Wow. Since when can a minor league player step in and do this.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
An Open Letter to our American Neighbours
I'm still new to posting here, so forgive me if I don't have the format completely down yet.
My name's Luke, and I'm a Canadian.
Yes, I hail from the land of banned books and a joke of a "Human Rights Tribunal" that can smack down free speech (and often does).
See if any of this sounds familiar.
My country was once great. In 1947, Canada had the third largest military in the world, and a flourishing economy. Immediately, the decline started. We began to emulate the European Social Democracies almost instantly. Maybe it was our tight relationship with the U.K. that drew us in, maybe our constitution (Yes, we do have a constitution) was not strong enough to bind the power of a burgeoning bureaucracy, and maybe our far too efficient government got in over it's head and never stopped digging.
But it was Tommy Douglas who doomed us.
In the late 40s, a new political party came to force in several Canadian provinces, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). This was essentially the Social Democratic party of Canada, and is now the New Democratic Party. The current Leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, makes Obama look like Reagan.
But back to Tommy Douglas.
Tommy Douglas was elected the leader of the Provincal CCF in Saskatchewan when it was still a fringe party, in 1942. In 1944, they won the provincial election, and held over a supermajority of seats. Douglas proceeded to work on transforming Canadian politics, as an influential Premier (Governor, in American terms). At this time, Canada was only 77 years old. Yes, seventy-seven. (We are a young country, confederated in 1867.) Douglas created new Crown Corporations (Owned by the Federal Government) and bought out many private corporations to create a market for the Government produced goods.
In 1962, his party passed his bill, the Medicare Act. I'm sure you are all familiar with Medicare, in it's various incarnations.
In 1964, the federal government began to incentivize the creation of provincial Medicare systems. In the late 70s, they consolidated them into the monster that you see today.
You may forget that Canadians were a frontier people, more similar to our American neighbors than any other people on earth. We were gradually bought and paid for by entitlement programs, and we became the nation you see today. We have had the "Conservative Party of Canada" in power for the last 6 or 7 years, and our deficit is through the roof. And they show no sign of stopping.
They're nearly as bad as Obama, but at least there's no Cap'n'trade...Just a hefty Carbon Emission Tax.
I filled up my car today, and gas was $1.17 a litre, that works out to $4.68 a gallon.
I bought a used DVD for $4.99, and paid 13% sales tax. (7 percent provincial sales tax and 5 percent federal). Pretty soon it's going to 15% (November? December?), and it may reach 17% again, if they keep growing the debt.
To insure my car through the government monopoly on car insurance, with no surcharges for any collisions included, is nearly $3,500 a year. There is no competition. ICBC (The monopoly) makes an increasingly large profit each year by raising rates. If you did nothing wrong at all in a year's worth of insurance, no violations of any kind, you get a 5% discount. This barely offsets the roughly 3% increase in premiums yearly.
Our public schools hire avowed communists who are open about their views.
Our teacher's unions strike every year or two, and never give up anything of value in negotiation.
Our stimulus package for 2010 was $62 billion (Canadian) dollars. That equates to just over 25% of our expected incoming revenue for the year, or 4.8% of our GDP. Your stimulus was larger, at $987 billion, but will last for two years, at roughly 3.5% of GDP per year, if I've done the math right (All GDP figures were gleaned from www.cia.gov). We had a larger stimulus last year as well, but I can't remember the exact total.
Our income taxes are high, but here's the kicker.
I am a student. Full-Time.
I work hard to pay for my school, and as of right now I have no student loans.
My summer job pays pretty well for hard and dangerous work, so I get by.
Let me be clear, what I have said in the past is this: I worked part-time for 8 months, full-time for 3 months, and was unemployed for 1 month in the last year.
I paid over 1/10 of my income in taxes, after every possible claimed credit. A full-time student can claim a lot, and I used every tax credit and incentive there was. I made under $25,000 (Canadian) Dollars. And I paid over $2700 in taxes. There is nothing wrong with paying taxes, but I don't even have a hope of using any of the services that I am paying for.
