Notes from north of 49ºN.

In both Canada and the UK, voters are getting tired with the status quo and giving increasing support to third parties. We’ll see how it plays out on the UK next week with their elections, in light of the recent rise of the Liberal Democrats. In Canada, the latest Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll showed a surge for the New Democratic Party, at 20%, while the two major parties {Conservative Party and Liberal Party} have both fallen below 30%. BTW, here’s a post on “house effects” in Canadian polls, showing that the Harris Decima methodology tends to disfavour the Conservatives. I haven’t done a province-by-province analysis for Canada in a while, but I tend to watch Ontario closely, as it’s a bellwether region. The NDP is polling strong in Ontario at 19%. Apologies that some of the numbers on the following graphic are a bit fuzzy.

The NDP is polling at an all-time high in British Columbia at 31% and are in a tie with the Liberals and Conservatives with women voters. Nationally, the Greens have also held steady over the past year, dancing around the 10% mark.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority government is flailing in light of the Guergis/Jaffer affair and the recent kerfuffle over revealing documents relating to the Afghan detainee torture scandal.

Twitterversion:: Canadian Press/Harris poll shows spike for #NDP. Strong showing in BC and among women #ThickCulture

Song:: Julie Doiron-‘Consolation Prize’

Here’s a great talk by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie. A wonderful narrative on the frustrations with misrecognition — telling a single story about a people. Play it for the next person that refers to Africa as a country!

One of the best public affairs talk shows in the country, WAMU’s Diame Rhem show is based out of Washington, DC. This gives it access to a whole host of public officials and advocacy groups. The result is an informative, engaging, discussion of policy issues.

This show is a regular on my Zune (I know, don’t laugh…I actually think it’s a really good MP3 player). Examples of the policy discussion goodness includes shows on Arizona’s Immigration Law and Financial Regulatory Reform.

This is a good tool for those who teach a Social Problems or Public Policy course. It’s a sober discussion of current issues. I’ve assigned this show’s podcasts to my policy students. It’s a good way to engage students and to give them a break from reading when necessary.

Here’s where you can donate to the show if you’re so inclined 🙂

Notes from North of 49ºN

In the wake of the bizarre Helena Guergis scandal centred around Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a MP from Ontario who he kicked out of caucus, the Conservatives held their ground and the Liberals lost a few points. Additionally, EKOS reported that this was the 16th. consecutive poll where no party received more than 33%. The direction of the government poll has 46.6% saying the government is going in the wrong direction and 41.4% saying the government is going in the right direction, with 12% saying don’t know/no response.

The gap in favour of the Liberals in bellwether Ontario is well within the margin of error with the Conservatives polling at 33.1%  and the Liberals at 34.6% +/- 4%.

Disillusionment anyone?

One possibly interesting pattern is the stability of support for the minor parties {NDP, Greens, and Bloc} since last October.

Twitterversion:: Post-Guergismania EKOS poll shows Liberals slipping. NDP, Greens, & Bloc with fairly steady %s since Oct’09 #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Portishead-‘Numb’

Earlier in the month, I blogged about the forthcoming UK elections and on Rhizomicon, I blogged about the first-ever debate of the party leaders. In the first debate, the leader of the third-party challenging Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, made a strong showing. The above video is about the second debate held in Bristol on foreign affairs. Both Labour {Gordon Brown} and the Conservatives {Nick Cameron} made a point of attacking Clegg, in a bid to undermine support for the Liberal Democrats and increase the chance of obtaining a majority by winning swing ridings constituencies {districts}. Clegg seemed to hold his own. The recent polls are such that an outright majority is unlikely, unless the LibDems collapse between now and 5 May. This means that a hung Parliament is likely. The last debate will be on 29 April in the Midlands on economic policy. Get your popcorn ready. Canadians can watch on cable or online at CPAC. The other debates are archived on the link. Post a comment if you can watch them in the US or wherever you may be outside of Canada.

Twitterversion:: Second UK Debate has LibDem Nick Clegg hanging tough against Labour & Tories. Hung Parliament increasingly likely. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: The Jam-”A’ Bomb in Wardour Street’

The SEC is turning up the heat on Goldman Sachs for their role in the financial meltdown related to the subprime crisis. The Guardian reports::

“[Senator] Levin turned up the heat on Goldman by releasing emails which he said showed that, – contrary to statements in its 2009 annual report – the bank ‘made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market’. He said the bank’s behaviour had the effect of ‘magnifying and spreading risk throughout the financial system, and that Goldman was ‘all too often betting against the instruments they sold and profiting at the expense of their clients'”.

