Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – Prostitution – Opportunity for a new perspective

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to end the way we manage prostitution by ruling a charter breach provides an opportunity for Canadian leadership to take a new approach to the immediate challenge of prostitution and the more general challenge of managing the balance of law and morality. The issue of prostitution is the perfect lens by which to view moral issues as they relate to legislation and liberty. In part, one must assume, that the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) recent actions are due to the realization that criminalizing personal choice is generating a circumstance where the exploited are more readily exploitable and the marginalized are more marginalized.

In the contemplation of crafting legislation, one needs to clear the mind of old bias' and endeavour to ask – what are the outcomes we want in this instance? As Stephen Covey counsels us, begin with the end in mind. The next question is, do the outcomes we are seeking have a chance of landing on the map of reality and is there a path from here to there? Prostitution, the world’s oldest profession, is here to stay – that much we all can be certain of – eradication is no option, so managing its presence is required.

The challenge with discussing subjects like prostitution, as with all questions of morality, is that people react to them, kind of a “yuk factor” takes hold. If you've read the story of Joshua in the Old Testament, a key component of Joshua’s success was the cooperation of a prostitute in housing and protecting his scouts. The scouts having been protected and housed by the prostitute instructed her to hang a scarlet scarf on the front of her house, the army was informed. When Joshua’s army took Jericho the entire population, some 15,000 people, were “put to the sword”, the only ones spared were the prostitute and her family. It is hard to imagine what brought this woman to the “business” of prostitution or how she managed the profession in those times – the important thing to remember here is that, though likely marginalized she - “immoral and all” - saved the lives of all her love one’s, an act worthy of respect. I offer this as a means by which to elevate the reader’s view of people in this line of work.

In contemplating prostitution one needs to remember that the “exploited” should never be punished, very few little girls when questioned say they want to grow up to be street workers that sleep with men in risky circumstances – most people find their way to prostitution, due in large measure, to need for money – the fact they got to that point is a failure of society as a whole in conjunction with the individual – a circumstance that warrants mitigation as opposed to punishment. Criminalizing prostitution pushes the activities of the vulnerable (mostly women) further out of sight of authorities and more into the influence of the exploiters. 

   

There are women, well-informed, well-educated, that choose to enter into the “sex trade” for their own reasons – there are men who choose to use these women’s services for their own reasons. If their actions are carried out in private, with private arrangements and in a way that has no effect on anyone else, on what basis can the state intervene. You can disagree with their chosen interface on a moral basis, but how can you justify state intervention. Moral matters, matters of faith and religion, are matters to be dealt with in civil society. You have the right to advertise your view, to speak your view – the state has no basis to intervene save to manage externalities that arise from such arrangements. People who hold the moral view that this sort of interface is unholy have the right to life absent influence from it, which is an imperative. So it is right and proper for the state to say scantily clad women are disallowed from soliciting the public to engage in sexual actions in exchange for money – clearly, there are a number of undesirable effects that can flow from this practice. As Mr. Trudeau said, the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation; it is fundamental to a free society that people can educate themselves and make choices, different choices; however, the various sectors of society must conduct themselves in a manner that permits the other sectors to function “unaffected”.  

The dialogue in the press around prostitution is clouding the issue with ancillary issues like; human trafficking (which is often related to sex), abuse to women (it is often the case women in the sex trade are abused, it is not necessarily the case), exploitation of women (it is often the case women in the sex trade are being exploited – they are nearly always exploited because of the lack of proper resources – how else can you be exploited), the extortion by males of sexual services (there are laws against violence and intimation to be used here). The involvement of the state in the past in the suppression of “voluntary” prostitution is purely a matter of the state imposing a moral position and this imposition has served to frustrate a constructive approach to the issue – it has been the imposition of a moral with grossly immoral outcomes.

In the legislation of morality, in the case of prostitution, the state has forced women into a circumstance where when they are threatened or abused they have no redress via official channels. The solution offered is to make being a “John” punishable or criminal. It is appropriated to punish violence, extortion, exploitation – it is a gross misdirection of state power to criminalize a contractual arrangement between two free, voluntary and informed people – it is inconsistent to permit people to engage each other absent pecuniary elements and to criminalize relations with pecuniary elements. The criminalization of the “Johns” is offered as a solution only because it is seen as an expeditious means by which to manage the negative externalities flowing from the sex trade as it has been practiced in the past under poor legislation. The criminalizing of Johns has no grounding in law, reason or humanitarian concern.  

So where does the solution lie, given 2000 years, or more, of persecuting women and having no effect on curtailing the practice of prostitution – perhaps – in light of our advancements in technology and health, we should consider another tack. We have developed, or allowed to evolve, a moral complex intended to improve human life – this moral complex as it has found expression in legislation related to prostitution has effected harm. The solution lies in removing government from the personal lives of people and concerning government with the public square. If we permit the sex trade to operate within the law and isolate it from those who are offended by it, we will have generated a circumstance the permits women to seek help when they need it from people in the governance complex – from there if people want to leave the trade there is official help, if they choose to stay it is of their own free will and they will have channels to health advice and the full protection of the law.

All people deserve to be educated and permitted to make choices, the government is there to facilitate effective human interaction, the government is not, and never should be, the enforcement arm for theological concern. I find accord with much of the moral complex that flows from the Christian teaching, Jesus never marginalized or punished or judged harshly and nor should we. The moral complex that has evolved around human sexual relations found its origins at a time when health issues related to human sexuality and contraception where without understanding; we have progressed to the point where these things can be managed to a greater degree, our attitude and management of matters related to sexuality need to advance as well.   

