Who is afraid of a little debate?

Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s private member’s motion, proposing a committee that would re-examine when Canadian foetuses ought legally to become “human,” is being held up as evidence of Stephen Harper’s secret plan to curtail women’s reproductive rights. This story sort of bugged me. The “liberals” are massively overreacting. The politics seem pretty obvious. Harper wants to appease his social conservative base. He isn’t going to reopen the abortion debate, as he has said repeatedly. It would be a really bad move politically, and this is all he cares about. Harper’s “secret agenda” is not that secret: to be Prime Minister. Now, is this debate about the status of the foetus some attack on the “abortion argument”? No. Is a foetus "alive"1 second before its birth? Of course. How about 1 minute? 1 hour? 1 day? 1 week? ... 2 weeks? Where is the line? I don’t know, but I do know that “birth” just makes no sense. Full disclosure: I'm pro-choice. That is, I am in favour of letting women kill their unborn children, who are, in some instances, actually "alive" by any biological definition. If you find that unpalatable, maybe you shouldn't be pro-choice. If your argument for pro-choice rests on this, then you better rethink your position; and it wouldn't hurt you to listen to some debate on the subject. Also, I find it refreshing that our politicians want to discuss philosophy and bioethics. In short, lefties, clam the f*ck down please.

Thoughts on Taxation

Well said, Mr. Krauthammer:

The Buffett Rule redistributes deck chairs on the Titanic, ostensibly to make more available for those in steerage. Nice idea, but the iceberg cometh. The enterprise is an exercise in misdirection — a distraction not just from Obama’s dismal record on growth and unemployment but, more importantly, from his dereliction of duty in failing to this day to address the utterly predictable and devastating debt crisis ahead.

The Buffett rule is just a cleverly disguised capital gains tax. Good politics; bad economics. The term "fairness" as applied to taxation is also interesting. Clearly, people have differing conceptions of the term "fair". The fact that it is completely subjective makes it analytically vacuous, conceptually meaningless, and even dangerous. As Krauthammer points out, this latest attempt to tax the rich is a poor substitute for genuine tax reform, which is what is needed in the United States.

Canadian Housing Bubble

Smart post from Jesse Klein on the Canadian Housing Market:

By guaranteeing 100% of CMHC-insured mortgages and 90% of privately insured loans, the government removes the risk from banks and investors, making it much easier to get loans. And although the government has tightened lending standards recently and may do so again in the near future, a report from the Reason Foundation in the U.S. found that government guarantees always underprice risk, drive mortgage investment into unsafe markets and inflate housing prices by distorting the allocation of capital. Government simply cannot price risk accurately; while private lenders, if unencumbered by market-distorting policies, have every incentive to price risk appropriately.

AM: The comparison with the U.S. is apt, in these respects: Low interest rates, and a government sponsered entity that has offset the risk faced by commercial lenders and investers. On the other hand, we don't have the same "too big to fail" history; non-recourse loans are rare... would a housing bubble collapse have the same effects in Canada?