Send Money, Stephen Harper

So welcome to the real world, Stephen Harper.

You see this is what happens when a level of government is chronically underfunded. Briefing notes from the Privy Council Office show that billions of dollars of stimulus funding have not been able to stop municipal infrastructure decay.

Pleas from the municipalities have gone mostly unheard when they cried that their road and water pipes needed replacing. The municipalities, creatures of the provinces, can’t rely on places like Queen’s Park for infrastructure money because those governments are strapped trying to cover health and education funding.

But the federal government has fewer critical and expensive responsibilities than municipalities and the provinces, but a great ability to raise revenue — through the very lucrative income tax.

Municipalities, the engines of our economy, need to know that a steady stream of funding will be made available to them so they can plan for infrastructure renewal. And don’t forget prime minister, solid municipal infrastructure is critical to building a successful Canadian economy. And that raises money for all levels of government.

A little legalizing, a big peace dividend

The American war on drugs – or, more generically, the global war on drugs – can’t be won. The more intensely that governments wage it, the more certain is the defeat. This is because risk determines reward. More pressure on the supply of drugs means more risk and more profits. More profits mean more drugs and more violence. The proof is in the body count across Mexico, across Central and South America and, indeed, across the Western Hemisphere.

This is why we need to end the war on drugs and why Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs was right the other day to champion the complete legalization of marijuana in Canada – as a straightforward economic proposition. “Look at the money that governments make off alcohol,” Mr. Hobbs told the CBC. “You know, perhaps instead of organized crime getting the profits [from marijuana], the federal government could generate revenues from it.” Mr. Hobbs errs only in limiting his proposal to cannabis. He should extend it to opiates, cocaine and most other drugs. Governments can raise revenue off all of them – without hurting drug users nearly as much as prohibition hurts them.

Losing Their Immunity

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the response from the movement’s targets has gradually changed: contemptuous dismissal has been replaced by whining. (A reader of my blog suggests that we start calling our ruling class the “kvetchocracy.”) The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don’t they understand what we’ve done for the U.S. economy?

The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.

On Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it.”

This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn’t the question be why, and whether it’s a trend we want to continue?       

Quebec could get more seats in bigger House, PM hints

Quebec could get new seats when the Conservative government increases representation for the country's fastest growing provinces, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hinted Friday.

Harper says Quebec's proportion of seats in the House will remain the same, as his government prepares to give B.C., Alberta and Ontario more MPs to match their rising populations.

The Conservatives have promised to reintroduce legislation to increase the number of seats for the three provinces, but a report in the Globe and Mail said that plan has been delayed because of fears of a backlash in Quebec if it loses ground in Parliament.

On Friday, Harper repeated the party's position, which was included in its election platform. He said the government made three promises about representation in the House.

"First of all, that we would increase the number of seats now and in the future to better reflect the growth of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, the growth of those provinces and their population," he said in Peterborough, Ont.

Tories to introduce Wheat Board reform bill this week

OTTAWA — The Harper government will officially start reforming the Canadian Wheat Board this week, with the introduction Tuesday of legislation to change the way western farmers sell wheat and barley, Postmedia News has learned.

The government had given notice Friday that it intended to present a draft law to “reorganize the Canadian Wheat Board and make consequential and related amendments to certain acts”on the parliamentary notice paper, although that didn’t guarantee the bill would be presented Tuesday.

As well, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had said earlier this month that legislation was coming, but didn’t put a timeline on its introduction.

The government plans to pass the legislation by the end of the year, but more details weren’t immediately available. They are to be revealed Monday.

The Tories vowed during the recent federal election to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly on marketing western Canadian wheat and barley for milling or export. Opposition parties have been critical of the government’s plan, and Wheat Board members, in a non-binding vote, supported the board’s continued existence.

Just over one week ago, Harper told those opposed to the plan to accept what was coming down the legislative pipe.

“This is a historic change that has been long overdue,” Harper said in Regina on Oct. 7.

“It’s time for the Wheat Board and others who have been standing in the way to realize that this train is barrelling down a Prairie track. You’re much better to get on it than to lie on the tracks because this is going ahead.”

Harper said the Wheat Board’s monopoly would end as of Aug. 1, 2012.

Canada is the sixth largest producer of wheat worldwide, with annual sales of more than $5-billion.

Origin
Source: National Post 

Why oil isn’t behaving like other commodities

When the financial crisis torpedoed the global markets in 2008, commodities sunk like anchors, none more so than oil. In little more than half a year, prices went from about $144 (U.S.) a barrel to about $40 a barrel – a 70-per-cent fall.

Three years later, commodities have been getting the crunch treatment again as the euro zone debt crisis spun out of control and talk of another recession spewed from the lips of assorted economists and doomsayers. Since the spring, prices have fallen roughly in line with the equity markets. Mining shares have been slaughtered. Xstrata, to name but one biggie, has lost a third of its value in six months.

