One frame in a slide show at WaPo: Great Right North
(And things are only looking up!)
h/t Paul
25 Replies to “The World Needs More Canada”
Proof positive that Iggy, Layton, Gilles and Ellie May should shut thier pie holes. It’s almost as if they WANT Canada to fail.
that’s insane.
I’m curious if, in 3 years, when the next election is in full swing, the GOP will go out swinging that things weren’t nearly this bad back when Bush ruled…
Hard to believe they may bring up the Bush years as “the good ol’ days”
*and I like George.
Sadly, doesn’t mean great things for us IMHO
It’s good to have a neighbour that buys your stuff, even if they have to borrow the money to do so.
Once their credit is tapped out they can’t buy your stuff anymore, which complicates your life if you’re dependent on that scratch
The Conservatives advert that is running is very sloppy & although it aims to define the liberal leader its flat on the first run.
Harper needs the Group that produced the Manitoba Telephone Avert that is now running… although regional it shows a creative brilliance you don’t want used against you.
Returning to surpluses does not necessarily mean that Canada is being run efficiently or effectively: It just means that Canadians are being taxed heavily enough that the government collects more of our money than it projects to spend.
A true “conservative” government would start to reduce taxes and useless or wasteful government programs concurrently.
If things keep up in the states we are going to get very crowded in this country. Look at it this way. Those who choose to come to Canada will be conservative for sure. Big push for real conservatism might be just the thing we need to actually get a majority government who can then do some real good.
All the graphs and stats of the WaPo are correct BUT what is left out are both the reasons and the effect of provincial/state spending.
Most Canadian provinces still run deficits esp. the too biggest Ontario & Quebec. Most US states are prohibited by their state constitutions from running deficits. Given the mismatch of which levels of government are responsible for what operations, the combined amounts become the useful numbers for analysis. Anyone have these numbers?
The reason the Dominion government stopped deficit spending is because a T-bill issue failed to sell under the Chretian/Martin watch. The Ministry of Finance set a rate which they thought would sell out the issue. It didn’t. That was a loud wake up call that the markets deemed Dominion debt was becoming too risky i.e. increased danger of default. The Norma Bob Rae government of Ontario was given a similar rude wake up call when they were planning to spend their way out of the early 1990’s recession. The Bay Street/Wall Street underwriters sat Bobby and his Finance Minster Pink Floyd down and explained their deficit plans added to their existing debt will result in a rating downgrade. Insurance Companies and pension funds, the only big pools of cash for government debt, would be prohibited by statute from holding or buying the downgraded debt and venture capital funds would need a huge rate (think credit card rates)to absorb all the debt. Bob & Floyd became fiscal conservatives overnight.
Nothing focuses the mind like having a gun put to your head. When will the gun be put to the US federal gov’t’s head?
Erik Larsen – excellent point. Not only is it good to have a neighbor who buys your stuff, it’s good to have a neighbor that makes stuff you want to buy. Schadenfreude has no place in economics.
aek – Another of the graphs addresses this point: Canadian government spending (as a share of GDP) has fallen quite sharply, while the US’s has risen.
Snowbunnie – As a conservative American who’s been looking north (and west), I hope you’re right…
Norm Matthew – yes, that’s right, although the definiton of “balanced” has been stretched beyond recognition in some states. This is from http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2008/Ec/eca1-eng.html:
Provincial-territorial governments posted an aggregate surplus of $11.2 billion in 2007–08, their seventh surplus in the past nine years. For 2008–09, the provincial-territorial sector is forecasting a surplus of $5.8 billion, with 10 of the 13 provinces and territories projecting balanced budgets or better.
Total government debt in Canada has been the lowest in the G7 since 2004, and has been heading in the right direction, at least according to your Dept. of Finance.
Like all here, I do not want the United States to fail – I want them to prosper but I do want the Bolsheviks in power to fail – just like I wanted thieving liberanos to fail here in Canada. Communism terrifies me because I know that I would be ‘snuffed out’ right away and I would hate to waste my life that way.
