Jeffrey Aho

I’ve been pretty sick lately; spending most of my time in bed. This week has been particularly rough with an added resistant cold that even my Benylin with Codeine isn’t taking the edge off of. For the few friends who aren’t up to speed I’m waiting for a bed to open at a hospital, hopefully in the next few weeks.

All this time in bed has me making random notes on things that I’ve been meaning to mention. I have a constantly increasing bookmark folder of articles that I just haven’t been up to commenting on. So here’s a few things for me to cross of my list:

Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama and to the U.S.A.

Ohio is now off notice (For “going blue”). California is on notice (For passing “Prop 8″).

Levi gets the award for correctly predicting Obama due to his razor sharp reasoning that “Star Trek had a Black Captain before a Female one”.

Things I hope Obama does:

1) Keeps Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.

2) Closes Guantanamo Bay.

3) Appoints Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court (Face it: in the likely 8 years of Obama there is the possibility of having to replace Stevens, Ginsburg, and maybe even Scalia).

I bet Grover that she’ll be appointed while she’s still his Dean. I also made the note that after 8 years of executive experience (as President), 12 years of legislative experience (Illinois/US Senate), and 12 years lecturing in constitutional law, in 2017 when he’d turn 58, maybe he’d pull a Taft and serve on the Supreme Court!

Other than Obama, I look forward to seeing Bush’s list of pardons.

Now four minor rants:

1) The Big Three automakers need to suck it up (have you seen their worthless stock?). They’ve got billions of handouts over decades. Both the companies and the CAW/UAW hold responsibility and maybe Chapter 11 and court supervised restructuring is what needs to be done. I’ve worked for two of the Big Three: they have ineffective management, inefficient manufacturing, and poor innovation. Things need to change and it is going to hurt for a while before it gets better.

2) Will the NHL just give Balsillie a franchise? It is clear that he’d be able to run a much more profitable and popular one up here, say in Hamilton.

3) While Nurse Practitioners are a great move in alleviating the burden on our strained health system and its Doctors, hurry up and give Pharmacists reasonable prescription privileges. My Pharmacist knows me and my drug history much better than the Doctors I end up seeing (my family doctor retired) and even on just routine refills I’d rather have my Pharmacist deal with it.

4) Lastly, I am still unsure where I stand on competition law. A Facebook note I wrote only resulted with Grover’s suggestion to buy a textbook, which is a little overboard for me. I’ve read Friedman’s views, and I know I have a Greenspan essay on the topic somewhere in a book on my shelf in Waterloo, but it is recent events that make me seem to lean against the current antitrust law. The classic case being the Microsoft/Internet Explorer one to which I personally side with Microsoft. It seems silly to me to demand a company to provide exactly what you want (e.g. OS w/o Browser).

Earlier this year, Amazon got slapped by French competition law (My impression is the EU’s Antitrust laws are way overboard, but I’m still learning about them), and now Google pulled out of a deal with Yahoo over concerns of antitrust challenges. In these two cases how are customers and shareholders benefiting by the laws? Yahoo’s stock is tanking and there are renewed talks of Microsoft acquiring them. For consumers, isn’t an advertising deal better than having an entire firm acquired by a competitor? Is it really that bad that Amazon offers free shipping on a minimum purchase (as an avid Amazon customer I can say it’s the kind of service I want)?

Okay; enough ranting. I do appreciate discussion. I have nothing better to do than hack out my lungs.

Currently Listening to: Landslide – Smashing Pumpkins

Random Wikipedia Article: – Portuguese Man o’ War

We now have another Conservative minority. Dion will be gone (and Garth Turner!). We’ve added Garneau and Trudeau. I think that things are finally heading in a good direction for the country and the Liberal Party.

I’d like to list a few requests for change that I’d like to see occur over the next few administrations. Some are more provocative than others and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.

Eliminate the Penny: The penny costs almost as much to produce as its fiat value. Rising commodity prices mean we are just throwing away capital. We should head the way Australia did and leave the nickel as the smallest currency denomination.

Legalize Marijuana: The costs of enforcing the currently criminalized drug use is absurd and creates a black market. Legalize, regulate, and tax like tobacco. We’ll be better off and people won’t have overbearing criminal records for a relatively harmless activity.

Suffrage for 16+ Years of Age: Current suffrage ages are arbitrary, as is the selection of 16, but I see no disadvantage in extending it. We allow consensual sexual relations and driver’s licenses at that age, why not the vote?

