Another Post about Economics.........

Here is another proof of Bush's economic policies just aren't working. One negative results of his policies is to increase the gap between rich and poor (i.e. the 2001 tax cut).

This is from today's Globe and Mail, and a very similar article appears on the New York Times as well from the Associated Press, and I am using the line from the CPC latest TV ads:

How many years have Bush been in power? Almost 5 years, since 2001. And the last decline of poverty rate? 2000 - five years ago. Is this a coincident? I don't think so.

Here is what puzzles me. The bedrock support of the Bush administration is from the poorer states (especially in the south and in the mid-West), where they suffer the most from Bush's economic policies. The Northeast and the Westcoast are Democrat's heartland, and they are the richer states - where they benefit the most from Bush's policies (generally speaking).

Or is it no longer about the economy anymore? (Quoting from Bill Clinton: "It is the economy, stupid!!")

Again, expect Krugman to give his rant on this issue before the end of this week.
-----------------------
U.S. poverty rate rises for fourth year

Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Updated at 11:29 AM EDT

Washington

Associated Press — The U.S. poverty rate rose to 12.7 per cent of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

The percentage of people without health insurance did not change.

Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

Asians were the only ethnic group to show a decline in poverty — from 11.8 per cent in 2003 to 9.8 per cent last year. The poverty rate among the elderly declined as well, from 10.2 per cent in 2003 to 9.8 per cent last year.

The last decline in overall poverty was in 2000, when 31.1 million people lived under the threshold — 11.3 per cent of the population.

The number of people without health insurance grew from 45 million to 45.8 million. At the same time, the number of people with health insurance coverage grew by 2 million last year.

Charles Nelson, an assistant division chief at the Census Bureau, said the percentage of uninsured remained steady because of an “increase in government coverage, notably Medicaid and the state children's health insurance program, that offset a decline in employment-based coverage.”

The median household income, meanwhile, stood at $44,389 (U.S.), unchanged from 2003. Among racial and ethnic groups blacks had the lowest median income and Asians the highest. Median income refers to the point at which half of households earn more and half earn less.

Regionally, income declined only in the Midwest, down 2.8 per cent to $44,657. The South was the poorest region and the Northeast and the West had the highest median incomes.

The increase in poverty came despite strong economic growth, which helped create 2.2 million jobs last year.

“I guess what happened last year was kind of similar to what happened in the early 1990s where you had a recession that was officially over and then you had several years after that of rising poverty,” Mr. Nelson said. “... These numbers do reflect changes between 2003 and 2004. They don't reflect any improvements in the economy in 2005.”

Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, said the poverty number is still much better than the 80s and early 90s.

“The good news is that poverty is a lot lower than it was in 1993, but we went through a hell of an economic boom,” Mr. Danziger said. “Nobody is predicting we're going to go through another economic boom like that.”

The poverty threshold differs by the size and makeup of a household. For instance, a family of four with two children was considered living in poverty if income was $19,157 or less. For a family of two with no children, it was $12,649. For a person 65 and over living alone, it was 9,060.

The estimates on poverty, uninsured and income are based on supplements to the bureau's Current Population Survey, and are conducted over three months, beginning in February, at about 100,000 households nationwide.

The only city with a million or more residents that exhibited a significant change in poverty level last year was New York City, which saw the rate increase from 19 percent to 20.3 percent.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Waste Busters

This is for all you political hacks (and wonks). Should be a good watch to see how this blog grows in the next little while........

Poor Girl......

Got this from V for Victory.

(....and just added "V for Victory" to my list of Blogs of Friends.)

As Expected, Krugman Made His Rant......

This will be my second "official economic rant" in a row.....and to be honest, I haven't really went public with any of my views until last Friday.

Again, I agree with Krugman's economic analysis for the United States on the 2006 outlook, and where he pointed out the consequences of a housing slowdown (i.e. the burst of the housing bubble) in the United States. (I can't really remember, in recent times, that I found any flaws with Krugman's Economic rants - he is just one smart fellow economist.....or maybe I'm just not "up to the par" yet to see those flaws.........)

However, I don't think it is necessary to "bash" Mr. Greenspan on his record. The man is going to retire in a few months, and Mr. Greenspan did an exceptional job as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve for all these years.

Krugman should focus on how to deal with the potential recession rather than pointing fingers.

The American government has to first deal with the twin deficit - control its spending, and possibly need to reverse the 2001 tax cuts, (i.e. tax hikes for the highest income earners and maybe giving a tax cut to lower income earners.) In addition, the Central Bank may as well should try to slowly devalue the Greenbags to stimulate export. However, doing so may have to decrease interest rates.

