dimanche 28 février 2010

La citation du jour (2)

Le gaspillage de ressources pour combattre symboliquement l’évolution d’un climat qui a toujours été en mouvement n’est pas une marque de prudence. La notion que le climat de la Terre ait atteint son niveau de perfection vers le milieu du vingtième siècle n’est pas davantage un signe d’intelligence.

Richard S. Lindzen, professeur de sciences atmosphériques au Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

La citation du jour

With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth-century American political philosopher, I see history centrally as a race and conflict between ’social power’ — the productive consequence of voluntary interactions among men — and state power.

-Murray N Rothbard

samedi 27 février 2010

La citation du jour

And the single largest expense in everyone’s life is the government.

At least that’s true for productive people. In my own case, it costs me far more to support the U.S. government – which does absolutely no good for me whatsoever – than all the rest of my living expenses combined.

-Doug Casey

mercredi 24 février 2010

Bloomberg sur le problème des conditions de travail des employés gouvernementaux

Les médias 'mainstream' commencent à parler de ce problème, qui va probablement causer la banqueroute de l'Occident.

Mike Shedlock en parle depuis 2 ans environ!


Banker Bonus Anger Is Shifting to Government Workers: Joe Mysak

Commentary by Joe Mysak

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Move over, investment bankers. The next victims of populist backlash are going to be state- and local-government workers.

As usual, it’s all about the numbers, except this time we’re not talking about dollars in a bonus check. No, this time it’s about numbers of jobs.

Businesses have fired 8.5 million people, or 7.4 percent of those on the payroll when employment peaked in December 2007. Local governments kept hiring through September 2008, and since then have fired 141,000 workers, less than 1 percent of the 14.6 million they had at the top, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In good times, few people focus on how government payroll expands, or how elected politicians raise salaries and enhance pensions and benefits. Americans like government services, and their public officials are happy to comply with their wishes.

Now the good times are over, at least for a while, and Americans find themselves with local-government payrolls that in many cases remain at record levels. They also now see unions refusing to reduce headcount, and are forced to wonder what planet the union bosses are on.

The unions seem to be as tone-deaf as the ranks of investment bankers were in late 2008. Even after $1 trillion in writedowns and losses and $700 billion in bailouts, bankers still collected $18.4 billion in bonuses that year. What’s more, they defended the life-altering windfalls their industry had doled out for almost a decade.

Last Resort

Exhibit One is Los Angeles, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked the City Council to fire 1,000 of its 35,000- plus workers.

The council and labor unions balked, and on Feb. 17 Moody’s Investors Service revised its outlook on the city’s bonds to negative. The rating company said the plan to eliminate those jobs could generate $65 million in savings.

“Predictably, this proposal has met with opposition,” Moody’s said. “It is, unfortunately, one of the plan’s few immediate, tangible cost-saving elements, and delaying its implementation will, while preserving jobs, potentially weaken the city’s long-term credit quality.”

It is rare for rating companies to comment on such things as proposed layoffs. With this salvo, Moody’s said: It’s time to resort to the ax.

As the national numbers show, politicians have been talking about firing employees for years.

They haven’t done it.

Pay Up

L.A.’s city council later voted to approve the 1,000 cuts, and said it would seek to fire 3,000 more. Now we’ll see what the unions have to say.

I’m not betting that sweet reason will prevail. By refusing to reduce headcount, labor unions are telling the taxpayers that their local government is already at its most efficient, optimal level, something we all know isn’t true. They are also ordering everyone to pay up, in the form of higher taxes and fees.

There’s a lot of headline risk to this strategy because it focuses on an area that few people paid attention to in the past. Almost every day, California newspapers and blogs carry stories about cities contemplating bankruptcy because of labor and pension costs. They also write about members of the $100,000 Club, those government workers who have been able to retire with six-figure pensions, often while they are still in their 50s.

National Story

Rising labor costs and unfunded pension and benefits liabilities aren’t confined to California state and local government. This is a national issue, one that hasn’t been covered very well and hasn’t received a lot of attention.

