Trade agreements are always about “concessions” in which foreign suppliers are grudgingly given — or, more often, indignantly denied — the right to sell Canadians goods and services at prices lower than what we pay now. Let’s be clear here: lowering the price of consumer goods and services has the exact same effect on household welfare as an increase in incomes. But I defy you to name an elected politician who will list “the ability to buy cheaper stuff” as the most compelling reason to support free trade: more than 200 years since Adam Smith wrote that paragraph, our trade agenda is still written by and for producer interests.
We’re stuck with a system in which producer interests — most notoriously the dairy cartel that operates under the name of “supply management” — hold the rest of us hostage. Dismantling the dairy cartel is an act that would significantly increase consumers’ buying power, but this is a measure that the Conservatives have all but ruled out under any circumstances, and the NDP has made maintaining the cartel a condition for supporting any sort of trade agreement.
Why would the [major parties] stubbornly insist on sticking to a policy that makes consumers worse off at the expense of producers? Because it’s a popular position. It’s one of the marvels of the Canadian electorate. Show Canadians a special interest group that uses its government-granted privileges to fleece consumers, and they’ll embrace it as a “national champion,” a “uniquely Canadian way of life” or some equally vapid catch-phrase.
This is from the Wikipedia entry for Stockholm Syndrome:
Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.
What we suffer from is the economic policy equivalent. Call it “Canada Syndrome”: a tendency for consumers to identify with the producer interests that are holding them hostage.
Stephen Gordon, “Our Stockholm Syndrome about supply management”, Maclean’s, 2013-03-05.
November 24, 2020
QotD: Canada’s economic Stockholm Syndrome
November 18, 2020
The Consumer Privacy Protection Act
Michael Geist looks at Bill C-11, which was introduced by Navdeep Bains on Tuesday:
Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Photo by S Nameirakpam via Wikimedia Commons.
Canada’s privacy sector privacy law was born in the late 1990s at a time when e-commerce was largely a curiosity and companies such as Facebook did not exist. For years, the privacy community has argued that Canada’s law was no longer fit for purpose and that a major overhaul was needed. The pace of reform has been frustrating slow, but today Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains introduced the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (technically Bill C-11, the Digital Charter Implementation Act), which represents a dramatic change in how Canada will enforce privacy law. The bill repeals the privacy provisions of the current Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and will require considerable study to fully understand the implications of the new rules.
This post covers six of the biggest issues in the bill: the new privacy law structure, stronger enforcement, new privacy rights on data portability, de-identification, and algorithmic transparency, standards of consent, bringing back PIPEDA privacy requirements, and codes of practice. These represent significant reforms that attempt to modernize Canadian law, though some issues addressed elsewhere such as the right to be forgotten are left for another day. Given the changes – particularly on new enforcement and rights – there will undoubtedly be considerable lobbying on the bill with efforts to water down some of the provisions. Moreover, some of the new rules require accompanying regulations, which, if the battle over anti-spam laws are a model, could take years to finalize after lengthy consultations and (more) lobbying.
Trudeau’s internet policy — cash grab or power grab? Embrace the healing power of “and” (TM Instapundit)
The Canadian government is taking advantage of the ongoing economic and social disruption of the Wuhan Coronavirus to widen their existing regulation of both broadcasting and internet entertainment. It’s not just a bit of maple-flavoured cultural imperialism, but it’s also a blatant cash grab:
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, 3 February 2020.
Screencapture from CPAC video.
I see, in the Globe and Mail, that Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault want to further regulate the broadcasting services in Canada. Their goals seem to be, in part, a cash grab ~ online streaming services, like Netflix, are offering Canadians, for a price, what they want, while the CBC offers Canadians, thanks to a $1+ Billion annual subsidy from taxpayers like you and me, what we, pretty clearly, do not want to watch and the Liberals want a share of that money ~ and also an appeal to those who play identity politics.
I think we need to look at the “products” of broadcasting ~ information (news and “public affairs” and documentary programmes) and entertainment, including sports, as “consumable products,” rather like food and, say, soft drinks.
