Fairness in Taxation

 (reproduction of email message sent March 24, 2013)

I am writing with regard to your column in the Vancouver Sun, based on yet another study by the Fraser Institute, apparently pointing out the growing unfairness in the Canadian tax system. 

These guys never give up do they?  Even in this case, where, ironically, apparently some Canadians are actually benefiting from one of the Fraser Institute mantras of ensuring that Canadians pay a minimum of tax.

I have to say that I was immediately troubled by the conclusions echoed in your column, about the potentially problematic nature of the percentages offered.  Mostly, the very notion that up to 37% of Canadian tax filers face no liability due to tax credits and deductions.  Up from 32% a decade previously.  Clearly "takers" not "payers".  Ne'r-do-wells.  Shirkers.

The interesting thing is that the report itself states even larger ratios:

"The share of non-contributors to taxes as well as the increase in the ratio over time is more stark for lower income groups. The ratio of non-con tributors to total tax-filers for the lowest income group ($1–$10,000 in earnings) increased from 88.0% in 2000 to 99.2% in 2010. The lower-income groupwith the largest increase in its non-contributor ratio was the group of those earning $20,000 to $25,000 per year. From 2000 to 2010, the ratio of non-contributors to total tax-filers increased 572.4%, from 5.2% of total tax-filers in 2000 to 34.8% in 2010. The ratio increased from almost half (48.8%) for those earning between $10,000 and $15,000 to 83.5%, an increase of 70.9%.  More markedly, the ratio of non-contributors to total tax-filers increased from 14.1% to 64.9% for those earning between $15,000 and $20,000, an increase of 359.9%."

These percentage increases look even more dramatic. 

That is until we look at the income categories.  We are talking about tax brackets that top out at $25,000/year!

So, on the basis of the above data alone, a different kind of headline might be:

"Employers have sufficiently beggared their employees that this might be a serious issue for democracy.  Canadians with lower or stagnant levels of income increasingly depend on tax deductions and credits in order to maintain a livable net income."

H-m-m-m.  Who might be in these brackets:

Single parents forced to be employed part time, if they can work at paid employment at all,

Seniors who have only basic, government-sponsored pension plans,

Students not yet fully in the employment field (and often paid minimum wage)

Employees who can no longer find full-time work and have to work at two or more minimum-wage jobs.

I don't do such research, but before I wanted to conclude that such categories of income earners in Canada are "takers", I would want to know a lot more about why more Canadians are finding themselves in these lower tax bracket groups.  And I am willing to bet that it has a lot to do with policies that my friends at the Fraser Institute actually prefer (such as being cranky about recent raises to the BC minimum wage).

Aside from all that ideological stuff, I frankly would have a good deal of trouble arguing that folks in the income bracket of $25,000/year or less ought to have deductions clawed back or their marginal tax rates raised so as to make their proportion of tax to population numbers more in line with Canada's top 20% of income earners who apparently earn about 47% of the income and apparently pay a 'disproportionate' 54.3% of the taxes, "when the calculation included only total federal taxes" (p.41 of the report).

I hope that people who earn a lot do, in fact, pay a lot of taxes.  I do not begrudge the taxes that I and my wife pay, and we are in a tax bracket considerably higher than $25,000.  I value the public services I get and would actually like more.  But I would not like to get these additional services on the backs of most people taking home less than $25,000/year.

What is missing from a report like this is full exploration of all the tax loopholes that exist for that group in the top 20% of income earners, like the CEO of Canadian Pacific, mentioned on the page before your column. 

Apparently in 2012 the CP CEO earned more than $49 million.  At my marginal tax rate, his tax return for this year would be about $13 million.  Not to pick on him, but I would be very surprised if his income tax return for 2012, shows a tax liability anywhere approaching $13 million dollars.  If it does, he ought to get a new tax accountant.  I just hope that he is paying more dollars than I am.  And all other considerations aside, I hope that his political influence is exactly the same as mine -- one vote.

Taliban-Like Sensibilities in a Canadian Context

I am troubled by the move by the Canadian government to abandon a world-renowned, long-term research site known as the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Canada.

