Categories: Capital Read, Inside the Queensway

Don't forget us when we're gone …

by kadyomalley on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:14am - 69 Comments

And if we have to leave you with a Glass Tiger earworm to ensure that out of sight won’t be out of mind, well … so be it.

Anyway, ITQ will be AFK for most of the day as she enters the maximum security enclave that is the budget lockup, but when she emerges into the post-embargo sunshine, she will post a full live-but-time-delayed-blog of how she and her fellow inmates have spent the preceding six or so hours of sequestration. Check back shortly after 4pm for all the details – and feel free to use this as an open thread in the interim.

Tags: budget09, did it just get really quiet in here?, disappearing macleans.ca livebloggers

More by kadyomalley

Wascally Wabbit

Oh – mercy – the withdrawals……
Don’t go encrickifying yourself now – just for us!
DR

Dubget lock-up? Is that a joke?
Geiseric the Lame

What are the chances of a pic of hospitality table? I’m particularly interested in what percent of the donuts have spinklies on them. Its for a study. ;o)

Wascally Wabbit

No doughnuts today Geiseric…
Today is a – let them eat cake – day…

Geiseric the Lame

lol!
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

“Today is a – let them eat cake – day…”

Hardly but many fiscal cons wish it were so. This is more like chocolate cake for everyone, with sprinkles and a cherry on top, natch.

Hopefully this budget won’t be as dire as the American one, where Pelosi is arguing that fed spending on contraceptives is stimulus spending, but I guess we have to wait and see.

Wascally Wabbit

Er – too subtle for you jwl?
I was implying that Harper will be playing Marie Antionette today…ignoring the realities of bread – spinning the advantages of cake…..Sheesh!

Wascally Wabbit

Time for a revolution – I mean – coalition!

Geiseric the Lame

“where Pelosi is arguing that fed spending on contraceptives is stimulus spending”

Sounds stimulating enough to me but then again I haven’t had any operations I regret.
cwe

“Pelosi is arguing that fed spending on contraceptives is stimulus spending”

Krugman said something about this in his column yesterday. He says it’s a “minor provision that would expand Medicaid family planning services,” that people who represent it as anything bigger than that are not arguing in good faith, and that they should be written off as “a dishonest flack.”

http://myblahg.com Robert McClelland

Today is a – let them eat cake – day…

I thought today was everyone eats cake day.
Shenping

This is without a doubt my favourite post of the day.

Why would we need doughnuts when we’ve got the budget — lots of shiny sugary coating, not too much nutrition, & a big hole in the middle.

archangel

Now there is the conundrum. Donuts are a luxury to be avoided in austere time. Bubble gum on the other hand represents a traditional Canadian infrastructure investment. Look for it on the hospitality table in today’s lockup.
Alan

Any real ITQ fan will know, the only question worth asking is, are there date squares?

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com Scott Tribe

There’s actually something left in the Budget they haven’t already leaked to justify a lock-down?

Just visiting

They have not yet announced billions and billions in permanent tax cuts that will be in the budget to make it impossible down the road to restore fiscal prudence without shrinking the federal government and eliminating many of its programs.

This is the ideological poison pill the Libs are supposed to swallow to avoid having to take the helm at this time.

I’m sure the Libs will do exactly that, while making noise about fixing deficiencies in the budget later on in committee (as Kady, in fact, predicted last week on the CBC At Issue panel.)

- JV

Geiseric the Lame

“while making noise about fixing deficiencies in the budget later on in committee”

The degree of which will be inversely proportional to Iggy’s grip on reality. It’s wishful thinking. Any amendment requires two other parties on board.
http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

UGH! Can people please stop saying “permanent tax cuts”. No tax cuts are permanent. Harper isn’t entrenching tax cuts in the constitution, so give it a rest.

Just visiting

If Harper brings in tax cuts that have an expiry date, then it would be correct to see them as temporary. If he brings in tax cuts that do not have an expiry date, then they are intended to be, and for reasons of political cowardice, will be, permanent.

