Going Gentle into That Good Economic Ruin

The noisy neighbour—Sam—the one whose caprices control 85 percent of the Canadian economy—decided several decades ago to commit slow suicide. He is more overweight than our distant neighbours in Europe and Asia. He says he believes in “freedom,” but he incarcerates more of his brothers, on a per capita basis, than anyone else on the planet. He derives perverse pleasure from the maintenance of government-funded death squads (he calls it capital punishment), especially in the southern states. “Freedom,” for Sam, more than anything, means freedom to kill each other. Handgun violence is rampant because it is protected and enshrined as an American ideal by the country’s antiquated, ill-functioning 18^th century constitution.

But the most suicidal aspect of Uncle Sam’s confused (some would say hypocritical) mindset has been his insistence on a relentless drive toward economic ruin. Sam is hell-bent on destroying himself, and his desire to kill himself is most evident in the deliberately destructive running of his economy.

Several decades ago, Sam decided the workers in his factories were being rewarded for their industry at too high a rate of compensation. That they were by far the most productive workers in the world was of no consequence to Sam. He knew only that factory owners would become much richer if cheaper labour could be found. So Sam went about noisily insisting on globalisation, which in Sam’s view consisted of a factory owner’s right to build manufacturing facilities in the poorest countries in the world so that he could use plentiful and cheap labour to reduce operating costs. Sam’s plan worked as envisioned, with wealth and power flowing to only a few of the country’s richest individuals and everyone else growing poorer. People who used to make cars or steel or computers for 35 dollars an hour on the production floor were now earning seven dollars an hour flipping hamburgers and cleaning toilets at McDonalds.

One economic fact of life is certain for Canada: Uncle Sam is going to be purchasing fewer and fewer of the country’s goods and services because Sam is driving himself into poverty and ruin. The new economic and military masters of the universe will be located for a time in Asia. Sam’s reign as leading economic power began after World War I but has been in slow decline for the last forty-two years, since the Nixon Administration. Sam, due to irrevocable choices he made over the last forty years, has no economic future.

Canada has tied its economic fate to that of Uncle Sam. Since long before World War II, Canada has been the breadbasket and construction materials (i.e., forestry products) one-stop shopping centre for the United States. After World War II, Canada became the first foreign sweatshop for the United States, a kind of testing ground for the destructive principles of globalisation.

It’s time for us to realise Canada does not have to go gentle into economic ruin with its fat, disease-ridden neighbour. Canada can look to its healthy past for viable answers. Sir John A. had some excellent ideas, among them the National Policy. Why not Canada first? Why not build an economy independent of what we now know to be the failure and downright evil of the so-called “free market”?

The National Policy is not the only uniquely Canadian idea gaining currency. The Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producers—an organisation that would probably sound terribly socialistic to Sam’s ears if he knew of its existence (but let’s not bother him, especially while he’s watching “American Idol” and Glenn Beck), has taken a step in the right direction.

As the Globe and Mail noted this morning, consumers in the United States are purchasing increasingly less maple syrup. In fact, consumption is down 15 percent just in the last year. The Québec producers realised Sam is not the only consumer with a sweet tooth. Sam has long been stuck on high-fructose corn syrup for the soda pop he enjoys (and that has contributed to his obesity, heart disease, and propensity toward dozens of other maladies). It only makes sense that our healthier neighbours in Europe and Asia would be interested in consuming a much healthier sweet snack.

The Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producers is stockpiling maple syrup—and lots of it. In two storage facilities near Plessisville and Québec City, the FQMSP is maintaining what they call the International Strategic Reserve of maple syrup. It sits, waiting, while Québec marketers storm Asia in a multi-lingual advertising blitz. Maple syrup: It’s not just for breakfast anymore. And it’s not just for Uncle Sam anymore, either.

The FQMSP has an idea whose time has come. It is time for Canada to move on. Uncle Sam has made his choice. Soon enough, he’s going to be a wheezing, morbidly obese old man, propped up by the Asian and European holders of his massive debt. But his time on economic life support is soon coming to an end. He’s going to be going into cardiac arrest soon, and though we may mourn his occasional smile and can-do attitude, his time is over. It’s time for Canada to move on, into a healthier world. The FQMSP is leading the way. Let’s follow their example.

PM
April 6, 2011

The Direction of Our Moral Compass

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." –Mahatma Ghandi

Its crime rate is ten-fold higher than the rest of the country. Its citizens suffer more alcoholism, child abuse, suicide, sexual abuse, depression, and serious crime than any people on earth. Thirty-two thousand people occupy the largest territory in Canada. But Nunavut is not just the largest and most northerly part of Canada. If our moral compass points north, Nunavut is True North, and it reveals the extent to which we honour the commitments of a Just Society.