Mutilated Economy - New York Times - Paul Krugman

"The public spending most of us object to is the flagrant waste and inefficiency that is inherent in public spending, the accountability loop is far to defuse in government – this is just the reality of a big organization. Show us clear accountability – clearly stated objectives, metrics and indicators, and objective reporting – then reach in our pockets." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/opinion/krugman-the-mutilated-economy.html?src=recg

Curious that the organization singing the litany is the one that has most rewarded the biggest culprits in the great recession trainwreck, with quantitative easing policy the gives money to banks to provision liquidity to corporations with fat balance sheets. Aggregate demand is built on the backs of people buying things with earned (and or free) money, as opposed to more credit to an already over levered economy. Your comments on infrastructure are most welcome, the one thing government can manage marginally competently is big, long lasting, stable infrastructure. The reason why human capital is under considered, is because no one has ever come up with a way to value it, the supply demand analysis has left many of us “supply siders” blind-sided, we need a value calculation on latent human potential and the resulting lost revenue calculations – then you would likely find some friends on my side of the economic debate; perhaps this document will help. There can be little argument however, that the nearly pan western world 1980 economic restraint and an the effort for responsible spending set up the 25 years of joy prior to the great recession, we can only inflate away so much debt – in long run we may all be dead, but someone will still have to pay. Infrastructure is investing, as opposed to spending and money is cheap - so sure lets build as much as we can as fast as we can, lets also invest in human capital there are great returns there. The public spending most of us object to is the flagrant waste and inefficiency that is inherent in public spending, the accountability loop is far to defuse in government – this is just the reality of a big organization. Show us clear accountability – clearly stated objectives, metrics and indicators, and objective reporting – then reach in our pockets. 

  

Discourse on the great recession

http://nthomson2.blogspot.ca/2013/09/discourse-on-great-recession.html     

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – BC Mental Health Act. (BCMHA) – Charter Breaches and Infringements

One can muse about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, whether it is complete, whether it is that meaningful from a federal perspective given the “notwithstanding clause” and of course the complete absence of property rights – but it is here now and it has gained legal mass given all the precedent set in “Charter Challenges”.  The important thing about the Charter is that it says the words “Rights and Freedoms” and holds as equity 300 years of toil for freedom by the founders of the enlightenment. A collection of people who fully understood the tyranny of the institution and how it can wrought the human sole in a  most grievous way at times, they knew that in a human organization – the institution - is levered the human inclination to put a boot on others' necks. We have what amounts of a fledgeling document in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that stands between us and the abuse of state power, a document that in many ways gives expression to the finest intent of humanity – the desire to give freedom to others; we ought to be nurturing it as opposed to permitting it to be chipped away at – as I have witnessed in this case study.

Section 7 of the Charter says we are entitled to Life, Liberty and Security of Person – embedded in that entitlement, and supported by a breath of legal precedent, is the right to choose. The BCMHA imposes on the right to choose and does so in breach of a longstanding tenet in medical law, which amounts to the “assumption of competence”, like liberty - as it is an extension of liberty, for the state to arrest one’s ability to refuse treatment it must prove the individual is incapable of judging for themselves. In British Columbia there is no attention paid to this tenet as there is in other jurisdictions such as Ontario, in British Columbia, the opinion of the individual who is merely accused of mental infirmity has no weight – a doctor’s opinion and only a doctor’s opinion can incarcerate someone. There is no requirement, as the act is now administered to “prove” incompetence. Section 7 says we exist in a state of liberty and for the government to interrupt that state of liberty it must “prove” it has just cause, as the BCMHA is now administered there is no requirement to prove illness exists, with opinion and only opinion and no objective data you can be incarcerated. The BCMHA’s involuntary treatment provisions are most often actuated to force the consumption of medication, medications that are ofttimes pathogenic, very potent, and with very little scientific data to support their use; this is executed absent judicial review or any of the trappings of “real judicial process”.

Excerpt 1 from Case Study of Starson v. Swayze.  “The Court noted that under the Health Care Consent Act there was a presumption that people were capable of making treatment decisions and that the onus rested with those who challenge the presumption to establish incompetence. Further, the Court examined the two-part test under the Act for determining whether a person was capable of making treatment decisions: first, the person has to “understand the information that is relevant to making a decision about treatment;” and, second, the person has to be “able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision.”

The subject of this case study passed this test, his capacity was substantiated by the very medical personnel the detained him for 12 years. In seven Review Panels and a B.C. Supreme Court proceeding, this issue was never raised on the individual's behalf nor was the principle applied – in other jurisdictions this test is applied.  In Ontario it is considered and generates an odd circumstance where people refuse treatment and then are held due to being a risk to self or others, it is in effect a legal catch 22; the fact this happens indicates how important the Judiciary in Ontario views the “presumption of competence” and the extent they are willing to go to protect it. The very crux of liberty, its point of emergence, is the individual’s right to hold domain over mind and body, there is no greater incursion the state can make on an individual than to take domain over mind and body away – when it is done wrongly, absent due process, in the public eye there is no more dis-empowering or humiliating experience. This case study has shaken my faith in our system of justice, the judiciary has abandoned people accused of mental infirmity and by extension has abandoned us all.

The intrusion by state on Section 7 must be contemplated by juxtaposing – how important is it to arrest this individual’s state of liberty against, the wellbeing of the citizenry at large – that is the basis in thought for the “Fair Balance Test” – the fair balance test in no way extends to the state the power to protect us from ourselves – when the state starts down that road our choice is eroded – as the BCMHA is now administered the state passes judgment of financial decisions, social interaction, physical health – these are matters clearly inside the domain of the individual and should never be subjected to state intervention.

Section 9 of the Charter says that a “reasonable mind(s)” and due process will determine whether or not someone falls under state sanction and that no one can just say “lock this person up”. The BCMHA as it is now administered does that very thing, on the perception of illness only – if a layperson judges your actions to be a product of mental infirmity – you can be incarcerated in a hospital – it is important to note; no illegality needs take place, no act of violence, no suicide attempt, you only need to be acting oddly. To be retained in “custody” a medical doctor has to “be of the opinion” your actions are a product of infirmity and then within 24 hours the “opinion” needs to be supported by another “medical opinion” and then you’re “in the system”.

As an aside, due to the fact that there is no requirement for evidence that is objective in nature, at the point of accusation, one is placed in a de facto state of reverse onus - as the state has acted on subjective opinion only. This disadvantages the accused, in that, they are required to respond with "objective" evidence to secure release.

The act then subjects people to the “arbitrary” actions of fellow citizens, the act then subjects people to the judgment of a single individual, the act the requires another individual to support the first individual – no real due process takes place prior to incarceration – that is arbitrary. Worse, however, is the fact that there is a high degree of propinquity between professionals, not mention professional courtesy – the second opinion is in effect a rubber stamp. The subject of this case study never interfaced with the GP that initiated the act’s use regarding mental health issues, he made claims which the second doctor interpreted as illness and which both doctors failed to refute via judicial process – that is to prove with evidence – then the third doctor, a requested the second opinion, did no independent investigation – he merely reviewed the second doctor’s records. The challenge here is, we have medical personnel taking a paternalistic stance, with a high degree of continuity of thought administering the law, the judiciary understands the boundaries of state power in the context of society as a whole, the BCMHA is administered completely in hospitals. When someone decides to dispute opinions they are offered retrograde process in a meeting room; people rights are being taken away, they deserve a courtroom, a judge, and real process. There should never be a circumstance when we “expedite” the incarceration of a citizen as the BCMHA does, as in the expediting there is inherent arbitrariness.