I hope that you are right about the good immigration that might move up here, snowbunny. They (US) sent us the whako eco freaks and hippy draft dodgers under the nasty Liberanos, if some good, Conservative, freedom loving Americans would consider Canada a new home they would be most welcome in the circles I travel with in life. They would help us – and we could send our own goofs to starve with their ilk in California and on the east coast; including Tarrana and Que. It would be better for everyone if all the lefto freaks were herded into the same local.
@Norm Matthew (1:45 AM):
Thanks for the capsule history. The same rationale was behind S & L deregulation in the United States: Regulation Q, capping the interest rates an S & L could pay, was suspended in 1980 because inflation had pushed rates too high overall. Had that regulation not been suspended, the S & Ls couldn’t have borrowed at all. That would have pushed them into collapse by about 1981, the year after Reg Q was suspended.
A large part of the reason why S & Ls did collapse at the end of the 1980s was they had to chase high-interest loans to offset the high-interest deposits they had to take in during the brief time when rates were in double-digit territory. Enough of those loans worked to lower the standards over the rest of the decade, leading to the debacle at the end.
S & L deregulation started during the Carter Administration. This fact should be tip-off enough. Government officials do not deregulate unless they must.
Norm M,
Yes thanks for that reminder. Yes Bob R woke up before his party, the NDP. Some in his party didnt wake up period. I think Bob was quoted as saying, the issue wasnt that they couldnt borrow, it is the interest rate at which the they could borrow.
Obama will wake up to a similar point. The UK already is, they are having issues selling their sovereign debt, and their tax capacity is much diminished.
The US still has lots of room to tax including putting in a National Sales tax…not that I am for raising taxes but the US will need to pay back its debt. This will be done through taxes, whether explicit or through an inflation tax, likely some combination.
The US cannot cut its way out of this deficit, although some cutting needs to be done. It will get ugly down there and the 2012 election is going to be either a cakewalk for Obama, if things are good, or a major defeat, like Carter.
The dems have control, so the ball is theirs. Let’s see what they do with it in the next 18 months.
Norm is correct in his analysis. I will add two things:
1. Post 9/11 Gwb fought a global war on terror on our behalf – we have spent a pittance in the struggle by comparison.
2. The single greatest failing of GWB is that he was a lapdog for the house and senate Gop. He vetoed arecied low number of bills and the Spending took off.
“Harper needs the Group that produced the Manitoba Telephone Avert that is now running… although regional it shows a creative brilliance you don’t want used against you.”
The Conservatives should show a herd of Bison to illustrate why the Liberal Party is headed for extinction under their new Bison herder and his passport confiscating subluxating first officer, Bolly Dhalla.
Posted by: aek at May 19, 2009 1:33 AM
Good post, aek. Personally, I hate the phrase “government surplus”, it really galls. In business, you get a “surplus” when your earned revenues exceed expenses; in government, you get a “surplus” when your legalized theft of personal property exceeds your pork output. Governments don’t “earn” a thing, they just take what they want by force of law. Big difference.
And you’re 100% right: a real conservative government would slash spending and return the excess funds to its rightful owners. That’d spur the economy more than any bailout or pork spending, as we’ve seen time and time again.
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm
Gord: Agreed about Bush fighting the war on terror but he was also never a fiscal conservative. He is a compassionate conservative believing that government should be used for social goals. While cutting taxes he also expanded government with his no child left behind and seniors pharmacare programs to name a few. He did nothing to cut or even restrain spending. I believe this is the prime reason his popularity shrunk so low because he lost the support of libertarians and fiscal conservatives. The Dems and media successfully portrayed Bush as some extreme right wing leader but he was actually very centrist as he was when governor of Texas.
Soon you guys will be able to buy large tracts of land in the US with your loonies and live like feudal lords. You will probably even be able to make us tug our forelocks before addressing you. This is the future that Obama brings us.
