Nullius in Verba

As per Norberg usual, excellent documentary on capitalism’s benefits:

More Klein stupidity:

Government intervention = disaster economics:

Now that it looks like the Liberals have a chance…

Stephane Dion states that “Stephen Harper squandered the surplus on.” Then he goes on to insert either tax cuts, innovation spending, the GST or whatever is appropriate for the moment. This leaves me to ask, what exactly would Dion do with the surplus’ which, if I may remind him, come from you and I, and not some magic place. There is no macro economic plan I know of which proposes government keep surpluses accruing over years. Wait, actually there is a plan, its’ one where a dictator puts all that money in his Swiss Bank Account, but I digress. Even companies will invest profits or provide dividends while keeping a small amount to use as a contingency plan - something Paul Martin borrowed from the business world. So what did Harper do with the cash? Three billion spent on the military, which even the outgoing Liberals were planning on doing to refurbish a dying Canadian institution. Four billion spent on Health Care, on which has actually resulted in a reduction in waiting lists according to surgeons I have spoken with (we’ll see the big numbers). Six billion was used to lower the GST, while not the favorite of Economists, Harper was correct in stating that this is a regressive tax which harms the poor more than the rich - something every Economist knows, but the media won’t report (Harper has done more for the poor than the Liberals in 10 years so far).

So what would the Liberals have done? Probably nearly the same thing if in that situation. Or do they suggest not spending on Health Care or the desperate military, which was launched into Afghanistan by the Liberals in the first place?

What depresses me the most is not that Dion can say these things, in fact its what every opposition member would do. It is that the Mainstream Media isn’t all over Dion about this every time he opens his pie hole. Why don’t they ask about the Health Care spending, like “Hey Dion would you not have spent on Health Care, old boy?” There is a bias.

I think it is time to review these articles on the Green Shift, and how it will not reduce emissions but is likely to increase emissions, and moreover how even Jack Mintz, the Economist who helped write the plan, thinks it isn’t necessarily going to work.

Secondly let’s consider the NDP’s plan to increase corporate taxes. During a time when it is even more necessary to reduce taxes to make us more competitive against other leading countries (Stephen Harper plans to reduce our corporate taxes to the lowest in the G-7), Jack Layton wants to raise them. The OECD summarized the findings of the harmful effects of corporate taxes which I describe briefly in this article. In an open economy, Layton will only succeed in helping the blue collar workers lose their jobs. Right now Canada is rated to lead the G-7 in growth, albeit slow growth.

Yes, many economists describe a Keynsian style system of government spending through recessions, but Harper is correct in saying that once you go down that path it is hard to come back. Keynsianism is easy to understand, and lefties like that, but Robert Lucas and Milton Freidman have rightly critisized it and many have pointed out its failures. As both an economist and a politician I think he has good insight into the problems of Keynsian economics, what do you fund? Who gets funding? Are you picking winners and losers? Once a subsidy is given, it is not easy to take it away. Are you pouring money down the drain? Will the public go for it? It is easy as an economist to describe the best methods of targeted subsidies, but the public is as likely not to agree! You are constrained by public foolishness and corporate greed or seeking legalized monopoly establishment. Soon I will describe the critical paper that demonstrated government action extended the Great Depression.

Its not really useful if you read these, get your lefty friends to read the evidence. Or let them know the evidence. They believe in fairy tales.

An interesting tidbit in the Prime Minister’s discussion with Amanda Lang at Business News Network regarding the direction he is taking with Canada’s economy . He plans to reduce federal and corporate business taxes to the lowest level in the G-7 by 2010. (It is worth watching this interview as opposed to the stupidity of the usual media, ie: CTV, when it comes to discussing economics, this is a refreshing discussion).

Reduction in corporate taxes has proven overall benefits, and something Canada could learn from the Nordic countries like Sweden, Finland, Denmark etc. Canada has been making steady progress over the last several years in the right direction and we are reaping the benefits of it in terms of stability. In a large part this is due to the work of the Reform party, giving the Liberals no real stress in regards to doing what they inherently know is correct. Imagine if the NDP was the official opposition during the deficit crisis.