The subject of this case study had less than two hours interface with medical personnel before that act was misapplied, had never committed a single act of violence or threatened harm to self or others – he merely asserted the presence of synchronistic actions on the part of a group or groups and for that, absent any evidence to refute the claim, he was incarcerated and detained for 12 years, forced to consume medication, had his privacy invaded and a multitude of other humiliating experiences. An obscene abuse of state power, a travesty of justice, a heartbreaking saga for him, stigmatization for no reason - this was a state-sanctioned act of malfeasance. As his case progressed, after 12 years of his fighting the system, after Royal Inland Hospital spent thousands of dollars on a lawyer to fight him and he with only his own person and no resources – they released him with no apparent constraints on his person.

There is no doubt that this acts initiation and ongoing administration was arbitrary in this case – it can be proven – proper process has been denied.

Please Click Here for Discourse on the Review Panel Process

       

Law, Legislation and Liberty – BC Mental Health Act. (BCMHA) – Vague

In order for a law to be administered fairly and absent arbitrariness, clarity is required. The BCMHA is very difficult to administer because the nature of related medical practices leaves a wide scope for interpretation of illness and degree of illness, physiological assessment is inherently subjective and easily subverted by personal biases, social convention, and cultural variances. In administering patients under the act, the medical professional is extended a broad degree of discretion, while they have a requirement to assess the “plausibility” of claims, for example, there are no guidelines on how plausibility is interpreted or applied – they simply decide what to believe or not to believe absent any requirement for proving or disproving and they are most often informed by hearsay alone. Further; “severity” is ill-defined, the perception of illness is all that is required to actuate the act. In the administration of the BCMHA, there are no clear benchmarks for practitioners and judiciaries with respect to “severity”. People can have their rights breached absent being a threat or for failing to watch their finances or a single person exposed to the act can be treated differently depending on who treats them. In this case, vagueness effects arbitrariness. 

In the absence of clarity around “severity” medical personnel have the capacity to act preemptively-  we think the patient will do something wrong, we will incarcerate them. To medical professionals this makes perfect sense, mental illness responds to early treatment, this is one of the base arguments for an act like the BCMHA. The challenge is that it is a base tenet of our legal system, that in order to have your state of liberty interrupted something wrong must have occurred – this is fundamental – the absence of clarity around severity moves us away from fundamentals. There are very few instances if any in practical terms, where there is an opportunity for preemptive action by the state. The existence of preemptive capacity may subject the act to subversion – it may be tempting for example – to have a man declared ill on the basis of “unreasonable jealously” and incarcerated on the perception he might do something violent in a crumbling relationship. This kind of legislation is a very slippery slope and it puts us all at risk, at any time, of having the perceptions of other’s determine whether our state of liberty is upheld or not. In law in general, to incarcerate people on the anticipation they might do something is a complete breach of our legal traditions. 

There is leeway given in the administration BCMHA with respect to the preconditions of incarceration, due to the assertion, that when administering the act professional’s actions are absent a punitive element. Anytime the state uses its power to change behaviour, or to detain for the protection of the public it is punitive; the fact that force is permitted and used indicates the people affected view the use of the BCMHA as punitive. 

The act now grants complete discretion to medical personnel as to whether to use the act or not, the use of the act hinges on the perception of illness, as opposed to physical occurrences, objective data, proof of a pathogenic abnormality, or threatening actions by an individual. The BC Civil Liberties group and others see the flaw in this and want there to be a strengthening of the language around severity to include terms like “imminent harm” “a clear threat to self or others”.

As a result of the BCMHA being ill-defined, the requirements of the state to strike the right balance between public safety and administering the law can never be ascertained, because professionals discretion and the perception of illness are the only determining factors in the in actuating the act. The “fair balance test” as determined by Cunningham V Canada requires that for certain sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be deemed appropriate, circumvented, or the degree they are circumvented, that there needs to be a clear requirement for public safety; the BCMHA has no mechanism, as it is presently administered and written, to determine whether or not the “fair balance test” is satisfied.  To find accord with the precedent it is required that the BCMHA effects a reduction in liberty that is commensurate with the need to protect society, there is no means determine accord with precedent given the vagueness of the act.

The inclusion of language that defines the parameters for professional action would reduce the risk of abuse of the act, reduce the present arbitrariness of the act and return us to be closer to fundamental law. Clearer definition and judicial review prior to incarceration or being committed would permit the treatment of people affected by mental illness and protect the rest of the population while maintaining accord with fundamental rights.   

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR COMMENT ON CHARTER INFRINGEMENTS AND BREACHES

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – BC Mental Health Act. (BCMHA) – Discriminatory

If one contemplates the application of this act in the context of Section 8 (1) b of the human rights code,

a.       Unlawful to discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age of that person or class of persons.

Discrimination begins at the point of accusation and continues with the circumvention of due process and procedure.  In Canada, as per fundamental law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the full breadth of Canadian Jurisprudence’s history and practice, one critical fundamental lies at the core of our law, we exist in a state of liberty and for that state liberty to be interrupted it must be proven justified in front of a justice and / or jury. The BC Mental Health Act denies this right, it permits an opinion of a layperson to have a person incarcerated, it then requires a doctor’s opinion to have you detained for 24 hours and another doctor’s opinion to have you detained indefinitely. If you object, a retrograde process in the form of a Review Panel is provided, a lawyer, a doctor, and another member preside over your future – no judge or jury like criminals get. So at the mere accusation of mental infirmity by a layperson or a police officer, absent imminent threat to self or others, you can be locked up and forced to treatment for an extended period of time; the subject in the subject case was detained under section 37 Leave or Extended Leave for 12 years.

Excerpt Section 22 BCMHA

(c) a statement, separate from that under paragraph (a), by the physician that the physician is of the opinion that the person to be admitted, or the patient admitted, under subsection (1)

(i)  requires treatment in or through a designated facility,

(ii)  requires care, supervision and control in or through a designated facility to prevent the person's or patient's substantial mental or physical deterioration or for the protection of the person or patient or the protection of others, and

(iii)  cannot suitably be admitted as a voluntary patient.