My grandpa recently passed away from Lung Cancer. This time, our health care system did well helping him. This being said, my grandpa had a history with our health-care system. In the early 90s he sued them and was the second person in Canada who was able to unlock his pension funds early to pay for treatment in the States. In Canada, it was an experimental treatment, so it wasn't covered. In the U.S., it had been used for nearly a decade.
This is coming to a country near you in the immediate future, if you don't stop it. I have far more faith that you will hold strong then I have of reforming my own country single-handedly.
I plan on eventually escaping my socialist homeland, and emigrating to a saner place.
If you have any suggestions on which state I should move to, I'd appreciate it.
(cross-posted at http://www.redstate.com/risingsteel/2010/03/30/the-road-already-traveled/)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Healthcare Debate
"The federal government would run a health care system ... with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the post office and the competence of Katrina," - Rep. Paul Ryan R-Wis.
'Nuff Said.
'Nuff Said.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Climate Change
This is basically my simplified version of Lord Monckton's argument, I just took his facts and streamlined the delivery.
So. His argument is pretty clear. He claims that the U.N.'s figures are vastly exaggerated, BUT to show that even on the off-chance that he is wrong, he used their figures to show the logical fallacies in their argument.
Again, this is using the figures in the U.N. Climate models.
The U.N. says that we produce roughly 30 billion tons of CO2 a year. This is and actual fact.
They say this increases the CO2 in the atmosphere by 2 parts per million. (So, if you took a million molecules out of the atmosphere, two of them would CO2 molecules that we produced this year.) Therefore, 15 billion tons of CO2 equals 1 part per million.
The U.N. claims that over the next hundred years, we will increase the amount of CO2 per million by 468 parts, because of the growing use of oil and coal.
They also say that in the next hundred years, temperatures will increase by 7 degrees fahrenheit.
468 parts per million = 7 degrees Fahrenheit
66.85714 parts per million = 1 degree Fahrenheit
and if you remember from the beginning, at our current rate of emissions, we produce 2 parts per million per year.
So if we stopped emitting for 33 years at today's rates, we'd only decrease their projections by 1 degree. So there's clearly no workable solution if their projections are correct.
Luckily for us, they've been proven wrong.
So. His argument is pretty clear. He claims that the U.N.'s figures are vastly exaggerated, BUT to show that even on the off-chance that he is wrong, he used their figures to show the logical fallacies in their argument.
Again, this is using the figures in the U.N. Climate models.
The U.N. says that we produce roughly 30 billion tons of CO2 a year. This is and actual fact.
They say this increases the CO2 in the atmosphere by 2 parts per million. (So, if you took a million molecules out of the atmosphere, two of them would CO2 molecules that we produced this year.) Therefore, 15 billion tons of CO2 equals 1 part per million.
The U.N. claims that over the next hundred years, we will increase the amount of CO2 per million by 468 parts, because of the growing use of oil and coal.
They also say that in the next hundred years, temperatures will increase by 7 degrees fahrenheit.
468 parts per million = 7 degrees Fahrenheit
66.85714 parts per million = 1 degree Fahrenheit
and if you remember from the beginning, at our current rate of emissions, we produce 2 parts per million per year.
So if we stopped emitting for 33 years at today's rates, we'd only decrease their projections by 1 degree. So there's clearly no workable solution if their projections are correct.
Luckily for us, they've been proven wrong.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Failing of the American Economy, part 2.
The question I left you with last time was this:
Why couldn't people afford to pay their mortgages?
There are a variety of reasons for this, but I'll focus on the ones that shouldn't have happened.
Risky Loan Practices
Owning a home is not a right. It is not something that must be provided for you. It is a privilege, that requires responsibility to function.
When banks gave out mortgages with no money down, households that made under $50,000 a year had access to a $500,000 loan. That is doable, if you are willing to live frugally, and you get a good interest rate, etc... However, this is a domino that can very easily start a cascade. If every loan was like the one I just made up, and people were responsible, the system would work. The system can withstand some failure. The system cannot withstand the storm of foreclosures that hit in 2008. People who could not be reasonably expected to pay for the homes were given mortgages. These people did not pay, because they could not pay. As explained in the last post, this meant the financial institutions that owned the bundles of mortgages lost a lot of capital, pushing some institutions towards insolvency or bankruptcy. This meant they needed a quick source of cash, so the people who were falling behind on their mortgages started receiving more forceful letters. These people, who could not pay, were foreclosed on which, ironically, intensified the problems within the institution. The institution goes bankrupt, and it's creditors demand their money, so they foreclose more people who are behind on their mortgages. However, the glut of open homes on the market drives down prices, so the bank now has more creditors than credit. If the banks had been allowed to fail, stockholders would have suffered. However, that's what bankruptcy court is for. It determines the rights of the creditors and doles out the capital accordingly. As soon as the government stuck it's nose into the system, and started declaring that some institutions are "too big to fail", the stockholder was screwed.
