Category Archives: waste

It’s bonus season!!

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 As we see the economy slip into the tank, as we see layoffs in all sectors, as stress in households grows with decimated retirement portfolios and as we hearthe Stelmach government tell us that they must borrow our grandchildren into debt for lack of room to cut spending, we hear that the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta has handed out $110,000,000 in “achievement” bonuses for senior civil servants in the last 3 years.

 Considering the explosive increases in spending in the last few years, all we can assume is that the rewarded “achievement”  is achieving excellence in creatively pissing away the hard earned tax dollars of Albertans.

 Bonuses can be an effective means of getting better performances from employees. These bonuses only apply to a few thousand of the senior elite in government however. The civil servants working in the trenches don’t see these lucrative perks. Most of this bonus money has gone to deputy ministers who make an average of $250,000 per year and have seen their salaries increase by 61% since 2005.

 Would not those disproportionate raises in the last few years constitute something of a reward for these people already? Apparently not.

 While the government is bound to report the spending on these bonuses in their respective departments, one department is unsurprisingly exempt from disclosure; that is the Alberta Executive Council.

The Executive Council is made up of the Premier and cabinet ministers.

Well Ed, how many perks have you lined your own and the cabinet’s pockets with bonuses? I guess those 30% raises last fall were not enough. Sadly as Albertans we are not allowed to find out these numbers.

 Keep these kinds of things in mind in a couple weeks as the government releases a deficit budget and claims they have no way to avoid budgeting on our collective credit cards.

Put a fork in him, he’s done.

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harpercowboy

 

 Many people have been becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the actions of Harper in his mad pursuit to try and gain a majority government. There has been the declaration of Quebec as a nation, the insane spending increases, the complete flip/flop on the income-trust issue, the capitulation to the eco-kooks on carbon policy and on and on and on.

 Nothing better illustrates Harper’s complete sellout of his own principles better than his recently quoting John Maynrd Keynes in defense of his garbage “stimulus” package. CP documents this here:

“But I was taught early in economics classes, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes said that, ‘At times like this, we remember that in the long run, we’re all dead.’ So right now, we worry about the short term. We are worried about the short term, and we’ve got to get things right now.”

Yes the direct quote above is from Steven Harper. Harper always claimed to have been strongly influenced by Hayek and Friedman who both very effectively and completely discredited Keynes socialist theories.

 In Harper’s own thesis, he spoke of the dangers of embracing Keynesian economics in order to win elections.

From Harper’s thesis:

“Minority governments show no particular tendency to fiscally irresponsible

behaviour, contrary to some theoretical predictions.”

“A general observation would be that, while there is no evidence of a ‘chronic deficit’ tendency in Canada historically, neither is it clear how such a problem is resolved once it occurs.”

“The record indicates that particularly activist Keynesian policy has been rare in the postwar period. The results indicated that it should remain so.”

 To act against your own principles is one thing (and still not a good thing), but to directly quote from the economist that Harper claimed for so long was misguided is astounding.

 Harper has utterly no principle left and will do utterly anything in order to gain the brass ring of a majority.

 The irony is that Harper’s efforts will not gain him a majority. If people want a Liberal Prime Minister, they will elect one. Ignatieff is at least honest about his liberal nature. Harper could not pull an election victory from the inept Dion, there is no way in hell Harper will get one from Ignatieff.

 If indeed we in Alberta have any hope for a fiscally responsible government, we must look to our provincial legislature. The federal parliament is clearly a waste of time.

 With Deficit Ed Stelmach in power, we certainly have our work cut out for us provincially as well.

Just Brilliant!

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With the unfortunate lack of opposition in the legislature of Alberta (left or right) we can look forward to many ill-conceived schemes sliding under the radar.

Anybody who has even peripherally been watching the news has observed that we are in the midst of a global disaster in the financial markets. One of the key elements in the financial collapse was the American sub-prime fiasco. Under the misconception that home ownership is a right for all individuals. With the government subsidized entities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying and guaranteeing mortgages from lenders, lending institutions were encouraged to expand into the market of people who normally would not qualify for mortgages.

Lengthy terms, low interest and a low bar for qualification encouraged by these entities led to a boom in the real-estate market that lasted for years. Alas, what goes up must come down.

Reality came crashing down and the USA financial market discovered what lending institutions sort of always knew; there is a reason that some people do not qualify for mortgages. Some people simply do not make enough money to properly repay a mortgage, some people are too irresponsible to pay other bills and thus their credit is too poor to qualify for a mortgage. With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying and backing these high-risk loans however, banks were encouraged to keep lending this money out.

Low and behold, a tremendous number of people began to default on these mortgages that they never should have had in the first place. Foreclosures skyrocketed, real-estate values plummeted and banks were left owning a great deal of real-estate with negative equity. This of course has rocked the entire American market which in turn has rocked the entire world market.

