When the grave situation in this or that remote reserve hits the news, moral outrage is the order of the day. Liberals always demand that more money be thrown the situation and invariably throw in some reference to the Third World. Conservatives, on the other hand, always question whether current monies are being wisely spent.
Neither side seems to have noticed the guy in the gorilla suit. The long and troubled relationship between First Nation peoples and the Crown has blinded them to patent absurdity of the current situation. It has blinded them to the fact that Attawapiskat is a natural consequence of an economic and legal relationship built around Native rights, the reserve system, the Indian Act and Native Self government. In any other context this would be self evident. Indeed, imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means to be Chinese, created a department of Chinese affairs, created Chinese rights, reserved land for Chinese so defined and exempted Chinese living on reserve land from paying taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that is a recipe for disastrous social relations. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights and native reserves?
Of course the situation is even worse than just described. Not only has Canada set up hundreds of tax havens for Status Indians to take advantage of, it also provides incentives for Status Indians to stay on them or move to them. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise to pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no income tax or sales tax, but also no property tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Realizing, the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.
In practice government foot dragging does not always work so well. Some of these tax havens are so isolated and so utterly economically unviable that the government is dammed no matter what it does. If it builds up these communities too much it runs the risk of attracting more people to them. However if it does too little, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people living there to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is a long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
The only possible way out this mess, viz., abolishing native rights, abolishing the Indian Act and privatizing reserve lands, has been forever blocked by section 35 of the Constitution -- a decision, by the way, that renders Trudeau's time in office an abject failure. The best the government can do is to amend the Indian Act to allow for the creation of fee simple lands, thereby switching the financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing from the federal government to individual home owners, and empowering bands to impose property taxes. This will give the people living in Attawapiskat and like communities additional economic incentives to leave. Namely, either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will.
That said, introducing fee simple opens a whole host of other problems. For example, as the idiocy of native self government is maintained in all cases, non natives purchasing native lands would have no right to take part in band elections. There would be taxation but no representation. Such a situation would greatly depress real estate values on reserves -- especially on remote reserves. Band councils must be transformed into municipal councils. The notion of a government built around a legally defined race is not only economically problematic, it is ideologically putrid. Moving to a fee simple model also does not eliminate such lands as tax havens.
The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion (e.g., cigarettes), instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. If politicians and the media want to accept this as Canada's historical cross to bear, so be it. However, it is high time both acknowledge that the problem is intractable so long as the only possible solution, viz., the abolition of native rights and the Indian Act and privatization of reserve lands, remains legally untenable.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Abolish the Senate Already
Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aforementioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truly is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitimacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legitimate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members exercise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.
Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.
Setting aside problems associated with implementation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. Of course, Reformers also lamented that "the West's" growing population was not translating into more political clout. Such was movement's internal inconstancy and intellectual shallowness. The Reform party aside, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.
First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 people as compared to the riding of St John's East which has 88,002, Kenora has 64,291 and suburban riding of Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi has 53,844 and Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.
Setting aside problems associated with implementation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. Of course, Reformers also lamented that "the West's" growing population was not translating into more political clout. Such was movement's internal inconstancy and intellectual shallowness. The Reform party aside, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.
First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 people as compared to the riding of St John's East which has 88,002, Kenora has 64,291 and suburban riding of Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi has 53,844 and Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
Canadians drowning in Debt: further Decreases in Amortization called for
The cost of housing gone through the roof since 2006 and the main reason for that is the Conservative government decided pour fuel on an already red hot real estate market. The Conservatives extended the mortgage amortization period from 25 years to 30 years in February 2006, extended it to 35 years in July of 2006 and extended it yet again to 40 years in November 2006. During this period they also reduced the needed down payment on second properties from 20% to 5% and allowed for 0 down on one's primary residence. Ever since the down turn, Jim Flaherty has been scrabbling to undo the damage his past actions have done. Flaherty first reduced amortization period from 40 years to 35 and again mandated a 20% down payment on secondary properties and 5% on primary properties in October 2008 and on March 18th he reduced the maximum amortization period to 30 years. Never once acknowledging that it was he who raised the amortization period to begin with, Jim Flaherty has repeatedly over the course of the last 2 and half years claimed that reducing the amortization and increasing the minimum downplayment was the right thing to do. "In 2008 and again in 2010, our government acted to protect and strengthen the Canadian housing market,".
With Canadians drowning in debt, Ed Clark, the chief executive officer of Toronto-Dominion Bank has said Flaherty should go back to where he started. That is, amortization should be capped at 25 years.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/mortgage-rules-should-be-stricter-td-chief-says/article2271588/
The problem is that it would be tricky to do this without creating a downturn in the housing market and this would not reverse the damage that has already been done by Conservative stupidity. Whether it be Bloomberg, the Economist, the IMF, Paul Krugman and, if you read between the lines, Mark Carney many are worried that Canada's housing market is headed for a crash and that such a crash would have dire implications for Canada. For one thing, since 2006 Canadian mortgage and housing corporations liabilities have gone from 100 billion to 500 hundred billion. If the housing bubble bursts and Canadians start defaulting on their mortgages, the Canadian tax payer will be picking up the tab. The Canadian government guarantees all that debt.
With Canadians drowning in debt, Ed Clark, the chief executive officer of Toronto-Dominion Bank has said Flaherty should go back to where he started. That is, amortization should be capped at 25 years.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/mortgage-rules-should-be-stricter-td-chief-says/article2271588/
The problem is that it would be tricky to do this without creating a downturn in the housing market and this would not reverse the damage that has already been done by Conservative stupidity. Whether it be Bloomberg, the Economist, the IMF, Paul Krugman and, if you read between the lines, Mark Carney many are worried that Canada's housing market is headed for a crash and that such a crash would have dire implications for Canada. For one thing, since 2006 Canadian mortgage and housing corporations liabilities have gone from 100 billion to 500 hundred billion. If the housing bubble bursts and Canadians start defaulting on their mortgages, the Canadian tax payer will be picking up the tab. The Canadian government guarantees all that debt.
So long as Native Rights and Reserves exist so will Attawapiskats
When the grave situation in this or that remote reserve hits the news, moral outrage is the order of the day. Liberals always demand that more money be thrown the situation and invariably throw in some reference to the Third World. Conservatives, on the other hand, always question whether current monies are being wisely spent.
Neither side seems to have noticed the guy in the gorilla suit. The long and troubled relationship between First Nation peoples and the Crown has blinded them to patent absurdity of the current situation. It has blinded them to the fact that Attawapiskat is a natural consequence of an economic and legal relationship built around Native rights, the reserve system, the Indian Act and Native Self government. In any other context this would be evident. Indeed, imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means to be Chinese, created a department of Chinese affairs, created Chinese rights, reserved land for Chinese so defined and exempted Chinese living on reserve land from paying taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that is a recipe for disastrous social relations. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights and native reserves?
The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion, instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. If the Liberals want to accept this as Canada's historical cross to bear, so be it. However, they need to acknowledge that the problem is intractable so long as the only possible solution, viz., the abolition of native rights and the Indian Act and privatization of reserve lands, remains legally untenable.
Neither side seems to have noticed the guy in the gorilla suit. The long and troubled relationship between First Nation peoples and the Crown has blinded them to patent absurdity of the current situation. It has blinded them to the fact that Attawapiskat is a natural consequence of an economic and legal relationship built around Native rights, the reserve system, the Indian Act and Native Self government. In any other context this would be evident. Indeed, imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means to be Chinese, created a department of Chinese affairs, created Chinese rights, reserved land for Chinese so defined and exempted Chinese living on reserve land from paying taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that is a recipe for disastrous social relations. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights and native reserves?
The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion, instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. If the Liberals want to accept this as Canada's historical cross to bear, so be it. However, they need to acknowledge that the problem is intractable so long as the only possible solution, viz., the abolition of native rights and the Indian Act and privatization of reserve lands, remains legally untenable.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
A guide on handling Conservative Marijuana legalization talking points and Liberal reluctance
The US will never legalize Pot
Proposition 19 failed, but the issue will likely be revisited in 2012 and this time it stands a very good chance of passing. Voter turn for mid term elections is always significantly less than when the presidency is up for grabs. For proposition 19 to have stood any chance of winning Democrats, and the young needed to be energized. They were not and stayed away in droves. Even with everything stacked against them, though, the yes campaign still garnered 46% of vote.
A yes vote would kick start a debate stateside that would wipe out any legitimacy prohibition has left in vast swaths of the country. So, while it is likely that a yes vote would likely be contested by whomever is president in 2013, the response is likely to be muted. This will be especially so if Obama wins. Obama is not going to go to war with the biggest State in the Union and one that is heavily Democratic to boot.
Obama's ability to push back would be for other reasons as well. He freely admits to having marijuana in the past ("I inhaled frequently. That was the point") and his marijuana use is not a part of some redemption narrative, a la George Bush. It was a path he choice not to continue going down. Drug use was never presented as a demon he had to overcome yet alone one he still struggles with the way an alcoholic does with drink. This would leave him open to the charge of hypocrisy. Far more importantly though, the war and drugs, especially with regard to marijuana, has had a profound impact on the African American community in the States. If Obama was to toe the standard line in the face of California promising to end the war on drugs, he would be in a world of hurt politically. The African American community would not, of course, abandon him, but they would be unhappy and their unhappiness would have the potential to throw his whole re election campaign out of whack politically. His whole message of being the candidate of change would be called into question.
Finally, it was Obama that set the wheels of legalization in motion in the first place by declaring that he would not crack down on medical marijuana. For you see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let wooden horse to be wheeled into California and other States anyway. In so doing, Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no saving prohibition from Odysseus. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in LA than Starbucks. It is not a question of if marijuana will be legalized in the US it is matter of when.
The US will Never Let it happen
Canadians understand that the US, despite prohibition's crumbling foundation there, would not be pleased about legalization. As such, Harper's musings about legalizing marijuana causing trouble at the border seem reasonable enough. The problem is this does not make marijuana prohibition any more legitimate; it just means that Canada is tailoring its own laws to meet the demands of Americans considered so illegitimate that popular cultural considers them a symptom of madness “refer madness”. This can not stand. Any perception that Canada is enforcing laws to met with illegitimate demands of a bullying third party, whoever that may be, is simply poisonous to the health of a functioning democracy.
Moreover, the notion that American prohibition would stand if Canada were to charge ahead with marijuana legalization is wrong. Not only would Canadian boldness create a tidal wave of domestic debate State side, but should Canada have the guts to go through with such a move various European countries (e.g., Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands) Australia and Latin America, Mexico in particular, would soon follow Canada's led. The international dominos would start falling one by one. This in turn would further embolden domestic proponents, especially those in California.
Potent Pot
Potent pot is more myth than reality.
However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.
That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.
Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
The Black Market will live on
It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. People want to know that what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.
The gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time
One of the arguments that I have repeatedly come across recently is that should marijuana be legalized then the gangs will move onto other things. I prefer to call this the gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time argument.
The problem with this argument is that the gangs are already into other things and it is profits from marijuana that are helping them do that. In the context of Canada, marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to expand operations into the States, for example, and to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns). It is not like the gangs have excess to capital markets. This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.
Gateway Drug
Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.
In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Schizophrenia Marijuana
Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,
Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia but rather that it may cause the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown's dismay, this was the opinion of Dr Iddon.
The Failure of Current Liberal Policy
A promise to legalize marijuana would be a welcome respite from the Liberals shamelessly taking inherently contradictory policies in hopes of capitalizing on both sides of this issue.
