Satisfaction with Williams gov drops 13 points

What’s the difference between approval and satisfaction?

Well, quite a lot according to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians surveyed during February by two polling firms.

A Corporate Research Associates poll conducted between February 9 and February 25 showed public satisfaction with the Danny Williams administration at a record 93% percent.

But a new survey by Angus Reid conducted during the same time period (February 16 to 23) showed that only 80% of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians approved of Danny Williams’ performance as Premier.

The Angus Reid poll has a lower margin of error at 3.9% 19 times out of 20 compared with CRA’s 4.9%. in addition to a news release, Angus Reid also released a description of the polling methodology and details on the poll itself.  CRA does not release that information.

What this really shows, though, is the gigantic discrepancy between CRA and other pollsters in their results.  The problem with CRA polls is highlighted by the difference in results between AR and CRA for Nova Scotia.  The Angus Reid poll also highlights a huge discrepancy between the AR poll and CRA’s results on a similar question in Nova Scotia. 

According to CRA:

Satisfaction with the NDP government declined even more significantly, with one-half of residents satisfied with the overall performance of the government (49%, down from 63% three months ago).

But according Angus Reid, the Nova Scotia government led by New Democrat Darrell Dexter has only 23% approval down from 49% in November 2009.

Bond papers has contended for some time that CRA polls are wildly inaccurate measures of public opinion.

 

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Firds of a bleather: uncommunication edition

What government departments or agencies in Newfoundland and Labrador have a policy like the one at Environment Canada forbidding interviews unless they’ve been cleared by the strategic uncommunications folks first?

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Danny is still in Florida

Nowhere in the official news release is there any mention that Danny Williams is back in Newfoundland and Labrador.

CBC didn’t report that he was back in the province either, merely that he was back at work.

Ditto the Telegram and Voice Of the Cabinet Minister.

And if you listen all the way to the end of an interview with health minister Jerome Kennedy from the Morning Show on Monday you can get pretty much the same idea. Kennedy acknowledges that Williams has been recovering and “will be back to work shortly.”  He quickly corrects himself to say Williams has already returned to work.

In fact, given that Monday was a provincial government holiday, a news release saying that Williams is back at work looks highly suspicious.  The timing of the release suggests it was triggered by Kennedy’s comments on the Morning Show.

But that doesn’t mean he is actually in the province. 

Williams has been working – apparently – throughout most of his recuperation period. It’s highly unlikely that a man described by his own deputy as a workaholic could actually do anything but try and run the province from his sick bed in Florida.

There’s no word on when Williams will actually return to the province.

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Great Minds Update:  As WJM notes, Hisself has been doing official work things before the news release announcing he is on the job once more.  That pretty much clinches the conclusion that the “news” today was more a reaction to Jerome!’s comment than any actual change in Hisself’s health status.

What-no-facebook-status? Update:  Turns out Hisself is actually back and the release was cover for his campaign foray into Topsail district.  Still, he could just have easily issued the release in February when he went to Vancouver – what was that, a lark? - and said he’d be working from the Southern premier’s office in Sarasota until the snow final disappeared.

Elements of Style: Notebook…and pen

Keep your Blackberry.

Thanks for the Palm, but no thanks.

Ditto the iPhone, iPod and even the iPad when it arrives.  They have their uses, sure enough.

For some purposes, only a notebook will do.

Not a computer, mind you.

A notebook.

A book in which one writes notes.

There is the Moleskine - left, on the bottom - or a version by Piccadilly, left, on the top that is far less expensive and every bit as good.

Black cover, elastic to keep it closed, a few hundred pages of blank paper, either ruled or plain, to suit the purpose. 

Something durable enough to carry around the corner or around the world.

And to write in the notebook, there is nothing that compares to a fountain pen.

A Mont Blanc, if you are so inclined, in this case a Meisterstuck 146.  

Writing need not be without its pleasures.

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Oveur and Out

Actor Peter Graves, whose career ranged from Stalag 17 to Airplane!, died of an apparent heart attack on the week.  Graves was age 83.

Graves was perhaps best known as the spymaster in the 1960s television series Mission: Impossible. 

Known for his serious roles, Graves lampooned them all successfully in Airplane!, a send-up of airplane disaster movies.  Graves played Victor Oveur, the pilot of a doomed airliner.