(Side Note: Read the Green Shift Critique Series)

A recent OECD article discusses the evidence for lower taxes equating to higher economic growth. In particular corporate taxes:

Increases in productivity: A second option is to reform corporate taxes, as they influence productivity in several ways. Evidence in this study suggests that lowering statutory corporate tax rates can lead to particularly large productivity gains in firms that are dynamic and profitable, i.e. those that can make the largest contribution to GDP growth. It also appears that corporate taxes adversely influence productivity in all firms except in young and small firms since these firms are often not very profitable. One possible implication is that tax exemptions or reduced statutory corporate tax rates for small firms might be much less effective in raising productivity than a generalised reduction in the overall statutory corporate tax rate. This reduction could be financed by scaling down exemptions granted on firm size as they may only waste resources without any substantial positive growth effects.

Investment: Corporate income taxes appear to have a particularly negative impact on GDP per capita. This is consistent with the previously reviewed evidence and empirical findings that lowering corporate taxes raises Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth and investment. Reducing the corporate tax rate also appears to be particularly beneficial for TFP growth of the most dynamic and innovative firms.

I supposed I should have known more about his economic goal, but it has been flying under the radar for some time, except that is, those times it has raised the ire of Premier McGuinty who cannot comprehend such economic logic. However the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is horrible when it comes to getting its message across. While they bear a considerable amount of blame, much can also be attributed to the Mainstream Media which is relentless in its mission to frame the CPC in as bad light as possible. The MSM still has not explained that a reduction in the GST benefits poor people.

(When the Pharisees objected to Jesus’ meeting with tax collectors rather than the righteous, Jesus replied that it was the sick who need a physician, not the healthy (Matthew 9:9–13) )

Read the Green Shift Series Here

The English language is one of connotation, and some words like “stupid” should be applied carefully, but when warranted, applied definitively. What Dan Gardner tries to imply in this recent article is that Stephen Harper is stupid, even though he has a degree in Economics, by flogging him with an interview with the renouned Economist, Dr. Greg Mankiw.

Stupid is defined by Websters as acting in an unintelligent or careless manner, or lacking intelligence or reason.

As the old adage suggests, “While leaving the house to call someone stupid, be sure you don’t bang your head into a mirror along the way.”

The MSM is as Stupid as it is Vain

I’m sure no one in this country has missed out on the Liberal Party’s proposed carbon tax, the Green Shift™. While Stephane Dion has been unable to even pronounce it in English, let alone explain it, the mainstream media has done a bang on job of praising this thing whenever or however it can. Still I have yet to hear on the news a basic Economics discussion of the subject, and I have yet to hear from any published peer reviewed literature as well. So when the mainstream media fails us, like it usually does it is time to turn to the blogosphere. And so we being The Green Shift - The Economics Lesson - in Basic for Dan Gardner™. Oh and we’ll include some peer reviewed journal articles as well.

The basic principle of the Green Shift is that by increasing a tax one artificially increases the cost of carbon producing substances or greenhouse gas substances (GGS) so that people consider purchasing substitute goods instead thus lowering the release of greenhouse gasses. Moreover by reducing people’s income taxes by replacing it with the increased tax revenue from GGS one avoids harming people along the way, or causing the much dreaded stagflation. It is worth pausing here, for those of you unfamiliar with economics, in order to read the wikipedia definition of stagflation and note in particular that :

First, stagflation can result when an economy is slowed by an unfavorable supply shock, such as an increase in the price of oil in an oil importing country, which tends to raise prices at the same time that it slows the economy by making production less profitable.^[5][6][7] This type of stagflation presents a policy dilemma because most actions to assist with fighting inflation worsen economic stagnation and vice versa. Second, both stagnation and inflation can result from inappropriate macroeconomic policies. For example, central banks can cause inflation by permitting excessive growth of the money supply,^[8] and the government can cause stagnation by excessive regulation of goods markets and labor markets.

