Raise dem corporate taxes in Canada

Just like the NDP says:

Reverse the Liberal and Conservative giveaways. The New Democrats will not implement Mr. Harper's profligate, wasteful and unproductive corporate tax breaks. We'll restore a uniform 22.12% tax rate – what it was before the Martin and Harper governments began these giveaways.

Simplify the tax code by reviewing and eliminating outdated tax incentives and loopholes. Tighten-up tax administration so everyone pays their fair share of taxes, and the billions of dollars in taxes currently owed, but not paid, are collected.

Of course, some people disagree: A tax professor at the University of Calgary (oh, ho-ho-ho!), the OECD, and the C. D. Howe Institute among others. The usual suspects. According to KPMG, Canada's corporate taxes (when compounded with provincial tax rates) are the third-highest in the OECD.

No surprise, the Canadian Labour Congress disputes KPMG's numbers:

However, Canadian Labour Congress economistErin Weir counters the claim that corporate tax rates in Canada are relatively high, arguing it is no longer accurate."Canada's marginal effective tax rate dropped from 37 per cent to 31 per cent, mainly due to accelerated depreciation for manufacturers and other targeted measures," Weir said.
Not only is Canada's marginal effective tax rate lower than the 32-per-cent average of industrial countries, the rate on Canada's struggling manufacturing sector is an even lower 23 per cent, well below the 31-per-cent average in industrial countries, Weir added.

What I don't think can possibly be disputed is that Canadians have received very little for previous tax cuts [pdf link]:

As noted, the federal corporate income tax rate has been cut from 28% in 2000 to 21% today. But there is,to date, no evidence of a significant impact on investment.On the contrary, corporate pre-tax profits have soared to a record-high as a percentage of national income, while real business investment in structures and in machinery and equipment has languished.

Now, my good friend Stephen Gordon argues that corporate taxes aren't even progressive, since countries like Sweden have low corporate taxes and higher income and consumption taxes. I'm prepared to move towards Sweden's low corporate taxes to increase investment and productivity as long as we're agreed to pursue the whole gamut of Swedish socio-economic policies, including industry-wide bargaining and significant codetermination powers for local unions within their firm, ... oh yeah, and 80% unionization levels.

Until such a time, I prefer that the state maintain its power to tax our generally underperforming business sector, using targetted tax breaks to ensure genuine investment in our country's future, rather than simply banking it.

Failures of bush II regime a testimony to value of democracy

Because, once again for emphasis, bush II and Karl Rove never won an election. Despite massive fraud, they lost both times. The American people had either the good sense to not bother voting at all (which isn't really all that effective a way to ensure one's proper political representation but it at least signifies that you're not impressed with the available alternatives) or they voted for the lesser of two evils.

All the crimes and bunglings of the bush II regime are the responsibility of a minority of the US-American electorate and a corrupt cabal of militarists and corporate gangsters. Which is why the US-American people should have risen up and prevented this gang from ever getting started on their road to historical infamy.

I say all this in the looming shadow of a possible majority government for the murderous and murderously incompetent Conservative Party of Canada of Stephen Harper. This inhuman nitwit shouldn't even have a minority government, but thanks to our freakishly outdated electoral system he does have one. At least there's enough democratic strength left in the system that he's been forced to water down the extent of his and his party's lunatic fantasies. If it turns out to be the case this time that vote-splitting on the left permits the party of the fascist closet-cases and hypocrites, the selfish and the comfortably ignorant, to win majority government status, then we're all in trouble. But the damage that Harper (the enemy of health care and the fan of killing innocent people in other lands) and Flaherty (the fan of 19th Century fiscal policy and 18th Century social policy) and Stockwell Day (the fan of 1930s German policing policies and 45th century [BCE] scientific theories) will do will be testimony to the necessity of a more representative, democratic form of choosing governments in Canada. Because, once again, these fools do not represent the majority. "The People" (to use a democratic cliche) are smarter than that.

Cold Harper

I don't get a lot of hoots out of Impolitical's blog, due to her intense loyalty to the Liberal Party of Canada which I positively loathe. However, Liberals are good for a smarter trashing of "Conservative" governments than "Conservatives" are good for trashings of Liberal governments, and I have to credit her with presenting this clip to the world:

"Harper 'reacts' to a supporter fainting"

Watch it before reading the rest of my post. [SPOILER ALERT!!!]

That must've been some speech. At the beginning I wasn't sure which of those poor young shlubs was going to be the fainter. But watch as Harper responds when he finally notices that something happened behind him. I have to point out that he doesn't make the slightest effort to enquire as to whether the young person is alright. He doesn't even make a move in that direction. He does absolutely nothing.

Now, ponder at my brilliance and perspicacity from an earlier entry of mine describing the dead moral centre of Stephen Harper:

Somebody on babble once referred to Harper as a "dead-eyed cipher." And I have to agree, in some pictures, Harper appears to have the eyes of a corpse. They just sort of stare, coldly, blankly, thinking of nothing at all, whilst his body uncomfortably wobbles around in some inappropriate cowboy vest or flak jacket.

Like his eyes, Harper doesn't seem to care about very much. It's like he's going through the motions, or some sort of "process" (like decaying).

...

I don't think Harper particularly gives a shit about Israel, one way or the other. That's for the fundamentalist nutbars like Stockwell Day and his US-American counterparts among the religious right. Israel is just a political symbol for Harper. I'm not sure that it's within him to understand how this works deep down, .... he just knows that it works. It helps him by giving him red meat to throw at his political supporters ... who he doesn't care about either. And this is all to help him get and keep power in Canada, a country which he also doesn't give a shit about.

