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  • Why do we reward teachers for NOT doing their jobs?

    Lee Friday – February 22, 2017

    Canadian Press Headline, August 31, 2016: Half of Ontario Grade 6 students failed to meet provincial math standard

    Canadian Press Headline, February 14, 2017: Tentative deal gives Ontario elementary teachers pay raise

    According to the August article, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter released a statement which reads, in part, “Improving student success remains our highest priority.” Really? Well, the article tells us there has been “a steady decline in test scores over the past five years.” Therefore, if improving student success has always been the highest priority, then those tasked with achieving this goal have clearly failed.

    Where is the accountability which the government constantly promises to deliver? Heads should roll. All of the teachers and bureaucrats who are responsible for this mess should be fired. Then, those who have retained their jobs just might be incentivized to ‘up their game’. Makes sense, right? But that is not how the government operates. Unions, labour laws, and political cronyism guarantees that performance will always take a back seat to job security.

    Commenting on contract negotiations, the February article quotes Minister Hunter, “It’s important that we have the resources in place on behalf of students and as we work together with our unions we’re ensuring that we’re meeting the needs of our students in Ontario.” What?! How can she say this? The August article proves they are NOT meeting the needs of students!

    Over the years, we have been subjected to many offensive, self-serving, disingenuous speeches from bureaucrats and politicians professing concern for students. The conflict-of-interest of the speechmakers is palpable.

    Teachers and bureaucrats constantly assure us the welfare and performance of students is their primary goal. However, when these groups are rewarded instead of punished for their failure to achieve this goal, it becomes apparent that their own welfare is their primary goal. And this is a goal which they can easily achieve, as it reflects the essence of government. The coercive nature of government means that its revenues (taxes) are guaranteed, regardless of performance.

    The August article says nothing about incompetent teachers and bureaucrats, but it does mention a $60 million plan (more taxes) to improve those math scores. And now the teachers get raises. Whenever the government fails to effectively deliver a particular service, their solution is always the same, “Taxpayers have to give us more money.”

    Giving salary increases to teachers has nothing to do with any ostensible concern for students. The Wynne government is floundering, and extending teacher contracts into 2019 ensures labour peace, which ensures the happiness of these public-sector employees leading up to the 2018 election. Parents will also be happy they don’t have to worry about a teachers’ strike during this same period. But this does not mean parents are happy with the performance of teachers, and by extension, the bureaucracy.

    Only within the hallowed halls of government is inefficiency celebrated, rewarded, and thus encouraged. If the private sector adopted this philosophy, it would soon cease to exist, which means everyone would be unemployed, including teachers, bureaucrats, and politicians, because there would be no more tax dollars to support them.

    For parents, students (age 12 +), and open-minded teachers, I recommend a short and easy to read book, titled Dumbing Us Down, written by John Taylor Gatto, a former New York City, and New York State, teacher of the year.

  • Burglars flee when 78-year-old woman confronts them with a gun

    Lee Friday – February 20, 2017

    As she was preparing to take a nap, 78 year old Elaine Stiehl heard a noise. She grabbed her gun, opened the bedroom door, and saw two burglars. When the two men saw Elaine, or more precisely, when they saw her gun, they concluded it would be in their best interests to depart the scene post-haste.

    This is not a unique incident. Good people with guns frequently defend themselves and others against bad people, including bad people with guns. However, 99.9% of these stories are confined to local media. National news outlets do not report these stories because they do not support the agenda promoted by the liberal mass media.

    Liberal efforts to ban guns depend on selling the idea that ‘guns kill people’, not that ‘guns save people.’ Thus, they are quick to report stories of bad people killing innocent people with guns. The more people killed, the better the story. They want us to believe good people do not need guns because this does not save innocent lives. They are wrong. This happens frequently. Here are just three examples: see here, here, and here.

    The idea that fails to penetrate liberal skulls is that bad people do not obey ‘restrictive gun laws’, but good people do obey these laws. The idiotic and predictable result of these laws is that good people are disarmed, thus becoming easy prey for bad people.

    Regarding the Elaine Stiehl story, Fox News in Atlanta, Georgia reports that Colonel James Yarbrough from the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office said “I don’t know why they selected that house, but they picked the wrong one.” Yes, I guess they did, but every house should be the wrong one.

  • New cars are too expensive, by at least threefold. You can thank the government for that.

    Lee Friday – February 16, 2017

    From a February 15, 2017 BNN article: “Let’s drop the pretence. The Toronto housing market — and the many cities surrounding it — are in a housing bubble,” BMO Chief Economist Doug Porter wrote in a note to clients.

