A guaranteed income sacrifices producers

In an Ottawa Citizen column August 16, 2014, writer Toni Pickard proposes a guaranteed minimum income. She taught law at Queens University but apparently absorbed only marxist ideology instead of the correct principles of freedom, rights, prosperity, economics and capitalism.

Pickard claims that welfare demeans recipients and runs them ragged. Welfare is an immoral and counterproductive program that victimizes both its recipients and those whose rights are violated to pay for it. She claims a guaranteed income frees energy for work, when work naturally requires energy since it is a basic requirement of human survival. She claims technology eliminates jobs when in fact it creates new and better ones, raising the standard of living for all.  She claims there is no longer enough work for everyone, ignoring that the work to be done is infinite and only government interference through laws such as the minimum wage prevents full employment. She asks how we can enable people to live decently without sufficient work income, ignoring that reality requires individuals to earn their own living or perish and that her goal requires the sacrifice of the productive and rational to those who are not.

A state-enforced minimum income would be a horrific legacy, as has been discovered by the tens of millions of victims of marxism in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. It is a monstrous idea that should be denounced at every opportunity.

Response to ACORN 2014 Ontario election questions

Remittance Justice - Legislation that will cap the fees of money transfer companies (like Western Union and MoneyGram) at 5% of money transferred. This would be inclusive of all fees. The legislation would also include enforcement and disclosure.

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.
The Freedom Party believes that the only proper role of government is the protection of the individual rights of life, liberty and property and logical extensions of these.  As such, government should not interfere in the free decisions of citizens who choose to engage in economic trade. Thus, legislation to force companies to adhere to an arbitrary price determined by someone else's wishes is not a proper function of government. The Freedom Party would gradually withdraw interference in the trade between citizens so they may return to un-coerced exchange of goods and services without a sudden shock to the economy.

Healthy Homes/Landlord Licensing - Call for a policy review of the Residential Tenancy Act for the first time since 2006 in order to re-balance the act between landlords and tenants. To be included in legislation:

•  Vacancy Decontrol for full rent control.
• Successor landlords need to comply with Landlord Tenant Board orders placed on predecessor landlords. 
• Protect tenants from above the guideline rent increases that circumvent rent control laws in Ontario. 
• Implement a province-wide system of inspections and enforcement for rental housing standards.

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.

Since government does not have a moral and proper role in controlling innocent people's lives, landlords and tenants must be left free to negotiate the terms of contracts they choose to enter. In a free society there should be no price controls of any kind and no government dictates about how citizens conduct their peaceful business affairs. The Freedom Party would gradually de-control the housing market so as to allow citizens and their businesses time to adapt to the changes, knowing what change is coming well in advance.

Minimum wage - Raise the Minimum Wage to $14/now (if no, then to what wage level?)
Index the minimum wage to the cost of living

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.
Under a political system of freedom, where the individual rights of all citizens are protected equally, there are no rules that coerce citizens into or out of any specific economic contracts. There is no interference in the right of workers and employers to negotiate their wages.  Basic economics demonstrates that one effect of using force against innocent citizens through a minimum wage law is to create a class of unemployed people who are prevented by government from working. This causes damaging ripple effects through the economy and the lives of citizens. In a free society there is full employment for anyone who wishes to work. The Freedom Party would eliminate artificial barriers to employment that contribute to poverty.

Disability Rights - Greater allowance instituted before the claw back is administered for both Disability and OW.  Restore the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit.

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.
In a free society the government is responsible for protecting the rights of citizens and disabled citizens have identical rights to all others. The act of taking money through force in order to give it to other people, whether they are disabled or not, is contrary to all the principles of fundamental rights and freedoms.  In a free society such functions are all done voluntarily through benevolent charities. The Freedom Party would work to gradually withdraw government from wealth confiscation and distribution but would work to make sure the most disabled in society are provided for. After decades of crowding charity out of this area, it will take a long time to restore a normal situation and so some existing programs would have to continue for a long time.

Payday Lending - Lower cap on interest to fixed fee of $10 plus interest charged at an annual rate no higher than 60%, plus a fee that is a fixed percentage of the dollar amount of the loan no larger than 5%.
Create a two tiered where people on assistance have access to a lower rate. Enforce the Ban on Roll-Over Loans by creating a real time user database to monitor and avoid roll overs company to company.

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.
In a society of rights protection, no business that is making voluntary exchange with customers can be forced to adopt any arbitrary policies. Those who do not like a particular business method are free to shop from competitors or do without the service.  A free society allows all alternative business methods to be tried out and the market of customers determines the business success through their free choices.

Inclusive zoning enabling legislation - Inclusionary housing programs are a way for municipalities to use their development regulation and approval process to have private developers provide some affordable in all (or nearly all) market projects. It increases the amount of housing stock. While inclusionary housing policies are set by local governments it is very much up to the Province to ensure that these municipal approaches can be enforced and are not subject to endless challenges at the Ontario Municipal Board. The Province should ensure that municipalities have the authority to establish inclusionary zoning practices.

David McGruer, Freedom Party candidate response: No.

Housing has been made far more expensive than necessary through massive interference in the marketplace. Through zoning regulation, building regulation, labour regulation and other ways, the provision of low cost housing has been made uneconomic and undesirable by government policy.  In a free economy home builders will build homes at a wide range of qualities and prices to meet the wide range of demand and ability to pay.  In a free economy, adequate housing could be provided for a fraction of today's cost and charities would fill in the gap for the tiny fraction of citizens who are truly unable to afford basic aspects of life such as housing. The Freedom Party would gradually de-control the housing market so as to allow citizens and their businesses time to adapt to the changes, knowing what change is coming well in advance.

