the evidence *is* fairly clear that stimulus works, and tax cuts don't. i mean, this shouldn't be an ideological debate. and, it is trump that is living in the world of economic unicorns, holding to ideas that don't just lack empirical support, but have been demonstrably proven as ineffective - while trudeau is really holding to the textbook on economics, here: growth is driven by increases in aggregate demand. wage increases are far more effective than tax cuts in increasing this.

trudeau is right, here. trump isn't.

but, there was a poll that said that the conservative party propaganda - and that is what it is - about harper being a strong economic leader has had some kind of brainwashing effect, so here comes good old lorne hunter to enforce the lies. this isn't actually news, though. harper was outpolling trudeau on the economy right up to the election, remember, and still lost. you started seeing the numbers diverge when the ndp was leading: harper consistently did the best on the economy, but was still losing in every poll. how do you explain that? my analysis of this at the time is that people didn't really understand what they were telling pollsters, they were just repeating the marketing. the tv says harper is better on the economy, so he must be, right? but, if you try and ask them to explain *why*, you're not even going to get a coherent answer at all, let alone a confused one. they've never really thought about it, they're just taking the commercials on tv as an authority. because the tv doesn't lie, right?

i actually think that the oversaturation to economic messaging from the conservatives has probably led to a kind of ultra-paradoxical phase: they may accept that the conservatives are better on the economy without knowing what that means, they might obediently repeat the propaganda, but that doesn't appear to be affecting voting decisions, at this point, because they don't actually understand what the conservative party means when they say they're best on the economy. so, they take it as a given, but they don't understand what it actually means. i mean, this isn't an accident: the party obscures bad policies with vague messaging that obscures what they're actually doing. so, voters seem to be having difficulty tying the propaganda to actual policies, and then realize they don't support the policies that are apparently so good for the economy when presented with them. but, they repeat it, when polled on it, anyways.

i would suggest that the effects of this are going to be that the younger generation is not going to put the economy at the top of their voting priorities, and that's a deep social change. but, it's a reaction to the conservative propaganda. and, the country could very well end up economically better off as a consequence of it.

i kept asking steve if his economic action plan was a four-year plan or a five-year plan, and i never got an answer. but, i guess he had a majority for four years, right?

 http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-trudeau-stakes-our-future-on-hipster-economics

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.