to do that and how the pandemic unfolded in one country is of limited use in deciding how to handle it in another country because there are way too many variables.
Further, you are journalists. You are trained on how to communicate information. You are not trained in anything else. I went to Carleton University in Ottawa, which has a journalism school, and all of the journalism students I knew took courses like political science or history as their electives. They did not take science classes and they certainly did not take medical school classes because Carleton does not have a medical school.
For the most part the journalistic habit of giving advice about something they know little about is more amusing than anything else. However, it is not amusing in this situation. It is a simple fact that we are going to have to trust the experts, and the governments they are speaking through, to guide us through this and that means we should not be overly critical of them at this point. The time for that will be when it is over and the postmortems on how the pandemic was handled begin. This applies to all governments, regardless of their political stripe, whether it be the Trudeau government, the Ford government or the Trump administration. Regardless of your personal opinions of those governments I am reasonably certain that all of them are trying to do the best they can under nearly impossible circumstances.
How this outbreak will progress is anybody's guess. If, in January when this virus first hit the headlines, someone would have told me that Italy, two-thirds of a continent away from ground zero of the outbreak, would be as devastated as it has been I would have labeled that person a loony. So all we can do is hunker down, take care of each other and listen to the experts who are talking through our elected officials. When we all come out on the other side in a few months we can then take a critical look at how those governments handled the situation.
Monday, February 24, 2020
The Cancelation of Teck Mine in Alberta
So the company that had applied to start another massive open pit mine to extract tar sands in Alberta has decided to withdraw that application just days before a cabinet decision about it was to be made.
It should come as no surprise considering their application contained the assumption that the oil prices would average $95 dollars per barrel for the 40 year life of the mine.
While I believe the current low oil prices will rebound within the next decade they will probably not reach that level for that amount of time.
In other words, the economic and business case for the mine did not exist. It would not have been economically viable for most of its run. It probably would have lost money to the company for most of that time, requiring massive government subsidies to keep it going.
It is interesting that for most of the life of the exploitation of the Tar Sands I have read that the price of oil has only been at a level for make their exploitation profitable for about a decade in total. All other times they have only been able to break even or operate at a loss. Yet, Tar Sands exploitation still hums along nicely. One big reason could be the companies exploiting the Tar Sands are receiving huge government subsidies so that they can stay profitable.
Their argument is probably the same every time. If you do not give us the subsidies we will have to shut down our operations putting thousands of Canadians out of work. No government would want to be in power when that happens to they cough up.
The dynamic might have changed with the most recent federal election. Albertans turned their backs on the Liberals in a big way. They took away all incentive for the Federal government to provide further subsidies to the Tar Sands. They will maintain the current ones but one of the probable planning assumptions for the Teck Mine was they would receive subsidies and once they began it would be nearly impossible for any future government to take them away.
So with no government backstop to compensate for their wildly inaccurate assumption about oil prices the whole operation became completely non-viable from a business and economic point of view.
Many Albertans will blame the Federal Government in general and the Liberals in particular for this but that is nothing new.
It should come as no surprise considering their application contained the assumption that the oil prices would average $95 dollars per barrel for the 40 year life of the mine.
While I believe the current low oil prices will rebound within the next decade they will probably not reach that level for that amount of time.
In other words, the economic and business case for the mine did not exist. It would not have been economically viable for most of its run. It probably would have lost money to the company for most of that time, requiring massive government subsidies to keep it going.
It is interesting that for most of the life of the exploitation of the Tar Sands I have read that the price of oil has only been at a level for make their exploitation profitable for about a decade in total. All other times they have only been able to break even or operate at a loss. Yet, Tar Sands exploitation still hums along nicely. One big reason could be the companies exploiting the Tar Sands are receiving huge government subsidies so that they can stay profitable.
Their argument is probably the same every time. If you do not give us the subsidies we will have to shut down our operations putting thousands of Canadians out of work. No government would want to be in power when that happens to they cough up.
The dynamic might have changed with the most recent federal election. Albertans turned their backs on the Liberals in a big way. They took away all incentive for the Federal government to provide further subsidies to the Tar Sands. They will maintain the current ones but one of the probable planning assumptions for the Teck Mine was they would receive subsidies and once they began it would be nearly impossible for any future government to take them away.
So with no government backstop to compensate for their wildly inaccurate assumption about oil prices the whole operation became completely non-viable from a business and economic point of view.