Environmentalism versus human life

I wrote a short comment below a published article Time to get real about climate change.

I started studying this question a decade ago and immediately found plentiful scientific data that directly contradicts all the major claims of global warming alarmists. From the basic physics of atmospheric CO2 (a diminishing potential warming effect as concentration rises) to the claim that sea levels are rising faster than normal (the change is precisely in line with historical patterns), from the claims of unprecedented warming (easily shown false by historical documents and geological, sedimentary and plant growth records) to the projections of warming to come (every single IPCC climate model is now proven to have overstated projections, some by wide margins, thus all of them proven useless), anyone with the desire to learn about this science can find hard data to contradict the scary claims.

The basic motivation of the alarmists is to gain control of political power to force people to bend to their will and dictate their lives. This corrupt ideology has now spread to almost every corner of the economy and threatens the lives of millions of actual living human beings. No denouncement short of total condemnation of the environmental movement in this subject can be strong enough. Just look for yourself, use your own mind and see what is unsubstantiated claim versus established fact.

This prompted a question from another reader:

Dave, can you explain this in more detail?

The basic motivation of the alarmists is to gain control of political power to force people to bend to their will and dictate their lives. This corrupt ideology has now spread to almost every corner of the economy and threatens the lives of millions of actual living human beings.

If we develop alternative energy sources, esp if we can reduce carbon, we can solve the problem. Plants have been doing this for a billion years or so. How is this going to threaten lives?

I responded in more detail:

Sure I can explain more. I am a dedicated advocate of reason and its application to science and progress. I know that the rediscovery of the power of human reasoning to discern the properties of existence is what led to the enlightenment and the industrial revolution that followed. In just two centuries under a relatively high degree of political and economic freedom humanity advanced many times more by any measure than in all prior history combined. We live far longer, healthier, safer and more comfortable lives than ever and each of these if due to industrial progress rooted in scientific discoveries.

Among the technologies that has contributed (perhaps more than any other) to improvement in human life, is that of fossil fuel energy. A part of the physical environment that has always been here but we had no knowledge of how to use it, oil, gas and the like have enabled us to increase our productivity in every area. Our current state of housing, agriculture, clothing, health care, education, communication, transportation, arts and entertainment and every aspect of society I can think of has been tremendously leveraged upwards through the use of abundant energy released from fossil fuels. We owe our very lives and health and existence to the discoverers and commercial producers of this life-giving energy.

From early on, opponents of progress (and thus of human life) have made arbitrary assertions about flawed concepts such as "shortage" and limited supply. These people do not understand the principles of economics, principles that operate to motivate us to use the most accessible, least expensive sources of energy first and then to move on to discover more and even better sources. People of pre-capitalist mentality cannot understand how both consumption of energy and energy resources can grow at the same time. As one exciting example of this, I refer you to the fusion energy project under development by Lockheed Martin that appears to be quite close to reality. This is just one example of the limitless potential for human production of energy.

I am completely in agreement that humanity must (and totally believe we will) develop additional energy resources - so-called "alternative" sources that do not involve fossil fuels. Where I vehemently disagree with those who do not understand economics and progress is the methods by which progress is achieved. Environmentalists assert their moral right to use force against innocent citizens to prematurely impose non-fossil fuel energy upon us as if progress is to be achieved by dictates and not a gradual process of free experimentation and discovery. Photovoltaic and wind energy are the most prominent examples of this. At this time these methods of energy generation are fantastically more expensive than fossil fuels, so using them requires massive subsidies - that is to say wealth taken from citizens and given to those who build and run these energy systems. This destroys total wealth in society and thus permanently retards our standard of living and progress.

While photovoltaic panels are coming down in price and rising in efficiency, they are still a long way from being commercially viable except in remote areas. It may be 20 years until solar panels are on par with current power generation sources, and in any case they require backups and storage since they are unreliable and intermittent by nature. Meanwhile, sinking lost billions into this pet technology stifles innovation in other areas.

The crusade against fossil fuels makes it harder for pre-capitalist countries to progress, suppressing the lives and goals of their citizens, causing preventable disease to persist, shortening life, reducing technological and economic innovation and depriving the whole world of the opportunity to have millions more human minds functioning at a higher level, with all the potential gains to be achieved for all of us from this. Instead of being highly educated and thinking about production, science, technology and progress, these people's minds remain focused on basic needs such as food, shelter, health and survival. An incalculable waste of the potential of the human mind.

The advocates of so-called green energy are thus the major ideology opposing human life at this time. Since the clear failure of socialism and its variant communism as a means of organizing society, environmentalists have taken over the role once occupied so prominently by overt socialists. Socialists proclaimed they knew the path to heaven on Earth but asserted that much suffering and sacrifice was needed to achieve the egalitarian workers paradise. Since their premises were so patently false and this could be proven in this life and on this planet, outright socialism is now regarded rightly as a flawed ideology.

The environmentalists do not proclaim a future paradise on Earth for humans but rather that mankind is not a part of nature and that human interests must be sacrificed so that snails, bugs, plants and even rocks and the atmosphere can remain untouched by man's influence. Their ultimate goal is nature without man - the annihilation of all human values - known as nihilism. They ignore the fact that man's essential survival method is the modification of his environment to suit the needs of his life. As you will see if you search for quotes, a number of the most prominent and powerful environmentalists have overtly stated that the best thing for the Earth would be the elimination of humanity. A more evil and horrific philosophical position cannot be imagined.

