Atlas Shrugged Special: John Stossel FBN

This series of YouTube videos is one year old, but like Atlas Shrugged very relevant today. Enjoy.

Is Canada underpopulated?

Neil Reynolds thinks it is, and he may have a point. Neil's column today in the Globe and Mail is titled "Go forth, multiply and fill the provinces." This will make environmental activists pull their hair out. Can you see David Suzuki pulling his hair out?
If you have ever traveled across this vast country as I have, you have to be struck by it's emptiness compared to traveling in Europe for example. We have very few large metropolitan areas outside of Toronto and Montreal (maybe Vancouver), most of the cities are relatively small with big spaces in between. Population density in Canada is around 3.3 people per square kilometre, yet most of it is closer to zero. Our replacement birth rate is well under 2.1, which means we are not going to grow unless we have a huge influx of immigration.
In Brian Lee Crowley's recent book Fearful Symmetry he mentions exactly that idea, and that many entitlement programs cannot be maintained as well as labour shortages looming in Canada's future unless the birth rate changes dramatically.
Of course this is true in much of Europe; Japan's population is already shrinking, and wait until the Chinese figure out that their one-child policy could hurt them. America has one of the highest birth rates in the industrialized world, but it too is below 2.1. This issue will give policy-wonks in the industrialized world grey hair.

Rattling the cage of The Barefoot Bum

Evidently I have rattled someone's cage too many times. "The Barefoot Bum," a fellow blogger, got annoyed with my most recent post of all things, the new years list of political economy cannots. He deconstructed my New Years list in a lengthy rant, and then proceeded to deconstruct my humble reply in another rant.
Mr. Bum and I have one thing in common, that is we are both skeptics of religious and mystical stuff, at least I am. Ergo we both get posted onto Planet Atheism, a collection of free-thinkers and atheists of all political stripes. Mr. Bum's politics is statist, verging on Marxist/communist and of course I'm not.
Months ago, maybe a year ago, Bum asked if I would debate him on the Richard Dawkins forum, a neutral site he said. The topic was to be libertarianism vs. Marxist-socialism or something like that, and I foolishly accepted. Fortunately before the 'debate' the Dawkins site was hacked, closed down and reopened in a new format, no longer was the same kind of open forum available. That was fine with me, I'm more of an empiricist with principles, and debating fundamentals is not really my style. I prefer looking at evidence, which of course is one reason I am an atheist. Even there I have a fairly laissez-faire attitude. Mr. Bum is much more of a rabid atheist than I. Like many bloggers on Planet Atheism, it is just their disbelief defines them.
I am trolling for skeptics on Planet Atheism, hoping that some of that healthy skepticism readers might have may extend into the political sphere, the real world, where it actually makes a difference what you believe.
Of course I do think religious belief is harmful in many ways to the believer and those around, but the libertarian principle of non-aggresion applies. Religious beliefs should not be used to subjugate or coerce others period. The right to live free, without coercion is a fundamental human right. It is not a right given by government or by a deity, or a proclamation by any authority. It is like oxygen, (the right to life) and almost as important. I won't debate that, and everything else that I believe follows from that.
So, if you have read Mr. Bum's rants (or just scanned them), you might surmise Bum is a bully. Of course that makes sense, how else can one believe in communist ideals? The essence of Marxist philosophy is that your life is not your own, you owe a debt to society by virtue of your birth and your upbringing, and in Canada and much of the Western world (including the USA) that is the philosophy that underlies our so-called democracies. Bum is a bully, as much in his politics, as his lack or religious belief.
Why is he so upset with my New Years list? Why now? I've been ranting for two years, why is he so pissed off with me this week?  Maybe he is frustrated with the way things are going. He resorts to name-calling:

"I'm deeply suspicious of the intellectual integrity of anyone who calls him- or herself a Libertarian or who admires in any way the politics of Ayn Rand. I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Allen Small himself is not an honest seeker after the truth, every bit as dogmatic, tendentious and impervious to reason as any Creationist."

That is a sign of frustration, I am "not an honest seeker after the truth..... dogmatic......impervious to reason," well pardon me for living.  I too would be frustrated if my dream-Marxist world had collapsed to the point where just Cuba and North Korea are all that is left of the great revolution of the proletariat. The former communist world has taken on a decidedly capitalistic appearance, though it is still coercive by nature; they have moved closer to us in the West and unfortunately we have moved closer to them in many ways.
That will be reconciled at some point, and I think it is likely to happen in the West sooner than later. It may already be happening, and Mr. Bum can smell it! So he is angry and frustrated with the media because now there are competitive viewpoints available on radio and television and because there are folks like me that spew libertarian propaganda and dogma across the internet.
I'm sure not much has been solved by this posting, but as an empiricist I will let the evidence speak for itself. Do libertarians have all the answers to all that ails us? I doubt it. What I do know is that if there is a competition of ideas, and people are free to choose what are the best ideas for their own circumstances, that is a dogma and a truth I am willing to defend.      