Yep.

Anyway so let us set up a basic economics argument for the Green part of the plan as follows. Here is a supply and demand curve with price (P) increasing to (P’) as we increase or shift the cost or supply curve (S) of gasoline by adding a tax (S’). As you will see the quantity of gasoline demanded decreases from (Q) to (Q’) and the ticker tape ticks, the adding machines add, and all is well in economic pre Christmas land. (D is the demand for gasoline curve)

Ok now let us add the “Shift” into the plan. We’ll give back Canadians this extra revenue in the form of an income tax reduction. So without going into a lot of detail, suffice to state that when one increases the income of a group of people one also shifts up the aggregate demand curve. This is generally because as one has more money in one’s budget one is less constrained by costs. In other words, if we all get an extra $2000 a year in income tax rebates, some of us are going to drive to New York for the weekend like we always wanted to do.

Let’s see the curves shifting.

Whoops! As the demand curve shifts up from (D) to (D’) the quantity of gas consumed increases from (Q’) to (Q). We’re right back where we started! What we have done is simply artificially raised the price of things, but not done a thing to reduce consumption of gasoline or GGS for that matter.

What’s worse is that one has no real idea how these supply and demand curves are going to shift. They could in fact shift in a worse direction than one intended. For example as seen in this graph one could seen the consumption of GGS increase to (Q”) instead. More GGS consumed than before one played God-onomics.

The question comes down to the shape of the real demand curve for GGS. If the demand curve is “inelastic” it is a vertical curve, and this would mean no matter how much you increased the tax, the quantity consumed of GGS will not change as seen below.

Inelastic demand curves are seen when a good has no substitute goods, that is no readily available good with the same function that you can purchase in it’s place. Gasoline is a likely inelastic good as there really is no substitute for your Honda Civic you just bought. It cost $20,000, and unless you are Bill Gates, replacing it with a fusion powered vehicle isn’t going to happen anytime in the near future. Also as North American electricity generation is primarily from GGS, changing to non GGS generation will be a costly step with no immediate realistic substitutes other than Nuclear and Hydro power.

So what does the scientific peer reviewed literature demonstrate in regards to the elasticity of gasoline, the number one GGS? Hughes et. al state that:

We find the short run price elasticity of gasoline demand is significantly more inelastic today than in previous decades.

and

consumers have not significantly altered their gasoline consumption in response to higher gasoline prices.

interestingly

at lower income levels, the amount of travel has already been reduced to the minimum leaving little room for adjustment to higher prices.

In other words the evidence suggests that we’re pretty much locked into buying the gas we need. West et. al suggest that the cross-price elasticity between gasoline and leisure (the optimal tax rate on gasoline without causing external damage) is 35%. This happens to be the current tax rate on gasoline in Canada in most cities already, therefore taxing it more will cause significant burden.

And just how effective is the tax on gasoline at reducing air pollution? Sipes and Mendelsohn demonstrate that:

Our results indicate that if an environmental surcharge is added to gasoline taxes, then the additional tax will decrease gasoline consumption only slightly and, therefore, will have little effect on air pollution.

and more drastically

The results suggest that people with twice the income buy only 10–20% more gasoline. Of course, governments could use the revenues from gas taxes to address equity issues by lowering taxes on poor people or subsidizing services for them. However, in practice, it is not clear that current subsidies for transport actually benefit poor people more than others. Even if the income elasticity estimates in this paper are low, a tax on gasoline would most likely fall most heavily on the poor.

When it is all said and done, the people likely to suffer from the Green Shift are the poor themselves.

Dr. Mankiw is a proponent of the Pigovian Tax, that is a tax on things like GGS which have externalities such as pollution which are proposed to not be included in the price of the good itself. Dan Gardner seems to think that externalities are simply basic economics. They are not. In fact the theory of externalities is extremely complicated, and made more complicated by the question of whether externalities really exist.

