Miller wasting more money:

[Whoaccio]

So are you implying that government intervention forced the banks to write complex securities and derivatives to the extent that there are a quadrillion dollars of outstanding derivatives? Did the government force the bankers to assume that housing prices will only go up? Does anyone believe Dick Fuld when he claimed Lehman Brothers did what it did in order to help more people achieve the American Dream

No... What I was implying was that the government created an asset bubble which financial institutions rode for everything it was worth. The reality is that we have been making derivatives on everything from cotton to caviar for decades now. There was nothing particularly new or radical about them. What was different was that the derivatives in this case were based on housing mortgages that owed their existence and pricing squarely on government support.

 

[jks]

I hope you realize that Canada is faring better than other countries because our banking system is more regulated?!?

 

[Whoaccio]

^
And we didn't have the government do everything in its power to make as many people as possible get mortgages they probably couldn't afford.

The core issue isn't that a few Wall St. bankers played fast and loose. They did, and under normal circumstances they would have lost their money like in the dot com bubble, or every other bubble, and things would go along fine. Bankers being reckless is not a new phenomenon.

The issue is since the dot com bubble the US has tried to build its economy on the premise that rising housing values would enable near limitless consumption on credit. Tax deductible mortgages, non-existent interest rates, government subsidized mortgage corporations, near quota systems for qualifying low-income applicants for mortgages. These were all very deliberate public policy choice the government made in order to promote home ownership as a means of economic activity. It was a massive public pyramid scheme on a national- if not global- scale. Wall St could have been run by the Amish, this housing stuff would have imploded and the core engine of the US economy would be just as dead today.

Yes, on top of that there were some very (very) poorly managed investment houses which basically made billions off of selling what turned out to be meaningless paper. So what though? Enron was a scam, but the US energy sector didn't implode because it had value. There are more serious macroeconomic elements to this than "greed," most of which are the result of poor public policy choices.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Before activists hijacked the term "climate change," the phrase simply referred to a well-known fact that climate changes over time - always has and always will.

No one would dispute that. At a macro level, we experience periods of significant climate change. The current global climate change is called global warming.

Politically, 'climate change' has come to replace 'global warming' in the popular vernacular, probably because there are way too many yokels who believe that global warming doesn't exist because it is snowing outside.

According to satellite data, there has been no global warming since 2000.

2005 was either the warmest or second-warmest year on record. Check the IPCC data. So... no?

Maybe satellite data says there hasn't been any warming since 2000 because satellites don't have the ability to measure temperature?

In fact, there has been a cooling in the global average temperature over the last two years.

Irrelevant. Global warming is about long-term trends. There's been a bunch of years over the past century with slight cooling periods. What's relevant is that the overall trend line shows a significant increase over time.

Arctic sea ice levels are at the same level as they were in 1979.

No, they're not. Again, we're concerned with long-term trends. The data point you're referring to indicated that sea ice levels were roughly equal to 1979 levels for ONE day in December.

Taking another day, for example, shows this:

(O)n February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

That quote is from this post, which covers the whole "sea ice at 1979 levels!" meme really well.

This shouldn't be a thread about the relative merits of climate science, but you're factually wrong on both points you brought up here.

 

[jks]

And I thought we got OVER the whole "global warming is a myth, so why spend all this money on the environment when it can be used to buy more SUVs" controversy. Global Warming is very real. Go watch An Inconvenient Truth!!

 

[kEiThZ]

^Oh boy, wait till Hydrogen logs back on!

 

[urbanfan89]

No... What I was implying was that the government created an asset bubble which financial institutions rode for everything it was worth.

I guess you could claim that the government "created" the asset bubble through financial deregulation championed by the political right (e.g. the end of the wall between Commercial and Investment banks, the emerging mega-banks), but that is dishonest.

The reality is that we have been making derivatives on everything from cotton to caviar for decades now. There was nothing particularly new or radical about them.

What *is* new and radical is the Credit Default Swap, which were turned a blind eye upon by the regulators. Normally insurers are supposed to build a reserve fund to back the policies. No reserve fund was ever required for CDS, meaning that when push comes to shove those derivatives turned into a gigantic mess. And that has become a far greater problem than the underlying subprime mortgages.

housing mortgages that owed their existence and pricing squarely on government support.

So is Uncle Sam responsible for the banks being reckless in their lending practises? If so, how come they were posting record profits (instead of losses, which political meddling is known to cause)? How come right-wing politicians were persuading the regulators not to, well, regulate? The fact that massive Ponzi schemes have gone away for so long indicates a lack of oversight, not too much of it.

I hope you realize that Canada is faring better than other countries because our banking system is more regulated?!?

That wouldn't be true of the Reform Party were in government 10 years ago. Toronto would be nicknamed "Reykjavik-on-the-Lake".

 

[jks]

Ok, well this has gone slightly off topic. But overall, this recession started with the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US, and thet was pretty much Bush's fault. He was the one who allowed banks to give out mortgages people couldn't pay. Now, as for the 104K, there are much more scandalous things going on in city hall right now, like the whole fraud thing.

 

[kEiThZ]

I guess you could claim that the government "created" the asset bubble through financial deregulation championed by the political right (e.g. the end of the wall between Commercial and Investment banks, the emerging mega-banks), but that is dishonest.