We do allow, even demand that governments exercise some important regulatory functions in regard to food and soft drinks: we want to make sure that they are safe to consume and Canadians want to know what is in the food we consume.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was, originally, conceived to solve a fairly simple problem: allocating broadcast licences. Government engineers calculated how many radio channels could be used in any given place but they didn’t want to have to decide who should get to use them. Politicians didn’t want to do it, either, because while the successful applicant was (usually) happy the more numerous unsuccessful ones were disappointed and politicians hate to disappoint people. Thus they created an arms length agency to make the tough decisions for them. Licence allocation is still an important job for the CRTC. But the CRTC’s mandate was expanded with the birth of cable TV. Companies, like Rogers, built cable systems ~ and they received both direct and indirect government support to reach more and more Canadians ~ and then “sold” access to consumers. In the normal course of events one might have thought that the government would attach some business conditions to its loans, grants and tax deductions, but there was an ever-growing demand, from the Canadian cultural community ~ based almost entirely in Montreal and Toronto ~ to regulate the fledgling cable and “pay TV” market to ensure that Canadian programmes were not shut out but, in fact, could have privileged positions in the cable lineup, which led to the government, in the 1960s, telling the CRTC to regulate how companies like Famous Players, Maclean Hunter and Rogers configured the private product they sold to individual consumers.
The initial government argument was “we regulate all kinds of things for the common good: that’s why we all drive on the right, for example, and the delivery of broadcasting by cable is like that.” “No it’s not,” the cable operators replied, “you build and maintain the roads, using taxpayers’ dollars, so you’re allowed to regulate how they’re used, plus it’s a safety issue. Cable service and ‘pay TV’ are private, commercial transactions between us, the companies who built and operate the systems, and the individual consumer who wants to subscribe to what we offer. You don’t presume to regulate, beyond the laws against libel and pornography, what people can read in MacLean’s magazine or the Globe and Mail, why is ‘pay TV’ and cable different?” It’s still a good question. But the cable operators surrendered gracefully and the CRTC has been, broadly, for the last half-century, protective of the rights of incumbents in the infotainment markets. In return the cable and internet operators have agreed to “tiers” of programming which means that if you want to watch, say, BBC World Service or Deutsche Welle or Fox News, you must also pay for CBC News Network and CTV News Channel and, no matter who you are and what your individual preferences might be, when you subscribe to a cable/internet service you must also support a number of French stations/channels; it’s the law. And now Minister Guilbault wants to ensure that you pay for the output of indigenous producers, writers, actors and so on, on both indigenous networks ~ to which you must already subscribe if you have a “basic” Canadian cable or satellite TV package ~ and, it appears to me, in programmes produced by Canadians and even by Netflix.
November 14, 2020
People are working from home? Gotta tax that!
I am … unimpressed … with this sudden urge to impose new taxes on people who are currently working from home (I was working from home before it was cool, so I clearly have an interest in this issue). In the Vancouver Sun, Colby Cosh discusses the “wisdom” of this latest proposed tax grab:
One of the joys of working from home – being your own tech support.
This is the first time I have heard this “obvious” idea in any setting, but maybe that’s me. Telecommuting has experienced rapid growth in the decades I’ve been doing it, but before the pandemic it remained more or less at barely detectable levels. [Deutsche Bank economist Luke] Templeman believes that, “Our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society. Those who can WFH receive direct and indirect financial benefits and they should be taxed in order to smooth the transition process for those who have been suddenly displaced.”
As Templeman describes it, you would have to have been a crazy idiot not to work from home all along if it were possible. “WFH offers direct financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes and cleaning. … Then there are the intangible benefits of working from home, such as greater job security, convenience and flexibility. There is also the benefit of additional safety.”
This would be my own assessment, except for the gibberish parts (job security?), but you will notice that this is the opposite of [Bank of England chief economist Andy] Haldane’s October argument. Haldane thinks there are negative externalities and even net costs to the individual in working from home. Templeman thinks WFH is an inarguable optimum … and is hot as a $2 pistol to disincentivize it.