My New Years List

This past week the media were awash in prognostications for 2011 and 2010 year-in-review lists. I won't be doing that.
Once upon a time when I was young, I lived under the illusion that the media tried to present the news in an unbiased and factual manner. That was not true then, and it's definitely not true now. All news is edited, filtered, and coloured by media employees, and company or government policies; consequently so are the year-end-reviews.
Since I don't pretend to be a member of the media and my bias starts at the top of the page, I don't feel bad about repeating the list below. The list comes from Libertarian Quotes (#895), which itself is a wonderful list of over 1300 quotations that have a libertarian flavour. This site is maintained by the Libertarian Party of Boulder County Colorado.
If you ever feel in need of some inspiration, the collected wisdom of the list on the LPBC site is not only refreshing, but the anonymous quote at the top of their list says it all:
A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished. – Anonymous
So here is a list for 2011 and beyond that everyone including our governments should follow.
Have a healthy, prosperous, and peaceful 2011.   


The Ten "Cannots" of Political Economy:
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the wage earner by tearing down the wage-payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of mankind by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative.
You cannot help man permanently by doing for them what they could do and should do for themselves.
Source: Libertarian quotes.

Can government monopolies destroy holiday plans?

Last week I mentioned the ridiculous delays at Britain's largest airport hub Heathrow. The amount of snow that fell on Heathrow Airport and surroundings was by Canadian standards tiny given the chaos that resulted. Apparently British transport authorities knew that even a small snowfall (such as this was) would result in massive problems.  Compare that to the half-metre snowfall in the New York Metropolitan area over the last few days, and one can appreciate just how unprepared the Brits were. Though the huge post-Christmas storm (5th worst ever)  on the US Eastern seaboard caused major delays, New York area airports are prepared for just such emergencies, and delays and disruptions were minor compared to the British mess.
So why were the Brits so unprepared? This link has a good explanation of just why government monopolies can ruin your holiday plans.  

Bernanke talks and the cartoon bears translate

Original 60 minutes interview:



Response by Mr. Tugwit's bears:



Part 2:

Capitalist Christmas

Christmas has arrived, and it certainly is more than just a "big celebrity birthday" as Dave Letterman joked in his monologue of Dec. 23, 2010. The CBS censors cut that bit from their Late Show webpage so don't bother checking.
Christmas is ostensibly a religious holiday (but it really is nothing of the kind) and the modern celebrations associated with it, have been criticized for being too commercial, too material and too gleeful, for a religion that worships self-sacrifice and rebirth into the after-life. Since Christianity (and several other religions) have a large antilife component, the celebration of the birth of a saviour deserves a more serious tone according to Christian orthodoxy.
In a wonderful essay, first delivered on a radio show fifteen years ago, Leonard Peikoff explains how the Christmas celebrated today by Canadians and Americans was an invention of post-Civil War America, a creation of "the happiest nation in history."
Dr. Peikoff was born a Canadian (Winnipeg, Manitoba) in 1933, and became heir and executor of the estate of Ayn Rand upon her death. I first read his work in The Objectivist magazine 40 years ago. Today he is a leading advocate of Objectivism and founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. His essay is published annually in Capitalism Magazine and can be viewed here. Enjoy, and Happy Christmas!      

Couldn't close Kyoto at Cancun, warmist push fades

Don't let the picture scare you, a row boat in your garage is not yet a necessity. The ice caps are not melting that fast, not according to this posting, in fact, Arctic ice seems to be increasing. That may just be a short term blip, but in the UK, the Meteorological Office (Met) seems to have blown its own early guess (and I mean guess) as to the severity of this winter.
Around 4 inches of snow (9 cm at Heathrow, 11 cm at Gatwick) has crippled pre-Christmas air travel in the busiest hub on earth and across much of Europe. In Canada or the northern US states that amount of snow would cause a few delays. Maybe the Europeans have taken to heart the warming-alarmist view that winters will just get milder from here on. At the same time, some in Britain think that global warming has stopped.
Peter Foster of the Financial Post discusses the Met's blown prediction and the general issue of AGW in an almost humorous article this week that includes this paragraph:

"No doubt the warmist crowd will be quick to express outrage at this blatant confusion of global climate with local weather, but that won’t wash. The Met makes its short-term forecasts on the basis of the same brand of massive computer power and Rube Goldberg modelling used to project the global climate. The suggestion that forecasting the climate is easier than forecasting the weather comes into the same category as acknowledging that governments couldn’t run a lemonade stand, but then believing that they can “manage” an economy."

