The end-game.

It's underway, right now. This evening, right under our noses; and it's all related.

A massive fraud was perpetrated on the people of Alberta, today. The Redwater Energy ruling gives the oil and gas companies the ability to just walk away from their well clean-up obligations. The people are now on the hook for untold billions of dollars of clean-up, once the oil's gone and the companies have declared bankruptcy (after siphoning every drop of profit out of Alberta). Banks will win out here.

At the same time, Alberta gets hit with a downgrade in its credit rating to AA, from AA+. This has a big influence on the bonds that the Alberta government, essentially the public will pay more. Banks win again.

Add to that, the National Energy Board gave the green light to a massive, capital-intensive, pipeline to ship diluted bitumen from Alberta to Coastal British Columbia, further destroying the Alberta economy. Alberta is collecting, in aggregate, somewhere around a 1.5% royalty rate on its oil and gas operations, given first quarter reported earning from oil and gas companies. Banks and oil companies win here.

We're all going to have to pay for this, every small-time Canadian is going to foot some of the bill for the construction or the clean-up. The banks are running things now, and they want their money, and they'll go through every single cent each and every one of us has. It's already underway. This is "austerity", the rich appropriate profit from the masses. See Greece, for example. See Brazil, see France, see Spain, see Portugal, see Ireland. Each European nation in deep to the European Central Bank.

Our political leaders need to start talking about how to take on the banks and the largest corporations on the planet, now, as in yesterday. The time for half-measures is over. Let's take the beast head-on.  Start with the banks, they sit at the top. Austerity's end-game is not at all pretty, for all of us.

Clueless Little Willy Watson's Weak Critique of Postal Banking. 

It is not often I find myself reading the National, or Financial Post for any reason. Little do I need of puff pieces for oil and gas operations. However I did stumble, accidentally, on an article written by William Watson trashing Naomi Klein's (and the committee which gathered to write the Leap Manifesto) idea of Postal Banking hubs through existing Canada Post locations. 

Watson's first paragraph immediately goes on the offensive trashing not only the CBC, but Paul Kennedy, Naomi Klein herself and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Watson laments that perhaps Ideas should invite the bastion of free thinking, the Fraser Institute, on for a visit. Watson even states that the Fraser Institute has some "internationally known conservative thinkers". Who might that be, I wonder? Jason Clemens? The same guy that can't multiply consumer price indices to adjust time value of money? The same guy that wrote two different reports in less than a month with the same referenced tables and couldn't write the numbers from the datasheet onto the screen without making a mistake?

Well, I googled "internationally renowned conservative thinkers" and this is what I got: 

Pretty measly selection (160,000 hits). 

I clicked on the first link and the list is even more hilarious. 

1. Confucious (551-479 BC)
2. Cato the Elder (234 - 149 BC)
3. John Locke (1632-1702)
4. Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
5. Goethe (1749-1832) ...

Not sure if any of these (collection of dead) guys would be available for an episode of Ideas, and I must admit, I've read very little of Confucious or Cato the Elder; I'm aware of John Locke, but I will read their stuff.

But then I got to the real source of Watson's inspiration, the grandaddy of them all, Milton Friedman. 

Fresh out of the Chicago School of Economics (founded by John D. Rockefeller), the godfather of neoliberalism. Milton Friedman and Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell are two names that might not ring bells for most people, but it is difficult to imagine two more influential people in charting the course to our current state of economic, social, and business affairs. 

I have gone heavily off the rails in my critique of William Watson's paper. However, it's clear that nobody on that list (none on the list of 16 great conservative thinkers is alive today) is up for an episode of Ideas or an episode of whatever crap Ezra Levant spews out. 

