Pork

[Originally written May 11, 2007]

There's a joke dating back to the Cold War that says, "Two groups of scientists, one American and one Russian, are given the task of figuring out the problem of writing in space. See, the regular gravity-driven ballpoints just aren't cutting it in a zero-G environment. After spending $6 billion dollars, the Americans come up with a brilliant concept: a pressurized, zero-gravity-capable pen. After spending $0.10, the Russians also figure out the problem: they use a pencil."

Keep It Simple: a routine that's almost never followed. I read in the Calgary Herald today that the Conservatives have come up with a great plan to battle the insane rent increases here: they've created lots of bureaucratic ways for people to apply for rent relief—after they've been gouged by the housing market here. One thing that they refused to consider, even though it came up in debate, was rent control.

The story mentioned one guy who's $1000-a-month rent was going up to $1950 a month. That's a 95% raise. In Ontario, it is (was?) illegal for a landlord to raise the rent more than 4% above the inflation rate per year. (And I apologize if that number's off—but I know it's damned close.)

Another article in that paper said that the economic boom here is going to fail sooner than most think—inflation's rising too fast. One way to prevent that from happening too quickly is to slow down the rental market. It allows the phenomenal employee deficit here to be addressed by not making potential productive workers homeless. They're starting people at Tim Horton's here at around $13 an hour.

Doesn't rent control make sense now?

That's one argument out of a million against government pork—where do you think some of that bureaucratic money ends up? I'll give you 10-1 odds it's not all to those who need help.

Remember back in the mid-to-late 80's when the US government was slammed because they were paying something like $600 for a toilet seat and $800 for a hammer? Those days aren't so far off from where we are today. That money came from the taxpayers. It was a time of huge deficits, recession, and a loss of trust in government. They didn't think ahead for us collectively: something they're paid to do.

There was another article (last one, I promise) that said that Norway has put $300 BILLION away in their trust fund from selling off their natural resources. Alberta's put away about $17.5B. Our natural, non-renewable resources are being sold off for way cheaper than they should be, and that's a damn shame. I wondered, at first, where all that extra money was going...then I realized that vehicle-gas costs the same to produce now as it did in 1999, when it was $0.60 a litre. Here's another newspaper quote (okay, I lied about that last one being the last one. And I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the paper in front of me): "Canadians had a mental block about paying more than $1.00 a litre for gas. Then Katrina happened, and it was the perfect opportunity for the gas companies." Check it out: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070509/gas_gouging_070509/20070510?hub=Canada
This one's even better, though it's a longer read: http://policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2007/Gas_Price_Gouge_2007.pdf

Sure hurricane Katrina had an effect on oil refining in the States. And that effect was bound to be felt up here. But remember this: in a time when they claimed production was hurt (July of 2006), BP's profits rose by $1.7 BILLION, up 24%. Exxon/Mobil's CEO was given $400 MILLION as a retirement bonus. Does that sound like they were hurt enough to gouge us as the pumps?

You're getting screwed. Remember Napster? Record companies insist that they're losing a sale for every download: that's flat-out bullshit. There have been plenty of bands out recently who have released albums with only 1-3 songs worth listening to out of a dozen. Why would I pay for something when I'd only use 25%? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting bands that make good music. If I like something, I'll buy it. But charging someone $12 for a $1 value is ridiculous. It's even worse with lesser-known bands. There are a lot of punk/indie CDs that are over $25 to buy--if someone couldn't download them first, they'd have no idea if they were wasting thier money or not. And even worse: 25 goddamned dollars!? This isn't brand new shit; it's at least 15-year-old technology. We know that bands make most of their money off of touring, so when you're asked to pay that much for an album, it makes you wonder where it's going. It's not like those (often very talented) bands get played on the radio. It's even funnier when you consider that the record industry's own studies found that 35% of worldwide CD sales were counterfeit. Doesn't that sound a little more like something they should crack down on?
Here's some great commentary on the whole music-piracy thing: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200502/msg00115.html Check the links off of it: it looks at both sides.

So there it is. For now, I'm sleepy, so I'm signing off. Rent, inflation, pork, gas, and music. What do you think? Who would be your target of choice? Please, write back with your comments on this. Where do you feel you're getting ? Who's lying to you about where your money goes?