Unlike the outrage provoked by Wall Street’s bonus babies, there’s no element of class warfare here. The hard-working men and women whose jobs, retirement savings and benefits have been whittled away in the recession won’t be too sympathetic to the men and women who have eight-hour days, overtime pay, guaranteed pensions and full health plans.

And unlike the bonus imbroglio, which relies upon understanding how banks leveraged big bets, it’s easy to see how government employees built their own entitled little world. What’s a little harder to comprehend is how we all let it happen.

La citation du jour (2)

''Between 1980 and the late 1990s the average US house price-to-income ratio was 3. By 2006, when the market crashed, it had reached 4.6 – termed seriously unaffordable.

Today the ratio in Canada is 5.2. Toronto, 5.7. Vancouver, 9.3.''

-Garth Turner

Le coût de la liberté?

Via le blogue de Lew Rockwell:

Some Might Call It, “The Cost of Freedom” but …

…I call it The Cost of Empire. Either way, it’s darned expensive.

La citation du jour

''The demilitarization of Europe is impeding the achievement of lasting peace in the twenty-first century.''
-Robert Gates, Secrétaire de la Défense de Barack Obama

Le Chili et la réforme des 'entitlements' aux US

Via Tyler Durden de Zerohedge.com:

The $100 Trillion Problem: Can America Learn From Chile Before It's Too Late?

Tyler Durden's picture




Jose Pinera provides an Entitlement State 101 lecture, in which Chile's former Labor and Social Security Minister demystifies the U.S.'s $100 trillion unfunded benefits problem. Since Pinera is the man who many years ago privatized Chile's entitlement system, America, and the entire Western system, which for the past century has been relying on unfunded liabilities to provide benefits to the population in the hopes that funding day will never come, may do well to listen to what he has to say. His message: the American way of life, more so than anything else, in which reckless spending, living on credit and not saving for the future, is precisely why the US will be bankrupt very soon. Chile swallowed the bitter pill 30 years ago and after a lot of pain, managed to get out of the hole. Will enabler state #1, America, fail where this allegedly "backward" South American country succeeded?

Some insight from Pinera:

"$100 trillion is the present value of what Americans will have one way or another to pay, unless they default on their obligation to their citizens. And that is the future, and I am extremely worried because you are like passengers in the Titanic. You see the Titanic is going toward the iceberg of aging populations but populations the feel entitled to all these huge benefits that the politicans have promised the people, but they have not funded the benefits for the future. So how are you going to pay them? That is the big issue, the big domestic problem facing America."

And this:

The problem is the entitlement state. The problem is that there is a gigantic disconnect between what the people want the government to pay them in the future, in health, pension, and what the people want to pay in tax. And because the entitlement state is based on promises for the future, you don't have to pay it today, this is growing, because to win elections politicians offer benefits to people that would be paid to people in the future. So this big hole is not only a problem in America, it's exactly the same problem in Greece today, in Southern Europen, in France, in Germany. The west will go bankrupt unless you reform deeply the entitlement state. You are all prisoners of the Bismark unfunded entitlement system...With the aging of population, the extended life, you have been accumulating these huge liabilities that eventually will bankrupt the government. A huge fiscal crisis is coming to the west unless you face it and confront it directly...You either will have to raise taxes big time in America, or you will have to cut benefits. But it is extremely difficult to do that, in a system in which you have people entitled to all this things.

America's failed fiscal policy, its corrupt government, its kleptocratic financiers, its unsustainable deficits have all become the butt of jokes of the former developing world. And here we stand, with the market trading up or down 1%, based on which rumor is leaked on any given day about Greece's upcoming €5 billion auction. In this context why even worry about $100 trillion. That amount, as Feynman would appreciate, is not even digestable in Bernanke (the 21st centuiry equivalent of economic, f/k/a scientific) numbers (just yet). Why indeed, when, as Pinera says, the problem is not contained in some building in downtown Washington, it's in all of us. And those are precisely the problems that, at least so far in America, have never gotten any resolution.

mardi 23 février 2010

Nouvelle tuile pour les réchauffistes

Via antagoniste.net:

L'erreur réchauffiste de la semaine

The Guardian

-

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
The Guardian

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study « strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results ». The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: « It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science. » He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.