The suggestion is that the government is attempting to find a purchaser for the site, but this seems a disingenuous claim at best.

Now it seems that the decision makers have begun to dismantle the infrastructure for the site, even before anyone has an opportunity to attempt to make the case for preserving this one-of-a-kind outdoor, environmental research venue.

It has been clear for some time that the current Canadian government is less than enthusiastic about environmental concerns.  More recently, it has become obvious that the government is undertaking moves to ensure that voices of scientists are silenced on topics that may offer data counter to what the government wishes. As the author of a recent article in The Globe and Mail newspaper indicates, the Canadian scientific community strongly suggests that the closure has more to do with ideology than economics. 

In the face of this action on the part of the government, I cannot help but be reminded of a parallel dismantling that took place in Afghanistan more than a decade ago -- the destruction of Bamiyan statues by the Taliban.

Writing about patterns of human behaviour, K. Kris Hirst in describing the historical context of the destruction of the statues, points out that such destruction is an old story.  Human history is replete with examples of conquerors destroying the remnants of a previous culture which may represent a threat to the newly dominant.

See also:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Lakes_Area

                 http://saveela.org/letters/
               

The American Drifter - A Canadian Thinking Out Loud

This week I became aware for the first time of Townes Van Zandt and his music.  On YouTube, in listening to a few of his songs, and after having seen a documentary film on his life, I was thinking about his place in American culture and sub culture.

It immediately struck me that in the American narrative, there is a strong mythic theme of the (male) loner drifter.  Perhaps someone will enlighten me, but it seems like there is not similar recurrent archetype in the Canadian narrative.  If I am correct in this regard, it might explain why, while I can appreciate the lyrics and ideas expressed in Van Zandt songs, they at the same time seem to come from a place and a sensibility different than my own.  I listen with interest, but detachment.

Of course, there are all kinds of possible explanations for the fact that the songs apparently don't speak directly to my soul.  It could be because I have never been a drifter -- at least not in the fashion of Van Zandt.  Or that he sings mostly, it seems to me, from the basement of North American, while I live in the Attic.  His southern accent while familiar, is not my own or of my place.  And so on.  But it struck me also that in the Canadian literature, film, music traditions, there are mostly not recurrent characters like Van Zandt, or who generate the kind of reaction to being on the margins and on the road.  Canada, as far as I know, does not have a Jack Kerouac-like icon.

If I am correct in the above claim, let me hasten to add that I am not saying that Canada should have such an archetype as part of our collective narrative; the lack of celebration of such just struck me as I struggled to wonder why the music of Van Zandt did not immediately speak to me directly.  My head can appreciate the ideas about which his songs talk, but they don't reduced me to tears -- at least not so far.

I know that Canadian literature contains such characters, such as "Go Boy" by Roger Caron, or "Waste Heritage" by Irene Baird.  I am sure there are many others.  Perhaps even the film "Goin' Down the Road" by Donald Shebib is of this ilk.  But this nomadic sensibility does not seem to gain much of a foothold in the collective Canadian psyche.

If there was a Canadian equivalent, one certainly would not expect the Canadian soul-worn version to be as dust-caked and as southern-fried as a Townes Van Zandt; but the human parts of the experience likely would be very similar.  I am just wondering out loud whether or not we do, in fact, have a Canadian equivalent.  While I respect and celebrate Canadians musical artists such as Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Stan Rogers, folks such as these seem to me to most often reflect the Canadian archetype pointed out by Margaret Atwood in her book, "Survival".  The Canadian struggle seems mostly against the background of the Canadian geography (with a gentle nod toward Cohen's issues around religion).  Van Zandt's struggles seem to be related to the social world within which he drifted, and from which he was alienated. 

I need to listen and think more......

Self-Fulfilling Expectations

"As long as [something] isn't total crap, your experience will match up with your expectations."
http://lifehacker.com/5990737/why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad

In education, the urban legend always was that if students' locker numbers were randomly substituted for their IQ scores, and when these artificial values were passed on to their teachers, then students' subsequent learning assessments by their teachers would tend to correlate with the values of the locker numbers. 