- JV

http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

Do you know what “permanent ” means? “Permanent” is not a term subject to conditions, it is perpetual and everlasting. Of course, if the tax cuts aren’t revised at any point in the future, they’re permanent. In the same way that if Oprah doesn’t put on any weight at any point in the future, her weight loss is permanent. But the tax cuts could be reversed or modified in the next budget, or by the next government, or by the next government in the next budget. They’re not “permanent” in any meaningful sense.
SAB

Olaf: Semantics and you know it.
http://jimbobbysez.blogspot.com JimBobby

“Permanent” is not a term subject to conditions, it is perpetual and everlasting.

Whooee! Ma got herself a permanent down to to Lorna’s beauty saloon last spring when we went to niece Jackie’s weddin’. That permanent’s all washed out now. There’s beauty saloons all over Canada sellin’ permanents that ain’t perpetual and everlasting. Down at the tattoo joint, they tell it like it is, I reckon.

JB

Geiseric the Lame

“I think that if we’re talking about tax cuts, these measures in most cases have to be permanent to be effective,” – Stephen Harper

It’ll be fun watching him talk around that one. Thanks for the heads-up.

steve

The promise of the idea of a “permanent cut” on tax, is about as stable as the promise of a fixed election date. Hmmm “fixed elections” there is a topic for another day

http://macleans.ca kc

Olaf
permannt tax cuts may be reversible theoretically, but in the un-real world of politics they hardly ever are. It;s why SH likes them; case in pt the gst.

http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

The GST is also a case where taxes were increased. And then not decreased as promised by the incoming government. That’s my point.
Stephen

But I thought Canadians saw the inherent beauty in higher taxes. Isnt that the line of those who say that Tax cuts are a bad thing. And if there is such a price to pay for returning them to “normal levels” doesnt that suggest that maybe canadians want lower taxes in those circumstances.

At least this is the mirror of the argument used when governments try to cut specific services or programs. Clearly the protest and outrage is used an indication of voters desire

Government doesn have to shrink, make a good argument and I am sure Canadians will vote for it. In the absence of the argument then maybe just maybe the lower tax level is what “da people” want.

I will point to the UK again as an example of what happens when you spend AND tax. eventually you run out. The US, which has been just spending, at least has the option of raising taxes. The UK will either default, get IMF loans or go through a version of the cuts canada did in the mid 90′s…or all three.
Shenping

The US has the highest corporate taxes of all countries that belong to a group that begins with G. What it has is low personal taxes for people who make big bucks & aren’t corporations.

Permanent tax cuts would mean a permanent structural deficit. I believe this is the standard neocon approach to the dark side of the force when it comes to justifying their evil creed.

From a financial perspective, permanent means until it’s far away that the net present value of whatever’s being estimated is insignificant. In other words, about a decade with normal interest rates, less with high rates, longer when rates are low, and forever if the interest rate equals zero. From the same perspective, zero interest rates are mathematically impossible because you’d have to divide by zero. This makes investors really scared. When interest rates get really low you need to use undergrad math instead of junior high math to make predictions. Calculus, being the only field of math that applies to the real world beyond calculating how to divide apples and oranges, is to be avoided at all costs in conservative financial models.

Conservative economics — the only “scientific” pursuit where theoretical elegance is preferred to producing solvable equations that might actually predict something.

Geiseric the Lame

EI and tax breaks. Add those two together, subtract 8 billion and you’ve got a handle on the slush factor.

onlinereader

” Detailed analysis of 2006 Census findings on full-time earnings by sector and occupation show that government and public sector employees are paid roughly 8 to 17 per cent more than similarly employed individuals in the private sector. In addition, taking into account significantly higher paid benefits and shorter workweeks, the public sector total compensation advantage balloons past 30 per cent. Expressed in dollar terms, public sector employers have a combined wage and benefits bill that is $19 billion higher than if they had kept costs to private sector norms. ”

” The federal government is the worst offender, with a wage and salary premium of 17.3 per cent. Premiums paid by municipal governments are almost as severe—11.2 per cent. Provincial governments, as a group, look comparatively good, but their wage and salary premiums are still an unacceptably high 7.9 per cent. ”

harper is willing to forego his $ 9,000 annual raise this year , RCMP happily chipped in also . Who is next ?

