Missed statistics class that day, did we Steve?

I don't know of any post-secondary education in things involving the exchange of goods and services, the movement of money or the creation and stability of wealth that doesn't involve a healthy dose of the science of statistics. That would include, even at a basic level, an education in economics.

Apparently Harper missed that part of his boiler-plate economics training and paid more attention to his political science puppet-masters. And now, he's pretending Canadians don't notice that he's being led around by his statistically insignificant Christian-Conservative base.

So, Steve, here's a lesson you apparently missed. No confidence interval - just easily understood statistics which prove you, Buckwheat, and your crypto-fascist Christian base are out of step with the statistically solid majority of Canadians.

Bye bye "Buy Local' - Hello "Buy North American"

Harper and Co have been working hard. They have decided the prorogation of parliament is the ideal time to implement a crippling new extension of NAFTA into our lives .

The Deal :
In exchange for a 10 day window in which Canadian corporations will theoretically be allowed exemption from some of Obama's protectionist Buy America economic provisions, Canadian provinces and municipalities will permanently relinquish their right to award local contracts to local businesses.
Our taxes, our jobs. Bye bye 'Buy Local', hello WTO.

As Harper has previously stated :"I do think that the proliferation of domestic preferences in subnational government procurement is really problematic."

Stockwell Day has been pushing the provinces towards this since last June, even though many US cities and states continue to have laws restricting their contracts to their own domestic contractors and much of Obama's US-only stimulous spending has already been spent. Well, these are the folks who negotiated the softwood lumber deal for us after all.

CP :

"Harper says he doesn't believe there will be any opposition to the agreement, but adds his government could ratify the deal without Parliament."

John Manley, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, former Liberal deputy prime minister, Canada Chair of the deep integration project 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, and co-author of "Building A North American Community" for the US Council on Foreign Relations, is also celebrating the deal :

"It's good that it has given us a relationship with the United States that recognizes the degree of integration of our economies."

2010 was of course the date by which Manley predicted "the establishment of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

Or, as a Chicago School alumni once told me, Canadians will be ok with the integration of their culture, industry, and military into the US as long as they still get to vote and keep their flag.

We'll see :
"More than 25 organizations are meeting today in Ottawa to launch efforts to counter this and other trade deals whose aim is to destroy local democratic control over public spending."

Update : Walkom says it better.

Prorogation vs Canada's Pro-Democracy Movement

From The Real News Network : an excellent summary of the issues behind Steve's latest prorogation of democracy and how Canadians are pushing back.

Meanwhile, south of the 'longest undefended border in the world', Chris Hedges discusses 'inverted totalitarianism' in Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction .

How successful the Harpercons are at quietly shifting the state of democracy in Canada from the tenuous grasp described in the first link to the 'useful fiction' of the second is entirely up to us.

John Baird, you can kiss my rosy red ass

Sit, John, sit!

Apparently canine commands are the only thing to which you respond.

Escort whatshername - it'll give you some creds. Scream like a stuck pig in parliament - it'll give you some media vapour light. Truck out the "you guys are irresponsible" line - it'll provide covering fire - for us.

John, you must understand, does nothing without a command or permission - period. That's why this is so impeachable.

"I can tell you the very last thing this country needs is an unnecessary election, less than a year before we had the last one," Baird said.

So... Harper sends the loud obnoxious kid out to fire off the smoke. And Baird, dumber than most, seems only more than willing to do so, since it's clearly obvious that his position of prominence is something he could only have achieved under an incompetent and self-aggrandizing leader.

You're quite right, Baird. There are times when federal general elections are totally unnecessary. Your homeboy knows that. He knew it well before the last election, even though he lied through his teeth - just before he foisted one on the voters.

Baird:

"It would be irresponsible to interrupt our important work on the economy with an unnecessary election."

That would be the all-important recession war you guys are in. Something, I might add, that you consistently deny is actually happening.

Point: (My fucking emphasis)

... Baird said following the release of Statistic Canada's latest figures, which showed Canada's gross domestic product grew for the first time since July 2008.

Yeah, well this is your poseur of an economist leader before he called the last election for no reason other than he thought he could mobilize his callous-kneed base while the rest of us stayed home. This is what the "economist" Stephen Harper was telling us:

"While it has slowed down considerably, and while there remains this considerable instability, the American economy has not crashed, has not itself entered into recession," he told reporters in Ottawa.