This story most often makes we educators cranky.

Probably not true at the extremes, but in the 'great muddy middle', one ought to carefully consider the influences of our expectations on outcomes.

A National Crime

See this link: "Over the Hump of Denial"?

Well, I am not sure; but the new report finally actually documenting some of the children who died due to the Canadian residential schools policy is yet another step in the process of re-membering.  However, we need to be reminded that the authors of the report have yet to be given access to all the government records about this time in Canadian history.

A Few Thoughts:

In hearing about this report, I was particularly struck by the fact that around 500 of the 3000 dead children so far counted did not even have their names recorded by the institutions in which they were resident and had died.  As someone who does a lot of genealogy, this seems to be a very telling indifference to the lives of these young charges. 

And one can only try to imagine the emotions of the parents -- and any siblings -- when their child was taken away and nothing was ever heard of her/him again.  There simply was no record.  We have always known that many graves were not marked, but one might presume that the children ought not to have been totally nameless.  Apparently, to the administrators, the children simply 'disappeared', just as people (albeit, often adults) in other countries around the world have 'disappeared' during various political crises. 

I am struggling with the word "missing" because it seems to me to be too benign (too denial-like) to capture the nature of what actually happened.

Some years back, I read a book by John S. Milloy, "A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879-1986".  "Crime" seems a much more direct and descriptive word than "missing".  What struck me at the time of my reading the book was how impersonal and systematic was the residential school process.  The sense I got was that the perpetrators were mostly functionaries and administrators carrying out their bureaucratic orders.  On the face of it, not particularly sinister. 

In many ways this echos the current sense I have of the functioning of the national department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and its previous incarnations.  It seems to me that not much has changed in terms of the bureaucracy.  Death rates on Canadian reserves is much higher than the general population; suicide is epidemic; drinking water issues are endemic; drug abuse is rampant.  But, indeed, as I write this commentary, the the web site for the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, even though it includes sections called: "Top Stories" and "What's New", does NOT include mention of this most-recent report of the death's of residential school missing children.  Perhaps the department believes that death among the indigenous peoples of Canada is actually 'yesterday's news'.

Finally, with regard to my thoughts on the Canadian residential schools matter, on the deaths, and on the indifferent, bureaucratic nature of the residential school enterprise, this recent re-counting and Milloy's book reminds me of a similar sense I took many years back, from the trial for crimes against humanity of the Nazi, Adolf Eichmann. 

My impressions at that time were not so much about Eichmann as a person, but that his job -- the consequences of which were so sinster and devastating -- was essentially one of 'facilitating and managing the logistics' of mass deportation' of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others to extermination.  I think it fair to say that the Canadian residential school system was not designed so much for personal extermination as it was for cultural extermination.  However, Eichmann's administrative, bureaucratic, indifferent sensibility seems to me, not unlike the operation of the Canadian residential school system described in Milloy's book.  The work itself was/is often seen as bereft of any sense of complicity in anything like a criminal undertaking.  The events are still often rationalized away by both perpetrators and observers.  But the consequences ought not to be denied.

Wanting More Cake and Eating it Too

The Vancouver Sun newspaper, February 16th, 2013, indicates that the Coal Association of Canada has released a special report on the industry's economic impact in British Columbia.

In reading the news article, one cannot help yet again viewing the way the extractive industries (perhaps all industries) seem to feed into somewhat contradictory views of the need for industry expansion as if there is an unqualified need for ongoing, massive capacity growth for, in this case, coal extraction and shipment.

In British Columbia, for several years now, both government and the various for-profit sectors of the economy have been arguing that changing demographics -- not to mention economic expansion -- are leading to an impending crisis in employment.  Specifically, there will not be enough skilled workers in the near future to fill all the skill positions being vacated by the baby boomer workers as they retire.  While the provincial government seems slow to recognize the post-secondary educational needs, there does seem to be a general consensus that there will be a considerable shortfall in appropriately skilled employees sufficient to sustain the current levels of economic activity.