The Globe and Mail is running an excellent series called “The Trials of Nunavut.” I hope everyone I know will take the time to read this series of articles, videos, and slide presentations. It is a beautifully composed but heartbreaking series discussing the deep social problems facing the people of this most northern land.

I cannot think of a set of remedies for the deep and open wounds in this suffering land. I cannot even devise a meaningful hypothesis to account for the origins of the crime, pain, violence, and social ill that have gripped the territory. I suspect the nature and extent of the problems require the skills and expertise of far more people than have so far been allocated to any serious consideration of solutions.

My father campaigned for Hubert Humphrey. In my youth in Minnesota, I understood him to represent that which is good in all of us. When the Liberals form a government in Canada, the Throne Speech often quotes this founder of Minnesota’s Democrat Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party. Humphrey said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

The feeling among leaders of Nunavut’s government that scant attention and resources are being given to this northern land finds deep resonance in my thoughts. I don’t know how we might find solutions. But I do know this: The depth of our concern about Nunavut, and the extent to which we honour that concern with our actions and through our political leadership, is a test of our character as human beings. I am going to be listening carefully over the next four weeks to discern the major candidates' thoughts and proposals for addressing the needs of Nunavut. What I would really like to see is some honest expression of compassion from anyone in the four major parties. When we find compassion in our hearts, we will inevitably find solutions. And when we find solutions, we will have reoriented our compass to True North.

PM
April 5, 2011

Forward to Trudeauville

John Ibbitson wrote a piece yesterday titled “With New Platform, Liberals Chart Course Back to Trudeauville.” I don’t know that Michael Ignatieff is going “back” anywhere, but I am glad to see the Liberal Party’s renewed emphasis on education, child care, and the environment.

The Liberal plan calls for fairness in taxation. It’s hard to know how to structure a system of taxation in such a way that it is truly fair. However, it is not difficult to discern the feelings of those who are taxed. Wealthy individuals south of the 49^th who pay less than five percent of their income in federal tax are most visible and vocal in their complaints that taxes are too high. They pay a small percentage of income in taxes, but to listen to them you would think they inhabited the most socialistic country in the world. “I’m in the 28% tax bracket,” she says, almost in tears. You can feel her pain, and when she says, “Taxes are too high!” you recall your own sense of loss when the government takes money you might have used for your daughter’s braces or new shingles on the roof. Seems like she’s right, you think: Taxes are too high.

We need to separate feelings from reality. I have been solidly in the 28% tax bracket for many years. But I have never paid more than 7% in federal income tax. I’m not cheating. I don’t even reduce the tax as much as I could. In the United States the tax code is brimming with exemptions and deductions and ways to calculate business and personal loss in such a way that taxes can be reduced, often to nothing. Skilled accountants can manipulate the complicated tax code to reduce tax all the way down to zero. The next time you hear someone from south of the 49^th complain about taxes, realise that she is not complaining about high taxes. She wants to pay no tax whatsoever.

Perhaps the fact that wealthy and powerful people pay fewer taxes and at a lower percentage of income and wealth is a good thing after all. Shouldn’t innovation and resourcefulness be rewarded?

Science and society and the free market are limited by an unbreakable rule of economics. The 80/20 Rule has been found true for physical and chemical phenomena as well as for social interactions and product sales. In the realm I inhabit, achieving 80% drug purity requires perhaps 20% effort. Bringing that purity up to the FDA-required 99% requires an army of people to do the work, test purity and efficacy, and confirm purity through checks and audits. Probably about four times as much effort is given to achieve that last 20% of purity compared to the resources required to achieve the first 80% of purity. In industry, 20% of companies control 80% of sales. In the literary world, 20% of authors write 80% of the books anyone is ever going to read.

When I travel, my hotel room is prepared by a woman who earns less than 20% of my annual income. I am served breakfast, lunch, and dinner by waitresses and waiters who earn less than 20% of my salary. The janitors and maintenance people who prepare the boardroom where I will deliver my oral consultant’s report are payed less than 20% of my income. Throughout my work day, I am continually interacting with individuals whose industry is rewarded at less than 20% of my generous salary. Yet they are working long hours, just as I am. Does their hard work carry less value than mine?

The conservative nods. “Yes,” she says, “janitors and housekeepers and waiters are providing non-creative services. You provide a creative service to corporations and this is reflected in your $160 per hour salary.”

Pierre Trudeau shakes his head. “No,” he says, “janitors and housekeepers and waiters are performing work you could not complete on your short schedule. They are the ones who allow you to arrive on time, well-rested and well-fed, to deliver your report. Their time is just as valuable as yours.”

