Jim Flaherty announces mortgage bailouts

Jim Flaherty announces mortgage bailouts to the tune of $25Billion and none of this goes through parliament. That is a lot of money going to people who are not able to keep up with their payments.

This is nonsense:

Flaherty said the plan will make mortgages “more available and more affordable” for Canadians, adding that it will have “no fiscal cost to taxpayers.”

No fiscal cost to taxpayers?? Yeah, instead of screwing the taxpayer through open accounting-style taxes, the inflation of the money supply will screw the taxpayer through rising prices.

Who would have thunk it?

Steve Murphy ATV asks Stephane Dion a poorly worded question

Like most people, my first reaction to Stephane Dion’s choke was to laugh and ridicule him for evading the question. However, upon reading and paying close attention to a transcript of the interview, it is obvious that Dion’s misunderstanding of the question is justified. The question is unfairly worded and the timing is unclear. Here it is:

Steve Murphy: If you were Prime Minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?

What Mr. Harper may or may not have done is an action of the past tense. However, the question asks about now. The timing of when this hypothetical action that Steve Murphy wants to know is unclear. An ideal policy NOW does not necessarily have to be the same as an ideal that should have been done in the past.* I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Murphy did not use the word “now” in his question and simply asked: “If you were Prime Minister, blah blah blah….”

If anybody still thinks that Dion was evading the question, I think you are being unfair. I challenge you to translate Murphy’s question in French (or any other language for that matter) and see if it can possibly be clear. I do not think it is possible.

* I do not think the ideal policy would be any different regardless of the timing of this hypothetical question but that is just me. I am not in full agreement with either Dion or Harper on economic policy. My preference is for a little bit more laissez-faire in the economy.

Hat Tip to Paul Holmes for the transcript.

No Canadian bank bailouts but “make credit available” instead?

Speaking of Canadian banks, I think we may be getting a few mixed messages from the government. Jim Flaherty insists that the government will not bailout any banks and presents a muddied message that insists that credit must be made available:

“The government stands ready to take whatever actions are necessary to protect the stability of the Canadian financial system.”

“I think what we have right now is adequate.” But he would not give any details about what specific measures he was contemplating and dodged questions about expanding CMHC lending programs, except to say it is a possibility. Any new measures will target the availability of credit, and not aim at subsidizing banks for their losses, or even focus on the cost of credit.

“So what I’ve said to the banks is, do as much as possible in the present circumstances” Mr. Flaherty said. “My concern, again, is less the cost of credit – that is, the price – but the availability of credit. We have to ensure that credit continues to be available.”

I am happy to hear Stephen Harper reiterate that there will not be any bailout of Canadian banks. However, I am not satisfied when I hear this:

‘The government has a series of options at its disposal … to ensure both the availability of credit and the cost of credit coming down, and we’re doing that to ensure there’s money available,” he said.

How can the government make credit available? What are these secret options at the government’s disposal? They had better get their story together because Flaherty seems unconcerned about interest rates wheras Harper is. Maybe that was just a slip up.

Regardless, get ready for an inflation of the money supply.

There is nothing that the government does that is rightfully productive. The government is not some rich zillionaire who can hand out donations to “make credit available” as a goal. Anything the government does is funded by what the government takes away. When the government acts to “make credit available” to the economy, we find ourselves somewhere along a continuum between an independent monetary system and a banking system that requires bailouts to prevent collapse. Whatever makes a bailout wrong is the same thing that makes a policy to “make credit available” wrong too — just to a less dramatic degree.

The Sky is Falling - Canada’s Banks Rated Best in World

Following up on Shane’s recent post - clearly Layton and Dion want the economy to falter (or at least give them impression it is faltering), so they can rub Harper’s nose in it. Unfortunately for Dion and Layton, the economic forecast for Canadian banks is a lot better than they would leave everyone to believe:

Canada has the world’s soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures shake world markets.

New Site Design! Beta Launch of ThePolitic.com

As you can see, I’ve redesigned the overall look of ThePolitic.com. Right now I’m in the process of integrating all the old content into the new design, so if you encounter an error over the next few days just ignore it.

I will explain more about the redesign and relaunch of ThePolitic.com after I’ve completed the integrating all the content. Thanks!

The Bloc Quebecois should dump their leftist slant

The Bloc will never lead Quebec into independence by feeding a socialist agenda. If they ever want to see a sovereign Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois should dump their growing leftist slant. Sure, their concern now is to gain power and sovereignty is clearly on the back-burner. It looks like they may be able to rest on their laurels after this election.

Socialism and its recent sister, the Canadian environmental movement, only work if you can mooch. Small independent statesmen can not mooch — they can only bleed their constituents.

Dion and Layton: Throwing Canada’s Economy Under the Bus

This constant trumpeting by Dion and Layton that this economic crisis is somehow Harper’s fault, and they need to “act to save Canada” is fomenting panic.

The National Post, in endorsing Stephen Harper for Prime Minister, rightly points out two critical things: first, it is the government’s job to keep stability.  As such, all of our leaders gunning for 24 Sussex should be working on positive spin and convincing Canadians that “everything is alright”.  The way that Layton and Dion have been willing to trumpet from the rooftops, “The sky is falling!  And it’s Harper’s fault!” is resulting in a worsening of the economic situation as Canadians grow more fearful - not of Harper, but of the economic impacts of the growing global financial crisis.