Eliminate the Tiered Minimum Wage: I’m pragmatic enough to know we can’t eliminate the minimum wage all together, but there should not be tiers as there are for youth and liquor servers. I do hope that the laws remain under the provincial governments. A national minimum wage is absurd and does not factor the differential cost of living in different regions.

Legalize Prostitution: A current black market exists resulting from a law trying to impose one view of morality. I would like to see, along with legalization, a form of brothel system similar to Nevada where workers can be safe, tested regularly, and properly taxed on their income.

Tax shift from Income to Consumption Taxes: Gradually phased in, hopefully with any income, capital gains/corporate taxes and estate taxes eliminated. I think it is misguided to cut gas taxes and the GST (as Harper has proposed and done, respectfully) and I do believe a “Green shift” to Carbon taxes over income taxes is needed.

A Two-Tier Health Care System: I’m not saying that people opting to be part of the private services should pay reduced taxes, but it should be their freedom to spend their money on private in Canada service. Too many situations exist where people just head to the US for services where it could be done here. Hopefully it will result in a reduction of the public system’s burden.

Elimination of Tariffs: We need to embrace free trade and stop squabbling over little clauses in NAFTA. The only use for tariffs should be for economic sanctions or national defense as determined by the Government.

Senate Term Limits: I believe 8-year term limits is a good suggestion. I haven’t made up my mind if the Senate should be appointed, elected or abolished, but I do believe in term limits. When a government wins consecutive governments, there should be a shift of power in the Senate. I will emphasize my support for regional representation in the Upper House.

Eliminate Agricultural Subsidies: It causes too much distortions in the market and doesn’t encourage free trade. Protectionalist policies need to end. Subsidies for any field are misguided distortions.

Those are a few items that come to mind. I also am not a fan of Employment Equity/Affirmative Action (believing it to be based on racism). I don’t see it likely that it will change soon. I would love to see us try to implement Education Vouchers, but I feel that that may be a little radical. I strongly feel that any of these actions is a step in the right direction; incremental steps may be all we need.

Currently Listening to: What a Catch, Donnie – Fall Out Boy

Random Wikipedia Article: Fingerstyle Guitar

Well, the Conservative Party has finally decided to release a platform with one week left in the campaign and after advanced polls (at least in TBay-SupNor) have already occurred. The Liberal Party platform has been out for several weeks and the NDP platform shortly after. I’m just going to cherry pick on the issues that I care about, and while I read the Green Platform, nothing stood out as being of interest to me. You can read the Globe and Mail’s comparison, which includes the Greens and the Bloc.

The Economy is the top issue for me. Flat out: I’m a fan of the Liberal’s Green Shift. Shifting the tax burden from income to consumption taxes is a great idea. The environmental benefit is secondary for me as it is solid economics. There are provisions in it for corporate tax incentives to improve manufacturing efficiency, and items that address rural issues. Read the whole thing. The only thing that I dislike is the little cap-and-trade measures that I believe are useless. My views have been influenced by Prof. Mankiw, who advocates Pigovian taxes, and discussed the Green Shift with the Ottawa Citizen. To note, I believe that the option of a federal deficit should be open to address the economic crisis.

Now, as the Globe and Mail notes, the Conservative Platform document is “a slim, glossy, 41-page booklet printed in huge blue font and includes 22 colour photos of Mr. Harper.” The things that stick out in the platform for the economy is reducing excise taxes on diesel and aviation fuel. As seen above, I prefer income tax cuts over cutting excise taxes. Other than that, I see nothing bad on the economic policy. I think the Liberal policy, along with Dion’s announced action plan, is better than the Conservative plan. The NDP come in third with policies that will crush industry with raising corporate tax is a possible recession, and a federal minimum wage, despite my objections with minimum wages, also ignores regional differences.

Now, I would love to have seen some more interesting topics. Harper raises the senate issue, though with one week left there isn’t really time to debate. I support an appointed, term limited (e.g. 8 year senate terms, one reappointment?), and regional representation senate. Parliamentary reform would have been a good issue to discuss, but it’s too late now. Legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana and prostitution could have been great domestic issues. Lower age of majority (e.g. 16) would have been great to see, and I always love the elimination of the penny like Australia.

Finally, a shoot-out to FiveThirtyEight.com, which is my favourite site on the US Election. Go Obama/Biden! Oh, and apparently it is impossible to get a copy of the Economist in TBay.

Currently Listening to: 2nd US Presidential Debate.

Random Wikipedia Link: Franklin Gothic