Does this make sense? Not economically. Templeman is making more of a moral argument that the great shift to WFH is permanent, for which there is some survey evidence, and that it is proper to tax the resulting windfall to ease the adjustment for affected sectors (businesses designed to cater to office workers, basically). This might persuade you, if like Templeman you mistake an “economic system” for the arrangements produced by that system; but if it does, wait till you see how he proposes to do it:
The tax will only apply outside the times when the government advises people to work from home (of course, the self-employed and those on low incomes can be excluded). The tax itself will be paid by the employer if it does not provide a worker with a permanent desk. If it does, and the staff member chooses to work from home, the employee will pay the tax out of their salary for each day they work from home. This can be audited by co-ordinating with company travel and technology systems.
There is more gibberish here, and at least one idea of Godzilla-scale terribleness — an incentive for employers to “provide” a desk for the purpose of shifting the WFH tax onto the employee. Undeterred, Templeman proposes for modelling purposes that the tax could be a flat five per cent of salary (which is also ridiculous if there’s a single eligibility threshold).
November 13, 2020
Oddly, the Canadian media evince no interest whatsoever in the Trudeau government’s malign plans for the Internet
In The Line, Peter Menzies shows how little the mainstream media outlets in Canada care about the power grab the feds are attempting with their proposed “get money from web giants” shakedown:
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, 3 February 2020.
Screencapure from CPAC video.
In order to understand where media and public attention has been the past couple of weeks, all you had to do was listen in on Monday morning’s Ottawa news conference.
Six days after Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault had introduced ground-breaking legislation to regulate content online, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced more cash to bring better Internet to rural and remote communities. There were also some COVID-19 updates and something about help for agriculture.
And, of course, the questions asked by the media were about the U.S. election. What else could possibly be of interest?
Eventually there were a few inquiries about Telesat and low-Earth-orbit satellites, but you get the point: things that matter to people’s daily lives such as cable bills, data plans, Netflix, cellular service, crappy WiFi and slow Internet connections haven’t been of much interest to Canadian media lately.
So there has been a dearth of chatter about Guilbeault’s controversial plan to (my words, not his): restrict consumer choice, tax Netflix to finance certified Canadian content (Cancon) and bring to an end the greatest period of prosperity in the history of the Canadian film and television industry. Did I mention stifling innovation, increasing streaming subscription costs and scaring away investment? No? My bad. Those too.
Guilbeault has decided that the agency dedicated to defining the nation’s TV and radio diet — the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) — is now going to be in charge of what you are allowed to dine on online as well. No longer will you be able to manage your preferences. No more popcorn and candy for you. Going forward, Cancon spinach and broccoli will be on your plate every evening. Breathtakingly, Guilbeault has “modernized” communications legislation by giving authority over the Internet to something called a “radio-television” commission by using something still called the “broadcasting” act.
November 9, 2020
Maine conducts brave and daring experiment with an $18 per hour minimum wage
It’s a bold move, says Jon Miltimore, let’s see if it pays off:
While Florida, which on Tuesday passed a $15 an hour minimum wage referendum, was the only state to have the minimum wage on the ballot in 2020, some localities also voted on the issue.
One of those cities was Portland, the largest city in Maine. The referendum sought to increase the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 by 2024. The measure also mandated that workers receive time and a half during a civil emergency (like, say, a pandemic).
Despite opposition from the city’s mayor, seven members of the city council, and dozens of Portland businesses, the measure passed with 60 percent of the vote. That means as early as next month the minimum wage will be $18 an hour, since Maine has declared a civil emergency. (The time-and-a-half will kick in on the $12 minimum wage.)
Businesses already ravaged by stay-at-home orders from the coronavirus have expressed worry about how they will manage to stay in the black.
“In the last 7 months business has dropped from 30 to 50 percent and food costs have skyrocketed. This added increase on a business already depressed due to the pandemic is tough,” one Portland business owner who declined to speak on camera told WCSH, an NBC-affiliate. “We may have to either cut employee hours or cut back on business hours.”