Even though he may have overlooked a certain “broad strata of Canadian society”, Ted Nugent has a big love-on for Canadian citizens’ basic decency to each other – as compared to the States’ struggles with internecine hate.
And the way the Nuge smacks around a “progressive” interviewer from the Phoenix New Times HAS to have a wonderfully calming effect on your blood pressure: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/2009/05/qa_ted_nugent_talks_guns_meth.php
Canada is #1.
“Make nice with Canada.”
A Message to O’Democrats.
“Meanwhile, we’ve gone after energy-rich Canada — already our No. 1 supplier of oil — with “buy American” provisions in our recently passed stimulus plan.
Rubbing sand in the wound, U.S. officials have even suggested we might not want Canada’s oil, since it’s so “dirty” and likely to increase our carbon footprint.
Here’s a little yellow Post-It for U.S. policymakers: Make nice with Canada. Given our ridiculous refusal to exploit our own vast energy resources, it’s going to be the best friend we can have.”
…-
“Canada’s Oil Bonanza
Energy Policy: Talk about alternative energy! Canada has the oil the American economy desperately needs — and then some. So why do we treat this and other energy allies like pariahs?
The next Saudi Arabia? Why, Canada. Don’t believe it? A new study by the respected energy consultancy IHS-CERA (formerly Cambridge Energy Associates) says Canada’s oil sands could provide the U.S. with billions of barrels of oil — oil we must have or our economy will shudder to a halt.
In 2000, Canada’s sands produced just 600,000 barrels of oil a day; today, it produces 1.3 million. By 2030, it could be producing as much as 6 million.
It’s a good thing they’re doing it, because we’ll need it — despite all the blather you hear about so-called alternative energy picking up the slack. It won’t. It can’t.” http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=327540838239093
A prosperous America means a prosperous Canada. Sadly, the opposite is also true.
Canada’s conservatism will be short lived. We will have some type of coalition government soon enough promising to spend, spend and more spending. First they will spend Alberta’s money, then the money of future generations, but make no mistake, it’s coming.
I look up and the sky is still blue, but for some reason being in debt or creating more debt is preferable. This mentality is suicidal, and it appears we can’t find the razor or draw a bath fast enough. To prove how idiotic Canadians have become(central) the Liberals will blame the Conservatives for deficit spending(that they demanded) and at the same time promise to do more of it; and, Ontario and Quebec will cheerlead all the way. Watch!
Everything is politics now. Some politicians condone water-boarding because it saves American lives, but for political reasons have now flip-flopped regardless of the consequences. Just as politicians in Canada will support damaging economic policies simply to oppose the current government, paying no heed to the fact that conservative economics has protected Canadians from the current recession. The Liberals will betray their own policies(paying down debt) for political gain.
If Canada is acting more prudently than the US it is not because of inherent moral superiority but because of our awful experiences in the fiscal mismanagement of the Trudeau years; of which big national deficits formed one part.
just think, canadians love the big o and his policies.
homez. that is exactly what will happen. when talking about the intelligence of the canadian voter huh, well, huh, they don’t have any.
These charts raise a horrifying possibility. The U.S. government is flirting with bankruptcy.
I think that occurence would be vastly more destructive than the economic crisis all of their debt was supposed to fix.
Slap Shot: “The Conservatives advert that is running is very sloppy & although it aims to define the liberal leader its flat on the first run.”
I disagree. I think the ads are very clever and that that they put the issue of Ignatieff’s absence from the country front and centre. Some people are fine with his being a “man of the world” (so to speak), but other people will view this (on some level) as a disinterest in Canada as a country. I think it is too soon to tell whether or not the ads are effective.
It is important to recognize that some of the most effective ads — in terms of name recognition, sales, subtle messaging are not necessary the ones we like on an intellectual level. I think the key question with respect to these ads is not just the overt messaging, but also whether or not Ignatieff’s manner seems kind of elitist.
