Rounding OUT the penny

Beginning this week Canadian currency will be penniless, or should I say, 'less the penny.' That's right the penny is passé, about to be rounded out of existence.

For many Canadians, the penny has so little value it's looked upon as an annoyance, an unnecessary weight, for me, a strange way to view money. For the Canadian Mint, the penny is worth less than it costs to make (currently 1.6 cents).

The beginning of the end of the penny is Monday, February 4th, though we have known about it for some time now.  On Monday the mint stops distribution and businesses are encouraged to round all cash transactions up or down to the nearest nickel. As a result the Canadian government will save about 0.004% of its total budgetary expenses by not producing pennies. Apparently they believe 'every penny counts,' a phrase also destined for extinction.

The rounding of cash transactions will likely end up costing everyone just a bit more. Think of how many prices currently end in the number NINE. Lots, it's a gimmick to get customers, so, no more 99 cent sales for CASH transactions. Will 99 cent sales be kept for non-cash transactions? Will that discourage cash transactions in favour of debit or credit? Or will businesses start pricing things that end with '2 cents' -  which will be rounded down to encourage cash transactions, to make people think they are getting a deal? Who knows?

Either way, this is inflationary, and of course it is inflation, the debasement of currency, that caused the disappearance of the penny.

Is this just a Canadian problem? No. The Americans are in the same boat, and according to some sources both the US penny and nickel are in jeopardy. Am I getting carried away when I worry about the revaluation of our money? Well, maybe not in the near future. The Canadian dollar has actually appreciated considerably in recent years compared to its American counterpart. But many think that the US dollar and Euro are doomed. We trade with them, how can we not be affected?

The lesson of history is that the fall of nations is presaged by the collapse of their currencies. It's happened over and over, no fiat currency has survived the foibles of corrupt government practices. This time it's our turn.        

Climate (or is it weather) Consensus

Years ago, whenever Groundhog Day rolled around, the official word for predicting the arrival of spring came from Pennsylvania, the town of Punxsutawney. That was the place made famous in the 1993 classic movie starring Bill Murray.

First of all, its difficult to believe that it (the movie) was 20 years ago, and second, (if I'm not mistaken, and I could be) it was shortly after that movie that prognosticating groundhogs started popping up all over the place like, well, groundhogs.

Wikipedia has a list of some 15 big rodent celebrations, including the largest and original one from Punxsutawney, and many much smaller ones. I guess people saw it as a way to cash in on once-a-year notoriety, and bring in tourists during the dead of winter.

So, I was amused today when my local all-news-radio station announced that a "consensus of groundhogs" agreed on a prediction, 2-to-1 in favour. I'm not certain if it was to be an early spring or six more weeks of winter, but to me that is six-of-one or half-a-dozen of the other, no difference.

Groundhog Day defenders claim that the furry creatures have uncanny accuracy, 75% accurate 90% of the time, which I think means being right about two-thirds of the time, not bad. However a Canadian study (who would pay for that?) claims only 37% accuracy in about 40 cities.

When I heard the news report of a consensus of groundhogs, I thought immediately about the UN and IPCC claims of catastrophic global warming (a measure of my deep respect for this claim). Now, I'm not really equating the IPCC scientists with groundhogs (as much as I'd like to), but their consensus opinion in some ways resembles any consensus opinion, even a groundhog's. 

If the premise on which the opinion is based is faulty, it doesn't really matter how many are in the group that makes up the consensus. They could all be wrong. The problem with catastrophic global warming is, that trying to reverse it by eliminating CO2 as a waste gas, by severely cutting back on fossil fuel use, seriously impacts those of us that live in places that are too cold and or too hot. That includes a lot of people. Then, saying that climate impacts will be felt in 50 years or so, well, that just means I won't see it, and those young enough now to appreciate the dilemma (if there is one) will be seniors by then. 

So, even if we humans are somehow unknowingly tinkering with the climate to some degree, is it worth the pain of slowing the warming? We did not start the warming, the ice age glaciers began melting while our ancestors were using spears to kill mammoths. The warming has continued and is ongoing, and possibly we are hastening the event, but like groundhogs we really don't know whats going on. What I'd like to know is this, do the groundhogs predict weather or climate?        