Cutting employee hours is just one of the ways employers negatively respond to laws that artificially raise the price of labor. Other responses include cutting other forms of compensation, such as health care or 401k benefits, replacing workers with robots, and simply assigning employees to do more work.
These are hardly the only unintended consequences. For example, economists David Neumark and William Wascher found that higher minimum wages decrease the number of teens enrolled in high school because they encourage high-skilled teens to drop out; this in turn displaces low-skilled workers.
November 8, 2020
QotD: Tribal and post-tribal economies
This is because people don’t view their public posts as something they do to make society better/serve society or even do a job, but as a way to enrich themselves/benefit their friends/make it easier to make money in the future.
Everything, from truly shoddy workmanship to rushed, corner/cutting work, to outright corruption comes from viewing a job not as something you take pride in and work to do your best at, but from viewing a job as an opportunity to enrich yourself and your family while doing as little work as humanly possible. In fact in some societies, this is viewed as a duty. As someone in comments cited there are places in Africa where locals can’t run a shop, because all their relatives near and distant will expect to be given merchandise for free … or even money out of the till.
A lot of this is because the idea of the individual as independent of the tribe and the family is a very new thing in most of the world. We kind of have a head start on it because we are/are descended from those who left family and tribe behind.
[…]
Also in most of the world working for money is vaguely shameful. Particularly so if you’re working for someone else. […] And even here not only does that attitude persist, but it’s trying to make itself normal. Particularly in politics.
So, take pride in what you do, and do the best job you can. It’s not just important for you, it’s a building block of society. Do the best you can, and control as much as you can, so maybe you will have just reward which is an incentive to do better.
This way is civilization built. This way do things actually improve.
Sarah Hoyt, “BUILD!”, According to Hoyt, 2018-07-25.
November 5, 2020
America on the Brink of Revolution? | BETWEEN 2 WARS: ZEITGEIST! | E.02 – Winter 1919
TimeGhost History
Published 4 Nov 2020There is revolution and fear of revolution throughout the world in the winter of 1919. But cultural and technological revolutions are also bringing hope to many. A new age of Jazz and Cinema is about to reach America and Europe.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Indy Neidell, Francis van Berkel, and Spartacus Olsson.
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell, Francis van Berkel, and Spartacus Olsson.
Archive Research: Daniel Weiss
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations:
Daniel Weiss – https://www.facebook.com/TheYankeeCol…
Mikołaj Uchman
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/Sources:
From the Noun Project:
– Money by Gilberto
– lightbulb By Maxim KulikovSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound and ODJB:
– “One More for the Road” – Golden Age Radio
– “The Last Journey” – Line Neesgaard
– “Tiger_Rag” – ODJB
– “Not Safe Yet” – Gunnar Johnsen
– “Please Hear Me Out” – Philip Ayers
– “Dark Shadow” – Etienne Roussel
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “I Won’t Give You Up” – Almost Here
– “The Charleston” – Macy’s Voice
– “Defeated” – Wendel SchererArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
As in life, this series will always be a curious balance of light and dark. In the winter of 1919, one Parisian might have tickets to see the Original Dixieland Jass Band while their neighbour lies destitute after the war, and a well-to do man in Glasgow might be at the cinema while tanks rolls into his city to quell industrial unrest.Troubled and fascinating times then and troubled fascinating times now here in 2020. All of us here at TimeGhost hope that all of you are healthy and staying safe. And hey, if you need some entertainment to pass the time, you can find plenty of Between 2 Wars episodes alongside WW2 In Real Time and BIO Specials!
Fallen Flag — the New York, Ontario and Western Railway
This month’s Classic Trains featured fallen flag is the New York, Ontario and Western, which ran from Oswego on the south shore of Lake Ontario down into the New York City megalopolis. Sadly, the line is best remembered as the only Class 1 US railway to be completely abandoned. John R. Taibi outlines the history of the NYO&W from formation to abandonment in 1957:
Preserved NYO&W General Electric 44-ton switcher number 104 preserved at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth, GA.
Photo by Harvey Henkelmann via Wikimedia Commons.
