Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Two problems that governments never admit...

Ontario's Debt Clock
In preparation for the Oct. 6th election, my local newspaper asked me for the two most pressing issues in my riding in 500 words or less. They might expect me to rail about the horrendous traffic, or long waits for medical care or the growing nanny state. No, those are just symptoms of the deeper more fundamental problems. Problems that won't be fixed by electing the same old parties and replacing them again with the same old parties. So here is my letter - 496 words -, and if you are a Libertarian candidate, or a candidate for any party for that matter, you may use this:

The two major problems facing Markham-Unionville are the same as those facing the entire Province of Ontario; they are:
 
(1) the increasing DEBT and 
(2) the increasing SIZE of Government.

When Dalton McGuinty was first elected, he promised not to raise taxes or have deficits. He has flagrantly ignored both promises.
The 2011 Ontario Budget, projected the debt for 2012 to be $282.3 Billion, more that twice the debt when the Liberals took office in 2003.
That budget also projects continued deficits and increasing debt until 2018, and that assumes that the economy will improve and interest rates stay low. This unprecedented, reckless, runaway spending is directly related to the second major problem: the size of the Ontario Government.
The Liberals have increased program spending in virtually every ministry as the Ontario government assumes more and more responsibilities from the private sector.
For example: McGuinty’s full-day kindergarten program has severely impacted private sector nursery and daycare businesses. At the same time, the Liberals have created an entire Green Industry of windmills and solar panels subsidized by taxpayer’s dollars through the FIT and microFIT programs.
The debt has been acknowledged by the Progressive Conservatives, and their laughable solution is to cut spending by 2% per year for four years, but increase spending in Healthcare and Education at the same time. That is not a solution at all.
All across the Western world, governments have realized that the profligate spending of the past 50 or 60 years has been greatly overdone. As a result governments have been forced to cut back everywhere, at all levels, to avert a financial crisis worse than the one the world faced in 2008-09.
In Ontario, Libertarians would make real cuts in government spending and decrease the size of government as quickly as possible. At first a budget freeze would be instituted followed by 10% cuts in program spending in each of the first four years across all of the 30 Ministries. This would include elimination or amalgamation of at least half of the ministries within one term.
For example, Markham-Unionville MPP Michael Chan’s Ministry of Tourism and Culture would be closed. There is precedent for this, in the US. The state of Washington closed their Department of Tourism in June 2011 due to budget constraints. Almost immediately, a consortium of private businesses and industry stakeholders formed the Washington Tourism Alliance, shifting costs from the State and public sector to the private sector.
Ontario has over 630 agencies, many like the LCBO, demand huge budgets. Even the Liberals have announced that they plan to cut a paltry 14 agencies if re-elected. A Libertarian government would cut hundreds of agencies, including the LCBO and allow competition in the retail sale of liquor, beer, and wine.
As government ministries and agencies are reduced, and program spending is cut, tax reductions will follow. Ontarians will have more choice about how and where their money is spent, and Ontario will become the dynamo of Canada once again.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Walmart vs. FEMA in hurricane relief

That picture shows Hurricane Irene poised to assault the US Eastern Seaboard. The cleanup is ongoing at the time of this posting. The destruction, while bad enough, is not as bad as it might have been. Warnings came from POTUS Obama himself, from various State Governors, and from a slew of lessor officials. As usual, private commercial television news broadcasters carried the entire event live and round-the-clock, for the benefit of casual viewers, and those directly affected by the storm. The broadcasters disseminated the official warnings and trotted out their own expert commentators providing what amounted to a free service for all concerned.
By and large the cleanup is local, as it should be, but of course Federal and State government agencies will provide some of the assistance because the political "optics" require such help, whether needed or not. The whole thing is reminiscent of a similar hurricane disaster in 2005, Katrina. That storm, which resulted in widespread destruction around New Orleans, showed just how out-of-touch a top-down federal government agency, FEMA, could be with respect to its primary purpose. FEMA has been rightly criticized for its raison d'être today, in the case of Irene, and for it's handling of Katrina. Steven Horwitz has an interesting perspective in this video, on the way a private company Walmart, was in many ways more effective than FEMA:
      

Saturday, August 27, 2011

"Holy Grail of climate science?"

