Fighting Harper hatred

Two outstanding columns in today's FP:

Peter Foster:  Vote against hate:

If a man is defined by his enemies, Stephen Harper still has a lot going for him in the dying days of this election campaign. On balance, he has been a good Prime Minister in trying times, and yet he drives people to frenzies of hatred, which says far more about them than him. ...

Lawrence Solomon: Judging Harper:

Stephen Harper may be the worst prime minister in memory, as many claim. Or the best. You be the judge. ...

... On energy and the environment, Harper has been a tightwad. His predecessors in both Liberal and Conservative parties subsidized the development of the tar sands. Harper phased out these subsidies.  

...money in people’s hands isn’t the only measure of well being. Canada ranks among the top 10 nations of the world in having the World’s Most Open Governments, in the Social Progress Index, in the Soft Power 30 Index, and in the World Happiness ranking, and we are the absolute top in Best Country for Business in the G20, and Best GDP growth among the G7 nations. Not surprisingly, when you put all this together, Canada landed in the #1 spot as the most respected nation in the world, based on a survey of 48,000 people around the world conducted by the Reputation Institute, which ranked 55 nations for perceived trust, admiration and respect.

These columns deserve front page exposure.

"The Eighth Blunder of the World" - Wynne's Ontario

Philip Cross, former Chief Economic Analyst for StatsCan:

Ontarians are clearly having buyer’s remorse after re-electing its Liberal government last year, with two-thirds now believing that Ontario is headed in the wrong direction. 

... Ontario now qualifies for equalization payments, confirming its shift from “have” to “have-not” status within Confederation.  The government’s response was more government spending financed by deficits that doubled its total debt over the past decade.

 ... In economic policymaking, Ontario has become the Eighth Blunder of the World. Instead of focusing on policies that would encourage economic growth, the Wynne government is following the maritime province’s tactic of begging the federal government for more transfer payments. 

We're in a "tecnical recession". So, what is a "technical" recession?

Who knows?  It's a meaningless term:

We still don’t know whether Canada is in a recession. After a steady drumbeat of claims that Canada had fallen into a “technical” recession in the first half of 2015, second-quarter GDP dipped 0.1 per cent, although it grew 0.5 per cent in June. Given the country’s steady job growth, there isn’t much more clarity about a possible recession today than there was before the six-month economic data were released on Tuesday.

...all the emphasis on the idea that Canada was in a “technical” recession — as opposed to some other, non-technical type. The term is meaningless; all recessions are technical  ...

... When people call it a technical recession, it’s a signal that they have either a political agenda or they lack expertise ...

It's worth noting that Philip Cross, the author of the above linked column, was the Stats Can guy who wrote the book on defining these things.

Of course none of this makes any difference whatever, politically, for those with an agenda.  And, in election season who could possibly have a political agenda?  They'll use it to their advantage by exaggerating, obfuscating or lying. And most won't know the difference.

The latest from the Fiscal Monitor: a $5B budget surplus

Brian Lilley:



"... what is happening in oil and gas and a few other sectors of the economy things will not be great going forward and probably are not as rosy as some Conservatives will have you believe but they also are not nearly as bad as the doom and gloom preached by the NDP and Liberals. ..."

How Canada gains from Obama's loss

Lawrence Solomon counts the ways:

Number One on the Obama Can’t-Do list involves carbon taxes or other global warming measures that could set back Canada’s economy ... a prescient Prime Minister Harper tied Canada’s global warming policies to those of the United States. ... Harper — thought to be a closet climate skeptic — took a calculated risk that paid off in spades. ...

Number Two on the Obama Can’t-Do List is trade protectionism, a favourite among many Democrats including Obama ...

Number Three: Canada can also breathe a big sigh of relief that free spending Democrats are now reined in. ...Obama’s exploding of the national debt — by the time he’s done, it may have doubled to $20-trillion

Pundits are betting that Obama will finally approve Keystone ... But the pundits could be wrong. Obama has betrayed most of his constituents through broken promises ... But even chucking Keystone could now be too late for Obama. He has become such a liability to his party that few Democratic politicians have a strong allegiance to him ...

See also Peter Foster: Mr. Obama, pull down that anti-Keystone XL wall
 

Income splitting helps the poor, too

Lawrence Solomon:

Many left-leaning advocacy groups and some on the right criticize the federal government’s income-splitting proposal as sops for the rich that offer nothing to 85% of Canadian households.  To the contrary, the middle class and especially the poor would be profound beneficiaries of income splitting, along with society as a whole. ...

The family should be recognized for its fundamental role in wealth creation ...