And oil? It, too, has fallen, but by less than you might have imagined. According to the BP Statistical Review, prices for Brent crude (the de facto global benchmark) climbed to about $124 by March, dipped ever so briefly below $100, and then recovered with alacrity. On Friday, the price was about $114. To be sure, oil shares are down, but by far less than those of the rock variety. In half a year, Exxon Mobil has lost a mere 8 per cent.

‘Revolution is fuelled by eggplant parmigiana.’ Keeping Occupy protesters well fed

NEW YORK—Seventy-year-old Phyllis Coelho plunged her blue gloved hands into a plastic sink of grey soapy water and spent an afternoon last week cheerfully washing dishes “to support the revolution.” The retired social worker had travelled from Belfast, Maine, the day before with her 78-year-old friend and fellow dishwasher, Jane Sanford.

They headed directly to the protest at Zuccotti Park because, they said, it was time to “show up.”

At a table behind her, Nan Terrie, an 18-year-old law student from Orlando, Florida, was furiously chopping carrots and onions even as she juggled cellphone calls from people wanting to donate food, and handed hastily scribbled “to do” lists for other volunteers. Anj Ferrara, a 24-year-old artist, was tearing open some of the 40 boxed pizzas that had just arrived. And Tom Hintze, a 24-year-old bike tour guide, was trying to figure out the logistics of getting a truck and driver to pick up massive trays of pulled pork that someone wanted to send from Brooklyn.

The makeshift “kitchen” in the centre of the park is the ever-evolving heart of the Occupy Wall Street encampment, managing to feed thousands daily even as it scrambles to figure out how to deal with an endless flow of donations.

But the people who work there — and those they serve — say it is much more, imbuing it with the same fervour that has marked the protests from the beginning.

Herman Cain Proposes Electrified Border Fence As Immigration Reform, Says He Was Joking

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain came down hard on immigration Saturday on the campaign trail, telling crowds in Tennessee that part of his policy would be to build an electrified fence on the Mexican border that could potentially kill anyone trying to enter the country illegally.

He backed away from that proposal Sunday morning, however, saying he wasn't serious about the idea.

"That's a joke, David," he told NBC's David Gregory on "Meet The Press." "That's not a serious plan."

The New York Times relays Cain's description of the fence: "It's going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you -- Warning.'"

Cain later added, "We want to make it easy for people to come through the front door. And we’re going to shut off the back door so you don't have to sneak into America." The presidential hopeful suggested also using armed military troops to help secure the border.

Eric Cantor On Occupy Wall Street: I'm Upset Democrats Are 'Joining In The Effort To Blame Others'

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) backed away from calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters "mobs" on Sunday, but he doubled-down on going after the political leaders who have condoned the movement.

At the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., last week, Cantor said he was "increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country."

"And believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans. But you sent us here to fight for you and all Americans," he added.

On Sunday, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Cantor about those comments: "Congressman, do you stand by that comment about mobs? And what do you think about the effort by the Obama White House and Democrats trying to harness the energy and movement here as part of their re-election effort?"

Cantor immediately moved away from his comment about the "mobs," saying, "More important than my use of the word is that there is a growing frustration out there across the country and it is warranted. Too many people are out of work."

He then jumped to criticizing political leaders who have embraced the movement, saying it was wrong to blame Wall Street for the country's economic problems.

Romney Beating Obama in a Fight for Wall St. Cash

It is no secret that the relationship between President Obama and Wall Street has chilled. A striking measure of that is the latest campaign finance reports.       

Mitt Romney has raised far more money than Mr. Obama this year from the firms that have been among Wall Street’s top sources of donations for the two candidates.

That gap underscores the growing alienation from Mr. Obama among many rank-and-file financial professionals and Mr. Romney’s aggressive and successful efforts to woo them.

The imbalance exists at large investment banks and hedge funds, private equity firms and commercial banks, according to a New York Times analysis of the firms that accounted for the most campaign contributions from the industry to Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama in 2008, based on data from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

It could widen as Mr. Obama, seeking to harness anger over growing income inequality, escalates his criticism of the industry, after a year spent trying to smooth ties bruised by efforts to impose tougher regulations.

What 9-9-9 Would Cost the Middle Class

After putting up my previous post about Herman Cain’s tax plan, I did a bit more reading about it. Guess what? The plan turns out to be even more regressive than I had thought, and, moreover, it is a “9-9-9” plan in name only.

On the plus side, the plan is less of a deficit-buster than it first appears. But that’s because it would effectively tax workers at a rate of eighteen per cent, not nine, thereby raising a great deal more revenue. Adding in the sales tax makes the Cain tax proposal even more onerous. A more accurate description of it would be an “18-9” plan.

