The Luxury of Thoughtfulness

Canada is a land of many luxuries. All too often we don’t stop to think about that in a world driven by intense globalization and competition and a 24 hour news cycle where everything is imminent and urgent. One of the many luxuries that we tend to overlook is that of thoughtfulness.

While Canada is quite connected to the world at large, and especially to the United States through trade and alliances, we are at the same time disconnected. We are separated from any threats by two vast oceans. Unlike our neighbours to the south, we aren’t immediately looked to for a response or action when a crisis arises. This gives us a tremendous luxury not available to many other nations, and we need to take advantage of it. No crisis is going to overwhelm us in 24 hours, or even 24 days, so why not take the time to reflect, consider actions and consequences and formulate a thoughtful response. It doesn’t matter if our response comes hot on the heels of crisis or disaster. There are many problems outside our borders and no solutions will present themselves imminently. Inside Canada our institutions are reliable and no crisis other than a natural disaster should be fast moving.

Let’s use these blessings to our advantage and let our foremost export to the world be our thoughtfulness. While others rush to cobble together a response we can take the time to view the problem in a broad context. We can be merchants of well thought out ideas which consider the longer term rather that the urgency of immediate action. We have the tremendous benefits of being close enough to the United States to have a good relationship, but also the trust of the rest of the world because we are clearly independent from them. This allows us substantial leverage which could be used to influence policy and assure others. By pursuing a policy of thoughtful response to national and international issues we can punch above our weight again on the international stage and return Canada to its previous place of leadership in international institutions.

Post Election Thoughts

Well I’ve been saying since the last election that the NDP surge in Quebec was a protest vote against the three other options and that seems to have been borne out by events last night. The NDP is back to where they always have been, as are the Liberals and Conservatives. But I worry that the majority means that there is just more trouble ahead for Canada’s left. It will be nice to have four solid years of a government it’s likely I’ll mostly agree with, but I wonder what opportunities have been lost because it’s a majority.

First, there will be no merger of the parties of the left. The Liberals have no interest in that now. I also wonder if the majority situation will end the prospect of a move towards proportional representation before the next election. If it had been a minority Liberal government, or especially a minority Conservative one that was toppled by the second and third place parties, I think the prospect of a move to proportional representation would have been greater. There would have been a much stronger desire to entrench the left wing majority, and the best way to do that would have been to change the system. Now that the Liberals got a large majority with only 40% of the vote, it doesn’t really seem like it’s in their interest to switch to a system that would give them only 40% of the seats. In fact it would probably be less in reality as many people who voted Liberal this election would be more inclined to vote NDP or Green in a proportional representation situation.

If I thought that the Liberal support would be consistent in the next election, I might not be so worried. 8 years is a long time to make positive changes and see them borne out. But I think so much of the Liberal support this election came from people who rallied to them simply in order to oust Harper. That isn’t going to be a factor in the next election and 4 years of actual governing can do a lot of damage to people’s dreams. Long enough to start change, not long enough to see it through.

Occupy

I think it’s going to be interesting watching how governments handle the Occupy protesters. So far the protests have been peaceful and confined to public spaces, but what happens if these locations are then denied to the protesters? If the consequence of occupying a public space is arrest, and these spaces increasingly become unavailable, why not actually occupy the locations of the corporate entities that you are protesting? Or the streets surrounding the communities where the obscenely wealthy live?

Comparisons were made at the outset between the Occupy protestors and the Tea Party. At this point I think there are some fundamental differences. The Tea Party protesters were all rich enough that they were concerned that higher taxes or government spending would decrease their income. The Occupy protesters are out because they have no income to start with. It strikes me that they have much less to lose, and a great deal more time to devote to the cause. Sure, you can have your voice heard once every four (or two as the case may be) years at election time, but if the CEO of Goldman wants to talk to the President, he certainly doesn’t have to wait until the next election cycle. I think it’s going to be very difficult to convince the Occupy protesters to pack up and go home…wherever that might be.

Can Only a Republican President Raise Taxes?

I guess I could broaden this to “Can only a republican fix America’s economy?” Republican opposition to any kind of tax increase seems too fierce to be overcome, even with a Democratic president and Congress since it doesn’t seem possible that the Democrats will get 60 seats in the Senate to overcome Republican filibusters. Any reasonable person should accept that both tax increases and spending cuts will be necessary to put the American economy back on track…or even to avert catastrophe.