Proof positive that Iggy, Layton, Gilles and Ellie May should shut thier pie holes. It’s almost as if they WANT Canada to fail.
that’s insane.
I’m curious if, in 3 years, when the next election is in full swing, the GOP will go out swinging that things weren’t nearly this bad back when Bush ruled…
Hard to believe they may bring up the Bush years as “the good ol’ days”
*and I like George.
Sadly, doesn’t mean great things for us IMHO
It’s good to have a neighbour that buys your stuff, even if they have to borrow the money to do so.
Once their credit is tapped out they can’t buy your stuff anymore, which complicates your life if you’re dependent on that scratch
The Conservatives advert that is running is very sloppy & although it aims to define the liberal leader its flat on the first run.
Harper needs the Group that produced the Manitoba Telephone Avert that is now running… although regional it shows a creative brilliance you don’t want used against you.
Returning to surpluses does not necessarily mean that Canada is being run efficiently or effectively: It just means that Canadians are being taxed heavily enough that the government collects more of our money than it projects to spend.
A true “conservative” government would start to reduce taxes and useless or wasteful government programs concurrently.
If things keep up in the states we are going to get very crowded in this country. Look at it this way. Those who choose to come to Canada will be conservative for sure. Big push for real conservatism might be just the thing we need to actually get a majority government who can then do some real good.
All the graphs and stats of the WaPo are correct BUT what is left out are both the reasons and the effect of provincial/state spending.
Most Canadian provinces still run deficits esp. the too biggest Ontario & Quebec. Most US states are prohibited by their state constitutions from running deficits. Given the mismatch of which levels of government are responsible for what operations, the combined amounts become the useful numbers for analysis. Anyone have these numbers?
The reason the Dominion government stopped deficit spending is because a T-bill issue failed to sell under the Chretian/Martin watch. The Ministry of Finance set a rate which they thought would sell out the issue. It didn’t. That was a loud wake up call that the markets deemed Dominion debt was becoming too risky i.e. increased danger of default. The Norma Bob Rae government of Ontario was given a similar rude wake up call when they were planning to spend their way out of the early 1990’s recession. The Bay Street/Wall Street underwriters sat Bobby and his Finance Minster Pink Floyd down and explained their deficit plans added to their existing debt will result in a rating downgrade. Insurance Companies and pension funds, the only big pools of cash for government debt, would be prohibited by statute from holding or buying the downgraded debt and venture capital funds would need a huge rate (think credit card rates)to absorb all the debt. Bob & Floyd became fiscal conservatives overnight.
Nothing focuses the mind like having a gun put to your head. When will the gun be put to the US federal gov’t’s head?
Erik Larsen – excellent point. Not only is it good to have a neighbor who buys your stuff, it’s good to have a neighbor that makes stuff you want to buy. Schadenfreude has no place in economics.
aek – Another of the graphs addresses this point: Canadian government spending (as a share of GDP) has fallen quite sharply, while the US’s has risen.
Snowbunnie – As a conservative American who’s been looking north (and west), I hope you’re right…
Norm Matthew – yes, that’s right, although the definiton of “balanced” has been stretched beyond recognition in some states. This is from http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2008/Ec/eca1-eng.html:
Provincial-territorial governments posted an aggregate surplus of $11.2 billion in 2007–08, their seventh surplus in the past nine years. For 2008–09, the provincial-territorial sector is forecasting a surplus of $5.8 billion, with 10 of the 13 provinces and territories projecting balanced budgets or better.
Total government debt in Canada has been the lowest in the G7 since 2004, and has been heading in the right direction, at least according to your Dept. of Finance.
Like all here, I do not want the United States to fail – I want them to prosper but I do want the Bolsheviks in power to fail – just like I wanted thieving liberanos to fail here in Canada. Communism terrifies me because I know that I would be ‘snuffed out’ right away and I would hate to waste my life that way.