Many Albertans will blame the Federal Government in general and the Liberals in particular for this but that is nothing new.
Mr. Trump and Evangelicals
Many progressive commentators in the US and other parts of the world are expressing bafflement that evangelicals support Mr. Trump so much considering his history of lying, possible adultery, consorting with ladies of loose morals, etc..
They question how can these people support such a person and still call themselves good Christians.
They miss the point. Evangelicals are obsessed with making abortion illegal in the US. For the life of me I cannot understand the obsession but it is there. Mr. Trump is using his powers to advance that cause, including appointing two Supreme Court justices who are specifically against abortion. For them he is doing God's work and so they will support him.
That is all anybody needs to understand with regard to Mr. Trump and evangelicals.
They question how can these people support such a person and still call themselves good Christians.
They miss the point. Evangelicals are obsessed with making abortion illegal in the US. For the life of me I cannot understand the obsession but it is there. Mr. Trump is using his powers to advance that cause, including appointing two Supreme Court justices who are specifically against abortion. For them he is doing God's work and so they will support him.
That is all anybody needs to understand with regard to Mr. Trump and evangelicals.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Book Review - Winners Take All, The Elite Charade of Changing the World
I recently completed reading the book. It was written by Anand Giridharadas.
The essential argument of his book is that the elites in the United States have completely abandoned any support for government action to address the many problems and issues of the modern world to instead support "market solutions" to those problems.
The author indicates that many of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other members of the business elite in the United States realize that there are serious problems in the country and in other parts of the world. That includes massive inequality of incomes and wealth distribution. The author points out that in the last 30 years productivity in the US has more than doubled but instead of ordinary people enjoying the benefits of that, which all Economics texts books say should be the outcome of that situation, only a very small elite have actually benefited from it. Ordinary people were left behind. The author also points out that many of that very same elite sees the problems and the negative impacts of them (Donald Trump and Brexit to name two) but they are unwilling to do what really needs to be done to address them, which is to strengthen and reinvigorate the role of government in society and the economy.
Instead these elites are resorting to market solutions to fix the problems. The author uses the phrase "doing good by doing well" which just means that these entrepreneurs and market types are trying to find ways to fix problems while making money doing it. The author then spends a significant amount of the book describing some of these "fixes". There were quite a few but the one that stood out for me was the lady who developed a telephone app to help people with low incomes to better manage their money. For an annual fee of about US$200 the app would provide advice to the user on how to spend and save money each month to meet all of their financial obligations. The tone deafness of this solution and the person who developed and marketed it is beyond astounding. Instead of trying to find a way to help people increase their income this person developed a way for people stretch what they earn a little farther.
There is also a rather in depth discussion of those who really "did well" and are now "giving back" through philanthropy. The author specifically mentions Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, among others, in this discussion. Men who made billions and who are giving alot of it away to worthy causes.
The author acknowledges the contributions of these philanthropists but he also points out that the problems that they are throwing money at are problems they contributed to creating in the first place. As well, the author points out that these very same people are against any of the traditional solutions to the problems that now beset US society, namely, higher taxes for the wealthy, government redistribution and strengthening labour organizations. This would very much explain why Bill Gates recently mused about supporting Donald Trump if the likes of Elizabeth Warren or some one like her wins the Democratic Presidential nomination. It also explains why Michael Bloomberg entered the race and why, mark my words, he will run as an independent if he does not win the nomination. He will run against Donald Trump but he will also siphon off enough votes from the Democratic nominee to hand Donald Trump four more years and Mr. Bloomberg will be fine with that.
It should come as no surprise that Mr. Giridharadas is very critical of the market solutions proposed to resolve the many deep problems now faced by the US. He is very much in support of the more "radical" approaches proposed by the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Sanders of the world. He believes that if their solutions do not come to pass revolution will probably be the result.
I happen to agree with him about the solution to the problems. It should be noted that when the West was enjoying its best economic years, during the first 30 years after the Second World War, profound inequality existed. The rich managed to maintain their wealth and became even wealthier. However, ordinary people also become wealthier at the same time. Not on the same scale as the "postwar elites" but at such a rate as to create a virtuous circle that allowed the Western World to become the leader of the planet and to dictate the politics and the economics of the world for almost 60 years.