Speaking specifically of the Coal industry in British Columbia, the Vancouver Sun article indicates that existing BC coal mining and shipment activities provide substantial economic benefits to the province:

"[In 2011] the province's 10 coal mines produced 25 million tonnes of coal worth $5.2 billion and contributed $3.2 billion to the provinces gross domestic product.  Coal mining accounts for 3,800 direct jobs and contributes $298 million in royalties to provincial coffers."   The report also indicates that using multipliers, this translates into support for 26,000 jobs and total revenues to the province of $399 million.

So, it would appear -- in economic terms -- the industry is thriving.  And if the projections about skilled labour are to be believed, then the current ten coal mines (and most employers) will be challenged over the coming years to sustain an effective and skilled work force.

So, here is the uncomfortable question:  In the face of such staffing challenges and keeping in mind the kind of current economic production -- not to mention issues of climate change -- why is the coal lobby so interested in pressing for even greater increases to capacity and revenue?

I know that we used to live in a time where most of us believed that maximum economic growth was perceived to be the most sensible path for human endeavor.  But it strikes me that this assumption hardly makes sense any more; and it even may be the case that we need to pay serious attention to the fact that there may be serious problems in simply sustaining the economic on which we have come to depend.

Flatlining

I have read with interest the series of Pete McMartin's columns about the environmental review processes around several current hydrocarbon transportation initiatives, including the Enbridge pipeline proposal.  I was, however, most struck by a particular comment in his most recent column (Sat. Feb.2, 2013): 

"I'd wager the same number of us would be wondering how we could back away from that precipice [of environmental disaster] without flatlining our economy."

This, I think, is the point.  I believe that almost nobody is talking about flatlining our economy.  By most accounts, Canada already has a reasonably well-functioning economy, at least near the top of the current economic heap. 

What we ARE talking about is whether to proceed with relatively short-term, dramatic economic expansion based on hydrocarbon extraction, and whether to expand at what might be a very intemperate pace.

If all the pipeline expansion proposals were put on hold, the Canadian economy would not flatline any more than reducing excess consumption of anything would cause immediate demise.  For example, if Kinder Morgan cannot more than double its current pipeline capacity to the Lower Mainland, I doubt that the firm will go out of business.  There already has been huge expansion of the tar sands, and the product is currently being shipped.

In this debate, aside from the environmental issues, what we are really arguing about is whether it is prudent to move to the next level of resource gluttony, and how fast.   And some, I think, rightly argue that there is plenty of evidence that increasing fossil-fuel extraction may well be the most direct route to flatlining everything.

Sockeye Salmon & Bison

In reading the Vancouver Sun editorial about the Cohen report dealing with the uncertain future of wild salmon on the BC coast, I could not help but think of parallels in our national experience with bison -- in particular, the so-called disappearance of the bison from the plains of North America.

To me, the parallels are striking.  In the case of salmon, the word 'decline' has been substituted for the word 'disappearance', the latter of which was for years associated with the almost-complete annihilation of the bison.

We now acknowledge that the elimination of the bison was in large part the result of systematic, quasi-industrial killing efforts, erasing the wild order and replacing it with cattle & grain production, railroads, residential communities and fences.  This is not to mention explicit public policy efforts to starve First Nations populations onto reserves.

Over the intervening years, with regard to the uncertain future of wild salmon, our society has learned to be somewhat more subtle in its approach to the destruction of the wild.  But not a lot different.  Me-first competition among the various fishing interests, introduction of competing but artificial aquaculture, habitat destruction through urban and commercial development, all look to me a lot like what happened to the bison.  We even have rough parallels with regard to the economic and social effects on First Nations of our area.

Perhaps this ongoing assault on the wild is inevitable.  But we ought not to pretend that we are mystified by what is happening.

Seniors Learning

I think the video at the link below is worth sharing:

http://youtu.be/9asb_iISKio

Educational Myopia

"What are you going to do with your degree?"

