Jon Siemko | Tory Redux

Canada The World’s Economic Guru

As world leaders sit down at the G-8 and G. 20 meetings they can excuse themselves for salivating over Canada’s economic position. Suddenly the land of doughnuts and hockey has become the example to the world when it comes to economic stability. Leaders from the United States to Europe are trying to emulate Canada’s example. While the sick man of Europe and Greece does its best impression of Oliver Twist having its hand out for more. Meanwhile, Canada is the reigning guru of economic reform that clearly stands head and shoulders above the rest.

“We should be proud of the performance of our financial system during the crisis,” said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

But it is recovering from the recession faster than others, and although its deficit is currently at a record high, the International Monetary Fund expects Canada to be the only one of the seven major industrialized democracies to return to surplus by 2015.

The Political Genius Of Laureen Harper

As Stephen Harper shines on the world stage playing host during the upcoming G8 and G. 20 Summit in Toronto. Harper’s star would not be able to shine so brightly without the thoughtful political genius of Laureen Harper. Harper would not be a fully formed political entity that he is today without the help from his wife, Mrs. L Harper. It’s clear that Mrs. Harper keeps her hand on the pulse of not public opinion and popular culture as well. Mrs. Harper is considered one of the strongest women in the capital and has an overwhelmingly positive influence on the prime minister. With the distance of time and hindsight of history we might fully understand the Harper’s as a political team.

“She’s an enormous asset to him,” says long-time friend John Reynolds, who served as interim Canadian Alliance leader until Harper took over in 2002. “Of all the prime ministerial wives going back to Louis St. Laurent — and I guess I’m dating myself here — she’s probably the most astute of anyone we’ve ever had . . . She’s worked very, very hard to get him where he is today.”

Positive Step forward For Polar Bears

With all the red flags going up in the era of climate change here is some good news. The Nunavut government has taken polar bears off the endangered species list. This is another step back for those who are worried about climate change in Canada.

“We live in polar bear country. We understand the polar bears, and we do actually think our polar bear population is very, very healthy,” Shewchuk said in justifying the reversal.

Thomas Sowell On Big Government vs. Free Markets

From the overreaching grasp of the government to the invisible hand. What approach does the most good for the most people? In this article by Thomas Sowell,he puts forward the argument that government did more harm than good by intervening too much during the great oppression. The popular perception that big government solved the Great Depression, is one of the more infamous acts of group thought perpetrated on the American people.

A Mind-Changing Page
The idea that the stock-market crash caused the Great Depression is difficult to reconcile with the data.

While the market produced a peak unemployment rate of 9 percent — briefly — after the stock-market crash of 1929, unemployment shot up after massive federal interventions in the economy. It rose above 20 percent in 1932 and stayed above 20 percent for 23 consecutive months, beginning in the Hoover administration and continuing during the Roosevelt administration.

What was the difference between these two stock-market crashes? The 1929 stock-market crash was followed by the most catastrophic depression in American history, with as many as one-fourth of all American workers being unemployed. The 1987 stock-market crash was followed by two decades of economic growth with low unemployment.

But that was only one difference. The other big difference was that the Reagan administration did not intervene in the economy after the 1987 stock-market crash — despite many outcries in the media that the government should “do something.”

War Against The Political Machine

There is a growing mood in the United States for elected officials to go to Washington to fix government not to be government. This article makes the case that the time is right for anti-incumbency candidates to challenge the status quo of the liberal elitists who believe that Government is just another form of entitlement.

ABC News Survey, only 29% of Americans said that they were inclined to support their House representative in November. That’s even lower percentage than in October 1994 (34%), on the eve of the Republican takeover of Congress when voters swept the Democrats out of power in that chamber after 40 years in the majority. Even more striking were the findings of a recent Gallup poll, where by a margin of nearly two-to-one (60%-32%) voters said they would rather vote for a candidate for Congress with no experience whatsoever than for a candidate who has been in Congress.
This anti-incumbent, anti-Washington mood is pushing voters to support Republicans and widening the enthusiasm gap between the two parties. The disproportionately high turnout of Republican primary voters in New Jersey, California and Iowa—three states with significantly more registered Democrats than Republicans—demonstrates that at the very least Republican voters are more energized and are mobilizing to a greater degree than their Democratic counterparts