Harper Intent on Government ads Promoting him, Rather than H1N1 Awareness

In figures recovered by the Canadian Press, Stephen Harper has spent $34 million on ads promoting his government's Action Plan, in comparison with a paltry $6.5 million. This means that the PM is spending more than 5 times the amount provided for H1N1 awareness for ads using government money to essentially promote the government, even falling in step with Conservative proclamations of "we can't stop now"

The ads promoting the Action Plan are clearly designed to convince the public that the Conservative government is doing a good job, claiming that 80% of the stimulus has already been implemented. Clearly these ads are not designed to inform the public of vital services provided the government, such as H1N1 vaccines, when they finally arrive, but rather to assure the public that the government is doing the right thing.

It would be different if the ads were informing the public about the home renovation policy, a specific program on which taxpayers need to act to benefit. In contrast, most of the spending referred to in the Action Plan ads benefits a passive public.

Wouldn't it be the right thing to do if the Conservatives were to run convincing ads adjuring the public to engage in preventative measures and obtain vaccinations? It would be.

But doing the right thing seldom seems to be a consideration Harper's Conservatives entertain much.

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And Stephen Harper's an economist? Make that libertarian or anarchist

I'm sure all readers have heard or read the Harper comments on taxes. What I wondered when I saw these comments was how Stephen Harper could claim to be an economist. How could any economist say that no taxes are good taxes? It doesn't stand to reason, and the inevitable conclusion is that Stephen Harper is a libertarian at best, an anarchist at worst.

As Jeffrey Simpson puts it in his column today:

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

The problem is that through his actions, Harper seems to be putting into action the ideology his comment professes. Cutting the GST, for instance, whose negative repercussions can be detected in the ever-growing deficit being run by Ottawa.

On the topic of the deficit, Harper must realize that taxes would help to pull the government out of the red. In fact, he probably resents that truth.

I doubt these comments show that Harper is losing control. It is much more likely that this either pandering to his base, as an election in the fall is a real possibility, or under pressure, he uttered what he actually believes. Either option is concerning.

He either believes something no one else in his academic field does, or he's willing to go to any lengths, no matter any measure of economic integrity he may possess. Scary indeed, Jeffrey Simpson.

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The Proper Response to the Conference Board

The Conference Board announced earlier today that the provinces will have no choice. Either they must cut their spending, or be forced to raise taxes. I'm not going to argue with the choice being presented, because I am not in a position to know whether or not this is true. However, if we do take this choice seriously, the right decision would be to raise taxes.

Before anyone responds with "You can't tax, it will make the economy worse", I am not suggesting such taxation. In other words, not taxation that would span all income brackets, all businesses etc... It is possible to strategically tax. In fact, Barack Obama suggested it during his election campaign, and is working towards it.

The idea is to tax those that can afford to be taxed, and still contribute as much as they did previously to the economy. The fact is that the rich of this country, and in America, have consolidated a lot of money. And there is no reason that we cannot raise taxes from this income bracket to balance our budgets.

This may sound like a redistribution of income, and to some extent of course, it is. However, the stimulus that governments are providing to the economy are a requisite for our economic recovery. Virtually every developed nation is following this path. Without this stimulus, the recession would be irrevocably prolonged. It would therefore be very misguided to cut taxes.

Cutting taxes would only further compound the problem if we are to continue to provide much needed stimulus. The only choice should be to tax, and the best form of taxation would be one that increases the rate of taxation for higher income brackets.

This would have no effect on the economy for two reasons. First of all, many of those in the higher income brackets do not invest much of their fortunes, and consequently most of their wealth provides nothing to them, nor the economy.

And secondly, this taxation would be a measure allowing for economic stimulus negating any recessive effect of taxing the higher income brackets.

In conclusion, the provinces should raise new taxes, or increased taxes, on the richer Canadians, assuring thereby that the economy recovers. After all, according to many of those that would be taxed, a good economy benefits everyone.