Absent a single act of violence, absent any threat of suicide, absent any objective evidence, absent any proof of a physical pathogen; the BCMMA can be activated and you can be incarcerated. People accused of mental infirmity are at the whim of medical opinion – see Section ii above – there is no requirement for imminent harm to self or others, no requirement of proof. “Patient’s mental or physical deterioration” has had the act applied if someone is appearing to be “irrationally” managing their money. If you choose to stop working and to sit on the side of a hill and meditate, and your spouse or other layperson deems this an irrational act, they could have the BCMHA actuated.

Discriminatory Elements of the Act.

1.       No judicial review before incarceration.

2.       A Review Panel process that makes rudimentary the incarceration and detention of people and flouts the traditions of Canadian jurisprudence.

3.      Reduced standard of review – the balance of probabilities vs beyond reasonable doubt (we extend criminals better protection), if complaints ever make it to court by people accused of mental illness.

4.       Reduced evidentiary standards:

a.       The “evidence” presented has no obligation to be based in fact.

b.      The “evidence” presented is written by the doctors and accepted by Review Panel as “evidence”, this is like the Crown Attorney writing “guilty” on a sheet of paper and the Judge accepting it.

c.       “Evidence” is collected from third parties, interpreted, and then entered into a judicial process – absent opportunity for review by the accused or incarcerated.

d.      There are no discovery obligations in the Review Panel process, the accused can be denied access to information that contributes to their incarceration.
e.   If the Review Panel Process is challenged in the Courts under Section 33, evidence that accumulated in a process that is substandard to Supreme Court proceedings is admissible and is the only Statutory avenue available to access the BCSC.

5.    The accused can be denied access to process altogether upon the recommendation of the accusing doctor.

6.    There is no more severe form of sanction than arresting a person’s state liberty in Canadian law, save the requirement to relinquish control over mind and body, people merely accused of Mental Illness are subject to both – WITH NO JUDICIAL REVIEW – accused criminals are only subject to incarceration and they have better treatment.    

    

This is intended to bring awareness to the inequity of the act, it is discriminatory make no mistake about it – grossly so. In an attempt to “have better ability to help”, a group of people have lobbied for this act, a group of people radicalized by bad experience – they have succeeded in convincing the government and in doing so have grossly damaged legal processes and permitted discrimination. As you read more of my posts on the subject of the BCMHA, it will come to light that what is even worse than the ill being discriminated against – which is bad enough – is the fact that the entire population is at risk of its abuse. Abuse does happen – it has and will again.  

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO REVIEW - VAGUE ASPECTS OF THE BCMHA

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – BAD LAW - DANGEROUS LAW - UNJUST PROCESS

THERE IS A LINK TO SPECIFIC CHALLENGES WITH THE BCMHA AT BOTTOM OF PAGE.
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It is the case that in the practice of law, that the minutia tends to take us away from justice, the big picture. In Canada, we have a circumstance in play that has the erosion of fundamental law occurring at an alarming rate. If you have a deep belief in common law and its fundamental tenets that are the foundation of our system, then you will share my concern with respect to this disturbing trend, a trend that has expediency trump due process. There are a number of examples of this trend throughout the system, no more glaring however than the BC Mental Health Act. An act that has drifted away from fundamental law, and that was drafted and is now administered is a manner that flouts common law traditions and the charter. We need to be very wary of the “tribunalisation” of legal process, as it has been applied here a number of ills have emerged; not the least of which is the stagnation of statute absent exposure to court process and alterations due to its administration in the face of precedent effect. We need to ensure that people have the benefit of the “full due process” that courts provide. We need to protect evidentiary process. We need to ensure that the standard of review is commensurate with state sanction. We need clarity in law. We need the absence of arbitrariness. As the BC Mental health act is written and administered there is a litany of breaches and infringements on expected process, fundamental law and the charter. The BC Mental Health Act, as it is administered, counts evidence in a manner that would be analogous to Crown Counsel writing “guilty” on a piece of paper, handing to the judge, and having it accepted. I have prepared a summary of a case of an individual severally affected by the mis-application of the BC Mental Health Act, please take the time to review this case by clicking on the link below. I am sure you will find this act and its administration as concerning as I do.  
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There has never been a better legal system than “common law”, it is fair, it is responsive and through the use of precedent a single “law” can evolve at a  measured pace. One can attribute common law’s fairness in large measure, I believe, to the fact that the people who devised the process knew they would never be subject to it. As common law is now applied, as directed by our charter, “universally”; we have certain protections and obligations. It is my assertion that the hard-earned protections afforded us, years of tradition that has built the foundation of our system – or the bank of fundamentals that make our common law jurisdiction’s residents’ safe from intrusion by others or government – are all being seriously challenged by a complex of factors; the apathy of the people to long accustom to legal fundamentals of freedom being in place, legislation greatly influenced by “special interests” that are in effect radicalized to the point of lobbing to weaken the fundamentals of freedom, technology in the hands of government and other actors that circumvent traditional legal and societal protocols. There has been an insidious slide backwards to state authority gaining greater and greater influence over the full continuum of human existence, we are all complicit in this, we need to be more diligent in arresting further state intrusion into the citizenry's private lives by ensuring the fundamentals of freedom; presumption of innocence, habitus corpus, protection against arbitrariness, overreaching legislation, charter protections, property rights etc. are upheld – the law must be administered off the foundation of first principles, as opposed to contemporary concerns and nouveau tangents.

A most glaring example of this is the British Columbia Mental Health Act. (BCMHA), where lobbing has effected a circumstance that has the interests of a few, very few, overriding the fundamental rights of the entire population. Through the experiences of a friend, I have witnessed a travesty of justice – where the most draconian measures available in Canadian society, incarceration was utilized inappropriately and on the judgment of what amounts to a single individual. This is a terrifying piece of legislation because it attacks the fundamental rights and freedoms of the entire population, and worse, discriminates against people at the mere accusation of mental infirmity (oft times accusations by laypeople) and then discriminates by the mechanics of the systems as it disempowers the accused to a greater extent the more they object. These types of legislations the world over have been the favoured tool of oppressors, as they both incarcerate and discredit in one fell swoop; Soviet Russia, China, jurisdictions in the United States and Europe have seen abuse of these types of statues, we need now to work to see that in Canada, that statutes of this nature are brought into accord with fundamental justice and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In Canada, we are in a trend of lessening liberty as opposed to increasing liberty, I intend, with the BCMHA as a lens, to enlighten those who are interested in how our liberty is being eroded, how institutional inertia is taking the law further away from base principles and how easy it is for legislation to be misapplied and power abused. The BCMHA was conceived and promoted by people injured by what can be a ravaging experience, they have my empathy, however; in the creation and administration of the law a sober mind is required, and as much attention needs to be given to a law’s misuse as it’s intended use. The only way to ensure the law is properly directed is to build it on base principles which have at their core the protection of the individual against misapplied state power and or the actions of others.  It is a most grievous circumstance, that in Canada, we have legislation in place that both endangers the general populous, and both arrests the rights of the ill and discriminates against the ill.

