Are you worshipping the wrong god? HAH2012!

If you are reading this, you should be quietly saluting the people on this list, from Ampere to Watt.

They were some of the people that changed the world.

They are some of the people that took humanity from the darkness, from poverty, from scarcity, from the cold, and slowly through their efforts, their discoveries and achievements, brought humanity into comfort, convenience, and global communication. So that you can now sit in front of your computer or tablet device and read this.

Those people made affluence accessible, so that even the poorest people in Canada have luxuries that royalty could not have imagined 100 years ago.

Yes, the planet is where we live, but it does not give us anything that we do not first take from it for ourselves.

There is no need to thank the planet. The god Gaia will kill you or support you, but that is entirely up to you, and Gaia doesn't care.

Thats right, we must actively build our homes, stock them with food, keep ourselves warm and dry, because the alternative is a short brutish existence. As the writer of this article suggests, nature is there to be visited, not worshipped.

Earth Hour is the celebration of ignorance, poverty, scarcity, pestilence, and it's distressingly political. Worse yet, it's the wrong kind of politics, read this.

Leave your lights on, and go see a movie tonight, because you can. HAH2012

The penny dropped.....

Or should I say the penny was dropped in the 2012 Canadian Federal Budget, tabled March 29, 2012, the first by a majority Conservative government. The penny will be phased out this fall.

The idiomatic phrase "the penny dropped," literally means "I finally understand."

In this case, the Conservative government along with a slew of businesses that were lobbying them, finally understood that our money has devalued to such a great degree, that the penny was not only worthless as a currency, it cost more to make than it was worth.

Copper prices, like all commodities have experienced a boom, and copper is such a useful and important metal, governments have long ceased using it as coinage. The Canadian Mint last made pure copper pennies in 1996, a long time hold out.

In the US that happened in 1943, but they made bronze pennies up until 1982.

Canadian pennies are now made of copper plated steel with a bit of nickel, and US pennies are copper plated zinc.

The graph seen here, illustrates what has happened to the value of the Canadian fiat dollar over a very short time, and therefore the penny, all of it in just part of my lifetime (graphs for US dollars are very similar).

A fiat dollar, like any fiat currency, is only worth something because a government regulation says it is.

Paper currency once upon at time, represented or was "backed by" some amount of a real metal, like gold or silver. The metals were too heavy to carry around, hence paper.

I can recall that the penny once had value. It took 3 pennies to buy a daily newspaper when I was a child in Toronto. Penny candy, was just that, candy that cost a penny or two.

Today, most people would not even stoop to pick up a lost penny on the ground. Most view pennies as an annoyance. What happened? Well, it's a long and complicated story, here is where you can start if you really want to find out.

Not only is this an end for an historic coin in Canada, but a large hole is left in Canadian English, though it may take years to phase out. My young grandson will grow-up and he will be mystified by phrases like:

Penny Pincher, penny wise and pound foolish, pretty penny, penny for your thoughts, a penny saved is a penny earned, without two pennies to rub together, penny ante poker, and on and on. Here is an interesting article. It's a sad day.  

Ontario Budget 2012 - Austerity?

Cuts? Not so deep really, they should have been different cuts, but the Liberals just don't get it yet.

The Ontario Budget released March 27, 2012, mostly affected the one million or so public sector workers in Ontario's government. Thats a lot of voters and their families to antagonize, and believe me they are voters.

All the public sector unions are gearing up for the election battle to come. It may not be for a year or so, but it will happen sooner than later. 

For the public sector employees, the Liberal budget has frozen salaries, grid moves, pensions and these things are definitely going to happen, for sure, because they said so.....or else.

The Ontario PC's have already decided they will not support the budget. I'm not certain why, the budget calls for less spending than the PC's wanted in the recent election. So it sort of looks like a start toward fiscal sanity, maybe.

That puts the ball in the court of the NDP, who seem to be non-commital, they will let the people decide. Right. You may have your say by contacting the NDP, and giving them an earful. It's a good publicity ploy anyway. Some time next week they will say: "you know, nobody really wants another election." They will hold their noses and vote with the Liberals to pass this thing, OR maybe just "sick out" a few MPP's (just three sickies are required I think). But they need to somehow court the public sector unions for the inevitable election fight. I'll let them worry on that.

