Smaller is better.

Surveys usually don't represent a lot.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 by StFerdIII
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Most surveys are biased and not of much use.  The ‘best’ cities, the ‘best’ countries, the ‘coolest’ enclaves….Canada is now and quite improbably ranked #1 amongst richer states in which to do business.  It is still a high-tax, highly regulated political economy of course.  In Canada however, unlike in Europe and America there is at the Federal level a very slow trend towards tax reform and in some cases reduction, some but not much in the way of spending restraint on certain parts of the welfare-state; and less governmental intrusion in the political economy, leaving a state which is still confiscatory and coercive but whose growth has somewhat slowed.   Canada is a statist – socialist construct and one in which total Federal and local debt is 800% of GDP…. Welfare, pension, social programs and Green Tech scams still abound and grow.  45 % of the economy is directly controlled and owned by government.  There is no military to speak off and the big-brained leftists and marxists represent at least half of the voting electorate – and usually the shrillest and most deranged.

The list is notable for 2 factors:  1.  The smaller the country the better off it is.  And 2.  The demonic statist-socialist destruction of Europe and the USA make Canada and other more sane states look very good by comparsion.  Caveats should abound.  Do you really believe that Ireland is a great investment opportunity right now?  Or that Denmark is better than say Chile ?  I don't.  It depends on an innumerable list of factors and preferences,including inter-alia market access, labor quality, capital availability, regulatory burdens and political stability.  Lists like rules are made to be ignored.  

Forbes

Retire the debt by reducing government

Reallocate misspent money to retire the official debt obligation.

Friday, June 3, 2011 by StFerdIII
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 A small country like Canada comprised of 35 million people needs 420.000 Federal Swivelling Servants? One caring, compassionate, Mother-Earth aware bureaucrat for approximately 80 people ? 80:1 is the right number is it? Why not 40:1? Or 10:1 ? Or maybe 1:1 ? 

Federal government employment growth in Ottawa soared during the first five years of Conservative minority rule, rising about 13% to 420,000. The cost of maintaining that rising pool of civil servants jumped $9-billion, or 40%, to more than $30-billion. 

So much for small government. The total number of well-pensioned, well-paid bureaucrats at the Fed level has doubled in the past 20 years. Has the economy doubled? No [50% increase]. Has the population doubled? No [that took 35 years]. Has the crime rate doubled in the past 20 years ? No [crime has actually gone up 400%]. Are individuals 200 % less capable than 20 years ago ? [many would argue yes].  

So when will these 'Conservatives' reduce government, reduce spending on non-military programs and socialization and reduce the burdens of the state both direct [income taxes] and indirect [fees, regulations, eco nonsense]? Probably never. On the plus side they have reduced corporate taxes to 15% [they should be zero] and the inane National Sales Tax, another 'temporary' tax installed by Mulroney and his statist government, which has magically become quite permanent. But the trend towards ever bigger government is all too clear – regardless of what ideology is in power.

The Federal Budget has $236 Billion in total revenue or over 20% of total GDP [itself a bad measurement of the economy]. Expenditures are $276 billion leaving a $50 billion deficit. Total debt just at the Federal level is $564 Billion, or $16.000 per person and going up. Debt alone consumes 13 % of the total budget [down from 38% in 1990]. Total debt in Canada is well over $1 Trillion or the size of the entire economy when provincial and quasi government owned agencies are added in. It is a fiscal quagmire. As with a corporation or a family, the surest path to financial trouble, is not paying your debts. The debt needs to be retired completely. This would result in a huge boom in investment and job creation. It would also allow the government to reduce income tax levels dramatically. Cut other program spending and redirect that money to debt retirement:

A good starting point for Mr. Clement would be to take a look at how then-finance minister Paul Martin tackled spending cuts in his 1995 budget. Niels Veldhuis at the Fraser Institute reports today in the Financial Post that the Martin Liberal budget aimed for more than $9-billion in cuts, or about 19% of departmental spending at the time. The Liberals never quite got that far, but Mr. Veldhuis figures they hit 12%, well above the fiddles planned by the Tories.

Reducing Federal spending by 20% should the the priority. Even a 10 % reduction in Fed spending means about $27 billion in savings, which can be directly applied to the debt. In less than 20 years the debt would be repaid and Canada would be a haven for the attraction of capital, job formation and better able to cope with the huge problem of off-the-balance entitlements which constitute literally Trillions of dollars in socialized promises but are unfunded. By reducing the debt to zero, you would be able to lower income taxes, attract capital, stimulate job creation and buy time to address the coming crisis about socialized entitlement spending which will be a far greater crisis than this past recession.  

Every family should have a 'forced' savings or loan repayment program, in which a certain amount of monthly income is set aside for either paying off your debts, or if they are paid of, going to increase your savings. The Federal government is paying off the debt but only by a fraction of what can be done, if the Feds actually became serious about cutting wasteful spending and retiring the debt completely.

A pivotal election

And a bright future.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 by StFerdIII
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CON   167 seats 40% of the vote

NDP    102           31%

LIB       34          19%

BQ          4           6%

GRN        1          4%

Give Harper and his Conservative Party credit. Again they defied the media, the chattering left and even a good body of 'conservative' opinion, much of it blogosphere-based, to cruise to a majority victory and signal to the world that Canada is not quite as left-wing as one assumes. It is a good day for Canada. 20 years ago the Conservative party had 2 seats. Now it has 167 and a clear majority. Harper who is always underestimated, usually surprises. I would not bet against his next term, and one should not discount the real possibility of changes to socialized health care, the tax system, old age and welfare guarantees, and perhaps even a resuscitation of the military. The only monster in the bedroom is Smiling Jack Layton, a Communist, who believes that Leninism was a great idea, but failed due to bad luck and circumstance.

But Mr. Harper has proved his doubters wrong again. The direction of the country is still in the hands of a man who, for all his faults, knows how to navigate – knows when to use the oars, when to sail and when to catch the tide. This takes years of skill and study and Mr. Harper has now earned the right to govern in far less turbulent parliamentary waters than his five years of minority government.

It is a victory for the party that Mr. Harper has built. The Tory strategy of targeting “ethnic” ridings has been vindicated, with a number of constituencies in the arc around Toronto turning blue. The Tories even took a handful of seats inside the city itself, including seats held by Liberal stalwartds like Joe Volpe and Ken Dryden. The only black spot was the defeat of five MPs in Quebec, including ministers Lawrence Cannon, Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Josee Verner.

But for all Mr. Harper’s success, this was Jack Layton’s election — one that has broken the mould of Canadian politics by taking down the Liberals and the Bloc. The NDP scored a record seat count — 60 from Quebec alone — and Mr. Layton is now heading for Stornoway, as leader of the Official Opposition.

The success of the NDP also confirmed that people think in herds and apparently go mad in herds.

The NDP success in statist Quebec whilst surprising will not be permanent. Socialized Quebec is open to bribery at the national level but as more people get to know Smiling Jack, the less impressed they will, especially when his destructive policies are revealed to be as vacant as they are corrupt.  It is heartening to see the Liberal party so roundly routed.