Even as I write this post (Thursday afternoon) about a couple of different examples of the failures of corporate welfare and crony capitalism that came across my desk, Sun News Network is broadcasting a report about… the failures of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.
It seems we need a team approach to keeping up with all the idiocy from progressives.
For Sun News it’s about Blackberry — that great Canadian success (?) story, which has become, err, overripe.
But not before the socialist Nova Scotia government had texted $10 MILLION of taxpayer cash to them in early February of this year, on the proviso Blackberry promise to keep 400 jobs there.
How good was that bet? Today the rotting Blackberry is rumored to be poised to slash 40% of its berries workforce.
I’d love to play high-stakes poker with the genius progressive “investors” in the Nova Scotia government.
But hey Joel, how did Blackberry wind up in Nova Scotia anyway?! Well that’s easy, reader! More o’ that corporate welfare and crony capitalism, of course! Here’s a quote from a CTV article about that:
…The company was lured to Nova Scotia in November 2005 by millions of dollars in payroll rebates and grants. At the time, the province offered $19 million in subsidies, including $14 million in payroll rebates and $5 million for training and recruitment. …
Turns out they only got $8 MILLION of taxpayer’s cash that time, since they only created 540 jobs instead of the 1240 jobs they’d all estimated, in their prescient wisdom, would be created. And now how much have they gotten in total? Who knows. Anyway, it’s only your money. Or as the genius Hillary Clinton says, “What difference, at this point, does it make?!”
The only good part of that CTV story and my quoting of that article is that it wasn’t from the state-owned, taxpayer-funded, socialism-reliant CBC, because then something would be sure to explode on account of all the socialism. Oh darn the luck, here’s the CBC’s version. Hey I wonder if it’s being reported in the North Korean state media too!
But this blog post was started as a rant about an article I read yesterday, wherein BC’s Liberal Party finance minister Mike de Jong was lamenting over his notion that Hollywood is “playing” Canada — province against province — for tax breaks, etc.
Gee, ya think?
In the article I read about that, he’s on about all the ridiculous tax credits and breaks and write-offs and sundry other fascistic corporate welfare and cronyism taking place in Canada, in this case just to buy more movie business (with taxpayers’ money). Well actually, alas, “ridiculous” and “fascistic corporate welfare and cronyism” are my words alone. Not his. And this is unfortunate.
As he says here in this article, he’s totally cool with the concept of corporate cronyism and corporate welfare as a general matter. Check the last paragraph (my bolding).
BC’s Finance Minister says Canada’s being “played” by Hollywood
Vancouver, BC, Canada / (CKNW AM) AM980
Marcella Bernardo
September 18, 2013 08:09 pmSaying he still believes Canada is being ‘played’ by Hollywood, BC’s Finance Minister says he’s not ready to keep giving film producers big tax breaks in order to compete with better offers from other provinces.
Mike de Jong was speaking at a cabinet panel on jobs and the economy at this week’s Union of BC Municipalities Convention in Vancouver.
“I think we’re being played in Canada. Candidly, we’re being played one province against another, and the time has come to get smart, sit down as provinces and say, here’s what we agree to do in Canada.”
De Jong says it’s great to have huge stars like George Clooney making movies in BC, but he doesn’t think the film industry deserves more subsidies than other industries providing good-paying jobs.
So he’s A-OK with (what I alone call) crony capitalism and the corporate welfare — he just wants to level the playing field?
As they say in Hollywood, or even in that very-expensive-to-taxpayers Hollywood North, “That’s a wrap, de Jong.” Or as they say at the CBC, “more cash please!”
The epitome of being “played” (aside from Obama being played by the Russians and Putin and Assad on Syria; oh and how we’re being played by our liberal-left agenda-ridden news media), is the example of GM and Chrysler and their unions, when they played Obama and his administration, and Harper and McGuinty, and all the taxpayers of the U.S. and Canada, and you bailed them out… just before you tried to bail your own selves out without any help.
I was impressed that Ford never got any of that state bailout money — in fact I was impressed enough that my wife and I made a point of buying a Ford Escape to replace a car whose time was up at that time. (First of all, we made sure it was not made by the militantly anti-conservative, and possibly Marxist CAW union — which it wasn’t).
But now the state — in fact two levels of government: the Ontario government and the federal government, is being played again. And whadoyaknow, it’s Ford this time! Have you driven a government lately? Ford has!
I’m now thinking of going Galt.
Feds, Ontario give $142.5M to Ford Motor Company
11:22 am,September 19th, 2013
ANTONELLA ARTUSO | QMI AGENCYOAKVILLE, ON – The federal and Ontario governments are pumping up to $142.5 million into the Ford Motor Company to upgrade its Oakville assembly plant.
The investment comes just days after RBC warned the province could be losing ground to the southern US and Mexico in auto manufacturing.
The Ontario government has offered a grant of up to $70.9 million, while the federal government has committed $71.6 million.
The project, which will update the plant’s manufacturing facility, comes with a total sticker price of about $700 million and will “secure” more than 2,800 jobs, the provincial government said.
Calling CAA is a waste of time on this matter. Maybe the CTF? Or does the tea party 
movement have a service? Sign me up of they do.
What a crock. From the far-left Liberals of Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne I understand this kind of crony capitalism and corporate welfare and liberal fascism; but I still get choked when it’s from the so-called Conservatives we elected in Ottawa just to end this kind of progressive crap. Sadly I’ve become accustomed to this kid of insanity even from them.
All of this is all about political progressives.
I’m a conservative: I would take all the tax breaks, subsidies, grants, and any other government corporate welfare, and run them over with my SUV. I would stop crashing the free market. And stop engineering a false economy and fake business climate. Government has no business being in business — or being in the business of betting our taxpayer cash on winners and losers.
We the taxpayers are the ones being played. As total suckers.
UPDATE:
Just now, Obama is making a campaign speech (yeah, I know he’s not running, but that’s what he’s best at), at none other than the FORD plant in Missouri, at exactly the place where our Escape was built, and he actually mentioned that he bought an Escape. I will now have to sell our Escape, for it is tainted.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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