Bleeding Heart Tories

Gone are the nasty neo-liberals, the would be Republicanadians and their social conservative allies, that made up the Canadian Alliance and Harpers new Conservative Party.

Harper paints Tories as party of the middle

With this budget it is the return of Brian Mulroney and his Bleeding Heart Tories, as the Economist branded his government. It is as promised Harpers make over of his Conservative government into the Mulroney Government of yesteryear. Just as Mulroney advised him to do; Harper rallies troops with call to listen to middle-class voters

He has successfully taken the middle of the road, the mushy middle, much better than even the Liberals. In fact this budget is a classic Liberal budget, sans their usual big breaks for big business. In fact it has even resurrected some Liberal programs. Harper's un-conservative spending spree

Sure there are targeted corporate tax breaks aimed at sectors like Manufacturing and small business, but balancing that out is tax rulings eliminating investment off shoring and tax havens. Something the well connected Liberals would never do.

While this will not affect the average Canadian, it should see a reduction in classified ads in the Globe and Mail Business pages and Financial Post for all those tax havens offshore and tax avoidance schemes.

And the Conservatives have made White Collar Crime a priority, true at the bottom of their list of crime initiatives, but still it's the thought that counts.

As usual the devil is in the details. But the bottom line is this is a hold the line budget. The dogmatic need to purge all things Liberal, to cancel programs that their social conservative base has long rallied against (with the sole exception of the Firearms registry), this budget had no spending cuts. And it had little in the way of social program spending either.

It was a sop to all parties and interest groups. There was something in it for the Bloc, the Liberals and NDP. It may not be what they want, or enough, but for appearances sake the Conservatives can claim they listened.

Just as Flaherty praised lobbyists like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, whose wish list for small business was put in the budget.

Income splitting for stay at home spouses is there, long a bugaboo of the social conservative lobby for middle class wives who can afford to stay home.

Heck they even are eliminating the tax breaks for investment in the Tar Sands, by 2015. However they replaced that with a tax credit for investment in green technology for the very same Tar Sands.

And they have solved the Fiscal Imbalance by giving the provinces their choice of payment programs. A shining example of the ideology of choices so enamored by the neo-cons.

Is it an election budget, sure. Is it a program for an election or even the basis of a platform? No. But it is a budget that allows the Conservatives to stay in power. They are betting on it being winner, that is if they go into an election they can use it, and if they don't it gives them time to plan for the election next year. And as it kicks in it placates the vast middle class in Canada they hope it will improve their poll numbers.

Key suburban voters big winners in budget

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Not His Peers

Former Canadian, remember he renounced his Canadian citizenship, Conrad Black, Lord Black of Crossharbour, will be judged in the United States by the working class. Which belies the old adage; of being judged by your peers.

• Video: Jury selection at the Black trial

Since he has a peerage, I guess they could have held court in the House of Lords. But then they would have acquitted him being good old boys and all.

The mask of invulnerability has begun to slip. For months, Conrad Black has scatterbombed his assailants with bombastic bravado and patronising put-downs. But as he arrived in Chicago to face a criminal trial which could consign him to dotage in jail, the scandal-hit media mogul looked tired, pale and faintly fearful.

The former Telegraph owner and friend of Lady Thatcher faces charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. With his bulky frame leaning on a courtroom table, he has spent two days listening to childcare niggles, health woes and financial hardships which jurors need settling in order to spend three months on a $40-a-day (£21) stipend sitting in judgment over him.

It is a window on to the life of ordinary folk which Black has never been near. He admits as such, complaining that his Rolls-Royce lifestyle of vintage wine, tuxedos and multiple homes is key to his downfall: "Since biblical times, and probably before, the wealthy have been envied and condemned."

But instead of throwing himself on the mercy of the Queen and her Lords, Lord Black high tailed back to the country he despises, that of his birth, the one he renounced his citizenship of.

And promptly hired crackerjack Canadian lawyer Eddie Greenspan to represent him in the United States. Which didn't go over well last week. Judge Is Not Amused by Conrad’s Black’s Lawyer

And there is further irony here, for the Black Lord is fan of that other famous racketeering Chicagoan; Al Capone

Jeffrey Cramer, the young prosecutor who is expected to deliver the government's opening argument today, even looks like Eliot Ness, who put Al Capone in jail for 11 years for tax evasion.

So perhaps to truly be judged by his peers Lord Black would not appear before his fellow British Lords but the Lords of Crime, like Capone, who like Black were busted on Rico charges.



Also See:

Conrad Black

Criminal Capitalism: Black Lord Dodges Tax Man

Criminal Capitalism: Black & Radler,Thick as Thieves

Criminal Capitalism: Lord Black Fugitive

Criminal Capitalism: Black gets his comeuppance

Criminal Capitalism: Hollinger's Black Eye

Criminal Capitalism: Black Out

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Conrad Black, crime, fraud, racketeering, Al Capone, Hollinger, Radler, Chicago, Lord Black, newspapers

Wall Street Deja Vu

I draw my readers attention to this article from the business section of the Saturday Globe and Mail. If you are regular here you will know I have said this exact thing.

Disturbingly, bankers, investors and regulators have seen this movie before. The boom-bust scenario now playing out the market for subprimes – loans to the riskiest borrowers – is remarkably similar to other recent episodes when the basic principles of sound lending were ignored or forgotten, until it was too late. There was the technology bubble of the late 1990s, as well as the trust and savings-and-loan crises of the 1980s.

Then, as now, financial institutions dramatically reined in credit after getting burned on bad loans. Indeed, the flight of lenders from the tech bubble of the late 1990s drove many of them toward the perceived stability of consumer credit – including home equity loans and mortgages.

How the industry got in this mess, again, is a disturbing tale of lending excess.

The simple explanation for why HCL and other lenders made seemingly uneconomic loans is because they could. A thriving aftermarket quickly turns subprime mortgages into bonds, flipping the revenue stream to investors around the world. Most banks no longer keep the loans in-house, so they don't care if homeowners can't keep up with payments. Instead, they make money on lucrative fees and push the risk up the line to an investment dealer such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. or Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which then passes it on to hedge fund and pension fund investors.

American finance, the much touted Wall Street Bull market is living in a consumer driven bubble. There is no real boom, just a growth in credit, loans and party mow pay later consumption. Later comes sooner than the market expects.

What is scary is that folks pensions are tied up in these get rich quick schemes like variable and sub-prime mortgages. Which they weren't when the Junk Bonds and later the Savings and Loans meltdowns occurred.

See

China Burps Greenspan Farts Dow Hiccups

Housing Bubble

Housing

Economy



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