    Porter is correct.

    Definition of Bubble: Significant Price Inflation in a particular asset class which is intentionally caused by Monetary Inflation from the Monopolized Banking System. Porter is employed by a bank, so it is unlikely he would agree with this definition. I have written about money and banking here.

    Serious problems lay ahead – defaults, foreclosures, bank bailouts etc. A housing bubble is not the only bubble we have to worry about, and all bubbles eventually pop. Credit card debt, student loans, car loans – more bubbles hanging over our heads.

    Let’s talk about cars. According to this Financial Post article from March 8, 2016, in a 2014 report from debt-ratings agency Moody’s, the agency noted that auto lending by banks had grown at a compounded annual rate of 20 per cent since 2007, “significantly outpacing” the growth of even red-hot mortgages, credit cards, and lines of credit. In seven years, vehicle loans had jumped to $64 billion from $16.2 billion. . . . “Since our report, both consumer debt levels and auto loans at Canadian banks have increased,” Jason Mercer, one of the authors of the Moody’s report, said Tuesday. “Today, Canadian consumers face increased uncertainty due to persistent low oil prices and potential housing overvaluations, so these risks remain as relevant as ever.”

    There is no doubt that monetary inflation from the banking system as well as foolish consumer borrowing are two significant contributing factors to the car loan bubble. However, there is another factor to consider. There would be much less demand for car loans if the cars were not so darned expensive.

    Government regulations require cars to have numerous safety features. These are not options, they are mandatory. This substantially increases the cost of a car, the cost of repairs, and the cost of insurance. American automotive columnist Eric Peters writes:

    Would you be interested in a brand-new, fully warranted, five-door crossover SUV built by a major, name-brand automaker that gave you 50-plus MPG with a gas (not diesel or hybrid) engine, that has a top speed around 125 mph, is capable of getting to 60 in 12 seconds (about the same as a Prius hybrid) that stickered for less than $5,000?

    Peters explains that such cars are available, but not in the U.S., where they are illegal because they do not comply with government ‘safety’ regulations. The Canadian government also imposes stringent ‘safety’ regulations.

    Politicians have the power, but not the moral right, to force us to live our lives according to their ideas about what constitutes ‘safe activities, pursuits, behaviour etc.’ Furthermore, such arrogant, presumptuous political edicts often fail to achieve their objectives. As economist Milton Friedman said “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

    DO  SEATBELTS  REALLY  SAVE  LIVES ?

    I wear a seatbelt. I cannot imagine ever not wearing one. I think it is a good idea to wear a seatbelt. No doubt, an overwhelming majority of people wear seatbelts, and believe seatbelts save many lives. But is this true? Let’s explore the issue. A basic law of economics says you cannot change one thing in isolation. Every action produces one or more reactions. Evidence strongly suggests when drivers believe they are ‘more safe’, some of them tend to be more aggressive behind the wheel, with tragic consequences. In 1992, economist John Semmens wrote:

    . . . Critics of seat belt laws have contended that they alter driver behavior in ways that increase the hazards for other users of the streets and highways. In particular, some drivers wearing seat belts may feel more assured of surviving an accident, and hence tend to drive more aggressively, thus raising the risk of collisions with other vehicles and pedestrians. . . .

    . . . A recent statistical study of states with and without seat belt laws was undertaken by Professor Christopher Garbacz of the University of Missouri-Rolla. This study seems to support the altered driver behavior hypothesis. Dr. Garbacz found that states with seat belt laws saw decreases in traffic fatalities for those covered by the laws (typically drivers and front-seat passengers), but increases in fatalities for rear-seat passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians.[1]. . .

    In 2000, in the British Medical Journal, Malcolm J. Wardlaw wrote:

    . . . Between 1974 and 1982 cycling mileage in Britain increased 70%, but there was no increase in fatalities until the seatbelt law was introduced in 1983 . . . Compulsion to wear a seatbelt cut deaths among drivers and front seat passengers by 25% in 1983. But in the subsequent years, the long established trend of declining deaths in car accidents reversed, and by 1989 death rates among car drivers were higher than they had been in 1983. Evidently the driving population “risk compensated” away the substantial benefits of seatbelts by taking extra risks, putting others in more danger. This period saw a jump in deaths of cyclists. Although temporary, the jump can be explained fully only by cyclists having adapted to a more dangerous road environment through extra caution, retreat, or giving up. Is it coincidence that the long decline in cycling began in 1983? . . . [2]

    CONCLUSION

    If politicians really care about our safety, why haven’t they banned skydiving, boxing, MMA fighting, motorcycles, hockey, football, downhill skiing, race car driving, mountain climbing, coal mining, cliff diving, and many other risky activities? If the government really cares about our safety, why is it that the majority of murders, rapes, and robberies are never solved (see here)?

