Cameras in courtroom for Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien criminal trial

The CBC wants to bring cameras into the courtroom during Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien’s criminal trial. I think that would be probably one of the best things the CBC will have done in its entire history. They try to offer a bunch of reasons: alleged ties to the Conservative Party; a federal minister, John Baird will be testifying, etc. Some folks insist that it is a political assassination. Frankly, I do not care.

In my opinion, cameras in all courtrooms would offer a bit of insight on how our public defenders and the courts earn their money. My suspicion is that the public would think a lot of time is wasted blowing hot air.

Foreign fishermen continue looting Somali coast

While Westerners seek to combat Somali pirates, “some regional leaders say the foreign navies are protecting foreign fishing boats and allowing them to continue scooping up the fish-stocks that once provided Somalis with their livelihoods.“

1934 Chicago Tribune Political Cartoon – How Things Stay the Same

[Via The Big Picture]

Ron Paul on the Swine Flu “Crisis”

I’ve been monitoring the swine flu since the first few reports trickled out of Mexico and while I don’t nessesarly agree that flu shots are more harmful than good (which Ron Paul alludes to in the video below), I think Congressmen Paul makes a good point about the role of “big government” in protecting our lives.

[Via Danielle Bean]

Obama’s New Regulatory (Censorship) Czar: Cass Sunstein

Adam Thierer outlines in great detail the problems with Obama and his choice for the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein. Make sure to read it all, but note Sunstein’s recent comments about the Internet and it’s wide range of choices:

“A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government. Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.”

[Via: Five Feet of Fury]

Greg Mankiw defends inflating the money supply

If you thought that central banking could get ridiculous, just wait. Greg Mankiw who was the chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, wrote the following piece of nonsense in the New York Times:

Imagine that the Fed were to announce that, a year from today, it would pick a digit from zero to 9 out of a hat. All currency with a serial number ending in that digit would no longer be legal tender. Suddenly, the expected return to holding currency would become negative 10 percent.

That move would free the Fed to cut interest rates below zero. People would be delighted to lend money at negative 3 percent, since losing 3 percent is better than losing 10.

This is effectively proposing that the Fed steals your money. Great policy proposal. Sounds like a bad joke to me.

Sadly, the bad jokes continue:

If all of this seems too outlandish, there is a more prosaic way of obtaining negative interest rates: through inflation. Suppose that, looking ahead, the Fed commits itself to producing significant inflation. In this case, while nominal interest rates could remain at zero, real interest rates — interest rates measured in purchasing power — could become negative. If people were confident that they could repay their zero-interest loans in devalued dollars, they would have significant incentive to borrow and spend.

Gee! That sounds like the best way of stimulating the most productive sectors of the economy!

Utterly pathetic.

I have a feeling that Greg Mankiw also has a secret formula for turning lead into gold that he is hiding from the rest of the world.

Hat tip to Michael Shedlock.

Bailing Out Poorly Run Companies is Pouring Money Down the Drain

Disturbing fact of the day from the latest issue of Claremont Review of Books:

The bailouts did not create the financial meltdown, but it is a good bet that they have contributed to the depths of our current problems and the stock market sell-off. We have robbed healthy companies of funds to pour money down the rat hole of failing industries like General Motors. For the cost of all federal bailouts, we could have suspended the corporate income tax for a year, which would have been a powerful stimulant to growth.[Emphasis mine]

President Obama Should Leave the Teleprompter at Home

Over 100 days in office and that damn teleprompter keeps getting in the way. Seriously, how many more painful videos do we have to watch of the President looking like a jackass before he figures out prepared notes are a better solution?

“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

Ignatieff’s book, True Patriot Love – Revisionist Tripe

Yesterday, the National Post published an excerpt from Michael Ignatieff’s new book, True Patriot Love. In the excerpt Ignatieff spends a great deal of time waxing eloquently about the uniqueness of Canadian character compared to the brutish Americans to our south. However, Ignatieff’s eagerness to sound prime ministerial and stately falls flat when he insults his readers:

To imagine it as a citizen is to imagine it as a resident of Yellow Quill reservation in Saskatchewan would have had to imagine it, this Canada where two half-naked children died in a snow-covered field in the sub-Arctic darkness because their father tried to take the sick little girls to his parents and never made it, and all you can hope is that death was as mercilessly quick as the cold can make it. What does a resident of Yellow Quill imagine, what do we Canadians imagine our country to be, the morning we learn that children have perished in this way? It is surely more than just a tragic story of one family. It is a story about us.

No Micheal, the story of Christopher Pauchay – the man who murdered his daughters by getting drunk and then dragging them out into -50 degree weather with only diapers and t-shirts to protect them from the bitter cold – isn’t a story about us. It’s a story about abuse, neglect and a disgusting disregard for basic human life.

The only thing more insulting than claiming “it is a story about us” is Ignatieff’s willingness to warp this tragic story to further his personal political ambitions.

If this excerpt is any indication of the overall quality of the book, I wouldn’t waste my time or money.

The central bank only has one weapon: printing money

Following some more nonsense (0.25% lending rate?) from the Bank of Canada, somebody at The Globe And Mail presents this as new weapons. New weapons? The central bank only has one weapon: the money supply.

The Bank of Canada noted that “comprehensive programs” are now in place that should bring life back to credit markets, although “the challenge now is to ensure their rapid and effective implementation.”

Here we go again: “Canadians need credit! Canadians need credit!” is the government mantra.

I do not believe Canadians need credit. I believe Canadians need money. There is a huge difference between the two. Canadians work and earn their own money. After earning it, Canadians need to be able to keep it. The problem is that the government consistently takes some of their money away. So, as far as I am concerned, this monetary policy is nothing more than a direct subsidy to the lenders above anything else. I find the “Canadians need credit!” mantra to be the height of duplicity coming from a government who systematically takes money from Canadians.

The banks can lend people money at lower and lower and ever lower interest rates all they want. Unfortunately, more credit will never guarantee that these loans will magically create ongoing productivity. Cheap credit will subsidize malinvestment as much as it will subsidize ongoing investment. I think that the predicament we face right now is that the balance between the two has tipped towards malinvestment and too much uncertainty.

More cheap loans will only redistribute purchasing power from the poor (i.e., people who do not qualify for cheap loans or who have to use pay-day advance services, etc.) to people who should otherwise save their money before spending money they do not have.

Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Carney, stop prolonging this recession and let markets adjust to the modern economy — that includes the money markets. If Canadians really need credit as you guys keep saying, let Canadians keep more of their own money and lend it to themselves. That means you guys should be promoting public expenditure and tax cuts. Stop printing money, too.

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