Not Partisan
One of my recurring themes here on the blog is that one of the problems with right wingers these days is that they have no ability to distinguish between things that are partisan in nature and things that aren't. See here or here for a couple of examples.
Just in case there are any right wingers out there who want to change this habit, here's a tip for the future. When a serious economic crisis threatens the country*, that is not the time for partisan games.
* On the off chance someone wants to try and argue we're not facing a serious economic crisis, save it. The prices of our main exports are plunging, our major trading partners are in recession and facing worse, some of the largest employers in the country are on the verge of bankruptcy, with many more of the country's biggest most stable companies needing to raise funds at distress prices and trading at levels that suggest very high risk, our housing markets are falling fast, government budgets are coming under increasing strain, and we're only getting started. Just because the coyote hasn't looked down yet doesn't mean we haven't run off the cliff.
P.S. What's wrong with Andrew Coyne these days? For someone who supports proportional representation he seems awfully bent out of shape at the idea of having a government that actually represents a majority of the votes cast for once.
And he's making all sorts of crazy arguments of the sort you'd normally associate with loony national post types (such as Colby Cosh who actually sees a day of trading in which the TSX dropped less than U.S. markets (comparing like sector to sector, e.g. financials were down 9% in Canada, 17% in the U.S.) and thinks that this proves that 'Money has cast a vote' against the coalition. People who have yet to realize that the TSX is heavily weighted in commodities and that on a day when commodities do poorly, the overall TSX index will do poorly, really shouldn't be commenting on the stock market, but that's what I get for reading the national post where the only qualification required is ideology not actual knowledge.
Just in case there are any right wingers out there who want to change this habit, here's a tip for the future. When a serious economic crisis threatens the country*, that is not the time for partisan games.
* On the off chance someone wants to try and argue we're not facing a serious economic crisis, save it. The prices of our main exports are plunging, our major trading partners are in recession and facing worse, some of the largest employers in the country are on the verge of bankruptcy, with many more of the country's biggest most stable companies needing to raise funds at distress prices and trading at levels that suggest very high risk, our housing markets are falling fast, government budgets are coming under increasing strain, and we're only getting started. Just because the coyote hasn't looked down yet doesn't mean we haven't run off the cliff.
P.S. What's wrong with Andrew Coyne these days? For someone who supports proportional representation he seems awfully bent out of shape at the idea of having a government that actually represents a majority of the votes cast for once.
And he's making all sorts of crazy arguments of the sort you'd normally associate with loony national post types (such as Colby Cosh who actually sees a day of trading in which the TSX dropped less than U.S. markets (comparing like sector to sector, e.g. financials were down 9% in Canada, 17% in the U.S.) and thinks that this proves that 'Money has cast a vote' against the coalition. People who have yet to realize that the TSX is heavily weighted in commodities and that on a day when commodities do poorly, the overall TSX index will do poorly, really shouldn't be commenting on the stock market, but that's what I get for reading the national post where the only qualification required is ideology not actual knowledge.
Labels: andrew coyne, conservative party, financial markets, national post is a joke, partisan
posted by Declan at
Monday, December 01, 2008
4 Comments:
It's not a crisis, it's an excellent time to buy!
As someone who voted/volunteered Green I'm pleasantly shocked that the mainstream parties are getting their knives out of each other's backs and actually trying to cooperate and compromise.
It's funny, one of the reasons I couldn't vote NDP or Liberal was because they both ruled out a coalition and I was extremely unimpressed with that attitude.
I don't even know what to say. We've gone through the rabbit hole here. It's historic and amazing, every day when I wake up I'm shocked it's really happening.
By
Anonymous, at 12:57 AM
I guess what you're saying here is: coalition signing day = pretty much the worst TSX bloodbath in history? Total fucking coincidence.
Of course, on that argument, it's not really the opportunistic, partisan writer who's crazy; reality has simply decided to play a shitty, totally inexplicable trick on your cause. Do you find that happening to you a lot?
By
Colby Cosh, at 2:40 AM
So are we to assume that similar if somewhat milder losses on the American markets are the coincidence and happened for entirely different reasons?
Or are we to assume that significant losses on the American markets are a reaction to the mere possibility of a change in the Canadian government?
Seriously?
By
pogge, at 4:22 AM
Well V, stocks are usually a leading indicator, so they might be a buy at some point. They do say you should buy at the sound of cannons, which might be coming soon as the Conservatives ramp up the dishonest rhetoric about 'coups' and begin talk of sacking the Governor General.
On the other hand, anyone who bought stocks when Harper suggested it is pretty far underwater at this point :)
Colby - yes, it was a coincidence.
They're more common than you might think (I recommend Isaac Asimov's "The Planet That Wasn't" on this topic).
Seriously, read any non-Canadian based summary of the day on the TSX and they all tell the same mundane story, lousy day for global markets, worse in Canada because commodity prices got hammered.
Does it concern your thesis at all that the Canadian dollar didn't move at all (when you'd normally expect it to drop on a day with such bad news for commodities)?
Did the prospect of coalition government in Canada cause the worldwide price of oil to drop by 9% in North America (and over 10 in Europe!) on Monday?
Was it the prospect of coalition government (which would mean the same party running Canada's finances that has run them for most of the last 100 years) that dropped the global price of gold by $40/ounce?
Do you realize just how crazy you sound to people who follow financial markets when you seriously claim that it's a potential change in government in Canada that is driving massive changes in global stock and commodity markets?
By
Declan, at 7:12 PM
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