Decreasing interest rate may not be something that the Feds want to do at this moment. Of course, it also depends on the elasticity of money demand to the interest rate (i.e. how sensitive the money market is to the adjustment of interest rate.) In fact, the Feds should increase interest rate to moderately cool off the over-heated housing market. Such a move will ease some of the pain when the real estate bubble bursts. Also, with the new oil crisis looming, there could be a need to increase interest rate to fight potential inflation, which leaves the Feds with only one option - to devalue the Greenbag via open market operations.

The last resort for the Americans is to "copy" what they did between 1985-1987 (the Plaza-Louvre Accord), where they "strong-armed" G5 countries to devalue the Greenbags. If this is what the Americans are planning to do, they will have to deal with more countries this time around, not to mention that those key players at this round of talks will have to include China. Personally, I cannot see China give-in too much to those U.S. demands on this issue. The Americans have been calling the Chinese to appreciate the Renminbi (aka Yuen) vs. the U.S. Dollar for the past few years, but nothing too significant has happened so far.

As I mentioned last week, there are very few options that the U.S. government can choose at this moment to deal with this potential recession. These measures will cause some pain in the short run, but those are necessary steps to go through to avoid a large scale recession.

--------------
August 29, 2005

Greenspan and the Bubble
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Most of what Alan Greenspan said at last week's conference in his honor made very good sense. But his words of wisdom come too late. He's like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up.

Regular readers know that I have never forgiven the Federal Reserve chairman for his role in creating today's budget deficit. In 2001 Mr. Greenspan, a stern fiscal taskmaster during the Clinton years, gave decisive support to the Bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts, urging Congress to reduce the federal government's revenue so that it wouldn't pay off its debt too quickly.

Since then, federal debt has soared. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Greenspan has never admitted that he gave Congress bad advice. He has, however, gone back to lecturing us about the evils of deficits.

Now, it seems, he's playing a similar game with regard to the housing bubble.

At the conference, Mr. Greenspan didn't say in plain English that house prices are way out of line. But he never says things in plain English.

What he did say, after emphasizing the recent economic importance of rising house prices, was that "this vast increase in the market value of asset claims is in part the indirect result of investors accepting lower compensation for risk. Such an increase in market value is too often viewed by market participants as structural and permanent." And he warned that "history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low-risk premiums." I believe that translates as "Beware the bursting bubble."

But as recently as last October Mr. Greenspan dismissed talk of a housing bubble: "While local economies may experience significant speculative price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely."

Wait, it gets worse. These days Mr. Greenspan expresses concern about the financial risks created by "the prevalence of interest-only loans and the introduction of more-exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages." But last year he encouraged families to take on those very risks, touting the advantages of adjustable-rate mortgages and declaring that "American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage."

If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he's saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn't, and now it's too late. There are signs that the housing market either has peaked already or soon will. And it will be up to Mr. Greenspan's successor to manage the bubble's aftermath.

How bad will that aftermath be? The U.S. economy is currently suffering from twin imbalances. On one side, domestic spending is swollen by the housing bubble, which has led both to a huge surge in construction and to high consumer spending, as people extract equity from their homes. On the other side, we have a huge trade deficit, which we cover by selling bonds to foreigners. As I like to say, these days Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from China.

One way or another, the economy will eventually eliminate both imbalances. But if the process doesn't go smoothly - if, in particular, the housing bubble bursts before the trade deficit shrinks - we're going to have an economic slowdown, and possibly a recession. In fact, a growing number of economists are using the "R" word for 2006.

And here's where Mr. Greenspan is still saying foolish things. In his closing remarks he suggested that "an end to the housing boom could induce a significant rise in the personal saving rate, a decline in imports and a corresponding improvement in the current account deficit." Translation, I think: the end of the housing bubble will automatically cure the trade deficit, too.

Sorry, but no. A housing slowdown will lead to the loss of many jobs in construction and service industries but won't have much direct effect on the trade deficit. So those jobs won't be replaced by new jobs elsewhere until and unless something else, like a plunge in the value of the dollar, makes U.S. goods more competitive on world markets, leading to higher exports and lower imports.

So there's a rough ride ahead for the U.S. economy. And it's partly Mr. Greenspan's fault.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.

Greenspan Got It Right (again)!!

I have been saying this for quite a while that the only goal for the Bush administration's economic policies (other than focusing on national security) is to bankrupt the United States of America.

