Does the "new guiding light" also come with its own baggage?
Dear Mr. Ivison:
Saw your piece today in the National Post (Why Justin Trudeau's new guiding light could have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy).
The Liberal's new guiding light Larry Summers does not come without baggage which the article does not mention either by design or oversight.
You might wish to go for a little read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
Regards,
Clare L. Pieuk
Blogmaster
www.CyberSmokeBlog.BlogSpot.com
John Ivison: Why Justin Trudeau's new guiding light could have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy
John Ivison
Friday, February 21, 2014
More from John Ivison
Upstaging the main event: Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)
MONTREAL – Justin Trudeau was billed as the main event on opening night at the Liberal Party convention but the most important speaker was the bombastic American economist who preceded him.
Larry Summers is a former Chief Economist to the World Bank; ex-Secretary of the Treasury; and an Economic Advisor to two Democratic presidents.
He is now the intellectual guiding light for Mr. Trudeau and his key advisors – a development that may have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy, given the views on debt and deficits he espoused Thursday.
The Liberal camp appears to have bought into Mr. Summers views on “secular stagnation” – the idea that Japanese style economic torpor is the new normal in North America.
Mr. Summers believes that market mechanisms to ensure full employment and strong growth have failed, so governments must adopt what he calls “unconventional policy support” – juicing demand with “productive investment.”
Postmedia pundits at Liberal Convention
Postmedia pundits Andrew Coyne, John Ivison and Michael Tandt, left to right, discuss what Liberal leader Justin Trudeau hopes to get out of this weekend's Liberal Party Convention being held at the Palais des Congres in Montreal. (Dave Sidaway/The Gazette)
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/21/john-ivison-why-justin-trudeaus-new-guiding-light-could-have-a-dramatic-impact-on-canadian-public-policy/#ooid=k3a3VyazrOCLKGypp7biN4XeMkQEsPxD
“To start, this means ending the disastrous trend towards less and less government spending and employment each year and taking advantage of the current period of slack to renew and build out our infrastructure,” he wrote last month.
Raising demand would mean seeking to spur private spending – for example, governments could use regulation to require rapid replacement of coal-fired power plants, thereby attracting private investment.
“We have a moral obligation to our children not to allow infrastructure to decay because of a decade of neglect,” he told Liberals in Montreal. “Let’s worry about paper financial deficits. But let’s also worry about infrastructure and education deficits.”
This is exactly the approach that Mr. Trudeau hinted at in the seven minute video that appeared on the Liberal.ca website earlier this week, in which he said that Canada’s debt to GDP ratios have come down in recent years and now it’s time for Ottawa to “step up.”
But if the Liberal Party of Canada is now going to propose that deficits and debt are merely “paper” problems that are constraining growth, it is going to have to back away from decades of economic orthodoxy first propounded in government by….er, the Liberal Party of Canada.
Paul Martin was the “deficit slayer” who said Canada was caught in a trap of its own making – “a vicious circle in which chronic deficits contributed to economic lethargy, which in turn contributed to even higher deficits and then greater malaise.”
Billed as the main event Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau makes his opening remarks at the party's biennial convention Thursday, February 20, 2014 in Montreal. (The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz)
It is going to require extremely adept political leadership from Mr. Trudeau to convince voters to shift from their current zero tolerance attitude toward deficits and piling on more debt.
Pierre Poilievre, the Democratic Reform Minister, is in Montreal and told me that the only reason the Conservatives aren’t pilloried at the doorstep over the deficit is that there is a general feeling it is under control.
Jim Carr, the former President of the Business Council of Manitoba and current Liberal candidate in Winnipeg South Centre, acknowledges that convincing voters to accept pain today for gain tomorrow may be a tough sell.
“Winnipeg built city parks 100 years ago that are now regarded as the jewel of its green space. The city built aquaducts to carry clean drinking water and planted 100,000 elm trees. But all those city councilors lost their seats.
“You have to be brave to advocate positions that don’t have immediate payback. It’s a tough argument. You have to balance what is important generationally with what is possible politically,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Summers contends that governments that invest will likely not impose any new burdens on future taxpayers because they will spur growth. “Without infrastructure that knits the country together; without an educated workforce, you can’t build a great country,” he said in Montreal.
But this generation of voters has been warned by its political masters about the perils of debt. They have been told that too much debt was the cause and consequence of the financial crisis which almost led to global catastrophe.
