CHRC Shakedown

Jennifer Lynch pressures a company for thousands of dollars of freebies, like some mafia don. Ezra Levant outlines the sordid story here. Suffice to say that a quasi judicial agency with police powers demanding that an entity under its jurisdiction provides goods and services is the sort of thing we might expect in Russia, Venezuela or some third world kelptocracy rather than an liberal democratic nation like Canada.

The most telling part:

Lynch sent a letter to Newcap Radio – a station that comes under her jurisdiction. She asked them to fall into line with the CHRC’s way of thinking. And what came out the other end is hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free ads featuring Lynch herself.

Question: Does that massive donation to Lynch constitute a political contribution? Is it a form of lobbying? What are the legal implications of Newcap simply gifting that to a bureaucrat for her vanity project? Where will the value of that gift be disclosed? What were the terms of the deal?

But much more important than the legal taxonomy for the gift: what was the quid pro quo?

What indeed?

The only way to ferret out the corruption in the "Human Rights" racket is to Fire. Them. All.

Writing your MP is a good first step, and following up by suggesting that you will refuse financial support to the political party in question until substantive action is taken might focus their minds on the problem. Blogbursting this story (particularly to our friends in the United States) and asking your local MSM outlets why they are not following this story are also worth doing to raise the profile and shine the spotlight on corruption.

Take action. Freedom is a self help project.

It can't be done!

When free market reformers suggest a market solution to any of the multitude of unwieldy, underfunded, unaccountable "public systems" The perennial answer from the unions, big government and their hapless drones in the public is "it can't be done!".

This statement is followed closely by its fellow travelers "what about the poor?", "what do you have against <insert 'protected' group/ideal here>?" and finally... "It could never work!" all of which are accompanied by the usual arguments from intimidation... "Certainly you don't mean..." "You couldn't possibly be saying..." "I know you don't intend to..."

Indeed... I do.

A fisherman with an understanding of economics that would put union officials to shame, who had moved his daughter from state to private school, told me that the private school proprietor needed to satisfy parents like him, otherwise he would go out of business. “That’s why the teachers turn up and teach,” he told me, “because they are closely supervised.”

One father, living in the Kenyan slum of Kibera, summarised it like this: “If you go to a market and are offered free fruit and vegetables, you know they’ll be rotten. If you want fresh produce, you have to pay for it.”

Downfall

Progressia comes home to roost. The most amazing thing to consider is the timeline; the "Great Society" programs which kicked off this destructive spiral were enacted starting in the mid 1960's, so the largest and most productive economy in history was bankrupted in just 40 years. You can read an excellent piece here: Who Will Bail Out Uncle Sam?

And some possible consequences: Four really, really bad scenarios

Of course, since our own economy is also badly indebted (perhaps a trillion dollars worth of debt once the unfunded liabilities like pensions are added in) we have little to brag about, and since our economy and society is attached to the United States like Captain Ahab's longboat to Moby Dick, when they go down they are pulling us straight down as well.

Jack Layton's Radio Check.

"This is Jack Layton to Canada... Radio Check... Over."

"Jack, this is Canada... You are weak, and spineless, but your transmission is loud and clear... Out."

*It's a rare thing when you can actually hear the backpedaling

The Shakedown

It's another quiet day in the store. Some parts of your inventory are still selling, though a little slower than normal. On the whole though, you're not nearly as bad off as Sam down the road or Pierre (who's neighbourhood has taken a turn for the worst in recent years).

That didn't matter last week though, when Big Ken and his boys came to you and in not so subtle terms indicated that your continued economic survival depended on their economic survival.

In spite of your better judgment you "agreed" to a sum, knowing that other companies much bigger than yours in terms of inventory, like Sam's had already cracked under the weight of people like Ken and his friends.

But you're nervous, you think that maybe the money you've promised Big Ken and his boys will keep them away until after this "economic downturn" but you are still facing the downturn yourself and the money Ken has demanded is more than you can and should be parting with especially now.

Well, you think... Just maybe if I tighten my belt another notch, if I am just a little more frugal I won't notice that money too much.

At that point the front door opens and in walks Ken.

In a speech brimming with imperatives he explains that, sadly, no, that wasn't all he was after... that "you'd better be sure to have some extra cash on hand and ready for him any time he should ask... That you had better be thinking about how you are going to keep his friends right where they are now or it will all come back to you... No, it wasn't his friends fault, their inability to make money on their own was your fault, and you have to make sure, no matter what, that they were happy and safe... Or.. all this would be destroyed.