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lundi 22 février 2010

La comptabilité du gouvernement: 2 poids, 2 mesures?

Via Antagoniste.net:

Fraude

PoliticienDepuis l’adoption de la loi sur le déficit zéro, le gouvernement du Québec fait croire à la population que la dette du Québec n’a pas augmentée. Dans la réalité, le vérificateur général du Québec a découvert que depuis l’année fiscale 1999-2000, l’équilibre budgétaire n’a jamais été atteint au Québec. Grâce à des manipulations comptables, le gouvernement a pu cacher des déficits cumulés de 15,8 milliards de dollars. Pour l’année fiscale 2009-2010, la dette du Québec atteint désormais 72,3% du PIB.

Imaginez une compagnie qui, depuis 10 ans, manipule ses livres comptables pour faire croire à ces actionnaires qu’elle ne fait pas de déficits. Quand cette supercherie serait découverte, il ne fait pas de doute que les responsables auraient à répondre de leurs actes devant les tribunaux. Mais bizarrement, quand c’est le gouvernement qui agit de la sorte, c’est légal…

Ce n’est pas le secteur privé qui a besoins d’une plus grande réglementation, c’est le secteur public ! C’est bien beau de colérer contre les Vincent Lacroix et les Earl Jones de ce monde, mais ce faisant, le plus grand des fraudeurs de la province s’en tire à bon compte. Il serait temps pour la population de revoir ses priorités…

L'alimentation aux US en 1909 et en 1999

Via 180 Degree Health:

(statistiques du USDA - US Department of Agriculture):

In the American diet from 1909 to 1999, as reported by the USDA:

Consumption of whole milk dropped 49.8%

Consumption of skim milk increased 57.8%

Consumption of butter dropped 72.2%

Consumption of margarine increased 800%

Consumption of shortening increased 275%

Consumption of lard and tallow dropped 50%

Consumption of salad and cooking oil increased 1,450%

Consumption of fruit increased 29%

Consumption of vegetables increased 15.6%

Consumption of potatoes dropped 23% (of fresh, unprocessed taters, it fell by 73%)

Consumption of grains dropped 30.6% (corn by 50%, wheat by 30%)

Consumption of pork dropped 19%, eggs dropped 13.5%, beef increased by 22%, poultry increased 278%

Consumption of legumes and nuts increased 37.5%

And, drumroll please…

Refined sugar and syrup consumption increased by 74.7% (up about 1,600% from 1809)

And for the low-carb people especially, overall carbohydrate consumption fell from 57% of calories to 46% of calories. High-glycemic starches were displaced by lower glycemic high-fructose corn syrup and crystalline fructose.

To eat a 1909 diet today then, we must, as a nation, eat less margarine, shortening, vegetable oil, fruit, vegetables, skim milk, poultry, nuts, legumes, refined sugars, and beef…


And eat more butter, lard, tallow, potatoes, corn, whole wheat, pork, eggs, and whole milk.

I’m not saying I agree that we should do exactly that, or that changes from pork to poultry is even of any particular significance, but everyone has the right to know what changed in the American diet as we got sicker. The data makes it a tough feat to accuse
dietary cholesterol, saturated fat, high-glycemic carbs, dairy, grains, or lack of fruits, vegetables, and legumes. It’s damn easy to blame it onvegetable oils and refined sugars.
hough, which I think I’ll continuto do.

Les sociétés d'État et l'utilisation judicieuse de fonds publics

Via lesaffaires.com:

Rapports annuels coûteux pour les sociétés d'États québécoises



Les grandes sociétés d'État du Québec ont dépensé près de 1 million de dollars pour la production de leurs rapports annuels. Le hic ? Ces rapports sont souvent remplis de photos couleur et imprimés sur du papier de qualité sont payés à même les fonds publics, selon Le Journal de Québec.