I hope this helps.

"Noble lie" is too kind to climate alarmists

In an article published in The Epoch Times, Tom Harris builds his discussion around the term "noble lie" attributed to Plato: "He believed that most people lacked the intelligence to behave in ways that are in their own and society’s best interest and so lies should be created to keep the public happy and under control. False propaganda to enhance public welfare is completely acceptable, Plato argued."

The approach Tom Harris chose in this article actually is an unearned kindness to the acolytes of the climate disaster faith. The subtitle of the article is "doing the right things for the wrong reasons" but in this case the WRONG things are being done for "NO REASON".  For there to be a reason means that a rational process based on the observed facts of reality has been followed to arrive at non-contradictory conclusions.  This is the philosophy of Aristotle instead of the noble lies of Plato. Plato identified the major categories and questions in philosophy but had incorrect answers that laid the foundation for societies based on mysticism and religion. 

Aristotle laid the foundation for societies based on human reason and reality, of which there have only been two so far: the few hundred years following Aristotle and the enlightenment. The beginning of the destruction of the enlightenment came soon afterwards with the advent of Immanuel Kant and his successors, who denied the efficacy of reason, the validity of the senses and the existence of objective reality.  It is actually Kant's ideology that has provided the ammunition for the environmentalist movement. 

Consider each of the primary branches of Kant's philosophy. In Kant's metaphysics nature is something that exists outside of man and has some inherent value in man's absence (as if man does not represent the most highly evolved aspect of nature). In Kant's epistemology we cannot know anything for certain and so must not make decisions that may affect the future of the non-human environment (the precautionary principle). In Kant's ethics human life is considered as no more, and often less important than animal and plant life and even inanimate rocks and water (sacrifice of human values is the proper morality). In Kant's politics the population can be sacrificed for whatever non-human non-value may be arbitrarily identified, such as a supposedly static climate (something that in non-existent and would not be a valid reference point if it did).

The "noble lying" that Tom Harris refers to is not just a slippery slope but is far worse - it is the deliberate denial of reality to accomplish the immoral goal of achieving political power over the lives of others.  There is not a single noble aspect to it. Using the word noble gives it the appearance of having some positive aspect mixed with the negative, but in truth it represents not only a lie but an attempt to deny the existence of lying - destroying the very definition of the word "lie" in the same way and for the same reasons as enemies of reason and freedom use anti-concepts like "state capitalism" and "social justice" in an attempt to destroy the meaning of the words capitalism and justice.  

Tom, you have been too generous in criticizing the ideology of the warmists.  People who can advocate for policies that are clearly destructive of human values in the face of insufficient, to say nothing of demonstrably false scientific facts, deserve nothing but criticism of the most severe type. Lending them any aspect of the word "noble" does an injustice to the meaning of the word.

Entrepreneurs create child care, not politicians

A recent Toronto Star editorial and article perpetuated a long-standing and pervasive economic myth: that any business sector can be run well by government.  In this case the editorial said the government should "create spaces" and "offer opportunities" because tens of thousands of families are on waiting lists. What the Star did not address is the cause of such waiting lists and the moral and rational solution to such economic problems.

In a free country each individual has the right to make his own choices in life and the right to be free of coercion by other individuals and the government, so long as he recognizes the same right of others.  A free society has an economy driven by individual preferences: choices people make about how they will produce enough to earn their way in the world and how they will spend what they earn.  In such a society you are free to produce to extent of your ability and motivation, free to create wealth greater than you consume, free to trade your time, labour and products of your mind with others. You are not free to force others to pay for your food, housing, transportation, entertainment or anything else.  In a free society the initiation of force against citizens is prohibited by law and enforced by the police and the courts.

Freedom is the freedom to think, act, produce and to own the product of your efforts.  This is the essence of the concept of individual rights.  There can never be such a thing as the right to an outcome or to a product that must be provided by someone else - this would negate the very concept of rights and freedom.  It would make others slaves to your needs and wishes. It is the incorrect and immoral attitude towards rights and the role of government that is at the heart of the daycare problem.

In a free market there is a price mechanism that integrates the preferences of all citizens into a beautiful, coordinated and ever-adapting system of immense complexity.  The price signal indicates to producers and consumers how much value society places on each good or service when compared to all possible alternative priorities.  Through their spending and producing choices, every citizen has a direct vote on these priorities.  If many people place a high value on widgets and thus bid up the price, this signals to producers of all kinds that widgets are in demand and to increase the supply because it is profitable to do so.  If preferences shift then prices tend to fall and so do profits, so capital and labour is reallocated elsewhere. This is how a proper economy works.

Now imagine a government intercedes at the behest of a group of citizens who lobby for favours.  The group declares that there are not enough widgets or that widgets are too expensive for their liking. Government responds by regulating widget production, forcing widget prices down by subsidizing some suppliers and by opening government owned widget factories. The marketplace responds rationally to the lower price by withdrawing capital from widget production and seeking to reduce the cost of making widgets, even if the quality declines. Thus, the supply and quality of widgets adapts to the forceful intervention by doing less of the activity in question. "How can I compete with subsidized widget-providers?" says one company. "How can I complete when the government takes money from me through taxes in order to open a competing business?" says another.

