What would Putin do?

That's quite a story there in Ontario. That's a province so far underwater they can't even afford doctors or teachers anymore, a fact belatedly revealed to the government only with the release of the Drummond Report that has been commented on here before.

So it's a bit of a slap in the face for Ontario taxpayers to see 150 million dollars walk out the door to satisfy the extortionate demands of some foreign hedge funds.

I think the reason that governments so frequently cave to this kind of extortion is that virtually everyone working for the "public" wishes they were on the other side of the table. And they know that in the fullness of time they will be!

That revolving door just keeps on spinning, and sooner or later everybody who helped facilitate this sell-out of the people of Ontario will be more than handsomely rewarded. That's the way things work.

That's why the public interest needs more Putins on the government side. Somebody who can roll up his sleeves, look the vultures in the eye, and give them the government's best offer;

"Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that when we are finished here you will all be in jail. How long you will be in jail will depend on how quickly we can come to a reasonable resolution of these issues."

More proof of the superiority of the private sector

Not that we need any. Everybody knows this already.

But look at the news that's leaking out right up here in Ontario.The Liberal government, desperately trying to win votes a couple of elections ago, promised to phase out coal powered electricity, because as we all know, coal is stinky poopy bad.

The trouble with phasing out the coal power is that you've got to phase in something else. On that score the government was woefully unprepared. Eventually they let a contract to a couple of high school seniors who had a plan to build gas fired generating plants.

That was great. Gas is as virtuous as coal is vile. Everybody knows that.

So then another election comes along, and whoops, everything is going great except that the Oakville neighborhood where one of those plants is to be built gets a severe case of NIMBY syndrome. The locals have organized, and as fate would have it, as many as four Liberal seats are at risk because of this damned power plant.

So the government does the politically expedient thing and cancels the project.

Greg and Hubert, those school-boys with the contract, would be happy enough to disappear into the woodwork with a couple of millions of consolation money, but now we have another problem.

There was not a single bank or government or credit union or financial entity of any kind in all of Canada willing to step up and commit financing to those eager youngsters. Eventually they found it with some hedge fund sharpies south of the border.

So now, after having committed 60 million to a cancelled project, the hedge fund boys sue the Ontario government for 300 million for their lost income.

The government lawyers roll up their sleeves and play hardball. They settle for 150 million.

That's a win-win, wouldn't you say? Those government negotiators save the taxpayers 150 million, and the hedge boys walk away with about 120% return on their money in under a year.

So when we speak of the "superiority" of the private sector, what we're talking about is that all the really smart guys in those MBA Finance classes at Wharton ended up at hedge funds, and the guys who came in near the bottom of their Poly-sci class at the University of Guelph are negotiating for the government.

Not only that, but all those government negotiators are hoping to leave a happy impression with the folks on the other side of the table, so that they too might someday join the hedge fund boys club.

Ontario's "police premier" throws in the towel

I know he originally styled himself the "education premier", but Dalton McGuinty became anything but.

Hiring neo-con economist Don Drummond was the pivot point.

Drummond was a long-time private sector economist whose recipe for economic resuscitation would look more than familiar to anybody who is acquainted with Tea Party doctrines.

Get tough on the public sector. Free up the rape-and-pillage finance sector. Good things are sure to follow.

So McGuinty got busy signing long term contracts with the two biggest police forces in the province, contracts that afford double digit wage increases over the next four years.

Then he took the gloves off. Doctors were the first ones singled out for a wage freeze. Teachers were next, and the entire universe of civil servants was on the agenda after that.

Meanwhile, it's come out that McGuinty shenanigans to relocate a couple of power plants to save a couple of Liberal Party stalwarts their seats in the legislature cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Good-bye Dalton. Maybe Drummond's corporate connections can find you a nice corporate sinecure.

Or maybe you'll be the next OPP Commissioner.

Canada's economic engine out of gas

It's the same old song; the feckless masses, led by irresponsible union leaders, have been living it up far too long and now the time has come to pay the piper.

Same old prescription too; slash government spending. Slash pensions, slash spending on education, health care, day care, drug benefits to seniors, slash and slash some more. Let's slash our way back to prosperity.

The dismal scientist offering up this vision of the future isn't some German banker talking about what's good for Greece. It's a Canadian banker talking about what used to be Canada's richest province, Ontario.

Not long after TD Bank group's chief economist Don Drummond retired the Ontario government hired him to head up a commission to crystal-ball the province's economic future.

Drummond's report was released this week. With a whopping 362 recommendations about what to slash, Drummond and his fellow dismal scientists were churning out recommendations at the rate of almost one a day for the year it took them to write their report. That's a lot of catered working lunches at the best conference rooms at the finest hotels, all on the taxpayers tab, but I digress.

Our mewling media now propose that this report comes as a slap in the face to Premier Dalton McGuinty and his free-spending ways.

Bullshit!

Dalton McGuinty knew exactly who Drummond was and what he could expect in this report when he hired him.

Here's a quote from a 2009 article Drummond, then still top economic wizard at TD, wrote for the National Post:

...the script for better productivity growth is well known. We just need the will to...deal with issues such as employment insurance and welfare programs that incent people not to work.

Aha! Thats the secret! That's why the Ontario economy has been coasting downhill for a generation! It's not the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that have been off-shored - it's the lazy workers sitting on their sofas waiting for the next check from Sugar-daddy McGuinty's all-too-generous welfare programs!

Drummond's entire 2009 article remains posted on TD's website. It's worth a read if you're interested in the insights of a man who will ride his new-found retirement notoriety into a lucrative sideline as McGuinty's Special Advisor on Austerity at the rate of several thousand dollars a day.

On the other hand, if you're already aquainted with the rough outlines of neo-liberal orthodoxies, you won't find much of interest in it.