The news this week from CERN in Europe is that cloud formation seems directly related to cosmic rays. That is rattling the orthodoxy of the Anthropogenic Global Warming crowd, and they are not happy.
All this reminds me of that story from The Onion a few weeks back that blamed the Eastern heat wave on the massive star at the centre of our solar system. Yup, good call!
Is it possible that the changing climate on earth over the millennia is caused by something other than human produced CO2? Oddly, that is my belief.
Certainly humans producing significant amounts of CO2 is a relatively recent occurrence in the planet's history. So why has Earth's climate been so variable, warming and cooling, since the birth of the planet? Well, maybe it has something to do with causes more significant than CO2. Maybe the cause of fluctuating climate is related to the CERN discovery that cosmic rays seed clouds which affect the albedo of the Earth.
In science there is a principle that applies here: parsimony. Sometimes referred to as Occam's Razor, the idea in this instance is, that it might be better to look for a comprehensive theory that explains climate changes over the history of the planet rather than a theory for each instance that the climate is changing. Of course I will not deny that there may have  been several causes over time. Certainly we are in a warming period after the ice age in the Pleistocene epoch. But the AGW orthodoxy vehemently disagrees with anything that contradicts their premise, that humans are a blight on the planet.
The alarmists have lobbied politicians of all stripes all over the world over the years, into taking action against climate change caused by CO2. The scientists who peddle this crap, have their mouths so firmly attached to the teat of government, that they will ignore the data from CERN and dismiss it as bullshit. Right now in many provinces, states and countries there are "green industries" that heavily depend on the AGW hypothesis.
Ontario's current government leaders and the leaders of most Western countries have their collective heads so far up their collective asses they can only see windmills, solar panels and sunshine. If it weren't so serious it would be laughable, a joke. But it's no joke. The misplaced investments, government subsidized jobs and worse, the mass-media acceptance has created a general apathy among the sheeple reminiscent of a religious stupor. Lets all bow to the GREEN GOD. Where I live, this is how it is, period.
In today's Financial Post, Larry Solomon has a column: Science now settled. In it he talks about the CERN discovery and some of the implications. Whether his pronouncement is premature or not, the debate certainly is far from over. He may be right or wrong, can you say the same?

FYI: comments closed on this posting.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Power of One

The power of one individual, to change things, came into sharp focus these last few days. The untimely, though not unexpected death of NDP leader Jack Layton was first. I had a grudging admiration and respect for that man, certainly not for his contributions to Canada, or any of the blather that has been coming from the statist mainstream media this week. No, as someone said: "Death is not a reason to rewrite history." So I won't join that parade of mourners, in much the same way as this writer.
Mr. Layton was to his party, everything. He was the leader, and the centre of the socialist solar system in Canada. I indicated as much last May, after the Federal election, he was the "orange crush" incarnate, and the sole reason that his party rose to official opposition status in that election.
Aside from his Marxist-Socialist political stance, there was much to admire about Jack Layton. He was one of the first to support free choice on abortion when it was a divisive political issue (still is - damned conservatives). He was one of the first to back the Gay Rights movement. He was generally antiwar and anti prohibition on some drugs. All those issues would still raise the ire of conservatives across the country, but not libertarians. Mr. Layton had principles, any libertarian can understand that.
So is the NDP in shambles with Mr. Layton's passing? I hope so, in fact I think a Liberal-NDP merging is now more likely than ever, and I hope it happens, just to eliminate vote splitting.

The other picture up there is of Steve Jobs former CEO of Apple. While Jack Layton changed Canada in some ways, Steve Jobs changed the world. Mr. Jobs retired from his duties yesterday, and one can only assume he is not well, and that is a terrible loss.
I have used Apple products on and off (mostly on) since the days of the Apple II. I have a basement full of old Macs, going back to the Mac Classic. I'm using a newish iMac to write this, and I love my iPad 2. You get the picture. Thanks to Steve Jobs and the people at Apple the world thinks differently now. I hope he's OK, and can still add his two cents to whatever new products Apple unveils. Some say he is a micro-manager, and was in control of all that was Apple. If thats true, it is even more impressive.