Infrastructure spending OK, but that’s not what the Trudeau gov. proposes to do.

Infrastructure spending OK, but that’s not what the Trudeau gov. proposes to do. (FrazerInstitute).

Some of the details of the Liberal's budget, which ran almost 270 pages, are now emerging, resulting in serious questions about aspects of the budget.

As a number of researchers have already observed, the rhetoric of the Liberal budget simply doesn’t match their specific plans (see here, here, here). This gap between the rhetoric of the budget and its actual proposals is front and center in one of the budget’s signature sections: infrastructure spending.

Without debating the specific merits of any of these individual initiatives, it’s fairly clear that most of the “infrastructure” spending is not aimed at improving the core infrastructure of the country such as our roads, bridges and highways. In other words, simply calling the spending delineated above “infrastructure” doesn’t mean the spending is actually on infrastructure.

In addition, there are genuine questions about the “multipliers” included in the budget as a rationale for this spending.

The argument, rooted in Keynesian economics, is that governments can spend one dollar and generate more than one dollar’s worth of economic activity.

The narrative employed in the budget, which combines the concepts of both improving the long-term performance of the Canadian economy and the multiplier of infrastructure spending, is that such spending pays for itself.

The problems with this argument are twofold.

One, as outlined above, almost none of the spending referred to as infrastructure is actually on infrastructure. 

And two, the concept of multipliers has been rigorously debated in economics and there is genuine debate about their validity. Read the full story here. 

Canada - Trudeau gov. National deficit may reach $150 billion: TD

Canada - Trudeau gov. National deficit may reach $150 billion: TD. (TD).HT Cijnews.

TD’s new analysis suggests that the federal government is too optimistic in its economic projections, and specifically regarding its ability to keep a low level of deficit.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced on February 23, 2016 that the federal will run larger than expected deficits over two years. According to Morneau, the 2016-2017 deficit will be $18.4-billion and $15.5-billion for 2017-2018.

According to TD’s report (March 1, 2016), which re-calculated the projected path of deficits to include our consensus assumptions on economic growth and extended the forecast horizon to 5 years, the deficits will rise to around $30 billion per year (1.5% of GDP), or a cumulative $150 billion through fiscal year 2020/21.

“Even excluding the amount set aside for prudence, cumulative deficits are likely to reach nearly $120 billion,” the report reads.

“The persistence of the deficits over the medium term largely reflects our downgraded view of Canada’s economic growth rate. Although projected revenue gains are likely to surpass those of spending by a slim margin, the large size of initial deficits means it will take some time to restore balance.

Indeed, without tax increases or adjustments to the profile of spending, it would take more than a decade for the budget to return to balance.” Read the TD finanancial report here.

'GloBULLwarming Myths' - Climate change helps slow, not quicken, rising sea levels – NASA.

@JohnnyThe6ix Sea level at the Marshall Islands is the same now as it was in 1950.https://t.co/vAMg6pjeVj pic.twitter.com/ye7eZKVTlq

— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) February 5, 2016

'GloBULLwarming Myths' - Climate change helps slow, not quicken, rising sea levels – NASA. (RT).

Glaciers are still melting, but climate change is having an unexpected effect on sea levels, NASA has found. Satellites show 3.2 trillion tons of water has been stored on land over the past decade, slowing the pace of rising sea levels by 20 percent.

Never before has the climate and weather-driven impact on water storage been so accurately studied. With the help of two satellites, the University of California at Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) determined that through lakes, aquifers, and other routes, land is practically soaking up the liquid like a giant sponge. The study is set to be published on Friday in the journal Science.

Enough water to fill Lake Huron, the seventh largest lake in the world, has been trapped, according to NASA. Before this study, researchers could only faintly guess at how the natural water cycle, or hydrologic cycle, would be impacted by climate change.

“We always assumed that people’s increased reliance on groundwater for irrigation and consumption was resulting in a net transfer of water from the land to the ocean,” the study’s lead author, J.T. Reager of JPL, said on NASA’s website. Reager started the research as a UC Irvine graduate student.

“What we didn’t realize until now is that over the past decade, changes in the global water cycle more than offset the losses that occurred from groundwater pumping, causing the land to act like a sponge – at least temporarily. These new data are vital for understanding decadal variations in sea level change. The information will be a critical complement to future long-term projections of sea level rise, which depend on melting ice and warming oceans,” Reager said.

The JPL-UC Irvine study contradicts a study from last year published in the journal Nature, which said the rising rate of sea levels was proceeding 2.5 times faster than it had been in 1990. Read the full story here.

Sound cloud - The Day Ontario Died.

SoundCloud

The Day Ontario Died.

A remake from the Great Song American Pie Written by DOn Mclean describing the Current Situation in Ontario.

Ontario Liberals paid $10K to have hard drives wiped: OPP documents https://t.co/4rzKNi54bB

— Merrilee Fullerton (@doctorfullerton) December 17, 2015