At the end of the day, Stephen Harper has to decide a course to take. He doesn’t have the luxury of sitting in an Ivory Tower playing tiddly winks or black board what if’s. We have this Green Shift theory which sounds interesting, but what we don’t have at our finger-tips is the shapes of those curves I drew above. We also don’t really know how much they will shift and where they will equilibriate. The only way to know for sure is to experiment, and the most prudent way would be to experiment slowly, because we really have no idea how things will change - contrary to the apparent thoughts of Dion who thinks we need to act fast to save the planet.

Stephane Dion Uses Sign Language to Describe His Knowledge of Economics

We could easily make greenhouse gas output worse, we could have no effect at all. We could cause a depression, we could cause the worst outcome possible: stagflation. Many of the Canadian banks suggest that Canada is on the brink of a recession, recessions tend to mostly harm the poor, and the journal articles suggest the poor will bear the brunt of a Green Shift.

Therefore seems it would be stupid, Dan, to manipulate the Canadian economy so drastically at this time, that is when one considers the peer reviewed Economic evidence.

(Update: Read part II of the Green Shift)

* The Green Shift plan has no immediate consumer gasoline taxes. However if the plan is to actually reduce GGS it will have to target gasoline in some manner. Gasoline is the number one and major contributor to Canadian GGS. For now they will target producers, who will have to pass some of these taxes onto the consumer, some will be taken out of profits, and some will be taken from the employees of the firms. Once again there are graphs to explain all that, of which we have no idea the slopes etc. In the end gasoline prices will rise, anyone who thinks they won’t is selling you a bridge to nowheresville. 

** It is likely that the effect of Anthropogenic Global Warming caused by GGS on global climate change is low or non-existant as no definitive proof exists, and many peer reviewed articles state there is no evidence.  Moreover it is likely that the current land based data is corrupt.

*** While many economists including myself support a pure consumption tax rather than income tax, all taxes do have harmful effects on the economy and the poor specifically. Consumption taxes have their own side effects and have not been entirely studied.

(As Promised, Monthly Blog Update) 

When it comes to the market place the Government is like a fat kid on a teeter-totter. One knows which end is coming down, and its sure to be as balanced as an elephant on ice. But how do governments in a democracy become corrupted? Surely with the voting public and the vociferous media hounding them there is no way for the fat evil merchants of capitalism to stroll in and take things from the collective?

If you have a moment, I’ll tell you how it happens.

It comes from our own best intentions gone wrong.

The latest squawking to come from the Liberals is the revival of the Income Trusts issue. For those of you unaware of what the big deal about income trusts is, I’ll explain briefly. Income trusts are a method corporations use to avoid income taxes. Plain and simple, and while some people will deny this, mature corporations wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t advantageous to them. As any accountant knows deep down inside, the more convoluted a tax system is, the more loopholes there are. It’s called Langmann’s Law which states: l=n/5, where l is number of loopholes, and n is the number of tax legislative sections or something.

And seriously though, as economist James R. Hines points out, the more government attempts to fix tax loopholes, the more they actually encourage the implementation of new loopholes. This is one of the main reasons the old Reform Party of Canada proposed a flat personal and corporate income tax with your only deduction being your children and the basic personal exemption.

Anyhow, in case anyone didn’t notice, the Conservative government did the unthinkable late last year by taxing Income Trusts and thus slamming the lid down on this particular avoidance strategy. They did this against the promise of not doing this, which is a clear violation and a shameful act. I personally am not completely against governments changing their promises based upon new evidence as long as they were sincere in their previous promise, that the new evidence is decisive,  that keeping a promise will result in a catastrophe, and that their decision isn’t for simple political gain. We must also bear in mind that a government which makes mistaken promises should be taken to the crucible for ineffectively analysing the data. This all being said there is nothing worse than the old Liberal strategy of promising action, not doing anything, and still promising action, ie: Kyoto.

