‘ “You can literally open the bill and point your finger to a page and say, ‘Here’s something we should go after,’” said Representative Michael C. Burgess of Texas, a Republican on the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee. “It’s all bad.” ’ I found the foregoing this evening (the day of US midterm elections) at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-03/republicans-to-take-on-u-s-health-care-overhaul-from-taxes-to-insurance.html. Among other things, I note that Burgess is apparently a doctor. He finds President Obama’s medicare legislation “all bad”. That seems like a political rather than a medical opinion. I expect that there is ample knowledgeable opinion from other medical experts that the legislation is, medically speaking, “good”. I am strongly inclined, therefore, to question either Dr. Burgess' competence, his medical ethics, or both. Regardless of freedom of speech, a medical doctor doesn’t seem to me to have the prerogative of resisting that which is commonly or widely acknowledged to be beneficial to the well-being of many health-care clients.
There seems to be a body of knowledgeable opinion in the US to the effect that some of the Republicans who have been elected, especially to the House of Representatives, embody (to put it politely) some fairly "quirky" positions on important issues. I hope that, in these cases, many of these folks will readily undermine their own credibility by their words and actions, both in and outside the House, thereby causing many voters to become disillusioned with them. If that happens, their initiatives are all the more likely to be stopped in the Democratic-controlled Senate or, in what seems to me to be a last resort, by presidential veto.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Strange accounting practices
[British Columbia premier Gordon] Campbell introduced a 25% cut in all provincial income taxes on the first day he was installed to office. To improve BC's investment climate, the BC Liberals also reduced the corporate income tax and abolished the corporate capital tax for most businesses. (The foregoing is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Liberal_Party.)
This next excerpt is from http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/09/26/BizBCLibs/
By Will McMartin, 26 Sep 2005, TheTyee.ca
“[British Columbia] Finance minister Carole Taylor's September 14 post-election mini-budget slashed corporate taxes by $163 million over a full fiscal year. When that amount is added to earlier business tax-reductions enacted since 2001 by her BC Liberal predecessors, Gary Collins and Colin Hansen, total business-sector tax savings exceed one billion dollars annually.
Collins started the corporate windfall in the summer of 2001 when he unveiled corporate tax cuts totalling $770 million annually. The measures included phasing out the corporation capital tax for non-financial companies; social service (sales) tax exemptions for production machinery and equipment; and a reduction in the corporate income-tax rate from 16.5% to 13.5%.
He followed with business tax reductions of $15 million in 2002-03, $26 million in 2003-04 and $65 million in 2004-05. Among those cuts included a sales tax exemption for machinery repairs; extension of the scientific research tax-credit; and corporate-income tax-reductions and incentives for film and animation production, new media, mining exploration and book publishing.
When Collins quit politics in the fall of 2004, the cumulative, yearly total of his business tax cuts was $876 million.
Hansen followed with a 2005-06 budget which raised the threshold for both the small-business corporate-income tax and the sales-tax on luxury vehicles, increased corporate-income tax credits for film production, and gave a school-tax exemption for hydro-electric projects. The annual cost of his corporate tax reductions: $24 million. Between the two of them, Collins and Hansen lowered the tax burden for BC businesses by $900 million - annually. (The tax cuts, with the exception of credits for mining and scientific research, are not temporary or short-term initiatives; they remain in effect, year after year, until changed by the legislature.)
Taylor's inaugural budget further trimmed the corporate-income tax-rate from 13.5% to 12%, and provided a new tax credit for the commercialization of life sciences. The full-year cost of these measures is $163 million.
When Taylor's cuts fully kick-in next year, 2006-07, BC businesses will be saving $1,063,000,000 annually, compared to what they paid before the BC Liberals.”
As for the accuracy of any Liberal government financial reporting, I give you the following.
And the following, from http://kaikit.blogspot.com/, echoes a report yesterday (August 19, 2010) on CBC radio in BC.
"B.C.'s budget deficit should be $73 million higher than reported, says a report released Thursday by the province's auditor general, who took issue with the way the government accounted for a massive infrastructure project.