Ainsi, Hydro-Québec remporte la palme du rapport annuel 2008 le plus coûteux, à 310 000 $. La société d'État a fait imprimer 9000 copies un document rempli de photos couleur, même s'il peut être facilement consulté sur Internet, rapporte le quotidien.


Comment justifier cette impression massive ? À Québec, on répond que la distribution du rapport à de nombreux partenaires, dont des institutions financières, des fournisseurs, des municipalités et des associations internationales, justifie cette impression.


La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec n’est pas en reste puisqu’elle a consacré 212 000 $ à la confection et à l'impression de 4435 copies d'un volumineux document de 180 pages.


Le responsable des relations avec les médias de la Caisse de dépôt, Maxime Chagnon, affirme que les gens s'intéressent beaucoup à ce rapport et son tirage est parfaitement adapté à la demande.


La Société des alcools du Québec a dépensé 121 000 $ pour la production d'un rapport 2008-2009 dont le tirage du document a été limité à 500 exemplaires. La SAQ a misé sur l'impression moins coûteuse de 650 disques compacts pour distribuer son rapport.



dimanche 21 février 2010

La citation du jour

“...gold will be money when the dollar and the euro and the yuan and the ringitt
are mere memories.”
Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters, Inc.

Les effets contradictoires du réchauffement climatique?

Via Antagoniste.net:

Tout et son contraire Coup de gueule Environnement États-Unis

Déclaration d’un groupe de scientifiques à propos du brouillard dans la baie de San Franciscofaite en juillet 2009:

Global Warming

-

Get ready for even foggier summers. The [San Francisco] Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. That’s the conclusion of several state researchers.

Déclaration d’un groupe de scientifiques à propos du brouillard dans la baie de San Franciscofaite en février 2010:

Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change. The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found.

vendredi 19 février 2010

La citation du jour

''I'm increasingly convinced that conventional pensions are immoral. They shackle future generations with uncontrollable liabilities for benefits they never received. We should abolish pensions forever. You want retirement benefits, take part of your income and save it.''
-Mad Max, sur le site Zero Hedge

jeudi 18 février 2010

L'eugénisme et le salaire minimum

Via le QL.

L'article vaut la peine d'être lu au complet, et voici quelques extraits:

Libertarian and Conservative economists like George Mason University's Thomas Sowell have long argued that a high minimum wage and heavy labour regulations exclude unskilled workers from the labour market, thus denying them access to jobs in which they could learn the skills and earn the experience that would justify a wage increase. Often presented today as a tool for poverty reduction and income redistribution, the minimum wage is believed to be an efficient and moral social policy. However, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, proponents of the minimum wage actually desired the negative effects described above. The Eugenics movement sought the improvement of mankind by strong government intervention to isolate and exclude the weakest so as to improve the gene pool.

The publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species revolutionized more than just the natural sciences; it also started a radical revolution in the world of economics. Alfred Russell Wallace, an opponent of eugenics, postulated that the natural selection process was not at work in human civilization. For Wallace, any human being feels sympathy for the destitute and will try to help them in a variety of ways. As Adam Smith puts it in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, "[I]f by some extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into diseases, into disgrace and disappointment […] you may generally depend upon the sincerest sympathy of all your friends."

...

Since World War II, with the horrors of Nazi Germany, eugenics has completely disappeared from the mainstream academic community. Academic papers like the Journal of Eugenics, Eugenics Review, and Applied Eugenics have disappeared, and the Eugenics Society is less than a shadow of its former self. However, some of the policies they proposed, like the minimum wage, remain alive today. The minimum wage is today presented as a tool for providing anyone with a decent wage, regardless of racial origin, and its level is always calculated by government officials so as to produce the least possible distortion of employment. Still, when analyzing ideas, it is worth remembering who first bandied them about, and their reasons for doing so.

mercredi 17 février 2010

Le Prix Nobel de la Paix n'exclut pas d'attaquer l'Iran

Via Antiwar.com:

White House Won’t Rule Out Attacking Iran

Gibbs Rails Against Iran

by Jason Ditz, February 16, 2010

Underscoring the very real threat that remains of an American war against Iran,White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today declared that the Obama Administration will not rule out attacking Iran over its decision to enrich uranium to 20 percent.

