I'm not especially distressed to see that Sun News Network is going off the air.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm far from happy about it. It's a shame, really. It's very unfortunate for a lot of people, no less for the Canadian viewing public than for anyone else.
In attempting to enter the television news market, Sun News was attempting to wade into a hostile market. Their competitors showed their hostility time and time again by attempting to deny them access, and by jealously guarding all the benefits that were helping them sustain their own operations.
There are numerous reasons for this. Some are doubtlessly political, others were financial. But they don't matter.
Television news is a fading, perhaps even dying, model. Not a year goes by without these networks laying off hundreds of employees. The big difference is that these networks enjoyed years of preferential market access that stabilized their operations enough for them to survive these annual shocks, and Sun didn't.
Too bad there's no other broadcast model other than TV.
Oh, wait. There is.
The number of means for people to fund the independent media of their choosing are numerous, and constantly growing. It's dawned on me that Sun News wasted a great deal of time and resources trying to barge its way into the traditional media market, when new media is growing unabated.
Between YouTube ad revenue and services such as Patreon -- which allow interested media consumers to directly support the media they wish to see on a monthly basis, sometimes in exchange for perks -- a Canadian conservative online news network is within our grasp, far more easily than you may realize.
This is something we can do. All we require is the will to do it.
Sun News Network shutting down may be sad, but it's not a defeat. It's merely a setback. It's not game-ending, no matter how the far-left may desire it to be.
This is an opportunity. Can we find it in ourselves to grasp it, or will we let it slip away? That's in our hands to decide.
Showing posts with label Sun News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sun News. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2015
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Michael Bolen Lowers the Bar on Raising the Debt Ceiling
Apparently, Huffington Post Canada news editor Michael Bolen wants a piece of Anthony Furey. And he got it.
But in Bolen's appearance on Byline, Furey really was far too gentle with Bolen than his drivel warrants.
Essentially, Bolen's column shakes out as such: Canada should not have a debt ceiling because it would prevent Canada from taking on more debt. Government debt, Bolen maintains, is a good thing, and because governments can print and issue their own money, as well as inflate and deflate currency at will -- which is actually untrue -- it's OK.
Bolen writes:
"Governments are not like families or businesses. Families and businesses can't print currency and are not tasked with managing the money supply for the purpose of encouraging economic growth and curbing inflation. Deficit spending is an essential tool used by every reasonable government on Earth and growth is the best way to reduce debt. Not cuts."
This paragraph couldn't possibly be any more fiscally- or economically-illiterate.
First off, in Canada and the United States, governments do not print money or manage the money supply. Central banks do that, and they are arms-length institutions. Central banks print currency, set the interest rate, and while their governors may be appointed by the government, they operate as separate institutions.
Secondly, Bolen draws a link between economic growth and deficit spending that is spurious at best. It's true that properly-managed stimulus spending can help a government mitigate the effects of an economic downturn. The extent to which it can do that, and the extent to which it has, are very much subject to debate. But even upon accepting this to be true, in the case of the United States we aren't talking about periodic deficit spending during a recession; we're talking about continuous and uninterrupted deficit spending over the span of decades.
Unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, American Presidents -- Democrat and Republican alike -- have failed to balance their deficits against economic growth and shrink them as a percentage of GDP. When it comes to these failures, Obama has led the pack on a previously-unthinkable scale. Which is basically what this entire issue is about.
And perhaps Europe has been experiencing a rough ride under austerity. This is to be expected. But it wasn't austerity that was a disaster in places like Greece: it was unrestrained socialism.
Bolen is certainly right about one thing: the debt ceiling hasn't worked in the United States, for two reasons:
First, the American congress made a grievous error by setting the debt ceiling as a dollar figure, as opposed to a percentage of GDP. Should they have had the wisdom to set a limit on that -- say, limiting debt to 50% of GDP -- congress would have had to handle the deficit long before the debt reached 100% of GDP, as it did this past year.
Second, the current US congress has found itself working under the administration of a President who seems to have very little interest in governing and a great deal of interest in casting blame. It doesn't help that the Republican establishment seems very terrified of taking the blame for anything, even forcing the President to finally negotiate with his congress and actually passing a budget.
Other than that, Michael Bolen's column never manages to raise above the level of empty, economically-illiterate demagoguery.
But in Bolen's appearance on Byline, Furey really was far too gentle with Bolen than his drivel warrants.
Essentially, Bolen's column shakes out as such: Canada should not have a debt ceiling because it would prevent Canada from taking on more debt. Government debt, Bolen maintains, is a good thing, and because governments can print and issue their own money, as well as inflate and deflate currency at will -- which is actually untrue -- it's OK.
Bolen writes:
"Governments are not like families or businesses. Families and businesses can't print currency and are not tasked with managing the money supply for the purpose of encouraging economic growth and curbing inflation. Deficit spending is an essential tool used by every reasonable government on Earth and growth is the best way to reduce debt. Not cuts."
This paragraph couldn't possibly be any more fiscally- or economically-illiterate.
First off, in Canada and the United States, governments do not print money or manage the money supply. Central banks do that, and they are arms-length institutions. Central banks print currency, set the interest rate, and while their governors may be appointed by the government, they operate as separate institutions.
Secondly, Bolen draws a link between economic growth and deficit spending that is spurious at best. It's true that properly-managed stimulus spending can help a government mitigate the effects of an economic downturn. The extent to which it can do that, and the extent to which it has, are very much subject to debate. But even upon accepting this to be true, in the case of the United States we aren't talking about periodic deficit spending during a recession; we're talking about continuous and uninterrupted deficit spending over the span of decades.
Unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, American Presidents -- Democrat and Republican alike -- have failed to balance their deficits against economic growth and shrink them as a percentage of GDP. When it comes to these failures, Obama has led the pack on a previously-unthinkable scale. Which is basically what this entire issue is about.
And perhaps Europe has been experiencing a rough ride under austerity. This is to be expected. But it wasn't austerity that was a disaster in places like Greece: it was unrestrained socialism.
Bolen is certainly right about one thing: the debt ceiling hasn't worked in the United States, for two reasons:
First, the American congress made a grievous error by setting the debt ceiling as a dollar figure, as opposed to a percentage of GDP. Should they have had the wisdom to set a limit on that -- say, limiting debt to 50% of GDP -- congress would have had to handle the deficit long before the debt reached 100% of GDP, as it did this past year.
Second, the current US congress has found itself working under the administration of a President who seems to have very little interest in governing and a great deal of interest in casting blame. It doesn't help that the Republican establishment seems very terrified of taking the blame for anything, even forcing the President to finally negotiate with his congress and actually passing a budget.
Other than that, Michael Bolen's column never manages to raise above the level of empty, economically-illiterate demagoguery.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
He Talks Loser Talk
John talks loser talk/
he takes a defeat and whines about it
Apparently, the Globe and Mail hasn't tired of John Doyle. At this point they must be almost the only ones. Over the past month his work has become more politicized, more sanctimonious, and more contemptuous of basic little things like... facts.
In his most recent work, Doyle takes it upon himself to whine about the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruling on the namby-pamby complaints filed -- at Gillis direct request -- by people who were outraged that Sun News personality Krista Erickson wasn't deferential enough to "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis.
But even in the wake of acknowledging that the CBSC has no business punishing broadcasters if their on-air personalities are "obnoxious" (the CBC, with Marg Delahunty, wouldn't stand a chance), Doyle is still playing pretend.
He's still pretending that Gillis wasn't obnoxious, despite the fact that she was the one speaking over Erickson at will.
Not that Doyle seems to think that Canadian TV is any better for the alleged freedom to be obnoxious.
"Those who felt they could gain justice for Margie Gillis were naive. The obnoxious have triumphed on TV here," Doyle complains. "If being obnoxious was a disqualification, then Don Cherry and Kevin O’Leary would have disappeared from the airwaves many years ago. They didn’t. They prevailed."
It's laughable to think that Gillis should be able to go on any TV show of any kind, speak over the host at will -- as she did, regardless of the will on Doyle's part, and on the part of Gillis' disciples to simply ignore this -- and then later demand justice. Which is precisely what happened.
The 6,000+ complaints that were directed the CBSC's way over the Gillis interview weren't, by any means, spontaneous. They were, each and every one of them, organized and orchestrated by Gillis herself through her Facebook page. They were astroturf, nothing more, and nothing less.
At the end of the day, Doyle is so stunned by this setback for his personal crusade against Sun News that all he can manage is to regress: he regresses back to his argument that the Sun News audience is tiny, when in fact they are setting ratings records.
More people watch Sun News than read John Doyle's column. But that, along with the simple fact of who was speaking over who, is a fact that's simply too inconvenient for Doyle, so he ignores it.
It's just what he does.
he takes a defeat and whines about it
Apparently, the Globe and Mail hasn't tired of John Doyle. At this point they must be almost the only ones. Over the past month his work has become more politicized, more sanctimonious, and more contemptuous of basic little things like... facts.
In his most recent work, Doyle takes it upon himself to whine about the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruling on the namby-pamby complaints filed -- at Gillis direct request -- by people who were outraged that Sun News personality Krista Erickson wasn't deferential enough to "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis.
But even in the wake of acknowledging that the CBSC has no business punishing broadcasters if their on-air personalities are "obnoxious" (the CBC, with Marg Delahunty, wouldn't stand a chance), Doyle is still playing pretend.
He's still pretending that Gillis wasn't obnoxious, despite the fact that she was the one speaking over Erickson at will.
Not that Doyle seems to think that Canadian TV is any better for the alleged freedom to be obnoxious.
"Those who felt they could gain justice for Margie Gillis were naive. The obnoxious have triumphed on TV here," Doyle complains. "If being obnoxious was a disqualification, then Don Cherry and Kevin O’Leary would have disappeared from the airwaves many years ago. They didn’t. They prevailed."
It's laughable to think that Gillis should be able to go on any TV show of any kind, speak over the host at will -- as she did, regardless of the will on Doyle's part, and on the part of Gillis' disciples to simply ignore this -- and then later demand justice. Which is precisely what happened.
The 6,000+ complaints that were directed the CBSC's way over the Gillis interview weren't, by any means, spontaneous. They were, each and every one of them, organized and orchestrated by Gillis herself through her Facebook page. They were astroturf, nothing more, and nothing less.
At the end of the day, Doyle is so stunned by this setback for his personal crusade against Sun News that all he can manage is to regress: he regresses back to his argument that the Sun News audience is tiny, when in fact they are setting ratings records.
More people watch Sun News than read John Doyle's column. But that, along with the simple fact of who was speaking over who, is a fact that's simply too inconvenient for Doyle, so he ignores it.
It's just what he does.
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