Carbon Taxes = Tax Grab

So, both the BC Liberals and the Federal Liberals are screaming under the load of selling the carbon tax to Canadians.

Apparently, 73% of British Columbians believe it’s a bad idea.  Those are big numbers.

I was talking with my carpoolie the other day (we manage to solve the world’s problems each and every day in the 35 minutes between work and her place) and in our discussion I found myself summarizing what the real problem is.

The problem is the BC carbon tax is right now 2.4 cents a liter on gas (with other amounts on natural gas etc.)  With a pump price of $1.29 that’s about 2% of the purchase price.

Historically speaking, five years ago gas prices were about 75 cents per liter.  Through market forces alone we have seen a 100% increase in price in the last 5 years.  And how much has the consumption dropped?  I think I am overstating it, but it’s about 5%, depending on what you use to measure.  Some would argue that it hasn’t dropped at all.

So, let’s compare then.  If a 100% increase in pump price = 5% decrease in usage, what will a 2% increase in pump price do?

And that’s why carbon taxes are nothing but a tax grab.

Harper’s tax credits are superfluous micro-management

I am having trouble stomaching these tax credits offered by the Conservative government. First, the recreation tax and now an arts tax? Come on! Stop playing favorites in the economy and stop creating bureaucracy. Here are some of the problems with this sort of bait:

• only “approved” programs will be credited — that means more bureaucratic oversight
• they only benefit people who can afford the programs

This type of micro-management is absurd and belongs to confused socialists. Please just reduce taxes and reduce spending, thank you very much.

Surrey BC Riding Update: Surrey North

The fur is flying over Dona Cadman’s apparent inaccessibility, though it seems to me it is in the eye of the beholder.

While it is true I haven’t seen a lot of public appearance announcements, by the same token I haven’t seen a lot of any other candidate either.  The Toronto Star took a boo at this riding today:

Dona Cadman has kept a low profile in her campaign to become the Conservative MP for Surrey North. The address for her campaign office was not advertised on her website until yesterday, requests for interviews from many national media outlets have been declined and even local media have noted that her campaign office hasn’t been releasing her event schedule.

Interestingly, her campaign office has been prominent in the riding since the opening day of the campaign, with campaign signs all over its prominent location on a main thoroughfare in the heart of Whalley near the corner of King George Highway and 104th.  Trust me - everyone in the riding knows where it is.

They managed to find someone who doesn’t like her, without an opposing interview which is too bad.  All I know is this: with all the media stink about the supposed bribe, I think it speaks volumes about what really happened that she is running for the Conservatives now, and that her friend, former NDP MP Penny Priddy decided not to run against her.

Chuck had always viewed being an MP as a responsibility, to accomplish a specific aim.  How is it that his widow, who never to my knowledge grandstanded or made an investment life as a public figure, now suddenly can be framed as some kind of subtle publicity-hound, carefully avoiding media scrutiny so that she can ride the coat-tails of her dead husband to glory as an MP?  Only the Toronto Star can pull that kind of leap of logic off.

But as for Rivet, the interviewee for the Star’s piece, good luck with finding more support for justice reform from the NDP or the Liberals.

Landlords Own Things

This has to be the single biggest insult to my intelligence this election season. That’s right, it has surpassed Captain Planet’s claim that The Green Shaft was revenue neutral! It’s gone miles ahead of when Harper ignored the fixed election law and hoped we’d all forget about it. As for May’s whining about deserving a spot in the debates? This blows it out of the water.

Gordon Pinset’s statement that artists “should be the landlords of our own industry, not the tenants” is insulting to me in all sorts of levels. First there is the obvious fact that he is angling for more control of government funding to his industry. Why should artists be given the choice of how much artists get from the government? And what makes him think that tax payers should have to prop up entertainment at all?

Secondly is the whole matter of being a landlord. He says that they should get more control of how much they’re given. Last time I checked, landlords own things. They pay their own way, and don’t whine for freebies.