PLEASE CLICK HERE - TO REVIEW DISCRIMINATORY ELEMENTS OF THE BCMHA

    

Security Challenges 3

PLEASE NOTE: I have had security challenges, subtle changes have been made to my work on occasion – I am working to rectify the situation. Should you witness anything untoward or require clarification do contact me. THANK YOU.

Supply Management - Ed Fast - Trade Talks

Neil E. Thomson

nthomson2@yahoo.ca

October 17, 2013

Honourable Ed Fast

Minister of International Trade

Ottawa Office

Room 105, East Block
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 995-0183
Fax: (613) 996-9795
E-mail: ed.fast@parl.gc.ca

Dear Sir,

In a recent article in the Nation Post your representatives indicated an undying support for Supply Management as it is now configured.

The EU trade deal is only part of the world trade picture, as I know you’re aware; one of the biggest inhibiting factors in the Doha Round of WTO talks has been supply management and agriculturally related trade. The EU agricultural operating environment is similar to ours, a reality which has permitted you to “keep your promise” regarding the Supply Managed sector, other important regions are less hospitable.

The reality is that the present configuration of the Supply Managed sector effects all manner of ills on the participating industries and Canadian consumers. Your extended inhabitation in Abbottsford undoubtedly has had you in contact with the BC Milk Marketing Board who have their office in Abbottsford. The supply management regime, especially as it pertains to milk, requires restructuring; as the system’s long tenure has allowed a decadence to settle in and the world trading system will demand change.

Preservation of the system as it now stands is errant, transition out of supply management as it is now configured, with fair remuneration to farmers for lost “assets” is the path to contemplate now.  We are seeking free trade with the world, clinging to outmoded market practices to appease groups who would better absent said outmoded practices is folly. Your government has run on the “free market ticket”, how does that pair up with the ardent support of supply management communicated by your office.    

Sincerely,

Neil E. Thomson

Please see Blog for a more fulsome discussion regarding Supply Management.

http://nthomson2.blogspot.ca/2013/07/bc-milk-supply-management-system-sms.html

Medical Ethics – Challenge with Consent

Medical Ethics – Challenge with Consent

All segments of the medical service space require consent; there are statutes that arrest one’s state of “competency” and permit treatment without consent – some draconian - to be discussed later. There are even provisions for people to be treated absent their knowledge and this is determined as appropriate, in some cases by a committee. Of course, as one who treasures choice, consent in the medical service space, or any space, is paramount – consent is the substrate of choice. For those of us lucky enough to have a “significant other” personal relations are oft times referred to as “love making”, the only component that separates “love making” from rape is consent. I offer this metaphor to sharpen the reader’s attention to the gravity of this discourse; this is much more than theoretical chit chat, this discussion brings resolution to the fact that “consent” & personal choice are one in the same, and when, by force, or deception, choice is removed people are, as the rape victim, disempowered and violated.

The only effective means to garner consent is to ask “is it ok to do this” and then to ensure that if the person answers in the affirmative they understand what they are agreeing to. There is no such thing as implied consent, people in the medical profession use the term “implied consent”. “Implied Consent” is loosely determined by deducting an action or verbiage as parallel “enough” that if the subject could provide consent they would. The Challenge with “Implied Consent” is that practitioners unable to garner consent think they need it, so they “over interpret” information, or they enter the process with confirmation bias as their companion, or the assumption of consent fails to adjust for a variance in risk and treatment – he takes Aspirin so Oxycontin is okay. The other challenge with implied consent is that inherent in implied consent is the absent of explicit discourse, so the subject is absent any knowledge; this grossly under rates the capacity of the lay person to manage or understand, and denotes a professional arrogance on the part of the practitioner. Implied consent can have a person exposed to a drug absent knowledge of what they are being exposed to, this practice is fraught with risk for any number of reasons – common sense will fill in the blanks.

Finally, there is the removal of the requirement to get consent – by way of example – the BC Mental Health Act. grants Doctors the power to deem someone mentally ill and incarcerate them. There are a host of ills with this specific act and discourse is outside the scope of this document, however, it suffice to say that when government action interrupts a person’s state of liberty, that judicial review should be commensurate with the “sentence” administered – now we have lay people deciding what defines “competency”, this reality is more than unethical, it flouts years of Canadian Jurisprudence.   

Consent is also a moving target; consent today can change to consent tomorrow or vise versa. So consent given ten years ago is no longer valid, as time passes circumstance can change – people learn more, people become more evolved. The critical element in consent is full disclosure of actions taken and ongoing assurance that the subject is fully informed and has understanding.

The base point of contemplation in matters related to consent is – make it explicit.       

Law, Legislation and Liberty - Policy Creation – Correct Perspective - Government as Educator not Regulator

Law, Legislation and Liberty - Policy Creation – Correct Perspective - Government as Educator not Regulator

When you read any piece of legislation, legislation being the practical expression of policy, the language is always directive by authority. The fundamental view in structuring law has government as the authority and the population to obey or suffer the consequences. This is an errant perspective as it assumes us subordinate to government; a) when the opposite is supposed to be true b) when our charter extends us autonomy as a basic human right. If you believe as I do, that we exist as sovereign beings and liberty is a right of our humanity as opposed to something the state grants us, this authoritarian stance of the government is very offensive. The government should be issuing directions as opposed to edicts.