Angry in the Great White North writes about slim shady Garth Turner (a man I mistakenly used to believe was a straight shooter even while he was burning the Conservatives from within) and his grand Canada tour railing against the Conservative actions on income trusts and how the great Liberal party will do all in its power if it gets elected to make everything better for the holders of income trusts and the corporations who created them. Angry points out several interesting flaws in Garth’s argument that the taxing of income trusts hurt seniors and instead points out that income trusts were in some cases preying on ignorant seniors.

However lets look deeper into what is going on. Garth is a member of the Canadian Parliament and within the Liberal Party of Canada’s caucus. Garth is going on a trans-Canada tour who’s theme is how the Conservatives ripped off the poor senior citizens and that we should instead vote Liberal so they can fix this tragety. The sponsor of Garth’s little anti-government tour is an organization called CAITI which is in fact made up on a number of organizations that sell income trusts. Basically what we have here is the direct efforts of a series of corporations to have a government elected that will give them a market advantage simply by setting up legislation. Your vote cast for the Liberals because you feel bad for the poor ripped off seniors is how they get you to vote for their personal advantage.

That is, folks, how corruption happens.

(The Boston Tea Party - A government granted monopoly to the British East India Company culminated to this famous riot, provided evidence for the new liberal philosophy of the proper role of government and created the U.S.A. under a constitution which was supposed to protect people from the government itself)

Milton Friedman used to use the Interstate Commerce Commission as an example of how the government tries to act in the best interests and protect citizens by setting up regulatory bodies but those same bodies end up becoming a direct method corporations use to lobby governments into giving them specific entitlements to markets.

In economics this is known as regulatory capture. In Canada we have several such groups, the Canadian Wheat Board is one currently in the news as the Conservatives try and end that bloated travesty.

How does one prevent regulatory capture of a market? Simple. Define property rights and then stay out of a market no matter how tempting it is. In the case of taxes, a simple flat tax is the best way to prevent loopholes and provide equality.

Update:

I few times I have hinted at ways to responsibly help out other people while not relying on either government ineptitude and/or corporate foundations that steal most of your donated money to pay for employees, computers, or glossy pamphlets. I’d like to point your attention to a non-profit organization I think appears to be doing the kind of giving a libertarian can only dream of.

Kiva.org is a website at which you can set up private loans to other people in third world countries who are trying to better their lives by working and being entrepreneurs. All of your donated money goes directly to the borrower. You can also make a small donation to Kiva to keep them running but its not compulsory. The money gets transferred to a private bank in the borrower’s country. They then pay you back over a period of set time.

So far this looks to be on the up and up. Recently they have been covered by bloggers and media. I have tried it out and I’ll see how it goes. Let’s hope this works out.

Why is Kiva responsible giving? Because you are helping someone become self sufficient and they are paying you back. You’re also watching the borrower’s report to make sure that your investment is being used for what it was meant for. The worst kind of subsidy is one that never gets paid back.

This thread is dedicated to fellow blogger Carlo because, well he’ll understand.

Oh also to My Fellow Americans, Happy Bday.

Decima Research groups has come out with another poll:

The Canadian Press-Decima Research survey suggests that 60 per cent of Canadians believe God had either a direct or indirect role in creating mankind, shattering the myth that Canadians had long ago put their faith strictly behind the scientific explanation for creation.

(Amen)

Now economists will tell you that polls are only as good as the price you’ll pay. In other words while 91% of Canadians have been told to believe that Global Warming is the next Global Disaster and that money should be spent doing something about it, when it comes down to it not many people are actually willing to pay anything out of their pockets. Which means they don’t really believe it. Polls really just measure what people would like, not what they are willing to do or would do.

(Noah, like St. Al Goreacle saved the world)

However what I just loved from this poll is this pricey comment:

Conservatives were more likely than Liberals to say that God had no part in the process, and Alberta, regarded as the birthplace of social conservatism, had one of the lowest levels of beliefs for strict creationism at 22 per cent.

