Pop Quiz: How to Earn More Money

If you want to earn higher income, what should you do?

A. Work, labour and toil for longer hours.
B. Go to law, business, or medical school.
C. Get a second job.
D. Speak two languages.

Answer: here.

On the Census, School Choice and Social Engineers

I’m sure everyone has been, by now, fully inundated with the census debate.  The idea of a voluntary long form is pretty dumb… almost as dumb as citizens being threatened with fines or imprisonment for not bending to the whims of politicians and bureacrats.  Anyway, I want to address the issue of the census as a means for social engineers to control our lives, and, thus, that doing away with the census fights back against this grave menace.

Look, the argument is bunk.  How many people actually think that these “social engineers” will stop if they have no census data?  Do we really think that the politicians, activists and bureaucrats who are trying to run our lives will just give up their mission if they don’t have acurate statistics?  If North America’s social engineers were that concerned with data, every jurisdiction would have some form of school choice by now, and we’d be rid of the tyranny of teachers unions.

So sure, let’s ditch the long form census; it’s offensively intrusive, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that this will actually strike a blow againts interventionist goverment.

(P.S. I’m not suggesting that only left wing politicians are guilty of ignoring data; politicians of every stripe ignore, use and abuse data as it suits them.  A pox on all their houses.)

No free lunch yet for Federal engineers

Engineers working for the federal government want more freebies but the government is holding strong against a Federal Court ruling that insists the tax-payer gets shafted. We would not want these poor engineers to do without:

The union urges engineers to pay their fees — even though the federal government doesn’t require them to be registered — or they will be unable to work as engineers if they leave the public service.

now, would we?

Michael Den Tandt, clueless about globalization

In his editorial today, Michael Den Tandt demonstrates his ignorance of his fellow man as it relates to basic economics by printing this mindless tripe:

Anyone who bothers to crack an economics text will know that globalization and free trade have lifted more human beings out of poverty than any other idea in history.

The reason is that trade creates wealth and jobs. Jobs allow people to feed their families and buy extras, produced by other people, which in turn employs those people. And on it goes.

I invite him to read my blog post: Everything we ignore about Free Trade which explains the falsehood of his economic faith. However, since he has demonstrated publicly his ignorance in economic principles, I will now summarize his ignorant mistake: He does not know whether the people in third world countries are freely choosing to participate in trade.

Michael Den Tandt should be blogging instead of wasting printed paper.

Maxime Bernier: The Conservative Party’s Last Hope?

No, I’m not asking if he’s the only one who can save the Conservative Party; I’m asking if he has the potential to end all hope for the party.

The scuttlebutt is that Mr. Bernier is angling to take a run at the Conservative leadership.   Recently, he has made some high profile speeches laying out potential economic policies.  He spoke about freezing public spending, and then eliminating corporate taxes.  So far, so good.

Then, writing in National Post on Tuesday, Maxime Bernier admitted that he has gold fever:

I believe that within a few years, we will need to hold a serious debate about returning to the gold standard.

His article is titled, ‘Inflation should be 0%’.  It’s a mish-mash of folksie (non-)wisdom and economic illiteracy.  He begins by arguing for 0% inflation, moves to supporting deflation, and backs it all up by noting that computers have dropped in price but people still by them.

Seriously:

In fact, there is nothing mysterious about the effects of lower prices. Think about computers. Fifteen years ago, they were big, not very powerful, had few gadgets, and cost a lot more than today. Prices in the computer business have been going down all the time since then.

Have people stopped buying computers or waited years before buying a new one to benefit from even lower prices? Absolutely not. On the contrary, more computers are being sold as their prices go down.

I really don’t know where to begin.  He makes no actual arguments in favour of deflation, he just makes a lot of assertions claiming that we’ll all be able to more stuff with the same amount of money.  There’s no indication as to how an expanding economy would function with a static money supply.  There’s also no reasoning to support the notion that gold has some eternal quality that makes it the perfect support for currency.

I just can’t imagine this person leading a major national party.  Under his lead, the future of the CPC would be less secure than classified documents left at an ex-girlfriend’s house.

I have some more thoughts on his antiquated stance here.

Harper vs. Ignatieff

Stephen Harper often speaks glowingly about the Canadian economy. And with reason, because Canada has weathered the storm that has rattled the economic foundations of many countries over the past 18-24 months.

But Michael Ignatieff argues that Harper does not give enough credit to his Liberal predecessors, both Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien:

Meanwhile, when Stephen Harper goes around the world boasting about Canada’s economy – what he’s really boasting about is the Liberal record.

So, is Ignatieff right?

It appears so, according to The Economist:

Much of the country’s resilience stems from policies—such as bank regulation and sound public finances—which predate Mr Harper.

Surprise! Surprise! The NDP will raise taxes!

How’s that NDP majority working for you now, Nova Scotia?