The Cancun Climate Conference, which ended a couple of weeks ago, was almost a total disaster for the warmists, but the Mexican government did not want Cancun to be remembered as the end of the struggle. Some last minute back-room arm twisting, and an attitude of agreeing to disagree, ended the conference with an agreement to "kick-the-Kyoto-can-down-the-road" until next year in Durban South Africa. No binding GHG reduction targets were set beyond the already surpassed Kyoto targets for 2012. The Kyoto Protocol is still alive (but zombie-like) until next year. An agreement to set up a $100 billion/year bullshit fund by 2020, with few actual details of how to collect the money was also reached. I have a feeling that economic priorities will neuter that deal and any others.
In Europe and around the world the rules of economics have made the huge government subsidies of the so-called renewables industry unsustainable.
The Spanish have cut support for wind projects by 35% and solar payouts by 45%, and Spain is still on the verge of needing a bailout (from whom?). In France and Germany solar projects have been severely cut back. In Australia, solar-power producers had their payouts cut by 66%. In the UK a backlash against rising power rates has forced cuts to wind projects causing the Danish Vesta company to close five factories in Denmark and Sweden and layoff one-seventh of its global workforce. The green collapse is spreading to the United States and it won't be long before the greenest of all the provinces in Canada, Ontario, follows suit.
In a series of scathing columns, Lawrence Solomon of the Financial Post outlines how Ontario will need to "renege on the egregious green contracts" that were put in place by the irresponsible McGuinty Liberals. Solomon suggests that is the only way for the province to escape bankruptcy in the near future. According to Solomon, the power future for Ontario, for Canada, and the world is still fossil fuel for now.  

 

Bankrolling subway expansion

Last week I made an outrageous comment in a posting 'Essentially a disservice,' where I suggested how a government transit monopoly might be broken up in stages. It probably wasn't the best suggestion, I know there are many other ideas that are better. The truth is, if I knew all or even some of the answers to problems like this, I would not be blogging. What I do know is that there are problems of governance that can be approached from other directions different from the prevailing spend and tax paradigm. That is the beauty of a free market and a competition of ideas.

So I was pleased to read a story in one of Toronto's newspapers that a member of the Ontario legislature, MPP David Caplan, suggested that subway expansion in Toronto  could involve private sector money to help finance this very expensive project. I'm not saying that this will break up this particular government monopoly, but that kind of thinking needs to be encouraged. The other good news about this idea is that the newly elected administration  and mayor of Toronto, might be amenable to Caplan's suggestion unlike the socialist mob that ran the city for the past 8 years.    

Which genocide was the worst?

“We should look at every genocide equally.” That is a quote from the president of the German-Canadian Congress in their complaint against a permanent Holocaust exhibit at the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. This article in the National Post on the weekend, shows how divisive government assistance can be. The controversy highlights two issues, the first being which genocide was the worst?

The Armenian and Rwandan Genocides were horrible and tragic events; but to compare them to the Holocaust is a disservice to the memory of those lost through the 1930's and 40's, and the survivors.  

The Holocaust was unique in human history because it involved legislation by the German government of the time, including the participation of the professional class and the entire legal system. Furthermore, for the president of the German-Canadian Congress to compare any of those events to the expulsion of Germans from East Prussia at the end of the Second War is intolerable.

Secondly, this new museum in Winnipeg is heavily funded by taxpayer’s money from various levels of government, Federal, Provincial and Municipal, including to their dismay, citizens who are members of the German-Canadian Congress.  Government cannot and should not try doing all things for all people. If the museum was funded entirely by private and corporate donations this controversy would be moot.

"If it ain't broke.." The internet does NOT need fixing

Grow or die!
That's probably the reasoning behind the FCC's push to regulate the internet, and protect us all from the unfair practices of the major internet service providers. Wait a minute, what unfair practices?
The internet seems to be working fine, but government agencies need to justify their ever growing budgets and hunger for power.
ReasonTV supplies 3 reasons why the FCC should keep hands off in this short video clip:

Keep the Internet Free of GOVERNMENT interference!