Finally, he claimed that the country actually earns a nice return on all this money being thrown at the arts. From the Globe Article:

The performers — including Colm Feore and Wendy Crewson — noted that the arts provide 1.1 million jobs within cultural industries and contribute $86-billion to the GDP.

Anyone with a cursory understanding of economics knows that this is laughable. When interest groups claim that government funding is actually a good investment on behalf of the taxpayers, there are certain facts they like to leave out. Like that any return is negligible when compared to what could be done investing the money in other areas. Or that their numbers are almost always incorrect. Or that they like to have a fairly broad view of what constitutes “the arts” when looking at jobs and GDP.

So if they wish to claim that the taxpayers are getting enough cultural or intellectual benefits to justify this funding, then fine. But to claim that it makes good financial sense is insulting to my intelligence, and yours.

Insite: The Genocide

So, let’s just get this straight:  according to received leftist wisdom, the hundreds of thousands raped, displaced and murdered in Darfur is not a genocide.

But suggesting we shut down the Insite program, which simply slows the speed at which heroin junkies kill themselves, is a genocide.

That makes perfect sense.

h/t

Election Predictors

As Harper’s Tories flirt with majority territory (and Captain Planet’s Grits flirt with third party status, not to mention SAVING THE WORLD), it’s sometimes hard to tell where the seat count is standing.

Here you can type in percentages of the popular vote for each party and see a rather close projection of seats, or swing a percentage of one party’s vote to another.

If you’re looking for raw data, the Globe and Mail shows the latest numbers from Nanos, Ipsos, Ekos, Angus Reid and Harris/Decima, as well as an average of all five.

Play happy.

Where are all the NDP Candidates?

I was just commenting to my co-worker, that the way some polls are shaping up, the NDP could have a significant breakthrough in terms of seats this election.

However, at the rate NDP candidates are resigning in BC, they may have none left on the ballot to benefit from the popular support.

West is the third NDP candidate in B.C. to step down amid controversy, including two who resigned over their actions in support of legalizing marijuana.

US bailout produces confusion

Here is an interesting article: Oil Prices Explode that links the recent bank bailouts to the commodities markets. Basically, the bailout leads to uncertainty in the dollar and inflation. As a result, investors move into commodities as a currency hedge — they are not being fooled. They know that printing money just leads to inflation and currency devaluation.

According to the CFTC, protecting yourself against a volatile market is manipulative and illegal. I guess bailing out banks and the Fed printing money — the cause of this mess — must be fine and dandy. How easy it is to blame the investors! Way to hide the problem!

Here is a frightening quote:

Analysts are debating where oil prices are headed from here. “With this new rush into commodities, the bailout has overridden the fact that demand is down,” says Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover, an energy risk-management firm in New Canaan, Conn. “I don’t know where we’ll end up by the end of the week—$150 or under $100, I haven’t got a clue.”

The Hackers of the Left: Out of Hand?

First Sarah Palin’s email is hacked.  I’ll bet those hackers were horribly disappointed they didn’t find any dirty laundry they could air in that invasion of privacy.  Of course, instead of focusing on how low some people have sunk to find dirt on perhaps the most significant challenge Obama’s campaign has faced, the topics of choice are “Should Governors be using yahoo emails?” and “What was she trying to hide by not using her ‘official email’?”

Now some more hackers have spoofed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s governmental email to send out false and slanderous emails.

The media insists calling these incidents the work of “pranksters”, but is anyone noticing a pattern here?

When is the left going to come out and acknowledge they have supporters who are out of hand and are causing discredit to their brand of politics?

Jack Layton offers subsidies to meat eaters and industry

I wonder what vegetarians and healthy eating people think of Jack Layton’s bright idea:

An NDP government would ensure there are inspectors on the floor of every meat processing plant in the country and insist that imported processed meats are subjected to the same standards as domestic meats, Mr. Layton said while standing in front of Parliament.

Why should meat eaters and the meat industry get such special subsidies? That sounds unfair to me. It just sounds like a simple-minded way to make people think he cares.

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