Going back to that model would probably have the same outcome. As well, the current elites should be supportive of such an approach because the current situation is unsustainable in the medium to long-term. There will come a time when the pressures building in the world, climate change and automation being the big two, will reach a breaking point and there is no telling what will happen then. Revolution? Who knows, but it is a possibility and with the current civilization being a global civilization such a revolution will probably be global in scope as well. In the past if a revolution happened in one country the elites could move themselves and their wealth to another stable country. That may not be an option during the next big revolution. There may be no place for the elites to hide from the rage of ordinary people. Considering history has shown the revolutions can cost elites everything, including their heads, it would be a good idea for the current elites to try to prevent one from happening. Of course, that would take forethought and humility, which elites are incapable of having. The greatest quality of any elites, and the current ones are no different, is the inability to see what impact their actions are having on the broader society in which they live and the hubris to believe that even if things do go sideways they will be able to avoid any negative consequences.
The author ends the book by noting that there is some hope. He points out that there are some very influential people who are seeing the problems and who are more supportive of increasing government involvement in resolving them. They still seem to be voices in the wilderness but they also seem to be persistent in pushing their arguments. Perhaps their voices will be heard enough to bring about the changes that are needed to address the current and future challenges faced by Western society.
I highly recommend the book although I will warn you that if you believe the current profound inequality is a big problem some of the arguments of some of the people who the author interviews will probably raise your blood pressure just a little bit.
The essential argument of his book is that the elites in the United States have completely abandoned any support for government action to address the many problems and issues of the modern world to instead support "market solutions" to those problems.
The author indicates that many of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other members of the business elite in the United States realize that there are serious problems in the country and in other parts of the world. That includes massive inequality of incomes and wealth distribution. The author points out that in the last 30 years productivity in the US has more than doubled but instead of ordinary people enjoying the benefits of that, which all Economics texts books say should be the outcome of that situation, only a very small elite have actually benefited from it. Ordinary people were left behind. The author also points out that many of that very same elite sees the problems and the negative impacts of them (Donald Trump and Brexit to name two) but they are unwilling to do what really needs to be done to address them, which is to strengthen and reinvigorate the role of government in society and the economy.
Instead these elites are resorting to market solutions to fix the problems. The author uses the phrase "doing good by doing well" which just means that these entrepreneurs and market types are trying to find ways to fix problems while making money doing it. The author then spends a significant amount of the book describing some of these "fixes". There were quite a few but the one that stood out for me was the lady who developed a telephone app to help people with low incomes to better manage their money. For an annual fee of about US$200 the app would provide advice to the user on how to spend and save money each month to meet all of their financial obligations. The tone deafness of this solution and the person who developed and marketed it is beyond astounding. Instead of trying to find a way to help people increase their income this person developed a way for people stretch what they earn a little farther.
There is also a rather in depth discussion of those who really "did well" and are now "giving back" through philanthropy. The author specifically mentions Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, among others, in this discussion. Men who made billions and who are giving alot of it away to worthy causes.
The author acknowledges the contributions of these philanthropists but he also points out that the problems that they are throwing money at are problems they contributed to creating in the first place. As well, the author points out that these very same people are against any of the traditional solutions to the problems that now beset US society, namely, higher taxes for the wealthy, government redistribution and strengthening labour organizations. This would very much explain why Bill Gates recently mused about supporting Donald Trump if the likes of Elizabeth Warren or some one like her wins the Democratic Presidential nomination. It also explains why Michael Bloomberg entered the race and why, mark my words, he will run as an independent if he does not win the nomination. He will run against Donald Trump but he will also siphon off enough votes from the Democratic nominee to hand Donald Trump four more years and Mr. Bloomberg will be fine with that.
It should come as no surprise that Mr. Giridharadas is very critical of the market solutions proposed to resolve the many deep problems now faced by the US. He is very much in support of the more "radical" approaches proposed by the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Sanders of the world. He believes that if their solutions do not come to pass revolution will probably be the result.
I happen to agree with him about the solution to the problems. It should be noted that when the West was enjoying its best economic years, during the first 30 years after the Second World War, profound inequality existed. The rich managed to maintain their wealth and became even wealthier. However, ordinary people also become wealthier at the same time. Not on the same scale as the "postwar elites" but at such a rate as to create a virtuous circle that allowed the Western World to become the leader of the planet and to dictate the politics and the economics of the world for almost 60 years.
