Back to the Basics - Harpernomics™ For Socialists

People often ask me, "what's an economist like you doing as Prime Minister? Surely Parliament is all about lawmaking and leaders should be lawyers". Well, I reply, it's probably time Canadians had a dose of "the dismal science."

"The trouble with lawyers," my Rt. Hon. buddy from Baie Comeau told me the other day, "is that all they know how to do is bill clients. They don't know sweet God-@#&%*@! about economics. I know, and I'm a lawyer."

So that's why I've undertaken this project, Back to the Basics - Harpernomics™ For Socialists, to help socialistically inclined Canadians get a better understanding of how things work in the real world. I'm also trying it out on the Cabinet, starting with Jim Prentice. Here, catch...

By the way, do you know why we did $60 billion in tax cuts today? to win the coming election? to feel good? to help hard working Canadians? to aggressively enforce our scary right-wing, US-style agenda? Nope. The real reason was to ramp down the growth of the civil service. In the last days of his reign, debt-fighter Paulie lost it. He wanted everybody to love him and be happy and get civil service jobs. This is the whole essence of Puffinomics™,

But life's not like that, and too many functionaries act as a drag on the country. The only way bureaucratic growth can be controlled is to turn down the tap gradually and let 'em scream. Look for increasing levels of screaming over the next little while. Especially from those CUPE and PIPS people.

I'll be doing a class a week starting later this week. So stay tuned, and I'll be lobbing essay assignments at you regularly.