This leads me to the heart of the issue. If a Democrat talks about raising taxes, they’re a socialist bent on destroying America. If a Republican suggests it, might they be able to accomplish it because they have been against tax increases for their entire political career. And if they are suggesting it, it must be because it’s the only answer. In my mind this seems plausible because as President, a Republican would be held responsible for the economic situation, and I see no hope of reasonable recovery without something that amounts to tax increases. Doing nothing would not an option as the new incumbent would be turfed out at the end of four years owing to continuing stagnation, and closing the budget gap only through cuts to spending would seem to alienate too much of the electorate. This plan could draw in Democrats because it is one of their major policy goals, and they at least seem willing to compromise for the good of the country even if it means handing the Republicans a political victory. And while a Republican president could not count of the support of the entire contingent of Republican congressman, it might be possible for him to bring over a sufficient number who would be concerned with their electoral chances in a perpetually depressed economy to pass legislation in cooperation with Democrats.

It pains me to suggest this, but maybe electing a Republican to the presidency is the only way of avoiding another 4 years of stagnation in American politics and the broader economy.

Romney to America, 2012.

On Helping Revolution Abroad

So there are protesters outside what I imagine is the Syrian consulate in Vancouver. When I first went by, they had placards saying “Expel the Syrian Ambassador”. My questions is, what does that accomplish? I don’t think the Syrian government would really care. They aren’t having problems killing their own people, why would it bother them that Canada has expelled their ambassador? And beyond that, don’t we need the ambassador if we are to communicate with the Syrian government? I guess maybe we could just do it through our embassy in Syria if it exists.

But this leads me to another question. There is little that our government can do. As far as I know we don’t import from, or export to Syria anything of consequence. What leverage do we have, especially since we’ve spent the last decade plus hiding from any international contribution other than in Afghanistan.

I want to tell these people that if they really want to make a difference take all their worldly belongings and go to Syria. Help out as best you can. If you think that providing food and water with the wealth you accumulated in Canada is the way to help, DO IT! If you think picking up a rifle and manning a checkpoint is the contribution you can make, DO IT! If someone with a Canadian passport gets killed by Syrian security forces as they are doing something suitable non violent, that’s as sure a way as any to get the government involved. If that doesn’t work, I don’t see any hope.

There is very little that the outside world can do to topple rotten regimes short of military intervention, so if you truly believe in your cause, get over there and contribute your boots on the ground. Anything short of that is a waste of time.

The Two Greatest Words in the English Language: De-Fault

First off, I think it’s pretty disingenuous for congress to have passed a budget, then turn around and refuse to allow the government to borrow the money in order to pay for it. There shouldn’t have to be two rounds of budget negotiations.

My second thought, is why does Obama have to worry? Either the government shuts down and no one notices because they don’t care about anything the government does other than its “essential” services which will continue, or they will be upset at the shut down of things that would be required to close anyway under the Republican’s “all cuts, no tax increases” plan.

But now I’m trying to put an optimistic spin on the most catastrophic situation. How bad could a default really be? Clearly Americans will stop paying foreigners first, so no real loss there. Even if credit dries up in America is that a real loss? Wasn’t a massive part of the current…or I suppose previous crisis that there was TOO MUCH credit, and not enough real value being generated? Now firms are sitting on huge plies of cash that they are unwilling to spend. Sure interest rates might spike, but that should encourage SENSIBLE allocation of SCARCE capital instead of the fire hose approach we seem to have been witnessing over the last decade. If the crisis can lead to a more productive investment of the resources that are available, bring it on!

On the social side of things a lack of investment will certainly hurt employment. Likely both in terms of overall employment levels, and on the wages that are paid to those people who are actually working. This will likely force some rethinking of our social priorities. If the government has to choose between financing nutrition for people below the poverty line, and F-35’s it seems obvious to me which choice they will make. Even if incomes were to decline, would that be such a bad thing? It seems to me that too much of what people spend money on doesn’t bring any long lasting happiness. If people have to get out to the park, or spend time socializing with their friends and families instead of going to the movies, I don’t really view that as a bad thing either.

Maybe a US default is just what the US, and the wider Western world needs in order to reorient its priorities.

Should Having Kids Make you Special?

From the Globe a while back...


“My opinion … was that if leave would be available to parents, it should also be available to people who choose to make some other significant commitment of their time. I didn’t see any moral distinction between having children and having a life goal of, say, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or something. I was the only person in the room who felt that way.”

Really? This guy can't see a moral distinction between climbing a mountain, and caring for a defenseless human being?! If you fail to climb the mountain, you've just failed. If you fail to care for your child, you go to jail. That seems like a PRETTY CLEAR MORAL DISTINCTION TO ME! While I somewhat agree with some of the other points in the article it just strikes me that this is blind selfishness. We need children to continue society, that's why we value the contribution. If people are willing to help out with that, I'm willing to give them a free pass on a few things.