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Inherent weakness: a public sector-driven recovery

Newfoundland and Labrador showed weak job growth in February with an increase of a mere two tenths of one percent compared to January 2010 and 1.5% compared to February 2009.

Nationally, the job growth in February was driven almost entirely by the public sector.

That matches rather nicely with the experience in Newfoundland and Labrador where private sector job creation has been trailing off for a couple of years. As usual you can find great details on this at labradore: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six.

Here’s a chart – h/t  labradore – that should help you get a clear picture of what has been going on.

Three things to take away from this:

1.  What you just saw is absolutely, categorically NOT what you are hearing from the mainstream media, political circles and people in the local business community.  But it is real. The happy-crappy-talk coming from places like the Board of Trade demonstrates the extent to which the Board has its head up its collective backside or can’t understand simple numbers.

2.  The corollary to the private sector jobs-slide is that the jobs growth that has taken place – akin to the boom on the northeast Avalon – has been fuelled almost entirely by the public sector.  Since public sector spending is – as regular SRBP readers have known for years – unsustainable the whole thing is built on very shaky foundations.

It can’t last.

Therefore…

3.  Stand by for some serious adjustments.  The reckoning may not come in the next few months but it will have to come.

Of course, you will hear nothing but happy-crappy-talk from politicians who are looking to get re-elected in two years.  The pre-election campaign has already started.  What’s more, in a worst case scenario, some of those politicians may be looking to become Premier in a Tory leadership fight before then. Either way, there’s little hope that any political party in the province will be able to come to grips with the real economic issues and start taking action to set the right course for the future.

To steal the words of the Lucides:

Those who deny there is any danger are blinded by the climate of prosperity that has prevailed in … recent years. … That’s the peculiarity of the current situation: the danger does not appear imminent but rather as a long slow decline. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be any risk. But once it begins, the downward slide will be inexorable.

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Saint-Saens – Symphony No. 3

Sunday morning listening pleasure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2001 Moonbus in April from Moebius

You know you’ve been waiting for this.

Coming next month.

From Moebius.

For those of us who have the original Aurora release, this is still something pretty special.

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The Zen of media intimidation

If a story goes unreported, did it actually happen?

In Mexico, as in post-communist Russia, pesky reporters sometimes turn up dead pour encourager les autres.

In other parts of the world, you don’t have to shoot people to stop things from being reported.

There are other ways.

And some of the the reporters will even deny that the lesser forms of intimidation even happened.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t intimidation nor does it mean stories  - sometimes really big and important stories - don’t get reported.

But if they don’t get reported, did they actually happen?

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Telly-torial goes home

A classic Telegram editorial consists of a summary of an issue concluding with a blinding insight into the completely frigging obvious.

This pattern reflects - as much as anything else -  the historic inability of the editorial board to form a collective opinion on any issue unless there is already such a staggeringly obvious answer staring everyone on the planet in the face that to deny it would be to look like a total idiot.

It also reflects another local media truism, namely that if “we didn’t break, they don’t have to add to it.”  In this instance, as with any other issue of considerable substance tied to an equally considerable controversy – like say anything to do with a certain someone’s unmentionable but potentially medically related travel – there is virtually zero chance the paper would explore any side angles or issues let alone weigh in along the same line.  No sleeping dog dare be disturbed. 

If nothing else that would open the chance that a political storm hovering over another media outlet might also come hover over the Village Mall, and that would apparently be a bad thing no matter what issue or principle might be savaged in the process. 

That sort of attitude is what makes a politician’s blacklist so effective.

Well that and the fact that if the Telly was ever blackballed – don’t hold your breath for that trigger event to occur in the first place -  they’d cave so fast you’d only know there had been any problem in the first place by the hole in time and space left by the Telly retreat. Speed of light?  They’d be faster.

Notice, to illustrate the point, the Telly history between 1997 and 2000.  Once someone started getting fed, they stopped asking tough questions about things like the Premier’s travel.  But once their source left office and his spoon stopped coming over regularly from the 8th, the intrepid Telly newsroom rediscovered the wonders of access to information.

It was left to mainland media to tell us about The Source’s free-wheeling travel budget.

Plus ca change.

