Matthew Yglesias » Worthwhile Canadian Initiative?

Dec 21st, 2008 at 10:42 am

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative?

Canada has, relative to the small size of the country’s population, a pretty sizable auto industry. But that’s an industry that’s very much tied-in with the Detroit-based industry. Consequently, Detroit’s troubles are too kinds of problem for Canada. On the one hand, the companies might go bust eliminating tons of Canadian jobs. On the other hand, the companies might get rescued by the US government in a way that encourages them to eliminate jobs in Canada in order to save jobs in the US. Hence, auto bailout, Canadian edition: “Moving to pre-empt a possible shift of auto production to the United States, the governments of Canada and its Ontario province offered the industry 4 billion Canadian dollars in emergency loans on Saturday.”

The issue here, as with Sweden’s rescue packages for Ford- and GM-owned Swedish brands Saab and Volvo is that for all the same reasons we don’t want the collapse of the Midwest’s auto industry, nobody anywhere wants to see their local auto industry collapse. Instead, they want someone else’s auto industry to collapse, leaving the survivors in better shape. But not everyone can get their way on this. And at the moment, even Toyota seems to be losing money.

Comments
62

Filed under: Cars, Economy,

62 Responses to “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative?”

Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 10:51 am
I might kindly add that it would simply be Congressionally-motivated insanity for GM and Chrysler to shift Canadian production to the U.S., as Canadian plants have significantly lower costs and higher efficiencies. Canadian plants, shockingly enough, are not saddled with UAW-style efficiency-strangling work rules or retirement and health burdens, and nor are they organised by a militant, politically active union (CAW is known for its political moderation.).

Frankly, this is a waste of Canadian money but the Canadian government had no choice. It might as well buy out Chrysler seeing how little it is worth right now. (Or get Magna International to do it, as it had already expressed an interest when Daimler was selling it)
Andrew Richardson Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 10:52 am
Don’t use “too” for “two”. Kinda freaks me out…
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 10:58 am
Stephen Myles St. George:
Militant? WTF are you talking about? Sure the UAW are politically active. It would be insane not to, given how big business owns most of our Congressional representatives. It is a matter of survival.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Calvin Jones,

The Canadian Auto Workers seemed to have done fine without being as anywhere politically inflexible as the UAW. In fact, in the 2006 election its chairman endorsed the centrist, pro-big-business, pro-free-trade Liberal Party, as opposed to (traditionally) the social democratic/socialist New Democratic Party.

Compare that to UAW. Wasting millions of its dollars to defeat a particular political party (GOP) which from time to time forms the government. Hardly sounds wise, does it?

And by the way, the sort of insanity that passes for card check legislation would never get past parliamentary committee in Canada, much less a floor vote.

Stop bedeviling “Big Business”. Without big business, there would be no modern America.
Davis X. Machina Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
And by the way, the sort of insanity that passes for card check legislation would never get past parliamentary committee in Canada, much less a floor vote.

In Canada, no one would consider something like card-check necessary, labor organizing not being considered a seditious, if not blasphemous, act.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
DTM,

I am sorry I have to say this, but as the U.S. has among the most inefficient domestic auto industry in the Western world, a “proportional” reduction in capacity would only “proportionally” maintain that inefficiency.

This is, of course, unless that inefficiency is somehow eliminated by drastic sacrifices on the part of those causing that inefficiency: management, workers, and most of all, the hidebound dealer networks. (8000 GM dealers compared to 1500 Toyota dealers in America: you do the math).
Davis X. Machina Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
, the optimal thing to do would be for all the automotive-producing countries to arrange a more or less proportional reduction in capacity,

See “Washington Naval Treaty” for details…
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:17 am
Davis X. says,

“In Canada, no one would consider something like card-check necessary, labor organizing not being considered a seditious, if not blasphemous, act.”

Davis, that’s more a matter of popular attitudes than legislative bias, isn’t it?
That’s the problem I have with card-check, really. Most Americans oppose it, and in any case, this sort of desperate measures sound un-American. If Americans like unions less than Canadians do, then American conditions and legislative action will have to reflect that preference or lack thereof.

The Democratic has had the problem for years of being perceived as a bunch of elite liberal eggheads telling people what to do and what is good for them. It need not make this mistake again in this moment of great victory.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:25 am
So, which politically centrist party should the UAW have aligned with? Maybe I’m missing something.