Gibbs accused Iran of repeatedly refusing administration offers of diplomatic negotiations, declaring this was proof that the Iranian nuclear program is not for civilian purposes.

In fact, Iran and the United States did take part in diplomatic negotiations in October, resulting in the draft enrichment deal. Iran also offered additional talks in November and December related to the deal, but were rebuffed and condemned by officials for the proposed talks.

Far from refusing to make agreements with the West related to its nuclear program,Iran actually accepted the draft enrichment deal earlier this month, as repeatedly demanded by the Obama Administration. The acceptance too was roundly condemned by Western officials, though mysteriously many have continued to demand that Iran accept the deal for weeks since the acceptance was already made.



La dette publique du Québec: pour mettre en relief les demandes des syndicats de la fonction publique...

La Presse nous apprend aujourd'hui que la dette du Québec s'est accrue de 9,3 G$ depuis 2008.

C'est une augmentation de 4,4%, alors que le PIB n'a crû que de 1,6% sur cette période.

Également, le gouvernement semble avoir usé de techniques comptables douteuses pour masquer les déficits depuis 2000.

Et cette dette totale de 218,6G$ n'inclut pas les obligations contractuelles du gouvernement et 'autres obligations' totalisant 25,2G$.

Mais évidemment, le gouvernement parle sans cesse de hausses de taxes et de tarifs plutôt que d'essayer d'améliorer sa gestion des dépenses.

Et les syndicats réclament des augmentations salariales qui ajouteraient 3G$ annuellement aux dépenses gouvernementales.

Ces gens-là semblent vraiment vivre sur une autre planète.


  • Martin Ouellet

Le Québec continue de s'endetter à vitesse grand V, annonçant un long et périlleux retour à l'équilibre budgétaire.

En 2008-2009, l'endettement total du secteur public du Québec a fait un bond de 9,3 milliards $, relate le vérificateur général Renaud Lachance dans son rapport 2009-2010 remis mercredi à l'Assemblée nationale.

La dette totale du Québec a atteint la somme de 218,6 milliards $, ce qui représente 72,3% du produit intérieur brut (PIB) nominal pour l'année 2008. L'an dernier, la dette s'est accrue de 4,4% par rapport à l'année précédente, alors que le PIB nominal n'a progressé que de 1,6%.

Aussi inquiétants soient-ils, ces chiffres ne tiennent pas compte de l'ensemble de la situation financière du gouvernement.

En effet, si l'on ajoute au bilan la croissance des obligations contractuelles et des autres engagements du gouvernement, la note s'alourdit de 25,2 milliards $.

Dans son rapport, le vérificateur général confirme que le Québec n'a cessé d'accumuler les déficits depuis 1999-2000 en dépit des manoeuvres comptables laissant croire à l'équilibre budgétaire.

L'analyse des états financiers montre que les déficits cumulés sont passés de 82,2 milliards $ au 31 mars 2000 à 98 milliards $ au 31 mars 2009», souligne le rapport.

À environ un mois du dépôt du budget, l'attitude affichée par le ministre des Finances, Raymond Bachand, à l'égard de la situation financière catastrophique du Québec est loin d'être rassurante, a fait valoir l'Action démocratique.

La façon dont le gouvernement se comporte nous inquiète. Le ministre Bachand semble n'avoir en tête que les hausses de tarifs alors qu'il devrait passer en revue toutes les politiques budgétaires de l'État», a soutenu le porte-parole adéquiste en matière de finances, François Bonnardel.

En outre, l'ADQ songe à exiger l'abolition pure et simple du Fonds des générations, dans lequel ont été déposés près de deux milliards $ depuis trois ans et qui a accusé un rendement négatif de près de 22% en 2008-2009.

Ce fonds n'est qu'un leurre pour les prochaines générations, un feu d'artifices», a dit M. Bonnardel.

Le nouveau rapport du vérificateur général a le mérite de mettre fin au mythe selon lequel le Québec contrôle mieux ses dépenses que l'Ontario, a pour sa part estimé l'opposition péquiste.