John Doyle reviewed the government's financial statements for the 2009/2010 fiscal year and in a 62-page report, concluded B.C.'s budget deficit should be $1.85 billion as opposed to the $1.77 billion reported by the government.
Doyle's report included three reservations regarding the government's method of accounting, saying it deviates from the accounting norm, known as generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. He said the government is not following GAAP when it comes to the $3.2 billion Port Mann Bridge project, the largest infrastructure project in British Columbia history. The government classified the Port Mann project as a revenue generator on the books when it will take 40 years to pay for itself, said Doyle. "It is a big deal," he said. "Basically, government is saying that this is a commercial activity which is self-sustaining when in fact they haven't even built the bridge yet."
"Finance Minister Colin Hansen said Doyle raised the same three budget objections in last year's report, but the government did not make any changes because it received the endorsement from the Finance Ministry's comptroller general, who essentially monitors and ensures the integrity of the province's books."
This is probably the same comptroller; Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, who did a less than stellar report on the Vancouver School Board.
[Regarding Ms Wenezenki-Yolland’s work, I digress to quote the following (from http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+school+board+could+have+avoided+financial+shortfall+report/3113588/story.html)
$16.32 million: The Vancouver school board's projected deficit for the 2010/2011 budget.
$11.79 million: What the comptroller-general says the budget shortfall actually is, attributing the difference to a combination of board surpluses and overly conservative accounting. (The board argues that money is not, in fact, a surplus but has been set aside to cover anticipated bills.)]
In view of the auditor-general’s questions, I take it as fair and appropriate to assume that Ms Y-Z, whether deliberately (under instructions from the Minister of Education) or out of ignorance of GAAP, has presented us with numbers which should be ignored.]
Returning to the discussion of whether or not the BC provincial government uses GAAP.
"He [Doyle?] did not take issue with the transparency of our public accounts -- that everything is disclosed -- he just has disagreements with the accounting principles we apply to those three items, this comes down to differing opinions between the comptroller general and the auditor general as to what constitutes generally accepted accounting principles." Hansen said.
Tax cuts do not create employment. Collecting and properly spending taxes does.
“According to a 2008 report prepared for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, every time governments put $1 billion dollars into infrastructure, they create 11,000 jobs - twice as many as an equal size tax cut.” (letter from Mr. Hans Cunningham, president, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, in MacLean’s magazine, August 23/2010, page 6) The foregoing sentence is also part of my previous post.
This next excerpt is from http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/09/26/BizBCLibs/
By Will McMartin, 26 Sep 2005, TheTyee.ca
“[British Columbia] Finance minister Carole Taylor's September 14 post-election mini-budget slashed corporate taxes by $163 million over a full fiscal year. When that amount is added to earlier business tax-reductions enacted since 2001 by her BC Liberal predecessors, Gary Collins and Colin Hansen, total business-sector tax savings exceed one billion dollars annually.
Collins started the corporate windfall in the summer of 2001 when he unveiled corporate tax cuts totalling $770 million annually. The measures included phasing out the corporation capital tax for non-financial companies; social service (sales) tax exemptions for production machinery and equipment; and a reduction in the corporate income-tax rate from 16.5% to 13.5%.
He followed with business tax reductions of $15 million in 2002-03, $26 million in 2003-04 and $65 million in 2004-05. Among those cuts included a sales tax exemption for machinery repairs; extension of the scientific research tax-credit; and corporate-income tax-reductions and incentives for film and animation production, new media, mining exploration and book publishing.
When Collins quit politics in the fall of 2004, the cumulative, yearly total of his business tax cuts was $876 million.
Hansen followed with a 2005-06 budget which raised the threshold for both the small-business corporate-income tax and the sales-tax on luxury vehicles, increased corporate-income tax credits for film production, and gave a school-tax exemption for hydro-electric projects. The annual cost of his corporate tax reductions: $24 million. Between the two of them, Collins and Hansen lowered the tax burden for BC businesses by $900 million - annually. (The tax cuts, with the exception of credits for mining and scientific research, are not temporary or short-term initiatives; they remain in effect, year after year, until changed by the legislature.)