Society cannot easily regulate my salary or the janitor’s hourly rate. But society can oblige me to pay a fair share of taxes. Probably the janitor and the housekeeper should be paying no tax whatever. Their physical labour is sufficient tax. However, someone like me who is coddled and primped and served all day long should pay a significant portion of income in taxes. My income should support the daycare workers who care for the housekeeper’s children, should pay the salary of teachers who educate the janitor’s daughters and sons. I ought to pay a share of costs to build and maintain the roads that brought me safely and quickly to the company who requires my expertise. I should be paying in taxes a higher percentage of my income than someone earning only $50 per hour, and that person should be paying a higher percentage than someone earning $25 per hour. People earning less than $15 per hour should never even receive a tax form.

There was a time when this philosophy was called progressive taxation. Now it’s called “soaking the rich.” But it is the only fair system of taxation. Those who benefit most should pay the most to support the system that allows them to rise to prominence, power, and wealth.

It all comes down to our attitudes about the value of human life. When I am about to check out of my hotel room I first make sure I haven’t left too big a mess. I make sure I haven’t forgotten anything in a drawer or on the nightstand. And then I reach into my pocket and pull out a portrait of John A. MacDonald or Alexander Hamilton, depending on the country I’m in at the time, and place the bill on the pillow. My hotel room set me back $100; is a 10% tip for the housekeeper too much? I don’t think so. And as for attitude: I have yet to assess any gratuity I give as a business expense so that my tax burden can be reduced. The ten dollars I leave the housekeeper or the twenty dollars I leave for the waiter are not tokens of my wealth, to be reimbursed by the government. They are tokens of my gratitude, freely given, because I esteem the good work performed on my behalf, and consider it worthy of my support and recognition. Society is for all of us, and not just for those who believe themselves more worthy. We’re all worthy. Every one of us.

Mr. Ignatieff’s plan is not going back anywhere. It’s taking us to the kind of future we ought to have had long ago. It’s progressive. It’s a good idea. As Trudeau would have said, it is a step in the direction of a Just Society. There could be no better road to the future.

Political Authenticity

I sit here this morning trying to make sense of Mustafa Rizvi. Unless you’re a resident of Mississauga the name may not be familiar to you. Mr. Rizvi, until quite recently, was an NDP candidate for Parliament from the riding of Mississauga-Erindale. Apparently he woke up one morning and decided he was not a New Democrat, but his true calling was to support the Conservatives.

I read a couple news reports about him, about his third-place finish in the 2008 elections, about his upcoming marriage. Did the impending loss of bachelorhood cause a sudden shift in his political allegiance? I tried to imagine Tommy Douglas waking up one morning and realising he was not really a member of the CCF and he certainly couldn’t help form this new political entity, the New Democratic Party. What could have caused the Premier of Mouseland to suddenly see himself in the role of Black Cat?

Try as I might, I just couldn’t see it happening. Would Tommy Douglas, even on his deathbed, have repudiated the causes for which he so eloquently fought? The Black Cats and the White Cats, as Tommy said, are still cats no matter how you look at them. Cats like to eat mice. Conservatives use labour as fuel for the realignment of power into the hands of the wealthy. That is, human lives are seen as expendible—useful only to the extent that they help enrich the lives of the power elite.

Conservatives understand human beings as having been distributed into two camps: Those who manipulate others to serve their whims, and the stupid, sniveling hordes whose only justification for existence is to serve as expendable slave labour to the manipulators, the creative capitalists—or to use their Randian term—the Atlases of the world. Humanity is not something to which one is born, it is rather something one must earn in the free market. And if fortune does not favour you, this can only mean you don’t possess the requisite backbone or skill or tenacity to call yourself a human being. Into the hopeless pool of the nameless masses with you, then, to serve the Masters of the Universe.

Other than upholding the historical definition of marriage, I cannot think of a single conservative cause that has advanced the cause of human dignity. In the Greatest Canadian competition of 2004 I supported Pierre Trudeau. I felt he had done more than any other Canadian to mould Canada into its present form. In retrospect, perhaps I ought to have cast my vote for Tommy Douglas. Not because Tommy was the ultimate architect of what Canada is, but because he is the best representative of what humanity ought to become.

I cannot say I understand Mr. Rizvi. But I do understand Mr. Douglas. I understand there are dispositions of the soul that admit of no philosophical alternative. My religious tradition tells me that human beings are formed into the very Image of God. In all of creation there is nothing more sacred than human life. Tommy Douglas believed this. What do you believe, Mr. Rizvi?

PM
April 1, 2011