Friday, March 2, 2012

Peter Foster on the CIBC's Jim Prentice

"The Sorcerer's Prentice":

... A speech Mr. Prentice gave to the Toronto Board of Trade on Thursday was a jaw-dropper. It was the kind of mushy mixed economics that is regurgitated with tedious regularity every decade or two by those who have forgotten, or never understood, the lessons of economic history.  Mr. Prentice appears to reject market orientation as unaffordable “ideological purity.”
... Adam Smith would instantly have spotted a market-challenged mercantilist. Unfortunately, Mr. Prentice too has embraced the cause that Smith exploded more than two hundred years ago.
... we should perhaps be relieved that Mr. Prentice is no longer at the Cabinet table.
I wonder what's in it for the CIBC.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Good for him. Now he can talk up all progressive nonsense he wants.

Anonymous said...

met him once when he was the minister of the environment. didnt like him.
perhaps mr prentice should take another look and realize that the one aspect of his speech which was bang on, (often imprudent govt intervention) makes the rest of his speech nonsense. all govt intervention leads to malinvestment, delays, overspending, and failure. it is not "countries" that trade, it is people within a country that trade with people in other countries. the role of govt is to interfere in that trade to fulfill some perverse sense of importance.
i think investors in the oil sands are well aware of where canada's manufacturing heartland is. they are also keenly aware of who is running it. the perfect example of govt imprudence.

brad maynard

johndoe124 said...

There's only one reason why a corporation would lobby for government intervention and that's crony-capitalism. Prentice should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail along with the rest of the CIBC cabal.

JR said...

I suppose it should have been obvious that the CIBC's motive in hiring Prentice in the first place was cronyism.