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Study-in-contrasts Update:  Meanwhile, the editorial board at the province’s other daily newspaper never seem to have trouble speaking what they see as truth to power.  That’s even more amazing when you consider the editorial board lives in the city that has been the home seat to more premier’s than any other:  Joe, Frank, Clyde, Brian One, and now Danny all represented seats in Corner Brook.

Here’s their take on the same issue that Telly publisher Charlie Stacy  - on behalf of them all - wussed out on.

RBC Economics: Imaginary project to drive NL economy in 2010

Sometimes you wonder if these guys actually have a clue:

The recent Public and Private Investment Intentions survey revealed that growth in non-residential capital investment in the province will be the fastest in Canada, surging by an impressive 31.2%. This increase will be fuelled by stronger investment in mining, oil and gas extraction,
utilities (related to the Lower Churchill Hydro development project) and the provincial government’s aggressive infrastructure stimulus plan.

Lower Churchill Hydro development project?

Since no one will be spending money on a project that doesn’t exist it’s going to be pretty hard for that gigantic imaginary project to drive economic development in the province.

It’s like the Matshishkapeu Accord, appropriately named around these parts after the spirit of the anus, the flatulence god.  Because that’s pretty much what the whole LC project is right now:  so much hot air that hits your nostrils with a pretty ripe odour.

Then there’s this piece of sure shite from the boys at the bank:

Employment in the province fell by 5,200, causing the unemployment rate to rise during most of the year; however, outside of energy and mining, the rest of the domestic economy fared surprisingly well.

Sure.

Surprisingly well indeed, if you don’t mention that the fishery is down 22% in landed value.

And let’s not forget that forestry, as in pulp and paper making, is in near complete friggin’ meltdown.  Mills closed.  The one remaining mill has one machine going instead of two and is slicing off workers and costs in a desperate effort to stay afloat.

The province’s finance minister admits they’ve shagged up government spending so badly that current spending patterns are “unsustainable.”  But the fin min say recently that if it wasn’t for oil – thanks BP, CKW, BT, and   RG – he and DW would be shagged up royally?  good thing there were all those give-aways before 2003 of they’d be up the creek.

But sure sure thing, there, RBC economist guys.

Everything in Newfoundland and Labrador is just wonderful.

Protected by a magic bubble.

Friggin’ loons.

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Yep, that’s unscathed alrightee

The province’s fishing industry saw a 22% drop in the value of fish landings in 2009.

So much for coming through the recession protected by some sort of magic bubble. Then again, some of us mocked that idiotic idea the moment the words slipped out of someone’s mouth.

Now you know that when a provincial politician talks about coming through the recession better than most you know they were only talking about themselves, personally. 

They sure as heck weren’t talking about their constituents.

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The seven percent solution

Mark Griffin, former traitor, spouts the new government policy for rural development which is, to be sure exactly the same policy as other every other government before (save one) that didn’t have any idea what to do to develop the economy successfully either:  shift public service jobs into town and create new public service ones.

Send us a prison says lawyer Mark and quickly too before all that “political capital” is burned up.

Mark.

Bubbie.

We are in a pre-election period.

It could be we are in a pre-leadership period on top of that.

Over the next two years there’ll be no shortage of political will to distribute scarce tax dollars around on any scheme  - no matter how useless, no matter that it has been tried and failed before - that might pay for a few more votes.

Forget a prison.

Dream big.

Think of a gigantic greenhouse for growing things like cucumbers and tomatoes.

Just because it failed before doesn’t mean it can’t be useful again to get that last seven percent.

Mark Griffin, former traitor, may well have hit on the way to get that last seven percent of people fully satisfied.

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Wonderland

 

--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) “Who roar for the Sub-Warden?” Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting “Bread!” and some “Taxes!”, but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.

Once upon a time, as all good fairy tales must begin, one could explain how to pronounce the name of the place by saying that it rhymed with “understand”.

But since “understand” has gone out of favour both as a word and an idea, one must now try and find a replacement.

What better choice than “Wonderland” for a place that these days most resembles the love child of Tim Burton and John Waters after consuming a truckload of the Peruvian marching powder reputedly popular in local junior high schools these days.

After all, this is a province where cabinet minister after cabinet minister admitted over the past six months that they shagged up public finances – spending is “unsustainable” – and the public response is to give them the highest satisfaction level in the history of polling anywhere in Atlantic Canada.