I think Americans need to consider Michael Lind’s question in Salon: Shall we choose the Southernization of the United States, or shall we forcibly Americanize the South in a Third Reconstruction?

Perhaps the lack of outrage over race-to-the-bottom rivalries among U.S. states and regions can be attributed to the longevity of this familiar Southern economic strategy. In the early 20th century, the Southern states were the first to adopt conscious statewide economic development policies, which then as now meant poaching industries from New England and the Midwest where wages and public spending and regulation were greater. That’s how the South took the textile industry from New England, before losing it to lower-wage Asia. Now with the help of Nissan, Toyota, and BMW, the South is trying to replace Detroit as the center of U.S. automobile production, using low wages, anti-union laws, and low taxes to benefit from the outsourcing of industry from societies more advanced than the South, like Japan and Germany. The economic Axis is collaborating with the neo-Confederates against their common opponent — the American Union. If they succeed, the losers will be not only non-Southern regions in the U.S., but the majority of Southerners of all races, whose interest in decent wages, good education, and adequate public services have almost always been sacrificed to the greed of the well-connected few by Southern statehouse gangs…

…The alternative to the Southernization of the U.S. is the Americanization of the South — a process that was not completed by Reconstruction and the New Deal and the Civil Rights era, which can be thought of as the Second Reconstruction. The non-Southern states, through their representatives in Congress and the executive branch, and with the help of enlightened Southerners, need to use the power of the federal government to put a stop to the Southern conservative race-to-the-bottom strategy once and for all…

…I can hear the objections already: “We agree that the South’s beggar-thy-neighbor and race-to-the-bottom strategies should be thwarted — but the methods that you suggest, a high national minimum wage, greater equalization of state and local public spending by increased federal revenue-sharing, and a national economic development framework built to align the existing state economic development systems are politically too difficult to achieve.” That may be true. But if it is true, then the neo-Confederates and their strategy of turning first the South and then the entire U.S. into a low-wage export platform for the outsourced industries of advanced industrial societies in Asia and Europe will prevail. If a non-Southern majority, controlling the White House and Congress, with the support of at least some moderate Republicans in other regions, along with the support of Southern populists and progressives, is too timid to take on a Southern oligarchy that is willing to wreck the national economy to promote their local economic empires, then the neo-Confederates have already prevailed.

The choice is simple — the reconstruction of the South, or the deconstruction of the U.S. economy.

I know it’s hard for my fellow Southerners who happen to be conservatives to abandon their treasonous, nation-destroying tendencies, but Lind thinks it might be possible if Southern elites are bribed correctly.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:31 am

The Democratic has had the problem for years of being perceived as a bunch of elite liberal eggheads telling people what to do and what is good for them.

You know what?

I think 8 years of being fascinated by having absolute right wing anti-intellectual dumbasses singing the praises of small town ‘we don’t need your damn pointy head’ f***tards run the nation into the ground may have taught a lot of my stupider fellow citizens that when they used to think that, that it was stupid, and maybe they ought to let some liberal eggheads who think they know everything run sh*t for a while.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:32 am
Michael Lind forgot just little detail: the Sunbelt actually has healthier, more vibrant economies than the Rustbelt, even despite the recent economic crisis. Long-term, the Sunbelt will bounce back, while the Rustbelt will simply get back to straggling along and having towns die one by one.

So his proposition is ludicrous: to impose the failed economic system of the Rustbelt on the booming, growing Sunbelt. Sounds like the worst cases of losers’ envy. You want to REVERSE the actions of the market? Take your lessons from the Soviet Union.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:44 am
If the Sunbelt South was such a natural choice for these plants, the market should have determined that, not several billion dollars in subsidies.

Similarly, the failed economies of the South still depend on enormous tax subsidies from the Northern, much more prosperous states.

But like most right wing nit-wits, you try to disguise anti-market policies in market terms — but what else is new? I’ve heard this sort of nonsense from fellow Southerners my whole life — but thank God that every time our Southern nitwits drive us into the ground, the Federal government has forcefully dragged us out.
kafka Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:50 am
Sunbelt vs. rustbelt blah blah blah. All of this overlooks the real long term threat – the nascent Indian & Chinese auto industries fueled with an endless supply of incredibly cheap labor.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Compare that to UAW.