Indeed, on the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand, just as they long downplayed the affects of smoking marijuana they have long stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. Both positions are popular with the public, but run the two positions together and it is as if Chrétien said this instead. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand. Having paid my fine I would hope the cops find the person who sold it to me in put him in jail for a very long time.” If the act of consumption is not deemed overly ruinous then the whole punitive rationale for trafficking comes crashing down. Add to mix an acknowledgment on behalf of the Liberal party that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.
Far from helping the Liberals such an approach probably harmed them. It angered ardent supporters of both sides of the political divide at the same time and prevented the Liberals from saying anything intelligent about the issue. Moreover, as far the general public is concerned, the Liberals have gained nothing by trying to emulate the Conservative's tough on crime stance. The reason is simple. As Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election that there are certain issues that just favour the Conservatives. The example he gave was the economy. No matter how successful the Liberals were in balancing the books and creating jobs, Conservative research suggested that when it came to economics people trusted the Conservatives more than they did the Liberals. It does not much of leap to suggest the same is true for crime. After all, to presume that the public has a working knowledge of each party's justice policies is giving the public way too much credit; the public trades in stereotypes and they are always going to believe that Conservatives are tougher on crime. This is especially so now. The Conservatives are in power and for this reason alone what they say with regard to crime garners headlines. By contrast, past Liberal support for some those Conservative tough on crime measures has drawn almost no attention at all. Of course, even if the Liberals were able to convince Canadians did support this or that Conservative measure, the Conservatives have a fail safe. They have claimed and will continue to claim that the Liberals had ability to introduce such policies when they were in power and failed to do so. No one likes a Johnny come lately.
Of course, Liberal bad faith goes much deeper than playing both sides against the middle. Despite a long term commitment to decriminalize marijuana the Liberals have failed to act for fear of angering the Americans. The Marc Emery case is a great example Liberal cowardness. For years Marc Emery had been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Federal taxes on money he made “selling marijuana seeds”. Yet in 2005, at the behest of the American government, Canada arrested Emery so that he could face charges in the US. Emery pleaded guilty to the US charges and was sent the US to serve a 5 year prison term for crime that had not been prosecuted in Canada for 7 years and had only ever warranted a $200 fine. It gets worse. Under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So, a BC marijuana activists tried to save Emery from being sent to the States by having Emery charged under Canadian law. His efforts were unsuccessful. Despite a mountain of evidence against him, Canadian authorities were unwilling to charge Emery under Canadian law.
So long as the debate is centered around sentencing, the Conservatives win. The Liberals need to shift the focus from punishment to the legitimacy of various laws. This is the only way of Liberals will be able to starve the Conservatives' populist tough on crime agenda of oxygen.
Proposition 19 failed, but the issue will likely be revisited in 2012 and this time it stands a very good chance of passing. Voter turn for mid term elections is always significantly less than when the presidency is up for grabs. For proposition 19 to have stood any chance of winning Democrats, and the young needed to be energized. They were not and stayed away in droves. Even with everything stacked against them, though, the yes campaign still garnered 46% of vote.
A yes vote would kick start a debate stateside that would wipe out any legitimacy prohibition has left in vast swaths of the country. So, while it is likely that a yes vote would likely be contested by whomever is president in 2013, the response is likely to be muted. This will be especially so if Obama wins. Obama is not going to go to war with the biggest State in the Union and one that is heavily Democratic to boot.
Obama's ability to push back would be for other reasons as well. He freely admits to having marijuana in the past ("I inhaled frequently. That was the point") and his marijuana use is not a part of some redemption narrative, a la George Bush. It was a path he choice not to continue going down. Drug use was never presented as a demon he had to overcome yet alone one he still struggles with the way an alcoholic does with drink. This would leave him open to the charge of hypocrisy. Far more importantly though, the war and drugs, especially with regard to marijuana, has had a profound impact on the African American community in the States. If Obama was to toe the standard line in the face of California promising to end the war on drugs, he would be in a world of hurt politically. The African American community would not, of course, abandon him, but they would be unhappy and their unhappiness would have the potential to throw his whole re election campaign out of whack politically. His whole message of being the candidate of change would be called into question.
Finally, it was Obama that set the wheels of legalization in motion in the first place by declaring that he would not crack down on medical marijuana. For you see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let wooden horse to be wheeled into California and other States anyway. In so doing, Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no saving prohibition from Odysseus. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in LA than Starbucks. It is not a question of if marijuana will be legalized in the US it is matter of when.
The US will Never Let it happen
Canadians understand that the US, despite prohibition's crumbling foundation there, would not be pleased about legalization. As such, Harper's musings about legalizing marijuana causing trouble at the border seem reasonable enough. The problem is this does not make marijuana prohibition any more legitimate; it just means that Canada is tailoring its own laws to meet the demands of Americans considered so illegitimate that popular cultural considers them a symptom of madness “refer madness”. This can not stand. Any perception that Canada is enforcing laws to met with illegitimate demands of a bullying third party, whoever that may be, is simply poisonous to the health of a functioning democracy.
Moreover, the notion that American prohibition would stand if Canada were to charge ahead with marijuana legalization is wrong. Not only would Canadian boldness create a tidal wave of domestic debate State side, but should Canada have the guts to go through with such a move various European countries (e.g., Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands) Australia and Latin America, Mexico in particular, would soon follow Canada's led. The international dominos would start falling one by one. This in turn would further embolden domestic proponents, especially those in California.
Potent Pot
Potent pot is more myth than reality.
However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.
That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.
Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
The Black Market will live on
It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. People want to know that what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.
The gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time
One of the arguments that I have repeatedly come across recently is that should marijuana be legalized then the gangs will move onto other things. I prefer to call this the gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time argument.
The problem with this argument is that the gangs are already into other things and it is profits from marijuana that are helping them do that. In the context of Canada, marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to expand operations into the States, for example, and to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns). It is not like the gangs have excess to capital markets. This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.
Gateway Drug
Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.
In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Schizophrenia Marijuana
Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,
"If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50,"
Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia but rather that it may cause the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown's dismay, this was the opinion of Dr Iddon.
Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse [Britain], said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed. "If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.
The Failure of Current Liberal Policy
A promise to legalize marijuana would be a welcome respite from the Liberals shamelessly taking inherently contradictory policies in hopes of capitalizing on both sides of this issue.
Indeed, on the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand, just as they long downplayed the affects of smoking marijuana they have long stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. Both positions are popular with the public, but run the two positions together and it is as if Chrétien said this instead. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand. Having paid my fine I would hope the cops find the person who sold it to me in put him in jail for a very long time.” If the act of consumption is not deemed overly ruinous then the whole punitive rationale for trafficking comes crashing down. Add to mix an acknowledgment on behalf of the Liberal party that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.
Far from helping the Liberals such an approach probably harmed them. It angered ardent supporters of both sides of the political divide at the same time and prevented the Liberals from saying anything intelligent about the issue. Moreover, as far the general public is concerned, the Liberals have gained nothing by trying to emulate the Conservative's tough on crime stance. The reason is simple. As Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election that there are certain issues that just favour the Conservatives. The example he gave was the economy. No matter how successful the Liberals were in balancing the books and creating jobs, Conservative research suggested that when it came to economics people trusted the Conservatives more than they did the Liberals. It does not much of leap to suggest the same is true for crime. After all, to presume that the public has a working knowledge of each party's justice policies is giving the public way too much credit; the public trades in stereotypes and they are always going to believe that Conservatives are tougher on crime. This is especially so now. The Conservatives are in power and for this reason alone what they say with regard to crime garners headlines. By contrast, past Liberal support for some those Conservative tough on crime measures has drawn almost no attention at all. Of course, even if the Liberals were able to convince Canadians did support this or that Conservative measure, the Conservatives have a fail safe. They have claimed and will continue to claim that the Liberals had ability to introduce such policies when they were in power and failed to do so. No one likes a Johnny come lately.
Of course, Liberal bad faith goes much deeper than playing both sides against the middle. Despite a long term commitment to decriminalize marijuana the Liberals have failed to act for fear of angering the Americans. The Marc Emery case is a great example Liberal cowardness. For years Marc Emery had been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Federal taxes on money he made “selling marijuana seeds”. Yet in 2005, at the behest of the American government, Canada arrested Emery so that he could face charges in the US. Emery pleaded guilty to the US charges and was sent the US to serve a 5 year prison term for crime that had not been prosecuted in Canada for 7 years and had only ever warranted a $200 fine. It gets worse. Under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So, a BC marijuana activists tried to save Emery from being sent to the States by having Emery charged under Canadian law. His efforts were unsuccessful. Despite a mountain of evidence against him, Canadian authorities were unwilling to charge Emery under Canadian law.
So long as the debate is centered around sentencing, the Conservatives win. The Liberals need to shift the focus from punishment to the legitimacy of various laws. This is the only way of Liberals will be able to starve the Conservatives' populist tough on crime agenda of oxygen.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Time to Abolish the Reserve system
Imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means Chinese, create a department of Chinese affairs, create Chinese rights, reserve land for Chinese so defined and exempt Chinese living on reserve land from paying taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that is a recipe for disastrous social relations. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights and native reserves? Abolish the reserve system and native rights and comments about "drunken Indians" will become as rare and archaic sounding as "drunken" whatever.
Not to sound too much like a historical materialist, but a culture ceases to form a coherent whole once the dominant mode of production completely changes. This is not controversial. Everyone realizes that recreating the culture of feudal France or Ancient Athens is impossible. Such a task would mean recreating the economic basis upon which fostered these cultures. However, many people it seems have the hair brained notion that it is possible to create a close facsimile of traditional native culture. They have not noticed that what underpins native culture today is not subsistence hunting carried out with modern rifles with scopes in place of traditional hunting tools, but rather Canadian law and past Canadian attempts of social exclusion. The dichotomy between “their” culture and “our” culture is hence false. Canada is the authors of both. The Indian Act and the reserve system is the basis by which status Indians reproduce themselves.
The insistence of many that the communal tenor of Native culture be maintained no matter what amounts to call to save native culture screw the natives. Yes these collection of idiotic laws have helped foster a strong Native identity (legally defining a group as other always does), but on a human level they produced nothing but misery. Why this does not bother more people I do not know. It is time the Canadian government shut down this ant farm. All it has done is produce levels of poverty that could only be described as third world, substance abuse levels that rival countries undergoing serve economic dislocation, suicide rates as high as gay males and American soldiers serving in Iraq and rapid criminality.
Not to sound too much like a historical materialist, but a culture ceases to form a coherent whole once the dominant mode of production completely changes. This is not controversial. Everyone realizes that recreating the culture of feudal France or Ancient Athens is impossible. Such a task would mean recreating the economic basis upon which fostered these cultures. However, many people it seems have the hair brained notion that it is possible to create a close facsimile of traditional native culture. They have not noticed that what underpins native culture today is not subsistence hunting carried out with modern rifles with scopes in place of traditional hunting tools, but rather Canadian law and past Canadian attempts of social exclusion. The dichotomy between “their” culture and “our” culture is hence false. Canada is the authors of both. The Indian Act and the reserve system is the basis by which status Indians reproduce themselves.
The insistence of many that the communal tenor of Native culture be maintained no matter what amounts to call to save native culture screw the natives. Yes these collection of idiotic laws have helped foster a strong Native identity (legally defining a group as other always does), but on a human level they produced nothing but misery. Why this does not bother more people I do not know. It is time the Canadian government shut down this ant farm. All it has done is produce levels of poverty that could only be described as third world, substance abuse levels that rival countries undergoing serve economic dislocation, suicide rates as high as gay males and American soldiers serving in Iraq and rapid criminality.
Friday, December 02, 2011
An Attawapiskat will show up every 3 years in perpetuity.
Thanks to the idiocy of the 1982, aka section 35, the only way forward, viz., abolishing native rights, abolishing the Indian Act and privatizing reserve lands, has been forever blocked. An Attawapiskat like situation will show up every 3 years or so in perpetuity. The incentives built into the system are perverse.