There's plenty of blame to go around here. The Clinton era loosening of regulations regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did no favours for the long term stability of the US markets. Neither did the Bush era de-regulation policies. Going back further, it has always struck me as incredibly messed up that people can claim mortgage interest from their taxes in the US.

As for ending the barrier, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Our big banks operate just fine in essentially the same way, except they have a few tighter rules about reserves and such. The idea may not have been a bad one. The implementation was crap.

 

[urbanfan89]

Now back to the topic, some of the complaints were that global warming is something that should be left to more senior governments.

This premise is flawed, because cities are where the economic and social activity is made. They are the drivers. Solutions to global issues must come from cities. It is hence entirely appropriate for a collection of major world cities to exchange ideas about a global problem (if they can do so without jetting to London, that would be better).

As for ending the barrier, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Our big banks operate just fine in essentially the same way, except they have a few tighter rules about reserves and such. The idea may not have been a bad one. The implementation was crap.

This is not entirely true. CIBC World Markets is separate from the CIBC bank on the street. Scotia Capital is separate from the Scotiabank on the street. But Citibank is integrated with the Citigroup investment banking (the rationale was the customers would put all our $ with them in good times and bad) after 1999.

 

[kEiThZ]

This premise is flawed, because cities are where the economic and social activity is made. They are the drivers. Solutions to global issues must come from cities. It is hence entirely appropriate for a collection of major world cities to exchange ideas about a global problem (if they can do so without jetting to London, that would be better).

Sure, but are there forums where these cities interact anyway? Could we use those instead? Or how about being really innovative for a group that's fighting climate change and teleconferencing. I work in a classified environment and I video conference with my counterparts in the UK and Australia all the time. We handle the time difference, use secured networks have 'face to face' chats just fine all the time. It's a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly. A trip out would be nicer but it's not absolutely essential.

 

[Whoaccio]

Now back to the topic, some of the complaints were that global warming is something that should be left to more senior governments.
This premise is flawed, because cities are where the economic and social activity is made. They are the drivers. Solutions to global issues must come from cities. It is hence entirely appropriate for a collection of major world cities to exchange ideas about a global problem (if they can do so without jetting to London, that would be better).

Does the C-40 group really qualify as an effective deterrent against climate change? I certainly haven't seen the evidence. I can't actually even think of one concrete policy that it has lead to. Municipal action on climate change is generally justifiable so long as the action falls within the government's general roles and responsibilities. The Tower Renewal Project (which has sort of taken on the role of an Ark, in which I place all of my aspirations for Miller) is a good example of what cities can do. They control zoning, and poor or outdated building practices are a major cause of GHGs, ergo they can and should do something about it.

Municipal governments though have neither the time, experience or ability to take on an international relations component. Creating an attache to an IGO seems ridiculous. That is DFAIT's job, not the Mayors. It is like Quebec sending it's own delegation to UNESCO, it has more to do with political optics at home than actually doing whatever its job is.

 

[urbanfan89]

Does the C-40 group really qualify as an effective deterrent against climate change? I certainly haven't seen the evidence. I can't actually even think of one concrete policy that it has lead to.

It's simple: if all the other major world cities are associating with each other to exchange ideas and expertise, not having Toronto on there puts us at a competitive disadvantage when push comes to shove.

Municipal governments though have neither the time, experience or ability to take on an international relations component. Creating an attache to an IGO seems ridiculous. That is DFAIT's job, not the Mayors. It is like Quebec sending it's own delegation to UNESCO, it has more to do with political optics at home than actually doing whatever its job is.

Cities are the engine of global activity, and therefore cities will have to take their own initiative to network with other cities instead of relying on the federal government to do it for them (if other world cities are taking the initiative, this is doubly important).

 

[Glen]

Now back to the topic, some of the complaints were that global warming is something that should be left to more senior governments.

This premise is flawed, because cities are where the economic and social activity is made. They are the drivers. Solutions to global issues must come from cities. It is hence entirely appropriate for a collection of major world cities to exchange ideas about a global problem (if they can do so without jetting to London, that would be better).

You are really stretching the justifications with that argument. Following the same line of thought, cities should also be responsible for health care because most of the population is urbanized.

Lets hear one thing that participation in this group offers that could not be achieved via Google and email.

 

[Whoaccio]

Lets hear one thing that participation in this group offers that could not be achieved via Google and email.

Easy, photo-ops.

It's simple: if all the other major world cities are associating with each other to exchange ideas and expertise, not having Toronto on there puts us at a competitive disadvantage when push comes to shove.

Push comes to shove on what? We wouldn't be at a competitive disadvantage because insofar as the C-40 does facilitate exchange, it's participants (Mayors) frankly don't know squat about climate change. Watching an Inconvenient Truth or just reading Foreign Policy every now and then would cover most of the issues.

Cities are the engine of global activity, and therefore cities will have to take their own initiative to network with other cities instead of relying on the federal government to do it for them (if other world cities are taking the initiative, this is doubly important).

The point isn't that cities shouldn't help the climate where they can, it is that meaningless groups like C-40 don't help the climate. It isn't taking initiative, it is wasting time. By all means, retrofit public buildings and where possible encourage whatever the City can to help the climate. Having an annual pow-wow in London or New York, as on can imagine, though does nothing for the climate whatsoever.