Notes on the loss of conservative values, anticipating the reckoning with reality to come...

Irresponsible Spending and Not Reigning in the HRC Voted Most Unconservative | ThePolitic.com
Blog readers vote on the top three unconservative things done by Canada's Conservative Party government:

*Massive increases in government spending and a return to deficit spending 27% (432 votes)
*Allowing the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal to continue unhindered 22% (341 votes)
*Giving billion dollar bailout packages to poorly run companies 21% (323 votes)

This last was a theme picked up in David Warren's latest offering:

Government bailouts are unlimited, more or less by definition. For were a government to say, "You may have $13.5 billion, but after you've blown that in, you're on your own," it might as well say, "You may have zero." Once the principle of fiscal accountability is abandoned, it is abandoned.
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Yet oddly enough, the Conservative party may not even learn from the experience. This is because basically conservative people are so utterly disenfranchised, not only among the political classes but in the courts, the schools, the bureaucracies, and the media, as to be invisible. Twelve thousand of us could assemble on the lawn of Parliament to make a point about, say, unrestricted abortion, and it would be hardly even reported. It follows that a Conservative government could go down, and not even know what hit it.

Very few Canadians make as much as GM and Chrysler workers, or have pension plans as generous. Many of us don't have pension plans at all, beyond the chump change offered by our Nanny State. The autoworkers' plan is around $2 billion in the hole. It goes without saying that at least $2 billion of the bailout will go, directly or indirectly, to rescuing it.

That the government must deny this use of our money also goes without saying. But the plan will be rescued; and the person who thinks it will happen by a spontaneous miracle is naïve.

One of the proofs that Canadians are indeed rather stupid, is that we will stand for this sort of thing: that people who themselves face penury in old age, will agree to have their pockets picked to cover $70-an-hour auto-workers. And then actually vote at the next election for the politicians who robbed them. (For not all Canadians are basically conservative.)

Alas, until some conservatives take over the Conservative party, Canadians will be in no position to prove me wrong.

Meanwhile, on a related note, from China... Market Ticker comments:

Funny how Bloomberg, who ran this originally, edited the headline and removed it. Did someone in The Administration or Treasury call Bloomberg and complain?

Telegraph: In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner told politicians and academics in Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis. Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said: "Chinese assets are very safe." The comment provoked loud laughter from the audience of students.