    As the government pretends to decrease physical risk to consumers with its safety mandates, cars escalate in price, which begets all those car loans, which increases financial risk to consumers.

    The truth is, the government does not care about our safety at all. They care about ‘control through legislation.’ They care about benefitting special interest groups. Numerous safety features for cars, with their added costs and profit margins, are a gift to car manufacturers. What happens when the bubble pops? Will the government keep consumers ‘safe’ from defaulted car loans and repossession? No. Will the government keep bankers ‘safe’ from huge losses on these loans? Yes.

    Risk is part of life. We all deal with it every day. Some of us are risk takers, some are risk-averse. Each of us can attempt to minimize, or not, the risks we face. People should be free to decide how much they are willing to pay to reduce risk. Let car makers offer a basic model, with a list of various options. Let consumers make decisions about which options, which ‘safety features’, they want to pay for. In this environment – what’s it called, oh yeah, a free market – cars will be much cheaper. And as we have seen, studies suggest that fatalities might actually decrease for pedestrians, cyclists, and car occupants.

     

    [1] John Semmens, Do Seat Belt Laws Work? July 1, 1992 (Foundation for Economic Education)

    [2] Malcolm J. Wardlaw, Three Lessons for a Better Cycling Future, December 23, 2000 (BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal) This article also presents strong arguments against bicycle helmets.

  • Bombardier bailouts – by definition – are economically regressive

    Lee Friday – February 11, 2017

    Bombardier, a Quebec based manufacturer of planes and trains, appears to have the Quebec government, and the Federal government, firmly in its pocket. The company has received several bailouts over the years, decades actually. In their financial statements, there must be a line item labelled ‘Corporate Welfare.’

    In 2016, Bombardier received a $1 billion bailout, sorry, “investment” from the Province of Quebec. In 2017, the Canadian Federal Government said it would give the company a bailout, oh, sorry again, an “interest-free loan” of $372.5 million.

    In this BNN article, commenting on the announcement of the federal bailout, Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said “we’re sad to see that the government, in our view, is wasting $372 million”. I agree. Wudrick also said “This government started out with some encouraging talk about ‘value for taxpayers,’ but it’s now the same old approach of giving big taxpayer subsidies to powerful corporate interests.”

    Naturally, the government has a different view. As reported by Ross Marowits of The Canadian Press, “Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said the money will preserve thousands of high-paying technology jobs in Ontario . . . and Quebec . . .”

    IS  THIS  THE  RIGHT  WAY  TO  “PRESERVE  JOBS” ?

    Numerous politicians and bureaucrats insist that preserving jobs through taxpayer funded bailouts is supportive of economic growth. They are incorrect, and their ignorance of basic economic principles harms taxpayers, and triggers economic regression.

    When a company is losing money, this means it is inefficient and/or consumers are unwilling to purchase a sufficient quantity of its products to allow it to be profitable. As such, the company is wasting resources – raw materials and human labour. If the company is unable to improve efficiency or convince consumers to buy its products, losses will persist, and the company is eventually forced out of business. Consumers have the final word.

    Losses are just as important as profits on the free market. Environmentalists, take note – losses are the market’s way of telling companies they are wasting resources. Consumers are saying they do not approve of the way the company has refashioned the resources it is using. In other words, the ‘final product’ is worth less than the sum of its parts. Continued losses eventually forces a company out of business, thus conserving these resources for someone else who can make better – profitable – use of them.

    The market rewards efficient firms with profits and punishes inefficient firms with losses. Inefficient firms must be allowed to die. When the government bails out the losers, this prevents the reallocation of these resources into lines of production (other jobs) which are more likely to satisfy consumer preferences. Thus, we get economic regression.

    The inefficiency of Bombardier is reflected in its inability to attract investment from the private sector. Private investors know a loser when they see one. The solution is not for the government to override the decisions of consumers and private investors, and seize tax dollars in order to support a loser. It is easy to spend other peoples’ money. If they are so confident in Bombardier’s prospects, politicians and bureaucrats should invest their own money in the company i.e. put their own money where their mouths are, and allow citizens to keep their ‘tax dollars’ to deploy as they see fit.

    It is not the government’s role to preserve jobs in any particular sector. Consumers will decide which jobs to preserve. This is crucial for a healthy, prosperous economy.