Indeed, most governments try to limit their citizens ability to take advantage of tax havens. But not Canada. The Canadian federal government provides incentives for Status Indians to stay or move to various tax havens and it backs up its promises with an ironclad guarantee. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no income tax or sales tax, but also no property tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Of course, the reality is less rosy than the brochure makes it seem. Realizing the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.
Now, some of these tax havens are isolated and economically unviable. Perversely, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. This is doubly so if one already owns a home there. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
So, should residents of Attawapiskat be moved to more southerly location? No, Attawapiskat must be allowed to sink or swim and above all else people living there must be given additional economic incentives to leave. That means at least points two and three of the following have to happen. 1) All reserve lands and homes need to be privatized with home owners given the right to sell their homes on the open market. 2) The financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing must switch from the band -- in reality federal government -- to the individual home owners. 3) Band councils must gain the ability to impose property taxes. Either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will. The later is obviously preferable, but thanks to the idiocy of 1982 nearly politically impossible.
Indeed, most governments try to limit their citizens ability to take advantage of tax havens. But not Canada. The Canadian federal government provides incentives for Status Indians to stay or move to various tax havens and it backs up its promises with an ironclad guarantee. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no income tax or sales tax, but also no property tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Of course, the reality is less rosy than the brochure makes it seem. Realizing the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.
Now, some of these tax havens are isolated and economically unviable. Perversely, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. This is doubly so if one already owns a home there. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
So, should residents of Attawapiskat be moved to more southerly location? No, Attawapiskat must be allowed to sink or swim and above all else people living there must be given additional economic incentives to leave. That means at least points two and three of the following have to happen. 1) All reserve lands and homes need to be privatized with home owners given the right to sell their homes on the open market. 2) The financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing must switch from the band -- in reality federal government -- to the individual home owners. 3) Band councils must gain the ability to impose property taxes. Either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will. The later is obviously preferable, but thanks to the idiocy of 1982 nearly politically impossible.
Native Housing: Perverse Incentives
Most government's try to limit their citizens ability to take advantage of tax havens. Not, Canada. The Canadian federal government provides incentives for a certain class of citizens to stay or move to various tax havens and it backs up its promises with an ironclad guarantee. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no income tax or sales tax, but also no property tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Of course, the reality is less rosy than the brochure makes it seem. Realizing the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its promises attract.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Trudeau's unforgivable Sin
Prior to 1970, whatever group rights that existed were granted out of political necessity and certainly not any kind of ideological attraction. In the 1970s that changed. Various groups championed group rights both as means of correcting historical inequalities and as a manifestation of the concept of nation build around the idea of blood. Pearson and later Trudeau recognized these inequalities, but felt that such inequalities could be better addressed by means that did not elevate the poisonous and divisive concept of a blood nation. So far so good. The only problem is Trudeau sold out. Such was Trudeau's desire to repatriate the Constitution that he was willing to enshrine in it the intelluctual abortion that is collective rights as a guiding legal principle. His actions are unforgivable. The country has suffered as a result, but nearly as much as the Liberals. The bi polar nature of today's Liberal party can be traced back to Trudeau's Faustine gambit. The Liberals are now a party that celebrates Trudeau's principled Federalism well all the while practicing an unprincipled and opportunistic form of asymmetrical federalism. They are a party that celebrates, on the one hand, a famously inclusive, albeit nebulous Canadian identity that the party helped foster, while all the well paying homage to exotic level of government whose membership is exclusive to one legally defined race.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Attawapiskat is Economically Unviable
There is no economic reason for Attawapiskat to exist. In this sense it is like many abandoned Newfoundland outposts. However, unlike those abandoned outposts the modern incarnation of Attawapiskat, which dates back to the 1960s, has never been tied to the world economy. It has never had an economic reason to exist. Outside of contracting and user fees, which amount to next to nothing, the band has no internally driven soure of revenue. Thus, the welfare of its inhabits depends on two things. 1) Federal and Provincial government funding. 2) The effective distribution of those funds. The NDP and Liberals have focused on the first of these, the Conservatives on the second.
Both miss the point. Namely, the community is economically unviable and people living there do not have the means to leave nor the incentive to leave. The two work in tandem. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining housing, however squalid, becomes. This is doubly so if one already owns a home there. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
Now, the prospects for Attawapiskat are dim no matter how you slice it. However, one thing that needs to be done with Attawapiskat and reserves around the country is this. 1) All reserve lands and homes need to be privatized with home owners given the right to sell their homes on the open market. 2) The financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing must switch from the band to the individual home owners. 3) Band councils must gain the ability to impose property taxes.
Attawapiskat must be allowed to sink or swim and above all else people living there must be given additional economic incentives to leave. Either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absense of a job, or prospect of using the capital from the sale one's house and land will. The later is obviously preferable. It means that the prospect future economic activity has given these homes, the land on which they built anyway, some value.
Both miss the point. Namely, the community is economically unviable and people living there do not have the means to leave nor the incentive to leave. The two work in tandem. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining housing, however squalid, becomes. This is doubly so if one already owns a home there. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
Now, the prospects for Attawapiskat are dim no matter how you slice it. However, one thing that needs to be done with Attawapiskat and reserves around the country is this. 1) All reserve lands and homes need to be privatized with home owners given the right to sell their homes on the open market. 2) The financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing must switch from the band to the individual home owners. 3) Band councils must gain the ability to impose property taxes.
Attawapiskat must be allowed to sink or swim and above all else people living there must be given additional economic incentives to leave. Either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absense of a job, or prospect of using the capital from the sale one's house and land will. The later is obviously preferable. It means that the prospect future economic activity has given these homes, the land on which they built anyway, some value.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Vancouver Mayor and 4 former Vancouver Mayors call for the Legalization of Pot: Liberals should do the Same
Sam Sullivan, Mayor of Vancouver, 2005-2008
Larry Campbell, Mayor of Vancouver, 2002-2005
Philip Owen, Mayor of Vancouver, 1993-2002
Mike Harcourt, Mayor of Vancouver, 1980-1986
Have called for marijuana to be legalized.
http://stoptheviolencebc.org/2011/11/22/letter-from-former-mayors/
Current mayor Gregor Robertson calls for the same.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/11/25/19020711.html
The Liberals should follow suit.
Legalizing marijuana would be good policy and for that reason alone the Liberals should consider it. However, beyond that legalizing marijuana would be good politics. The reason it is good politics has no more to do with the untapped stoner vote then same sex marriage had to do with the untapped gay and lesbian vote. I can assure you there is not there is no drug vote to grab. The reason it is good politics is there is significant ground swell of public support for the issue. Since 2004 polls put support between 50 to 55%. More importantly, opponent's arguments are a house of cards. See below. Just as with gay marriage the Liberals would benefit from having the Conservatives trout out stupid arguments for extended period of time. Just as with SSM the Conservatives are on the wrong side of history on this one. Let history steamroll them.
Potent Pot
Potent pot is more myth than reality.
However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.
That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.
Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
The US will Never Let it happen
Proposition 19 failed, but the issue will likely be revisited in 2012 and this time it stands a very good chance of passing. Voter turn for mid term elections is always significantly less than when the presidency is up for grabs. For proposition 19 to have stood any chance of winning Democrats, and the young needed to be energized. They were not and stayed away in droves. Even with everything stacked against them, though, the yes campaign still garnered 46% of vote.
Legal production of marijuana in California will make the legislation of marijuana elsewhere in the US all but inevitable and extension in Canada as well. Obama is not going to go to war with California in order to maintain a federal prohibition. Indeed, it was Obama that set the wheels of legalization in motion by declaring that he would not crack down on medical marijuana. For you see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let wooden horse to be wheeled into California and other States anyway. In so doing, Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no saving prohibition from Odysseus. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in LA than Starbucks.
The Black Market will live on
It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. People want to know that what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.
The gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time
One of the arguments that I have repeatedly come across recently is that should marijuana be legalized then the gangs will move onto other things. I prefer to call this the gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time argument.
The problem with this argument is that the gangs are already into other things and it is profits from marijuana that are helping them do that. In the context of Canada, marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to expand operations into the States, for example, and to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns). This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.
Gateway Drug
Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.
In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Schizophrenia Marijuana
Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,
Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia but rather that it may cause the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown's dismay, this was the opinion of Dr Iddon.
The Failure of Current Liberal Policy
A promise to legalize marijuana would be a welcome respite from the Liberals shamelessly taking inherently contradictory policies in hopes of capitalizing on both sides of this issue.
Indeed, on the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand, just as they long downplayed the affects of smoking marijuana they have long stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. Both positions are popular with the public, but run the two positions together and it is as if Chrétien said this instead. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand. Having paid my fine I would hope the cops find the person who sold it to me in put him in jail for a very long time.” If the act of consumption is not deemed overly ruinous then the whole punitive rationale for trafficking comes crashing down. Add to mix an acknowledgment on behalf of the Liberal party that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.
Far from helping the Liberals such an approach probably harmed them. It angered ardent supporters of both sides of the political divide at the same time and prevented the Liberals from saying anything intelligent about the issue. Moreover, as far the general public is concerned, the Liberals have gained nothing by trying to emulate the Conservative's tough on crime stance. The reason is simple. As Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election that there are certain issues that just favour the Conservatives. The example he gave was the economy. No matter how successful the Liberals were in balancing the books and creating jobs, Conservative research suggested that when it came to economics people trusted the Conservatives more than they did the Liberals. It does not much of leap to suggest the same is true for crime. After all, to presume that the public has a working knowledge of each party's justice policies is giving the public way too much credit; the public trades in stereotypes and they are always going to believe that Conservatives are tougher on crime. This is especially so now. The Conservatives are in power and for this reason alone what they say with regard to crime garners headlines. By contrast, past Liberal support for some those Conservative tough on crime measures has drawn almost no attention at all. Of course, even if the Liberals were able to convince Canadians did support this or that Conservative measure, the Conservatives have a fail safe. They have claimed and will continue to claim that the Liberals had ability to introduce such policies when they were in power and failed to do so. No one likes a Johnny come lately.
So long as the debate is centered around sentencing, the Conservatives win. The Liberals need to shift the focus from punishment to the legitmacy of various laws. This is the only way of Liberals will be able to strave the Conservatives' populist tough on crime agenda of oxegen.
Larry Campbell, Mayor of Vancouver, 2002-2005
Philip Owen, Mayor of Vancouver, 1993-2002
Mike Harcourt, Mayor of Vancouver, 1980-1986
Have called for marijuana to be legalized.
http://stoptheviolencebc.org/2011/11/22/letter-from-former-mayors/
Current mayor Gregor Robertson calls for the same.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/11/25/19020711.html
The Liberals should follow suit.
Legalizing marijuana would be good policy and for that reason alone the Liberals should consider it. However, beyond that legalizing marijuana would be good politics. The reason it is good politics has no more to do with the untapped stoner vote then same sex marriage had to do with the untapped gay and lesbian vote. I can assure you there is not there is no drug vote to grab. The reason it is good politics is there is significant ground swell of public support for the issue. Since 2004 polls put support between 50 to 55%. More importantly, opponent's arguments are a house of cards. See below. Just as with gay marriage the Liberals would benefit from having the Conservatives trout out stupid arguments for extended period of time. Just as with SSM the Conservatives are on the wrong side of history on this one. Let history steamroll them.
Potent Pot
Potent pot is more myth than reality.
However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.
That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.
Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
The US will Never Let it happen
Proposition 19 failed, but the issue will likely be revisited in 2012 and this time it stands a very good chance of passing. Voter turn for mid term elections is always significantly less than when the presidency is up for grabs. For proposition 19 to have stood any chance of winning Democrats, and the young needed to be energized. They were not and stayed away in droves. Even with everything stacked against them, though, the yes campaign still garnered 46% of vote.
Legal production of marijuana in California will make the legislation of marijuana elsewhere in the US all but inevitable and extension in Canada as well. Obama is not going to go to war with California in order to maintain a federal prohibition. Indeed, it was Obama that set the wheels of legalization in motion by declaring that he would not crack down on medical marijuana. For you see, unlike in Canada, in California, for example, one does not have to be afflicted with a particular aliment to be eligible for medical marijuana. A doctor can proscribe marijuana for whatever they see fit. Needless to say, such a system is ripe for abuse and the Bush administration was right to see medical marijuana program as a potential Trojan horse. But Obama let wooden horse to be wheeled into California and other States anyway. In so doing, Obama has allowed the medical marijuana industry in California and elsewhere to grow to the point there is no saving prohibition from Odysseus. There are more medical marijuana dispensaries in LA than Starbucks.
The Black Market will live on
It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. People want to know that what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.
The gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time
One of the arguments that I have repeatedly come across recently is that should marijuana be legalized then the gangs will move onto other things. I prefer to call this the gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time argument.
The problem with this argument is that the gangs are already into other things and it is profits from marijuana that are helping them do that. In the context of Canada, marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to expand operations into the States, for example, and to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns). This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.
Gateway Drug
Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.
In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Schizophrenia Marijuana
Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,
"If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50,"
Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia but rather that it may cause the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown's dismay, this was the opinion of Dr Iddon.
Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse [Britain], said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed. "If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.
The Failure of Current Liberal Policy
A promise to legalize marijuana would be a welcome respite from the Liberals shamelessly taking inherently contradictory policies in hopes of capitalizing on both sides of this issue.
Indeed, on the one hand the Liberals have long maintained that Canadians should not be saddled with a criminal record for consuming something that is, after all, less harmful than alcohol. It is this light that Chrétien famously joked about having a joint in one hand and the money to pay for the fine of having it in the other. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.” On the other hand, just as they long downplayed the affects of smoking marijuana they have long stressed the importance of stiff penalties for trafficking. Both positions are popular with the public, but run the two positions together and it is as if Chrétien said this instead. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand. Having paid my fine I would hope the cops find the person who sold it to me in put him in jail for a very long time.” If the act of consumption is not deemed overly ruinous then the whole punitive rationale for trafficking comes crashing down. Add to mix an acknowledgment on behalf of the Liberal party that marijuana can serve a medical purpose and you have a conceptual train wreck as a policy.
Far from helping the Liberals such an approach probably harmed them. It angered ardent supporters of both sides of the political divide at the same time and prevented the Liberals from saying anything intelligent about the issue. Moreover, as far the general public is concerned, the Liberals have gained nothing by trying to emulate the Conservative's tough on crime stance. The reason is simple. As Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election that there are certain issues that just favour the Conservatives. The example he gave was the economy. No matter how successful the Liberals were in balancing the books and creating jobs, Conservative research suggested that when it came to economics people trusted the Conservatives more than they did the Liberals. It does not much of leap to suggest the same is true for crime. After all, to presume that the public has a working knowledge of each party's justice policies is giving the public way too much credit; the public trades in stereotypes and they are always going to believe that Conservatives are tougher on crime. This is especially so now. The Conservatives are in power and for this reason alone what they say with regard to crime garners headlines. By contrast, past Liberal support for some those Conservative tough on crime measures has drawn almost no attention at all. Of course, even if the Liberals were able to convince Canadians did support this or that Conservative measure, the Conservatives have a fail safe. They have claimed and will continue to claim that the Liberals had ability to introduce such policies when they were in power and failed to do so. No one likes a Johnny come lately.
So long as the debate is centered around sentencing, the Conservatives win. The Liberals need to shift the focus from punishment to the legitmacy of various laws. This is the only way of Liberals will be able to strave the Conservatives' populist tough on crime agenda of oxegen.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Liberals are waiting for Godot
The biggest hurdle facing the Liberals is relevance. They finished with less than 20% in two thirds of the seats. Outside of a few urban and suburban seats in Winnipeg and Vancouver and Goodale's seat the Liberals were neck and neck with the Green's west of Ontario. Outside of Montreal, the situation is even worse in Quebec.
The Liberals are not going to be able to build from the grassroots up for the simple reason that in great swaths of the country there is no grassroots from which foster a rebirth.
If the Liberals are going to make a comeback, it will have to be orchestrated from the top not from the bottom. Furthermore, such a rebirth is only possible within the next couple of years. The Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever. The Liberals have for so long stood for nothing that no body stands with them now. If the Liberals do not reinvent themselves and quick, they will loose what urban seats they have left to the NDP and what suburban seats they have to the Conservatives.
So, what can be done? The Liberals need to take advantage of the only thing they have going for them, viz., a residual interest in them from the nation's media. They must pursue policies that draw headlines and fuel editorials. That means support for legalizing marijuana and euthanasia. That means supporting mandatory voting. That means abandoning support for equity, asymmetrical federalism and collective rights. That means calls to abolish the senate, the monarchy and a call for much more representative House. The Liberals can not longer afford be the party that defends the status quo. They have to be the one challenging it.
Of course, such a strategy will can only work if the Liberals abandon the notion that they can use the media to reach Canadians. The bulk of the silly, insubstantive, unoffensive, small ball talking points that Liberals trotted out in opposition interested no one least of all the media. Very few ever reached your average Canadian accept maybe as the objects of ridicule in various editorial columns. As the third party, things will be even worse. No, the Liberals have to develop coherent positions and arguments and serve as the liberal columnists and opinion makers that Canada simply does not have. Their goal should be to dominate the national discussion for long as possible.
The Liberals are not going to be able to build from the grassroots up for the simple reason that in great swaths of the country there is no grassroots from which foster a rebirth.
If the Liberals are going to make a comeback, it will have to be orchestrated from the top not from the bottom. Furthermore, such a rebirth is only possible within the next couple of years. The Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever. The Liberals have for so long stood for nothing that no body stands with them now. If the Liberals do not reinvent themselves and quick, they will loose what urban seats they have left to the NDP and what suburban seats they have to the Conservatives.
So, what can be done? The Liberals need to take advantage of the only thing they have going for them, viz., a residual interest in them from the nation's media. They must pursue policies that draw headlines and fuel editorials. That means support for legalizing marijuana and euthanasia. That means supporting mandatory voting. That means abandoning support for equity, asymmetrical federalism and collective rights. That means calls to abolish the senate, the monarchy and a call for much more representative House. The Liberals can not longer afford be the party that defends the status quo. They have to be the one challenging it.
Of course, such a strategy will can only work if the Liberals abandon the notion that they can use the media to reach Canadians. The bulk of the silly, insubstantive, unoffensive, small ball talking points that Liberals trotted out in opposition interested no one least of all the media. Very few ever reached your average Canadian accept maybe as the objects of ridicule in various editorial columns. As the third party, things will be even worse. No, the Liberals have to develop coherent positions and arguments and serve as the liberal columnists and opinion makers that Canada simply does not have. Their goal should be to dominate the national discussion for long as possible.
Marijuana legalization has more potential politically than legalizing Euthanasia
Euthanasia has more support, but legalizing marijuana has far more potential politically for three reasons.
1) Other countries already have euthanasia policies in place. This is not the case for marijuana. No one has legalized pot. If Canada were to legalize pot, the amount of international attention would be enormous. The Conservative tough on crime agenda would be starved for oxygen.
2) Not only does this have the support of huge numbers of people internationally, the issue is pregnant in ways that euthanasia is not. The huge cost of the war on drugs is straining budgets. Marijuana prohibition is quickly loosing legitimacy in the Western world, is quickly being rendered untenable by emergence of loose medical marijuana laws (e.g., California) and is feeding corruption and drug related violence elsewhere, most notably Mexico.
3) Euthanasia like a abortion rises extremely complicated philosophical issues in ways that marijuana legalization does not. Deeply complex issues relating to personhood and viability abound. Marijuana is much more like SSM in that opposition arguments are so bad that that it mocked as a form of madness, reefer madness. This matters a lot. The Liberals will benefit from having the Conservatives trout out the same dumb arguments months on end.
1) Other countries already have euthanasia policies in place. This is not the case for marijuana. No one has legalized pot. If Canada were to legalize pot, the amount of international attention would be enormous. The Conservative tough on crime agenda would be starved for oxygen.
2) Not only does this have the support of huge numbers of people internationally, the issue is pregnant in ways that euthanasia is not. The huge cost of the war on drugs is straining budgets. Marijuana prohibition is quickly loosing legitimacy in the Western world, is quickly being rendered untenable by emergence of loose medical marijuana laws (e.g., California) and is feeding corruption and drug related violence elsewhere, most notably Mexico.
3) Euthanasia like a abortion rises extremely complicated philosophical issues in ways that marijuana legalization does not. Deeply complex issues relating to personhood and viability abound. Marijuana is much more like SSM in that opposition arguments are so bad that that it mocked as a form of madness, reefer madness. This matters a lot. The Liberals will benefit from having the Conservatives trout out the same dumb arguments months on end.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
An elected Senate is inconsistent with notion of Rep by pop and is an all around terrible Idea
Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aforementioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truly is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitimacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legitimate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members exercise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.
Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.
Setting aside problems associated with implementation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. Of course, Reformers also lamented that "the West's" growing population was not translating into more political clout. Such was movement's internal inconstancy and intellectual shallowness. The Reform party aside, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.
First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 and the riding of St John's East 88,002, Kenora 64,291 and Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi 53,844
Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.
Setting aside problems associated with implementation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. Of course, Reformers also lamented that "the West's" growing population was not translating into more political clout. Such was movement's internal inconstancy and intellectual shallowness. The Reform party aside, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.
First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 and the riding of St John's East 88,002, Kenora 64,291 and Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi 53,844
Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
ECB Needs to start Printing.
The printing press is the only way Europe can stave off an Italian default and a catastrophic credit crisis.
All available evidence suggests that even a major intervention by ECB would not lead to stampeding inflation. As Krugman noted with regard to Japan, "printing money is only inflationary if people spend it, and if that spending exceeds the economy's capacity to produce." http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html The reason Europeans are not likely to go on a extended spending spree is that no one fears that the Eurozone countries are going to use the ECB to monetize their debt. Given this belief, personal debt levels in countries where there were real estate bubbles, Europe's shrinking and rapidly aging population, and the massive excess capacity in Europe and indeed the whole Western world, spending is likely going to be quite subdued and certainly nothing that would strain current productive capacity.
Finally, if there is any inflation at all it will be Europe's core economies, principally Germany, and far from being a bad thing, inflation there is precisely the kind of relief the periphery needs right now. The higher the rate of inflation in Europe's core the less Europe's periphery will need to rely on deflation to become competitive.
liquidity trap readings
http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/11/buy-ben-bernanke-marijuana-pipe-and.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/macro-policy-in-a-liquidity-trap-wonkish/
All available evidence suggests that even a major intervention by ECB would not lead to stampeding inflation. As Krugman noted with regard to Japan, "printing money is only inflationary if people spend it, and if that spending exceeds the economy's capacity to produce." http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html The reason Europeans are not likely to go on a extended spending spree is that no one fears that the Eurozone countries are going to use the ECB to monetize their debt. Given this belief, personal debt levels in countries where there were real estate bubbles, Europe's shrinking and rapidly aging population, and the massive excess capacity in Europe and indeed the whole Western world, spending is likely going to be quite subdued and certainly nothing that would strain current productive capacity.