Check back on Friday for the next entry in this series.
Why couldn't people afford to pay their mortgages?
There are a variety of reasons for this, but I'll focus on the ones that shouldn't have happened.
Risky Loan Practices
Owning a home is not a right. It is not something that must be provided for you. It is a privilege, that requires responsibility to function.
When banks gave out mortgages with no money down, households that made under $50,000 a year had access to a $500,000 loan. That is doable, if you are willing to live frugally, and you get a good interest rate, etc... However, this is a domino that can very easily start a cascade. If every loan was like the one I just made up, and people were responsible, the system would work. The system can withstand some failure. The system cannot withstand the storm of foreclosures that hit in 2008. People who could not be reasonably expected to pay for the homes were given mortgages. These people did not pay, because they could not pay. As explained in the last post, this meant the financial institutions that owned the bundles of mortgages lost a lot of capital, pushing some institutions towards insolvency or bankruptcy. This meant they needed a quick source of cash, so the people who were falling behind on their mortgages started receiving more forceful letters. These people, who could not pay, were foreclosed on which, ironically, intensified the problems within the institution. The institution goes bankrupt, and it's creditors demand their money, so they foreclose more people who are behind on their mortgages. However, the glut of open homes on the market drives down prices, so the bank now has more creditors than credit. If the banks had been allowed to fail, stockholders would have suffered. However, that's what bankruptcy court is for. It determines the rights of the creditors and doles out the capital accordingly. As soon as the government stuck it's nose into the system, and started declaring that some institutions are "too big to fail", the stockholder was screwed.
Check back on Friday for the next entry in this series.
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Failing of the American Economy
Today, I'm going to talk about the failings of the American economy.
Contrary to popular belief, the free market did not cause this recession. I know that text isn't the best medium for expressing this sort of idea, but I have no video camera, so...I'll make do.
So. I've done a lot of reading on the subject, so I'll try to condense the main points into a couple paragraphs.
The Main Problem-Makers
From the eyes of the free market system, the main trouble makers in the financial crisis are Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and The Federal Reserve. I don't have time to go over the entire thing today, but I'll start off with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
For those of you who don't know, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are GSEs, or Government Sponsored Enterprises. Basically, their entire purpose is buying back mortgages from banks. The theory is, the more they buy, the more money banks have. The more money banks have, the more loans they can make.
So, what can they do with these mortgages?
They sell them as mortgage-backed securities. How does that work? I'll show you.
Let's say couple A buys a $500,000 house. They put $50,000 in the down payment and get a $450,000 mortgage from Bank of America. I'll make up a rate, say....7.8% over 25 years. If the homeowners paid their monthly payments exactly right every month for 25 years, they would have paid the bank 1.024 million, after interest.
Fannie Mae, for example, would buy that loan from bank of America for $600,000, say. The bank makes money right away, a cool profit of 33%, they're happy. Fannie Mae now packages this mortgage with a whole bunch of others. For easy math, lets just make it a bundle of 100 mortgages with the same stats. So, Fannie Mae has now paid out 60 million for a bundle that will someday (assuming all the homeowners pay off the entire mortgage) be worth just over 102 million.
It seems like good business, and even a good way for everyone to come out ahead, right?
Well, if they had stopped right there, and used the money gained from that to pay off the deficit, it might have worked. Instead, they wanted instant gratification. So they sold shares in these bundles.