The widget lobbyists go back to the government and wail that more force is needed because the bad (free) producers are not making enough widgets at a low price.  You can easily see how a vicious cycle of force-begetting-force is created.  It is always thus - the introduction of improper laws and economic interventions breeds more of the same in order to fix the supposedly unexpected consequences - consequences that could actually be predicted using rational economic principles. 

Have you even wondered why there are waiting lists for day care?  What barriers exist that prevent the marketplace from filling this apparently severe consumer need? Who stops people from opening day care businesses? What economic facts cause such a high need for day care?  It can only be the presence of coercion/interference in the marketplace that creates the problem.  There are severe limits on who is allowed to open a day care, where it can be, how many kids can be there, who can be hired, what employees can be paid and onerous regulations that raise the cost of being in the day care business.  On the other hand, parents are forced to pay such high taxes that they must work more than otherwise to afford their target standard of living, so they have less time to do parenting and so they need day care.

The correct solution to the problem of child care supply, as is the case for every economic problem we face, can be answered with one simple statement and all that it implies: laissez-faire (leave it alone). Laissez-faire economics, also known as economic freedom or capitalism, is the optimal political and economic system for mankind because it allows each individual complete freedom to choose and to let the marketplace see those choices.  Anything less than freedom has been called "shackled", "fettered" or words of a similar meaning, and the negative connotation those words carry becomes an actuality whenever government uses force against innocent citizens.  To solve the shortage of child care (and everything else) - laissez-faire!

The Pope is wrong to urge shifting of wealth to the poor

On May 10 Pope Francis was reported to have called for "government to redistribute wealth and benefits to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb "the economy of exclusion" that is happening today." The Editorial Board of the Toronto Star demonstrate they are as economically illiterate as the Pope, when they make positive statements about the Pope's position.  I will make just a few points to illustrate this.

Generosity is the willingness to give to others and as such must be of a voluntary nature. It is not being generous when one is acting under coercion or threat.  Thus, the Pope contradicts himself when he says that government should be redistributing from those who have money to those who do not. His moral implication is that the use of force against innocent citizens is a moral role of government - if they do not voluntarily give enough to others to meet some arbitrary amount deemed as enough, then they must be forced against their will to give until someone else, presumably the Pope in this case, decides it is enough.

This morality is what philosopher Ayn Rand calls the morality of self-sacrifice, known as altruism. In an essay in her book "Philosophy, Who Needs It" Rand states "What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."

In an interview Rand said "But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very—how should I say it?—dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith."

Another of the Pope's contradictions is clear in his statement that a more equal form of economic progress can be had through " the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state , as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."  Not only does this statement reiterate the notion that citizens are mere vessels of the will of the state and do not have a right to their own life, liberty and property, but it creates an artificial and improper separation between private individuals and so-called "civil society".  The implication is that when acting alone in furtherance of their own life and goals individuals are not part of "civil society" and that they are only moral when they are acting collectively to coerce others.  This is the recipe for totalitarian dictatorship such as the Church held over citizens for a thousand years during the dark ages.

So an all-out attack on individual rights, human progress and economic freedom (capitalism) is Pope Francis' first formal writing as newly elected Pope. While he has given some signs of relaxing a few of the more severe tenets of the Catholic Church, this Pope is clearly little different from the long line that has come before him and he should be criticized for his denial of basic human rights.

Child care is a matter of economic freedom

Brynna Leslie's April 24th "Universal childcare is an economic issue” is a collection of contradictory statements and economically flawed assumptions.  

She begins reasonably by stating how much she values the care only she, as the mother, could provide to her children, and I completely agree there is no one on Earth more suited to raising her children. When parents plan to have children they must decide how they will handle the time and financial responsibilities of giving birth and two decades of financial support.

A decade later, however, she decides that her children are no longer the top priority and that her job is more important, so third-party child care would be better. The problem is that “affordable” is just a euphemism for using the force of the government so she wants to make someone else pay. This would absolve her of the responsibility she took on voluntarily as a parent, making anyone except her responsible for her choices.

Leslie incorrectly states that parents are often forced to make a choice between family and their careers. This is a clear misuse of the term “force”, which means the initiation or threat of physical harm to another person. If force was defined according to Leslie’s usage, it would mean force is applied in any situation where a human being is required to choose between alternative actions. In this situation Leslie clearly made a completely voluntary choice before having children, knowing that as parents priorities must be set and that you cannot have something just by wishing for it. No one forced her to have a child, much less three of them. Babies do not simply “arrive” as she states, but are planned.

The fact she had very little net take-home pay after working at home and making child care arrangements is a direct consequence of her choice to have three children and wanting to work at the same time. It is also a consequence of the fact that a large portion of her family earnings are taken by force and used to pay for the wishes of others, often on things Leslie’s family would neither want or need, never mind agree to voluntarily. Since almost half her household income is taken in taxes of myriad types, she is prevented, by force, from being able to select from among the various priorities she may have in life, including parenting. She is forced to pay for water and bus monopolies at the municipal level and electricity, education and food monopolies at the provincial level. These are but a few examples of the thousands of interventions by government force that prevent free choice by citizens, prevent costs from being lower and prevent the proper functioning of the economy. Leslie is in this sense partially correct that her choices are restricted (parenting versus employment) but it is the very concept she wishes to use against others that is the cause of the problem. She does not realize it, but she has met the enemy and it is her own ideology.