Going back to that model would probably have the same outcome. As well, the current elites should be supportive of such an approach because the current situation is unsustainable in the medium to long-term. There will come a time when the pressures building in the world, climate change and automation being the big two, will reach a breaking point and there is no telling what will happen then. Revolution? Who knows, but it is a possibility and with the current civilization being a global civilization such a revolution will probably be global in scope as well. In the past if a revolution happened in one country the elites could move themselves and their wealth to another stable country. That may not be an option during the next big revolution. There may be no place for the elites to hide from the rage of ordinary people. Considering history has shown the revolutions can cost elites everything, including their heads, it would be a good idea for the current elites to try to prevent one from happening. Of course, that would take forethought and humility, which elites are incapable of having. The greatest quality of any elites, and the current ones are no different, is the inability to see what impact their actions are having on the broader society in which they live and the hubris to believe that even if things do go sideways they will be able to avoid any negative consequences.
The author ends the book by noting that there is some hope. He points out that there are some very influential people who are seeing the problems and who are more supportive of increasing government involvement in resolving them. They still seem to be voices in the wilderness but they also seem to be persistent in pushing their arguments. Perhaps their voices will be heard enough to bring about the changes that are needed to address the current and future challenges faced by Western society.
I highly recommend the book although I will warn you that if you believe the current profound inequality is a big problem some of the arguments of some of the people who the author interviews will probably raise your blood pressure just a little bit.
Party Discipline in the United States
I followed the impeachment process of Mr. Trump to a certain extent but not very closely because I knew the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Anybody paying attention would have realized that the Democratic lead House of Representatives would bring down articles of impeachment only to have them die in the Republican lead Senate. That is exactly what happened. Sure there were some twists and turns in the process but it was always heading to this conclusion.
What I did find most interesting about the whole process was the end where Mitt Romney faced a major backlash for voting to convict. His vote meant nothing. It did not impact the final outcome one iota so the backlash against him is both interesting although not surprising.
I think we can now conclude that party discipline has arrived on the US government scene. In such political systems as the one in my home country of Canada party discipline is an integral part of how the system works. The system would probably break down if it did not exist because every time a sitting government loses a vote on raising or spending money it is a confidence motion. That means if the government loses that vote they lose the confidence of the House and an election is triggered. That would mean elections would take place much more often and government paralysis. However, party discipline prevents that. It is a given that Members of Parliament, of the governing party, will vote with the government on confidence motions even if they may have reservations about them.
Contrast that to the American system which, for most of its existence, Members of the House and Senators voted any way they pleased without worrying about party discipline and they knew they could do so without any real consequences. Indeed, many laws and policies, both good and bad, have been enacted in the US because of "defections".
That appears not to be the case any more. Senator Romney cast a vote against his party, a vote that had no impact on the final outcome and many are calling for his ouster from the Republican Party.
This could just be a function of the current buffoon in the White House and the Senate Republican leadership or it could be the beginning of a permanent change in how politics is done in the US. We do not know yet it will take more time to see. However, if this is the beginning of largely ironclad party discipline in the US I am not certain it is a positive development. I do not believe party discipline is conducive to the smooth operation of the US system. I do not think it is built for it.
We will have to wait and see.
Anybody paying attention would have realized that the Democratic lead House of Representatives would bring down articles of impeachment only to have them die in the Republican lead Senate. That is exactly what happened. Sure there were some twists and turns in the process but it was always heading to this conclusion.
What I did find most interesting about the whole process was the end where Mitt Romney faced a major backlash for voting to convict. His vote meant nothing. It did not impact the final outcome one iota so the backlash against him is both interesting although not surprising.
I think we can now conclude that party discipline has arrived on the US government scene. In such political systems as the one in my home country of Canada party discipline is an integral part of how the system works. The system would probably break down if it did not exist because every time a sitting government loses a vote on raising or spending money it is a confidence motion. That means if the government loses that vote they lose the confidence of the House and an election is triggered. That would mean elections would take place much more often and government paralysis. However, party discipline prevents that. It is a given that Members of Parliament, of the governing party, will vote with the government on confidence motions even if they may have reservations about them.
Contrast that to the American system which, for most of its existence, Members of the House and Senators voted any way they pleased without worrying about party discipline and they knew they could do so without any real consequences. Indeed, many laws and policies, both good and bad, have been enacted in the US because of "defections".
That appears not to be the case any more. Senator Romney cast a vote against his party, a vote that had no impact on the final outcome and many are calling for his ouster from the Republican Party.
