Monthly Archives: June 2011

Why I’m voting YES for NO HST

BC, Economics, Elections, Politics

So the referendum is technically on for the BC HST; however, with the postal strike, it’s hard to know when I’ll actually get my ballot. Nevertheless, when my ballot does come, I will be voting yes to extinguish the HST.

Of course, it’s not a simple issue. The HST is a simpler tax for businesses and requires only one set of paperwork to fill out. I normally wouldn’t care about arguments from business (since they tend to be trite and only further the privileged), but I can imagine that this extra bureaucracy negatively affects the small, local business owner more so than the (multi)national corporation who just pockets a bit more at the end of the year.

I also support a consumption tax from an environmental point of view as a means to curtail excess and reduce waste. Of course, this is made null by Premier Clark’s promise to eventually lower the HST to 10%, hence the 12% PST+GST option is a better deterrent. Further, the PST option retains the ability to target specifically bad (or good) items with extra taxes or exemptions. This was the case with the luxury car tax and restaurant exemptions under the old scheme. Ideally the federal government would agree to pass legislation for anything we wanted exempted provincially, but perhaps I’m just cynical.

Selfishly, I also like that as a poor student I get a larger HST rebate than under the old system.

Then there’s the “stick-it-to-the-man” argument, which is fairly irrational, but is an effective way to demonstrate that decisions cannot be made by executive fiat as Gordon Campbell did. One could argue that the successful petition drive, Campbell’s resignation, and Clark’s long-term promise to reduce the tax demonstrated that the government heard and cares what the people said; however, by voting in favour now, it somewhat forgives and forgets the original misgiving. I’m not convinced that the government has actually listened, and recent actions seem to suggest more unilateral action. This referendum represents a chance to actually reverse government policy.

So in summary, my main reason for choosing the “Yes” side to the exceptionally poorly-worded referendum is that I prefer a higher consumption tax that we, as a province, have greater control over.

On the Vancouver riots

Scepticism, Vancouver

Wow things got ugly here last night, and I don’t mean downtown. Critical thinking gave way to mass condemnation online as an arms race of criticism took over any actual analysis of the situation.

First, to get it out of the way, yes, the riots were bad. A lot of property was destroyed, people were injured, and someone fell off a bridge. Of course, it’s nothing compared to the devastation from ethnic/religious conflicts, including by our own military in Afghanistan and Libya.

But that’s my point. People are in uproar and my Facebook and Twitter feeds were filled with hundreds of comments decrying the “idiots” and “hooligans” in the streets, while real injustices persist around the world.

Ironically, yesterday StatsCanada released a report showing that child poverty has increased in BC in to 12.0% in 2009 from 10.4% the previous year – the highest in Canada. That’s something worth rioting over, or at very least complaining on Facebook.

Of course, the insults at the rioters didn’t even really touch on why anyone would riot.

It’s nice to act all high and moral and point fingers and call names at the crowd, but the psychology is much deeper than that, and worth looking at.

With no psychological training, my first thoughts were to draw parallels between these seemingly pointless riots over a hockey game and the recent riots for freedom in the Middle East. Both have a large mass of people who are mainly helpless to affect an outcome – one being the governance of their country, the other being a sports game. It’s an understandably frustrating experience, which when mixed with alcohol, a large crowd, and a spark, can easily combust.

A better analysis is presented here, which identifies the key aspects of crowd mentality that play into a riot like this. Key among them are a large group of poor/unemployed fans who’ve been continually disappointed by their team, being trapped in a congested downtown core with no means of escaping (buses stopped running and the train was heavily delayed), and mob psychology.

It’s easy to blame individuals, but it’s also denying what the research tells us happens. If we want to be good skeptics, then we should actually think and research how people work before condemning. Nothing is black and white.

Of course, the most absurd comment I saw last night tried to shift the blame to how violent hockey is and especially in this latest series, including last night’s game where the refs were content to “let them play” (in Don Cherry’s words).

I say absurd, because for this assertion to even be plausible we’d have to ignore anything else that has ever happened. At the very least we’d have to be ignorant of the hundreds of football (soccer) riots around the world. It’s akin to blaming violent video games and Marilyn Manson for Columbine. It’s scapegoating one’s own dislike for violence in the media onto correlated, but not causal events. Lots of people still like hockey, even the fights, but had no desire to take part in those riots.

Of course, I may be somewhat biased in this entire discussion, since I feel I have some natural tendency to be contrarian and dissent from nearly unanimous opinions, questioning the consensus rather than submitting to it. Although, I also think that perhaps this might be a virtue that, if wider held, would result in a more intelligent and critical world.