How fossil fuels are greening the planet

Matt Ridley explains why the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels:



[Via]

The CBC and The Economist promote green huxster's "report" on BC carbon tax

University of Ottawa professor Stewart Elgie founded an organization called "Sustainable Prosperity",  "a national green economy think tank/do tank ... in the pursuit of a greener, more competitive Canadian economy."   [Note that Preston Manning is listed as a steering committee member.]

Sustainable Prosperity recently published Prof Elgie's upbeat "report" on BC's carbon tax - "An Environmental (and Economic)Success Story" promoted first by the CBC and yesterday by The Economist.

Given Elgie's green activist orientation it behooves one to read his report with some skepticism as it is likely to be tainted with substantial confirmation bias (and worse).  Both Elgie and his report are critiqued by Hilary:

Ottawa based Stewart Elgie – not unlike IPCC-nik and recently elected British Columbia Green Party MLA, Andrew Weaver – has a history of putting advocacy carts ahead of evidence horses. ...

And here's a commenter on The Economist piece:

... BC per capita energy use has been declining since 1978. The post CTax rate of decline is actually been SLOWER than the 2000-2007 trend (the CTax was announced and introduced in 2008)for the package of CTaxed goods, and most of the individual commodities in the package. ...

... BC's economy has always been less carbon-intensive than the rest of Canada's (due to its large hydro resource and two of the most densly populated major urban areas in the country) But comparisons of BC's fossil carbon energy usage and the rest of Canada's show that BC's relative advantage was much better every year from 2002 through 2007 than any year after the CTax was introduced.  ...

... Second, over 85% of the post-Ctax reduction in BC energy use was reductions in industrial energy use. This reflected the historically unprecedented shrinkage of BC's forest products and paper manufacturing sectors ...

... the driver of post-2007 energy demand reduction in BC has been de-industrialization. Manufacturing employment in BC has fallen 26% since the CTax was introduced, while the Cdn national average has been a 15% decline.  ... etc.

RBC outsourcing controversy overblown?

Terence Corcoran:

RBC Chairman and CEO Gord Nixon capitulated Thursday with an “Open Letter to Canadians” that was instantly branded as a grovelling apology. ... what else can be expected from this catastrophic media-creation of a story. RBC might as well have dumped a million barrels of crude oil into Toronto Harbour...

... This a story bubble blown up by the CBC out of the mistaken impressions of one worker about RBC’s outsourcing program.

... How did the bank’s vast HR-PR machinery, so sensitive to environment issues and social responsibility, allow this story to get out of hand?

... The facts are now out: No RBC employee would have been fired, no crew of temporary workers has been parachuted in to take away jobs. Furthermore, the practice of outsourcing and worker movements is as natural an economic practice as buying a toothbrush made in China.

... But the CBC and other media ignored the facts and turned the story into an epic war against outsourcing any anything associated with it.  ... The left piled on, including front-line economist Armine Yalnizyan of the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Good Policy. ...

Apparently, Andrew Coyne agrees.

Ontario headed for Greek-style meltdown?

Ontario's debt load larger than California's thanks to big-spending ways

Ontario’s debt load is higher than that of California, America’s most-indebted state, and could reach 66 per cent of GDP by 2019 unless the provincial government musters the courage to rein in spending

" ... Ontario simply cannot continue spending money it doesn’t have; otherwise it will soon be compared to Greece, not California.”

“If Ontario continues spending at its current rate, its net debt will increase to 66 per cent from 37 per cent in just seven years. It took Greece 10 years to experience a similar increase. ..."
 

Christmas prayers for pessimists

Peter Foster offers Christmas prayers for a few of the perennial pessimists, gloomsters and doomsters who try to darken our lives:

... I am thinking of those who are inclined — particularly at this season — to condemn capitalism’s cornucopia as so much crass consumerism, culpable materialism, superfluous gift-giving, and planet abuse.

... poor little George Monbiot ... who recently wrote a Christmas cavil with the upbeat headline “The Gift of Death.”  ... Georgie Porgie doesn’t make girls cry by forcing kisses upon them but by berating their shopping habits. ...

... Next up for our prayers is Harvard’s Michael Sandel, who seems blind to all but the wackiest fringes of modern Western society ... The deepest recesses of Prof. Sandel’s troubled psyche were exposed by an article he wrote earlier this year: “If I Ruled the World.”

... Canadian Mennonite Aiden Enns, co-founder of the “Buy Nothing Christmas” campaign. ... Mr. Enns firmly established himself as another Eeyore who sees doughnuts only as holes.

... Malthusian Jeremiah Jeff Rubin — author of downer tomes such as Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller and The End of Growth. ... Mr. Rubin hankers for more poverty and less choice ...

Well done, Peter!

Steyn and Hannity discuss the "fiscal cliff"

Big Data: Is Hayek Dead?