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Harper must be wondering why he instituted the parliamentary budget office

One of the measures that Stephen Harper has taken in his time in power is the formation of the parliamentary budget office. The goal was to create an office to ensure government was accountable. Those were the heady days when anything the Harperites did was in service to accountability.

I am sure that Stephen Harper never intended it to make him accountable. He most certainly conceived of it as check on Liberals, once they eventually got back into power.

However, it seems that the Conservatives, by Harper's own standards, are getting to be unreliable, and thus to a degree unaccountable. All this has been revealed by contradicting reports and statements issued by the government and by the parliamentary budget office.

For instance, the Conservatives are maintaining that the deficit we are seeing is in no danger of being structural. This flies in the face of a pending report from the parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, predicting deficits seen through 2014, well after the economy, as predicted by this report, recovers.

Meanwhile, Flaherty and Harper cheerfully assert that these deficits are necessary, but once the economy recovers, so will the budgets.

Inconveniently, the parliamentary budget officer is getting it right more than Harper's government. He predicted larger deficits than the government originally did, and he was right.

Looks like he'll be right again, keeping Harper accountable. A nice twist of fate.

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Economic restructuration and the environment

We know that both the economy and the environment face difficult times ahead. Our economy has started to shrink, while global climate patterns become ever more erratic.

However, there may be some hope in this situation. Experts such as Bill Rees, an ecologist at UBC and creator of the "ecological footprint" concept, maintain that if we are serious about saving our environment, we need to reduce our economic growth.

In a way, this would seem to make sense. Economies are based on resources, and the more we develop our economy, the greater the toll on the earth's resources. Even the so-called renewable resources are suffering. To illustrate, in 2008, we used all the resources the earth would renew in a year by September. This mean that for a quarter of last year, we were drawing on resources that would not be renewed this year.

If this trend goes unchecked, eventually we will run out of resources. So, with a reduction in economic growth comes relief for the planet.

Whether or not we need to go into a planned economic recession, as Rees suggests, is another matter. It is possible to restructure the economy so that it depends less on non-renewable resources and resources in general. In addition, we can recycle and reuse that which we have already produced, meaning that we need not take some new resources from the earth.

The environment is in dire straits, as soon the ever melting ice in the Arctic will show this summer. In fact, the melting of the ice is almost a whole century ahead of schedule.

Clearly, we need to take serious action on the environment. Forget about green this and that. Eventually, economies cannot grow anymore. It is foolishness to think that economic growth is infinite.

It turns out that the environment is an even more complex issue than thought, for we need to restructure our economy as well. We cannot reduce environmentally harmful economic growth by harming the livelihoods of millions of people, turning them out of work. It will take real courage and innovation, and a willingness to take this issue seriously.

If we do not act decisively, it will be too late.

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Isn't the world a wonderful place?

Isn't it wonderful to see the heads of government of the 20 leading industrialized and developing economies in the world come to a consensus and act decisively. I doubt there is much that can be seriously criticized about the outcome of the G20.

They have provided 1$ trillion in stimulus, divided into money for the IMF's funds and other funds, they have also made regulations concerning hedge funds along with what in many ways I think is the most important regulation, limits on how much banks can lend relative to the amount of money they actually possess in their reserves.

It is because of the banks that we have this crisis, as is clear from the fact that the first corporations to experience troubles were the banks (Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae). It is because of their reckless lending schemes such as sub-prime mortgages that the economic crisis snowball started rolling down the mountainside.

As for the stimulus money, this is crucial, especially coming from the G20. These nations are the world's leaders on the economic stage, and in all likelihood, few of them, if any, will need to take the opportunity that the greatly enlarged funds of the IMF present. In other words, these nations, the world's economic elite, have acted to aid those in more desperate straits, those that cannot help themselves. This action is worthy of commendation, an action that augurs well for the future.

When the world community acts competently, dealing with the two major branches of the current crisis effectively, who can help but feel optimistic. The only problem is the implication of these ideas. For all of us, let's hope they work.

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