Alan Greenspan did not "explicitly" said what I though, but I think he is close enough without bashing Mr. Bush's economic policies.

With interest rates going up, looming of a new oil crisis, and historical twin deficit figures, economic policy makers have very little room to react if a recession occurs. Not to mention that Americans are experiencing one of the lowest saving rate period in their entire economic history.

Economic growth much depends on a nation's saving rate (both public and private savings). In today's America, most people are living on credit. The new definition of wealth is "how much cash flow an individual has" rather than "how much asset an individual owns", and people ignore their liabilities, as long as they can sustain their life-style with enough cash flow. Most Americans nowadays live on pay-cheque by pay-cheque, without much savings in their bank accounts, and do maintain balances on many of their bills (i.e. credit cards, cell phones, etc.).

What could happen if interest rates start to go up (i.e. to 6% or 7%), where high oil prices trigger new waves of inflation while the stock and real estate bubble burst at the same time??

The consequences will be high inflation rate together with high debt servicing cost due to high interest rate, where national income will decrease dramatically with the burst of the real estate and stock bubbles. Many households will go bankrupt, and with higher investment cost, private companies and many potential investors will hold back their investments. Unemployment will begin to soar, where businesses will have to outsource jobs and/or downsize their companies to control costs as revenues decrease. If things go bad enough, the American economy could experience very similar consequences to some Asian countries during the Asian economic flu in the late 1990s, where too many bad debts (caused by too many household bankruptcies) cripple the banking system (however, I still believe that the American banking system is nowhere close to where the Asian banks were, and the current real estate bubble in the United States is no where close to where those Asian countries were at before September 1997.)

With the current record twin deficits, the American government can do very little with such a collapse. High deficit in the current account shows that the World is financing Americans' consumption (and that explains how it is possible that many Americans are living on credit - money they don't have, because they are borrowing foreign capitals). When economic bubbles burst, the Greenbag will drop, and foreign capitals will leave America for other economies that can provide better return of investment (or a better shelter for the recession). In other words, the world will stop financing Americans' "over spending" life-style. Such a phenomenon could lead to a very painful recession, where GDP growth will be lowered with consumption and investment decrease dramatically. In addition, with the retirement of baby-boomers, more individuals will depend on social security and many pension investment funds will no longer become available for the economy as investment capital. With higher demand in Medicare and Medicaid, the government will have their budget tied up with health care spending. Even if the government is willing to issue more bond, foreign investors may hesitate to invest into the government bond. Hence, even the US government may not be able to "spend themselves out of the recession", and a potential recession could be worse than many could predict.

Anything could trigger such a scenario, and one potential issue could be the avian flu.

The avian flu can shut down all international trade within weeks if a pandemic broke out. This could be "the trigger" to burst the stock and real estate bubble in the United States, and could lead to many other problems mentioned above (a ripple effect).

As Keynes wrote that much of the economy is driven by "the animal spirit", current bubbles in the American economy is exactly driven by this force - unpredictable and irrational behaviours.

I am sure that Paul Krugman will make his comment some time next week on this issue. Just keep your eyes open!!

----------------------
Greenspan warns on deficits

By JEANNINE AVERSA

Friday, August 26, 2005 Updated at 2:03 PM EDT
Associated Press

JACKSON, Wyo. — Creeping trade protectionism and bloated budget deficits pose a risk to the United States' long-term economic vitality, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday.

“Developing protectionism regarding trade and our reluctance to place fiscal policy on a more sustainable path are threatening what may well be our most valued policy asset: the increased flexibility of our economy, which has fostered our extraordinary resilience to shocks,” the Fed chief said in a speech to an economic conference.

Maintaining economic flexibility is especially important, Greenspan said, to deal with what he called some of America's current economic imbalances: the swollen current-account trade deficit, which surged to a record $668 billion US last year, and the housing boom.

Mr. Greenspan also expressed concern in his speech about what will occur with the ending of the recent sustained period of low interest rates and low risks for investors.

“History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low-risk premiums,” he said in his remarks.

Rising stocks and home prices have made households feel more wealthy and has helped to support consumer spending, a key ingredient of the economy's good health. But Mr. Greenspan sounded a stronger note of caution that people shouldn't count on that paper wealth, which can evaporate if economic conditions deteriorate rapidly.

“What they perceive as newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear,” he said. “Whether the currently elevated level of wealth-to-income ratio will be sustained in the longer run remains to be seen.”