Government has an important role as a mediator, or, through the law, to provide the effective interaction of the citizenry – the government has no meaningful role in personal choice, especially when personal choices made are benign to the rest of the populous. Government has an important role as a protector from outside threats; it has no role in protecting us from ourselves - saves to the provision of non-biased & reliable information for us to choose with. When thinking about the policy the thrust needs to be, how do we facilitate human action as it originates from the individual, as opposed to how do we control people; Canadians are a collection of individuals as opposed to a group of people, so in providing choice to a well-informed populous, we move decision making closer to the point of action and inherent in exercising choice is ownership, and in ownership is responsibility; a more responsible and actuated population emerges.   

Rather than having a drug policy that enforces a moral code against the altered state, have a drug policy that informs the public of the risks and benefits of all substance use. In the early 1970s, 70% of the adult population smoked, now about 15% do. Cigarettes are still legal, however, by informing the public, the government effected a cultural shift that moved smoking from an action of status to one of a fool. When people see the skull and crossbones on a container they know the contents are poison – rationale people avoid eating the contents. The Canadian landscape has literally millions of dangers, the government is unable to put handrails on every cliff in Canada, and it relies on parents to teach their children to avoid walking off cliffs. People have the capacity to manage their own lives, and government policy should extend them as full a breath of action as possible. 

With law – less is more. In Canada we are over-governed, increasingly our personal lives are governed. This is the case because the government to often is trying to manage personal matters, the government has trouble with managing slow-moving, large and sturdy infrastructure, so it should stay away from micro-managing Canadian’s personal lives by regulating every possible aspect of life. Since my parent's day, there has been an insidious escalation into our private lives, we have become in many ways a totalitarian state – if one measures the breadth of government involvement in our personal lives juxtaposed against any other point in history.            

Law, Legislation and Liberty Policy Creation – Correct Perspective - Morality

Law, Legislation and Liberty Policy Creation – Correct Perspective - Morality

If you begin the process of making policy with a skewed perspective, the policy will be skewed. If you begin policy making from the perspective of what should be, rather than what is, you will get a skewed policy. Religious morality is founded on the assertions of people in the context of their metaphysical contemplations rather than fact, whether they believe in God or Christ, Mahmoud, polytheist or some variation on a given theme. The challenge with the irrationality of religion being mixed with policy is that people are busy effecting control over the populous rather than managing societal outcomes.  Religious morality came into being to manage human interface in a beneficial manner, morality is in no way created to stop the behaviour, but rather to effect societal outcomes – as a person subjecting themselves to theocratic rigour one has the right to ignore outcome, one involved in the governance process must hold outcome as paramount.    

To assert religious belief as irrational is accurate, in that, the notion of faith absent tangible proof is irrational as a result of the assertion being unsubstantiated. This is, in no way an affirmation of atheism, but rather, a criticism of the misapplication of religious morality in governance which results in outcomes that contradict the basic premises of the Christian faith (in the Canadian context) and conflict with the enlightenment / secular ideals as they are want to find expression in a free and democratic society. There needs to be a detachment from religious belief in the policy creation process to ensure rational policy that meets the requirements of society at large.

As an aside, a comment on the Christian moral perspective. Metaphysical contemplation has inherent the reality that it must start where human knowledge ends, the Christian moral perspective evolves from the views and general understanding of people who, in many cases, lived in excess of 2000 thousand years ago. The assumption that order is preexisting, as opposed to realizing the universe is in a state of flux, assumes that all creatures and things were the product of a single Genesis and are fixed when the world indicates differently. Assuming a fixed point of origin provides a reference point, but creates a distortion in perception, as the “fixed point of origin” occurred in a state of flux. The beginning and the end are unknown and unknowable, and are the place of metaphysical contemplation; assumptions that distort this reality serve to confound thought, distort progress and generally limit humanity. The ardent adherence to orthodoxy ofttimes generates an immoral circumstance; one would think that in our modern society “orthodoxy” as it relates to any religion & government policy would have folded, it does linger, however, so we have to work to ensure that the negative outcomes generated by orthodoxy get remedied and the positive preserved.

Moral Relativism is a term normally murmured as a pejorative; I, on the other hand, see moral relativism as a philosophy that permits “traditional believes” to provide direction while allowing people’s conduct to evolve with advancements in knowledge and technology. When one permits the “reexamination” of moral tenets, an examination undertaken with the desired outcomes of the “founders” of a given m oral complex in mind – one can begin to expand the human endeavour and achieve the worthwhile “societal” outcomes we all desire. One is also permitted to examine an issue absent prejudice, to really examine an issue from a place of reason. Many of (y)our most vexing challenges – even in modern Canada – paths to a solution are blocked by the inappropriate adherence to “outmoded” moral perspectives. Rather than taking a public health perspective, a populist perspective or just the most efficient solution perspective, we are locked in a repeat of bad policy the attempts to adhere to a single moral perspective with outcomes that marginalize and effect grossly immoral outcomes on our most vulnerable.

If it is your goal, as it is mine, to have whole and well-adjusted family units – which is the underlying desire of much of the religion-based moral complex, then build a policy that addresses that goal – rather than directing resources to block “vice” for example. Prostitution will occur, it is contrary to the aforementioned goal, however, by directing resources to stop it you starve the governance energy to support a family or what some may term as the more “wholesome” aspects of life. It is necessary at times to “ignore” behaviour to address the root causes of the behaviour you're want to correct or redirect. The public health perspective on prostitution brings people in the “trade” into the ambit of health professionals, people who can offer a way to a different life should a different life be desired. In the process of “fighting” vice, we marginalize and alienate people drawn to the “trade”, oft times by unfortunate circumstances. There is a paradox that exists in developing policy – the ardent adherence to moral orthodoxy often leads to a damaging outcome. It is the ardent adherence to the institutionalized Christian moral perspective with respect to the altered state that has us “warring” against our own people in the realm of drug policy; even when it was our very drug policy that has imposed illness on a given individual.  

The correct basis in thought for good policy has firstly, the desire to find the best overall outcome founded on science and fact, and secondly, the willingness to expose policy execution to honest, rigorous post-application assessment. Only by establishing indicators, benchmarks and milestones based on a clear set of metrics can we ensure the policy is doing what it is intended to do.          

Morality is far too idiosyncratic for government to manage; morality belongs squarely in civil society. Any given person’s moral perspective evolves, most often absent conscious thought, from their family and their family’s religious practice or the absence of religious practice.  So you may disagree with a person’s actions, fear for their sole – so speak to that person; you may enlighten them to another perspective. I should emphasize that this commentary is in no way an attack on any given religious perspective. The challenge arises when institutional credibility rides on dogma challenged by substantiated fact and government authority is appropriated to further dogma. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, all we need for a reason to prevail is to accept another’s truth to be as valid as our own. It is critical, however, that government policy generates neutrality in the public square. A child should be the able to start down any street with a given moral perspective and level of awareness and emerge out the other end unchanged, save a parent’s chosen direction.      

