Friday, December 5, 2008

Banana Republic Coup with Snowflakes

I am deeply saddened that I can not take credit for that line. Especially the part about the flakes!

Apparently it was coined by some university professor which in itself is remarkable since it took two former profs to create this fiasco.

If it wasn't so serious it would be hilarious. Here you have a party which should not even be in the House of Commons because it is not a national party and two former ivory-tower profs who swore up and down in the electoral debates they would NEVER join with separatists. To be fair, If Quebec can have its own party, then shouldn't every province be able to have one too?

But that was before Mr. Dion saw his dream of becoming PM shattered while he was also shattering the record for the biggest loss for the Liberals in Canadian history! Now Mr. Layton is no fool, at least he wasn't before this, and it is rumoured that he and Mr. Duceppe, neither of whom had anything to lose, actually sketched out this scenario previous to the election.

I cannot quite get my head around the idea that Canadians sent a very huge message to Mr. Dion in the election that he should go home and plant green shifts in his back yard all by himself and yet here he is gleefully rubbing his hands in delight at being a "coalition" PM if they could just get rid of Mr. Harper peacefully.

Seems like Mr. Dion has trouble getting it or maybe he is just as stubborn as a mule on a mountain pass. Either way he has now achieved a place in history. Maybe that was it all the time. He figured he had nothing to lose so why not try for a record? If you cannot be succesful any other way, try ignominy.

Failed being elected, failed party leader who won't go away, now failed "banana republic coup with snowflakes" leader. That is a hat trick he could call in to Guinness!

I knew up there in academia they get out of touch with reality but this is one for the records. I guess I said that.

Then we have the revival of the three stooges going against everything they said about each other in the election and joining forces for the program. I imagine it will look funnier in hindsight. And hindsight can't come soon enough for me anyway.

I guess it was one of those delusional hypotheses that academics can be attempted to draw up from time to time. Thinking that being in charge of a class in school makes you more adept at being in charge of Canada's economy than an economist.

Sort of like me applying for a job at the Toronto Star as a conservative blogger with no other trace of a record of publications other than about 20 blogs and websites. That kind of thinking.

There is even a rumour that Duceppe was trying to buy some guns through a military magazine from the US but Canada Customs stopped the package at the Peace Bridge when they found out they weren't registered. They put them in recycling so as not to increase landfill. Location confidential.

I wonder if looking back this will be the kind of story they will tell their grandchildren, with a few enhancements... that is if they have grandchildren. Sorry I didn't do my research. If you're so great, you check it out!

As it turns out, Stephen Harper was right that the Canadian people really don't want to fund the parties by a whopping 61%. Of course not with the three stooges. They didn't get the call.

Also with 72% "truly scared" for the country, how ridiculous is it to think that an experienced loser, ignorant of economics, would think this was a good time to change the government??? Do I hear a "duh" somewhere? And what about all that talk about caring for seniors and the common people of Canada?

The common people of Canada who have retirement money in the market have just got whacked over and over again in the head and now they want more of the same??? And for we seniors, there are only so many Walmarts in Canada where you can be a greeter, not nearly enough for all of us.

I hear that we will soon be the largest age group in Canada. With only 5 or 6 parties in Ottawa, now may be the time to start the NATIONAL GEEZERS PARTY otherwise known as the NGP! Nothing like a good party! We will have to think up a new design for the signs tho, all the good colours are gone! BLUE, RED, ORANGE-turned-ORANGY-GREEN, GREEN, BLOCY-BLUE, and BROWN ... did I miss any? After all if Quebec needs to look out for its interests, shouldn't we?

Then you have the intellectuals of Quebec thinking it is a great idea vying against the West who was preparing a plan to leave Canada if the disaster was to occur.

I mean if it wasn't for the gun registry, we could have a civil war! Thank goodness that all those guns are registered, at least the ones owned by honest citizens.

It's not funny now but I expect some day it will be hilarious. I mean hindsight is 20-20, especially some people's hinds! Present company excepted, of course.

That's all folks!
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VIDEO:Canada Human Rights

VIDEO of CTV PowerPlay Canada Human? Rights Commission?

Iranian S-Elections?

Evolution / Intelligent Design

Legitimate Questions Should Be Discussed

I am reminded of how established "science" has been wrong many times before such as in the case of Piltdown man. So could it be wrong now? Or has it been perfected? Should not reasonable arguments be considered?

We have become a nation of beggars

Terence Corcoran reports in the National Post on Friday, January 16, 2009 that the STIMULUS everyone is yelling for may only work over a short period and may actually MAKE THE ECONOMY WORSE over longer periods.

[Read the article below for the researchers who studied this phenomenon.]

POINTS

- "What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?"

- Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

-One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

-A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

-Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

- What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

The whole article by Terrance Corcoran follows:

Are you "shovel-ready," poised to hit the ground running, or merely desperate for cheap cash to get through the recession? If so, here's your last chance to apply to Ottawa for a piece of the massive government spending-bailout-infrastructure-stimulus operation now being prepared for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's Jan. 27 budget extravaganza.

To get you going, the National Post has created an all-purpose Stimulus Canada application document. Simply make sure your company/institution fills out the form here to get in on the action.

We're just kidding, of course, or at least we were until our satirical Stimulus Canada General Application Form was mugged by reality, which is rapidly turning out to be funnier than the fanciful idea of a government department called Stimulus Canada. To all intents and purposes, Stimulus Canada already exists.

Government money to flow, the taps are opening, deficits are no problem. The spending, as Stephen Harper said after a meeting with the premiers on Friday, will be "very significant" and there will be "very significant deficits." That could mean new spending of $20-billion and deficits of $40-billion.

Industry groups, corporate opportunists, charities, municipal politicians, arts groups, provincial premiers, tech firms, mining companies, forestry operators, banks, money lenders -- in fact, just about everybody has come forward to get in on Canada's portion of what is turning out to be a mad global government stimulus pandemic.

Each claims to have a plan or an idea that they say would produce jobs, spending, investment and activity that would get Canada through the recession and stimulate the economy.

At some point, though, the clamour of claims and calls becomes absurd, and that point looks to have been crossed the other day in the United States when porn merchant Larry Flint said the U.S. sex industry was falling on hard times, business was down 25%, and it needed a $5-billion slice of the $1.2-billion U.S. stimulus program.

And why not?

Mr. Flint has a point. It is not totally illogical for anyone to think that way. If you spend a dollar somewhere -- whether building a bridge or operating a forest company or buying a car -- it generates activity. And, after all, it's a grand old economic theory, created by John Maynard Keynes, that spending, especially government spending, rolls through the economy on a giant multiplier, piling jobs on jobs, growth on growth.

Except for one problem: What if it's not true? What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?

The Prime Minister, in his comments on Friday, seemed to be riding right into the barnyard. He said the government would be simply "borrowing money that is not being used" and "that business is afraid to invest." By borrowing that money, and turning it over to all the groups and interests looking for part of the stimulus spending, he would be jump-starting activity while the private sector got its legs back.

Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

Two other studies point in the same direction. A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

Over at Stimulus Canada, Mr. Harper's plan looks somewhat more modest and Canada is not in the same fiscal fix as the United States. But Ottawa and the provinces are clearly ready to borrow big wads of money from the future to stimulate the economy today. It's money that is supposedly sitting out there in the timid hands of investors who will be repaid with tax dollars later.

But if that stimulus spending does not generate much fresh economic growth, and the borrowing chews up money that private investors could invest in the future, the shovel-ready brigades who get the cash today will produce only short term gains at the expense of the long term health of the economy.

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