If you have not yet heard of "Net Neutrality" read this description from Reason TV:

"Net Neutrality is a proposed set of regulatory powers that would grant the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the ability to control how Internet service providers (ISPs) package their services. Proponents argue that such rules are necessary to ensure that ISPs treat all data on the Internet equally and don't slow or even restrict access to various websites and other parts of the Internet."

"However well-intentioned, the practical effect will be to limit consumer choice and grant the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet, all in the name of fixing a problem that doesn't exist in any meaningful way. Indeed, examples of the behavior that Net Neutrality will combat are few and far between."

Now watch this 4 minute YouTube video produced and animated by Austin Bragg. Written by Zach Weissmueller.

You may wish to subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel and receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

The debt of doom must be repaid!

Watch this clip a few times. The cartoon bears will explain STAGFLATION according to the Austrian School. When you're done send it to your MP or Congressman. Tell them to watch until they get it, who knows the jackasses mentioned in the clip may also watch. It can't hurt.

Do as we say, not as we do!

The ratio of Canadian debt-to-disposable-income has just recently surpassed that of the United States according to Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a media barrage this past week. All three warned that too much debt is dangerous in this low interest rate environment, because rates may move upwards quickly putting many families in jeopardy. Of course they are the ones creating the low rates, but they are just playing with you, don't be fooled!
Why are the rates low? To encourage borrowing and spending of course, but don't you borrow because the aforementioned three money-micro-managers are concerned that there is too much borrowing going on, even though governments continue to borrow. Just do as we say, not as we do! Is that confusing or what?
Amidst all this Keynesian crap rides Maxine Bernier carrying the banner of the Austrian School in his most recent column in the Financial Post. Bernier gets right to the heart of the matter, puts the blame where it belongs, and leaves no doubt that he just does not belong in Stephen Harper's Conservative Party.
 

Essentially a disservice

 

The last time I wrote about public transit was February of this year, and in Toronto, Canada's largest city, the only thing that has changed is the city's administration. I think the change was for the better, but that doesn't mean I agree with the administration on this (or any) issue. The new mayor of Toronto wants to declare the transit system an essential service, effectively eliminating the right to strike for TTC employees during a labour dispute. The argument for, centres around avoiding a citywide disruption by holding the riders hostage, the argument against points to the fact that compulsory arbitration generally favours the employees and usually hurts municipal budgets or requires a fare hike. With only those alternatives many will say lets declare this an essential service and ensure the smooth operation of the city, no matter what the cost. Of course that attitude has escalated budgets, taxes, debt, entitlements, etc.
What has not changed since the election, is that the TTC is still a monopoly in cahoots with its unions! What needs to be asked is: how difficult is it to drive a TTC vehicle? Does driving require years of schooling, or can just about anyone who can drive do that job? The job requires a Grade 12 education and a 30 day training course, and pay starts at about $22.56 per hour rising to $29.43 after 2 years or just over $60,000 per year, not including overtime. A non-unionized truck driver gets about $18 per hour, a school-bus driver can make just over $16 per hour. Yes, truck drivers do not interact with riders, but the jobs are similar and in many instances the truck driver has a tougher more demanding job. The school bus driver also has a special responsibility. How to reduce the cost of TTC employee compensation?
Is it possible to automate some of the TTC jobs? Absolutely! For example, when was the last time you personally interacted with a bank teller to do your banking? I require a human bank employee maybe two or three times a year, at all other times my banking is done remotely by phone, computer or ATM. Are there TTC jobs that can be done by machine? Yes, but the important question is, is it possible to automate jobs and get around the public sector unions? I suspect automation will come eventually happen as it has in many other cities.
But I'm avoiding the elephant in the room. Is it possible to break up the TTC monopoly and give transit riders real choice? How about getting the city to sell the bus routes to a private company or consortium? The subway and streetcar lines may be kept in the public sector for the time being, those being the easiest to automate eventually. The private sector bus routes could become directly competitive with the remaining public system. TTC administrators would have less responsibility and need a much smaller budget. The two systems would operate in parallel, supporting one another where it was mutually advantageous. The private sector bus drivers could be offered a profit sharing deal, maybe shares in the company, dividends and other incentives. Is this crazy? Only if you are still stuck with the idea that government is there to solve all problems, look around, it's not working. Competition will improve transit, to consider anything else at this point is essentially a disservice to riders.