The sub-prime fiasco is not the entire reason for this massive world market correction, but it is the main factor involved with it. It really does not seem that complex. Leave lending institutions alone. They want to make money. In order to do so, lending institutions create their own standards for loan qualifications so that they reduce the risk of people defaulting on their loans and the banks can continue to enjoy profits from loan interest. Due to that, some people will simply not qualify for credit. Get over it!

Even while we are in the midst of such a brutal lesson in basic economics, one idiot in our legislature has cluelessly proposed that we walk down the same disastrous path.

Progressive Conservative MLA for Lethbridge West Greg Weadick has tabled Bill 208; the Alberta Affordable Mortgage Protection Act. This bill explicitly states that the government should guarantee mortgages for people who would not normally qualify for one. WTF!!!!!!

Even without the current world financial crisis as an example to learn from, this concept is so stupid it should not even hit the legislature floor. Government is good enough at finding business losers to back financially an piss our money away (Magcan, Nova-Tel, Gainers). Greg Weadick wants the government to actively seek out losers with low incomes and bad credit so that the government can back their loans. If ever I have seen a recipe to waste Alberta tax dollars this is it.

The real frightening part of this is that while Weadick is clearly utterly clueless as to basic finances, this has not stopped him from taking on economic roles in government. Weadick is currently chair of the Cabinet Policy Committee on the Economy and sits on the Standing Committee on the Economy (the duplication of committees in the PC cash-cow committee system is fodder for another post). I almost fear that Ed Stelmach is gearing this twit for a position as finance minister considering his committee appointments.

Weadick is an alumni of Alberta civic politics. Few people are better at wasting tax-dollars and showing less grasp on reality than municipal politicians. Nuts like Tooker Gomberg and Brian Pincott come to mind.

Weadick came from Lethbridge city council, the place that spawned the Queen of crazy councilors: Dar Heatherington I know many are trying to forget Dar and her imaginary kidnappings and such. Heatherington should still be held up as an example that the voters can be rather mistaken in their choices of representatives at times.

Perhaps Weadick and Dar rubbed off on each other  a bit during their years on council. There has not been any proof yet that insanity is contagious, but I see this as evidence.

With any luck, this bill will die a swift death on the legislature floor as MLAs recoil from such an idiotic idea. We had best watch closely though. if Bill 208 passes, we may look forward to our provincial government absorbing billions in bad-debts.

Greg Weadick had best be watched closely as well. Clearly he should not be near any position where our tax-dollars or economy are involved (though that is already too late) and should be relegated to the deepest of back benches.

There is a reason for such things as credit ratings. Home ownership is not a right. If more people had grasped those two simple concepts in the last decade or so, we would not be seeing the current financial mess. It is almost unbelievable that some elected officials can’t read that rather stark writing on the wall.

This is Canada’s culture?

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Well it looks like Prime Minister Harper has raised the ire of Canada’s “art” community by announcing a modest cut in their funding. The yowling and howling from the other parties is unsurprising.

Justin Trudeau roared in with this statement: “This is yet another example that the fact that Mr. Harper simply does not understand Canadians and does not trust Canadians in the choices they make.”

Uhh Justin, by letting more art stand on it’s own rather than being subsidized, Canadians actually have more choice. Consumers of art would determine what is worthy and what is not. It really is not that confusing. It is the “arts” crowd that does not trust the judgement of Canadians and insists on having tax dollars fund their work rather than letting Canadians judge the merit of it.

Jack Layton crowed: “We say the arts are at the core of the economy!!”

 Really Jack? Arts must rival oil exports, auto exports, wheat and such eh? Why, I can hardly go a day without reading about the frothing international demand of Canadian art. If indeed the arts were the core of our economy, why the hell are all these artists always looking for handouts then?

There are many great Canadian artists from writers to painters. There always will be great Canadian artists with or without taxpayer funding.

The artists who are most annoyed with cuts to arts funding are the ones that produce shit that they damn well know would never sell on the open market.

Oooops. Did I say shit? It is rare that I use expletives in my postings, but in this case it is a good segue into highlighting some of Canada’s great subsidized “art” works.

A few years back, a tax funded art gallery in Ottawa hosted a five week exhibition of; Scatalogue: 30 years of crap in contemporary art.

This was no misnomer. The display was truly focused on poop and included such profound displays as soiled underwear and shrink wrapped turds.

Good heavens!!??? How many priceless works have I flushed down the toilet without even considering the potential artistic value in it?

I have been creating and sadly wasting what could have been yet another integral part of Canada’s cultural fabric (according to Justin Trudeau) and I never even knew it.