"My own belief is if we were going to have some sort of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now."

StatsCan is reporting ugly things in July; the rest of the world sees the boot on the move for the global genitals in August and Harper, the great Harper, in mid-September, tells us that it isn't happening.

And in October, he tells us parliament is dysfunctional. With no vote of non-confidence, calls a snap election. Never mind that he didn't make it past December without suspending the democracy to save his own ass.

Where has this happened before, John?

I could hang such a label off you, you fucking martinet.

You just gained a new aura, John, and when the writ next gets drawn up, the gloves get dropped.

I promise.

Death and Taxes...

And apparently supreme ruler, Stevie Harper only believes in death.

You know, there's two schools in economics on this. One is that there are some good taxes and the other is that no taxes are good taxes. I'm in the latter category. I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes.

Harper

10 July, 2009

Yeah... there's black and white. Pure neo-con bullshit.

Jeffery Simpson feels the same way I do.

This assertion, from an interview the Prime Minister gave The Globe and Mail after the G8 summit in Italy, is one of the most stunning, revealing and, frankly, ignorant statements ever made by a prime minister, let alone one who keeps purporting to be an economist, despite doing so many things that economists deplore.

Think about it: The prime minister of a country is saying, “I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes.”

There is no “school,” to use Stephen Harper's word, anywhere in economics that says “no taxes are good taxes.” Not even Milton Friedman and the Chicago school think that. Nor do Mr. Harper's former mentors at the University of Calgary.

And it just keeps getting better.

Bonus! Jennifer explains what Harper doesn't get.

Dan explains that killing taxes starts at home - Harper's home. (I would completely agree to selling off 24 Sussex Drive and forcing the prime minister to find his/her own accommodation. The PM is more than amply compensated. We taxpayers provide an office - provide your own friggin' house.)

By the way, when the Conservatives favourite ambulance chaser-turned-finance minister did a review of assets and announced that so many of them were now surplus, how come the various PM's residences didn't go to the chopping block?

When Harper speaks... you never know what he's going to say

More at Bowie's Blog.

Man of Steel vs. the Incredible Shrinking Mandate

One of the crowning glories of Steve's original Five Priorities Four Pillars Three Little Pigs Accountability Act was his paean to Canada's Gnu Government transparency - the creation of a Parliamentary Budget Office to provide independent analysis of the national economy and the government's fiscal position.

First budget officer Kevin Page, or "Man of Steel" as Jennifer calls him, has produced two reports since March, both critical of the government.
The first, released during the election, calculated that the cost of the Afghanistan mission not including military equipment will be about $18.1 billion by 2011.
The second, published shortly before Diamond Jim Flaherty vowed there would be absolutely no chance of a deficit next year, projected a deficit for next year.

"In his economic statement, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty projected a budget surplus of $100 million for 2009-10 based on the sale of about $2 billion in assets that he didn't identify."

Mr. Flatulence has since reluctantly come around to Kevin Page's assessment, predicting a $15-billion deficit, only to be promptly contradicted himself by Steve who is now calling for a $20 to $30-billion deficit.

So it won't come as much of a surprise to hear that in the matter of the Department of Finance vs the Parliamentary Budget Office, old Kev has had his budget frozen -( h/t Far and Wide ) - presumably because accurate financial forecasts are a dime a dozen lately in Steve's Fiscal Funhouse.

Actually it's a testament to Mr. Page's perseverence that he has got this far. Both Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella and House Speaker Peter Milliken want him reined in, arguing that the "budget office is simply an extension of the services the Library [of Parliament] already offers."

"The parliamentary library operates on a solicitor-client basis. This means any research the library collects for MPs and senators is "privileged" and can be withheld at their request. As an adjunct of the library, Mr. Page's reports would be done for MPs and committees who then can could use the information as they want."

Privileged. Witheld at their request. As they want.

In 2006 a document at the Library of Parliament outlined the various forms the Parliamentary Budget Office could take and decided it should not be granted the same independence enjoyed by the Auditor General. Evidently no one bothered to inform the Man of Steel.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Budget 2009 : the Contest!