Atlas shrugging at last

American Thinker provides an interesting article that indicates (as many thought possible) that the election of an interventionist Administration and Congress would result in a John Galt strike. You can read the article here.

Perhaps the most telling paragraph is this one:

We have very little appetite to have our lives run by elected or un-elected officials like Barney Frank and Jamie Gorelick. We have no appetite to be taxed even more by the likes of Charlie Rangel. These clowns destroyed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and our entire economy as a result. Congress, by their own admission, cannot even run their own damned dining room with a captive customer base! Some of them refuse to pay their own tax burden. Why in the world would we subject ourselves to their ilk armed with the unchecked powers of the Oval Office and both houses of congress and a massive army of bureaucrats?

They will stop the motor of the world! Be prepared.

The Auto Industry bailout so everyone can understand:

While we may have avoided the bailout this time, rest assured the high priced lobbyists are hard at work looking for your tax dollars to prop up inefficient but politically connected unions and businessmen. This probably won't end until the rotting corpses of the "Big Three" have been dismembered and buried (and any sort of bailout will simply prolong the problem and the ultimate price to you and I).

If you want a bumper sticker or message to send to your elected representative, try this:

"You gave them a bailout, now I can't afford a car!"

Let Them Fail Part 2 - Fear and Opportunity

The abject fear that is being spread by the Auto sector and the UAW is palpable. "You don't realize what this is going to do to our economy!" they scream. "If one of the big three fails then it affects hundreds of thousands!!" they clamor. "You have to bail us out! We're VITAL!!!"

Well, the confluence of union greed, poor management and substandard products has brought us to this point. Right where we should be, and we didn't get here in a private jet or even in a hybrid.

Back to the fear though, lets take a logical look at the claims of the fear-mongers, industry, political and Union alike...

1. If one of the big three fails then the resulting job losses will cripple the economy.

Hmmm, Chrysler has 58,000 employees. Of those only 1,100 are Canadian. Sure that's a lot of lost jobs but cripple the economy? I don't think so. Regionally, sure it's going to hurt, but other regions such as Hamilton (steel), Sudbury (nickel), Sydney NS (steel), Ottawa (the tech sector), have seen similar failures, so what puts the auto sector at the head of the handout queue?

I'd say it's a combination of things, a highly political union being first and foremost in my mind, the tangible nature of their product being the next. It's a lot easier to identify with the loss of a brand name you see driving down the road than it is to attribute the same emotional connection to the loss of a natural resource producer like Inco.

By the way, those other sectors didn't get bailed out and their regions are rebuilding or have already rebuilt.

2. The failure of one of the Big 3 (isn't Toyota who is not asking for money one of the big three now?) will cause a corresponding crash in auto parts manufacturers.

Really? So these parts manufacturers only sell directly to the auto plants? No after market sales? No replacement parts? No revenue stream except for selling to the auto manufacturers? If that is the case then, like the Auto manufacturers themselves, they deserve to fail. Dumb should be painful, especially in business.

3. If one of the Big 3 fails then people who own that brand will be left out in the cold! The manufacturer won't even be able to sell it's current stock... Who is going to buy a car from a company under bankruptcy protection or worse!"

Garbage!!! Do you honestly believe that these people won't be able to get service for their vehicles if the company itself doesn't exist? If that is true I guess I missed the great Datsun breakdown of 1986...

Another thing, isn't it likely that some enterprising auto maker will recognize the opportunity a failure of that sort would represent for his company? I mean if I owned Ford, and Chrysler went belly up, I'd offer to provide servicing for their vehicles, using the new found glut of cheap aftermarket parts. Hell I'd even honour warranties for an additional though reasonable price. Crisis = opportunity, even this dumb-ass-never-taken-a-business-course-in-his-life knows that!

Hell if I was a {insert bankrupt car company name here} certified mechanic I'd offer a similar deal to continue to ensure my business and my profitability. Wouldn't you?

It is good to see that the US Senate has refused to bailout the Auto sector, though to contemplate it in the first place shows a criminal level of interference in the market, absolute ignorance in how the market works, and lastly, a blindness to what has brought us to this point in the first place (the mixed economy).

All the government needs to do is let the cards fall where they may. When one these companies is finally allowed to fail, there will be a flurry of rational reforms within the rest dictated by the need to produce quality products at reasonable prices. The deadwood of management will be figuratively hung, their dismembered heads stuck on pikes outside of the corporate headquarters as a warning to all of what happens when the market is ignored. The union gild masters and looters will be knocked off their soapbox, finding themselves, finally, in fear of not having an industry to work for, much less abuse, castrate and rape.