The New York, Ontario & Western Railway struggled to find its place among the many transportation systems serving New York City, but in the end it was able only to secure a place in history as the first Class I railroad to be abandoned in entirety. Despite this unenviable status, “the O&W,” as it was known, did endear itself to the communities along its line. After all, it was the carrier that had brought boxcars full of prosperity to every community along the line during its 76-year life.
Begun on January 21, 1880, the O&W set a goal of improving the Oswego–New York corridor, as well as the branches to New Berlin, Delhi, and Ellenville, N.Y., it had inherited from the New York & Oswego Midland. The O&W developed a new entrance to Gotham from Middletown, N.Y., that ran to Cornwall on the Hudson River, thence to Weehawken, N.J., by rights on the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway (later New York Central).
[…]
As it improved its physical characteristics, the O&W also acquired modern motive power to haul its numerous coal, milk, passenger, and general freight trains. Where previously Camelback 4-4-0s, 2-6-0s, and 2-8-0s were as common as the road’s wooden coaches and country depots, a corps of end-cab locomotives helped usher in the new era. E-class Ten-Wheelers (1911), W-class Consolidations (1910-11), X-class 2-10-2 “Bull Mooses” (1915), and Y-class Mountains (1922 and ’29) provided the power for passenger trains to the Catskills, milk trains to Gotham, and coal trains to Oswego, Cornwall, and Weehawken. Still, many Camelbacks worked into the mid-1940s.
This familiar, widely circulated O&W map was created by cartographer Crawford C. Anderson.
Classic Trains.[…]
Dieselization was hoped to be a savior, and under [O&W bankruptcy trustee, Frederick E.] Lyford’s direction a handful of GE 44-ton switchers arrived in 1941. Nine two-unit EMD FTs came in 1945 and were put into fast merchandise service between Scranton and Maybrook, and Scranton and Norwich. Lyford’s successors in 1948 acquired additional F3 and NW2 diesels, enough to banish steam locomotives from service by that summer.
By that time, though, O&W’s accumulated losses amounted to $38 million. It was beyond the ability of trustees, the reorganization court, and diesel locomotives to extricate the carrier from financial ruin. Nevertheless, passenger trains from Weehawken to Walton (then only to Roscoe) kept running until mail contracts gave out in 1950; the service was suspended in September 1953. Although milk and coal trains were a memory, gray-yellow-and-orange diesel locomotives soldiered on, leading a dwindling number of ever-shorter freight trains.
By the mid-1950s, the reorganization court — which had been searching for a buyer for the road now truly earning another of its nicknames, the “Old & Weary” — was advocating total abandonment. Additionally, the U.S. government was suing for taxes and retirement payments that were in arrears, and New York state began planning on how best to use the O&W right of way for highway improvements.
The Range Rover Story
Big Car old account
Published 26 Feb 2019To help me continue producing great content, please consider supporting me: https://www.patreon.com/bigcar
Help support my channel through these Amazon UK affiliate links:
Range Rover t-shirt: https://amzn.to/2WVHiLX
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Range Rover diecast model car: https://amzn.to/2U3tTzk
Range Rover keyfob: https://amzn.to/2D4HmRQIf Maria Von Trapp had driven a Range Rover, she’d have climbed every mountain, forded every stream and driven to every Austrian folk festival with the entire Von Trapp family singers in the back. Her and the Captain would have been able to roll up to the fanciest Salzburg dinner party in their finest glad rags after a day yodeling sweet nothings to each other on top of a mountain.
The Range Rover is the ultimate go-anywhere luxury SUV. It was born out of Rover’s desire to sell more cars in the USA, and its design was a complete accident. So how did a company known for saloon cars and agricultural off-roaders invent a car that created a brand-new market segment?
Much credit for this video has to go to aronline.co.uk for their excellent articles.
#RangeRoverClassic
QotD: The idiocy of tariffs
The true sadness here being that the spiral works the other way too. But hugely, vastly, more slowly. GATT was founded in 1947, it became, the process was transferred to, the WTO and it has taken them since then, that two generations, to reduce tariff levels to where they’re not really all that important in trade matters. Something that is being undone in just a couple of months of foolishness. GATT being something of a response to the economic demolition work done by Smoot Hawley of course.
