On the Brillance of American Political Attacks

In advance of Thursday's first presidential debate, another gem has been released by the Bush-Cheney campaign, which can simultaneously described as both hilarious and effective.

Entitled the "Debate Briefing Book for Senator Kerry", it outlines the multitudinous flip-flopping that has underscored Kerry's entire career as an elected official.

Check it out, hot on the heels of the release of
www.flippercam.com.

On Jim Stanford's Economics

CAW economist Jim Stanford today enlightens us with yet another one of his Monday morning anti-capital diatribes in the op-ed pages of the Globe and Mail.

The crux of today's grievance is that Canadian business, despite record profits, is nonetheless "fail(ing) to invest in new equipment and technology" with the logical corollary that business should be making these investments instead of "redirecting a big fat slice from workers to corporations". Stanford's intellectual gymnastics begin to rival Olympic floor exercises when he asserts that his beloved market perverters (unions) are not "to blame for this miserable record", and that companies should "start doing their job" by investing profit, without of course illustrating how this will benefit the workers Stanford implies he defends.

But perhaps, Jim, just perhaps, business isn't in a position to undertake capital investments in industry infrastucture because many collective agreements make it difficult to do so. In the name of "saving jobs", some collective agreements result in an entrenched industrial obsolescence which makes it nearly impossible to add value to the business like proper capital investment should do, which is why (shock! gasp!) profits get reinvested in moveable capital or returned to shareholders through dividends.

I think it's time that Stanford redirected his vitriol towards unions and the contribution that they have to the very problems he is feebly attempting to address.

On Consumer Choice In New Scotland

In mid-October, voters will go to the polls throughout Nova Scotia to vote for their municipal government representatives, but, arguably more importantly, to determine whether stores generally should be open on Sundays.

You see, this province is the only one in Canada which does not permit some form of shopping each day of the week (though many stores take advantage of exemptions). A lay, out-of-province observer might conclude that the "YES" to Sunday Shopping forces will have no problem ekeing out a victory, given the trends in Canada over the past twenty years. But, alas, this is not the case.

In yet another stunning display of government by abdication instead of leadership, instead of simply asking the populace whether they supported or opposed the initiative, the provincial government created a bipartite ballot which not only asks whether electors support Sunday Shopping, but also what form they desire (the options are shopping every Sunday, or only the six Sundays before Christmas).

Appallingly, voters opposed to Sunday Shopping are still permitted to select what form they prefer. So even if YES garners a majority of votes, NO supporters will likely vote to restrict Sunday Shopping to the Christmas season.

Given the pull that Sunday Shopping opponents have (some Churches are leading the NO crusade), and the general invisibility of the YES campaign, it's unlike that the province will shake of the anachronistic shackles of a law better suited to 1804 instead of 2004.