This is an astonishingly common question asked of people engaged in university education.  I will leave aside the matter that such a question seems to imply that a degree is equivalent to some sort of tool, a hammer or a wrench or the like.  But the question does imply a belief in the mind of the questioners, that all university education ought to represent the educational equivalent of direct career training. 

Of course, there are some university programs that do function in this way, medicine leaps to mind, and engineering, as do more-recently created programs related to the business field. 

But such direct career purposes are not the roots of university education in its classic form, unless one assumes that most original undergraduate education was part of an apprenticeship for a career in academia itself.

Our son graduated this spring from an undergraduate program in human kinetics.  When first registering at university, he had not established any kind of clear learning focus, so he started out in general arts.  After two years of study, he found an interest in human kinetics and moved to that program.  He was, however, constantly bombarded with the question above.  His responses were always vague.

In his final term of study, he took on a part-time, minimum-wage job in the shipping and receiving department of a large retail chain.  As he graduated and summer approached, a manager approached him to ask if he would be interested in entering a short training experience aimed at being an appliance salesperson.  After some consideration, he decided to go ahead with this plan, and in the middle of this month will assume a full-time position as part of the retailer's appliance sales staff.

Many of his student colleagues who graduated at the same time, and some who graduated earlier (his studies took an extra year due to the change in programs of study) remain unemployed.  Interestingly, these same former student colleagues are somewhat dismissive of his current occupation, implying that he has 'wasted' his university education.  Indeed, when we proudly tell family and friends about our son's current employment, generally the reaction also seems to suggest that this must be somewhat disappointing after five years of university education.  For us, quite the contrary.

First, in the employment world of today (and possibly even of yesterday), it is unlikely that any particular work situation will necessarily represent a particular restrictive career path.  Data supports the notion that people will have many major changes in employment over their lifetime.

Secondly, we never assumed that the primary reason he was attending university (regardless of the program in which he ended up), was instrumental training for a particular entry-level job.  We did have a sense that the general learning related to becoming university educated would end up serving him well as he tried to find a future place in the world of full adulthood.

Let me give some examples of how I think this worked:

- His involvement in drama in high school was never intended to ensure that he could pursue a career as professional actor (although this was not excluded); it did, however, give him a boost in self confidence, and the ability to work with others, and to gain comfort in standing out in front of others.

- His involvement in soccer helped to develop his team skills, and ensured that his lifestyle included physical activity.  It also helped build self confidence (albeit including some experiences with bullying) and evolve some leadership skills

- His general experience as a university student helped him to break out of being a dependent child to an independent adult.  He had to learn to assume personal responsibility, to meet deadlines, to organize for success, to deal with failure, and on and on and on.  Oh, yes, he also had to meet the prescribed formal learning outcomes as well.

- As an arts student, he had to accomplish the foregoing, as well as build his capacity to write coherently; he had to build his capacity think in some orderly fashion; he had to enhance his capacity to be mindful and sometimes to think in a constructively critical fashion.

- As a human kinetics student, he had to learn to organize and make presentations; he had to work cooperatively with other students in prescribed activities; he learned about important life skills such as promotion of healthy, active living  and nutrition-related topics.

- And as an emerging adult, he had to learn to manage his finances and to do his grocery shopping, to make his own meals, and to negotiate his way through living in shared accommodation, finding out how to register for utilities, and negotiate rental arrangements for accommodation.

Now he is gainfully employed and finding out what it takes to get along as a responsible adult and member of society.

I think his university education has served him very well thus far, even though some short-sighted folks may not believe that he is actually 'using' his degree.

Economies of Scale and Tainted Beef

Was reading more this morning about the tainted beef recall from the XL Foods meat packing plant in Alberta. Apparently this plant is the second largest in Canada. The slogan is: "Big Enough to Supply; Small Enough to Serve".

The article I was reading indicated this plant, which employs about 2000 people was built to take advantage of 'economies of scale'.