I hope that you are right about the good immigration that might move up here, snowbunny. They (US) sent us the whako eco freaks and hippy draft dodgers under the nasty Liberanos, if some good, Conservative, freedom loving Americans would consider Canada a new home they would be most welcome in the circles I travel with in life. They would help us – and we could send our own goofs to starve with their ilk in California and on the east coast; including Tarrana and Que. It would be better for everyone if all the lefto freaks were herded into the same local.
@Norm Matthew (1:45 AM):
Thanks for the capsule history. The same rationale was behind S & L deregulation in the United States: Regulation Q, capping the interest rates an S & L could pay, was suspended in 1980 because inflation had pushed rates too high overall. Had that regulation not been suspended, the S & Ls couldn’t have borrowed at all. That would have pushed them into collapse by about 1981, the year after Reg Q was suspended.
A large part of the reason why S & Ls did collapse at the end of the 1980s was they had to chase high-interest loans to offset the high-interest deposits they had to take in during the brief time when rates were in double-digit territory. Enough of those loans worked to lower the standards over the rest of the decade, leading to the debacle at the end.
S & L deregulation started during the Carter Administration. This fact should be tip-off enough. Government officials do not deregulate unless they must.
Norm M,
Yes thanks for that reminder. Yes Bob R woke up before his party, the NDP. Some in his party didnt wake up period. I think Bob was quoted as saying, the issue wasnt that they couldnt borrow, it is the interest rate at which the they could borrow.
Obama will wake up to a similar point. The UK already is, they are having issues selling their sovereign debt, and their tax capacity is much diminished.
The US still has lots of room to tax including putting in a National Sales tax…not that I am for raising taxes but the US will need to pay back its debt. This will be done through taxes, whether explicit or through an inflation tax, likely some combination.
The US cannot cut its way out of this deficit, although some cutting needs to be done. It will get ugly down there and the 2012 election is going to be either a cakewalk for Obama, if things are good, or a major defeat, like Carter.
The dems have control, so the ball is theirs. Let’s see what they do with it in the next 18 months.
Norm is correct in his analysis. I will add two things:
1. Post 9/11 Gwb fought a global war on terror on our behalf – we have spent a pittance in the struggle by comparison.
2. The single greatest failing of GWB is that he was a lapdog for the house and senate Gop. He vetoed arecied low number of bills and the Spending took off.
“Harper needs the Group that produced the Manitoba Telephone Avert that is now running… although regional it shows a creative brilliance you don’t want used against you.”
The Conservatives should show a herd of Bison to illustrate why the Liberal Party is headed for extinction under their new Bison herder and his passport confiscating subluxating first officer, Bolly Dhalla.
Posted by: aek at May 19, 2009 1:33 AM
Good post, aek. Personally, I hate the phrase “government surplus”, it really galls. In business, you get a “surplus” when your earned revenues exceed expenses; in government, you get a “surplus” when your legalized theft of personal property exceeds your pork output. Governments don’t “earn” a thing, they just take what they want by force of law. Big difference.
And you’re 100% right: a real conservative government would slash spending and return the excess funds to its rightful owners. That’d spur the economy more than any bailout or pork spending, as we’ve seen time and time again.
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm
Gord: Agreed about Bush fighting the war on terror but he was also never a fiscal conservative. He is a compassionate conservative believing that government should be used for social goals. While cutting taxes he also expanded government with his no child left behind and seniors pharmacare programs to name a few. He did nothing to cut or even restrain spending. I believe this is the prime reason his popularity shrunk so low because he lost the support of libertarians and fiscal conservatives. The Dems and media successfully portrayed Bush as some extreme right wing leader but he was actually very centrist as he was when governor of Texas.
Soon you guys will be able to buy large tracts of land in the US with your loonies and live like feudal lords. You will probably even be able to make us tug our forelocks before addressing you. This is the future that Obama brings us.