Geiseric the Lame

so the man who grew his own workforce (non-military) by 7.5% in 2 years and 3 months is going get traction on the situation by stepping on their backs.

points for chutzpah, I’ll say that much.

Shenping

So what the ” Detailed analysis of 2006 Census findings on full-time earnings by sector and occupation” tells us is that public sector workers contribute 30% more to the economy than private sector workers in similar occupations.

Funny how the neocons have spun people having money to spend and take part in the economy as a bad thing.

John W

Does anyone know if the infrastructure money will actually be released on a !/3, 1/3, 1/3 basis? Of course, the Liberals are saying municipalities don’t have the money and can’t get the money through borrowing or increasing property taxes. Mayor Mike Bradley of Sarnia on CBC Radio seemed to think that would be a problem.
I don’t think there is a single property tax payer in small town Ontario who will not scream bloody murder if there is anything more than a modest (3%?) tax increase this year. And have municipalities been hit by the credit crunch?
I’m sure the answer is out there, I just haven’t seen it.

MM

“Does anyone know if the infrastructure money will actually be released on a !/3, 1/3, 1/3 basis?”

John Baird was on Don Newman’s show yesterday saying it would be 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Don asked ,incredulously, if that was really true that no municipalities had told him that it would be a problem. He said it was true. There was an interesting 3 seconds of silence.

Jenn

I’m enjoying the budget prognosticating, but since this is an open thread I’m going to change the subject. Has anyone seen the Reuters report of the World Economic Forum? Yahoo has it here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090127/bs_nm/us_davos_bankers_4

Two things struck fear and absolute disbelief into my heart.

One, “It may be more a case of regulating the activity rather than who someone is,” said Bernd Jan Sikken, co-author of a WEF report on the future of the global financial sector.” MAY? It MAY be? WTF? Seriously, Madoff didn’t teach you the well-respected, above-reproach “very smart” banker or broker needs to be watched like a hawk? What will it take to get through to you people that human nature includes greed, and it doesn’t matter WHO you are?

Two, “”We will probably face more regulatory oversight for the big banks. Smaller institutions will have more flexibility in their activities but will have a growth constraint,” Sikken said.” Oh goodie! So a two-tier system, where one tier can sell all the toxic mortgages it wants (or come up with its own lame-brained idea for quick profits and to hell with everyone else or the future). Yeah, these guys are brilliant masterminds. How about we let a kindergarten class decide these things instead? They can’t do a worse job.

Just visiting

Linda McQuaid has a very good piece on this in today’s Star.

See “Financial elite have no shame”
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/577649

She writes this of the Davos-type crowd:

Let’s imagine, for a moment, how different the public debate would be today if it had been unions that had caused the current economic turmoil.

In other words, try to imagine a scenario in which union leaders – not financial managers – were the ones whose reckless behaviour had driven a number of Wall Street firms into bankruptcy and in the process triggered a worldwide recession.

Needless to say, it’s hard to imagine a labour leader being appointed to oversee a bailout of unions the way former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson was put in charge of supervising the $700 billion bailout of his former Wall Street colleagues.

My point is simply to note how odd it is that the financial community has emerged so unscathed, despite its central role in the collapse that has brought havoc to the world economy.,

- JV

Jenn

Thanks for that, Just Visiting. Sometimes I think its only me that sees a problem with this stuff. Linda’s article reaffirmed my faith in my fellow commoner. Not that that does anything about the problem . . .