Finally, if there is any inflation at all it will be Europe's core economies, principally Germany, and far from being a bad thing, inflation there is precisely the kind of relief the periphery needs right now. The higher the rate of inflation in Europe's core the less Europe's periphery will need to rely on deflation to become competitive.
liquidity trap readings
http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/11/buy-ben-bernanke-marijuana-pipe-and.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/macro-policy-in-a-liquidity-trap-wonkish/
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Germany is going to Bankrupt the Eurozone
The German Foreign minister is wrong on almost every point.
http://www.ft.com/cms/275bc334-3063-11dc-9a81-0000779fd2ac.html?segid=70000
Start putting holes in condoms and sub in sugar pills for birth control pills. The reason Europe's growth prospects look so dim is that Europe is aging rapidly. Indeed, the European population is about to shrink at a rate not seen since the Black Death. Couple that with the ten of millions of Europeans retiring on reduced pensions and you have the makings of Japan style liquidity trap. Of course, the economic downturn is likely to make the situation even worse. People tend to have less kids in economic hard times. Europe is a highly competitive rapidly shrinking market, with high labour costs and last but not least frigid credit markets. All that being said, if you are a maker of adult diapers, then Europe is where you want to be.
The UK and US have been doing what Japan has done for years and there is no evidence, notwithstanding the UK's increase in the VAT, that such measures have led a high rate of inflation. Indeed, with regard to interest rates, Bernanke has looked further and further out in order to stimulate moderate inflation and still the specter of deflation hangs over the US economy. The US economy's long term growth prospects are much better than Europe's. The US adds more and more people every year. Europe looses more and more people every year.
The printing press is the only way Europe can stave off an Italian default and a catastrophic credit crisis. Moreover, all available evidence suggests that even a major intervention by ECB would not lead to stampeding inflation. As Krugman noted with regard to Japan, "printing money is only inflationary if people spend it, and if that spending exceeds the economy's capacity to produce." http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html Given personal debt levels in countries where there were real estate bubbles, Europe's aforementioned shrinking and rapidly aging population, and the massive excess capacity in Europe and indeed the whole Western world, spending is likely going to be quite subdued and certainly nothing that would strain current productive capacity.
Finally, if there is any inflation it will be Europe's core economies, principally Germany, and far from being a bad thing, inflation there is precisely the kind of relief the periphery needs right now. The higher the rate of inflation in Europe's core the less Europe's periphery will need to rely on deflation to become competitive.
Forcing a country, that is in immediate danger of default, to enact policies that lead to skyrocketing unemployment and downward pressure on wages is not going to forestall Greece from defaulting. No, it makes it all but certain that Greece will default and leave the Euro. Deflationary austerity might make Greece more competitive in the long term, but the debt crisis is now. Deflation considerably increases Greece's debt burden.
I agree. Signal that the ECB will keep Italian and Spanish yields below 6 and have them stop sterilizing those bond purchases.
http://www.ft.com/cms/275bc334-3063-11dc-9a81-0000779fd2ac.html?segid=70000
"the decade-long accumulation of public debt"For most of the last decade, Italy, Spain and Ireland have run surpluses and have seen their yields skyrocket. Germany, meanwhile, has run deficits the entire time and has seen its yields drop significantly.
"we need a clear-cut strategy for competitiveness and growth."
Start putting holes in condoms and sub in sugar pills for birth control pills. The reason Europe's growth prospects look so dim is that Europe is aging rapidly. Indeed, the European population is about to shrink at a rate not seen since the Black Death. Couple that with the ten of millions of Europeans retiring on reduced pensions and you have the makings of Japan style liquidity trap. Of course, the economic downturn is likely to make the situation even worse. People tend to have less kids in economic hard times. Europe is a highly competitive rapidly shrinking market, with high labour costs and last but not least frigid credit markets. All that being said, if you are a maker of adult diapers, then Europe is where you want to be.
"Putting the European Central Bank’s printing presses to work might at best bring some short-term relief. But it would have dire consequences, both raising inflation and dissipating vitally important incentives for reform."
The UK and US have been doing what Japan has done for years and there is no evidence, notwithstanding the UK's increase in the VAT, that such measures have led a high rate of inflation. Indeed, with regard to interest rates, Bernanke has looked further and further out in order to stimulate moderate inflation and still the specter of deflation hangs over the US economy. The US economy's long term growth prospects are much better than Europe's. The US adds more and more people every year. Europe looses more and more people every year.
The printing press is the only way Europe can stave off an Italian default and a catastrophic credit crisis. Moreover, all available evidence suggests that even a major intervention by ECB would not lead to stampeding inflation. As Krugman noted with regard to Japan, "printing money is only inflationary if people spend it, and if that spending exceeds the economy's capacity to produce." http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html Given personal debt levels in countries where there were real estate bubbles, Europe's aforementioned shrinking and rapidly aging population, and the massive excess capacity in Europe and indeed the whole Western world, spending is likely going to be quite subdued and certainly nothing that would strain current productive capacity.
Finally, if there is any inflation it will be Europe's core economies, principally Germany, and far from being a bad thing, inflation there is precisely the kind of relief the periphery needs right now. The higher the rate of inflation in Europe's core the less Europe's periphery will need to rely on deflation to become competitive.
"depreciated currency"Is the foreign minister of one of the most successful export lead economies in the Western world seriously bemoaning the prospect of a drop in his country's currency? Just checking.
"Greece's government must without further delay adopt and implement the necessary reforms."
Forcing a country, that is in immediate danger of default, to enact policies that lead to skyrocketing unemployment and downward pressure on wages is not going to forestall Greece from defaulting. No, it makes it all but certain that Greece will default and leave the Euro. Deflationary austerity might make Greece more competitive in the long term, but the debt crisis is now. Deflation considerably increases Greece's debt burden.
"states and banks need protection from contagion."
I agree. Signal that the ECB will keep Italian and Spanish yields below 6 and have them stop sterilizing those bond purchases.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
The Liberal redistribution plan is a political loser
The Liberal plan is marginally better than the Conservative plan, but it is still nowhere near good enough. A hybrid of both the Conservative and Liberal plans would be best. The largest provinces should gain seats from the smallest provinces and because of the limitations placed on us by the constitution, they should should gain more on top of that
That said, politically the Liberal plan is stupid. If the Liberals believe that the public is going to get behind their plan in order to save a paltry 15 million dollars they are delusional. There is no political upside to the Liberal plan and potentially a lot of downside. Not only will it not ingratiate themselves to those provinces who would loose seats under such a plan, such a position could easily be construed as self serving --- which it no doubt is. The Liberals do not want to see the number of seats increase because they feel it will make it that more difficult for them to win government. The we can not afford it fig leaf does not obscure this fact.
Anyway, given the Conservatives have a majority and will proceed with this no matter what the Liberals say, the Liberals need to do four things.
1) In order to make political hay, the Liberals have to develop a coherent approach to the issue of representation. That means hammering at the inequities of the system. Cities are underrepresented and hinterlands grossly over represented. The largest provinces are grossly underrepresented and the provinces with the smallest populations overrepresented. An empowered senate is incompatible with the notion of representation by population.
2) They need to diminish the political value of giving that many extra seats to Ontario, BC and Alberta by saying that the government did not go far enough and that Conservative government's push for an "effective" senate would make any such gains mute. Making the House more representative means nothing if the Conservatives plan to empower a second House that is not representative at all.
3) Forget about Quebec's wining; the Conservatives won a majority without Quebec this last time and with 27 seats being added outside Quebec its value will be even less next time around. "Western" Canada is little more than firm opposition to special treatment of Quebec by those living west of Manitoba. It is pretty much the sole thread that unites west coast hippies with Calgary oil men. If the Liberals have not recognized this after 40 years they deserve to collapse as political identity. Never ever ever mention Quebec's "special situation".
4) As Canada's third party, the Liberals do not need to be bounded by what is politically possible. In this case the Liberals should be calling for even more to be done to make the HOC more representative and the senate abolished to pay for it.
That said, politically the Liberal plan is stupid. If the Liberals believe that the public is going to get behind their plan in order to save a paltry 15 million dollars they are delusional. There is no political upside to the Liberal plan and potentially a lot of downside. Not only will it not ingratiate themselves to those provinces who would loose seats under such a plan, such a position could easily be construed as self serving --- which it no doubt is. The Liberals do not want to see the number of seats increase because they feel it will make it that more difficult for them to win government. The we can not afford it fig leaf does not obscure this fact.
Anyway, given the Conservatives have a majority and will proceed with this no matter what the Liberals say, the Liberals need to do four things.
1) In order to make political hay, the Liberals have to develop a coherent approach to the issue of representation. That means hammering at the inequities of the system. Cities are underrepresented and hinterlands grossly over represented. The largest provinces are grossly underrepresented and the provinces with the smallest populations overrepresented. An empowered senate is incompatible with the notion of representation by population.
2) They need to diminish the political value of giving that many extra seats to Ontario, BC and Alberta by saying that the government did not go far enough and that Conservative government's push for an "effective" senate would make any such gains mute. Making the House more representative means nothing if the Conservatives plan to empower a second House that is not representative at all.
3) Forget about Quebec's wining; the Conservatives won a majority without Quebec this last time and with 27 seats being added outside Quebec its value will be even less next time around. "Western" Canada is little more than firm opposition to special treatment of Quebec by those living west of Manitoba. It is pretty much the sole thread that unites west coast hippies with Calgary oil men. If the Liberals have not recognized this after 40 years they deserve to collapse as political identity. Never ever ever mention Quebec's "special situation".
4) As Canada's third party, the Liberals do not need to be bounded by what is politically possible. In this case the Liberals should be calling for even more to be done to make the HOC more representative and the senate abolished to pay for it.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
"I am not the 99%"
http://imgur.com/hufUC
Not put to fine a point on it, but unless this dolt is a more extreme version of Mark Zuckerberg he is most certainly part of the 99%. As for the notion that all it takes to be part of the top 1% is a little elbow grease, it is so patently absurd it is not worth discussing. Yes talent and hard work matter. However, neither is a guarantee of success. There are a whole host of factors at play. There are plenty of talented hard working poor people and I am not talking just about self righteous libertarian university students.
As for his implication that the source of America's private debt woes is ever increasing discretionary spending, he should have given the numbers a look before spouting off about "bad decisions". Americans are spending ever less on discretionary items and not more. Indeed, compare the spending habits of a 1970 family of 4 to a the spending habits of a 2003 American family of 4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&noredirect=1
The 2003 family spent
32% less on clothes
18% less on food and eating out
52% less on appliances
24% less on a car
76% more for a mortgage on a 6.1 room house than the 1970 family paid for mortgage on a 5.8 room house.
74% more percent for employer sponsored health care
52% more for transportation (more cars and more travel time)
100% more for childcare
25% more for taxes (more two income families meant more taxable income.)
The 2003 family kept cars two years longer, took 33% less vacations and was significantly more likely to live in a home older than 25 years old. The 2003 family devoted 75% of their income to housing, taxes, health care and child care and transportation. The 1970 family devoted 50%. Despite a large increase in family income between 1970 and 2003 (there was a huge increase in the number of two income families) the 1970 family had more money for discretionary spending and savings. Sky rocketing college tuition should also be factored in. Not only has tuition costs gone up 231% since 1970, college education is deemed necessary in ways it was not before. As Elizabeth Warren points out, more people believe the moon landing was fake than believe a university education is not needed for entrance into the middle class.