Via Maxwell's House, we learn that Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finangling, has thrown open the doors to all Canadians to contribute to Budget 2009 at the ministry website! Really. What's your pleasure?
Sure there's a handy list of suggestions but also a page to write in your own.

Sven at Fish Eggs has an idea :

"Every Canadian Citizen, will, for the next twelve months, receive a $2000 monthly payment. If you make more than $35,000 per year, it will be progressively taxed to ensure it gets to those whom need it the most. Simple.

This programme will run for one year only. Short.

As the lower income earners all know, this money would enter the economy almost completely, as there is little or no room for most to squirrel away their money. People could spend this money to buy a car, thus bailing out the auto industry. Or they could choose to spend it on housing, thus bailing out the housing industry. Or they may decide to invest in more education and go back to school, thus bailing out the education sector. What matters here is that the PEOPLE would decide where to put OUR hard earned tax dollars. The politicians would then be able to see where we chose to put our money and they could then craft legislation to reflect these investment choices made by Canadians. Effective."

Go for it, Sven.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Ritzeriosis

Christie Blatchford wishes everyone would just shut the hell up about AgMin Gerry Ritz's appalling remarks about the listeriosis deaths:
"He wasn't speaking publicly. He was at work ... He was having what he assumed was a private discussion."
"It was perfectly normal human behaviour", she explains, just like the newsroom she once worked in that "had a pool guessing the date Terry [Fox] would die."
Well, she's Blatchford, isn't she?

RossK at The Gazetteer has his own concerns about all this concentration on Ritz's "death jokes".
In "Are The Media Dropping The Ball To Follow The Shiny Ritz?" , he notes that media attention on the jokes and who leaked them obscures the more important original question of

"who was involved in crafting changes to CFIA policy that led to the removal of government inspectors from meat processing plants after Nov 2007?"
"It is the identity of the person or persons who made that public health policy decision regarding self-regulation, not the identity of the person or persons who squealed on a Minister"

that is important here, says Ross.

Well, exactly.
Ross put the question to hard-working Hill reporter David Akin, whose response raises a whole load of other important issues about the difficulty reporters face in posing any questions to Harper at all.
Or to anyone else the PMO doesn't want them to talk to.

Akin writes : "Harper himself seems relatively unfazed by the disclosure of Ritz's comments."
I'll bet he is. Disclosure of Ritz's comments have been a positive boon.
Now we're no longer demanding to know who is responsible for the Decision of the Treasury Board Meeting, November 13, 2007 to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency:
"Inspection of Meat and Meat Products - shift from full-time CFIA meat inspection presence to an oversight role, allowing industry to implement food safety control programs and to manage key risks."

My take on the unfortunate media focus on the "jokes" goes like this : People like Blatchford will remember some off-colour remark they once made at work and how they didn't get fired for it so why should Ritz?
End of listeriosis issue. End of accountability for 18 deaths. Next.
Till the next case of Ritzeriosis privatization disaster.

Crossposted at Creekside

Carrying water for elephants

The elephant in the room of this election has been the US market meltdown, courtesy of the Republican elephant's love of ponzi schemes.
Yesterday Steve took time out from pretending to ignore it altogether to express his concern that we might not let him carry water for Uncle Miltie's neo-liberal fantasy economics any more :

"In a time of economic uncertainty, I do think the country needs a strong government that's able to govern," Mr. Harper told journalists in Toronto. "My concern is that obviously, going forward, that we have a government that's going to be sabotaged by a bunch of parties who don't want our economy to be successful."

Yeah, that's it, Steve, you utter prat. Why do the other parties hate Canada?

Speaking of sabotage, Steve, as an economist and PM, you have implemented de-regulation of food and airline safety and the abandonment of independent Canadian regulation and testing of pesticides and drugs. In fact your singular economic achievement since taking office has been to turn the $13B surplus you inherited from PM Martin into $60B in corporate tax cuts.

Decent short article on economic cycles : Teetering between Keynes and Friedman :

"When the pyramid starts crumbling, taxpayers must step in to refinance the banking system, revive mortgage markets and prevent economic collapse."

I'm guessing a surplus would be more useful here than your pledge to continue carrying water for that Republican elephant in the corner of the room.
Cue the hilarious How the markets really work one more time.

Image from Banksy
Cross-posted at Creekside