Low interest rates have powered the booming housing market. Home sales have hit record highs four years in a row and house prices are surging. In previous speeches, Mr. Greenspan has warned of “froth” and “speculative fervour” gripping some local housing markets.

If U.S. home prices were to suddenly fall or if interest rates were to rise rapidly, some local housing markets, homeowners and lenders could get clobbered.

“Greenspan is giving individuals ample warning that they need to take that into account,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics, said in an interview.

He and others believe Mr. Greenspan was strengthening his warning about the booming housing market. But they didn't believe he was signalling a new concern about the development of a national housing price bubble. Instead, they said, he seemed to be stressing his oft-stated worries about bubbles in local markets.

Stock prices and home prices are factors that Fed policy-makers are increasingly needing to consider when setting interest-rate policy.

“Our forecasts and, hence policy, are becoming increasingly driven by asset price changes,” Mr. Greenspan said.

During the high-flying stock market days of the 1990s, the Fed chief famously questioned whether Wall Street investors were engaging in “irrational exuberance.” Despite the warning, stocks continued to soar. In 2000, the stock market bubble began to burst and wiped out trillions of dollars in paper wealth.

Mr. Greenspan said that “fear of change” is behind stalled international trade negotiations and the hesitancy of Congress and the White House to “face up to the difficult choices that will be required to resolve our looming fiscal problems.”

In the past, Mr. Greenspan has urgently called on policy-makers to shore up social security, saying a big wave of baby boomers starting to retire in 2008 will put massive strains on the system and, if not fixed, could imperil the overall economy as well.

On other issues, Mr. Greenspan said the economy thus far seems to be weathering reasonably well the run-up in energy prices over the last two years.

Mr. Greenspan gave his speech at a conference titled The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future.

The Fed chief, who has steered the world's largest economy through both smooth and choppy economic waters for 18 years, plans to step down in just five months.

Mr. Greenspan's appearance at the annual Fed conference, which is attended by other Fed policy-makers, economists, academics and central bank officials from around the world, is expected to be his last as Fed chairman.

Looking back over his tenure, Mr. Greenspan said a key hallmark of his approach to monetary policy-making has been preparing for a wide spectrum of economic outcomes: from the most likely to the most unlikely.

The Fed's worry in the summer of 2003 about the remote threat of deflation — a widespread decline in prices that can severely harm the economy — prompted the Fed to keep cutting short-term interest rates, Greenspan noted.

“Given the potentially severe consequences of deflation, the expected benefits of the unusual policy action were judged to outweigh its expected costs,” he said.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Problem with Blog.....

Apparently, there are problems with my blog, and I don't know why......anybody has any idea?? Seems like my "sidebar" is off, and whenever I tried to post, there is an error message preventing me to post.

No More Britney in Turkmenistan......

Oh, there won't be Ashlee Simpson either.........
---------------------
Lip synching so criminal, it's outlawed

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 Updated at 2:20 PM EDT

Associated Press

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan — He has outlawed opera and ballet and railed against long hair and gold teeth, but now President Saparmurat Niyazov is determined to wipe out another perceived scourge: lip synching.

Mr. Niyazov has ordered a ban on lip synching performances across the tightly controlled Central Asian country, citing “a negative effect on the development of singing and musical art,” the president's office said Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, one can see on television old voiceless singers lip-synching their old songs,” Mr. Niyazov told a cabinet meeting in comments broadcast on state TV on Tuesday. “Don't kill talents by using lip synching ... Create our new culture.”

Under Mr. Niyazov's order, lip synching is now prohibited at all cultural events, concerts, on television and at private celebrations such as weddings.

Mr. Niyazov has led the former Soviet republic for 20 years, creating a vast personality cult around himself and issuing decrees regulating behaviour in all walks of life.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Motor Bike!!

Another friend of mine is going to get a bike.

http://supernaut667.blogspot.com/

Well, when I finally have some money, I definitely will get myself a motor bike. That's something that I'd like to have but never have the money to get one.

A Bigger Economic Pie......

When I was reading into the third paragraph of the following article, the thought of "a bigger economic pie" comes into mind.....and of course, the name of another person pops into my head right away as well. Who?? You bet. That is no other than the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, the Honourable Belinda Stronach.

I wonder if someone can forward her this article.

---------------------
EDC Weekly Commentary

By Stephen S. Poloz
Senior Vice-President
Chief Economist
Export Development Canada

August 17, 2005
Productivity Basics

Economists toss around the notion of productivity as if everyone should know instinctively what they mean. But productivity is complex, and there are many ways to increase it.