Of course, a huge increase in the above mentioned areas only tells part of the story. American families are much more vulnerable today for other reasons as well. Not only has the savings rate declined from 11% in 1970 to below zero in 2001, the number of families that depend upon two incomes in order to make ends meat has skyrocketed. These familers are vulnerable if either partner looses gainful employment. There is no one there to step into the void if one of partner goes down. To make matters worse the social safety net is not as wide as it once was. This is especially so when it comes to health care. Whereas the average uninsured person in 1970 was a 23 year old male with no children (in other words someone who choose not to have health insurance), the average uninsured person in 2003 was 35 year old married parent of two. It is not just the poor that vulnerable either. In 2001 1.4 million lost their health insurance. Of those, 800,000 earned more than $75,000 a year.
It is no wonder the bankruptcy rates have skyrocketed. Since the late 1990s an American married couple with children is more likely to declare bankruptcy than to file for divorce. 90% of those filing for bankruptcy do so for 1 of 3 reasons, viz., an illness in the family, family breakup or job loss.
Finally, for someone who derides handouts of any kind it is odd that he belittles the protesters rather than joining them. After all, one of the main complaints of the protesters is that huge sums of of public money have gone into bailing out private banks and the public has gained no guarantees that such bailouts will not be needed again. The Dodd Frank bill never addressed all the issues and to add insult to injury it has been gutted by congress.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The economic crisis in a nut shell
1) Real estate markets begin to overheat
2) Various Western governments, at their banks urging, pour fuel on the fire
3) Debt to income ratios skyrocket throughout most of the Western world.
4) People start defaulting, especialy in the US, and or radically start to reduce spending.
5) Banks saddled with huge looses. Capital that had been invested in Europe's peripheral countries goes back to the core.
6) Governments bail out banks in what is surely the biggest transfer of public monies to private companies in history.
7) Bankers say it is high time the public stop living so high on the hog and that services need to be cut and or taxes raised to pay for, drum roll please, bank bailouts.
8) Governments cut services and or raise taxes.
9) GDP tanks and unemployment skyrockets in those countries making the biggest cuts. Banks wonder about the ability of those making the biggest cuts to pay. EU employs a carrot and stick approach. It promises private banks bailouts; that is the carrot. At the same time it promises dire consequences if the PIIGS do not make bigger cuts and rise taxes even more; that is the stick.
10) As the main reason the PIIGS minus Italy have been hit so hard is because of the massive amount of capital leaving those countries in wake of the 2008 downturn, more cuts will make things even worse? The first round of cuts and tax increases in Greece increased the deficit by 8%.
11) Faced with a terrible economy, tax hikes and service cuts, people in the PIIGS start defaulting in ever larger numbers?
12) The rise of the Swiss Franc leads to increasing number of defaults in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic? 53 percent of outstanding mortgages in Poland and about 60 percent of those in Hungary are denominated in Francs!
2) Various Western governments, at their banks urging, pour fuel on the fire
3) Debt to income ratios skyrocket throughout most of the Western world.
4) People start defaulting, especialy in the US, and or radically start to reduce spending.
5) Banks saddled with huge looses. Capital that had been invested in Europe's peripheral countries goes back to the core.
6) Governments bail out banks in what is surely the biggest transfer of public monies to private companies in history.
7) Bankers say it is high time the public stop living so high on the hog and that services need to be cut and or taxes raised to pay for, drum roll please, bank bailouts.
8) Governments cut services and or raise taxes.
9) GDP tanks and unemployment skyrockets in those countries making the biggest cuts. Banks wonder about the ability of those making the biggest cuts to pay. EU employs a carrot and stick approach. It promises private banks bailouts; that is the carrot. At the same time it promises dire consequences if the PIIGS do not make bigger cuts and rise taxes even more; that is the stick.
10) As the main reason the PIIGS minus Italy have been hit so hard is because of the massive amount of capital leaving those countries in wake of the 2008 downturn, more cuts will make things even worse? The first round of cuts and tax increases in Greece increased the deficit by 8%.
11) Faced with a terrible economy, tax hikes and service cuts, people in the PIIGS start defaulting in ever larger numbers?
12) The rise of the Swiss Franc leads to increasing number of defaults in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic? 53 percent of outstanding mortgages in Poland and about 60 percent of those in Hungary are denominated in Francs!
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Frum's Trudeau was a disaster column
Frum's September 28th column in the Ottawa Citizen is littered with factual errors and non-sequiturs. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Trudeau%2Bdisaster/5470488/story.html It is an embarrassingly bad piece of journalism.
Frum
At the height of the Korean war military spending was 8% of GDP. That figure slowly fell year after year until it sat at 2% in 1968. Trudeau let it dip slightly in the mid 1970s and then raised it in the first part of the 1980s to correspond with the Reagan built up. When Trudeau left office in 1984, the amount Canada spent on the military as percentage of GDP was virtually what it was in 1968. Now, given that military spending does not need to be tied to population growth the way that spending on services needs to be in order to remain as effective, it is likely that the Canadian army was better equipped in 1984 than it was in 1968. The demands placed on the military were pretty much the same and, in absolute terms, the amount of money Canada was spending was significantly more. The economy was bigger.
Frum:
When I first read Frum's article I assumed he was saying that Trudeau's decision to increase spending was premised on commodity prices remaining low. Given that commodity prices had begun to rise just as he took office he should have foreseen the spike in commodity prices in 1973 and what that would mean for the Canadian economy and Canada's bottom line. Having watched the following debate between Frum and Lawrence Martin I now realize that I had things backwards and that I was giving Frum far too much credit.
Frum contends that when Trudeau took over commodity prices were riding high and that Canada took it on the chin -- and here I guessing -- when the commodity boom ended just as he was leaving office in the 1984. Whatever the case, Frum's argument is bizarre. There is no other way of putting it. Yes when Trudeau was first elected as a MP inflation had started to rise. However, when Trudeau was elected PM, inflation was falling and continued fall. It dropped to a low of 1% in December 1970. Moreover the cause of the mid sixties rise in inflation was not due to a commodity boom. Indeed, Frum's very line of reason is wrong. He is guilty of trying to paint the Bretton Woods era with a post Bretton Woods brush. The level of instability in commodity markets that has existed after 1973 simply did not exist during that time. Most notably, the price of oil had remained remarkably stable for almost a 100 years. With that goes the motivation Frum assigns Trudeau. Worse for Frum, according to Frum's reasoning Canada should have boomed right along with commodity prices, but, of course, Canada suffered from stagflation the way other Western economies did. Whatever revenue gains were made in 1974 and 1975 were more than matched by a rise in costs and revenues in real terms plummeted as the economy worsened. For 14 straight years Canada's debt to GDP ratio had sank, but in 1976 that ended. Expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen sharply after having spiked in 1974, but revenues despite no commensurate drop in commodity prices nose dived. By 1979 expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen by 3%, but revenues as a percentage of GDP had declined by 4% of GDP and sat some 2 points lower than the 30 year medium.
The problems for Frum do not stop there. Yes, spending did triple between 1969 and 1979, but the figure Frum cites is not adjusted for a decade of record inflation, indexed to population or GDP growth. In other words, it is meaningless. No one, except an utter armature or someone wishing to advance a political agenda irrespective of the truth, would make, for example, a meal out of the fact that federal expenditures were 10 times higher in 2000 than in 1970. What counts is how much federal spending increased as percentage of GDP. And when you factor out the amount of money devoted to debt servicing -- which went up three fold between 1975 and 1995 -- the amount of Federal spending as percentage of GDP remained virtually unchanged between 1959 and 1989. Where there was a marked increase in spending during this time was at the provincial level.
Frum
The notion that Trudeau era spending in the 1970s was responsible for the debt crisis in the 1990s is so patently absurd it hardly worth discussing. Leaving aside the fact that two thirds of Canada's debt accumulated under Brian Mulroney, when the Liberals were defeated in 1979 the debt to GDP ratio was 16% and the debt in inflation adjusted dollars was the same as what it was 1961!
Oh by the way, Frum makes it seem that subsequent governments cut transfer payments to the provinces to make up for some of his overspending. However, transfer payments to provinces went up under Mulroney. It was Martin that cut them.
Frum
Yes the main reason that the debt exploded under Mulroney was that the Bank of Canada was trying to "wrestle inflation to the ground". However, Frum makes it sound that such a policy was first pursued under Mulroney. This is simply not true. Ever since the the disbanding of Bretton Woods and the 1973 OPEC oil crisis, stagflation had plagued every Western economy. At the beginning of the 1980s, the US Fed chairperson Paul Vocker, with prospect of another energy Crisis looming over the economy, decided to do something about it. He declared a war on inflation. The Bank of Canada followed suit. Both the BOC and the Fed purposely drove the economy into a deep recession by greatly increasing interest rates. An example should put things into perspective. In July 25th 1980 interest rates stood at already high 11%; on December 16th 1980 the US Fed had raised them to 21.5%. US policy coupled with surging oil prices brought about by the Iran Iraq war resulted in a spike in inflation in Canada and so the BOC responded in kind. In Canada interest rates reached a high of 23%! Interest rates were no where near as high under Mulroney.
The war on inflation was won, but it came at a terrible cost. Sky rocketing interest rates meant that the amount of money used to finance the debt went through the roof, the spike in unemployment greatly reduced government revenues and unemployment insurance claims put further stress on government coffers. Furthermore, the quick success of the BOC's efforts meant that Canada's debt to GDP ratio went up at much faster rate than it would have had inflation remained high for a longer period of time. By the time Mulroney took over in Sept 1984 inflation had sank to 3.7% from a high 12.9% in May 1981, but interest rates, remained sky high for considerably longer. As a result, Canada was not able to inflate away some of the value of that debt as it had after World War 2 and for part of the 1970s.
Frum
The notion that the recession of 1981 1982 was brought on by Trudeau's fiscal policies is even more absurd than the notion that Trudeau's 1970s era spending was behind the debt crisis in the 1990s. The recession in the US and Canada was in partially a self inflicted wound yes. However, the cause was monetary policy and not fiscal policy. A 10 point hike in interest rates was designed to slow down growth and worked like a charm.
Furthermore, the implication that the US did not go into recession too is simply wrong. Unemployment, for example, in the US nearly doubled and stayed at 10% for much of 1981 and 1982. As for West Germany and Britain, unemployment doubled in W. Germany in 1981 and unemployment in Britain was above what it was in Canada and remained above 10% until 1988.
Frum:
Violence did not "erupt" in 1970. It errupted in 1963. Between 1963 and 1970 the FLQ had carried out some 200 bombings, kidnappings, and robberies. They had also killed 7 people prior to killing Laporte. Furthermore far from "radicalizing" anyone, Trudeau's actions undermined those advocating further violence in two important ways. 1) The bold actions drew attention to the issue of political violence like never before and forced the public to pass a verdict the legitimacy of actions that had been carried out for 7 years. Quebecers overwhelming rejected such tactics and this greatly undermined FLQ base of support within Quebec society. As a former Bush speech writer, I find it odd that Frum would decry such actions but enthusiastically endorse the Bush maximum that "you're either with us, or against us". But I digress. 2) The sheer popularity of the Trudeau's actions helped convince even some members of the FLQ, most notably Pierre Vallières, that violence was counterproductive. The October crisis turned out to be the FLQ's swan song.
Frum:
Frum notes in his debate with Lawrence Martin that demographic change in Quebec society has dampened separatism's appeal and indeed it has. The notion of Quebec nation based on the archaic notion of "blood" has been undermined by high rates of immigration and most important of all the huge income and social disparities between Francophones and Anglophones in Quebec are gone. Despite this Frum seems incapable of following his own reasoning back. Namely, not only has demographic and social forces muted separatism appeal, but it was precisely these forces that gave birth to separatism in the first place. Instead, Frum contends that Trudeau's actions during the October crisis, which were wildly popular both inside and outside Quebec, "radicalized" Quebec nationalists setting in motion the 1980 referendum. Frum gives no credit Trudeau for helping the no side win the 1980 referendum despite his obvious popularity in Quebec. This is quite the oversight. The Liberals took 68.2% of popular vote in Quebec and 74 of 75 seats just three months before the referendum took place.