As has been well documented, this is because conservatives are more intellectual, often basing their actions on evidence rather than liberals who tend to base their actions on how much they can steal for themselves.

But as I have always said, their just isn’t much difference between Americans and Canadians, except most Canadians have an irrational hatred of Americans and most Americans think Canada is funny. Sometimes just saying “Canada” in the US makes people laugh. Likely because of what these guys started:

(Canadian Humour When it was Funny)

Unfortunately, but predictably in this nation of government institutionalized divisiveness and labelling (so much so that we have an apartheid system of separating people into reserves) another poll finds that most Canadians don’t even feel like they are Canadian. 

But seriously, in the month of June, when “Two Nations of a Common Mother” celebrate their respective birthdays, is one much richer, successful and flamboyant brother heading into bankruptcy while the other brother living a simpler life is dulling his brain on the BBQ of mediocrity?

When I heard this woman: Andrea Mandel-Campbell on CBC, none-the-less, state that “Maude Barlow is part of the problem.” I almost fell out of the shower. For the first time in a long time, someone has actually said it like it is. The Emperor has no clothes. And the stupid interviewer on CBC was speechless.

Mandel-Campbell just published her book, “Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson”. It was a good read. This should be required reading in all high schools, rather than Al Goreacle’s movie. Her thesis, after interviewing multiple Canadian business leaders and politicians, is that Canada is mediocre because of Subsidies to business, Protectionism of our industries, and a failure to enter the Multinational stage. It has bred a generation of mediocre businessmen who cannot compete in the world market. And a government (namely Chretien’s) that made us with out “Team Canada” expeditions a laughing stock amongst players in the world market.

This is not a remarkable. Back in the old days the Reform Party used to often mention to the reception of glazed stares and dull interviewers, the fact that Canada has a productivity problem. Scott Brison, a Liberal who often seems out of place since he really isn’t a Liberal, mentioned this in his speech or debate (I cannot remember, the whole 48 hours was a blur to me at most times) at the past Liberal convention and was also met with dull stares. Stephen Harper has said it multiple times in his past but no longer says it now because he’d be labelled as hating Canada again.

The Conference Board of Canada, using OECD data, rates Canada as mediocre with extremely poor ratings in the areas of innovation. Report Card is here. (Now I have some issues with the Report Card, especially on the use of certain markers such as infant mortality as benchmarks for health.)

The problem is serious. It is much more serious than any other of the so-called problems because this problem will actually affect our ability to pay for the things we like. Such as jobs.

But no-one cares.

Or do they? The Harper government has been secretly making several free trade deals with other countries. This is something Mandel-Campbell points out as one of Canada’s failures on the world stage and the inept nature of previous governments - so much so that businessmen from other countries are actually laughing when they hear “Canada”. But not because we export humor.

(For SDA visitors the video link is here) 

When the tragety at Virginia Tech broke out, so to did the hypocrites in their rush to politicize what is really a rare event. An event all first world countries have faced from Sweden to Italy, Canada to the USA.

Guns, they tell us, should be banned.

The problem is that there is no proof that banning guns accomplishes anything (other than possibly harming people). Studies have examined  rates of gun associated crimes between US States that allow carry and conceal vs. States that have strict gun control and find, on average, no difference. There are some criminologists who demonstrate that indeed the carry and conceal States have lower violent crime rates due presumeably to the deterrent of an armed woman while other criminologists argue that the evidence concludes otherwise. In the end my examination of the studies leaves me with the conclusion that there is no proof either way.

Liberals have lost their way on the route of classical liberalism, the philosophy that founded the USA, argueably the most inspirational nation for those great minds who in the 18th to 20th century deemed human rights the moral pursuit of humanity. The tyranny of the state has instead ambushed this moral journey and the old philosophy once mandated by the very people liberals sought to supplant still reigns. The state knows better than the individual.