There are very few things that can immediately focus the mind. Some are negative lenses like fear and pain, and some are positive like opportunity, challenge and innovation. It's high time the North American auto sector felt a little of all of the above.

As my counterpart here has already said... LET THEM FAIL!

Winston Smith Lives!

It seems that Google's unofficial motto "do no evil" is situational. Perhaps it is time to migrate en mass to another search engine that does not attempt to censor the Internet:

http://thesecretsofvancouver.com/wordpress/now-cached-pages-are-going-away/oddities

Now Cached Pages Are Going Away

December 11th, 2008 Posted in Oddities

It seems like web articles critical of Obama are disappearing faster than you can say Change.

The current crop of disappearing web stories are keeping bloggers busy, but now even cached versions are disappearing.

It’s starting to look like Obama’s machine has really kicked in.

Can you say cover-up?

Here’s Googles policy:

The “Cached” link will be missing for sites that have not been indexed, as well as for sites whose owners have requested we not cache their content.

I think that Google may be kept busy with requests over the next few days.

Control of information is how dictatorships and authoritarians survive. The question we should be asking about Google is who is directing this activity, and what are the owners and managers of Google receiving in return?

The action we should take is to start changing our search pages away from Google and informing advertisers we will start boycotting anyone who appears on Google.

Freedom is a self help project

Deflation or Inflation? The choice is ours

An interesting symposium on NRO discusses the economy in the next two to four years. Deflation seems to be the watchword right now (and a general decline in prices is probably a good thing for a stressed economy and consumers who may be out of a job).

The big problem is that governments are trying to reinflate the economy by running the presses, "stimulating" the economy with politically motivated bailouts and perhaps the ultimate weapon; running deficits again. The danger here is this excess of cash and credit has the power to jump start inflation, particularly if the economy starts moving again while the flood on money is released. As one participant pointed out:

What’s the worst-case scenario? That suddenly, and mysteriously, the pipe may unclog, sending all of the money and credit the Fed has created into the economy, vastly amplifying it, too. Suddenly, the economy would have more money and credit that it knows what to do with. At the same time, the stuff to buy with that money and credit would have become more scarce, because of all of the missed farm-growing seasons, factory closures, and layoffs we’re hearing about today.

We have a certain amount of power to affect these scenarios in Canada. We need to keep reminding our elected representatives and each other that a "fiscal stimulus" package would wreak havoc on the Canadian economy, transferring wealth from the taxpayer and destroying it by using the wealth to pay for political support and favors rather than productive investment. If you don't believe me, remember the $1.6 billion that Chrysler Canada is demanding for retaining 8000 jobs is the resources to create 32,000 full time jobs; a net loss of 24,000 full time jobs in the Canadian economy for that one bailout alone.

The underlying cause of the financial crisis is the unbalance between wealth and debt. Any steps that increase our personal wealth (savings through purchasing lower priced goods and services, tax reductions) are steps that will ultimatly end the crisis, while supporting or sitting aside while our wealth is taken from us through tax increases or inflation due to "stimulus" packages will prolong the crisis.

The choice is ours.

Reject blackmail: Let Chrysler Canada fail

Chrysler Corporation has resorted to a fairly crude attempt to blackmail the Government of Canada today for $1.6 billion dollars in return for saving about 8000 jobs.

Outside of the moral dimension of a private corporation blackmailing the taxpayers and the government, there are three very compelling reasons to oppose such a bailout:

1. Chrysler's owner, Cerberus Capital Management LP, refuses to invest any more money in the firm.

2. Chrysler has already hired law firm Jones Day as Bankruptcy Counsel, indicating the bailout request is too little, too late, and;

3. $1.6 billion left in the productive economy is the resources needed to create 32,000 full time jobs. Transferring this amount of wealth from the taxpayer to Chrysler is a huge net loss for Canada and Canadians.

The conclusion is clear: Let them fail.

Blogburst this and write your MP to stop the blackmail.

Politics of Procrastination?

I really wish PM Harper had asked the GG to call an election instead of suspending parliament.

He said the other three were trying to put one over on Canadians, he said Canadians didn't vote for the TIC's (Three Idiots Coalition) but then he pulls the one stunt in the parliamentary bag of tricks that gives the opposition ammunition for their "it's only about his job" propaganda.

Prime Minister Harper should (In my opinion) have asked the Governor General for an election to clear the air, scheduled for about the same time frame (26Jan) as that granted by the prorogation. Then he should have kicked the living crap out of the TIC's on the basis of their dirty tricks and forcing another election through backroom deals and collusion before the fiscal update was even issued.