Mr. Trudeau is going to have to do better than parables about “sunny ways,” and the power of persuasion over force, if he is going to convince Canadians that “deficit” and “debt” are no longer dirty words.
jivison@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/IvisonJ
Saw your piece today in the National Post (Why Justin Trudeau's new guiding light could have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy).
The Liberal's new guiding light Larry Summers does not come without baggage which the article does not mention either by design or oversight.
You might wish to go for a little read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
Regards,
Clare L. Pieuk
Blogmaster
www.CyberSmokeBlog.BlogSpot.com
John Ivison
Friday, February 21, 2014
More from John Ivison
MONTREAL – Justin Trudeau was billed as the main event on opening night at the Liberal Party convention but the most important speaker was the bombastic American economist who preceded him.
Larry Summers is a former Chief Economist to the World Bank; ex-Secretary of the Treasury; and an Economic Advisor to two Democratic presidents.
He is now the intellectual guiding light for Mr. Trudeau and his key advisors – a development that may have a dramatic impact on Canadian public policy, given the views on debt and deficits he espoused Thursday.
The Liberal camp appears to have bought into Mr. Summers views on “secular stagnation” – the idea that Japanese style economic torpor is the new normal in North America.
Mr. Summers believes that market mechanisms to ensure full employment and strong growth have failed, so governments must adopt what he calls “unconventional policy support” – juicing demand with “productive investment.”
Postmedia pundits at Liberal Convention
Postmedia pundits Andrew Coyne, John Ivison and Michael Tandt, left to right, discuss what Liberal leader Justin Trudeau hopes to get out of this weekend's Liberal Party Convention being held at the Palais des Congres in Montreal. (Dave Sidaway/The Gazette)
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/21/john-ivison-why-justin-trudeaus-new-guiding-light-could-have-a-dramatic-impact-on-canadian-public-policy/#ooid=k3a3VyazrOCLKGypp7biN4XeMkQEsPxD
“To start, this means ending the disastrous trend towards less and less government spending and employment each year and taking advantage of the current period of slack to renew and build out our infrastructure,” he wrote last month.
Raising demand would mean seeking to spur private spending – for example, governments could use regulation to require rapid replacement of coal-fired power plants, thereby attracting private investment.
“We have a moral obligation to our children not to allow infrastructure to decay because of a decade of neglect,” he told Liberals in Montreal. “Let’s worry about paper financial deficits. But let’s also worry about infrastructure and education deficits.”
This is exactly the approach that Mr. Trudeau hinted at in the seven minute video that appeared on the Liberal.ca website earlier this week, in which he said that Canada’s debt to GDP ratios have come down in recent years and now it’s time for Ottawa to “step up.”
But if the Liberal Party of Canada is now going to propose that deficits and debt are merely “paper” problems that are constraining growth, it is going to have to back away from decades of economic orthodoxy first propounded in government by….er, the Liberal Party of Canada.
Paul Martin was the “deficit slayer” who said Canada was caught in a trap of its own making – “a vicious circle in which chronic deficits contributed to economic lethargy, which in turn contributed to even higher deficits and then greater malaise.”
It is going to require extremely adept political leadership from Mr. Trudeau to convince voters to shift from their current zero tolerance attitude toward deficits and piling on more debt.
Pierre Poilievre, the Democratic Reform Minister, is in Montreal and told me that the only reason the Conservatives aren’t pilloried at the doorstep over the deficit is that there is a general feeling it is under control.
Jim Carr, the former President of the Business Council of Manitoba and current Liberal candidate in Winnipeg South Centre, acknowledges that convincing voters to accept pain today for gain tomorrow may be a tough sell.
“Winnipeg built city parks 100 years ago that are now regarded as the jewel of its green space. The city built aquaducts to carry clean drinking water and planted 100,000 elm trees. But all those city councilors lost their seats.
“You have to be brave to advocate positions that don’t have immediate payback. It’s a tough argument. You have to balance what is important generationally with what is possible politically,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Summers contends that governments that invest will likely not impose any new burdens on future taxpayers because they will spur growth. “Without infrastructure that knits the country together; without an educated workforce, you can’t build a great country,” he said in Montreal.
But this generation of voters has been warned by its political masters about the perils of debt. They have been told that too much debt was the cause and consequence of the financial crisis which almost led to global catastrophe.
Mr. Trudeau is going to have to do better than parables about “sunny ways,” and the power of persuasion over force, if he is going to convince Canadians that “deficit” and “debt” are no longer dirty words.
jivison@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/IvisonJ
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 1:41 AM
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