South African Soccer Team

The World Police and Fire Games is on in Vancouver right now, to the delight of women everywhere, and I had the pleasure of taking a Skytrain trip to SFU with a team from South Africa.  They were singing!  And chanting!  They kept it up the whole time they were on board.  It’s such a pleasure to hear good singing of that nature, and it was in a public space that is usually so reserved.  It lifted my spirits.

Blitzen Trapper

Was out last night at a venue aptly titled.. Venue.  The old plaza club on Granville.  I was with a couple of friends to see Blitzen Trapper, originally scheduled for Dick’s on Dicks.  Alas, that concert hall is no more.  ‘Venue’ was ok, but obviously set up for a more dance club type atmosphere.  The number of security/bouncers also would confirm this; rarely would you have even see more than a couple of these types at Richard’s, but they were all over the place last night.

Upon entering, we were patted down by one of these types, and he found a strange object in my pocket.  He asked me to produce it, and I brought out the fishing lure that is attached to my key chain.  A little symbol of my past career as a fishing guide.  He commented that he thought it was a fishing lure, and I asked him if many people brought them in, and he said no.  We had a little chuckle and I went in.

The show itself was pretty good.  Blitzen Trapper played a varied set, with some stompers, some quieter songs, and even a little sub set where one of the lead singers did the ole folk combo of harmonica, acoustic guitar and singing.  These guys had strong vocal harmonies.  As my friend Johnny Slapshot observed, the sound of the Pacific North West that is coming up right now is inspired by Neil Young, The Band, and the Beach Boys.  Good stuff.

After the first set finished, I decided to leave.  I was bagged from ultimate earlier that night; but upon leaving I realized I was missing my car key.  I had hired a car for the night, and had not attached it to my key set.  I didn’t panic, but calmly considered my options.  I wasn’t too worried about the outcome, though it would be a mild headache to take care of.  First things first though, I scanned where we had been sitting earlier, and then headed to the front to see if there was a lost and found.

Sure enough, the lost and found had a key.  The attendent was mildly perplexed when I responded to her question abou the type of car it was.  On the key itself is a GM stamp, but I told her it was a Pontiac.  Fortunately I was saved from explaining the relationship of Pontiac and GM as the bouncer who had patted me down earlier came forward and told her it was my key.  Obviously it had fallen out while I was being searched, and he had picked it up.  He recognized me immediately.  I thanked him and was on my way.  No panic necessary, and another instance of being friendly paying off with a quick resolution to the situation.

Oh, funny side note.  A bunch of Yankees (or really ironic Vancouverites), started chanting ‘USA, USA’ in the break between songs at one point.  A member of the band responded with, “Hey, we all live in cascadia man.”  Another moment was when this same man asked the crowd about a roller skating theme night and if we had them in Vancouver.  The crowd was a bit confused as to what to say, and I was too.  I can’t remember seeing a roller rink in Vancouver, ever.  The drummer stepped up and, with some vitriol, demanded an answer to his friend’s question, but nobody really knew.

Moon

Went and checked out Moon yesterday, starring Sam Rockwell.  Honestly I was surprised at the number of people at the cinema.  I was expecting a small audience at best, but I would say it was over 3/4’s full.

I’m a fan of science fiction, so I’ll even check out bad science fiction and mostly enjoy it.  This particular film was nice in that in paid homage to a number of classics and lesser lights in the sci fi pantheon, noticeably Bladerunner, 2001, and Outland (which in itself was a western set in a space).  The basic story is that Sam Rockwell is playing a miner on the moon working on a three year contract, he’s got 2 weeks left and then he can get back to his wife and daughter.  Communication with Earth is limited and sporadic, with live transmissions non functional.   He’s alone, with a Hal like computer system voiced by Kevin Spacey to keep him company and to run the base.  Needless to say his state of mind is delicate and events start to get a little weird.

Like all good sci fi, Moon uses the setting and storyline to ask some serious questions, sometimes topical, sometimes classical.  The more I think about the movie, the better it gets.  Rockwell does great work as the agitated miner.  Fans of sci fi will enjoy this evenly paced character study.