The worst statement in the column is when she says “we need all working age people to stay in the workforce, to continue to build our economy and pay taxes to support social programs”. The direct implication here is that the purpose of having children and of people living and working is to support the collective, the lives of others, specifically the elderly who are not working. What a demeaning vision of the purpose of human life, to work so that others may enjoy social programs they have not paid for. There is no reason why people who are working cannot choose how to spend their own money on whatever services they wish and save for the time when they do not wish or are unable to work. That is what a free country looks like. It is only when services are run by the use of force that children become slaves to the pensions and benefits of prior generations - generations who have voted to spend on themselves the money their children and grandchildren have not yet earned.

Brynna Leslie’s vision of universal childcare is not proper in a free society. It is a vision suitable for a country run by the ideas of Karl Marx. We have seen such societies and are moving in the direction of becoming one - a society where individual rights are erased and groups struggle for the levers of political power until one of them achieves total power.  

Responding to the CO2 scaremongers

A friend posted a link to the picture below and I just had to respond. My first post was "we've been here before" and I added a graph of temperature and CO2 over the last 600,000 years taken from Vostok ice core data.

That garnered two responses:

1. "David, but previously the irradiance of the sun was significantly lower. There is more to the equation than just carbon. We also have to consider the strength of the sun (which is continually increasing as it matures) and the strength of our protective magnetic fields (which are decreasing as the mantle cools). In the past, large amounts of carbon were a good thing. They no longer are."

and

2. "We've seen David McGruer's lies and nonsense before. He's a typical cut-and-paste global warming denier despite nearly 30-years of increasing global temperatures and unprecedented levels of CO2. There will come a day when this nonsense is criminalized and its propagators hung in the public square, a day after a catastrophe never before seen by humanity. And that will be the end of it. It doesn't matter what he or anyone else believes. Nature is the final judge."

There could be no rational response to the second posting, but the first writer is a friend and I decided to go deep on my response.  I elected not to address the non-issue of CO2 directly, and instead show the logical case for a solar and cloud caused modulation of Earth's temperature.  This will be a bit long, so be prepared to read a few pages.
----------------------------------------------

Thank you for bringing the sun into the discussion. Recent discoveries of a matching pattern in astrophysics and geological records of climate have revealed a mechanism that correlates very highly over all time frames from years to centuries to millennia and even billions of years. Here is the simple logic of it:

Fact 1. Our planetary atmosphere is a balanced equation unless an external energy source is introduced.

Fact 2. The Earth is bathed constantly by a combination of solar radiation and cosmic rays. These are external energy sources, both of which fluctuate. Cosmic ray density varies with the position of our solar system as it oscillates above and below the plane of the Milky Way galaxy in 100,000 year cycles, and as the galaxy rotates and our proximity to the spiral arms changes over much longer time frames.

Fact 3. The Sun has cycles of intensity and when it is hotter, Earth feels it too.

Fact 4. The solar wind acts as a shield around the solar system, deflecting cosmic rays. When the Sun is cooler, more cosmic rays reach our atmosphere. Thus, the cycles of the Sun and our position in the galaxy create a two-variable system that determines the density of cosmic rays reaching Earth.

Fact 5. When cosmic rays hit our troposphere they ionize particles and promote cloud formation. When the atmosphere is more cloudy sunlight is reflected back from Earth and so our climate cools.

Thus, we see a two variable system wherein the sun may intensify and warm the Earth, creating a positive feedback loop by also deflecting cosmic rays and leading to fewer clouds. When the Sun cools, more cosmic rays reach the atmosphere and create more clouds. Clouds are the magnifier here. The graphic below shows the interaction visually.

Here is a graph demonstrating the extremely strong relationship between cloud cover and cosmic ray penetration of the troposphere. The data covers the last few decades as I believe it is satellite data for cloud cover. This is the scientific validation of Fact 5 above. Next I will show a much longer time frame, and thus a much more robust evidence of validity.

This study shows the level of atmospheric CO2, cosmic ray flux and planetary temperature over the last 500 million years. Note the regular fluctuations of cosmic rays as our solar system changes position among the spiral arms of the galaxy. Cosmic ray intensity is of course higher in the arms than in the more sparse areas in between. Note the very high relationship between temperature and cosmic ray flux. These researchers have calculated that knowing just one variable - cosmic rays intensity reaching the Earth, predicts about 80% of the change in Earth's temperature over all of planetary history. Note also that there is no significant correlation between CO2 and temperature. One variable is a nearly perfect predictor (cosmic rays) while the other is useless (CO2). 

I realize I skipped the medium term (since the industrial revolution, during which almost all man-made CO2 has been produced. I will put it in the next post.

This study covers the time between 1860 and the present. In this case, sunspot cycle length is used because over such time frames the intensity of cosmic rays changes very little, but the solar wind does change significantly. More sunspots indicate more solar wind, which heats the Earth and also reduces cosmic ray flux in the troposphere and thus reduces cloud cover. Note the extremely strong relationship between temperature and sun spots, while there is almost no relationship between temperature and CO2. In particular, the period 1940-1970 was marked by planetary cooling, coinciding closely with lower solar activity, yet CO2 was rising throughout this interval.

So we have now seen a logical, testable, and verified cause and effect relationship that can be demonstrated over the last 30, 150 and 500 million years (and other intervals too, as short as seasons). A very objective measure that is far more accurate than CO2 over all time measures.