Just visiting

The part where she nails it best is this:

In fact, financial types have always accepted deficits – when they liked the cause. Hence their lack of protest over George W. Bush’s enormous deficits, which were caused by his large tax cuts for the rich and his extravagant foreign wars.

What they don’t like is governments going into deficit to help ordinary citizens – either by creating jobs or providing much unemployment relief.

So the Canadian financial community has been urging that the stimulus package consist mostly of income tax cuts – even though direct government spending would provide much more stimulus and do more to help the neediest.

If the Harper government follows the financial community’s advice, we will simply move further along with the small government revolution launched by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.

- JV

http://www.jenniferross.ca Jennifer Ross

I’m so scared of this, and the fact that I think she is right, that I really can’t get my brain to focus here. It’s just Too Evil! Too Selfish! Much the same way as I know there are human beings who enjoy the torture of other human beings, or the rape of little children, but I simply can’t even begin to try to understand them.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Speaking as a conservative, I don’t believe it is possible to legislate the elimination of greed and many other emotions that humans have. The SEC investigated Madoff for two years, many of his competitors didn’t believe his numbers were possible without some chicanery, but for some inexplicable reason they cleared him. I think the best we can do is focus on a few existing laws and make sure they are enforced. It is not like what Madoff did wasn’t against the law, it was just that the law was not enforced competently.

http://macleans.ca kc

JWL
I agree you can’t legislate against human nature, but you can however adequately punish the major offenders. How about life in prison? I read a Swiftian style essay once that argued capital punishment should be reserved for white collar crime since the deterrent element is far more likely to bite here rather than at the criminal class level, who often feel they have nothing to lose anyway.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

I don’t understand why we have eliminated all forms of punishment except jail. I agree sending white collar criminals to low security country club for a few years is pointless so they should be sent to a penitentiary or we should bring back some old-school punishment. How about bringing back the lash, or a good tarring and feathering might be just the ticket we are looking for.

At least the Americans go after white collar crimes. We barely do that here. It is a very cozy relationship between pols and upper echelons of big companies in Canada and there should be much more friction between the two.

http://www.jenniferross.ca Jennifer Ross

Heh. I’ve always favoured the stocks, myself.

And the poetic justice is just a bonus.

Think of the rotten vegetables the farmers could get rid of. It’s win, win, I say!
T. Thwim

I’ve always thought white collar crime should be punished by making them do those jobs that most people don’t want to do, or that the government would have to pay for anyway. Have them shovel old people’s sidewalks, work at soup kitchens, provide clean needles to drug addicts, pick up roadkill, etc.

Since they’re not violent, we can keep them in society, we just need to make sure they’re in positions where they have considerable oversight and little to no authority/trust is required.

http://www.jenniferross.ca Jennifer Ross

No, you’re right, jwl, you can’t eliminate greed by putting laws in place. What you can and should do, however, is enact laws to make it more difficult to HIDE greed, then enforce those laws and punish those found breaking them. Madoff went for thirty years or something assinine without making a single trade. And that was hard to spot? I mean, we’re not talking about some clever sleight of hand here. If he was investigated, the investigators should be jailed because it is beyond belief to think they weren’t in on it. Bribed, if you will. If competitors suspected there was something fishy, they should have been able to demand a report from the investigators which explained away their fears. These are publicly traded stocks, after all. Not secret or private entities.

As for the rest of the banking community, perhaps there should be a ‘non-banking community’ oversight committee. You know, where they have to justify their hare-brained schemes to people (not Senators) with absolutely no monetary means to take advantage of the aforesaid schemes. A revolving membership, perhaps taken from the welfare rolls as a way to earn their keep.
Shenping

Speaking as a (mostly) progressive, I also don’t believe it is possible to legislate the elimination of greed or any other motivation. Trying to criminalize thought seems to be mainly the domain of the religious right. Even the looniest of the loony left seems to be leaving this alone these days, although in today’s environment they may just be hiding scared under rocks. I think that those on both the right and left who have hygiene skills and don’t run around in camo gear will agree that only actions, not thought, can be criminalized.