In its purest form, productivity is a measure of what we are able to produce from a given set of inputs, essentially labour and capital. For example, if a group of workers can increase output per hour by 10% through better teamwork, then that is increased productivity.

To some people, higher productivity means fewer workers, so productivity becomes a codeword for layoffs. This may be true for a company in distress, where the choice is between boosting productivity or corporate death, but most would agree that it is better to save some jobs than to lose them all. In contrast, for a healthy company, higher productivity means an even more competitive product or service, which translates into increased sales, jobs, profits and wages. In other words, productivity growth translates into high-quality employment growth over time.

How do companies increase their productivity? One obvious way is to develop a totally new product or service, or create a new technology, that leads to a jump in revenue per employee. This form of productivity is generally the result of innovation, through R&D, but the effect would be the same if the breakthrough came via a more inspired marketing program.

A less exotic form of productivity growth happens when companies invest in new equipment, automating more tasks, improving quality so there are fewer defects, and so on. When the economy is expanding this sort of productivity growth happens everywhere, because companies that expand their plants or build new ones generally equip them with the latest technology.

At the more mundane level is the concept of organizational productivity, which is mostly based on the concept of specialisation. As Henry Ford proved with the invention of the assembly line, giving workers increasingly specialised jobs or functions leads to a big increase in productivity.

Today’s assembly line transcends geography. To increase organizational productivity companies are dividing their products and services into low-productivity tasks and high productivity tasks, and then having the low-productivity tasks performed in countries where wages are lower. This means that the better-paid domestic workers specialise on higher-productivity tasks, thereby increasing domestic productivity and reducing costs. This is simply the notion of supply chain globalisation, and the lower costs should ultimately lead to more sales and high-productivity employment growth.

The bottom line? Increased productivity is the key to continued improvement in Canadian living standards, especially given the increasingly stiff international competition we face. Fortunately, the current environment offers fertile ground for productivity enhancements.

The views expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily of Export Development Canada.

What Am I??

Sometimes I wonder if guys and gals like me would be called "blackheads"???

(Ok, not those blackheads in your pores!!)

Anyhow, can somebody tell me if there is a term for "us"??

--------------------
Redheads are better at coping with pain: study

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Thu. Aug. 11 2005 2:12 PM ET

People with ginger locks are head and shoulders above blondes or brunettes when it comes to coping with pain, researchers claim.

Scientists have found that the gene responsible for flame-coloured hair also produces a morphine-type substance that acts like an anaesthetic and reduces pain.

When researchers at the Medical Research Council in London introduced the gene in mice, they found the rodents could withstand more pain than normal.

"Seventy per cent of redheads are redheads because a particular gene doesn't work," Prof. Jeff Mogil of Montreal's McGill University, told CTV News.

"This is a gene that would otherwise give you brown hair. This gene is also relevant to pain and pain killing by certain drugs."

Researchers in Scotland will now launch studies on humans to confirm the theory.

The findings could lead to the development of new drugs to combat chronic pain.

The hair colour gene produces a protein pivotal to feeling pain.

In blondes and brunettes, it produces high levels of the protein, which means they feel pain much more keenly.
The gene that's linked to red hair, melanocortin-1, dates back about 100,000 years.

Ancient Romans considered the colour unlucky but the Egyptians thought redheads were favoured by the gods. Some of the Pharaohs were ginger.

Britain's greatest warrior, Boudicca, was a redhead. One Roman described her as "tall and terrifying... a great mass of red hair fell over her shoulders".

Being tougher than the rest could also explain the strength of famous redheads through the ages.

Napoleon, Cleopatra, Columbus, Vincent Van Gogh, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Florence Nightingale and Winston Churchill were all redheads.

© Copyright 2002-2006 Bell Globemedia Inc.

Answer to: Why "Honourable Larry Campbell"???

All he did was calling Stephen Harper and the Conservatives "barbarians".......

Note to other provincial and municipal politicians: If you wanna get a job at the upper chamber, make sure that you call other opposition parties "barbarians" in the next federal election!!!

----------------

PM names Larry Campbell to Senate

Mayor rewarded for helping federal Liberals when they were at risk of being ousted

Peter O'Neil

Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Paul Martin named Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell to the Senate on Tuesday, rewarding a key political ally who helped the federal Liberals during two crucial moments when the government risked losing power.

Campbell, who called Stephen Harper's Conservatives "barbarians" during the 2004 federal election and earlier this year denounced Harper's plans to topple the Liberal government, said he expects to begin work as a Liberal senator this fall, even though he plans to serve out his term in municipal politics until a new mayor is installed in December.