I want to show you one more graphic - the one that I consider to be so elegant that I feel it is poetic in its beauty and ability to explain Earth's temperature cycles. I will make the picture large so you can enjoy its full impact.

Imagine our solar system as a dolphin swimming through the plane of the Milky Way. As it swims, the dolphin jumps above the plane, comes back down into the plane and then dives under the plane. With each full cycle, our Sun and Earth alternate between the sparse and lower cosmic ray area above or below the plane and the denser are of the plane. When we are inside one of the spiral arms the cosmic ray intensity is greatest. In between the arms space is relatively empty and cosmic rays diminish. Once you spend some time imagining this, you can see vast spans of both history and the future unfold before you and you can see back to the great warm periods when life of all forms flourished, dinosaurs roamed the north pole and the times when Earth was a block of ice and our cities were buried under thousands of feet of glaciers that lasted tens of millions of years.

It is the warm periods when life creeps out as glaciers retreat, oceans liquify, carbon dioxide is liberated from ice and decayed matter and is dispersed into the atmosphere to fertilize and feed the great plant explosion that comes with the warm sun and feeds all the animal life. In truth, carbon dioxide is the very fuel of life on Earth, and when it is more abundant, life in all its forms flourishes.

Now, does any of this seem like the thinking of a person with no regard for science, who is closed to new discoveries, who is not capable of discerning facts from among a broad data set? In fact, it is a skill I worked hard for and am proud of.

A word for the fellow who wishes to kill people who disagree with his CO2 faith. I am over 50 years old and have been studying this subject with a passion for over a decade. In my earlier years I completed a college degree in sciences, including physics, chemistry, math and some biology. I then went on to do a degree in Education at McGill University and followed that with a research Masters degree in exercise physiology, during which I studied statistics, experimental design, how to critique published research and how to synthesize the essence from the academic literature. I then taught for one year at Concordia University in Montreal in the department of Exercise Science and one year in the faculty of Education at McGill University. Next I taught in the arctic for four years. For the last 21 years I have been a professional financial advisor, with thousands of hours of study of economics, politics, philosophy and finance. If you are able to engage in peaceful, reasoned discussion then I welcome it. If all you have is hate-filled ravings such as you have demonstrated above, then I will not address you again.

To the first writer, I love exchanging ideas with you. I find you have a broad interest and strong intellect and I believe you too are fueled by ideas. If you ever find my writing to be insulting then please tell me as I value our chats very much and that is never my intent.

Why do so many politicians support the global warming scare?

This is a short letter written to Canadian MPs and Senators, asking them an apparently simple question.

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As you can see in this article, literally billions of dollars are being wasted in Canada on trying "to stop climate change" even though the science no longer supports the scare. Why do almost all Senators support this incredible waste of our scarce resources?
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My reply to the questioner was as follows.

The very end of the article contains the answer to the question. The answer can be found in the philosophy that dominates the culture. The philosophy of a culture is set by its intellectuals in areas such as science, education, literature and politics. For decades now the dominant philosophy has been that of Emmanuel Kant, who created the philosophical system of nihilism - the denial that principles exist, that knowledge can be certain, that there is a right and wrong and that reason is useful in dealing with the world.

Thus, in science we see claims that there are infinite parallel universes in which anything and everything happens and nothing is certain, even measurements; in literature we see novels about depravity and nothingness in a book without heroes, clear themes or plots (Seinfeldian literature); in education we see fragmented curricula without integration and courses about minutiae producing graduates unable to think in terms of essential concepts, integrate broad concepts, identify truth; and in politics we see the rule or pragmatism, where no principles tie together different laws and the rule of whatever seems to work for the moment is dominant (see Obama's, McGuinty's, etc. policies).

An aspect of of Kant's philosophy is egalitarianism, which sees everything as equal, without regard for principles such as validity, correctness, truth, or value to human life.  The environmental movement is based on the elevation of non-life above life, the valuing of nothing instead of something, and the consequent destruction of the values necessary for human life.

Since the enemy's power is based on ideology and morality, no matter how wrong or corrupt, and people are told that the ideas are moral, people will follow the ideology until death, in defiance of facts, unless they are presented with a better ideology and morality.  Facts, to an egalitarian, do not exist or can be re-defined into the opposite of their true meaning.  To this mentality, terminology is fluid, definitions are subjective, anything can be rationalized away. Facts alone cannot combat an entire morality that is consistently applied in all disciplines, especially now that a generation or two have been raised in an education system where this morality is thoroughly entrenched and almost unchallenged. People are rarely conscious of their moral foundations and so they are easy victims of those who profess to offer strong moral beliefs, especially when shrouded in the credibility of science.  

Tom, the battle is truly one of entire belief systems.  To win decisively and not simply see the battle shift to a slightly different terrain (such as the shift from pollution to species extinction to ozone depletion to global warming), we must attack the root philosophy with the power of moral certainty. The philosophy of Ayn Rand, based on Aristotle's work and the knowledge that has come since the enlightenment and industrial revolution, known as Objectivism, offers all the intellectual and moral tools needed to combat nihilism and I am an avid reader in this field. As a fellow opponent of environmentalism, I encourage you to do likewise.

Discussion arising from "To curse machines is to curse the mind"

In April 2014 I posted a link to an article on Facebook. This prompted a response by a friend as follows:

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Machines are good because they decrease the amount of human labor necessary to perform certain tasks, sometimes by a factor of 100 or more. However, they do tend to exacerbate the problems already inherent in Capitalism, namely that anyone born without capital is dependent on others for their employment, and thus, their living. It is very difficult to get out of this position since within a Capitalist economy, a person with no capital has no leverage with which to raise themselves up. They must take what is offered or starve. 