Taylor's inaugural budget further trimmed the corporate-income tax-rate from 13.5% to 12%, and provided a new tax credit for the commercialization of life sciences. The full-year cost of these measures is $163 million.
When Taylor's cuts fully kick-in next year, 2006-07, BC businesses will be saving $1,063,000,000 annually, compared to what they paid before the BC Liberals.”
As for the accuracy of any Liberal government financial reporting, I give you the following.
And the following, from http://kaikit.blogspot.com/, echoes a report yesterday (August 19, 2010) on CBC radio in BC.
"B.C.'s budget deficit should be $73 million higher than reported, says a report released Thursday by the province's auditor general, who took issue with the way the government accounted for a massive infrastructure project.
John Doyle reviewed the government's financial statements for the 2009/2010 fiscal year and in a 62-page report, concluded B.C.'s budget deficit should be $1.85 billion as opposed to the $1.77 billion reported by the government.
Doyle's report included three reservations regarding the government's method of accounting, saying it deviates from the accounting norm, known as generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. He said the government is not following GAAP when it comes to the $3.2 billion Port Mann Bridge project, the largest infrastructure project in British Columbia history. The government classified the Port Mann project as a revenue generator on the books when it will take 40 years to pay for itself, said Doyle. "It is a big deal," he said. "Basically, government is saying that this is a commercial activity which is self-sustaining when in fact they haven't even built the bridge yet."
"Finance Minister Colin Hansen said Doyle raised the same three budget objections in last year's report, but the government did not make any changes because it received the endorsement from the Finance Ministry's comptroller general, who essentially monitors and ensures the integrity of the province's books."
This is probably the same comptroller; Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, who did a less than stellar report on the Vancouver School Board.
[Regarding Ms Wenezenki-Yolland’s work, I digress to quote the following (from http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+school+board+could+have+avoided+financial+shortfall+report/3113588/story.html)
$16.32 million: The Vancouver school board's projected deficit for the 2010/2011 budget.
$11.79 million: What the comptroller-general says the budget shortfall actually is, attributing the difference to a combination of board surpluses and overly conservative accounting. (The board argues that money is not, in fact, a surplus but has been set aside to cover anticipated bills.)]
In view of the auditor-general’s questions, I take it as fair and appropriate to assume that Ms Y-Z, whether deliberately (under instructions from the Minister of Education) or out of ignorance of GAAP, has presented us with numbers which should be ignored.]
Returning to the discussion of whether or not the BC provincial government uses GAAP.
"He [Doyle?] did not take issue with the transparency of our public accounts -- that everything is disclosed -- he just has disagreements with the accounting principles we apply to those three items, this comes down to differing opinions between the comptroller general and the auditor general as to what constitutes generally accepted accounting principles." Hansen said.
Tax cuts do not create employment. Collecting and properly spending taxes does.
“According to a 2008 report prepared for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, every time governments put $1 billion dollars into infrastructure, they create 11,000 jobs - twice as many as an equal size tax cut.” (letter from Mr. Hans Cunningham, president, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, in MacLean’s magazine, August 23/2010, page 6) The foregoing sentence is also part of my previous post.
"Real" jobs?
The following is from http://money.canoe.ca/money/business/canada/archives/2010/08/20100806-084606.html
“Canada shed 9,000 mostly full-time jobs in July, nudging the unemployment rate up to 8%, according to government data released Friday. A 139,000 drop in full-time jobs was offset by an additional 130,000 part-time positions, Statistics Canada said. The results fell short of economists’ expectations of a 13,000 expansion.”
I beliee that part-time jobs have many disadvantages for the employee as opposed to full-time jobs:
lower gross pay (of course - fewer hour)
slower accumulation of seniority and related benefits (raises, opportunity for promotion)
absence of benefits such as extended health care coverage
less job security; if not outright lay-off, the employee’s hours can be reduced to the point where the pay cannot cover even basic needs
shorter-term entitlement to EI benefits if laid off
Many of the above seem to me to serve the employer well at the employees’ expense.