Meanwhile the Liberals will keep their pet projects, all day kindergarten, subsidized but GREEN power generation, build more and larger LCBO stores to better monopolize the market for booze, and they are getting deeper into the gaming industry. 

These are effectively additional taxes. Why? Because many people drink liquor, beer or wine, and the markup is high because the government has a monopoly. Think of it like a tax on bad habits. 

Similarly, more casinos in more populated parts of the province will fleece the gamblers, increasing the odds of taxing the stupid. I will include myself in that group, because I do buy the odd lottery ticket, really stupid.

This neat little graphic at the Globe & Mail, shows how the deficit will deplete (they hope), and how the cuts help the decrease and the added revenues help too.

The video and text below it, represents my 5 minute response to this budget.  

Ontario is in financial trouble, that's according to the proposed budget tabled yesterday by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.

Less than six months ago, during the provincial elections, none of the major parties made the debt or deficit an important issue.

No one but us, the Ontario Libertarian Party; the record is there for everyone to see.

Ontario didn't get into trouble in just six months. This trouble has been building for decades and was greatly aggravated in recent years.

The Liberals have doubled the Provincial debt and deficit since coming to power in 2003, doubled in less than nine years.

Finance Minister Duncan blames the global recession, and the stimulus spending, that the government chose to do, for creating the current problem.

But the spending problem began in their first budget, well before the recession. The Liberals raised taxes, pulling more money out of the pockets of families, and increased government spending.

Their spending problem was aggravated by an economic slowdown and a reduction in government income.

So, what if your family runs up a large credit card bill during hard times? Would you continue spending lavishly, or consider cutting back on some frills? Would you decide to take on more services, or consider doing with less, and paying off your debt?

I’m not the only one criticizing the Liberals; their own people have been their greatest critics.

  

The provincial Auditor General in his last report pointed to excessive spending and poor management in adding heavily subsidized wind turbines and solar panels to everyone’s electricity bill, and also increasing government debt.

Don Drummond, in his recent report on reforming the public service, echoed the Auditor’s criticism, and came up with 362 recommendations to balance the budget or the deficit would balloon to $30 billion in five years.

To add to the criticism, Moody's, a financial rating agency warned Ontario that it's credit rating would be in jeopardy if its lavish spending habits don't change.

And what does balancing the budget actually mean? To compare it to your family credit card bill again, it means just making the minimum payments without paying back what is owed. And worse, the government has said it won’t balance the budget for another five years, so debts will continue to increase.

So, what have the McGuinty Liberals done in this budget? They have decided use the coercive powers of government to freeze the salaries of all public sector employees. The public sector will take the brunt of the cuts, in salaries and pensions, but many of the items recommended by the Drummond Report were ignored.

Many of the frills are still in place and the government has chosen to increase its income by doing things like building more and larger LCBO stores, and more casinos, both of which act like taxes on consumers.

The budget does not address the debt. Servicing the massive debt is Ontario's third largest annual expense, and that assumes that interest rates will remain low.

  

The Liberals have also cancelled a proposed cut in corporate taxes.

Libertarians would not cancel the cut in corporate taxes.

We believe that jurisdictions that have the low corporate tax rates attract more business and industry. These will create real jobs that would ultimately improve Ontario’s economy.

Libertarians would choose to eliminate or amalgamate entire ministries and many agencies that provide little or no value to the province, and where the free market could do a far better job.

We all want Ontario to be the best place to live, I’m sure that is true of the government. I believe that their intentions are good, however, sometimes-good intentions have very bad results.

This is what has happened here. The government has a spending problem that it does not want to admit; I have no confidence in this budget solving that problem. I believe its time to change the government.

Phasing out of entitlements

It's hard for people who think that government is the solution to all that ails us, to imagine what things would be like if the government just protected your natural rights.

In the video above, Yaron Brook explains why people will need to come to grips with the coming crisis in entitlement payments. This issue is already affecting some European countries, notably Greece. But its will affect Americans and Canadians in due course, Brook explains why Americans will be affected.

In Canada the difference is just in degree, it will affect Canadians, and in many ways is now, because our medical care system is already being rationed. Brook offers some general solutions that will solve the problems in an orderly way.