Conservatism needs work

[thehare]

But Jeffrey Simpson gets the basics right. Prime Ministers Abbott, Cameron, Harper and Key, he suggests, believe that:
[o] the state more is an impediment to growth and social progress than an asset;
[o] tax rates are too high; and
[o]the private sector can run most things most efficiently.
I share all those beliefs. As I have said before, I want a smaller, less intrusive, into fundamental rights,* more efficient (cost effective) and better focused government.

I'll be honest, I only really agree with one of these points. The private sector, if anything, is the epitome of efficiency. If there is a profit to be made, they will find a way to do it, and do it well. I do not believe that the private sector should be completely free from government intervention though, and it is actually because of this quality to be so efficient at finding profit. Time and time again the private sector has shown that they will take advantage of the average citizen in order to further these profits -one just has to look at the US 2008 economic crash, and the unregulated sub-prime mortgages the investment bankers were getting lenders to give out to individuals who really couldn't pay the mortgages they received*, which in short led to their financial system crashing. On the other hand, the more regulated banks in Canada performed much better than their unregulated American counterparts** during this period in time***.

I am not saying that everything and anything needs some sort of regulation, nor am I saying all regulations are effective but I think it is wishful thinking that if the private sector was left to its own accord it would be only good news for Canadians, and as such I would make the assertion that government can be more than just an "impediment to growth and social progress"

To note, I do not agree with the second point you make either as I recognize that with more regulation, comes a larger government, hence more taxes are needed to pay for said government. It would be foolish to say I wanted regulation, but wanted lower tax rates at the same time (despite the fact lower taxes does sound nice at times  ;D )

* This can also be interpreted as individuals living beyond their means, and I cede that point. Though one cannot ignore the fact human beings aren't always the most intelligent in their decision making processes, and in order to compensate for this a government standard of who actually qualified for such a mortgage would have solved this issue.

** I realize I'm creating a bit of a false dichotomy here, as the banking system and the housing industry is much different here than the American one, and simply applying similar regulations in the US that we have here would be largely ineffective, but I felt that I should bring this point up nonetheless as it does show that more regulations doesn't always equal unwelcome results.

*** Sadly, as I write this I am reading that it seems our own housing industry is actually on the verge of having it's little bubble burst, though I personally believe that this could very well be caused by the unregulated housing market itself (I will be honest though and state I am not on the up and up about this area of the economy, be free to correct me if I am wrong).

Numerous edits due to grammatical errors, and a few amendments to my points.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Challenge accepted. Note that I nuked the entire Canadian Forces and DND, along with all the other ineffective government agencies and departments. By the word "ineffective" I mean either not really necessary, or not up to the task, or just simply stupid in principle [if there was really a demand for museums, someone will set them up and operate them privately]. The vacuum created by vacating many federal government functions of today would be assumed by the private sector if the services are really that much in demand but not completely essential to what is required for today and tomorrow. I realize deleting the CAF is contentious, but the fact is for the 20 billion cost, we remain essentially undefended, apparently our international contributions are now marginal at best, and in any case, we are defended by a 3rd party.   

What is left is government that is organized around managing, extracting, trading and importing natural resources, protecting intellectual property and the business that surround it, collecting taxes, keeping a financial system in place, keeping a safe transportation system in place, enforcing the criminal code, plus some odds and sods.       


EDIT: Fixed quote box

MOVED THE DISBANDING OF THE CAF CONVERSATION HERE

 

[Brad Sallows]

The private sector operates within the rules as written (mostly), and does need rules.

If you don't want bankers to lend money to risky borrowers, don't let them hide the risk behind the whitewash of corrupt/incompetent ratings agencies, and certainly don't frig around with social engineering designed to promote home ownership by forcing lenders to lend to risky borrowers, and especially don't let them think their risky ventures will be bailed out.

See the common problem behind all of these factors?  Arrogant political meddlers with big social ideas and no common sense.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Ontario Liberals seduced by privatization schemes
Ontario's plan to encourage private health clinics has proved a disaster. Now Premier Kathleen Wynne has her eyes on Hydro One.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/11/04/ontario_liberals_seduced_by_privatization_schemes_walkom.html
By: Thomas Walkom National Affairs,  Published on Tue Nov 04 2014

Ontario’s Liberal government never learns. In spite of fiascos like the ORNGE air ambulance saga, it sees quasi-privatization as the best way to deliver public services.
It is undeterred by evidence.
Right now, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government is trying to extricate itself from one privatization disaster, even as it sets itself up for another.

The current disaster is its handling of private surgical clinics. Ontarians may recall that the government’s decision to expand the scope of private clinics, announced with much fanfare by then health minister Deb Matthews in 2012, was supposed to provide the citizens of the province with better care at lower cost.
It was also supposed to favour non-profit clinics over their profit-making counterparts. As the labour union UNIFOR noted in a submission to government last year, this rhetorical commitment to not-for-profit medicine tended to disappear once Queen’s Park got around to writing the regulations that govern the reality of health care.