93%.

Higher than flag stomping time.

Higher than the January 2005 handout cheque victory.

Higher than not one but two back-to-back record surpluses that put more money in public coffers than the entire provincial budget 20 years ago.

Even higher satisfaction than the poll taken after the October 2007 election.

Without any apparent reason, people suddenly decided to be hugely satisfied.

Ah, but it was Danny’s bum ticker getting sympathy, some of you smarties are saying.

Take a look.  In a question in which people could show love for Hisself alone, he could only manage to go from 79% to 81%. Less than half the margin of error.  Hardly a thing worth noting at all, let alone label a surge. Were the Telegram story signed it could have been a job application to the Ministry of Truth.

And if you deconstruct the CRA poll numbers, it is even more bizarre.  After 24 months of steady decline, support for the provincial Tories shot up enough to beat the poll taken right after the 2007 election.

But that’s not all.

Even with satisfaction levels that Sarah Palin and George Bush The Younger could only dream of, still 15% of the people polled actually want someone other than the current Premier to be Premier.  In fact, half the people who want Yvonne Jones running the place instead of Danny Williams actually think that Danny Williams’ crowd is doing a completely or mostly satisfactory job. or maybe all 15% of them do which is even weirder.

Such is life in Wonderland.

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Penashue bails; Matshishkapeu Accord in trouble

Peter Penashue decided to pack it in as deputy grand chief of the Innu Nation.

That leaves the Matshishkapeu Accord in even more doubt than before now that its chief champion is gone to the sidelines. The Accord is crucial to development of the Lower Churchill.

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90 or more Club

The result of just a quickie google scan on politicians with a voter approval of 90% or better:

1.  Sarah Palin (Republican), former Governor of Alaska.

2.  Jon Huntsman, (Republican) former Governor of Utah.

3.  George W. Bush, (Republican) former President of the United States

4.  Hisself.

Interesting.

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And if Glenn Beck says it…

Well ya know it must be true.

Glenn likes Danny, too.

 

Way freakin’ spooky

Danny likes Canada’s health care system and goes to Florida for surgery.

Sarah Palin rants and raves against socialised medicine but admits that her family has come across the border for care.

They’ve been known to share an interest in reading, too.

Interesting.

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Ron Silver: No More.

Rest in peace.

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Financial shorts – Second Monday in March edition

1.  Crack whores rebel:  Icelanders voted against a US$5.3 billion package to deal with part of the country’s financial mess.

“This is a strong no from the Icelandic nation,” said Magnus Arni Skulason, co-founder of a group opposed to the deal.

“The Icelandic public understands that we are sovereign and we have to be treated like a sovereign nation — not being bullied like the British and the Dutch have been doing.”

Sovereign Icelanders may be, but they are also broke.  If they don’t like it when people come looking for their money back – it ain’t bullying, BTW – then maybe they shouldn’t have been running the financial equivalent of a crack-house.

2.  More hidden cash turns up:  There may be a few million extra in provincial coffers when the financial year ends.  This isn’t a windfall or a gift.  It’s just what you get when you compare the actual amount of federal transfers in the current fiscal year - $1.264 billion – to the $988 million reported in Budget 2009 last spring.

Well, that’s if you use the Estimates which gives different numbers than the ones in the budget speech. The numbers in the budget speech are pretty much dead-on the actual federal transfers.

Someone should ask the finance minister to explain why he feels the need to keep two sets of books.

3. Counter-intuitive.  Okay.  Crude is up.  Gold is up and silver is is up as well. US dollar is down.  The American economy shed jobs but not as many as expected.  Some news media are reporting this as a good thing.  Basically, it’s more of the recovery-is-here-yada-yada crap they’ve been fed since this time last year.

If the dollar is down, and oil and gold are up, that’s a sure sign that not only is the US economy not in recovery, it’s virtually a guarantee it won’t recover while prices for things like crude oil are that high.

The American economy needs oil prices to be about half of what they are currently in order to see a recovery tale hold.  And when a recovery does start, it won’t keep going if oil prices shoot back up to their current levels.

In the meantime, stand by for an “adjustment’ sometime in 2010 or early 2011.  The “correction” won’t be as big as the collapse in 2008 but it will hurt.

It will especially hurt any government that doesn’t have its financial house in order.

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