“Canada shed 9,000 mostly full-time jobs in July, nudging the unemployment rate up to 8%, according to government data released Friday. A 139,000 drop in full-time jobs was offset by an additional 130,000 part-time positions, Statistics Canada said. The results fell short of economists’ expectations of a 13,000 expansion.”
I beliee that part-time jobs have many disadvantages for the employee as opposed to full-time jobs:
lower gross pay (of course - fewer hour)
slower accumulation of seniority and related benefits (raises, opportunity for promotion)
absence of benefits such as extended health care coverage
less job security; if not outright lay-off, the employee’s hours can be reduced to the point where the pay cannot cover even basic needs
shorter-term entitlement to EI benefits if laid off
Many of the above seem to me to serve the employer well at the employees’ expense.
Civilization?
I recently read Barbara Amiel’s column in a mid-August edition of Maclean‘s magazine. (For those outside Canada, this is a weekly news magazine along the general lines of "Time" or "Life" in the United States.) She writes to the effect that no hot country has ever had a great civilization because heat makes people lazy and stupid. (Her language is a bit more decorous, but all that this does is to deceive the reader about the offensive nature of her thesis.) The “disclaimer” sentence “It’s not the people, stupid, it’s the heat.” doesn’t in my view disguises her ethnic prejudice. (I won’t use the word “racial” which I am told is an anthropologically indefensible term.) It simply adds to her negative attributes the ability to be a gratuitous name-caller.
Examples to the contrary are numerous. Timbuktu (now spelled Tomboctou, I think) was the center of a great Islamic civilization in about (say) 1100-1200 AD: I would need to check the atlas to date this more precisely. It was presumably a hot place then, though desertification is a recent phenomenon. (I assume desertification to mean decreasing humidity but not necessarily increasing temperature.) More generally, Arab-speaking countries, and Mexico, and Peru all had thriving civilizations when Europe was still a battlefield for barbaric tribes. These (perhaps not Peru) were, as they still are, hot places. Support for her theory necessitates the definition of “civilization” held by European colonizers when they made first contact with American aboriginal cultures. Amiel reveals her hand by referring to “Burkina Faso” as “Upper Volta”. The assumption that anything European - including place names - is superior to anything indigenous - is inescapable from that simple fact. This is plainly intentional by her immediate grudging reference to the legitimate place name.
Given her involvement in Conrad Black’s “civilized” world, I’ll plonk for the version of real civilization, real culture, found among the Arabs, the Bedouins, the Islamic peoples of early medieval Saharan Africa. Black’s and Amiel’s “civilization” - western right wing “civilization” - is one in which ripping off one’s own companies is part of an acceptable definition of “honest service”; after all, Black is still guilty of crimes which leave no doubt as to his behaviour, and his exoneration on other charges therefore merely changes the legal definition of "honest service" so as to include conduct like Black's. "Civilization" a l'Amiel envisions a society in which water-boarding and sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and emotional abuse of 15-year-old Maher Arar (all documented on video) do not constitute “torture” but are acceptable interrogation techniques for use with someone who is scarcely more than a child.
Examples to the contrary are numerous. Timbuktu (now spelled Tomboctou, I think) was the center of a great Islamic civilization in about (say) 1100-1200 AD: I would need to check the atlas to date this more precisely. It was presumably a hot place then, though desertification is a recent phenomenon. (I assume desertification to mean decreasing humidity but not necessarily increasing temperature.) More generally, Arab-speaking countries, and Mexico, and Peru all had thriving civilizations when Europe was still a battlefield for barbaric tribes. These (perhaps not Peru) were, as they still are, hot places. Support for her theory necessitates the definition of “civilization” held by European colonizers when they made first contact with American aboriginal cultures. Amiel reveals her hand by referring to “Burkina Faso” as “Upper Volta”. The assumption that anything European - including place names - is superior to anything indigenous - is inescapable from that simple fact. This is plainly intentional by her immediate grudging reference to the legitimate place name.