Sure. Since the NDP has formed precisely no Canadian federal governments, and your argument is plain silly. And a Mixnertroll with an even sillier nym and the same little tics (all glory to the Sprawl Belt!) is no less of a Mixnertroll.

I think critics of the U.S. automotive industry often fail to acknowledge the degree to which some of these other issues are already in the process of being addressed.

And the extent to which the holy, holy Voice of the American People was complicit. Of course, it didn’t help that the GOP, when holding a congressional majority, would hold up pictures of Smart cars and laugh, as if buying small, fuel-efficient vehicles were less patriotic than perpetuating the crack habit of the Suburbanhomeonwheels. Or would threaten their little syphilitic penises.
Elf Sternberg Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
I thought the phrase “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” was thought to be the most boring subject line in print media, and the least likely to get hits in on-line media. (One quick Google search later…) Ah, yes, not only did Michael Kinsley propose it in 2002, but there’s a Canadian econ blog ironically named that phrase.
Dan Kervick Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:59 am
But not everyone can get their way on this.

I’m not sure about this. Maybe everyone can win. The Chinese highway system and domestic Chinese demand for automobiles are both burgeoning. What looks like global overcapacity now might look like undercapacity in a few years time as the Chinese join the consumer market for personal transportation vehicles.

At the same time, China has a growing environmental problem along with a problem of dependency on imported oil. Given the fact that western producers are far ahead in automobile production experience and technology, the US and other western auto producing countries could organize a very high-level trade meeting with the Chinese to hammer out a grand economic bargain that encourages the Chinese to become global partners in the push for green and alternative fuel cars, and to open their market further to western cars. We could see agreements on the pooling of research and development funds, commitments to carbon footprint targets, and a sharing of financial stakes.

Such an agreement will help preserve US jobs and prosperity, on which China’s own export market depends, and address the environmental and energy problems in a quicker time frame than China can do on its own.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:59 am
kafka: It’s not that those of us raising the regional split in American politics ignore the larger context. Rather, it’s depressingly obvious that there will never be any addressing of a larger context if the treason caucus keeps dominating U.S. politics. As long as right wing Southern revanchism keeps a veto on any possible betterment of the national direction, the struggle will continue to be at the nitwit level, which is what they want.
Walt Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Ontario had card check for 30 years, in fact. Geez, Stephen Myles St. George, with your grasp of the issues I’m glad you’re not my investment banker. Why are you wasting our time with your tired libertarian talking points? Now that the financial sector is getting its much deserved comeuppance, were you laid off as the useless ornament you always were?
fostert Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“the nascent Indian & Chinese auto industries fueled with an endless supply of incredibly cheap labor.”

That might be more real than you think. Most of the world’s auto makers are contracting. But India’s Tata Motors is actually building new plants. They are laying off at their Jaguar and Land Rover plants. But their Indian brands are growing. No doubt labor costs are a factor, but the fact that more Indians can now afford a car is a big help too.
serial catowner Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
So SMSG is here to spread his version of Xmas cheer- the part where the troll irritates everyone.

Let’s just be clear about a few things. The American worker is still the most productive in the world. The rust-belt states are still paying more into the federal treasury than they get out, so their money can subsidize the poorly educated and not very motivated southern states.

As for Canada, I will readily agree that a socialist economy will have better labor relations, especially if they hurry to hand out the cash when they’re in political trouble for still being too rightwing.

But the reason the Canadians have it so good is that they share a border with us, and the Canadian government doesn’t want their citizens deciding that maybe they should move here. That’s why Canada got independence before any other colony, and that’s why Canadians have wages and benefits as good as Americans. If Canada shared a border with Guatemala, it would have the living standards of Belize.

So, to sum up, in spite of huge subsidies to foreign automakers, southern states still aren’t as productive as northern states where the UAW is strong. Our socialist neighbor to the north does a little better, by matching the wages and benefits the UAW has obtained for American workers.

T’was ever thus.
bigTom Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
If ever there was a case for cross-border policy cooperation, this was it. These are parts of the same companies, which also use the same network of parts suppliers. Not coordinating our rescue with the Canadians (and vice versa) is just plain stupid.

