B.C. Election 2009

B.C. will be having an election on May 12, 2009, 8 days from now.

If you want more info on the parties, their platforms, the polls, etc. I recommend Sacha's excellent site.

Personally, I'm not too enthusiastic about this particular election. The Liberal (in name only) party has been in charge for 8 years and although they've moderated some of their more unpleasant views (on aboriginal relations and the environment for example) and they have certainly accomplished a fair bit in terms of infrastructure (albeit by committing the province to a large stream of payments over the next 25 years or so), I'd certainly be happy to see them removed from power.

Under their watch B.C. has seen some of the fastest rising inequality and poverty levels in Canada, and has failed to take care of all of its citizens. Furthermore, the Liberals seem increasingly corrupt and willing to sell off the province's resources to their friends and party insiders and to big business.

Given the huge housing and construction bubble, the perilously low savings rates and the rising inequality, B.C. can be expected to be hammered extra hard by the economic downturn - if the Liberals do win this one, they may get to reap some of what they've sown.

The only alternative likely to be elected is the NDP party. The NDP platform has some good ideas, such as raising the minimum wage and ending/taxing the flaring of natural gas. Still, I can't bring myself to vote for a party that is campaigning on increasing the province's carbon emissions and contributing *more* to one of the greatest threats that mankind currently faces. It is funny in a way that so many people viewed the revenue neutral carbon tax as a tax increase, but even though repealing it will produce just as many losers as putting it in did, you don't hear, for example, residents of downtown Vancouver up in arms about the tax/debt increase they'll have to face due to repeal of the carbon tax that currently benefits them.

The other killers in the NDP platform are the promises to lower hydro bills (again, a move that will increase emissions) and to kill the plan for smart meters. After all, peak oil is another huge threat to our future, so obviously we should cancel plans to modernize our electrical grid and give ourselves a greater capacity to make efficient use of our electricity resources.

It's a great plan really, cancel plans for new electricity production, lower prices to encourage more consumption and kill measures designed to encourage conservation. I don't see any problems with that agenda at all.

Whoever wins will deserve what they get trying to govern this province from 2009 - 2013 (Olympic perks and a whole lot of economic headaches, I predict).

So yeah, I think I'll vote Green. I thought I might vote for the Marijuana party, since legalizing marijuana is one of the most positive changes that could be made by our politicians, but I see that they are endorsing the Greens rather than running their own candidates.

The main thing that will bring me to the polls is the chance to again vote in favour of scrapping our antiquated electoral system and replacing it with one that can actually function in a province with more than 2 political parties - STV. But more on that in another post perhaps - or just visit the blog I wrote back in 2005 the first time we voted on electoral reform. Maybe if we can fix the electoral system we'll have more palatable choices when the next election comes around.

Sun Run 2009

Last year's post is here. The post from 2007 where I explain what the heck the Sun Run is, is here.

After running the Sun Run in 46:42 last year, the pressure was on just to match last year's time. I'm not getting any younger after all... I again took the intraining course (along with my girlfriend Christie who joined the learn to run 10k group), and I did, in the end, manage a small improvement over my time from last year, finishing in a nice fractal three quarters of an hour plus three quarters of a minute, aka 45:45.

To be honest, I'm not sure I was any fitter than last year (not enough to offset being another year older, anyways), but with more experience I was able to pace myself better, going out faster in the first 2-3k, which more than made up for not being able to mount much of a sprint at the end. I would have liked to finish in under 45 minutes, but that's actually fairly hard to do, I'm learning. My time was good for 1696th place, which is not too bad out of over 40,000 finishers. Maybe next year will be under 45 minutes.

(hmm, I looked up my time again and now it says 45:43, a few more revisions and I'll be under 45 minutes this year :)

At any rate, it was a nice day for the run, overcast but no rain despite the forecast, and about 10 degrees which is a little too warm, but not really a big factor, although maybe it played a role in my not being able to finish quite as strong as normal. Since I think I'll be hard pressed to do a 10k much faster than the time I did today, maybe I should try another distance, like a half marathon. Or not. We'll see.