Now, thanks to the work of my Star colleague Theresa Boyle we find that many private clinics are providing substandard care.
Of the 330 inspected over the last three years, 44 — or about 13 per cent — didn’t make the grade.
Some of the clinic horror stories were truly stark — including one in which a woman contracted a crippling infection after receiving an injection from a licensed private pain clinic.

To make matters worse, the regulatory body that allegedly oversees clinics — the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario — chose not to share its findings with the public.
The government, as always, responded only when the issue hit the newspapers. Health Minister Eric Hoskins promised to have regulators make the results of their clinic inspections public.


The real problem — the fact that too many private clinics offer substandard care — was never addressed.
The potential privatization disaster involves Hydro One, the provincially-owned electricity transmission and distribution giant.
A blue-ribbon panel appointed by Wynne wants the province to “reduce government ownership” of the utility by privatizing chunks of it.
The panel, headed by former TD Bank head Ed Clark, is careful to say that it’s not calling for a full-scale sell-off. Given the panel’s composition, that’s not surprising.


Clark, known as “Red Ed” in his younger days, was the architect of Pierre Trudeau’s interventionist 1980 National Energy Program. One panel member, Frances Lankin, was a senior minister in Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government. Another, Janet Ecker, was a Red Tory finance minister.
None is a privatization ideologue. Yet when all the disclaimers are cleared away, privatization is what they are proposing.
In this case, they want the province to sell off a majority stake in Hydro One’s rural, northern and Brampton distribution businesses to private investors.
Wynne has lauded the proposal. And no wonder. It promises to net her government hundreds of millions of dollars.
Still, she should take care. Quasi-privatization of what are essentially government monopolies has landed the Liberals in hot water before.

ORNGE is the most spectacular example. Here, the government semiprivatized its air ambulance service, supposedly to gain efficiencies.
What it got instead was a monopoly over which it chose to exercise no day-to-day control, yet which was able to use public funds to maximize private profits.

Wynne may also want to remember that the entire gas plant fiasco could have been avoided if the Liberal government of the day hadn’t been intent on privatizing big chunks of the electricity generation sector.
Had the government initially contracted with Crown corporation Ontario Power Generation to build power plants in Oakville and Mississauga, its politically-inspired decision to cancel those schemes would have cost taxpayers considerably less than $1 billion.


When essential public services are involved, privatization carries costs. In health care, the human cost of shifting to private clinics is becoming obvious.
In the case of Hydro One, we don’t yet know what would result from the privatization of local electricity distribution monopolies. The panel predicts electricity consumers will save money. New Democratic Party energy critic Peter Tabuns predicts they will pay more.
Economic theory is on the panel’s side. History suggests that Tabuns will be proven right. The precedents should make any government wary

 

[pbi]

But, but...does it mean that privatization is inherently bad, or does it mean that stupid, incompetently done privatization is bad?

To me, it seems that we can and probably should encourage effective "real" privatization where it makes sense to do so, but we must also protect the public interest by keeping an equally effective regulatory regime with really sharp teeth.  It really isn't the job of business to protect the public interest: IMHO that's not what most shareholders and boards are worried about. Protection of the public interest is the job of the supposedly great agent of the public: the government.

If history has shown us nothing else, it is that if the profit motive is left utterly to itself, a greater or lesser percentage of business operators will be tempted to indulge in some violation of the public trust. This could range from dangerous or oppressive working conditions to shoddy or dangerous products to shady financial practices. To say that these violations will somehow be corrected by "market forces" is IMHO fatuous nonsense.

Toothless regulators are useless. The problem, IMHO, is that the political masters of these regulators are too often susceptible to pressure from the people who bankroll their election campaigns. Some of whom, it might be, were the same ones committing the violations I referred to above.

By the same token, a stinking, smothering pile of EU-style regulations and the nasty bureaucracy that goes with it probably aren't what we want, either. Much better to have fewer, clearer regulations, well enforced.

I don't think we should abandon a judicious, well-considered course of privatization.

 

[Jed]

But, but...does it mean that privatization is inherently bad, or does it mean that stupid, incompetently done privatization is bad?

To me, it seems that we can and probably should encourage effective "real" privatization where it makes sense to do so, but we must also protect the public interest by keeping an equally effective regulatory regime with really sharp teeth.  It really isn't the job of business to protect the public interest: IMHO that's not what most shareholders and boards are worried about. Protection of the public interest is the job of the supposedly great agent of the public: the government.

If history has shown us nothing else, it is that if the profit motive is left utterly to itself, a greater or lesser percentage of business operators will be tempted to indulge in some violation of the public trust. This could range from dangerous or oppressive working conditions to shoddy or dangerous products to shady financial practices. To say that these violations will somehow be corrected by "market forces" is IMHO fatuous nonsense.

Toothless regulators are useless. The problem, IMHO, is that the political masters of these regulators are too often susceptible to pressure from the people who bankroll their election campaigns. Some of whom, it might be, were the same ones committing the violations I referred to above.

By the same token, a stinking, smothering pile of EU-style regulations and the nasty bureaucracy that goes with it probably aren't what we want, either. Much better to have fewer, clearer regulations, well enforced.

I don't think we should abandon a judicious, well-considered course of privatization.

Well said, I am in total agreement.