Trade protection does spiral up and spiral down, the sadness being that here’s an asymmetry to the process. The reductions that make us richer take very much longer than the nonsenses that impoverish.
Tim Worstall, “The China, US, Trade War – It’s All Mutual On The Way Down As Well As Up”, Continental Telegraph, 2018-07-11.
November 2, 2020
Federal government to web giants: “BOHICA!”
Michael Geist provides an unauthorized backgrounder on the Canadian government’s quixotic attempt to shakedown the likes of Netflix for money to give to “struggling” Canadian media companies:
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, 3 February 2020.
Screencapure from CPAC video.
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is set to introduce his “Get Money from Web Giants” Internet regulation bill on Monday. Based on his previous public comments, the bill is expected to grant the CRTC extensive new powers to regulate Internet-based video streaming services. In particular, expect the government to mandate payments to support Canadian content production for the streaming services and establish new “discoverability” requirements that will require online services to override user preferences by promoting Canadian content. The government is likely to issue a policy direction to the CRTC that identifies its specific priorities, but the much-discussed link licensing requirement for social media companies that Guilbeault has supported will not be part of this legislative package.
These reforms mark the culmination of a dramatic reversal in government digital policy. After then-Heritage Minister Melanie Joly unveiled her 2017 digital cancon strategy that focused on market-based solutions and emphasized exports of Canadian culture, extensive lobbying gradually let to a major policy flip flop. The CRTC reversed its prior position on Internet streaming regulation in 2018 with a regulate-everything approach, the deeply flawed Yale report released earlier this year provided the blueprint for CRTC-led regulation, and Guilbeault jumped on board with a declaration that his top legislative priority was to “get money from web giants.”
On Monday, the government will undoubtedly line up the lobby groups that supported the reform to provide positive quotes, suggest reforms will lead to billions in new revenues, and claim the bill ensures regulatory fairness by requiring that everyone contribute. Yet much of the policy is based on fictions: that this levels the playing field, that there is a Cancon crisis, that discoverability requirements respond to a serious concern, that this will result in quick payments to the industry, that this is consistent with net neutrality, or that consumers will not bear the costs of reform.
None of this is true. But beyond those issues – each discussed in further detail below – this most notably represents a significant new source of speech regulation. We do not require government authorization to publish newspapers, blog posts, or to simply voice our views in a public forum. That we require governmental authorization in the form of licensing for broadcasters was largely justified in furtherance of cultural policies on the grounds of limited access to scarce spectrum. That justification simply does not apply to the Internet, no matter how many times Guilbeault refers to the inclusion of Internet companies within the “broadcast system.” This is not a matter of Internet exceptionalism. Laws and regulations such as taxation, competition, privacy, and consumer protection are all among the rules that apply regardless of whether the service is offline or online. But speech regulation by the CRTC should require a far better justification than the lure of “free money” from Internet companies.
October 29, 2020
How to fix the CBC
… aside from cutting off the massive subsidies from the federal government, which would be my preferred solution if “nuke it from orbit” isn’t a viable choice. Let it sink or swim as a purely private media entity — I’d be betting on the “sink”, personally because they don’t currently have to compete thanks to their funding from the feds and are not noted for their quick adaptation skills. However, Peter Menzies isn’t quite as anti-CBC as I am:
In a recent piece here at The Line, I lamented the current status of the CBC. That’s easy enough to do, but it’s fair to ask what can actually be done to fix it. These ideas don’t provide all the answers but, implemented with conviction and speed, here’s where to start. Because there are some things that can be done, and relatively quickly, to revitalize the institution: the CBC may well be hell-bent on its own destructive dualism but clarifying its role and purifying its soul are still possible by getting it out of the advertising business and turning it into a proper public media.