From what I've been reading it's my guess that here are enough people on all sides of the political spectrum that are angry enough about this coalition to swallow a bit of partisanship and hand the Torries a small majority.

Combine those ones with the ones that are just sick and tired of minority gong shows, and are looking rationally for the party that has it together enough to offer to form a majority and end the misery and I think the Cons would have won a majority by the end of January and we as a nation could get to the business of really seeing the forest through the trees.

As it is I believe that the Conservatives have only postponed the inevitable.

Neither Layton or Duceppe sounded like they would even consider PM Steven Harper again, and Dion's weak insistence on "monumental change" which the opposition (all three of the heads of this incarnation of Cerberus) have previously shown means the unequivocal abandonment of conservative ideals and policy in favor of socialist and progressive ones.

Welcome to groundhog day. See you all right back where we started on January 26th.

What if the Libertarian revolution already happened?

Readers of this blog will know that the two of us are followers of the philosophy of Objectivism, which translates in most jurisdictions to Libertarianism as a political philosophy or party. The Freedom Party is, to my knowledge, the only political party explicitly based on Objectivist philosophy.

While Objectivists and Libertarians may feel frustrated by the tiny amount of electoral support they receive at election time and the scant amount of coverage they get when trying to present their ideas to a larger audience, it may well be that the time and effort has paid off after all, only in ways we may not have been expecting.

Reason Online has an excellent article "The Libertarian Moment" by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. They argue that although "Progressiveism" may still be exerting its iron grip on the political culture, in the larger context, we the people have started to slip away in ever increasing numbers. Economic choice, the ability to voice ideas and find people of similar opinions, freedom to choose your lifestyle and the mobility of your labour and capital far exceed anything that was imagined even in the 1970's. The world is generally more peaceful and prosperous than at any other time in human history, and the State takes up a smaller proportion of the overall GDP than at almost any time in the past.

All this is in an almost equal part due to government action in the 1980's (particularly the Thatcher and Reagan Revolutions, but Canada's contribution was the Free Trade Agreement and later NAFTA), and the introduction of computers and high bandwidth personal communications (the Internet Revolution). Rolling back taxes and regulations unleashed the creative energies of the people, while high bandwidth communications allowed collaberation and interactions to a degree that was never seen before. It seems to me that each part was complimentary: free people without the ability to communicate widely would be limited to the human and economic resources that were close at hand, while unfettered communications would be useless without something to say. One could imagine the State using such a communications channel to spread propaganda and indoctrination, but experience has shown that people would rather talk about the things that interest them. In the West, the number of "Facebook" and "Myspace" users vastly outnumber the readers of ordinary blogs, while repressive regimes like the former USSR or modern China try to severely restrict access to the Internet (either directly by limiting access to personal computers as in the USSR, or through technology and intervention, like the co-opting of Google and the establishment of the "Great Firewall of China" in today's Middle Kingdom).

Although the State can still attempt to intervene, free people have far more tools and options today than ever to fight back. Canada's "Human Rights" Star Chambers were able to operate with impunity for decades until they were overwhelmed by swarms of bloggers, even attempts to crush bloggers activity through SLAPP lawsuits is being countered through the ease which bloggers can raise funds through the Internet using Paypal to hire lawyers, and physical protection can be achieved by moving the server to foreign jurisdictions beyond the reach of State censors (Free Dominion may have pioneered this by moving to a host site in Panama).

I will let the authors finish with two paragraphs from the article:

We are in fact living at the cusp of what should be called the Libertarian Moment, the dawning not of some fabled, clichéd, and loosey-goosey Age of Aquarius but a time of increasingly hyper-individualized, hyper-expanded choice over every aspect of our lives, from 401(k)s to hot and cold running coffee drinks, from life-saving pharmaceuticals to online dating services. This is now a world where it’s more possible than ever to live your life on your own terms; it’s an early rough draft version of the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick’s glimmering “utopia of utopias.” Due to exponential advances in technology, broad-based increases in wealth, the ongoing networking of the world via trade and culture, and the decline of both state and private institutions of repression, never before has it been easier for more individuals to chart their own course and steer their lives by the stars as they see the sky. If you don’t believe it, ask your gay friends, or simply look who’s running for the White House in 2008.

and

The generation raised on the Internet has essentially been raised libertarian, even if they’ve never even heard of the word. Native netizens now entering college exhibit a kind of broad-based tolerance toward every manner of ethnic, religious, and sexual-orientation grouping in a way that would have seemed like science fiction just a generation ago. The products and activities they enjoy and co-opt most, from filesharing to flying discount airlines to facebooking, are excrescences of the free-market ideas of deregulation and decontrol. Generations X, Y, and those even younger swim in markets—that is, in choices among competing alternatives—the way those of us who grew up in the ’70s frolicked on Slip ’n Slides.

TIC: the Three Idiots Coalition

Tics, the small blood sucking vermin that drain the blood from their host are an appropriate species to compare to the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition. And just like the lecherous ideologies they represent, when any host country becomes too infected with these political vermin it dies, just ask the USSR.

Many Canadians are rightly outraged that the TIC’s are banding together to dispose of Canada’s duly elected Conservative government. And had this as a plan since before the speech from the throne. In other words since before any of the “reasons” they gave for their outrage in the first place.

But there are others that have taken the opinion that the Government asked for it. That by cutting hard and deep, the government was being a bully and poking the opposition in the proverbial eye. I can’t understand the reasoning behind this line of thinking. The Prime Minister is supposed to be responsible to Canadians, not to the political pork barreling and pet projects of the opposition parties.

What is the first thing that politicians say when the economy starts tanking? What is the very first thing we hear from government? “Canadians (listen up dummy, that’s you and me) are going to have to tighten our belts.” Well ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my memory we have a government that has begun the process by practicing what it preaches.

The Conservative government has had auditors going through the various departments for quite some time, rationally identifying places where cuts could be done and should be done. This is the kind of forward thinking I would expect from a government that sees trouble on the economic horizon.

The TIC’S believe that our government should follow the rest of the world lemming like into huge stimulus packages. My question is why should we when we have been told by organizations like the IMF that Canada is head and shoulders above the ROTW.

Is Canada in for a recession, I don’t know, probably, but if you talk to anyone who has studied economics the huge projects and billions in “stimulus” undertaken during the Great Depression prolonged that crisis. In addition the “New Deal” (of which we are being offered a watered down version by the TIC’s) didn’t end that crisis, WW2 did.

Furthermore, what is $30 Billion Canadian dollars to the world? What is it supposed to do? For those of you who don’t understand what is wrong about the idea that our government can spend its way out of an economic recession caused by runaway spending Fred Thompson has a video for you, and Publius over at Gods of the Copybook Headings does a fine job as well.

This is a global slow down. With trillions and hundreds of billions being thrown around by the heavy hitters (USA, China, EU) what if anything will our paltry $30b sum do? The phrase pissing in the wind comes to mind. It might feel good to get it out, but your just going to end up all wet and looking like an absolute idiot by the time you’re done.

Canada has a resource based economy, with billions of dollars in “stimulus” being force fed into the economies of the real players in this “crisis” won’t that stimulus spur manufacturing? Won’t they be looking for the raw materials they require to actually do the manufacturing?

So to me when I hear people blaming the current government for cutting pork during the most significant economic downturn in almost 100 years it makes me shake my head in bewilderment, and when I hear people screaming for a bailout/stimulus package without any demonstrable proof that Canada needs it or that it will do anything it makes me want to puke.

If the TIC’s get their way they will create more problems than they will solve, and beware friends, as always, only part of this has to do with the economy, like an iceberg liberal/progressive/socialist ideology has a small acceptable premise floating up where everyone can see it and a huge lumbering menace below.

Run up the Black Flag!

Although the Liberals, Bloc and NDP may have pulled one over on the Canadian electorate with their coalition stunt, there are some actions we can take as free Canadians. I outlined a few on Sunday, and now I am going to propose piracy against a putative coalition government.

By piracy, I am following the example of Ragnar Danneskjöld, and will grab for my share of the $30 billion inflationary stimulus package. Like Ragnar, I will calculate my income tax from 1993 to 2006, and also add the GST paid for the purchase of a number of cars and two homes during that period. That is the figure I propose to use when claiming any government "stimulus" grants, which will probably be handed out in indecent haste and with the sort of oversight that allowed the HRDC to perpetrate the "Billion Dollar Boondoggle".

As a free and responsible citizen, I want you to carefully consider doing the same; calculate the taxes you paid from 1993-2006, add any GST for major purchases like houses or cars, then put together a business proposal to hire a few people and apply for a grant of that amount. This is only a self refund of the monies that were taken from you to support the extortionate and ineffectual government schemes that crippled Canada's economy and political culture, and reduced us to a shadow on the global stage.

It seems only right that we use the perpetrators of the last round of extortion to provide the refund now.