Discourse on the Great Recession - Harmonic - Financial Economy and the Real Economy

Discourse on the Great Recession - Harmonic - Financial Economy and the Real Economy

I had a girlfriend once that played a game, when walking and holding hands she would have me relax my arm, as we walked she would swing my arm for me, we would over time be swinging arms back and forth, but having picked up her rhythm, again over time, neither of us would know who was swinging our arms – after a time it became unclear which of us was initiating the motion. I’m unsure what she was up to exactly, it does serve however as a perfect metaphor for the harmonic that exists between the “real economy” and the financial economy. Unlike the chicken and the egg, we know what got here first; we are absent the ability to know which, however, having created the relationship, is initiating action - the real economy or the financial economy.

A harmonic describes a frequency that is an integral multiple of a fundamental frequency, unlike in physics, in the two “economies” harmonics are less clearly identified and asymmetrical at initiation yet constantly seek a revision to an equilibrium – more like colliding cycles –  1000 pebbles on the pond rather than one. It’s this degree of complexity that confounds our ability to assess causation, and worse confounds our ability to offer a rationale to the “consuming public” that is clear and effects confidence. Like Truman said “God please give me a one-handed economist”, with the economy, there are never enough hands.

To illustrate the point, contemplate the money supply relative to the real economy. Money is an abstract entity that we create at will, can effect change in the real economy, more money supply, will for a time and to a point, effect accelerated creation and consumption of goods and services. More money absent the perception of devaluation effects actuation, more money in the presence of generalized knowledge of devaluation effects no change in actuation. When the real economy expands due to supply and demand dynamics the money supply expands and as stated, when the money supply expands so does the real economy. It is this harmonic that is the crux of a central banker’s work; managing money supply to either actuate a contracting or stagnant economy or retard an “over” stimulated one. Once again, this harmonic can feed a rapid upward “spiral”, when confidence is high and the money supply is untethered, and the real economy is vibrant – inflation ensues – a little inflation is good, but a lot is toxic. When we effect a harmonic – tight complementary cycles – we have a vibrant economy and steady growth and improved lives – at any point, however, cycles can extend to create a “positive” feedback mechanism and cycles become more extreme and lives are harmed. Once again accentuating the point that artificial interventions that extend cycles come with risk – as was the case with the great recession.

     

Discourse on the Great Recession – Oil

Discourse on the Great Recession – Oil

For the most part, one can contribute “the lion's share” of the blame for the Great Recession on the collective human mind; in fact, the entire world enterprise is a product of the human mind and its interface with the world environment. What we humans want, we get, supply does wane, prices do go up – oil is no exception. Oil is the single biggest influencer on the human enterprise, without a doubt, where oil goes we follow. There are replacements, just none that come into play quickly enough to offer a liberating degree of fungibility for this item, as George Bush said “we are addicted to it”.  When oil goes up, economic growth wanes, it is a constant in reviewing the modern economy. The good news is that there has been somewhat of a "decoupling" of oil and GDP post the 1979s oil crisis. The move to a more efficient fleet is partly responsible and of course, we have moved to a more “intellectually” based economy – less physical stuff relative to information and services.   

The challenge in the run-up to the Great Recession was in no way related to the presence or absence of oil reserves, but rather, a product of the perception of possible supply constraints due to geo political events – this is evidenced to some degree by the post crisis high price that stabilized much lower absent the speculative fluff that had accumulated in the run-up to the crisis. Oil went parabolic – the economy slumped. One might assert that oil is still harbouring speculative fluff at $100 / barrel given an average world price of less than half that since 1947. Technology is giving access to more and more oil. High oil price is certainly a causal agent for the Great Recession, it is hard to determine where in the harmonic between the physical world and the financial world the genesis for the rise originated. 

Note: In August 2015 this speculation has come true, the price is now half what it was when I wrote this.  

Discourse on the Great Recession – Leverage

Discourse on the Great Recession – Leverage

Leverage refers to the use of credit to increase returns on a given amount of equity. If one holds $10 in equity – invests it and makes a dollar they have garnered a 10% return; if one uses that same $10 to borrow $100 and invests the $100 and makes $10 – the $10 of equity has garnered a 100% return. This is better, at least, until there is an equal decline in value then losses are as dramatic.

In the Stock market, people have provisioned the ability to borrow using stocks as collateral, when a brokerage (or a provisionary of funds) sees a decline in stock price, their security for the loan, they make a margin call – requiring the borrower to pay back funds. When there is a widespread crisis of confidence, margin calls can generate a cascading event, where, as people liquidate their positions to satisfy margin calls – the value of stock decreases – prompting more margin calls. This transpired at the beginning of the Great Recession and was part of the complex of causal events.

It was estimated in 2006 that the United States as a nation was levered at about 11 to 1 – an entire economy that had $1 of equity for every $11 of debt. When all the effects of the crisis of confidence occurred and people exited the field or were forced to – the value of assets decreased, however, the debt remained. It becomes very difficult to effect growth in an economy when people are holding large amounts of debt, and their ability acquires or appetite for more, debt is curtailed. Worse than the immediate effects of this debt, is that it weighs on economic growth for a long time. For the average person, when their house value drops and their mortgage stays the same, their ability to borrow more money and purchase goods are curtailed.

There is a phenomenon that occurs in the presence of credit; in real estate, it is common to have a 10-acre piece of land worth more per acre than a 100-acre piece of land. The reason is that when the hundred-acre piece of land is subdivided into 10 pieces there are more people who can afford the 10-acre piece of land than the 100-acre piece of land, effecting an increase in demand for the small parcel of land relative to the larger parcel – the increase in relative value between the more expensive asset and the least expensive is referred to as a “liquidity premium”. Credit in general and credit configuration has this same effect – by making assets more affordable by amortizing their cost over years you increase the pool of available buyers and exert upward pressure on all assets value.  This is true also of credit configuration, by extending amortization periods you have the effect of making an asset more available – hence increasing demand and exerting upward pressure on price.

It was the extended period of well-rewarded leverage and credit availability that effected an overvaluation of stocks and related products. It was the availability of credit and credit configuration that effected massive secular inflation and the resulting bubble in the housing sector.   