Until next year...

B.C. Budget 2009

You can read the budget here.

I don't really have a lot to say about it. It's pretty much status quo and under the circumstances it seems reasonable. I'd be very surprised if the deficits don't turn out a lot larger than forecast, but that is more a function of the incorrect economic models that underpin the economic forecasts (and is the mirror of how the surplus always comes in larger than expected during boom years).

As always, I'd like to see greater priority for income redistribution / measures to reduce poverty, reduction of debt levels, better planning for the future including expanded renewable energy generation, and preparation for a network of electricity rather than hydrogen powered gas stations, and more for transit, less for roads and so on. But given that we're talking about a right wing government here, we should just be happy they didn't decide to match Harper and company's billions for granite countertops program.

Almost forgot...

...About the dumbest idea in the budget which was the First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit.

If only there was somebody somewhere in the government who understood the first thing about economics they might realized that paying people to buy houses only drives up the price. It doesn't help first time home buyers - it helps existing home buyers.

Let me explain this slooowly. Prices are set by supply and demand. Increasing demand (through tax breaks for purchasing a home) will cause the price to rise. Since prices for houses are already set to whatever the market will bear, this tax break is a subsidy for those who already have a house as it will increase the price they get when they sell it.

If you want to help first time home buyers, stop trying to increase demand and instead increase supply, or, given that we already have too much supply, simply stop trying to increase demand and then stand back and let prices fall to their natural level (i.e. the one people can afford without subsidies from the government).

Sigh.

Update: I should add that if we were talking about some easily manufactured widget, then an increase in demand might just mean making more for the same price to meet the demand. But houses don't work like that, house prices relate more to what people can afford to pay than they do to the cost to build them.

Federal Budget 2009, aka Thank God for the Coalition, aka The Future Can Take Care of Itself, thank you very much

Previous Federal Budget Posts:
2008
2007
2006
2005: part 1, part 2, part 3 (I was keen, back in the day)

So, the budget.

1) First of all, for anyone who voted Conservative and feels betrayed by this 'betrayal' of conservative values, let me make clear the distinction between 'Fiscal Conservative' and 'Right Wing Government'.

Fiscal conservatism means not spending more than your income as well as paying down your debts while times are good.

Recent right wing government leaders have included George Bush Jr., George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, Mike Harris, Gordon Campbell, Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. Some of these people inherited deficits, some inherited surpluses, some governed through good times, some governed through bad times - they ALL ran budget deficits. Right wing government is all about cutting taxes, which is not fiscal conservatism, in fact it means reducing your income which is the opposite of fiscal conservatism

Ever since taking power a few years back, Harper and co. have been cutting taxes and increasing spending. While it's true that the economic downturn is hard on the government's finances, as pointed out at Accidental Deliberations, the forecasted deficit for the next 5 years of $85B is less than the combined total of the cost to the treasury of the gst cut + the tax measures in today's budget over the same time period.

People who refuse to adjust their preconceived notions that people on the right are responsible stewards with firm hands on the tiller while people on the left are starry eyed hippies who are still trying to get their head around the concept of a 'budget' are clearly slow learners, so let me help:

Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative
Right wing governments are not fiscally conservative

Got it?


2) Overall, this could have been a lot worse, hence the post title, 'thank god for the coalition' which scared the Harperites into acting at least somewhat reasonably with respect to the country's finances. As pogge notes, they'll likely go back to their childish ways once the budget is passed, but the budget is important, so my thanks to Layton, Duceppe and Dion for saving us from a plan along the lines of the disastrous Fall Update. Most of the spending measures are temporary, at least a few of them seem like good ideas and there's nothing here that's truly awful, so by my low expectations, I'd call it a relief.

