Monday, April 29, 2013

TeeVee Debate Preview....How To Watch For Ms. Clark's 'Real' Pattern(s) Of Behaviour.

WhenInDoubt
ProjectVille

During last Friday's radio debate Ms. Clark and her handlers clearly wanted to try and establish, in the minds of low information voters at least, that Adrian Dix engages in a pattern of behaviour wherein he hides things from the public.

As a result, she ultimately chose to focus on the since since thoroughly debunked matter of Mr. Dix having made his decision on the Kinder Morgan switcheroo back in January.

In addition, for the last month or so, there has been a constant flinging of the propaganda from Ms. Clark and friends that Mr. Dix and the Dippers are hiding things in their platform, especially financial things.

Which us brings us to Ms. Clark's own financial 'things'.

And no, I'm not even talking about her serial obfuscations regarding how everyone should just shut the heck up and look up how Moody's 'approved' her faux budget.

Instead, I'm talking about the asset sales that that are supposed to fix everything by raising hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two years.

Now.

Let's just ignore, for the moment, how unlikely it is that even a billion dollars in public asset liquidation will fix things for a regime documented debt growth in the last two years was actually eleven billion dollars.

Instead, let's just focus on the assets to be sold so that we can decide, for ourselves (i.e. before we cast our vote as fully informed citizens) if they are worth, say, anywhere near even $500 million.

Hang on a second while I head over to gov.bc.ca to find a complete list of those assets....


..........searching....

..............still searching....

.......................maybe if I look behind this digital curtain....

.................................Gosh!....Maybe Mike de Jong has them hidden under his couch cushions....

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Hmmmmm..

Can't seem to find 'em.

Maybe there's something in the public prints?

Shall we have a look at this article, from James Keller of the Canadian Press, published earlier today?

...James Brander, an economist with the University of British Columbia, said there is some merit to the NDP’s criticisms (of the asset sales). He said it’s generally considered bad policy to sell assets to fund government operations.

“Should asset sales be used to finance the operation of government?” said Brander, who teaches at the university’s Sauder School of Business.

“Most economists, including me, would say that’s not a good idea. An asset can be only be sold once, and if we’re selling assets to fund operating expenditures, expenses that we’re going to have every year, that’s a big mistake.”

The Liberals have argued the asset sale plan is a one-time measure to keep the budget balanced until the economy improves. Brander said that’s a valid argument, but only if the Liberals can really balance the budget in two years once the asset sales stop.


“It’s not a crazy argument — if it’s true,” he said. “The question is: Do you believe it? It’s really an issue of credibility.”

As for the value of the assets, it’s difficult to assess the accuracy of the Liberals’ numbers, because they have not released a full list of the assets they might unload...



So.

Once again, Ms. Clark demonstrates that her real pattern of behaviour to just 'say anything' while doing exactly the opposite.

Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that she has a penchant for projecting her own behaviour upon others whenever and wherever possible - which is what I'll be watching for this evening.

(well, that and how Ms. Clark will respond this time if her indefensible killing of the Therapeutics Initiative is raised again as it was by Bill Good on Friday - which I reckon just might be the case given Mr. Dix's presser this morning)

OK?


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Speaking of patterns of behaviour and all that...I agree with Ian Reid that one of the really disturbing things about Ms. Clark's latenight/early morning driving choices was the way she couldn't keep herself from taking the bait and grandstanding when challenged, regardless where the challenge was coming from or what the potential consequences might be of taking said bait (and I'm not just talking about the potential 'traffic' consequences here)....Interestingly, that type of rising to the bait of a challenge and grandstanding also occurred, repeatedly, during Ms. Clark's 'pre-Drex' appearance with the shock jocks at CFOX last fall wherein she joked that:  1) Jeff O'Neill might have a gun pointed at his head; 2) she liked to drive around and listen to Mr. Skin and thus would be receptive to receiving to 'lifetime password' for ease of access to all of his adventures; and 3) she didn't call for a sitting of the legislature last fall because she got tired of seeing her fellow caucus members in the nude...So...Should we be asking ourselves if this pattern of impulsive adolescent one-upmanship, which based on recent events appears to be both a pattern and entirely self-focussed, also occurs at the caucus, cabinet or national first ministers' tables?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I often find myself not commenting because you've just said what I was thinking..and a bit more.

Met one of your lacrosse buddies recently - good guy, hope he has a good four years. :-)

Merv

RossK said...

Merv--

Oh boy.

Now you've got me pegged.

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