Archive for the ‘John Robson Byline’ Category

By: John Robson

Oh great. The government is going to teach us to be financially responsible. As if things weren’t bad enough already.
No, really. A press release just told me the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada has published a “new resource” for young people launching their leaky boats on the ocean of life. Apparently “This resource provides information to help them identify the costs, assess their options and make the best decisions for themselves.”
I don’t even know why they call it a “resource”. I mean, no normal person comes up to you and says “I just published a resource” or “Say, could you pass me the resource.” Nor do I know why the press release doesn’t have a direct link to the “resource”. But these are bagatelles. Here’s what makes me howl: What business does the government of Canada have telling anyone how to manage their finances?
OK, “This resource explains all the expenses people will incur when they move into their own place for the first time: regular costs like rent, utilities, laundry, parking, taxes and maintenance, as well as the one-time “start-up” costs such as moving expenses, furniture and dishes, cable and Internet connections, legal fees and a security deposit.” Which is good. But do you think the government shows any sign of knowing what its expenses will be when it shrinks then expands then shrinks the public service? Heck, did they know what it would cost to renovate West Bloc?
Look. What if the government was a person? Just striking out on their own after, as FCAC Commissioner Ursula Menke patronizingly says, being “used to relying on their parents to manage finances”? The federal government actually makes about $250 billion a year which most young people will not whatever their self-esteem councillors led them to consider a reasonable starting salary for a person as gol-durn special as them. So let’s make the math simple in case they went to a public school, and assume their starting salary will be $25,000 (this way we can just divide everything by 10 million).
Unfortunately our putative young person has annual expenses of $28,000. So they’re going $3,000 into the hole every year. Which might be sort of OK, even though it’s 1/8 of their income… except they also have debts of $57,000, causing interest payments of $3,300 a year, so they’re borrowing every year just to pay interest and falling further behind as they go.
What’s worse, he or she somehow acquired the obligation to fund a bunch of hapless nephews and nieces with expensive social lives. And curried favour with elderly relatives by promising to support them to the tune, accountants estimate, of about $150,000 in “unfunded liabilities”. Which carry nominal interest of around $9,000 a year, so in fact debts are eating up half their income and rising.
Now FCAC helpfully suggests that before moving out you “Consider options to reduce costs, such as sharing accommodations.” But it’s kind of hard for the Government of Canada to move in with another nation, especially as we’re so big. It’s not like we could fit into some of the unused bits of Mali.
Then there’s “Make a budget: learn how to tell your wants from your needs, and set up a realistic budget that takes into account your financial goals, saving for emergencies, paying down debt and saving for the future.” Ayuh. There’s a plan for you. Start by listing the core duties of government, namely protection of persons and property, and give up the party lifestyle that makes you popular because you buy stuff for everybody who even conceivably might vote for you.
FCAC also says “Check your credit report and credit score.” But when you’re in the mess Joe Canada is, that’s not a good idea. It will scare you silly and you won’t dare approach a landlord knowing what they’re about to learn about you.”
Under the circumstances, you might think bluff and bluster is your best plan. Especially if the government of Canada really is your role model, with its massive recent increases in spending, staffing and deficits, which just prompted this piece of self-satisfied bafflegab from the Finance Minister about what he will, won’t or might do to reduce, control or increase spending depending what happens or doesn’t: “Canada stands ready to respond again in a flexible and pragmatic manner if the economic challenges from beyond our shores begin to threaten jobs and the economy here. But we must always remember that we will only hold onto our advantages by continuing to pursue those strategies that made us so resilient in the first place—responsibility, discipline and determination.”
OK, that was smooth, right? Maybe if you can talk like that you can forget all this painful talk of responsibility and cutting expenses and just talk your way through everything awkward. But you should bear in mind that, unlike Slick Jim, you don’t have the power to impose taxes.
And while Ben Franklin was right that you sometimes get very good advice from people who don’t practice what they preach because “He that’s aground knows where the shoal doth lie”, as this advice from the government is not offered in anything resembling a spirit of contrition I’d stay as far from it as your legs will carry you.
So what’s to do if your balance sheet looks like theirs? One option is to move out and declare bankruptcy. Another is to stay home, hide under the bed, sponge off your parents and fire whatever dunce has been giving you financial advice to this point. Because I can tell you one thing: If you move out with this balance sheet and keep listening to whatever Keynesian genius got you into this mess, you are going to wind up living in a van down by the river with cardboard over the windows.
Especially given your adviser’s lack of shame.
I’m John Robson, and that’s the Byline.