3) Alas, this leads me to the great flaw in the budget which is: Climate Change, Peak Oil? Hello?

This would be a great time to start making the necessary investments to allow Canada to reduce its contribution to climate change, and thrive in a world running short on cheap oil. But there's very very little in this budget to address any of this. A huge opportunity missed, and one we're likely to regret in the future.

4) What's up with the up to $1.35B in government subsidies for people renovating their homes? Could someone from the government please explain to me why, because there is an economic downturn it means that I, as a non home-owner, should be subsidizing the granite countertops and expanded decks of my neighbours? I think I know more arguments for government intervention in the economy than most people, but I suspect that has got to be a new one. Stuff like this really suggests the Cons have no idea what they are doing or even what government is for.

It's as if they said, 'you want us to spend? fine we'll spend' and just started randomly coming up with ideas without any consideration for where government spending is appropriate or what future needs the country has.

Saying that reminds me that they did lay out 3 priorities for spending, of which #2 was

"Targeted. Measures that target Canadian businesses and families most in need will trigger the largest increase in Canadian jobs and output."

So as compared to people who don't own a house, it is homeowners who are 'most in need' and need to be targetted?

CalgaryGrit puts it well, "I can't help but think that the lack of focus stems from this government's refusal to recognize the problems we were facing until a month ago, and their refusal to accept that government can actually be a force of good in shaping the future of a country."

5) The Cons have now responded to some of the strongest economic conditions ever seen by cutting taxes, and to some of the weakest economic conditions we've seen by cutting taxes. Next time some right winger is arguing we need to cut taxes because the economy is strong/weak, tell them to stow it. While I'm on the topic, we'll need to raise taxes one of these days to put the government's finances back in order.

6) Memo to the Conservative government, we just had a housing bubble (you helped make it worse, remember?), government subsidies to build *more* housing is not a priority right now! In fact, it's the last thing we need.

7) As of this budget, the government will now be providing low interest loans totaling $125 billion to the financial sector (what the government refers to as 'purchases of insured mortgages' is in fact very low interest loans to the banks). But when they provide $4 billion in loans to the Auto sector at higher rates, "we are doing this with the knowledge that the automakers must change the way they're doing business in a very serious way and must bring their products on their costs into line with the market place."

8) As Mike notes it looks like Conservatives will have to now agree that Bob Rae was right all along. After all, if you look at the chart on page 58, it suggests that we should expect a recession that is nowhere near as bad as the one from the early 90's, and yet here the Conservatives are running a massive deficit. This chart also leads me to think that...

9) People, including the ones who wrote the budget, are still in deep denial about what is coming.

10) Does anyone know if there's any way to tell if the government will finance this deficit through borrowing or through printing money? I'd feel a lot more happy about this if they were going to print money. Right now we've got way too much debt in our economy and having government borrow to replace collapsing private borrowing won't help the overall situation. To get rid of the debt will either require destruction of our (credit) money supply likely leading to damaging deflation or printing money so that the money supply can stay stable while the debt collapses.

11) Most of the infrastructure spending depends on funds being matched by other levels of government. I can't speak for other municipal governments but Vancouver is already being stretched pretty thin by the economic downturn and has nowhere near the federal capacity to either borrow or print money. Thanks for nothing.

12) The chart on page 46 on the 'evolution' of private sector forecasts for economic growth is amusing. I always thought that forecasts were supposed to be a leading indicator, not a lagging one!

13) Unlucky number thirteen. I said it before, but it's worth repeating: wind energy? hydro? transmission? smart meters? the future? Apparently not, after all, who can afford to fight climate change or prepare for peak oil when there are granite countertops to be installed.

It would be nice to have a government that would be actively taking on the important issues facing the country (see Obama, Barack), not one where you just feel relieved that their budget is a mess and a waste rather than being a disaster.



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The folks at Relentlessly Progressive Economics have a pretty good, relentless summary of the budget here.