The results from Finance Minister Graham Steele’s cross-province consultation on the province’s finances are in, and they indicate a sales tax increase is coming in next week’s budget.

Related: Government fiscal myopia (Tax! Tax! Tax!) cuts across party lines, it seems. The Quebec Liberals.

Update April 1: Éric Duhaime expounds on the tax and spend addiction of the Quebec Liberals. Increasing government spending by 3% “year after year after year.” Nice.

Stephen Harper aka John Maynard Keynes

CBC:

… the Fraser Institute, which champions free-market economic solutions, concluded government spending and infrastructure investment accounted for just 0.2 percentage points of the 1.1 per cent growth between the second and third quarters of 2009. [...]

“First of all, that’s completely wrong and quite frankly contradicted by very serious work that’s been done [elsewhere]” Harper told reporters. “Economic theory and history is clear, governments must … make sure [funds] are put to productive use in the economy to create jobs.”

And with that, Mr. Harper demonstrates he is a pro-Keynesian quasi-capitalist who really does not believe economic freedom alone can pull nations out of challenging economic times. Actions and now words have shown that when the pressure is on the CPC believes government must intervene by essentially reversing the generational taxpayer truck to the government trough and opening the valve.

The gig is up. A free market, small-government, fiscal conservative Mr. Harper is not.

Could Amazon be the first of many bringing jobs to Canada?

Amazon.com is looking to open a new Distribution Centre here in Canada, if Canadian Heritage allows for it.

Canadian Heritage has 45 days to complete the review launched Jan. 27, but it could be extended by another 30 days if needed.

Walid Hejazi, a professor of international business at the University of Toronto, said he believes the government is close to allowing Amazon in to Canada, a move that would be consistent with the government’s recent steps to open Canada to more foreign investment.

And doing so would provide better prices and more jobs to Canadians.

Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice-president of global public policy who has been meeting with government officials, says a Canadian distribution centre would provide a benefit to the country.

“We are pleased to be continuing to communicate with policy-makers about the benefits that we have brought to Canadian culture both within Canada and globally,” he said Wednesday.

With the Canadian government opening up the telecom and satellite industry to foreign ownership allowances, Amazon could potentially be leading the way (hopefully) for foreign corporations coming into Canada and being able to take advantage of the benefits of doing business in Canada.

But, in many ways, Canada has been a closed market to so many different competitors because of those very foreign ownership laws and how they slam up against our cultural preservation limitations.

However, if it happens, and more follow, those industry “giants” as some call them, will only add to jobs in Canada which leads to a larger tax base, both corporately and in individual spending.

And Jack Layton wants to prevent tax benefits for “big business”. Michael Ignatieff doesn’t think the current Budget will create new jobs for Canadians.

“We will vote against it, but in a way that does not provoke an election,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters, speaking in French. “I don’t see a path in this budget that gets Canadians back to work. This is the key thing.”

Mr. Layton and Mr. Ignatieff, this is how this Budget could, and I stress could get Canadians back to work and raise our GDP to levels that can accomplish what the Budget proposes.

Instead of poo-pooing the Budget just because you hate the Conservatives, try finding ways to make it work, or make it work better.

Support the Government and encourage these initiatives that are bringing investors and jobs to Canada!

Retiring Boomers should pave the way to 0% unemployment. Right?

So, TD Bank is saying that retiring baby boomers will disrupt the economy.

My first thought? Duh!

This was followed shortly by the thought that the massive vacuum in the employment sector should, in theory, mean the end of unemployment. Right? Yeah, I’m not so sure about it either. However, it will be an interesting test on those who claim they can’t find work. I believe that it will come down to one of two things. 1) Those who aren’t working don’t actually want to work, and 2) Those who aren’t employed don’t have any desirable skills needed to maintain employment.

An inflammatory statement? Perhaps. But perhaps the truth hurts sometimes.

Still, I’m tired of hearing how dismal the future will be with the advent of the Baby Boomer Retirement Saga. Presumably, companies will have the same amount of demand (if not more) for their services or products. The problem they will be facing is that they may not have enough people to provide it.

This leads to the question of what to do about it. One alternative is that the entire job market is going to have to change in shape. Companies are going to be demanding more of their employees, and so they’re going to have to be willing to pay salaries at a rate comparable to the demand placed on the employee. Also, in an employee’s market, they have the power. Companies will have to offer sufficient incentive to hold onto employees who may be being tempted by other companies looking to fill their own vacancies. This may also open the door to employer-provided day care to encourage mothers (fathers too) to return to the workforce. Day Care business boom is in there too, or Nannies for that matter.

Now, I’m not suggesting that this will fill the gap. We’ve known for decades that the current Pension system is broken and that there was a coming storm. Still, higher wages and salaries mean more taxes being collected from jobs that before had paid less, and the potential for savings in the EI system also mean savings Federally.

Just some things to consider.

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