Dan @20:
There are huge sustainability issues with the growth of global automobile industries. We were testing resource limitations (for oil, coal, steel, cement etc.) as recently as this summer. If not for the implosion of the global finance system, these limits as transmitted through high commodities prices would be grabbing headline all over the world. Even with needed changes to more efficient less auto dependent automobiles, the constraints caused by resource limitations are going to have a major impact on the future world economy.

I’m not so convinced that US has an overwhelming lead in automobile technology. A stunning example, is this weeks introduction of the BYD hybrid this week:
http://www.gearlog.com/2008/12/china_unveils_the_byd_electric.php
Taken at face value, this totally trumps the Volt; half the price, twice the all-electric range, and introduced two years earlier. The Chinese may still have some weaknesses, I was told about a car model the Chinese wanted to export to Europe, it got zero ratings on every crash test! Presumably, they had not looked at crash worthiness. But, I bet they are working overtime to catch up.
Simon Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
“And by the way, the sort of insanity that passes for card check legislation would never get past parliamentary committee in Canada, much less a floor vote.”

Um, card-check has been around in most Canadian provinces on and off for 50 years. I think about half of Canadian workers are currently in card-check jurisdictions.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
First, let me retract the card-check vis-a-vis Canada thing. Pending other evidence, seems like I was wrong on that. Also, I am as yet a college undergraduate.

Also, I am not asserting that as of this moment the Sunbelt is any healthier. I am saying that fundamentally, over the long term, it is. Would anyone deny that the 30-year economic outlook for, say, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, or California, is brighter than is the case for, say, Michigan, Ohio, or Wisconsin?

That is the general point I am trying to make. Yes, tax revenue differentials. Yes, incomes, education, et cetera. But I am trying to make a general point here, that, say, a homo economicus, looking at his 30-year economic outlook, would, ceteris paribus, probably find North Carolina or Florida more attractive than Michigan.
Abby Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I’m afraid the title of this post was just too boring for me to actually read it. Nice allusion.

Canada is a famous underperformer in the creation of interesting news, so much so that the New Republic once pronounced “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” (the actual title of a column by the late New York Times panjandrum Flora Lewis) the most boring headline in human history.

The Canadian Menace
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Nonetheless,

In the last 25 years, a major change has occurred in the way unions are recognised
in Canada. In 1976, every jurisdiction in Canada used card check. Today, more than
50% of the Canadian labour force is covered by mandatory vote legislation and
union recognition procedures continue to be a matter of policy concern and debate.

‘Mandatory Votes or Card Check? How the Type of Union
Recognition Procedure Affects Union Certification Success’ by Susan Johnson is
published in the April 2002 issue of the Economic Journal.

This is called “Progress.”
jeff Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
SMSG,

Uhhh…Card Check is a staple of canadian labor law. Many provinces have first contract arbitration clauses as well. Its the most significant reason why labor density is higher there. But facts can be quiet pesky, eh?

Im not sure what hole you crawled out of, but I think it is time to return.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
jeff,

In 1976, every jurisdiction in Canada used card check. Today, more than 50% of the Canadian labour force is covered by mandatory vote legislation

by Susan Johnson, in Economic Journal, April 2002

I am not certain myself until I saw the above empirical, research-based evidence. You should perhaps take a look too.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
DTM,

You might be quite right. I am not familiar with cases like Pittsburgh, where they do seem to have achieved some sort of economic renaissance. Some parts of the Midwest might in fact be quite promising, but I know very little about it.

Much of my resistance to Michael Lind is quite instinctive and reflexive. He seems like the anti-free market sort, and he seems to be the sort unwaveringly opposed to free trade and globalisation.

My own concern, really, is not whether the North is better or the South. My concern is that in the pursuit of, to quote, “Third Reconstruction”, we drag much more important things like free trade and globalisation down with it as well. After all, free trade serves as a check against bad legislation: if regulations are illogical, then capital will flee the jurisdiction.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Nitwit. There is no such thing as “free trade”. There are only different trade agreements with different advantages and disadvantages to different parties. I don’t give the slightest damn about your fetish for the phraseology of “free trade” and “globalization”.

What “free” trade does or doesn’t do isn’t the province of knowledge of its ideologues and pushers. Of course, when South Korea was developing and nurturing its industries so that one day it could compete in a global market, they prevented capital flight by imposing the death penalty for capital repatriation.