Watson then spends two more paragraphs outlining all of the far-fetched things that Postal Workers might do (after the obligatory swipe at the Postal Union), like, deliver food from local farms. Or perhaps administer Postal Banking outlets which might not charge exorbitant lending fees (a la the effectively criminal payday loan establishments, or even the proven criminal regular banks). (It's not entirely clear if Watson misunderstands how banks actually work, or if he thinks the average person is too dumb to understand that banking is about the simplest activity on the planet: You take money in and pay a low interest rate, you lend money out and collect a higher interest rate than the deposited funds, and it is essentially impossible to lose money, unless you get really greedy and siphon all the money to yourself, see 2008 for example). Or perhaps some recently "disemployed" (curious term) oil-sands workers might actually get jobs installing (or even manufacturing) solar panels on public buildings, such as post-offices, government labs, new housing developments, municipal buildings... the list goes on. 

All extremely far-fetched and "progressive" activities, eh Willy? People doing work and getting paid to do it, absolute craziness. 

Though it is funny how Watson spends two paragraphs shitting on public service (in this case Postal Workers), while the media has been thanking the very public and private service first-responders who were first on the scene in Fort McMurray. I guess when public servants help oil-sands workers they get a pass, but if they help anybody who isn't extracting non-renewable resources at fire-sale prices for oil and gas companies, they're scum. But this is classic Milton Friedman ideology; you take a swipe at the public service any chance you get, and Watson takes ample swipes. 

He even has the curious line: 

Haven't we just seen the fire crews in and around Fort Mac work themselves into exhaustion "helping" the Canadians caught in the fire's deadly swath? Are they not "government" workers, by extension? It is also fairly obvious to anybody with a working cerebellum that no firefighter is going to usher the words "I'm from the gov't...blabla". 

Maybe Willy's been watching too many super-hero movies where characters in some fantasy land offer short soliloquies of platitudes with extended hands? Either way, this paragraph is a shit attempt at humor and an even greater offense to the tireless men and women who have been offering their time and energy to the humanitarian effort in Fort Mac. 

Then Watson spends a paragraph, swiping the union again, with a suggestion that door to door mail delivery should be abolished as there are electronic means of delivery. He suggests that most letter carriers actually drive to their place of employment, and then even suggests they just look for other work, as that would lower their carbon footprint. Right. 

It is kind of funny that Watson essentially outlines some very realistic alternative working arrangements for Postal Workers, but then immediately dismisses his own suggestions. Different work, as he suggests they find, he's already listed: urban and rural Postal Banking, food delivery associated with local farmer co-operatives, or other community oriented (or not) projects, or something of that nature. It is clear that, perhaps, the traditional Postal work business model might need a reboot, or an upgrade, Klein offers helpful suggestions, Watson suggests they all just stop working... or something (that's a win-win for the economy, eh Willy?).

Watson then hearkens back to another "internationally known conservative thinker", Friedrich Hayek; Friedman's mentor. He quotes Hayek to admonish Klein: the real world is far too complicated for any normal mortal to understand. (While this may be the case with the real, physical, world, but understanding the state of economics is not difficult at all, after all, it is a human creation and we can all just re-write the rules at any time, if we all so wished). He even doubles down on the widely discredited "complex general equilibrium system" of economic theory. The economy is neither inherently complex, nor is it ever in "equilibrium" in real terms. The global economy is in trouble because the distribution of wealth is so far off the charts that every conceivable method of lending money is exhausted and fully leveraged. The economy has navigated itself precisely to this state by following the Milton Friedman, and the Chicago School of Business's, doctrine. 

Watson then throws in the obligatory red herring that the climate system is really too complicated for any of us to really do anything about. He advocates for "small, incremental things", ie. do nothing, or maybe lower emissions intensity, or some other nonsense which does little to actually reduce the total global amount of greenhouse gasses. 

It is abundantly clear that Watson is against the Leap and instead advocates for baby, sloth-like, steps. Let the oil and gas keep flowing, we wouldn't want to "rapidly eliminate the (completely non-renewable) energy source on which we are the moment 85% dependent", would we (actually I would). It is also abundantly clear that the neoliberal ideology is alive and well in the mindset of the right, voiced through Watson. We should be using our non-renewable resources now to transition our cities and rural infrastructures away from fossil fuel dependence. There is little time to waste in this regard. There is an economic and social imperative to prepare ourselves for now for the coming end of non-renewable resources; Watson offers no suggestions for what these are. 

Clueless.