Once you think of the plan this way, it resolves a question that has been hovering over it since the beginning: How can Cain say he will raise enough money to support the federal government with a flat rate of nine per cent when most serious analyses suggest that it would take a flat rate of at least seventeen or eighteen per cent to do the job? The answer is that Cain’s plan is actually an eighteen-per-cent plan disguised as a nine-per-cent plan.

In a new study, some of whose conclusions I referred to earlier, Edward D. Kleinbard, a former staffer at the Joint Committee on Taxation, has laid out how the plan would work. Until I looked at the details of Kleinbard’s paper, I hadn’t grasped the key point, which is the nature of Cain’s nine-per-cent tax on business profits. Like many others, I had assumed that Cain would maintain the existing corporate income tax and simply slash the rate from its current level, which ranges from fifteen per cent for small businesses to thirty-five per cent for large corporations. But that isn’t at all what would happen.

NDP Leader Nycole Turmel Supports Manitoba's Call For Flood Help

WINNIPEG - Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel urged the federal government to develop a national disaster-prevention program Saturday, following a half-hour meeting with Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger.

Turmel was shown maps of areas around Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin, where flooding this year has forced more than 1,000 people from their homes.

She said the federal government must follow through on a promise to develop a national strategy to prevent floods and other disasters before they happen.

"We support the position of the government here to have a national strategy on ... issues of disaster," Turmel said.

"(Selinger) explained to me with the map, so it was great to see what you can do and what the federal government can do to prevent disasters like this."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has talked about a new disaster-mitigation program to prevent or minimize damage from floods, fires and other natural disasters. The money would be used to build or enlarge structures such as dikes along flood-prone riverbanks.

Shocking Conditions In Native Schools Says Scott Haldane, Chairman Of First Nations Education Panel

WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. - An entire class that failed Grade 9 math had four different teachers come and go from the classroom.

Rundown schools in dire need of repair.

Schools that receive about half of the per-student funding of public schools because they're on First Nations reserves.

These are the stories that have stuck with Scott Haldane, the chairman of the National Panel on First Nations Elementary and Secondary Education, as the federally appointed panel tours the country for the latest in a long list of reports and studies to examine the abysmal rates of high school graduation and post-secondary achievement for Canada's aboriginal peoples.

"I think most Canadians have no idea...," Haldane said, after the panel wrapped up meetings with students, teachers, parents and aboriginal officials in British Columbia.

The panel will be in Manitoba and Alberta later this month, before stops in Saskatchewan and Quebec next month. They have already held meetings in Ontario, B.C. and the Atlantic provinces.

Haldane admits he's found some of the conditions shocking as he's explored on-reserve education across the country.

Occupy Canada Protests: Media Braces For The Worst, While Protesters Show Kinder, Gentler Canadian Version

To say that Occupy Toronto has received comprehensive media coverage is an understatement.

Since the demonstrations kicked off on Saturday, a small army of reporters, photographers and TV trucks has followed every minor incarnation of the movement with unflagging devotion. Though nothing about the action has made it newsworthy in the traditional sense — participants have so far been more likely to break into song than break windows — the media has been a constant and formidable presence, treating everything from splinter protests on Bay Street to daily organizational meetings in St. James Park like major events.

The same is true in Vancouver, where demonstrator Eric Hamilton-Smith told The Huffington Post Canada by phone on Monday, “Every media institution that I can think of at one point or another has been trying to get an interview.”

In Support of Occupy Wall Street

“Occupy Wall Street” is an incredible movement even if there is no easily ready-made pre-existing political language to describe it.  Its newness—multiple concerns across the wide-swath of “99 percent of us” that may seem unfocused—is really not.  Instead we see decades of lead up work done by the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panthers, the 1970’s women’s movement, all forms of anti-racist feminist activism of the `90’s, gay rights activism, AIDS organizing, anti-globalization/anti-militarization mobilization, the labor, immigrant, and peace movements, and so on… OWS is its own new form/less inclusive frame coalescing around the shared—however differently—suffering and vulnerability of a growing number of us.  Some say that OWS is a result of the attack on the middle class(es) that has created a huge swath of economic suffering that connects us/them with the poor, and the working classes of all sorts, and students, and Tahrir Square, and….

Millions of people are in need—of food, of medical care, of housing, of education, of…. Such persistent need is frightening and also maddening.  There is massive disappointment amidst more and more hard working individuals.  It seems as though everyone is asked to work harder and then harder again with not much result or easing of their pain.  If someone has been lucky enough to hold on to their job, it is not the job they used to have—there is always more to be done because a co-worker has been fired,or hired more cheaply.