By: John Robson

Canadians are horrified by squalor on the remote Cree reserve of Attawapiskat, some 2,000 people on the shores of James Bay living in shacks without running water. And by the response of our political class, the usual mixture of sanctimony, abuse, obscenity and false promises. But what outrages me most is the bigotry. Behind this crisis, and blocking any solution, is the pervasive assumption that one race – aboriginals – are not like anybody else in this country. They don’t think the same way, they don’t react the same way to incentives and we can’t reform policy on the assumption that they are like everyone else. We’ll never fix this or a host of related problems until we say, and mean, that all men are created equal.
Start with the financial mismanagement. OK, $94 million in federal aid went into this one small community over the past 6 years, plus millions in provincial and other money, with nothing to show for it but misery and filth. And lots of weird stuff in the books from improperly documented payouts to a $2.4 million bank overdraft to $53 million spent on education but no elementary school after the old one was torn down in 2009 that stood empty for 9 years because it was on a diesel spill. But what would you expect when a whole community lives on handouts? Any community? Of any race, ethnicity or mix of same?
I’ll tell you: Misery, squalor… and bad government. The essence of self-government is that the executive depends on representatives of the community for money. But native band governments don’t get their revenue from the community at all so no conceivable “accountability” mechanism can make them answerable to their so-called constituents. Which nobody would deny… unless they’re Indians.
Of course there’s no way Attawapiskat could generate the staggering 34 million bucks the band council burns through each year stuck up there on the frozen shores of James Bay. So better move to the city, right? Hundreds of millions of people have since the Industrial Revolution. And yes, it’s sad that they lose touch with nature. But one family at a time, from Britain to Bangladesh, has concluded that as the world changes the only way to cope is to head for the bright lights.
No one would say a Canadian of Arab descent, or Chinese, shouldn’t move from a place there’s no work to one where they’re hiring. But just dare say it about an Indian and wait for the rising tide of PC wrath about failing to respect aboriginal traditions. As if their tradition was to sit around watching TV and waiting for a handout anyway.
See, even that is pernicious brain-blocking nonsense. Their real tradition was: No moose here? Grab the tools, pack up the kids, go find one, NOW. And while their ancestors – like yours and mine – could make a decent Stone Age living in isolation, no one wants a Stone Age lifestyle anymore including aboriginals… but only they are meant to be able to stay where they are, have money dumped on them, and enjoy the ways of the ancestors amid the technology of modern times.
Now consider the supposed scandal that Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan only found out about this crisis last Thursday though department officials visited the place repeatedly since March. Again, what did you expect? Of course John Duncan is painfully aware of the poverty, corruption and despair that plague many reserves across Canada. But he can’t do anything about them because the core of aboriginal policy in this country is that Indians are wards of the state and, because of their race, must continue to be. And his officials don’t tell him about things he can’t fix because if they did he’d be held responsible for not fixing them. And nobody can fix them as long as race is trump.
It doesn’t matter what you discover about the money dumped into Attawapiskat over the past decade, how much you get back, who you arrest or who you ask to manage these people’s lives for them.
Sure, Stephen Harper announced a Crown-First Nations meeting in late January. See, they’re nations and we’re nations. They have 2000 people, Canada a few more, around 35 million. And we’re dumping millions on them a year to ruin their lives. It’s not nation to nation. It’s nation to small dysfunctional community demoralized by handouts and trapped in a racist legal structure. But you can’t even say something that obvious because they’re … Indians.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo called these meetings a “chance to reset the relationship between First Nations and the federal Crown.” Utter bosh. Does he want the Crown to stop giving them money? No. Does he want to make aboriginals subject to the same laws of the land as everyone else or put them under outside supervision? No. He just wants more of the same.
Ditto Harper’s sonorous in Attawapiskat “there is a need obviously for more services and infrastructure. There is also clearly a need for better management. The government will ensure both of those needs are met.” If he knew how to do either he’d have done it long ago. As soon as this thing is off the front pages we’ll be back to business as usual… as we are in dozens of Attawapiskats across the country anyway.
Listen to me, all of you, starting with Shawn Atleo. All men, and women, are created equal. We are all children of the same God and members of the same species and we all react the same way to heat, cold, hunger, free money and the laws of political economy. It doesn’t make any difference that you’re Indians.
Until we make that the basis of our policy, everything we say or do will be futile, bigoted and evil.
I’m John Robson, and that’s the Byline.