(Its been a long time since politicians like these were bred.)

Recently self serving frauds like Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller have started calling for handgun bans. Outright bans that is. To possess a legal handgun in Canada is an intense process of which I will not delve into here, but one can easily find information on the procedure. In essense the process is as next to a ban as one can get. McGuinty and Miller are adept at diverting the issue from the real problem: criminality, for which they lack all vision and direction. What is worse, for a politician to say, “I have no solutions for this issue” or to construct a diversion? The media should be all over that type of behaviour - but they aren’t.

What simpler political process is there than to find a rather defenseless scapegoat and legislate a maze of bureaucratic laws for which to point to at the end of the day when you have to explain to the numb public all the work you and your politico hacks have been doing. Nothing looks better than a thick pile of laws to these guys. And it is simply too easy for the media to find numerous ivory tower think-heads to put on TV to repeat the government’s enlightened thinking.

Which brings us to today’s point, the Media and its Hypocrisy. From the days of the first printing press, which enabled commen men to cheaply  print and widely broadcast their own philosophy to a large audience, the founders of journalism have never been said to be unbiased. The opposite, in fact, was expected. Many political parties in the blossoming democracies of Britain, France and the United States long had ties with particular pamphleteers and newspapers for which they could expect favourable exhaltations.

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(The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed by another French Marriage. 1579. This pamphlet published by John Stubbs cost him his writing hand by decree of Elizabeth I. However it can be said that in the days of the all powerful monarch, the ability to sway large numbers of the public with cheap pamphlets lead to the spread of the ideals of democracy. One writing hand at a time.)

In the 20th century the new schools of journalism started to establish ethical guidelines for integrity in journalism. These involved the lofty ideals of unbiased reporting, covering all sides of an issue, facts based reporting and facts validation, refraining from personal opinion, and refraining from ambush style tactics. Remarkeably like most intelligent ideas, these caught on without requiring any silly laws from the government.

So it is with chagrin, but with no degree of suprise that I see the current mainstream media in Canada, such as CBC and CTV, attempt to “instruct” the rest of us with their “progressive” ideas - ideas garnered from the ivory tower of universities where people with degrees in ecology and biochemistry seem to know more about economic theory, and foreign relations than they do about their own subjects of study*. Sadly, it seems, the mainstream media will even stoop to lying in order to spread their ideas.  In fact they become quite savage when their progressive leftist ideas are challenged.

You see time and time again you’ll hear them on CBC and CTV moan on about how same sex marriage is nobody else’s business (I agree) and that we shouldn’t be telling others how to behave or what to do, ie: abortion. Yet the hypocrites, with one sniff of someone wanting to collect handguns or big trucks will suddenly fly into a self-righteous rage. The same kind of rage they mock when it comes from a Catholic right winger railing against abortion or cloning.

Because when it comes down to it CBC and CTV know best what’s good for the rest of us. Sadly I’ve seen the media ramp up its efforts in this direction in regards to almost any political issue. There is no integrity anymore. One of the worst transgressors is Jane Taber of CTV (#24 of the 101 people who are ruining Canada) who regularly inserts her own opinion when moderating a political panel on Question Period. Still the number of schlocks that are not experts who make it onto the newswaves such as Bono, Gore, or Suzuki (all true hypocrites, check out Suzuki’s stink here) compared to the people who may actually know what they are talking about amazes me.

Stockwell Day must have rued the moment he tried to out-media the media and instead got avalanched like a brontosaurus in a mud-slide. It appeared that the only direction Day was going was extinction, his memory simply another fossil in the evolution of Canadian politics. The media hates Day, because he represents the very opposite of what they self-righteously pat themselves on the back all day for. He is against abortion and cloning, he believes in creation, he calls terrorists: “terrorists” instead of “militants”, and Stock thinks the Firearms Registry is a waste of money. Incredibly Day has turned out to be a very competent minister.

(Hey is that thing burning those mythical fossils? Look at the Greenhouse Gasses this guy wastes.)