He vowed to avoid any conflicts of interest in his dual roles and will collect only his $116,000 mayor's salary. The $119,300 Senate salary will kick in once he's left municipal politics for good at the end of the year.

Campbell, 57, said he first discussed the appointment with Martin in mid-July. But he acknowledged that he heard rumours of a possible Senate post earlier this year, around the time he said only a "fool" would force an election and kill federal legislation to funnel gas tax revenues to Canadian municipalities.

He said Tuesday he wasn't "singing for his supper" when he denounced Harper while sharing a stage with Martin in mid-April as the federal government announced $636 million for B.C. cities and towns over five years.

"Absolutely not. I was singing for the municipalities of Canada's and the people of Canada's supper," said Campbell, the former Vancouver chief coroner who was the model and occasional script writer for the television series Da Vinci's Inquest.

Campbell, who was born in Brantford, Ont. and moved to the West Coast in 1969, fills the seat vacated last year when Ed Lawson reached the mandatory retirement age for senators of 75.

The other B.C. senators in the 105-seat upper chamber are Liberals Jack Austin, Ross Fitzpatrick, and Mobina Jaffer, and Conservatives Pat Carney and Gerry St. Germain.

Campbell, who said he has never been a member of a federal or provincial party, said he'll become a Liberal member and continue to champion at the federal level issues he considers important, such as the need to legalize marijuana possession and adequately fund cities.

Other Liberals considered for the vacancy were labour activist Dave Haggard and native leader Miles Richardson, who both ran unsuccessfully under Martin in the 2004 election, and former provincial Liberal leader Gordon Gibson.

Sophia Leung, who gave up her Vancouver Kingsway seat to make way for Industry Minister David Emerson last year, was also considered a leading contender at one point.

Elected as mayor in 2002 as part of the centre-left Coalition of Progressive Electors, Campbell is being touted by some Liberal insiders as a new member of the so-called "dream team" because of his popularity and expertise on big-city issues.

But opposition parties gave the appointment a thumbs-down.

"He's certainly a person of much quality, but that doesn't change the fact that the Senate is fundamentally undemocratic," said New Democratic Party MP Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster,) whose party wants the unelected upper chamber abolished.

Conservative MP James Moore said Campbell's appointment makes sense given that the mayor has been a "mouthpiece" for Martin in recent years.

"I suspect this has been planned for a long time because he's spent more time doing photo ops for the prime minister, and bashing Conservatives who have been standing up for British Columbia for a decade, than he has been actually doing any good business for the City of Vancouver," said Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.)

Campbell, told of Moore's comment, repeated his 2004 election declaration that the Conservatives were "barbarians at the gates," in part because Harper didn't believe in funnelling federal tax dollars directly to municipalities.

"Well, they can expect a lot more of it, because now that I'll be right there I can take a real close look at them, because they are still the barbarians and they're still at the gate."

poneil@hotmail.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Senator Larry Campbell???????

My first reaction about this news today from the PMO was "WHAT THE FUCK???"

Larry Campbell has been one of the most incompetent mayors we have ever had in Vancouver. He did absolutely nothing for the City during his term.

He ran on the COPE slate in 2002 (the socialist party in Vancouver municipal politics), and ran on a platform against the 2010 Olympics, against growth and development in the City, and against a better transportation system to connect Vancouver and its suburbs.

Campbell eventually broke a bunch of promises that he made during the campaign, and that pisses off many COPE activists. He decided not to run for a second term partly because he has no political allies in the City, given that he pissed off COPE, not welcomed by the NPA, and has no connections to fund another campaign even if he wants to run again.

Larry Campbell was unclear with his policies on drug, prostitution, and homelessness in Downtown Eastside, and the situation did not improve at all after he promised that he will deal with these problems three years ago.

He did nothing when some crazy councilors propose new traffic plans on the Burrard Street Bridge (shutting down 4 out of 6 lanes for cyclists and HOV on one of the busiest bridges connecting Kitsilano and Downtown Vancouver).

Larry Campbell made stupid snap decisions on Translink new buses (ignoring the cost/benefit recommendations from the City and went with buses running on propane instead of diesel fuel.)

He has been silent on many issues in the past 3 years. He has been "an absentee landlord"!! (.......and I am quoting Al Pacino, "the Devil", in Devil's Advocate.)

Now, I wonder what did Larry Campbell do to deserve this appointment.........