"Conservatives" are Shitty Economic Managers

Check this out:

In a speech yesterday, Harper stopped just short of saying voters should give him a majority government to protect the health of the economy.

"They can choose a strong government to keep Canada on track," Harper said. "Or they can choose a weak Parliament that will put our economic stability at risk."

What a crock of shit. Um, Stevie boy? D'you know who your finance minister is? Jim Flaherty. Yeah, ... that guy. You picked him Stevie.

That's a pretty expensive "green" tax package too Stevie. Too bad it doesn't do anything.

You're such a fucking sickening liar. You don't give a shit about sound finance. You don't give a shit about the health of Canadian society. You exist to make your masters rich. You don't even care about the red meat that your chump voting base slavers for.

But it's easy for Stevie to say this crap, because the media (when they're not deliberately singing the corporate tune and excluding sane voices from the marketplace of ideas) imagines that to report on what a politician says and to then tell people whether the politician is lying or not, is departing from "objectivity."

Harper and Flaherty have wreaked the public finances and there's nothing to show for it. Harris-Flaherty-Eves screwed Ontario over. Mulroney did a number on us. Grant Devine fucked up Saskatchewan. The SoCreds loved their deficits in British Columbia. South of the border, it's the same thing. Reagan and bush II in particular, love blowing other people's money on militarism and presents for rich people.

Regarding the media, I, like others, wish they'd do some work and follow-up on important political claims. When Harper blames the Liberals for deaths from tainted meat that happened over two years into his watch, it ought to be a simple task to establish whether he's just being a fat, gutless, lying asshole, blaming others for his own murderous incompetence and corruption.

Lastly, I'd just like to say that Alison at Creekside's presentation of the convinction in the Paintball 18 case is chilling and testimony to how far these Liberals, with their mewling stupidity and corporate arrogance which they regard as "pragmatism" and these "Conservatives" with their naked authoritarianism and their sheer stupidity, have debased our political culture.

Adam Yoshida on Conservative "Vision"

H/T to Canadian Cynic.

Adam Yoshida of "The Western Standard.ca" (what is it now? a blog?) fantasizes about what the Cons could do with a majority government:

Do too much, rather than too little. Don’t shift these things around. Burn them down and salt the Earth. A future Liberal government won’t have the guts, the time, the wherewithal, or the money to recreate them all at once. Sell the land and the buildings. Shred the records. Disperse the staff. It’s easier to destroy than it is to create. A Tory government on a rampage could destroy in a couple of months what it took four decades to create – and what it would take another forty to recreate.

This is just a restatement of the fanatic Milton Friedman's Tyranny of the Status-Quo wherein he advocated a Republican administration should try to destroy as many welfare-state institutions and as many centre and left power blocs as possible in its first six months.

Yoshida, like Friedman and other right-wingers, is, at the end of the day, really only capable of destruction. Friedman's pupils got a blank slate to work with in Chile and it was an economic disaster. Friedman's own recommendations on the money supply and inflation were tested by the Reagan administration and almost destroyed the economy. (Reagan's massive military spending might have been what saved US manufacturing from the impact of the overpriced dollar.) Like the failure Friedman, Canadian "conservatives" have been equally as destructive. Mike Harris destroyed Ontario's finances and managed to kill people with their drinking water. His incompetent finance minister went on to Ottawa where he's backed us up into a deficit situation while Canadians have been dying from eating contaminated meat. These people are insane and stupid and should be kept far from the levers of power.

Yoshida's alternative to state services for the general public is militarism and jingoism:

Build big things. Canadians, for all that they claim to be a peace-loving people, want to love their country. That’s why, in the absence of a more compelling national identity, they hold onto the things that they do. Build a pair of Aircraft Carriers – giant, expensive, deadly, and useful symbols of Canadian pride that children can hang on their walls. Name them after Wolfe and Montcalm or something like that.

Yes. Canadian-made Aircraft Carriers. Yoshida doesn't really have any idea about what he's talking about.

Who is this Adam Yoshida fellow? I don't really know. I think that I've heard his name before, associated with something bad. My last comment on him is that I think the left has to think about destroying the political and economic strength of nutbars like this with the same level of enthusiasm that they would bring to destroying our healthcare system or to starting wars with impoverished countries (while they yammer about how "dangerous" the world is).

Like Friedman said (imagining different targets): "Hit them everywhere, all at once. Don't give them time to mobilize in defence of anything."

Judith Scherr on MINUSTAH from CounterPunch

A great article, highly recommended: "Blue Helmets in Haiti"

A rare glimpse at the situation in Haiti. Including a call for MINUSTAH to stay in Haiti from a source that I can actually trust as it makes sense:

Despite her anger, Bienaimé said she’s not among those calling for MINUSTAH to leave. She credits MINUSTAH for ending the gang violence in recent years.

“There are still things going on [i.e., gang violence], but it’s nothing like four years ago. Before, it was a very bad situation. I couldn’t sleep in my house because there was always shooting going on somewhere. I almost lost my daughter in the middle of crossfire, and I had to stay for three years in someone else’s house. I’m not saying the U.N. has to leave the country. I can tell they really help. but I still think the U.N. needs to respect people,” she said.

For the record, another Haitian has a different opinion.

Unlike Bienaimé, Guerta insisted the U.N. troops should leave.

“The way the U.N. treats Haitians is as if they are not human beings,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with people who don’t respect you. If I died from this, no one would care, the same way no one cares about this incident. I believe MINUSTAH should leave, because they are not really helping.”

Worth the read considering Canada's ongoing complicity in this travesty.

Hot-knives Demo

I'm just not pumped about anything tonight ...



actually, i like that guy's kettle.