However, the fact that Madoff was cleared makes a good case that there is a strong class structure in our society, and that Madoff’s class is largely beyond some of our laws. Conrad Black stole hundreds of millions from employees & pensioners and got away from it, but was prosecuted when he stole much less money from the class of people who own $$$billions in shares.

The only country I’m aware of that consistently prosecutes white-collar crime to the degree we’re wishing about here is China. Financial crimes are judged by their consequences. If death or serious injury is the result a financial crime is automatically a capital offense, and fraud is treated similar to walking into a bank and robbing it. Out of the first three trials on the melamine issue, the results are executions for two employees who knowingly put melamine into the milk, and life imprisonment for an executive who approved of the process. Given that she will be in a Chinese jail, the life imprisonment is probably the harsher sentence.

I’m not gushing that the Chinese legal system is superior. They tried building it from scratch in ’49, and they still have serious issues with due process, defendant rights, appeals, legal knowledge among rural judges, and a whole bunch of other problems. But if someone pockets money meant for a bridge and that bridge falls and kills someone, whoever took the money is up for murder. Here they’d get criminal negligence causing death. They also shoot pimps, which makes my little heart happy.

MJH

Budget responses will be exciting:

NDP: “There is not enough for working families and average Canadians sitting around the kitchen table.

Bloc: “Only $30 billion of the $34 billion deficit is going to Quebec. That is unfair.”

Liberals: “We are against middle class tax cuts. We’ll read it in detail and get back to you”

http://macleans.ca kc

Since yr dealing in cliches today i imagine the conservatives [ real ones ] are biting themselves in frustration for want of cutting an arts programme or two.

steve

Yeah and save a couple of 10′s of millions, or the price of printing another budget in May.

Wascally Wabbit

Darned screening software – keeps blocking the posting of a perfectly innocent link….by the time they get around to reviewing – its timeliness will be lost! Grr!
Just visiting

Missing out on the Glass Tiger earworm?

Just click here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k55o18ZGj97RuLdV2w

- JV
seaandthemountains

Kady’s Glass Tiger reference was inspiring…. so heading to the vault of 80s pure gold here is your ‘Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily Coalition’ touch up of Talking Heads ‘Burning down the House’:

Watch out, you might get what you’re after
Stephen Harper, strange but not a stranger
Not an ordinary guy
Bringing down the House

Hold tight, wait ’till the party’s over
Hold tight, we want better weather
There has got to be a way
Bringing down the House

Here’s your ticket, pack your bags, CPC is jumpin’ overboard
The budget is here
Not close enough and still too far, maybe you know where you are
Fightin’ fire with fire
All wet, Stephen you might need a raincoat
New Canadian dreams walking in broad daylight
One hundred and eighty degrees
Bringing down the House

It was once upon a place, Ignatieff used to listen to yourself
He’s gonna come in first place
People on their way to work said, “Baby what did you except?”
Gonna burst into flame, go ahead
Bringing down the House

The house is out of the ordinary
That’s right, don’t want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep us off our feet
Bringing down the House

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin’ yet
Coalition’s stuck together
I don’t know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire

Bringing down the House

Bringing down the House

Bringing down the House

Shenping

I’d go with their “Found a Job” myself:

“Damn that television … what a bad picture”!
“Don’t get upset, It’s not a major disaster”.
“There’s nothing on tonight”, he said, “I don’t know what’s the matter”!
“Nothing’s ever on”, she said, “so … I don’t know why you bother.”

We’ve heard this little scene, we’ve heard it many times.
People fighting over little things and wasting precious time.
They might be better off … I think … the way it seems to me.
Making up their own shows, which might be better than T.V.

(CHORUS)

Dion’s's in the bedroom, inventing situations.
Iggy’s is on the street today, scouting up locations.
They’ve enlisted all their family.
They’ve enlisted all their friends.
It helped saved their relationship,
And made it work again …

Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit.
There might even be a spinoff, but they’re not sure ’bout that.
If they ever watch T.V. again, it’d be too soon for them.
Iggy never yells about the picture now, he’s having too much fun.