The most faulty premise of Capitalism is the idea that a person is paid what they are worth. No, they are paid as little as the employer can get away with paying them. When a person has nothing to fall back on and must eat, that can be precious little. When a worker is paid so little that they can only afford the most basic necessities, then they cannot save, and if they cannot save money, then they will remain in a situation where they must take the low wages they are offered or starve.

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Naturally, I could not let such an attack on freedom go unanswered, so I composed the following:

Capitalism does not have inherent problems. The problems come from deviations from capitalism and to the degree of the deviations. This is not to say a free country under capitalism is a utopia since our survival and thriving require us to overcome the thousands of obstacles nature places in our way. 

Under capitalism every individual is responsible for his own life and cannot use force against others. Further, no group, no matter how large or how many votes they can obtain, can initiate force against individuals who have not violated the rights of others. Nature is metaphysically difficult to overcome - that is the challenge of survival we all face. To do it more effectively we think, create, innovate, build and produce, most often in cooperation with others via the division of labour. 

In a state of pure nature, man is a simple beast who fights for his life every minute of every day, killing and dying like other animals. Using his unique faculty of reason, man has learned to re-shape nature to make it more hospitable to his life. The re-shaping of his environment is man's most basic means of survival. A man in a capitalist society has an infinite advantage over one in a pre-capitalist society, since all the wonderful benefits of capitalism are already surrounding him and ready for him to leverage. All he requires is the use of his mind and he will be successful to the degree he applies reason to the challenges he faces. Capitalism abounds with stories of self-made men who started from nothing and reached the top of their field. 

The financial success of a man under capitalism is a pure function of how many of his fellow men are willing to trade values with him, and how much they value his product. It is not the man who produces a product who sets the price and value, it is his customers, who will use their own reasoning to decide what they are willing to pay, whose product offers them the highest value, and who they prefer to buy from. Under capitalism a producer has absolutely no power to compel anyone to buy from him at any price.

It is both logical and moral for an employer to pay the lowest wages the market will bear, since there is no other objective means of determining a price but by the market system. In a free market every consumer weighs all the alternative ways he could spend his money and prioritizes according to his individual preferences. The price system integrates all the preferences of all participants into a price hierarchy that is constantly adapting to men's shifting preferences. Producers who fail to offer buyers what they prefer are quickly run out of business while those who serve customer preferences are more likely to succeed. No one is guaranteed anything except the right to produce as rationally as possible and to spend as he sees fit for his own life.

If a worker is only paid subsistence wages, in a capitalist economy he is still infinitely better off than a subsistence worker in a pre-capitalist economy, where he would likely do physical labour from sunup to sundown yet still starve, suffer from horrible diseases, have little shelter or clothing, be disposed of by any random criminal who has no fear of justice, and die by the age of 25, having never had any of the rights protection enjoyed under capitalism.

The only solution offered by nature for a man who earns a low wage is to improve his value through the application of reason applied to the challenges of production - the same as we all must do. A capitalist society offers this man the very best opportunity to advance his goals since he benefits from the enormous knowledge capitalism has accumulated, benefits from the progress of all those who have come before, and gets to keep the product of his mind and labour. Until the discovery of capitalism, no society in history had accomplished even a fraction of what we have seen in just a couple of hundred years. A man who starts with nothing is not entitled to the product of others, not entitled to force others to pay him more than they wish and not entitled to steal from others (this is three ways of saying the same thing). Freedom and its corollaries are his only rights and capitalism is the system that fully recognizes this.

Response to Rick Gibbons on CFRA regarding minimum wage and other interventions in the economy

Rick, I was the caller who seemed "way out there" on this subject. I realize my statements seemed radical - and they are - because they represent a thoroughly principled stand in favour of individual rights. Unfortunately, Canada and most of the western world has been moving toward increasing controls, regulations and interventions in the economy for many decades now. This is because few people understand the nature and source of individual rights and have little or no economic education. Probably the greatest economist of all time, Ludwig Von Mises, thoroughly described socialism and capitalism about a century ago and has been proven correct a million times over ever since.

The value of any product or service can only be properly determined through free exchange. When one or both parties is subject to coercion, the price system cannot work properly and a ripple of distortions runs through the market. It is important to note that no one has a right to force another person into an agreement - it is thus not an agreement at all. If my work is only worth $7 on the market (determined by the amount a freely acting employer is willing to pay for a task) because I have little skill and experience, then making it illegal to hire anyone for less than $11 will not make my work more valuable, it simply encourages employers to seek productivity gains through means OTHER than hiring more people. Making it illegal for a low-skilled worker to find employment cannot help low skilled workers get experience and earn their way up the value chain. In fact, the most vulnerable people whose work has low value are the most harmed by using government force in the market for wages.

In a free society no one can ever be forced to accept a job for any price, such as $7. The existence of competition between both similar employers and all other potential employers drives market prices for all labour and all inputs into production. If I believe my work is worth $11 I am free to seek an employer who agrees and to sign a contract. If no one agrees, then that is a fact of reality I must deal with and it is morally wrong of me to recruit politicians to force an employer to pay me more than they are freely willing to. You see, employers must always pay a high enough wage to attract the employees they wish to keep, to keep their business operating efficiently. If other employers pay more for the same work, people recognize this market signal and change employers. It is the economic power of a free and uncoerced marketplace that keep an economy operating to maximize production, value, employment and wealth creation.