Si le gouvernement avait calculé ses immobilisations comme l'Ontario, il aurait fallu ajouter 471 millions $ au déficit du Québec», a évoqué le porte-parole de l'opposition officielle dans ce dossier, Nicolas Marceau.




Les syndicats et le 'bien commun'...encore

Alors que nos syndicats réclament des augmentations de salaires pour les employés du Gouvernement du Québec qui coûteraient 3G$ supplémentaires annuellement aux contribuables Québecois (en plein déficits gouvernementaux en plus!), les syndicats Américains font eux aussi pression sur leurs gouvernements pour se graisser davantage les poches aux frais des contribuables.

Toutefois, notons que ces derniers n'invoquent pas le 'bien commun' ou la 'nécéssité d'assurer les services essentiels' comme raison.

Non, ils avouent franchement qu'il est nécessaire que le contribuable se saigne davantage pour payer leurs augmentations de salaires (déjà très généreux notons-le, et avec des conditions globales bien supérieures à ce que l'on retrouve dans le privé).

Ils ont le mérite (ou la stupidité?) d'être honnêtes sur leurs motifs.

Via Global Economic Analysis (L'article vaut la peine d'être lu en entier):

Tuesday, February 16, 2010


What Union Leaders Really Think; Jackson Healthcare Union Faces Widespread Layoffs


In a breath of both arrogance and honesty please consider What Union Leaders Really Think.

Today’s NY Post reveals a moment of honesty from a NY union official.
Albany Police Officers Union President Chris Mesley says that, regardless of the faltering economy, a no-raise new contract is unacceptable.

And to hell with the public.

"I'm not running a popularity contest here," Mesley said. "If I'm the bad guy to the average citizen . . . and their taxes have go up to cover my raise, I'm very sorry about that, but I have to look out for myself and my membership."

Mesley added: "As the president of the local, I will not accept 'zeroes.' If that means . . . ticking off some taxpayers, then so be it."
In the real world, when bubbles pop and markets contract, everyone has to take a haircut. In the world of politicians and unions, political muscle wins, regardless of economic circumstance.
Here's more from the NY Post
Witness the transit workers' recent arbitration-approved 11.5 percent wage and benefits hike -- even as the state and the MTA are practically broke.

Or the howls that came last summer from the police and firefighters unions when Gov. Paterson vetoed the annual reauthorization of higher pension benefits for new employees.

The message? Sacrifice is for suckers -- not unionized government employees.

Thus do taxpayers end up working longer and harder to pay for the guaranteed salaries and plush benefits of union members.

Mesley admits that he understands that. He just doesn't care.


Les primes de vacances de nos ministres

Via Cyberpresse:

Publié le 17 février 2010 à 00h00 | Mis à jour à 07h16

Des vacances qui n'ont pas de prix


Denis Lessard
La Presse

(Québec) La vie dans les cabinets politiques est si intense que, pendant des années, les employés ne prennent pas les vacances auxquelles ils ont droit. À leur départ, on leur verse, rubis sur l'ongle, des compensations très importantes à même les fonds publics.

Vétéran des officines libérales, Jean-Philippe Marois, chef de cabinet de la ministre de la Justice, Kathleen Weil, a été nommé en décembre 2009 secrétaire général associé au conseil exécutif, une nomination du conseil des ministres.

À sa nomination, M. Marois a obtenu pour ses jours de vacances accumulées un total de 84 000 $, comme s'il n'avait pas pris de vacances pendant huit ans. Il a aussi obtenu 14 000 $ pour des congés de maladie non réclamés (payés à 50%) et 10 000 $ en indemnité de départ, même s'il avait profité d'une nomination gouvernementale.

M. Marois n'a pas rappelé La Presse, hier. Avant de passer à la Justice, M. Marois avait été longtemps le bras droit de Jean-Marc Fournier aux Affaires municipales, puis à l'Éducation et au Revenu.