(CHORUS)

So think about this little scene; apply it to you life.
If your work isn’t what you love, then something isn’t right.
Just look at Iggy and Dion; they’re happy as can be,
Inventing situations, putting them on T.V.

(CHORUS)

Clarence Seunarine

So Kady, since you’re in sequestration and you’re a carbon-based life form does that mean the Conservatives have perfected carbon sequestration?

http://macleans.ca kc

Not yet. They’re still trying to stuff Ralph down the intake.

MJH

Who’s Ralph?

cwe

He used to be king of the world…er…Alberta.

Shenping

I’d assumed kc meant Goodale, who’s really running the Liberals.

Trying not to picture Ralph getting stuffed . . .

Trying not to picture . . .

Trying not to picture . . .

Thud.

archangel

Just the thought evokes the most hysterical laughter ever experienced by a human.

http://macleans.ca kc

we already have carbon sequestration. The senate!

J@ck M!tchell

Glass Harper

Jim – takes my breath away – oh, oh, oh, oh
Debt – think it’s here to stay – oh, oh, oh, oh
There was so much for me to do
Now I can’t stop bribing you
Oh, can this be true?

Surpluses that might have been – oh, oh, oh, oh
Now we’re in the red, I ween – oh, oh, oh, oh
I just wake up and they’re not there
Don’t tell me to beware
Oh, ’cause I don’t care!

So the salad days are gone
(The budget breaks)
Call the GG, sing a song
(The stock market quakes)

Jim – takes my breath away – oh, oh, oh, oh
Debt – think it’s here to stay – oh, oh, oh, oh
There was so much for me to do
Now I can’t stop bribing you
Oh, can this be true?

So the salad days are gone
(The budget breaks)
Call the GG, sing a song
(The stock market quakes)

I just wake up and they’re not there
Don’t tell me to beware
Oh, ’cause I don’t care!

So the salad days are gone
(The budget’s toast)
Call the GG, sing a song
(So much for my boast)

(key change)

So the salad days are gone
(The budget’s toast)
Call the GG, sing a song
(So much for my boast)
kingbagot

I don’t want to hyjack this thread ,but I think no matter what side you sit on, this day in Canadian history will be very disappointing.Real infastructure projects…. roads,bridges public transit,water, sewer and rail should only be considered. E.I. should be adjusted to reflect todays employment and absolutely as small as possible deficit.

Realist in KIngston
Just visiting

ITQ has the best lyric threads on interwebs!

- JV

archangel

Yeah. Jack is legendary — and now seaandmountains.

http://www.jenniferross.ca Jennifer Ross

Maybe Macleans can publish an anthology of poems and song lyrics from the comments boards as part of a “special issue” someday.

archangel

Though completely off-topic, I cannot resist…

I recently (and temporarily) switched from Firefox to IE7. Huge mistake. Microsoft is like the Conservative Party — lots of money but no talent any more.
John D

I have seen references to “middle-class tax cuts” and tax cuts for those making under-$80,000. Is 80K middle class now? Or do they mean families making under 80K?

Also, to my recollection, there are neither donuts nor date squares in the lockdowns.
Geo

Oh My, oh my, but Kady will be back soon.

I’ve been switching between channels, CTV and CBC just in time to catch my nasty nasty Premier Gordo Campbell, wax lyrical about what a great budget it is. There hasn’t been a P3 or 3P deal he’s met that he hasn’t loved and personally prospered from. Don’t let the Liberal label fool you. He’s a CRAP Con of the first order without the soc-con frills. Gordo has been giving Steve and Jimbo pointers on how to screw people over plus he’s scored some more cash for the party 2010.
Gordo allowed Vanoc to renege on the Social Housing Plan they promised as they didn’t want to bother.
What a Harper cheerleader, I’m disgusted!