The 'economies of scale' notion is, of course, one which emerged with the industrial revolution, and is suggested as a positive driver of business. As a holder of a business degree myself, I know that when economies of scale are talked about, there is never any real talk about 'disasters of scale'. However, in this case, again we can see a mega disaster in action with all the accompanying costs; and the people who are now sick, and the out-of work employees, in military terms, are probably 'collatoral damage'.... unless you happen to be one of them.

In 1982, the author Kirkpatrick Sale authored the book, "Human Scale", in which he suggested that there is an appropriate maximum size for all human undertakings; and that when considering the idea of 'progress', we ought to think about the ecological implications of making things too big.

This XL case might be just another example that we ought to look seriously at the ideas Sale expressed (think about the recent financial system meltdown, Toyota's accelerator pedal recalls, the BP oil spill, etc.). All such events suggest that we might be well served by a more complex understanding of the idea of economies of scale and the accompanying costs.

On the weekend I was in a Pub in Vancouver, British Columbia.  On the food menu it was interesting to see items featured, proudly proclaiming to be made with Alberta beef.  I suspect that the original 'economies of scale' are currently meaning something different to this pub and others like it.  Tainted meat is now tainted brand.

Who Is Funding Your Interest Group, And To What Extent?

 You may ask: who is Vivian Krause?

She claims to be a freelance researcher who apparently is responsible for investigating the funding of environmental groups in Canada, and for 'discovering' that some portion of the funding for some of the larger groups comes from sister organizations in the United States. The environmental "terrorists", according to the Harper government.

If we accept her findings at face value, the first comment I can think of is that, if the corporate buzzword from the 80s and 90s was 'globalization', why would this idea not also be an organizing notion for interest groups such as Green Peace and others?

My second reaction is to wonder who is funding Vivian. In an article in the Vancouver Province newspaper, May 10, 2012, by Sam Cooper, the reporter, indicates the following:

"[Krause] insists that she has no connection to any of the resource industries — oil, forestry, mining, farmed salmon — that her research appears to support. But after going ahead with research, she has received thousands of dollars in honorarium payments from some of these industry groups for conference speeches. And she has worked briefly as a federal Conservative staffer and unsuccessfully sought funding support for oil industry issues, Krause says."

In reading information presented through today's media, my sense is that it is always helpful to have a sense of who is funding whom.

I am currently funded by the Federal government (OAS) as well as my own retirement funds, including CPP -- ah yes, and supplemented by a very considerate spouse who continues to toil for a salary in the mines of the literate. So, you see, I am in part funded by the federal Conservatives as well..... at least for the time being.

"Subdued Economy" and/or "Waiting for Godot"

For some time now, I have been thinking that the columnists and economic pundits who keep writing hopefully about the end of the recession and the pending economic turnaround may well be wrong.

There is no particular news in the idea that people are poor at predicting the future.  But for a long time, it has seemed to me that such prognosticators believe if they wish/forecast loudly and persistently enough, they will create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  For them, this is best exemplified by a return to the hyperbolic economic opportunities that have characterized our recent economic past.

At the moment, there is a kind of earnest intensity within the popular economic wisdom, in trying to blow the embers of the current "subdued economy" into the kind of hydrocarbon-based, economic flaring that western capitalism has experienced since World War II.

But what if that past fifty years was an economic aberration?  What if the past fifty years was not just another cycle in the longer-term historic economic conditions of human kind?

Thomas Malthus notwithstanding, and current deniers aside, we do appear to be fast approaching the limits of human population growth.  Not in terms of geography, but in terms of resources, environment, and perhaps of potential for pandemics of one sort or another.  Even the potential for global social discord seems too loom.  The pervasive nature of social media have really changed the rules of the game of articulating interests.

The techno-fix(es) has thus far created as many (if not more) problems than it has solved.  Stephen Hawking, in celebrating his 70th birthday, is reported to have stated:   "We must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity, I don't think we will survive another thousand years without escaping beyond our fragile planet."

This is a fine techno-fix sentiment; but the limits of our planet and the speed with which we are sullying our current base in the universe, probably gives humanity considerably less than 1000 years in order to achieve escape velocity, let alone to find some other resource horizon.  We might be better served in the near term by looking at how to effectively manage what we have, rather than for resolution through inter-galactic means.