So when asked once again by McGuinty and Miller to “ban handguns”, Day correctly points out that the increased control of firearms in Britain has not lead to a decrease in criminality and gun crime. In fact other than one sole year, gun crime has increased. Day is pounded in the media for this statement. The Toronto Star states, “Day’s statements, however, don’t appear to match with the facts.” Unfortunately for the Star, Day’s facts garnered from the UK Home Office are correct and it appears that the Toronto Star just decided to not read the full report. Instead they prefer to insert their own bias into the story, and an evident bias it truly is. Day proves that even though he is a Jesus loving Texas North freak, he still can read his letters better than any Toronto Yankee.

However nothing is worse than this pathetic media harrassment of a young Asian man in Virginia called Wayne Chiang who happens to have some resemblence to the psychopath that did the Virginia Tech massacre. The only resemblence I can find is that the two men were both “Asian”** and they both have guns. Basically this guy gets harrassed and stalked by a bunch of internet warriors because they mistake him for the Virginia shooter. Geraldo picks up the story and ambushes him on air. Soon like the second class stepchild that they are, CTV runs the story and Paula Todd makes a complete fool of herself on air by mocking Mr. Chiang. 

In particular, CTV makes a mistake and accidently broadcasts the off-air discussion between Todd and her crew where she calls Mr. Chiang a “freak”. Her moral superiority just stinks, but it affirms what I originally thought when I saw the interview for the first time: she was mocking Mr. Chiang on air and attempting to make him look stupid and even dangerous. In particular two questions she asks sum up the mentality of the ivory tower today.

“What is your most {…} efficient weapon?” She asks. What does she mean here I wondered? The most efficient for killing people or perhaps she’s wondering which one produces the least Greenhouse Gas output.

and

“Do you know as many people in your age group with as many weapons as you have?” She wonders. Mr. Chiang does know many, probably because he is a member of a gun club and a collector.

Paula Todd simply appears to want Mr. Chiang to apologize for owning guns. It appears the intelligent young man even picks up on her subtleties in the interview. Overall Mr. Chiang presents himself in the interview as an articulate, intelligent, and law-abiding human being. He is no more a freak than anyone else with a hobby. Are his interests worth less than mine or yours? I wonder.

Todd presents herself as an arrogant elitist. In fact when she gets off-air with Breslin her fawning college-girl behaviour is absurd. She perfectly fits the stereotype of the ignorant anchorperson. Something which should be beneath her considering her education. She should be interested in facts.

Mr. Chiang’s story is best described by himself on his own blog, here.

The worst part of this whole debacle is when CTV airs a slideshow of the Virginia Tech shooter which includes pictures of Mr. Chiang amongst those of the murderer. Talk about a smear.

Now watch the three videos (you’ll have to download them because of bandwidth issues):

The Interview where Mr. Chiang gets ambushed

The off air discussion where Paula Todd calls Mr. Chiang a freak

The Slideshow

(Please note the off-air discussion has been banned from YouTube by CTV. I found a link to the file.)

So what other confabulations have the mainstream media been responsible for? What agenda are they pushing? The regretable part of this story is that most people come home from work tired and dump themselves in front of the TV and ask no questions as they absorb the slop from the dirty trough.

And perhaps it will be the internet that saves us from tyranny much like the pamphleteers of old with their cheap media were able to usurp Kings, sway public policy, and teach others to question the implied truth and seek the undeniable facts.

(Is this Grail the Truth or a Legend?)

* If I had a dollar for every time I heard a flower child studing the mating habits of Polar Bears tell me the intricate details behind labour theory and cost accounting and the effects of globalization on market share I’d be a rich man and wouldn’t need to join the Canadian union of old economists who became doctors.

**Whatever Asian really is, is a mystery to me because they’re all as different as a Pole is from a Scot when it comes down to it but still the equalization bean counters like to put them in that slot if they come from somewhere east of Russia and West of the USA.