Discourse on the Great Recession – Trading Systems

Discourse on the Great Recession – Trading Systems

Trading is the most primal of human exchanges, even in the most primitive societies comparative advantage prompted trading – the excellent hunter made a deal with the excellent arrowhead maker. The challenge in modern trading systems is the degree of abstraction that has evolved – there is no clear connection between actual human endeavour and trading – trading then hinges on the perception of value, rather than a perception of value anchored in relative human action. Absent a concrete attachment to a service or product, the “castle of the mind” plays a massive role; confidence or the lack of it determines value.

 

One of the initiating factors of the Great Recession and also the key factor in the prolonged state of uncertainty, was the inability to quantify exposure for individuals and governments due to opaque trading systems. Many of the new financial instruments were without a public forum to trade; the various assets CMO, CDO, many other Asset-Backed Securities and Credit Default Swaps without a public trading forum to make public their volume and tempo of exchange or their value, the condition of the market was indiscernible by governments and individuals – there was no ability to qualify the exposure; this effected a widespread state of unease. Lending institutions with no clear assessment of other institutions' exposure were hesitant to lend to one another regardless of the interbank rate determined by central banks or other factors – this caused serious consternation and retarded the availability of capital. Many of these “products” became valueless, even though the underlying assets had value, due to the uncertainty of the underlying asset’s value – there were no tangible means to assess value and no open trading system to manage sentiment.

 

When you contrast these assets’ price behaviour and ambient sentiment through the crisis with publicly traded products – stocks, exchange-traded funds and the related derivatives – one noticed a more favourable circumstance evolved with the transparent trading system. The ability to assess the value of the underlying assets due to generally accepted and regulated accounting and reporting systems and the presence of an open trading system together allowed a floor to form on the value of openly traded assets sooner than in opaque trading environments and the general market confidence in this space recovered more quickly.

 

Credit Default Swaps (effectively bond insurance) – for example – the sum total of the asset represent was less the total amount of “insured” value – the equivalent of a $100 asset being insured for $100,000 – default is then a favourable circumstance for the holder of swaps – the challenge of course is, the issuers of swaps often take the asset back from the entity the swap has been issued to. One can see in this circumstance how challenging it can be to assess one's exposure absent any “open” trading modality; once again negatively affecting general confidence.

 

There will always be “private agreements” between people and companies, however, when public entities are at play – publicly traded companies - as a matter of regulation concern public companies must be obligated to have the capacity to accurately disclose the value of assets they hold – this should preclude them from trading inside opaque systems with “products” that have no clear expression of value and no means to handle the realities of market sentiment.  

 

      

Discourse on the Great Recession – BANKING & REAL ESTATE LENDING

Discourse on the Great Recession – BANKING & REAL ESTATE LENDING

Credit has always presented a challenge to managing a financial system, hence the name “usury”; or perhaps look at a religion that evolved at the time of the earliest advanced banking system – Sharia and the resulting laws banning lending as a practice. Lending, coupled with fiat currency, poses a challenge to manage for modern governments as well, governments role, save in a small number of cases, is to contain over-exuberance as opposed to heightening it, as it did in the years leading up to the great recession. In tandem with government policy came the advancement of “financial sciences” and the development of derivative products to allay risk to lenders.

 

It is a laudable goal of the United States Government to give every citizen an opportunity to have a home. Laudable because ownership provisions stronger ties to society to a larger degree than the absence of ownership. Laudable because by provisioning the opportunity for people of limited means to build capital to own an appreciating asset they acquire the opportunity to capitalize their labour. Laudable because people of limited means with a little help can escape the rental trap. Laudable because elderly people can live more easily when they are absent a rent payment. Laudable because in broadening home ownership the government broadens all the supporting markets. The commentary post the crash in the housing market coming from talking heads was deplorable – they seemed to indicate that generalized participation in capitalism was impractical, that a goal of generalized home ownership was impractical because some were unable to manage it. You can rest assured that the people trying to claw their way to prosperity via home ownership, were in no way to blame for the real estate crash, government and industry were the culprits.  

 

The US government brought Freddy Mac and Fanny May into being to create a circumstance that would support the banks in lending for housing to a broader segment of the population. These entities were government-initiated corporations charged with lending via banks to support a policy of generalized housing ownership in the US. While it was never the intention for the government to underwrite these organizations’ lending, when things got bad, the government did, as Wall Street suspected they would. The tacit understanding by the lending industry that government would intervene was one leg in support of aggressive lending.

 

The Asset Back Securities (ABS) related to mortgages grew. The underlying rationale for  ABSs was to reduce risk, by pooling mortgages, and issuing bonds in accord with risk strata the banks could attract capital to the market – no single individual or institution was exposed to the full risk of any given mortgage. It was the separation of lender and borrower that contributed to “irresponsible” lending; prior to these broad-based risk mitigation tactics, the bank would lend to an individual and the bank would hold that mortgage on its books. The incentive for a bank to screen borrowers, assess the lending environment and follow through on the collection of a mortgage, that is in the sole possession of that bank, is far greater when mortgage losses fall to said bank.  

 

Banks have a tier-one capital requirement (more or less balance sheet equity), recently elevated in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Banks need to leaver relatively small profits over large volumes of funds, so they require a method to circumvent the tier one requirements. This was achieved in some cases by a Special Investment Vehicle (SIV). A SIV is an arm’s length company that takes ownership of mortgages and often packages said mortgages in ABS. Once the mortgage is held in a SIV the bank has no exposure to that mortgage. You can see here how, the lender and/or the ABS holder, are now three or four tiers away from the borrower - worse, in many cases no one knows who the lenders are.

 

In the environment generated by these realities and a rapidly valuing real estate markets, “freelance” lenders were issuing mortgages that they would never have to answer for, so they adopted very aggressive tactics with complete disregard for a correction in the market or the prospect of an interest rate increase and under the premise that housing prices would always go up. When the market did correct thousands of people found themselves “upside-down”, they owed more than the value of the asset the lone was issued against – they walked away in droves – unsold inventory grew, prices dropped – in some markets, no floor was found – acres of homes have been bulldozed. The human toll was massive, the institutions that precipitated the event have enjoyed more benefit than harm and the taxpayers are paying and paying some more. So our system is less than perfect to be sure, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, “it is awful but better than all the other options”.