As for the second referendum, unlike the first, at least there is a sequence of events started by Trudeau that leads up to it. That said, Frum's accusation that everything can be traced back Trudeau having pulled the old bait and switch is simply wrong. There was no bait and switch. No, Trudeau's failing was that he believed that a government headed by René Lévesque and dedicated to the break up of the country would ever negotiate in good faith to secure Quebec's place within Canada.
Now despite the absurdity of Frum's claim that Alberta was ever on the verge of separation, Frum is right in saying that Trudeau alienated "the West". However, the West's displeasure with Trudeau went far beyond Trudeau lavishing goodies on Quebec. Indeed, the main source of the collapse in Western Canada was the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals' inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993.
Of course, whatever faults Trudeau had in this regard they paled into insignificance when staked up against Mulroney's pathetic pandering to Quebec nationalists. Mulroney wrongly believed that he could satisfy the demands of Quebec nationalists and Western Canada would happily go along with any proposals he might make. He was wrong on both accounts. Not only did Quebecers reject the Charlottetown Accord but the Accord was soundly rejected in Western Canada. 68.3% of British Colombians, for example, rejected the deal. It was Mulroney's idiocy that lead to the emergence of not one regional party by two (i.e., the Reform party and the Bloc). It is also what lead to the collapse of his own party. Forgetting that 1968 was a high water mark for the Liberals and only in BC had the Liberals had any kind of success in Canada's 3 most western provinces since 1953, Frum makes a big deal out of the fact that Liberals went from 27 seats West of Ontario in 1968 to down to 2 in 1980. He says that it good indication that Trudeau alienated the West and it is, but a much more telling figure is the fact that the Torries went from 54 seats West of Ontario, Western Canada being their traditional base of support, in 1984 to 0 in 1993.
Finally, as for nationalizing the oil industry, it is really too bad that never came about. Norway did and it has used its oil revenues to fund the most generous social programs in the world and still has money to burn. An oil fund started in 1990 now sits at $600 billion and is the largest sovereign oil fund in the world.
Frum
His spending spree did not include the military. He cut air and naval capabilities, pulled troops home from Europe, and embarked on morale-destroying reorganizations of the military services. In 1968, Canada was a serious second-tier non-nuclear military power, like Sweden or Israel. By 1984, Canada had lost its war-fighting capability: a loss made vivid when Canada had to opt out of ground combat operations in the first Gulf War of 1990-’91.
At the height of the Korean war military spending was 8% of GDP. That figure slowly fell year after year until it sat at 2% in 1968. Trudeau let it dip slightly in the mid 1970s and then raised it in the first part of the 1980s to correspond with the Reagan built up. When Trudeau left office in 1984, the amount Canada spent on the military as percentage of GDP was virtually what it was in 1968. Now, given that military spending does not need to be tied to population growth the way that spending on services needs to be in order to remain as effective, it is likely that the Canadian army was better equipped in 1984 than it was in 1968. The demands placed on the military were pretty much the same and, in absolute terms, the amount of money Canada was spending was significantly more. The economy was bigger.
Frum:
Pierre Trudeau took office at a moment when commodity prices were rising worldwide. Good policy-makers recognize that commodity prices fall as well as rise. Yet between 1969 and 1979 — through two majority governments and one minority — Trudeau tripled federal spending.
When I first read Frum's article I assumed he was saying that Trudeau's decision to increase spending was premised on commodity prices remaining low. Given that commodity prices had begun to rise just as he took office he should have foreseen the spike in commodity prices in 1973 and what that would mean for the Canadian economy and Canada's bottom line. Having watched the following debate between Frum and Lawrence Martin I now realize that I had things backwards and that I was giving Frum far too much credit.
Frum contends that when Trudeau took over commodity prices were riding high and that Canada took it on the chin -- and here I guessing -- when the commodity boom ended just as he was leaving office in the 1984. Whatever the case, Frum's argument is bizarre. There is no other way of putting it. Yes when Trudeau was first elected as a MP inflation had started to rise. However, when Trudeau was elected PM, inflation was falling and continued fall. It dropped to a low of 1% in December 1970. Moreover the cause of the mid sixties rise in inflation was not due to a commodity boom. Indeed, Frum's very line of reason is wrong. He is guilty of trying to paint the Bretton Woods era with a post Bretton Woods brush. The level of instability in commodity markets that has existed after 1973 simply did not exist during that time. Most notably, the price of oil had remained remarkably stable for almost a 100 years. With that goes the motivation Frum assigns Trudeau. Worse for Frum, according to Frum's reasoning Canada should have boomed right along with commodity prices, but, of course, Canada suffered from stagflation the way other Western economies did. Whatever revenue gains were made in 1974 and 1975 were more than matched by a rise in costs and revenues in real terms plummeted as the economy worsened. For 14 straight years Canada's debt to GDP ratio had sank, but in 1976 that ended. Expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen sharply after having spiked in 1974, but revenues despite no commensurate drop in commodity prices nose dived. By 1979 expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen by 3%, but revenues as a percentage of GDP had declined by 4% of GDP and sat some 2 points lower than the 30 year medium.
The problems for Frum do not stop there. Yes, spending did triple between 1969 and 1979, but the figure Frum cites is not adjusted for a decade of record inflation, indexed to population or GDP growth. In other words, it is meaningless. No one, except an utter armature or someone wishing to advance a political agenda irrespective of the truth, would make, for example, a meal out of the fact that federal expenditures were 10 times higher in 2000 than in 1970. What counts is how much federal spending increased as percentage of GDP. And when you factor out the amount of money devoted to debt servicing -- which went up three fold between 1975 and 1995 -- the amount of Federal spending as percentage of GDP remained virtually unchanged between 1959 and 1989. Where there was a marked increase in spending during this time was at the provincial level.
Frum
"Do Canadians understand how many of their difficulties of the 1990s originated in the 1970s? They should. To repay Trudeau’s debt, federal governments reduced transfers to provinces."
The notion that Trudeau era spending in the 1970s was responsible for the debt crisis in the 1990s is so patently absurd it hardly worth discussing. Leaving aside the fact that two thirds of Canada's debt accumulated under Brian Mulroney, when the Liberals were defeated in 1979 the debt to GDP ratio was 16% and the debt in inflation adjusted dollars was the same as what it was 1961!
Oh by the way, Frum makes it seem that subsequent governments cut transfer payments to the provinces to make up for some of his overspending. However, transfer payments to provinces went up under Mulroney. It was Martin that cut them.
Frum
"Brian Mulroney, balanced Canada’s operating budget after 1984. But to squeeze out Trudeau-era inflation, the Bank of Canada had raised real interest rates very high. Mulroney could not keep up with the debt payments. The debt compounded, the deficits grew, the Bank hiked rates again — and Canada toppled into an even worse recession in 1992."
Yes the main reason that the debt exploded under Mulroney was that the Bank of Canada was trying to "wrestle inflation to the ground". However, Frum makes it sound that such a policy was first pursued under Mulroney. This is simply not true. Ever since the the disbanding of Bretton Woods and the 1973 OPEC oil crisis, stagflation had plagued every Western economy. At the beginning of the 1980s, the US Fed chairperson Paul Vocker, with prospect of another energy Crisis looming over the economy, decided to do something about it. He declared a war on inflation. The Bank of Canada followed suit. Both the BOC and the Fed purposely drove the economy into a deep recession by greatly increasing interest rates. An example should put things into perspective. In July 25th 1980 interest rates stood at already high 11%; on December 16th 1980 the US Fed had raised them to 21.5%. US policy coupled with surging oil prices brought about by the Iran Iraq war resulted in a spike in inflation in Canada and so the BOC responded in kind. In Canada interest rates reached a high of 23%! Interest rates were no where near as high under Mulroney.
The war on inflation was won, but it came at a terrible cost. Sky rocketing interest rates meant that the amount of money used to finance the debt went through the roof, the spike in unemployment greatly reduced government revenues and unemployment insurance claims put further stress on government coffers. Furthermore, the quick success of the BOC's efforts meant that Canada's debt to GDP ratio went up at much faster rate than it would have had inflation remained high for a longer period of time. By the time Mulroney took over in Sept 1984 inflation had sank to 3.7% from a high 12.9% in May 1981, but interest rates, remained sky high for considerably longer. As a result, Canada was not able to inflate away some of the value of that debt as it had after World War 2 and for part of the 1970s.
Frum
"Other Western governments recovered from the stagflation of the 1970s by turning toward freer markets. Under the National Energy Program, Canada was up-regulating as the U.S., Britain, and West Germany deregulated. All of these mistakes together contributed to the extreme severity of the 1982 recession. Every one of them was Pierre Trudeau’s fault."
The notion that the recession of 1981 1982 was brought on by Trudeau's fiscal policies is even more absurd than the notion that Trudeau's 1970s era spending was behind the debt crisis in the 1990s. The recession in the US and Canada was in partially a self inflicted wound yes. However, the cause was monetary policy and not fiscal policy. A 10 point hike in interest rates was designed to slow down growth and worked like a charm.
Furthermore, the implication that the US did not go into recession too is simply wrong. Unemployment, for example, in the US nearly doubled and stayed at 10% for much of 1981 and 1982. As for West Germany and Britain, unemployment doubled in W. Germany in 1981 and unemployment in Britain was above what it was in Canada and remained above 10% until 1988.
Frum:
When Pierre Trudeau was elected prime minister in 1968, Canada faced a small but militant separatist challenge in Quebec. In 1970, that challenge erupted in terrorist violence: two kidnappings and a murder of one of the kidnapped hostages, Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.
Trudeau responded with overwhelming force, declaring martial law in Quebec, arresting dozens of people, almost none of whom had any remote connection to the terrorist outrages. The arrests radicalized them, transforming many from cultural nationalists into outright independentists. As he did throughout his career, Trudeau polarized the situation — multiplying enemies for himself and, unfortunately, also for Canada.
Violence did not "erupt" in 1970. It errupted in 1963. Between 1963 and 1970 the FLQ had carried out some 200 bombings, kidnappings, and robberies. They had also killed 7 people prior to killing Laporte. Furthermore far from "radicalizing" anyone, Trudeau's actions undermined those advocating further violence in two important ways. 1) The bold actions drew attention to the issue of political violence like never before and forced the public to pass a verdict the legitimacy of actions that had been carried out for 7 years. Quebecers overwhelming rejected such tactics and this greatly undermined FLQ base of support within Quebec society. As a former Bush speech writer, I find it odd that Frum would decry such actions but enthusiastically endorse the Bush maximum that "you're either with us, or against us". But I digress. 2) The sheer popularity of the Trudeau's actions helped convince even some members of the FLQ, most notably Pierre Vallières, that violence was counterproductive. The October crisis turned out to be the FLQ's swan song.
Frum:
Would it really have been so impossible to achieve a Charter of Rights without plunging Canada into two recessions, without wrecking the national finances, without triggering two referendums, without nationalizing the oil industry, without driving not only Quebec, but also Alberta to the verge of separation?
Frum notes in his debate with Lawrence Martin that demographic change in Quebec society has dampened separatism's appeal and indeed it has. The notion of Quebec nation based on the archaic notion of "blood" has been undermined by high rates of immigration and most important of all the huge income and social disparities between Francophones and Anglophones in Quebec are gone. Despite this Frum seems incapable of following his own reasoning back. Namely, not only has demographic and social forces muted separatism appeal, but it was precisely these forces that gave birth to separatism in the first place. Instead, Frum contends that Trudeau's actions during the October crisis, which were wildly popular both inside and outside Quebec, "radicalized" Quebec nationalists setting in motion the 1980 referendum. Frum gives no credit Trudeau for helping the no side win the 1980 referendum despite his obvious popularity in Quebec. This is quite the oversight. The Liberals took 68.2% of popular vote in Quebec and 74 of 75 seats just three months before the referendum took place.