Again, seems like it would work. Why not sell shares? These shares were circulated throughout the market, and then the hammer dropped. When the housing bubble popped, people couldn't afford to pay their mortgages. So, the hedge funds and banks that had been buying up these shares of Fannie Mae's "mortgage-backed securities" lost money. So people pulled their money out of the hedge funds, and banks began to divest themselves of these toxic assets. So all of a sudden, Fannie Mae found itself in a massive amount of debt. And the government bailed them out. So now the people are being foreclosed on, the banks are shaken (which drives up rates and makes it harder to get a loan), and Fannie Mae can't afford to buy more loans (which makes the banks even more unwilling to lend).
Why could so few people pay their mortgage? More on that next time.
Contrary to popular belief, the free market did not cause this recession. I know that text isn't the best medium for expressing this sort of idea, but I have no video camera, so...I'll make do.
So. I've done a lot of reading on the subject, so I'll try to condense the main points into a couple paragraphs.
The Main Problem-Makers
From the eyes of the free market system, the main trouble makers in the financial crisis are Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and The Federal Reserve. I don't have time to go over the entire thing today, but I'll start off with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
For those of you who don't know, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are GSEs, or Government Sponsored Enterprises. Basically, their entire purpose is buying back mortgages from banks. The theory is, the more they buy, the more money banks have. The more money banks have, the more loans they can make.
So, what can they do with these mortgages?
They sell them as mortgage-backed securities. How does that work? I'll show you.
Let's say couple A buys a $500,000 house. They put $50,000 in the down payment and get a $450,000 mortgage from Bank of America. I'll make up a rate, say....7.8% over 25 years. If the homeowners paid their monthly payments exactly right every month for 25 years, they would have paid the bank 1.024 million, after interest.
Fannie Mae, for example, would buy that loan from bank of America for $600,000, say. The bank makes money right away, a cool profit of 33%, they're happy. Fannie Mae now packages this mortgage with a whole bunch of others. For easy math, lets just make it a bundle of 100 mortgages with the same stats. So, Fannie Mae has now paid out 60 million for a bundle that will someday (assuming all the homeowners pay off the entire mortgage) be worth just over 102 million.
It seems like good business, and even a good way for everyone to come out ahead, right?
Well, if they had stopped right there, and used the money gained from that to pay off the deficit, it might have worked. Instead, they wanted instant gratification. So they sold shares in these bundles.
Again, seems like it would work. Why not sell shares? These shares were circulated throughout the market, and then the hammer dropped. When the housing bubble popped, people couldn't afford to pay their mortgages. So, the hedge funds and banks that had been buying up these shares of Fannie Mae's "mortgage-backed securities" lost money. So people pulled their money out of the hedge funds, and banks began to divest themselves of these toxic assets. So all of a sudden, Fannie Mae found itself in a massive amount of debt. And the government bailed them out. So now the people are being foreclosed on, the banks are shaken (which drives up rates and makes it harder to get a loan), and Fannie Mae can't afford to buy more loans (which makes the banks even more unwilling to lend).
Why could so few people pay their mortgage? More on that next time.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Relaunch!
Hello out there in Internetland, this is the relaunch of my political blog.
I'll be focusing mainly on American and Canadian Politics.
I don't hide my biases, I'm a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. I don't believe that the government has any right to interfere in your daily life, so even though I don't personally support gay marriage (as a Christian, I think it's morally reprehensible) it should not be illegal.
I support limited, or small, government.
I believe that capitalism is a good thing.
I believe that Christianity is essential for salvation, and that there is really a God watching us.
I believe that abortion is murder.
I believe that too many people compromise on issues that are far too important to compromise on.
And I believe that my country, Canada, is walking along a path to financial ruin, and that our neighbour to the south is close behind us.
More to come, hopefully soon.
I'll be focusing mainly on American and Canadian Politics.
I don't hide my biases, I'm a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. I don't believe that the government has any right to interfere in your daily life, so even though I don't personally support gay marriage (as a Christian, I think it's morally reprehensible) it should not be illegal.
I support limited, or small, government.
I believe that capitalism is a good thing.
I believe that Christianity is essential for salvation, and that there is really a God watching us.
I believe that abortion is murder.
I believe that too many people compromise on issues that are far too important to compromise on.
And I believe that my country, Canada, is walking along a path to financial ruin, and that our neighbour to the south is close behind us.
More to come, hopefully soon.
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