Barcelona Vs Vancouver

What a weird feeling, to come back to Vancouver, a city I know and love, and be struck by how much space there is here. Ok, let’s back up. I was recently in Barcelona. It’s a dense European city, with every block chock full of tall buildings. The buildings are all right up against each other, no access in between. And at street level, it’s all storefronts.

Just being able to see past the immediate buildings in Vancouver felt like a huge change. And it’s no wonder people drive everywhere here, it’s hard to get around otherwise with all this room. Is the abundance of space in Canada a blessing or a curse?

A Note about Defecits

In particular, government budget defecits.  We here in Canada are set to crack a doozy, $50 billion.  The next biggest budget defecit was spun out by Mulroney’s government at $39 billion.  There’s going to be a lot of noise made abot this number, but in the sum, what does a large defecit mean?  Is Canada on it’s way back to the poor house?  Is there something inherently ‘bad’ about a defecit?

I read an article yesterday where the author compared personal finances with government finances.  They made the analogy that personal debt and living on credit is bad, and therefore a country’s debt and defecits are equally as bad.  This is total BS (with a capital B!  .. and S!).  Newsflash, countries and their governments are fundamentally different from an individual citizen!  Countries of the recent past are much longer lived than their citizens, and they can can print their own money.

As an individual, there are times in your life when it is prudent to take on debt and defecit spending.  Starting out into post secondary education on the back of a student loan is one of those times.  It’s a temporary state in order to reap the future benefits of obtaining some higher education.  The plan is to pay off the temporary debt when income is higher in the future.  There is a simislar story when purchasing a house using a mortgage.  You might take on a huge amount of debt, but it’s managable and people seem to enjoy owning their own house, so they do it.

For a government running a country, at this particular time, it is prudent to let the defecit balloon to ease through the recession.  The last time an economic crisis of this magnitude happened was at the start of the Great Depression, and the government response at that time was to raise taxes and cut spending to keep a balanced budget and to erect protectionist barriers to trade.  The collective actions of the world’s governments at the time were enough to send the world economy completely into the shitter.  Much misery ensued.  This time around, it appears as if the collective actions of the world’s governments have prevented catastrophe, and it’s merely going to be a bad global recession.  Governments around the world are heading into budgetary defecits, with the aim of reducing them in the future.

Now, when it comes to carrying debt, individuals are liable, and you don’t want to leave a big mess of debt for your loved ones to deal with when you leave this plane of existence.  Countries in the modern era appear to be sufficiently long lived that this problem doesn’t exist.  Countries could carry debt into the future indefinitely, as long as that country could support carrying that debt.  For this reason, a country’s finances look very different from an individual’s finances.

Lastly, when is a budget defecit not a budget defecit?  This might seem a little strange, but if you are in a period of high inflation, and the defecit is modest, then it may in fact be what economists like to call a ‘real’ surplus.  It’s a real surplus if a country’s gross debt is reduced in percentage of GDP.  I’ll give an example, as it’s not intuitively obvious and requires an economic explanation.

Say inflation is running at 10%.  That means that prices are increasing at 10% every year, so on the whole, GDP in nominal terms will rise 10%, holding everything else constant.  Let’s also say that the government will run a defecit; this defecit will increase the country’s debt by 5% of GDP, but because GDP is rising by 10%, the country’s debt falls as a percentage of GDP.  In this case, a nominal defecit has turned into a real surplus.  Did you follow that bit of magic?   Through inflation, the government has been able to reduce it’s debt load.  Wouldn’t it be great a citizen had the same powers as a government?  It would, but that will never be the case, and people should stop comparing personal finances with a country’s finances.

Simmons on Halladay

Steve Simmons writes for Sun Media, and I read this little tidbit of his this morning, the subject is Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays.

He is the least appreciated, most private, lowest maintenance superstar in Toronto sporting history. All he does is his job. And last night, just as he did all last season, he taught Burnett a lesson or two.

Usually I grown inwardly when reading Simmons’ hyperbole.  He tends to go for big flourishes and classic story lines while writing about sports.  Not much subtlety, but good copy I suppose.  In this case however, I have to agree with his sentiment and his tone.