La Presse a invoqué la Loi sur l'accès à l'information pour obtenir les conditions de travail et de cessation d'emploi de l'ensemble des chefs de cabinet ministériel du gouvernement Charest. Ces données, encore partielles, démontrent une réalité bien connue dans les officines politiques : les employés ne déclarent pas nécessairement les jours de vacances qu'ils prennent.

Selon le porte-parole du premier ministre Charest, Hugo D'Amour, le cas de M. Marois s'explique facilement : comme il est employé politique depuis plus de 15 ans, s'il n'a pris qu'une partie de ses vacances annuelles, l'accumulation peut facilement atteindre 84 000 $. Les employés politiques, comme les professionnels du gouvernement, ont droit à quatre semaines de vacances par année.

Au début des années 90, le départ d'un employé du gouvernement Bourassa, Mario Simard, avait fait les manchettes pour les mêmes raisons. Son patron, le ministre Albert Côté, lui avait versé une indemnité de départ de 150 000 $ même si M. Simard avait été nommé chez Rexfor, une société d'État.

Québec lui avait payé 50 000 $ pour une centaine de jours de vacances qu'il avait réclamés en quittant son poste politique. Le gouvernement avait tenté de récupérer 44 000 $ par une poursuite judiciaire, mais il avait finalement jeté l'éponge, ne pouvant prouver que M. Simard avait tout de même pris les vacances qu'il réclamait.

Dans le cas de Philippe Dubuisson, le chef de cabinet de Monique Jérôme-Forget, qui a quitté son poste avec sa patronne au printemps 2009, le gouvernement a payé 56 000 $ en jours de vacances accumulées.

Ce versement s'ajoutait à une indemnité de départ de 150 000 $ parce que M. Dubuisson n'avait pas profité d'une autre nomination au gouvernement - il a fait quelques jours à l'Autorité des marchés financiers, mais a préféré partir et conserver cette indemnité de départ. Il a aussi reçu un «bonus» de 8000 $.

Au cabinet de M. Charest, on précise toutefois que les 150 000 $ désignés comme «salaire» dans le tableau fourni par le ministère des Finances représentent son traitement annuel pour 2009. Il a été payé au prorata des semaines travaillées.

En outre, les employés politiques n'ont aucune rémunération pour les heures supplémentaires, rappelle le responsable de l'accès à l'information du ministère des Finances, Patrice Gagnon.

Alexandre Bibeau, chef de cabinet de David Whissell lorsqu'il était ministre du Travail, est parti avec 30 000 $, l'équivalent de 67 jours de vacances accumulés. «Il ne prenait que deux semaines de vacances par année alors qu'il avait droit à un mois», a expliqué son père, Pierre Bibeau, vice-président de Loto-Québec et conseiller écouté de Robert Bourassa et de Jean Charest. Alexandre Bibeau était depuis huit ans dans les cabinets politiques à Québec, ajoute-t-il.

- Avec la collaboration de William Leclerc

mardi 16 février 2010

Bel exemple de la bulle immobilière au Canada

Via le blogue de Garth Turner:

3 chambres à coucher, 1400pi carrés, 1 salle de bain...1 780 000$!!!

Un des propagandistes réchauffistes en chef admet qu'il n'y a pas eu de réchauffement climatique depuis 1995

Via le Dailymail Britannique:

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010


  • Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
  • There has been no global warming since 1995
  • Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes
Professor Phil Jones

Data: Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be'

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.

Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying.

Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change.

That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades.

According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.

Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organisation in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted.

Chart


But he denied he had cheated over the data or unfairly influenced the scientific process, and said he still believed recent temperature rises were predominantly man-made.

Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: ‘There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be.

‘There’s a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data, so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more.’

He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.

He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.

And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.

Sceptics believe there is strong evidence that the world was warmer between about 800 and 1300 AD than now because of evidence of high temperatures in northern countries.

But climate change advocates have dismissed this as false or only applying to the northern part of the world.

Professor Jones departed from this consensus when he said: ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.

‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

‘Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’

Sceptics said this was the first time a senior scientist working with the IPCC had admitted to the possibility that the Medieval Warming Period could have been global, and therefore the world could have been hotter then than now.

Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’.

Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made.

But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.

He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.

He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.