Proponents of “Big Data” hail it as a “managerial revolution”. What would Friedrich Hayek have said?

Terence Corcoran:

... Many decades ago, The Economist declared "Keynes is dead,"

... As we know, Keynes was resurrected ...

... Given the state of government policy around the world, it's beginning to look like it's time to ask the question: Is Hayek dead?

... Hayek's warning was aimed at the menace of central planning, but it likely also applies to big data corporate planning. Regardless of volume and quality, he said, data and statistics are about the past and are notoriously incapable of predicting even the smallest of changes in economic behaviour. Big data may have uses, but a management revolution based on terabytes of data and YouTube views? Let's hope Hayek isn't dead yet.

This also brings to mind “climate change”. Whether applied to directing an economy or managing “climate change” (which inevitably leads to attempts at directing the global economy) central planning is fatally flawed.  Both climate change and economics have in common: 

Huge complexity   |
Faulty theory       |
Faulty data          |  >> Disastrous policy
Faulty models       |

Hayek is alive and well.

Mark Carney's corporate bashing

Peter Foster:

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney must be congratulated for delivering an unwelcome message to the CAW. ... But then he had to spoil it. Perhaps he thought that since he was delivering inconvenient truths to labour, he should also do a bit of corporate bashing.

Mr. Carney suggested ... Canadian corporations were holding too much cash and failing to diversify into emerging markets. He opined that high cash holdings might be due to companies not knowing what to do with their profits, but being reluctant to return them to shareholders.  ...

... Attacking corporations is always appealing from a populist perspective, but it is also dangerous. It could easily feed into the notion that the Conservatives’ commendable reductions in corporate taxes have merely led to boosted profits being “socked away.” ...

... It was good to see so many prominent and successful Canadian companies — from Open Text to Suncor — prepared to put their head above the parapet and dare to tell Mr. Carney, subtly, that he should stick to his knitting.

Apple - the largest company in history

Apple's market cap today hit $624 billion, the highest in the world, ever.  For comparison:

Microsoft - $258 billion
Google     - $221   "
Oracle      - $156   "
Intel          - $131   "
US deficit  - $1.3 trillion

"Those wacky Canadian have become richer than us!"

An American view of a "Loonie turn of events". PJTV's Allen Barton and guests discuss the news that Canadians have a higher average net worth than Americans (and why Jonathan Kay is a putz).

Coyne versus Kay on Canadian superiority

Jonathan Kay writes that Canadians having a net worth $40,000 higher than Americans spells bad news for Canadian small-c conservatives. Based on his very selective interpretation of events and the opinions of RINO David Frum, the ever-progressive Kay concludes:

... [Canadian] “Third Way” politics, or you can call it Statism Lite, or you can call it, as Marche does, hardheaded socialism (a term I really like). But the fact is: It’s what works in developed post-industrial economies — both in Canada and Scandinavia. ... fantastic news for Canadians. But it’s weird news for the Canadian conservatives. ...

With a few facts and some common sense Andrew Coyne easily demolishes Kay’s "arguments":

... Add up a one-third drop in U.S. real estate, a 50% rise in oil prices and a 15% increase in the value of the Canadian dollar and it’s hardly surprising to find the financial position of Canadian households has improved, measured against the Americans. It would be astonishing if it hadn’t. But how exactly does this make the case for the comprehensive superiority of “the Canadian system,” let alone “hard-headed socialism”? ...

Compared with Coyne, Kay is a light-weight.  I know, that's not news.

Ontario credit rating downgraded by Moody's

Epoch Times:

... Moody’s downgraded the province’s credit rating from Aa1 to Aa2 on Thursday, on Wednesday Standard & Poor’s downgraded its outlook for the province to negative.

With Moody’s downgrade, Ontario joins the lowest of three tiers that provinces sit at.

Alberta and British Columbia enjoy an Aaa rating, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba sit at Aa1. Ontario was downgraded to Aa2, the lowest rating shared by the rest of the provinces. ...

Take that McGuinty! And the dopes who elected you (along with, unfortunately, those who didn't).

The new Luddites threaten prosperity

Stephen Harper speaks at Davos

Interesting opening acknowledements:

... My greetings to Ambassador Santi,
To the governor of the Bank of Canada, known internationally as chair of the Financial Stability Board, Mark Carney,
To our hard-working minister of international trade, Ed Fast.
And to the best finance minister on the planet, Jim Flaherty....

The rest of it was good. He did an excellent job of blowing Canada's horn, saying in effect "...we're in good shape.  Look and learn." I just wish he wouldn't encourage the megalomaniacal WEF globalists by appearing at Davos.

More commentary.