The above video gives some background about Wall Street, what Goldman Sachs did, and questions the practices of “financial innovation.” The take is somewhat an apologist position, but it does highlight the how we should all should be wary of having unyielding faith in markets.

The crux of the matter is that financial institutions are more about sales and marketing than their own client interests. There doesn’t have to be any “smoking gun” memos. These are bright people hired to game the system. In my Money & Banking {Economics} course I took way back in 1991, we learned that getting around regulation was the basis for financial innovations. We learned strategies, but within a mantra that there must be a faith in the market. Of course, I never worked in finance and this was before the hedge fund copula formulas were commonly used, but I do know how organizations work. The bright people in finance knew what could be done to ensure they looked good, their bosses looked good, and the firm made money. Tacitly.

What the video illuminates is how widespread these practices are. In my mind, the firm and its profits took precedence over the implications for the market—market failure. In order to control for market failure—enter the ‘r’ word, regulation. Insider trading laws are all about controlling insider trading, i.e., trading on information that’s not public knowledge. The penalties are stiff. Why? Trading with insider information distorts the market and reduces faith in the market.

Should firms be allowed to spread risk and use marketing tactics to do it? Isn’t this just business -or- does it do violence to a faith in the market? Let’s see how this plays out with the SEC, the courts, and Congress. My take is that the sophistication and technology of Wall Street has far outpaced the current regulatory framework. Let’s restore the faith in the market and if this means the playing field is levelled and the paths to profits through creative chicanery are over, boo-hoo, so be it.

Twitterversion:: Goldman Sucks. Use of sales & marketing to dump risk on the market = #fail. Paving way for regulation? #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Eno/Byrne-‘America Is Waiting’

Matt Yglesias points us to a great illustration of how much “middle class welfare” exists in American society.

From a social justice perspective, there’s little reason why a homeowner should get a tax-break from the federal government at the expense of non-homeowners or why those who can place money in an IRA get a break at the expense of those who cannot do so. Of course, these are not “hand outs” because they are presumed to have been “earned” in some form.

This is what made the Earned Income Tax Credit in the 1990’s such good policy. It is not perceived as a subsidy when in actuality it means the same thing to the federal government’s bottom line. The public is supportive of matching what poor people earn through a credit rather than providing them with direct assistance. Similarly, we wouldn’t be too happy with the federal government handing us money for buying a home, but that’s what we essentially do.

Mark Blumenthal breaks down attitudes towards the public option. It shows the challenge for the Democrats in 2010 — the “floating voter” population seems to be more supportive of health care, but are less likely to express that support in the polls. What remains are those voters that do not need high salience elections to turn out. So the question for Democrats is how you turn those “slack resources” in the electorate towards the polls in November?

via Andrew Sullivan

Via Johnathan Chait,  six states are considering legislation inspired by the claim that our current president was not born in the United States.

Chait points us to Arizona’s proposed legislation in their House that stipulates:

if the secretary of state has reasonable cause to believe that the candidate does not meet the citizenship, age and residency requirements prescribed by law, the secretary of state shall not place that candidate’s name on the ballot.

Why is this particular brand of public “nut-job-ism” gaining traction in state legislatures? Because according to a new New York Times/CBS poll, 42% of Americans either do not believe or are not sure that President Obama is a U.S. citizen…this percentage is no doubt higher in places where the public mix of ideology, education level, and attitudes towards race make this particular myth more appealing.

I understand that wacky conspiracy theories are significant part of our politics.  Remember, Clinton was a drug dealer? Bush was a cocaine addict? Loose change? A 2006 Scripps/Howard poll found that 36% of Americans thought that the federal government knew about the 9-11 attacks.

Great.  Fine.  Have at it.  Normally, I’d give little thought to “fringe” opinion in the U.S. polity.  But when a “fringe” opinion coalesces into a movement and is taken seriously by mainstream media, then I think there’s room to worry.  In a liberal, democratic society, nut-jobs should add comic-relief to public discourse, not drive legislation!

Our oceans are full of trash. So says photographer Chris Jordan who visited the Midway atoll, took some disturbing pictures, and presented it at the 2007 PopTech conference.

Chris Jordan: Polluting Plastics from PopTech on Vimeo.

This begs the question, if trash accumulates in the oceans and no one is there to experience it, do enough people care? At least enough to affect policy/social change?

via PopTech Blog.