Given her involvement in Conrad Black’s “civilized” world, I’ll plonk for the version of real civilization, real culture, found among the Arabs, the Bedouins, the Islamic peoples of early medieval Saharan Africa. Black’s and Amiel’s “civilization” - western right wing “civilization” - is one in which ripping off one’s own companies is part of an acceptable definition of “honest service”; after all, Black is still guilty of crimes which leave no doubt as to his behaviour, and his exoneration on other charges therefore merely changes the legal definition of "honest service" so as to include conduct like Black's. "Civilization" a l'Amiel envisions a society in which water-boarding and sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and emotional abuse of 15-year-old Maher Arar (all documented on video) do not constitute “torture” but are acceptable interrogation techniques for use with someone who is scarcely more than a child.
Friday, February 12, 2010
"The rich get rich(er)" and the powerful become more powerful
I am in the midst of having the opportunity to act as worship leader for a couple of months while our minister is away. In choosing words for our public prayers this coming Sunday, I wrote the following: "We pray for the world; especially for the Olympic games, that we may justly celebrate the skill and dedication of those from every nation who compete and recognize the risk they face in providing entertainment for us while adding to the wealth and power of those who are already wealthy and powerful."
Today, a young man from the comparatively impoverished country of Georgia paid with his life because Canadian officials supported the building of a luge track which is unusually fast and dangerous (according to the assessment of many lugers and of other knowledgeable commentators) while at the same time restricting its availability to other nations for practice and giving Canadian competitors the advantage of generous practice availability.
Today, a young man from the comparatively impoverished country of Georgia paid with his life because Canadian officials supported the building of a luge track which is unusually fast and dangerous (according to the assessment of many lugers and of other knowledgeable commentators) while at the same time restricting its availability to other nations for practice and giving Canadian competitors the advantage of generous practice availability.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Haiti, Pat Robertson, and Rush Limbaugh
I'm not sure that either of these two guys is worth the space, but as my comments are pretty much off most people's radar anyhow I'm not helping them gain any significant additional notice - something I do not want to do.
So, Pat Robertson first. Some commentators have apparently dignified his remarks as showing an awareness of Haitian history. I doubt that such awareness - if he has it - informs his opinion. Let's make the very dubious assumption that the notion of "making a pact with the devil" really means anything. If it does, then this suggests that Pat Robertson knows what the devil is up to. It's a pretty safe bet that the devil intends Christians, the devil's enemies, to know as little as possible about diabolical intentions. The best way to catch these Christians off guard is to keep them in the dark. On the other hand, the devil probably makes sure his friends are well-informed of his plans. Doesn't leave me much doubt as to where Robertson's friendship lies.
Rush Limbaugh purports to believe that President Obama's aid to Haiti is intended to help Obama's political future. It's hard to see how this action, which is nothing less than many decent humans would do (albeit on a much greater scale), will profit Obama particularly. However, Limbaugh's comments will, if they have any effect at all on the Haitian situation (which seems unlikely) probably cause a certain amount of harm to Haiti and Haitians. One person will profit from them, though - Rush Limbaugh. Any publicity is good for him, especially among those on the far right - higher ratings for his broadcast, more money in his pocket.
So, Pat Robertson first. Some commentators have apparently dignified his remarks as showing an awareness of Haitian history. I doubt that such awareness - if he has it - informs his opinion. Let's make the very dubious assumption that the notion of "making a pact with the devil" really means anything. If it does, then this suggests that Pat Robertson knows what the devil is up to. It's a pretty safe bet that the devil intends Christians, the devil's enemies, to know as little as possible about diabolical intentions. The best way to catch these Christians off guard is to keep them in the dark. On the other hand, the devil probably makes sure his friends are well-informed of his plans. Doesn't leave me much doubt as to where Robertson's friendship lies.
Rush Limbaugh purports to believe that President Obama's aid to Haiti is intended to help Obama's political future. It's hard to see how this action, which is nothing less than many decent humans would do (albeit on a much greater scale), will profit Obama particularly. However, Limbaugh's comments will, if they have any effect at all on the Haitian situation (which seems unlikely) probably cause a certain amount of harm to Haiti and Haitians. One person will profit from them, though - Rush Limbaugh. Any publicity is good for him, especially among those on the far right - higher ratings for his broadcast, more money in his pocket.
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