Hell, even Paul Krugman acts surprised to discover that a great deal of “trade” is no such thing, simply corporations dividing up their own labor processes into different nations to take advantage of lower wage states where possible. While that could be called a number of different things, it sure as hell isn’t “trade”.

Anti-empiricists who cite idiotic nostrums about “free trade” and how the bad bad regulations skeer away business bore me. Please go find some other nation to undermine and aim to destroy like your other right wing libertarian friends have done to this nation for the past 30 odd years.
JonF Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Re: If Canada shared a border with Guatemala, it would have the living standards of Belize.

That’s a crock! Yes, the fact that Canada and the US share a border, and have integrated their economies is highly beneficial to both countries. But to say that Canada would be a Third World nation otherwsise is ridiculous. Australia (another Anglo settled land) has no borders with anyone, but they do quite well for themselves. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, yes, the US are the beneficiaries of their British and, more generally, northern European political and cultural heritage. And if you think that there’s any underground swell of public opinion in Canada for becoming Americans I would suggest traveling north of the border and suggesting to the avergae Canadian on the street that he should either move south, or lobby his province to join the US outright. You will be laughed to scorn– if not run out of the country on a rail.

Re: Would anyone deny that the 30-year economic outlook for, say, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, or California, is brighter than is the case for, say, Michigan, Ohio, or Wisconsin?

I think it’s worth noting that the areas of the Sunbelt that have prospered are precisely those areas that have become less culturally and politically Southern as they have imported a large northern population (and often, many immigrants as well). That’s true of peninsular Florida, which never was truly Southern (it was a frontier region of Indians and cowboys and army forts in the 19th century), that’s true of the booming urban metropolises of Texas, or the propering swathes of North Carolina and Tenesseee and Viginia. Other parts of the South are still backward and lagging. We talk about Orlando and Dallas and Raleigh and Nashville. We don’t hear much about Ronoake, Shreveport, Vicksburg or Lubeck.

Re: a homo economicus, looking at his 30-year economic outlook, would, ceteris paribus, probably find North Carolina or Florida more attractive than Michigan.

I’m from Michigan and I agree the economy back there (I moved away in 1999) is horrible. And I don’t really understand why. In the 90s Michigan was doing a great job of diversifying; the Michigan IT industry was one of the hottest in the nation and recruiters were steering people from other states there due to a combination of decent salaries and moderate living costs. Then we had the recession of 2000-01 and for some reason the state never came back from it. Apparently much of its new-line industry simply went down and never revived, unlike, say, California or North Carolina. I find it a small mystery as to why that happened.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
If Canada shared a border with Guatemala, it would have the living standards of Belize.

Mexico shares a border with the U.S. doesn’t it? Why does it not have equivalent living standards to the other American neighbour, Canada, or indeed America itself?

This argument is so fallacious that it bears little need for refutation.
otto Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
This sort of problem comes up all the time with capital intensive industries in downturns. I think Paul O’Neil negotiated an international agreement on subsidising and downsizing Aluminium capacity to reduce the externalities of unilateral action in the 1990s. He or someone similar could be called upon again to do the job on cars.
McKingford Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I would just point out that if Congress were to bail out the US auto industry in a fashion that required the shifting of jobs to the US (out of Canada), then it would effectively be abrogating NAFTA.

~

And SMSG has no idea what he’s talking about, as if the CAW (relative to the UAW) is less militant. The reason the CAW came into being in the very first place is that the UAW was seen as not militant enough – and was prepared to accept concessions, whereas a non-concessions negotiating stance became the essence of the CAW.
Realist Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Subsidization of domestic auto industries is the natural, and entirely wrong, response to subsidization of foreign auto industries. There is no great advantage to producing industry on the soil of rich nations with expensive labor markets and regulations. On the other hand, there is great advantage to be a consumer of autos when other nations are competing for your purchases through state subsidy, since you can grab deals at below-market price, with the difference paid for by Japanese German and Korean (and maybe Canadian) workers.

The nature of industry is that of continuing increases in efficiency, and that implies continuing cuts in prices of products and long-term profitability of factories. It makes great sense for owners and engineers and designers of automobiles to live in the US to take advantage of the relatively high concentration of human capital, but it benefits everyone if we leave industry to the developing world and those of the developed world who refuse to move into the 21st century.