Perhaps there is a not-so-hidden message in the state of our current "subdued economy".  Perhaps the message to all of us is that we ought not to be trying to return to the overheated economic nature of the past fifty years.  Perhaps we need to experience and hone our human capacities within a subdued economic understanding.

I wonder what subdued economy(ies) might look like?

Clearly there are those who panic at the thought of such a notion.  Canada's federal minister of natural resources seems to be of this ilk.  The viewpoint of Canada's federal government, as conveyed through this minister's open letter about pipeline development to the west coast has a hysterical tone.  The notion that Canadians and others in the global community might mindfully consider how we will go forward economically, apparently strikes this minister as 'radical'. 

I feel as if I am watching two men on a bench.  The minister's views have overtones of role of Lucky.

Misconduct & "Privacy" in Canada

In the last couple of days there have been a couple of newspaper reports through the 'Postmedia' news service, of academic misconduct in Canadian universities.  Based on the details provided, it is challenging for the reader to know if these were two different stories, or if the details outline events related to one instance.

The challenges in sorting out the details appear to result from the notion that the details surrounding this case(es) are protected by Canadian privacy legislation; and as such, while the stories speak to misconduct in the information provided by the faculty member(s) to the funding agency, The National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), most other details are absent from the reports.  The reading public is not provided with the name of the university(ies) involved, nor is the name of the faculty member(s) provided.

We are told in one of the stories that the faculty member resigned and has been hired by a different institution, but it is unclear as to whether the new setting is a university, whether the setting is in Canada, or whether the new employer has any awareness of the preceding misconduct........

So much information on this case is (to use the word made popular in the United States) redacted, it is virtually an empty story, save for the notion that perhaps most of us are not well served by either the Canadian privacy legislation, or the interpretation of such legislation when it comes to such matters.

What the heck is going on?  How is it that we have become so ensnared in issues around privacy (and in this case, it seems not just personal privacy), that misadventures and their consequences can take place in a vacuum of information.

It was NOT ever thus.  Because of my interest in family history, I have had occasion to review newspaper reports going back at least 200 years.  One of the most interesting revelations of such browsing is that newspaper reports in earlier times were often full of detailed personal information that many today might find surprising.  For example, it was not unusual for local newspapers to review the registers of local hotels and to report the arrivals and departures of registered guests.  It was also not unusual to have reported quite intimate details of family troubles.

In these current days of concern about matters such as identity theft, and with our world of immediate global communication, I am not suggesting that those earlier sensibilities would serve anyone well.  However, based on this recent reporting, one has to think that whatever the 'privacy wall' we have created in Canada, it appear that we have missed the mark in the other direction.

Are We Blind?

This morning I heard the news that Coca Cola Enterprises has announced plans to buy back $1Billion of its own stock.  Apparently this announcement is part of a larger pattern of corporations engaged in similar buy backs.  At least in part, the strategy reputedly is driven by an intent to help shareholders defer taxes.  But the practice also solves a 'problem' for the corporations, many of which are awash in cash reserves for which they have no immediate investment plans.  It is no secret that much of the world-wide corporate sector is sitting on such huge cash reserves.

The irony is, of course, that during this same period, unemployment rates across the globe, and particularly in some parts of Europe and the United States, are at or near record levels, with little prospect of a positive change any time soon.  And as importantly, many countries across the globe are in fiscal difficulty due to rising expenses and declining or stagnant tax revenue -- leading to large accumulated deficits.  Indeed, many governments are being told to institute deficit cutting programs, mostly focused on reducing spending on 'costly' programs such as health care, and apparently 'expensive', but unfunded, pension commitments.

The United States is caught in governance gridlock over an unwillingness on the part of a significant segment of policy makers to consider tax increases for the wealthy and for the corporations.  The outdated, trickle-down notion being that such increases will act as a disincentive for job creation.  Canada is in the process of reducing its corporate tax rates yet again.