The side effects of government intervention in the economy are too numerous to cover here, but consider a few. Government has arrogated the control of the money supply, and since the 1930's has been inflating money, thus destroying the value of existing money. This harms the weakest in society most and causes consumer price inflation. It also serves as a wealth transfer from the general public to the beneficiaries of government spending, including corporations and selected politically powerful pressure groups. These receive newly printed money and the inflationary effect spreads through the whole economy, benefiting the first recipients the most. Often, at the end of the chain reaction are the most vulnerable, who do not understand economics and wealth creation - those on a fixed income, those who who not own equity, those who are unable to mount their own pressure group to feed at the government trough. The inflationary effect causes the entire price system to be distorted and less predictable, leading to abnormal production of some goods, hiring of some people, and lower overall economic output. The wealth of society is reduced and progress is slowed.

Some people then lobby government for a favour by asking for a minimum wage law - they ask for force to be applied against workers and employers who would otherwise agree on a wage as some level below the arbitrarily set "minimum". The minimum wage then raises the cost of production, leading to a further inflation of all prices in the economy, so everyone is paying more than before, including the minimum wage recipients. When the cost of living rises, the pressure groups go back to government and say the last minimum wage intervention is not working and it needs to be higher still. And so the cycle of disruption continues, while the pressure groups and the government ignore the fact they are causing inflation and harming those most vulnerable - again and again they persist, failing to make a permanent impact every time. They are ignoring the key economic facts of reality in pursuit of their belief that wishing to improve the financial status of an individual can make it so and ignoring the truth - that only by making my work more valuable and finding an employer who agrees can true value be created and actual improvement be accomplished.

There is another very different aspect of the poverty question that is almost always ignored - the study of what actually happens to the people who have a low income.

A November 2012 study titled “Measuring Income Mobility in Canada” by Charles Lammam, Amela Karabegovi, and Niels Veldhuis confirms what has been known for many years and what a reasoning  person should quickly realize: the portion of people who spend a long time in poverty is far smaller than many groups would have us believe.

Most studies of income differences are cross-sectional, that is they take a sample at a moment in time and analyze the data, dividing the population into income quintiles (five equal groups).  Such studies always show a certain fraction of the population is at the lower end (someone has to be) and a certain population living below what is called “the poverty line”. The data does not change much over the years, so people who view society in collectivist terms call for higher taxes on the productive members of society, more income and asset redistribution by the government powers and lifestyle support programs to help these supposedly poor people.

What these studies fail to do is track information longitudinally over time to see what actually happens to the individuals who are initially at varying levels of income.  Viewed this way, the problem of poverty is far lower than imagined since the large majority of those who are “poor” at a particular time do not stay poor. The table below is extracted from the study and demonstrates that in a short five years half of the lowest income people had moved to a higher income group.

As the time horizon was lengthened the results were even better, with 83% of the lowest earners moving up in a ten year period.  The greatest income gains were made by those who started out at the lowest levels.  This should not be surprising since many of those people are at the start of their earnings life and have less training, experience and value to employers than those with more experience.  It is entirely natural that their incomes would rise over time and that most of them would succeed.

Finally, the study looked more closely at how far the different groups moved.  Most notably, the lowest initial income quintile saw 26% move up by one group, 25% moved up two groups, 20% moved up to the top 40% and 12% moved up to the top 20% of all income earners.  This is certainly not a story of long term poverty and certainly is not a justification for the massive income redistribution called for and which often make it harder for the poor to rise while certainly punishing the more productive for being productive. That is a path to slower economic progress.

After just 10 years, only 17% of those who were in the bottom quintile were still in that group.  That’s about one sixth of the size of the problem often quoted.  We should celebrate the fact that despite the many government controls and redistribution plans  created over the decades, that we still have a free enough society to see 83% of the poorest people rise from poverty in a relatively short time. The study also looked at 19-year mobility and of course found it was even better than for 10 years, but by ten years there were only a few people left in the lowest income level so naturally there was little room for improvement.

This data is very similar to that published in a 1999 book by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm titled “Myths of Rich and Poor”.  They used U.S. data from 1975-1991 and published tables much like the ones in the current research paper. I am glad and not surprised to see that Canadian data is very similar to the U.S.

It turns out that much of the effort directed at poverty reduction is not productive.  The truth is that individuals are properly responsible for their own lives and most of them work their way to a better standard of living through their own efforts.  Unfortunately there is always a small number people who are unable to help themselves.  In a free society there is a good chance there will be many benevolent groups willing to help them without any government intervention.

You asked the broader question "would society be better off if government did not regulate the economy?"  The answer, in the area of wages, and the same principles apply across all aspects of the economy, is an unequivocal yes, but it is very difficult for people to see unless they have a good grounding in economic science and reasoning.

I'd be happy to continue this discussion with you in any way you choose - email, on-air or in person.  There is great good that can come from applying the principles on which our country was founded - principles derived from Magna Carta, later the Bill of Rights (Great Britain), to the Canadian Constitution to the Canadian Bill of Rights. These principles prove that the best form of society is one where individual rights are paramount (a free, capitalist society) and government's role is to protect them, not violate them by dictating economic outcomes in defiance of reality.

David McGruer
2013 Candidate, Ottawa South
Freedom Party of Ontario