This could just be a function of the current buffoon in the White House and the Senate Republican leadership or it could be the beginning of a permanent change in how politics is done in the US. We do not know yet it will take more time to see. However, if this is the beginning of largely ironclad party discipline in the US I am not certain it is a positive development. I do not believe party discipline is conducive to the smooth operation of the US system. I do not think it is built for it.
We will have to wait and see.
The Railway Blockades in Canada
Currently there are some protests against the Trans Mountain Pipeline in Canada taking the shape of rail blockades around the country.
In the grand scheme of things their impact on the larger Canadian economy or society are negligible. Certainly some are suffering as a result but if these protests were actually causing real damage then the Canadian economy has much bigger problems than just these blockades.
With that in mind it is no wonder that the government has not moved to bring them down with more force than they have so far. They are content to negotiate with the protesters to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation. Note I am not going to call it a crisis because it is not a crisis. It might be a profound inconvenience for some but that is all.
Of course, many in the media and the Conservative Party are calling it a crisis and demanding decisive action to bring it to an end, namely ending it by force. It is amazing what you can demand when you do not have to worry about the consequences of your actions or your demands. Any fallout from such actions would fall squarely on the government and those who demanded said actions would completely deny they made such demands when it did. It is just further proof to me that the Conservative Party is morally and ethically bankrupt and it is further justification for me to never again pay for news in this country. If the media is going to fail in its duty to democracy I should not have to pay for the product they are peddling.
As well, if these protesters blocking the rail lines were white people demanding such things as the end of the legality of abortions and same sex marriage or the elimination of gun control laws both the Conservative Party and the media would be calling them Canadian patriots and screaming at the government NOT TO USE FORCE in any form. I would like to say the hypocrisy is mind-blowing but that would imply the Conservatives and their cheerleaders have scruples, which they do not. We are just seeing more of the same.
As for the protesters themselves I find them not much better. Make no mistake I am very conflicted about the Trans Mountain Pipeline. However, the process for approval has been followed, the protesters had their day (or days) in court and they lost. It really bugs me when people or organizations insist on governments following due process and the rule of law but then when those same people or organizations come out on the losing end of that process they do not accept it and resort to illegal means to attempt to bring about the outcome they were looking for. I find them not much better than the Conservatives or the media.
Imagine the outcry (a very justifiable outcry) if the government were to revert to extra-judicial measures to subvert or ignore a court ruling.
Enough is enough. To the media and Conservatives, shut up. You are not helping matters. To the protesters, you lost. Get over it.
In the grand scheme of things their impact on the larger Canadian economy or society are negligible. Certainly some are suffering as a result but if these protests were actually causing real damage then the Canadian economy has much bigger problems than just these blockades.
With that in mind it is no wonder that the government has not moved to bring them down with more force than they have so far. They are content to negotiate with the protesters to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation. Note I am not going to call it a crisis because it is not a crisis. It might be a profound inconvenience for some but that is all.
Of course, many in the media and the Conservative Party are calling it a crisis and demanding decisive action to bring it to an end, namely ending it by force. It is amazing what you can demand when you do not have to worry about the consequences of your actions or your demands. Any fallout from such actions would fall squarely on the government and those who demanded said actions would completely deny they made such demands when it did. It is just further proof to me that the Conservative Party is morally and ethically bankrupt and it is further justification for me to never again pay for news in this country. If the media is going to fail in its duty to democracy I should not have to pay for the product they are peddling.
As well, if these protesters blocking the rail lines were white people demanding such things as the end of the legality of abortions and same sex marriage or the elimination of gun control laws both the Conservative Party and the media would be calling them Canadian patriots and screaming at the government NOT TO USE FORCE in any form. I would like to say the hypocrisy is mind-blowing but that would imply the Conservatives and their cheerleaders have scruples, which they do not. We are just seeing more of the same.
As for the protesters themselves I find them not much better. Make no mistake I am very conflicted about the Trans Mountain Pipeline. However, the process for approval has been followed, the protesters had their day (or days) in court and they lost. It really bugs me when people or organizations insist on governments following due process and the rule of law but then when those same people or organizations come out on the losing end of that process they do not accept it and resort to illegal means to attempt to bring about the outcome they were looking for. I find them not much better than the Conservatives or the media.
Imagine the outcry (a very justifiable outcry) if the government were to revert to extra-judicial measures to subvert or ignore a court ruling.
Enough is enough. To the media and Conservatives, shut up. You are not helping matters. To the protesters, you lost. Get over it.
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