The Invisible Hand

Labels: economics, free trade, invisible hand

CBC did another series of interviews with leaders of the fringe parties last night. I also covered this bit in the last election. On the question of "what would be the first thing you'd do if you won the election", they said:

Christian Heritage Party: Recognize that personhood goes from conception to natural death
Libertarian Party: End the drug war
Marijuana Party: Legalize marijuna federally (municipalities could set their own laws)
Progressive Canadian Party: Free post-secondary education
Marxist-Leninist Party: Choose your candidates before the election (I think this was related to party nominations)
Communist Party: Pull out of NAFTA
Canadian Action Party: Launch an international investigation of what really happened on 9/11; remove the "competitiveness council" of sixteen corporate leaders who tell the Prime Minister what to do
Neorhino.ca: Abolish Canada; abolish the military budget; Quebec separates and joins Cuba to form "Cubec"; Cubec's national drink will be made from maple syrup and Cuban rum

I wonder if the leaders of the Work Less Party, First Peoples National Party, and Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party will threaten a lawsuit because they weren't included. :)

Oh, and it's a bit sad that the Rhinos' platform was only about the third-dumbest of the bunch...

Labels: anti-capitalist stupidity, drugs, free trade, general stupidity

Down with the Security & Prosperity Partnership!
Down with the North American Union!
Down with the New World Order!

But most of all...

Down with the Toronto Transit Commission!!

Labels: anti-capitalist stupidity, free trade

Responding to the Clinton/Obama attacks on NAFTA, John McCain took a strong stand in favour of free trade:

After mostly hitting Barack Obama on national security, McCain turned to trade today, broadening his indictment to take shots at both the Illinois senator and Hillary Clinton for their criticism of NAFTA.

"I want to tell our Canadian friends, I want to tell our friends in Mexico and other trading partners around the world that I will negotiate and conclude free trade agreements and I will not, I will not, after entering into solemn agreements, go and say that I will abrogate those agreements," McCain said at a corporate town hall meeting on the sprawling Dell campus north of Austin.

Good for him (although I don't agree with his reasoning of us tying the issue to Afghanistan).

But listen to what one of McCain's supporters had to say:

Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator, joined in the attack, taking his candidate's rhetoric a step further to portary the Democrats as insufficiently confident in American ingenuity.

"If we can't compete with Canada, who can we compete with?" Gramm asked. "Are these people proposing that we go build a wall around America and hide under a rock somewhere?"

Gramm said the Democrats "don't have faith in our ability to even compete against Canada."

That was the funniest quote I've heard in a long time. Unfortunately, there's probably a certain amount of truth to it.

Labels: economics, free trade, US politics