Who cares about politics?

Imagine drawing a circle on a white board that is about the diameter of a basketball. Then, pretend to make a dot a bit smaller than the size of a pea in the centre of that circle. If the area inside the basketball-sized circle represents the population, that dot represents the number of people who are involved and care about politics, most of the time.

That's how Gerry Nicholls started his presentation on getting the Libertarian message out, back in April of 2011 to a group of us. He went on to say that if another circle was drawn with the diameter of a softball, inside the big one but centred on the dot, the area within the softball-sized circle represents the population that is somewhat involved in politics (especially during elections). The area from the boundary of the soft-ball circle to the boundary of the basket-ball circle, well, that's the majority of the population and they are clueless about politics most of the time.

I used to think that clueless meant apathetic. But look at it this way. The great majority of car owners, have no idea how their car's engine works, or any other system for that matter, but they certainly are not apathetic about the operation of their car. When it works, they're happy, when it doesn't work, well, you get it.

So it is with politics, very few care or are involved with how things work. Why should they be? They rely or the political pros, who are the mechanics that keep the machine of government working. People are far more interested in political personalities than political issues which actually drive politics. What was Michelle Obama wearing during the recent US Inauguration? Was Barak chewing gum after the Inaugural Address? (Yes) Did you check the link, see what I mean?

So it's not fair to say that people don't care about politics, to continue my metaphor, they are just very reluctant to open the hood and get all greasy. Who can blame them? People are busy trying to live their lives, trying to earn a living to feed themselves and their family, as well as the ever growing government - actually several governments. Its worse that kids, kids may become independent, that is never true about government.

This week I was introduced to a new website called Rate My Government. As a former teacher I'm quite familiar with Rate-My-Teachers, which I found very accurate in my day. If you scroll down this page on the right side you will see a link to rate your doctor, it works pretty well too. Why not Rate-My-Government?

The site itself, still pretty new, has lots of potential, and it should work well even for the clueless, but it looks to be designed for the "involved." That could be a problem, especially since they are relying on many eyes to read many ads, look back at Gerry's diagram.     

Canadian healthcare shows that human freedom is an individual issue

This week the Fraser Institute released a new book authored by 13 people titled Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom. Contained within the book is a new comprehensive index of human freedom in which Canada places fourth in the world, tied with Ireland and Australia, sounds pretty good.The US places seventh.

Here is what the Fraser Institute says about its report: "Our new report measures the degree to which people are free to enjoy classic civil liberties—freedom of speech, religion, individual economic choice, association and assembly—in 123 countries. We also look at indicators of crime and violence, freedom of movement, legal discrimination against homosexuals, and women's freedoms."

I have a great deal of respect for the Fraser Institute and I'm sure their new report, done in conjunction with Germany’s Liberales Institut, is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.

The problem I have, and have always had with these types of reports is that rights and freedoms don't really apply to groups or countries, they are in fact individual. So you may be free in Canada to do many things, but if you are blocked from doing just one thing, that harms no one else, then you are not really free. For example, the "rules" around healthcare in Canada are simply Draconian.

The video below also comes from the Fraser Institute. In it, Dr. Brian Day of British Columbia, talks about healthcare in Canada. He points out that Canada is the only country on Earth "which outlaws the right of citizens to spend their own money on their own healthcare" when they want to. In fact, in parts of the country, clinics are fined heavily if they treat "uninsured" patients (patients who pay outside the system), and in Ontario, any patient that "jumps the queue" (and there are many, many queues) can be fined $10,000. What kind of freedom is that?

I don't consider either the Fraser Institute or Dr. Brian Day as representing the principles of libertarianism, you will no doubt be able to pick out why in the video. However, the healthcare system is so broken here, that I believe any movement in the direction of a freer market for healthcare is a step that I can support. Dr. Day makes a persuasive argument, and the issue of healthcare freedom will be in front of the courts later this year.