 There is already a well established online gallery where fecal artists may display their works and critique each other’s creations. It is called ratemypoo.com (not for the weak of stomach). Scatophiles and connoisseurs of crap may view dung to their heart’s delight with nary a dollar of my money spent.

 Going down the list we come to the Canadian icon that was hosted by our tax-funded national gallery in Ottawa; The Meat Dress.


Renowned artist Jana Sterbak conceived of this brilliant concept.

Recipe for wasting Canadian tax dollars:

Ingredients:

50 pounds of flank steaks,  salt,  mannequin, tax funded art gallery.

 Salt meat and allow to air dry. Hang from mannequin and display in federal gallery for months while periodically replacing meat due to decomposition. Soak taxpayers heavily and justify it with pithy justifications such as: “It emphasizes the contrast between vanity and bodily decay.”

 How deep!!! This little number was displayed for months at our expense and has even ranking being listed at Snopes(a site dedicated to urban legends).  The reason this mess of meat was worthy of Snopes is that most people could not believe that somebody could be so profoundly stupid as to pay for such a thing.

 An irony in this is that the “arts” community is usually front and center in howling about how we must feed the underprivileged. I am sure that a few of the hungry would have appreciated a few hundred pounds of steaks but alas, it is much more important to contribute it to the building of that fabric of Canadian culture.

 Of course, not all of our contributers to Canadian culture need to be Canadian. How can we forget Israel Moras AKA the Mexican Masturbator?

 This Mexican received Canadian funding to wheel a cart full of test tubes filled with his own ejaculate around my home town of Banff. I tried to find an image to go with this one but my efforts were not only futile, but stomach wrenching. I strongly suggest that you never type “mexican masturbator” into a google image search! (unless you are in to that sort of thing)

Another non-Canadian but recipient of Canadian arts funding is legendary porn actress Nina Hartley. While googling Hartley does produce images more appealing to my eye, I found few that were appropriate for posting here given her career history.

 Bubbles Galore received $55,000 of our tax dollars for it’s production from the Canada council. This porn (and it most definitely is a porn) was considered “art” as it portrayed lesbians. Straight porn is degrading to women of course and must be stamped out.

 Look at the recognition that Canada has gained from this great tax investment however. Bubbles Galore won the best film award at the International Festival of Trash Cinema! A big white tear of pride is running down my leg in knowing that part of my income went to the funding of this Canadian masterpiece.

 How about our recent tossing of $9,000 to a proud lesbian single mother who feels that displaying of a breast milk bar is of artistic merit? Yes the entitled “lactation station” will provide samples of real breast milk for visitors.

 “Artist” Jess Dobkin states the milk will be provided from six different women. For health and safety reasons the milk will be pasteurized.

Well I guess if it is pasteurized……..  Bleah. Nope can’t get around it this is pretty gross.

I can see some tourist draw from this though. There is a subculture of fetishists who are into infantilism and want to revert to their babyhood. These fellas have a tough time finding genuine wet-nurses for grown men and doubtless jumped at the chance to get on this wagon.

Of course, are these the kind of tourists that we want?

infantilism

 I guess when these fellows are finished feeding, they will go on to view our “Scatalogue” display.

 There are many other examples out there but this posting is getting rather long. I will finish with displaying one of Canada’s most famous wastes of money. American “artist” Barnett Newman sold Canada his painting “Voice of Fire” (pictured below) for $1.8 million dollars.

voice

 Is that not an incredible piece? Imagine how many sleepless nights the artist endured in conceiving this one? “Should I do the red on the outside or the inside? Narrow stripes or broad ones?”

 The arts community often likes to pooh pooh critics by implying that the public at large is simply too obtuse to see the profound inference of the production. Uhhh, how much can really be read into a couple of stripes? I must be incredibly dense.

 Come on!! I have seen children’s finger paintings with more artistic merit than that piece of trash.

 I will give Newman credit as a businessman and a con-artist. He did manage to find somebody stupid enough to pay almost $2 million for a couple stripes. Unfortunately his mark was the Canadian taxpayer.

 The above examples are inevitably the outcome when money is blindly thrown at art. Contrary to what leftists think, tax-dollars are a finite resource and we really have better things to spend them on.

 Art will endure with or without tax-funding. Most of the greatest works in history had no government funding and likely most of our future best works will have been created without it.

 To reduce funding for the arts is not censorship by the way despite the yelping of some. These “artists” are more than welcome to produce all the tasteless crap they like. Nobody is stopping them. How much money does one need in order to shrink-wrap a turd anyway?

 If indeed this reduction impacts Canadian culture, what will the impact be? Will we lose our recognition of celebrating feces, public breast milk samplings and masturbation?

 You know what, I am willing to take that chance.