For those who weren’t aware, there was a baseball game last night in Toronto.  It was a classic match up.  Doc Halladay, the ace of the Blue Jays pitching staff versus former teammate AJ Burnett, who cut and run from Toronto this past off season for more money.  Burnett now pitches for the evil empire of Major League Baseball, the New York Yankees.  For this game, the Toronto crowd showed up, to boo Burnett (and ARod to an extent), to cheer the upstart Blue Jays, and to watch a master at work.  AJ pitched well too; he’s got awesome stuff, but as he usually does, he lost his composure for an inning and that was all it took for the Jays to get a few runs in and Doc did the rest.  The Jays ended up winning 5-1, with Halladay notching his first complete game of the season.

It was a real gem of a game from the humble superstar.  Simmons got it right this time, no hyperbole required.

The Boys of Summer

Yes folks, baseball is back! The players are smaller, payrolls are down, the Jays have got two rookies in their starting rotation and no chance of making the playoffs; I couldn’t be happier about the start of the season. The reason? I get to watch Roy Halladay pitch every five days. The man is a quiet master, driven to succeed and prepared to the nth degree. He’s a man at the peak of his abilities, feared and respected as the toughest pitcher in baseball. Jays fans will probably get to watch him at this level for another couple of years before either his abilities start tailing off, or he finds a new ballpark to call home. Enjoy it folks, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

What’s a recession?

You can’t avoid talking about the economy these days. What started with a banking crisis, progressed to a credit crisis, and now it’s a full blown economic crisis. Worst downturn in 70 years, that sort of thing. Economists don’t actually know if this will eventually end up being the case, but they have projections and best bets and the range of forecasts is glum. However, we won’t know if it’s been the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression until we are out of it, and all the data is in the books. So what’s a recession? And what’s a depression? And where do they come from?

A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. I’ve had friends chuckle at this definition, negative growth being somewhat of an oxymoron. In plain words, it’s two quarters of economic contraction; the economy gets smaller for six months running. There’s no hard and fast way to define a depression, but loosely it is a severe recession. Wikipedia suggests a depression is characterized by people selling tangible assets in order to fund everyday living, which might be how people on the margins of society operate, but when your neighbour starts hawking family heirlooms to buy bread, that’s a clear indicator.

When an economy is shrinking, and you are participating in that economy (ie, you’re not off in the woods eating berries and bark), then you are necessarily getting a smaller piece of the pie on average. With an expanding population, an economy’s natural state is one of growth. Growth above and beyond what comes from population growth translates into increased wealth for the economy. In a recession, less income and wealth are being generated as less widgets are sold and assets fall in value. If the population was holding steady, or shrinking, this wouldn’t ‘feel’ so bad. But historically, populations expand, so in a recession there are more people looking to earn income from a smaller economy. If you hold onto your job, you might feel like nothing has changed, but somewhere, somebody is looking for work and worried about the future, and soon enough they’ll be willing to do your job for less than you are paid.

Economic downturns have been a feature of capitalism and the market for as long as they have existed. If capitalism is an expression of human psychology and drive, then periods of relative optimism progress into periods of enthusiastic optimism and then there is a painful slide into disbelief and extreme pessimism. Once optimism starts creeping back in, the cycle of boom and bust is starting anew. If we could eliminate this aspect of capitalism, then we would be much happier in general. There would be steady economic growth without the periods of contraction, where people and families are displaced and the feeling that the future is bleak is prevalent.

Next time, I’ll explore the idea of the business cycle and loosely where it comes from and why it produces these periods of boom and bust.

Status Update

Looks like I haven’t posted here for well over six weeks!  That’s a shame, but I am getting loads of inspiration at school these days, so I am hopeful to start posting regularly on economic topics.  In the mean time, my latest post at takeoffeh could easily have been published at The Price Signal.  Stay tuned true believers..

Check it out

Canadian political commentary available here at Scott’s blog and my recent post at takeoffeh.wordpress.com.  Nothing like some intense politics to get me writing!