What is really being demonstrated by the other would-be PMs is an appalling lack of consideration for Canadians, in the interests of their own short term, personal gain.  In other words, Dion and Layton are willing to throw Canada’s economy under the bus, if it means giving them a chance at unseating Stephen Harper.

The second thing that the National post points out, which should be at the forefront of Canada’s attention going into an election during volatile economic times is this:  Stephen Harper is the only candidate for the Prime Minister’s Office who is an economist.   Think about that.  Dion is a Sociologist.  Layton is a Lawyer.  When your nation’s biggest trading partner is facing a massive financial crisis and global markets are shaking over the impacts of this, would you rather have a social sciences prof, a lawyer, or a trained economist in charge of the government?

There are lots of other reasons to pick Harper for PM.  But to me, this is the biggest.

Update: leave it to the banks, full of economists, to fight the chicken littles:

• RBC via Andrew Coyne, also Rootle’s comments.

Pathetic U.S. Presidential Debate 2008

Maybe it is just me but it really sounded like Obama and McCain pretty much said the same things last night.

The Penny: End. It. Now.

If it costs more than one cent to manufacture, then it is no longer worth producing.

I don’t care about our heritage.

I don’t care about tradition.

If it costs me as a taxpayer more money to produce than to spend, it is done.

Do it now.

Facing the Truth, and not passively

Those of you familiar with what Hannah Arendt termed “the banality of evil” will have a considered view of how readily people avoid full acknowledgement of harsh realities and morally challenging circumstances; the normalization of evil in every day living. Facing the truth requires courage, the primary struggle of which comes in choosing not to take flight, not simply to keep busy and preoccupied, but remain focused on one’s circumstance and what one’s reaction to it will mean for their individual definition as a human being, as an intelligent morally responsible creature. What, indeed, is one choosing to become in what one now chooses to do about it?

For Arendt, evil is banal because rather than stopping and thinking when life is sorely burdened by heartache and confusion, human beings are oft inclined to mindlessly continue to act, just for the sake of acting and keeping busy. As we can all appreciate, stopping and thinking requires great courage because it demands that we face our own culpability in bringing these circumstances about and how we now–and may continue to–enable them in their destructive course. Stopping and thinking will morally convict us to make a course correction, to realize what present circumstance means for the future and consider taking a higher road; not rushing through to some means of escape.

Two famous playwrights well illustrate this point, not only in their professional work but through the expression of their own failings and life regrets. In his memoir of last year, Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass tells of his little slice of evil. And likewise, this piece by Vanity Fair writer, Suzanna Andrews, tells how Arthur Miller, of Death of a Salesman acclaim, deleted his son with Down-syndrome from his life:

It would be easy to judge Arthur Miller harshly, and some do. For them, he was a hypocrite, a weak and narcissistic man who used the press and the power of his celebrity to perpetuate a cruel lie. But Miller’s behavior also raises more complicated questions about the relationship between his life and his art. A writer, used to being in control of narratives, Miller excised a central character who didn’t fit the plot of his life as he wanted it to be. Whether he was motivated by shame, selfishness, or fear—or, more likely, all three—Miller’s failure to tackle the truth created a hole in the heart of his story. What that cost him as a writer is hard to say now, but he never wrote anything approaching greatness after Daniel’s birth. One wonders if, in his relationship with Daniel, Miller was sitting on his greatest unwritten play. …

Some wonder why Arthur Miller, with all his wealth, waited until death to share it with his son. Had he done so sooner, Daniel could have afforded private care and a good education. But those who know Daniel say that this is not how he would feel. “He doesn’t have a bitter bone in his body,” says Bowen. The important part of the story, she says, is that Danny transcended his father’s failures: “He’s made a life for himself; he is deeply valued and very, very loved. What a loss for Arthur Miller that he couldn’t see how extraordinary his son is.” It was a loss that Arthur Miller may have understood better than he let on. “A character,” he wrote in Timebends, “is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.”

Conversely, Mark Steyn’s early reaction to September 11, 2001 is a good illustration of the importance of acknowledging moral outrage and avoiding the urge to “move on.” As Steyn writes:

Here is my worry: At one end of the national spectrum are the anti-American elite, the Edward Saids and John Lahrs secure in their redoubts. At the other end are the great full-throated “These colors don’t run” patriots. But in between is a big wobbly blurry mass trembling on the brink of making this just another wallow in victimization-the “dominant discourse” (as Said would say) of the day. Five years ago, Bob Dole wondered, “Where’s the outrage?” Three years ago, Bill Bennett wrote a book called The Death of Outrage. In Europe, the ferociously anti-American Left is plenty outraged — it is raw, visceral, passionate, and none the worse for that. If we can’t get outraged-not sad, not weepy, not candle-in-the-windy, but outraged — over thousands of people killed for no other reason than that they went to work, then we’re really in trouble. If cultural passivity — love the world, be non-judgmental, everybody does it — co-opts even this awesome event, then the sleeping giant isn’t sleeping so much as comatose.

This is war. Save the love-in for later.

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