Even though he may have overlooked a certain “broad strata of Canadian society”, Ted Nugent has a big love-on for Canadian citizens’ basic decency to each other – as compared to the States’ struggles with internecine hate.
And the way the Nuge smacks around a “progressive” interviewer from the Phoenix New Times HAS to have a wonderfully calming effect on your blood pressure:
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/2009/05/qa_ted_nugent_talks_guns_meth.php
Canada is #1.
“Make nice with Canada.”
A Message to O’Democrats.
“Meanwhile, we’ve gone after energy-rich Canada — already our No. 1 supplier of oil — with “buy American” provisions in our recently passed stimulus plan.
Rubbing sand in the wound, U.S. officials have even suggested we might not want Canada’s oil, since it’s so “dirty” and likely to increase our carbon footprint.
Here’s a little yellow Post-It for U.S. policymakers: Make nice with Canada. Given our ridiculous refusal to exploit our own vast energy resources, it’s going to be the best friend we can have.”
…-
“Canada’s Oil Bonanza
Energy Policy: Talk about alternative energy! Canada has the oil the American economy desperately needs — and then some. So why do we treat this and other energy allies like pariahs?
The next Saudi Arabia? Why, Canada. Don’t believe it? A new study by the respected energy consultancy IHS-CERA (formerly Cambridge Energy Associates) says Canada’s oil sands could provide the U.S. with billions of barrels of oil — oil we must have or our economy will shudder to a halt.
In 2000, Canada’s sands produced just 600,000 barrels of oil a day; today, it produces 1.3 million. By 2030, it could be producing as much as 6 million.
It’s a good thing they’re doing it, because we’ll need it — despite all the blather you hear about so-called alternative energy picking up the slack. It won’t. It can’t.”
http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=327540838239093
A prosperous America means a prosperous Canada. Sadly, the opposite is also true.
Canada’s conservatism will be short lived. We will have some type of coalition government soon enough promising to spend, spend and more spending. First they will spend Alberta’s money, then the money of future generations, but make no mistake, it’s coming.
I look up and the sky is still blue, but for some reason being in debt or creating more debt is preferable. This mentality is suicidal, and it appears we can’t find the razor or draw a bath fast enough. To prove how idiotic Canadians have become(central) the Liberals will blame the Conservatives for deficit spending(that they demanded) and at the same time promise to do more of it; and, Ontario and Quebec will cheerlead all the way. Watch!
Everything is politics now. Some politicians condone water-boarding because it saves American lives, but for political reasons have now flip-flopped regardless of the consequences. Just as politicians in Canada will support damaging economic policies simply to oppose the current government, paying no heed to the fact that conservative economics has protected Canadians from the current recession. The Liberals will betray their own policies(paying down debt) for political gain.
If Canada is acting more prudently than the US it is not because of inherent moral superiority but because of our awful experiences in the fiscal mismanagement of the Trudeau years; of which big national deficits formed one part.
just think, canadians love the big o and his policies.
homez. that is exactly what will happen. when talking about the intelligence of the canadian voter huh, well, huh, they don’t have any.
These charts raise a horrifying possibility. The U.S. government is flirting with bankruptcy.
I think that occurence would be vastly more destructive than the economic crisis all of their debt was supposed to fix.
Slap Shot: “The Conservatives advert that is running is very sloppy & although it aims to define the liberal leader its flat on the first run.”
I disagree. I think the ads are very clever and that that they put the issue of Ignatieff’s absence from the country front and centre. Some people are fine with his being a “man of the world” (so to speak), but other people will view this (on some level) as a disinterest in Canada as a country. I think it is too soon to tell whether or not the ads are effective.
It is important to recognize that some of the most effective ads — in terms of name recognition, sales, subtle messaging are not necessary the ones we like on an intellectual level. I think the key question with respect to these ads is not just the overt messaging, but also whether or not Ignatieff’s manner seems kind of elitist.