The United States will be the greatest winner of the destruction of the American auto industries.
serial catowner Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
It’s interesting that so many commenters here think Canada doesn’t try to match the US offer.

Maybe in their haste to comment they neglected to read Matt’s post, which is about the Canadian government, in response to the US bailout, offering the Canadian auto industry $4 billion. Y’know, just in case.

Could it possibly be any clearer?

As for modern Canadian chauvinism “proving” that Canadians never benefited from their proximity to the US, spare me. I’ve known Canadians all my life and they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.
Karl Rove Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
El Cid et al.

I, for one, definitely encourage my progressive friends to fully embrace “F*** The South!”. You may want to also try “F*** the Mountain West!” which has done largely the same thing economically, but without (most of) the racism. Certainly we need some help to try to swing all those purple states back to red.
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I need not remind El Cid that for HOW MANY YEARS after Civil War & First Reconstruction, Southerners resolutely refused to vote for Republicans?

Talk about history lessons.

You want ANOTHER bitter South? Go right ahead. Perpetuate Bush & Co. politics for another 100 years.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I’m a Southerner. I don’t want bitter Southerners. I want pompous, nation-destroying, fake free market fundamentalist, state-subsidy and big government handout-loving Southern conservatives to be bitter, and to keep losing.

No, strong, interventionist liberalism from the Federal government which turns this nation and the South around will make happy Southerners.

And, yes, Stephen Myles St George of St Martin in the Fields, I’m well aware that for long stretches of their history, Southern elite conservatives ruled under the Democratic Party. That’s how they waged a terrorist war to roll back the advance of black political Republicanism and white Populism.

FDR’s strong, interventionist, Yankee, Big Government liberalism, on the other hand, was looooooooooved by Southerners. My Southern mill-working ancestors had pictures of FDR in their houses, and made their kids listen to his radio “fireside chats”.

Unfortunately, Southern conservative whites became Republicans once the Democratic Party started supporting Civil Rights.

Maybe Obama’s New New Green Deal will bring back all the Big Government interventionist Southern liberals who loved supporting FDR while simultaneously upholding our Union and our Civil Rights advances, while reactionary Southern conservatives can keep isolating themselves into their little nut squad corners, dwindling into smaller and smaller and more isolated numbers.
El Cid Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 4:51 pm
By the way, Stephen Myles St George, why don’t you just go back to snotting off at Paul Krugman and telling him what you just learned in “Economics 101″?
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
El Cid, I am truly amused and amazed. You actually caught that comment of mine on Krugman’s blog (I believe it was my last). That’s gold.

Yes, I am fully aware that he is a Princeton econ prof, yadda yadda yadda.

Yet it is not just my humble self who sees Krugman as a shrill partisan blowhard with few good ideas. The Economist, the pre-eminent magazine on matters economic/political, agrees. So does the venerable Judge Posner.

Although,

strong, interventionist liberalism from the Federal government

sounds like something a radical 60’s liberal/McGovern Democrat would prescribe. What happened to those people, I wonder? Oh right, they went extinct like dinosaurs in light of 70’s stagflation. Guess who people voted for, overwhelmingly, after that? The Gipper.

History lessons, old boy.
Baltimoron Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 7:24 pm
How is all this ass-saving any different from Japan and ROK subsidizing their auto industries? Why are the North Americans protected their pols this way – it’s clearly leading to lower-quality talent. Harper once sounded principled. Now, one election “loss” makes him craven.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:20 am
Stephen Myles St. George Gogarty Fingal O’Flaherty McGillycuddy Fitzpatrick really is a pauper’s Mi***r, isn’t he?
El Cid Says:
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 am
Is Stephen St Mylie Cyrus of Georgia Third Earl of Warrington’s Duke of Earl really a parody troll? Did some undergraduate econ nerd just bust on Paul Krugman because the Economist magazine said so? Did he just refer to Reagan as the Gipper?
Stephen Myles St. George Says:
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Aha, sneering, jeering American pseudo-intellectual pretension at its finest. A well-established tradition, I am afraid. Cue Michael Dukakis and a host of other useful fools.

And kudos for conveniently ignoring Posner while mocking the Economist. The cluelessness of it all, frankly, offends.
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