In the meantime, the cash-rich corporations, apparently bereft of any further entrepreneurial imagination -- which might indeed create employment -- are using their 'surplus' cash to buy back their own shares.

Does anyone else have the sense that the Matrix is in the process of being torn wide open?

Minimal Compliance

Perhaps it is only my perception, but it seems to me that business, and even other kinds of enterprises often avoid doing the honourable/sensible thing because it is not required by law.

A large example is the tobacco industry, which often resists every sensible constraint with the complaint that the use of a 'legal product' should not be constrained.

Most builders of offices and houses, who might construct more liveable neighbourhoods by constructing buildings with increased setbacks, will construct right to the legal minimum setback, regardless of the long-term consequences for the people who will live in the area for years to come.

I could go on and on.  But I was reminded of minimal compliance recently by a consumer complaint I saw mentioned on the TV news.  A mundane matter really, but indicative of the pervasive nature of minimal compliance.

The consumer asked why s/he could not find a 'best-before date' on canned beans in sauce.  Each can does carry an indecipherable code.  When the company was asked why the product did not contain a best-before date, the response was that Canadian food products with a shelf life of more than 90 days are NOT REQUIRED BY LAW OR REGULATION to carry a best-before date.  So, the company puts on their product an obtuse production code, which ALLOWS THE COMPANY to determine the actual product production date.

The 'helpful' suggestion was that the consumer was welcome to phone the company contact phone number, included on each each label; and that the company would be pleased to decode the number on the can for purposes of informing the customer about the production date.

Oh yeah!  I can see that happening while some harried customer is trailing through the isles of a favourite super market in the late afternoon, while the family is waiting for supper.

My 'helpful' suggestion would be to provide the production date in a readable form (for consumers) on all products on which a company already records such information on the product.

I suspect we will wait a long time for this sensible thing to happen in the absence of any legislation.

Makes one realize why the mercantile world is full of what they call, 'red tape'.

Wealthy lack empathy, generosity of lower classes, study finds

Wealthy lack empathy, generosity of lower classes, study finds

So, in view of this report, we might be inclined to look in the mirror.  While doing so, if you find yourself checking your cell phone, this might suggest something about which of the two social classes you ought to call your own.

"The Beatings Won't Stop Until Morale Improves"

I though the above quote on National Public Radio today, to be quite appropriate in describing the desire to cut government program spending in a time of economic downturn.

I also saw in the newspaper, a quote from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, "The debt they ran up in the first year of the Obama administration is bigger than the last four years of the Bush, combined."

Well..... yes.  But the more-complete story is that the Bush administration left the US economy in such lousy shape, both through tax cuts and lack of oversight of Wall Street, that Obama arrived to find an gaping economic black hole.  We call it the recession.

And while the popular sensibility is that the US citizenry pays too much tax, the fact is that US tax rates are lower than they have been since the 1950s. 

Talk about fiddling while the empire burns..........

Imagine the Freedom of a Contented Life

The story of Allen & Violet Large, by Elizabeth Payne is well worth considering.

It is heartwarming to say the least.  It is also worth reflecting upon - both the notion of contentment and the generosity.

My only question is:  "Why ever were they purchasing lottery tickets in the first place?"

Perhaps the practice of purchasing lottery tickets has become such a routine part of people's lives that they don't even think about it....?  Curious behaviour when the general populace seems to, for example,  whinge about paying pennies extra for fueling their vehicles...  Especially here in British Columbia, where it is an intentional tax on carbon.

Ignorance of the Law

New data out this week, indicating that crime -- including violent crime -- is continuing to drop significantly across Canada.

In the face of this continuing trend, the Harper government in Canada continues to press legislation forward on mandatory prison sentencing and ensuring that those convicted spend more time in jail. 

The consequence of which is that those who continue to scrabble for lower tax rates, curiously ramp up a taxpayer-funded spending spree of gigantic proportions, on new and expanded prison facilities.

Although a bit of a non sequitur, the current actions remind me of the kind of sensibilities that apparently led a former governor of Texas (Ma Ferguson - 1925) to state: 

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas."