The Opportunity Budget of 2010

Well, we now have the disappointing "me too" budget of 2009, foisted on the Canadian public by the threat of a coalition of the inept taking political power in Canada. While the government did what was necessary to remain in power, perhaps there are some long term opportunities available to Canada.

First off, we must consider the budget and economy not in isolation, but also as part of the larger framework of the North American and indeed global economies. Since our largest trading partner is the United States, any actions we do here must take the actions of the current US Administration and the Congress into account. For Canadian governments, taxpayers and investors, the next four years should give us pause.

All evidence points to the Obama administration using the pretext of a financial crisis to politicise large portions of the American economy. For Canadians, that means that the destination of 82% of our exports will face a huge and long term economic slow down. Vast numbers of our customers will be lost as American business buckles under the burdens of increasing taxation and regulatory control. Further slowdowns will occur as Americans begin to take part in the "John Galt" strike, either as organized strikers (many American blogs seem to indicate that small business owners and investors are busy downsizing even now) or as a spontaneous reaction to the political and regulatory environment the Obama Administration and the Congress impose.

While this is going on, the US Treasury will be exporting inflation by flooding the financial markets with dollars. People who think back a short while to when the Canadian dollar was at and above par with the "greenback" should note that this was not a good time to be a Canadian manufacturer or exporter.

So how is this grounds for a Canadian "Opportunity" budget?

First off, the true recession should reach bottom in the last half or quarter of 2009. The Canadian Government can then cancel many of the "stimulus" boondoggles of the 2009 budget, keeping the deficit and debt to manageable levels. Being able to stop the slide into long term deficit spending will be a particular bonus for the Conservatives.

Next, there will be a need to reduce the import of inflation from the United States. Since inflation is the problem of too much currency chasing too few goods and services, we need to increase our productivity. The best way is to provide incentives to productivity. The Opportunity Budget should eliminate business taxes altogether, providing greater profit opportunities to efficient, well run business. Eliminating business subsidies, regional development funds and other assorted payouts will more than pay for these tax cuts. As Canadian business takes advantage of these tax cuts to retool and reorganize in a changed environment, the increases in productivity and profitability will drive a true economic recovery in Canada, one that is decoupled from the evolving situation in the United States. Indeed, as American business activity slows, the ability of Canadian business to take up the slack for hard pressed Americans will become our ace card in the economic game.

The big bonus of eliminating business subsidies and taxation in the Opportunity Budget is Canada will become a North American tax haven, attracting investors and skilled workers from the United States who will energize our economy and (as landed immigrants) begin to take some of the long term demographic pressures off Canada. Canada currently suffers a shortage of skilled workers, and the aging of the boomer population threatens to put excessive stress on the Canadian pension and medical systems without sufficient skilled workers to maintain solvency. While in the ideal world, State run pension and medical systems would not exist, in the real world attracting skilled workers who are able to contribute to the Canadian economy provides time and resources to plan and manage a transition, something that is not possible given the current situation.

So all is not lost, and if the cardinal sin is not to take advantage of any crisis that comes along, then we will have sinned greatly by not using this crisis to craft an Opportunity Budget and getting it passed in 2010.

The Government Versus The Moo-fia

Surely if our government allows the consumption of alcohol in spite of the proven social and medical damage it causes then it is more than just a little hypocritical for it to ban raw milk based on the notion that it is "bad for us"...

Also, don't our police forces have real criminals to catch? Real crimes to prosecute?

Of course there are enough criminals, real rights destroying criminals, but since a significant portion of them, are of the class known as "Legislators" I fear Michael Schmidt and his kind will be considered criminals for a long, long time...

Ayn Rand captured the essence of this kind of government buffoonery perfectly when she said...

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

A simple prophecy

Lady Thatcher made a spot on observation which predicts and explains the (coming) total failure of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress:

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” –Margaret Thatcher.

Stock up on canned goods and barterable skills

The Death of the Individual in America

"We are the Borg, we will add your economic distinctiveness to our own. We are one, resistance is Futile."

Goodbye America...

UPDATE:

Thanks to "avgleandt" from Objectivism Online's Forum for posting this response.

Ignoble Savages

Enough is enough. Jonathan Kay hits the mark here, but he waivers from the final goal in my opinion.

As long as we compartmentalize our justice system into racial (native sentencing circles), religious (sharia law) and economic (white collar/blue collar) crime then we will never have any justice.

If Christopher Pauchay can commit manslaughter and does not bear the same punishment as the drunk driver that mows down a family then there is no justice.

If we allow one religion to gain quasi judicial powers but then take children from the parents of other religious sects when they try to live by their own moral code then our justice is arbitrary.

If when a businessman defrauds his company, stockholders and investors he doesn't do his time alongside the bank robber and thief then justice isn't blind, it's a bigot, and we as a society remain ignoble savages

Tradition... The Killer of Ages

This article caught my eye today. The idea that the news, the real investigative reporting kind of news which Mr. Leger refers to is not free is a no brainer for me.

Of course Journalists should be paid for their services, and the cut and paste violations of intellectual and physical property in this country are especially disgusting to me. The fact that "everyone does it" is not an indication that it's ethical, or that it should be permitted.

What surprises most though is the hide bound thinking of Mr. Leger. He seems unable to envision viable journalism outside of the regular print media. Has Mr. Leger decided he's thought enough? That he's ENTITLED to be employed in the same manner to which he has become accustomed? That the world and commerce should stop it's annoying tendency toward progress? "Stop EVERYTHING!" he seems to cry... "I"m not READY to CHANGE!"... "I shouldn't HAVE TO!"... "It's our journalistic TRADITION!!!"

And indeed he doesn't have to. Mr. Leger is free, free to die right along with his current mode of employment. He and any and all that believe as he does, that change should be stopped for the sake of a dying trade, industry or ideal are free to stop, to let their steadfast hold to tradition kill them.

Newspapers as we know them with their pools of on staff reporters, pundits and editors are facing extinction. The modern world and modern information dissemination makes that an almost certainty.

But the future has a place for journalists and their ilk, and the smart ones will see and seize the opportunity. They may never be employed by a magazine or newspaper, their work may never see the inky reality of a paper copy but they will be free to write and sell their work to the highest bidder, be it a newspaper, magazine, blog or a 'free' daily.

Progress and intellectual theft isn't going to kill your industry Mr. Leger. Your mindset is.

Save the world; one girl at a time

As seen on YouTube, a common sense idea for effective foreign aid:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=WIvmE4_KMNw

UN bureaucrats need not apply

After the fall

Raphael Alexander has suggested that perhaps the best and only way to free the nation from parasitical public service unions and their unsustainable wage and benefit demands is to allow the process to go to the bitter end; let the economy collapse and rebuild on a new foundation.

While in some sense I agree (after all, this is in fact how the Strikers plan to rebuild the world at the end of "Atlas Shrugged"), history suggests that this is a huge reach of the imagination. After all, the end of the Res Publica Roma was marked by a massive civil war and the Imperium ended in a dark age that lasted centuries. Being the strongest warlord in the valley *might* ensure your survival and standard of living after the collapse, but is hardly the nucleus of a future Libertarian paradise. Warlords need to focus on the acquisition and maintenance of power; even the cultured and civilized lords of Renaissance Italian city states were still warlords, or they did not remain lords for long.

How civilization reached the Enlightenment is a subject historians still continue to debate, so unless there is a powerful nucleus of learning and culture like "Galt's Gulch" to rebuild, there are no garantees that ideals like Freedom of Speech, Property rights or the Rule of Law would ever regain their primacy in the world.

From Fiction to Fact

Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, not a blueprint.

Luckily for us, there is also a blueprint for gaining our ultimate freedom within as well.

Go Green and Die!

Consider the premise of the nonfiction bestseller titled "The World Without Us," which fantasizes about how the earth would "recover" if all humanity suddenly became extinct.

Indeed

Hard Up For The Bailout

Who could possibly be harder up for bailout money?

Talk about financial distress! The porn industry it has taken it on the chin! As investment money is spent and investors go soft the industry is left exposed to the perversions of a flaccid market.

It's true! Nothing short of a swift and forceful insertion of government money will be able to stimulate this essential service.

Is there any wonder that the industry is taking a shot in the dark and hoping for a hand to finish the job of making itself competitive in a stiff market.

There is little they can do, except echo the famous words of Marilyn Chambers and say... "Give it to me now!"

"Government has no place in the bedrooms of the Nation"

Unless your one of them

Well I guess the definition of "them" as I use it here has changed, it used to include homosexuals, and before that there was the moral outrage of mixed marriage, and before that it was between religions and sects of religions...

Too bad no high-minded modern politician has ever really meant to abide by the ideals of freedom and liberty.

Do I support Polygamy? Polyandry? Polygyny? No, not explicitly. What I do support unequivocally is the right for every man woman and child to live their lives as they see fit, in complete liberty.

Let me spell this out. As long as you live your life without initiating force on any other human being I don't care what you do.

For the hard of thinking out there that means that in so far as the people involved in polygamy are all consenting adults in the maturity of their faculties it's none of our business as individuals or as a society what they do.

We are free to judge and even to condemn the residents of Bountiful as individuals, but to use the states monopoly of force against them is obscene, any prohibition on the private affairs of individuals is.

Well Cardboard's Out.

Happy New Year.

I know we're late, but better late than never. At least the Front hasn't fallen off completely.