As for the second referendum, unlike the first, at least there is a sequence of events started by Trudeau that leads up to it. That said, Frum's accusation that everything can be traced back Trudeau having pulled the old bait and switch is simply wrong. There was no bait and switch. No, Trudeau's failing was that he believed that a government headed by René Lévesque and dedicated to the break up of the country would ever negotiate in good faith to secure Quebec's place within Canada.
Now despite the absurdity of Frum's claim that Alberta was ever on the verge of separation, Frum is right in saying that Trudeau alienated "the West". However, the West's displeasure with Trudeau went far beyond Trudeau lavishing goodies on Quebec. Indeed, the main source of the collapse in Western Canada was the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals' inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993.
Of course, whatever faults Trudeau had in this regard they paled into insignificance when staked up against Mulroney's pathetic pandering to Quebec nationalists. Mulroney wrongly believed that he could satisfy the demands of Quebec nationalists and Western Canada would happily go along with any proposals he might make. He was wrong on both accounts. Not only did Quebecers reject the Charlottetown Accord but the Accord was soundly rejected in Western Canada. 68.3% of British Colombians, for example, rejected the deal. It was Mulroney's idiocy that lead to the emergence of not one regional party by two (i.e., the Reform party and the Bloc). It is also what lead to the collapse of his own party. Forgetting that 1968 was a high water mark for the Liberals and only in BC had the Liberals had any kind of success in Canada's 3 most western provinces since 1953, Frum makes a big deal out of the fact that Liberals went from 27 seats West of Ontario in 1968 to down to 2 in 1980. He says that it good indication that Trudeau alienated the West and it is, but a much more telling figure is the fact that the Torries went from 54 seats West of Ontario, Western Canada being their traditional base of support, in 1984 to 0 in 1993.
Finally, as for nationalizing the oil industry, it is really too bad that never came about. Norway did and it has used its oil revenues to fund the most generous social programs in the world and still has money to burn. An oil fund started in 1990 now sits at $600 billion and is the largest sovereign oil fund in the world.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
David Frum Embarrasses Himself Yet Again: His Attack on Trudeau: Part 2
Frum:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Trudeau%2Bdisaster/5470488/story.html
When Trudeau was first elected as a MP inflation had started to rise. However, after Trudeau was elected PM, inflation actually dipped and dropped to a low of 1% in December 1970. More to the point, commodity prices were not on the rise when Trudeau took over and had been stable for some time. Frum is flat wrong. Most notably, the price of oil had remained remarkably stable for almost a 100 years.
However, by 1971 everything had started to change. The world had lost faith in the US's "ability to pay" that is to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed rate. As a result, the Bretton woods system of fixed exchange rates began to implode and by 1973 was gone entirely.
The collapse of the Bretton Woods system helped spure on a spike in commodity prices at the start of 1973. And things were made all the worse, of course, by the oil embargo at the end of the year. The price of oil went up 4 fold and overall commodity prices doubled that year.
Frum:
After 1973 commodity markets have seen huge up swings and dips, but Frum is wrong in trying to paint the Bretton Woods era with a post Bretton Woods brush. The level of instability in commodity markets that has existed after 1973 simply did not exist during that time. Furthermore, to imply that the "Nixon Shock", the subsequent collapse of Bretton Woods and the OPEC oil embargo were immediately foreseeable and somehow par for the course is ridiculous.
The problems for Frum do not stop there. Yes, spending did triple between 1969 and 1979, but the figure Frum cites is not adjusted for a decade of record inflation, indexed to population or GDP growth. In other words, it is meaningless. No one, except an utter armature or someone wishing to advance a political agenda irrespective of the truth, would make, for example, a meal out of the fact that federal expenditures were 10 times higher in 2000 than in 1970. What counts is how much federal spending increased as percentage of GDP. And when you factor out the amount of money devoted to debt servicing -- which went up three fold between 1975 and 1995 -- the amount of Federal spending as percentage of GDP remained virtually unchanged between 1959 and 1989. Where there was a marked increase in spending during this time was at the provincial level.
In order to appreciate the scope of Frum's intellectual dishonesty it worth pointing out that in Trudeau's first 7 years in office, Canada's debt to GDP ratio shrank and so did Canada's debt in inflation adjusted dollars. Contrary to popular wisdom, you do not need to run surpluses to shrink the debt in real dollars. If depreciation of the debt outstrips deficits, then a real reduction in the debt will be achieved and that is precisely what happened.
Frum:
At the height of the Korean war military spending was 8% of GDP. That figure slowly fell year after year until it sat at 2% in 1968. Trudeau let it dip slightly in the mid 1970s and then raised it in the first part of the 1980s to correspond with the Reagan built up. When Trudeau left office in 1984, the amount Canada spent on the military as percentage of GDP was virtually what it was in 1968. Now, given that military spending does not need to be tied to population growth the way that spending on services needs to be in order to remain as effective, it is likely that the Canadian army was better equipped in 1984 than it was in 1968. The demands placed on the military were pretty much the same and in absolute terms, the amount of money Canada was spending was significantly more. The economy was bigger.
Update
When I first read Frum's article I assumed he was saying that Trudeau's decision to increase spending was premised on commodity prices remaining low. Given that commodity prices had begun to rise just as he took office he should have foreseen the spike in commodity prices in 1973 and what that would mean for the Canadian economy and Canada's bottom line. Having watched the following debate between Frum and Lawrence Martin I now realize that I had things backwards and that I was giving Frum far too much credit. http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&hl=e&clipID=6030
Frum contends that when Trudeau took over commodity prices were riding high and that Canada took it on the chin -- and here I guessing -- when the commodity boom ended just as he was leaving office in the 1984. Frum's argument is bizarre. There is no other way of putting it. As I have already pointed out, there was no commodity boom when Trudeau took over nor was there reason to believe that commodity prices would double in single year. There goes Trudeau's motivation. Worse for Frum, according to Frum's logic Canada should have boomed right along with commodity prices, but, of course, Canada suffered from stagflation the way other Western economies did. Whatever revenue gains were made in 1974 and 1975 were more than matched by a rise in costs and revenues in real terms plummeted as the economy worsened. For 14 straight years Canada's debt to GDP ratio had sank, but in 1976 that ended. Expenditures as percentage of GDP had fallen sharply after having spiked in 1974, but revenues despite no commensurate drop in commodity prices nose dived. By 1979 expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen by 3%, but revenues as a percentage of GDP had declined by 4% of GDP and sat some 2 points lower than the 30 year medium.
Pierre Trudeau took office at a moment when commodity prices were rising worldwide.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Trudeau%2Bdisaster/5470488/story.html
When Trudeau was first elected as a MP inflation had started to rise. However, after Trudeau was elected PM, inflation actually dipped and dropped to a low of 1% in December 1970. More to the point, commodity prices were not on the rise when Trudeau took over and had been stable for some time. Frum is flat wrong. Most notably, the price of oil had remained remarkably stable for almost a 100 years.
However, by 1971 everything had started to change. The world had lost faith in the US's "ability to pay" that is to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed rate. As a result, the Bretton woods system of fixed exchange rates began to implode and by 1973 was gone entirely.
The collapse of the Bretton Woods system helped spure on a spike in commodity prices at the start of 1973. And things were made all the worse, of course, by the oil embargo at the end of the year. The price of oil went up 4 fold and overall commodity prices doubled that year.
Frum:
Good policy-makers recognize that commodity prices fall as well as rise. Yet between 1969 and 1979 — through two majority governments and one minority — Trudeau tripled federal spending.
After 1973 commodity markets have seen huge up swings and dips, but Frum is wrong in trying to paint the Bretton Woods era with a post Bretton Woods brush. The level of instability in commodity markets that has existed after 1973 simply did not exist during that time. Furthermore, to imply that the "Nixon Shock", the subsequent collapse of Bretton Woods and the OPEC oil embargo were immediately foreseeable and somehow par for the course is ridiculous.
The problems for Frum do not stop there. Yes, spending did triple between 1969 and 1979, but the figure Frum cites is not adjusted for a decade of record inflation, indexed to population or GDP growth. In other words, it is meaningless. No one, except an utter armature or someone wishing to advance a political agenda irrespective of the truth, would make, for example, a meal out of the fact that federal expenditures were 10 times higher in 2000 than in 1970. What counts is how much federal spending increased as percentage of GDP. And when you factor out the amount of money devoted to debt servicing -- which went up three fold between 1975 and 1995 -- the amount of Federal spending as percentage of GDP remained virtually unchanged between 1959 and 1989. Where there was a marked increase in spending during this time was at the provincial level.
In order to appreciate the scope of Frum's intellectual dishonesty it worth pointing out that in Trudeau's first 7 years in office, Canada's debt to GDP ratio shrank and so did Canada's debt in inflation adjusted dollars. Contrary to popular wisdom, you do not need to run surpluses to shrink the debt in real dollars. If depreciation of the debt outstrips deficits, then a real reduction in the debt will be achieved and that is precisely what happened.
Frum:
His spending spree did not include the military. He cut air and naval capabilities, pulled troops home from Europe, and embarked on morale-destroying reorganizations of the military services. In 1968, Canada was a serious second-tier non-nuclear military power, like Sweden or Israel. By 1984, Canada had lost its war-fighting capability: a loss made vivid when Canada had to opt out of ground combat operations in the first Gulf War of 1990-’91.
At the height of the Korean war military spending was 8% of GDP. That figure slowly fell year after year until it sat at 2% in 1968. Trudeau let it dip slightly in the mid 1970s and then raised it in the first part of the 1980s to correspond with the Reagan built up. When Trudeau left office in 1984, the amount Canada spent on the military as percentage of GDP was virtually what it was in 1968. Now, given that military spending does not need to be tied to population growth the way that spending on services needs to be in order to remain as effective, it is likely that the Canadian army was better equipped in 1984 than it was in 1968. The demands placed on the military were pretty much the same and in absolute terms, the amount of money Canada was spending was significantly more. The economy was bigger.
Update
When I first read Frum's article I assumed he was saying that Trudeau's decision to increase spending was premised on commodity prices remaining low. Given that commodity prices had begun to rise just as he took office he should have foreseen the spike in commodity prices in 1973 and what that would mean for the Canadian economy and Canada's bottom line. Having watched the following debate between Frum and Lawrence Martin I now realize that I had things backwards and that I was giving Frum far too much credit. http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&hl=e&clipID=6030
Frum contends that when Trudeau took over commodity prices were riding high and that Canada took it on the chin -- and here I guessing -- when the commodity boom ended just as he was leaving office in the 1984. Frum's argument is bizarre. There is no other way of putting it. As I have already pointed out, there was no commodity boom when Trudeau took over nor was there reason to believe that commodity prices would double in single year. There goes Trudeau's motivation. Worse for Frum, according to Frum's logic Canada should have boomed right along with commodity prices, but, of course, Canada suffered from stagflation the way other Western economies did. Whatever revenue gains were made in 1974 and 1975 were more than matched by a rise in costs and revenues in real terms plummeted as the economy worsened. For 14 straight years Canada's debt to GDP ratio had sank, but in 1976 that ended. Expenditures as percentage of GDP had fallen sharply after having spiked in 1974, but revenues despite no commensurate drop in commodity prices nose dived. By 1979 expenditures as a percentage of GDP had fallen by 3%, but revenues as a percentage of GDP had declined by 4% of GDP and sat some 2 points lower than the 30 year medium.
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