Right now, the CBC is neither fish nor fowl. Sometimes, as with radio, it is a popular public broadcaster. At others, with its television channels, it fancies itself a commercial broadcaster, albeit a publicly-funded and relatively unpopular one. It plows both of those personalities into its commercial online operations and supplements them with reportage of the kind traditionally associated with newspapers. Like a creature of mythology, it shape-shifts through all of these roles as best suits its needs and moods.
On top of that, its OMG obsession with Trump’s America has drawn it far away from its content mandate to ensure Canadians learn about each other wherever they live in this vast and beautiful country. While its performance indicates otherwise, CBC’s purpose is not to secure a large audience share in the GTA or, in French, in Montreal, in order to earn more revenue. Nor is CBC News Network’s mandate to compete with CNN. The Corp’s raison d’etre, as defined in legislation, is to tell Canadians each other’s stories — even if the GTA and Montreal don’t care.
The only way to purify the CBC then, is to ban it — once and for all — from collecting advertising revenue from domestic consumption of its product. As its radio operations are already advertising-free this means no more ads on its TV or websites. Done. Finished.
October 27, 2020
QotD: Trader Joe’s
Jim Treacher, “Trader Joe’s Apologizes for Being Racist”, P.J. Media, 2020-07-20.
October 22, 2020
Carbon taxes may be the most efficient way to address GHG emissions, but no government has implemented them properly
I was persuaded by the economic arguments in favour of a carbon tax to address the externaly of greenhouse gas emissions, but I’ve long been skeptical that governments would actually implement them in a way to minimize economic distortion. A report from the Fraser Institute this week shows I was right to be doubtful, as none of the 31 OECD countries in the study have managed to introduce some form of carbon pricing without political “tinkering” … rather than replacing inefficient regulations, taxes and mandates with the carbon tax, they’ve generally just added carbon pricing on top of existing rules, making the carbon pricing scheme merely another tax grab that fails to achieve the stated goals:
Most economists consider human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions an unintended negative externality of production and consumption. A negative externality occurs when the effects of producing or consuming goods and services impose costs on a third party which are not reflected in the prices charged for said goods and services. In the context of GHG emissions, this negative externality is calculated using the “social cost of carbon,” which is the future damage to society (adjusted to present value) of one additional tonne of carbon emitted to the atmosphere today.
Governments have a wide variety of policy alternatives to address the negative externality of emissions depending on the degree and depth of the policy intervention. They can either mandate individuals and firms to change their behaviour through command-and-control regulations, grant subsidies and tax credits to foster cleaner energy sources, or use market-based mechanisms to correct the misalignment of incentives. It is widely acknowledged that carbon pricing, one of these market tools, is the most cost-effective policy to reduce emissions, as it relies on price signals and trade to provide flexibility to economic agents as to where and how emissions mitigation occurs.
[…]
This report includes thirty-one high-income OECD countries, where each country has either implemented a carbon tax, an ETS [emissions trading system], or a combination of both pricing mechanisms. Carbon taxes are being implemented in 14 of them whereas 25 of these countries have their emissions covered by an ETS. Our analysis finds that, on average, 74 percent of carbon tax revenues in high-income OECD countries go directly into their general budget with no earmarking for any specific expenditure, while 12 percent are ring-fenced for environmental spending, and only 14 percent for revenue-recycling measures. This means that most governments are using carbon taxes as a revenue-raising tool rather than a mechanism to internalize the negative externalities of emissions in a cost-effective manner. Additionally, the vast majority of ETS revenues are being used to artificially accelerate the use of renewable energy sources, infrastructure, and technology.
The study also finds that no high-income OECD country has used carbon pricing to repeal emission-related regulations, but instead have introduced new ones following the adoption of the carbon tax or the ETS. Emissions caps, mandated fuel standards, technology-based standards, and renewable power mandates are just some examples of these regulations that undermine the cost-effectiveness of carbon pricing mechanisms. The majority of high-income OECD countries have a combination of support schemes for renewable energy sources, carbon pricing tools, and command-and-control regulations.
Overall, no high-income OECD country is following the textbook model of an optimal carbon pricing system, undermining their theoretical efficiency by design and implementation.
