Competition in government?

Today is Labour Day (yes, with a "u" in Canada) a holiday that celebrates organized labour (that picture from a Labour Day Parade in Fort William ON, 1903). This morning The US Heritage Foundation blog suggested that today should be called Government Day. In the US this is the first time that public sector unionized government workers outnumber private sector unionized workers. Unions have become a casualty (or is it causality? both?) of the recession/depression. In Canada it's likely similar, but maybe we're not there quite yet, certainly the public sector is rife with unions and the various levels of government seem to be in cahoots with their unionized employees. That of course is the problem, the public sector unions virtually eliminate one of the key features of bargaining, that is, looking for less expensive help, union rules prohibit that. Some of you may say that is the point of unions, the workers are protected. Certainly thats true, but who protects the tax payers? Is it elected officials that represent taxpayer interest? Of course it should be, but look at the job they have done.
Public sector strikes are fairly common, but in the end government negotiators generally cave in with offers in excess of anything available in the private sector. A recent Toronto garbage strike ended with unions getting a much better deal than private contractors give their workers.
Public sector construction contracts regularly requires unionized workers to carry out any work. In the Toronto region, electricians doing public sector work get between $34 and $36 per hour. The average hourly rate for non-unionized electricians work is $26. Now multiply that percentage difference (38% more) by all the public construction projects and its easy to see why government costs continue to rise much faster than the rate of inflation and governments go into debt. The elected officials who are responsible rarely get blamed, and if they do, they don't get re-elected but the new officials aren't any different. There is no competitive other government to take over (most political party's once in power act the same as their predecessors), the business of government is monopoly with minimal change every four years or so.
So imagine if there were alternate, but competitive governments, in other places to live that actually offered a competitive price structure. Somewhere where freedom is valued and competition exists in everything. That's the idea behind the Seasteading Institute, explained in this short video for young people.
    

A sovereign debt and currency crisis?

Maybe I've been watching too many Peter Schiff videos lately, but I'm getting more concerned about our financial future. By "our", I mean North America, we are effectively a common market. The old joke about the Americans sneezing and Canada getting the flu is well know in these parts. Everyone says Canada is in good shape compared to our neighbour, but as I have said before if your biggest and best customer has money troubles, then how good is your business?
The stock market doesn't seem phased, it's been in rally mode this week - but with lower volume. I'm not an economist but I know volume can be a sign of conviction and enthusiasm. The lack of volume says something else, or it could just be the end of summer.
I know I said I wasn't an economist but I have managed my family affairs so that we have no debt and some savings. I always thought that debt was something you wanted to reduce as quickly as possible, and there really is no such thing as good debt (contrary to what many advisors will say) even if it is a mortgage or business loan. Debt means you are not in control of your future - the debt holder is. The more debt the less control you have, so getting rid of debt is always a good idea for individual, families and governments.
So when the financial crisis of 2008-09 occurred, as a result of excessive debt it wasn't a surprise. Peter Schiff was right. The debt owed by homeowners became more expensive because interest rates rose. Many found the new rates beyond their ability to pay, sold or abandoned their homes and the rest is history. Prices for US homes fell significantly for the very first time. The resulting recession, according to several knowledgeable people (including Peter Schiff) is just the beginning. That argument is clearly explained in the following video which is about 45 minutes long but well worth your time.

No god?!

One of the fascinating features of the new social networking fad, is that you interact with people from all over that you would likely never run into in your real life. That new level of interaction will I have no doubt lead one day to some interesting and unexpected outcomes. As  the use of the internet evolves it is bound to become even more exciting than it already is.
Just within the last few hours (it's stunning to me) I was introduced to Edward Current via Facebook (by a friend...thanks). I'm not sure if that is his real name, but he is very clever and irreverent in a cheeky sort of way. If you look through his YouTube Channel, he claims no religious affiliation and he claims the following is a comedy, very tongue-in-cheek and done well.
  

Of witches and wireless

In1692 in the village of Salem Massachusetts, two young girls, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris, began to have violent fits where they screamed strange sounds, threw things, contorted themselves into strange positions and acted as though they had been possessed. The girls complained of being poked by pins and pinched, yet the local doctor could find nothing physical that caused these symptoms. Soon other young women in the village began exhibiting similar behaviour. The cause of these "possessions" was at that time considered to be witchcraft, a capital felony crime in the colonies. The three people charged and the trial that resulted has been popularized in the cinema and on the stage. That story was only a small part of the wider hysteria in colonial Massachusetts that eventually resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of over 150 individuals and the eventual execution of 19 people.
We think things like that don't happen anymore, the results of that particular mass hysteria had catastrophic effects on human life for individuals and families who listened, often uncritically to the testimony of local experts. Mass hysteria still happens today. How many times have you heard stories of buildings being evacuated after the discovery of a mysterious white powder? The white powder eventually is identified as chalk or something equally innocuous, but the irrational fear stems back to those days after 9/11 when all white powder was assumed to be anthrax spores.
So when I read about parents in the Barrie Ontario area that want the Simcoe County School Board to remove Wi-Fi routers from their schools because of their affect on children, I though witchcraft. Parents are complaining that their children are suffering from headaches, dizziness, nausea, racing heart rates, memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rash, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia. Skin rash! All of these symptoms began apparently after the 14 local schools had wireless installed.
The experts are lining up; Ontario's Chief Officer of Health, Health Canada, the Simcoe Board and an assortment of government agencies all claim there is no danger and no evidence to support the parents' claims. The parents have Prof. Magda Havas from Trent University and the NDP Health critic France Gelinas who think the matter deserves further study. Everyone has an ulterior motive here, except maybe the parents. Prof. Havas does work on the potential dangers of non-ionizing electromagnetic energy - big motive.
This type of story - cell phones cause brain tumours, high tension wires cause leukaemia and on and on have been fashionable for as long as those technologies have been around. I hate to quote the WHO, but they say no evidence for any of this.
Interestingly our nearest star, the Sun, produces a wide range of both ionizing and non-ionizing radiations - huge amounts - but of course it's natural radiation. It's the "man-made" stuff we need to be concerned about, you know like organic and chemical - chemical bad, organic good. Simple solution: I'm wearing an aluminum foil hat right now to protect me, maybe it will help those poor kids too.