It's Embarrassing to Read Either Canwest or Fraser

This article should not be about The Fraser Institute's success but about journalistic failure. A continuing failure like the neoconservative policies The Fraser Institute still espouses. It's like framing Bernie Madoff's Ponzie scheme as a success story.

The Fraser Institute?

Don't make puke! I do enough of that already if I happen to accidentally catch a word or two from that "economics expert" who has a Saturday morning radio show.

CanWest What?

This week, I received an email concerning a "letter to the editor" I sent at the beginning of August, from the Vancouver Sun stating: "Your email of Aug. 12 is being returned to you unread".

The Vancouver Sun nor the Fraser Institute (read Fascist right-wing) want to hear anyone opinion, save their own.

CanWest media, when they finally collapse in bankruptcy, can thank the Fraser Institute for their downward spiral.

The Vancouver Sun is like Pravda, prints all the news it is told to print.

The Fraser Inst. is one of

The Fraser Inst. is one of about 100 so called "conservative think tanks" set up in the mid '70s for the purpose to sell and force the theory of neoclassical market economics on an unsuspecting world.

The so called "Nobel Prize for Economics", in reality the Bank of Sweden prize, is part of this overall plan, started almost 100 years ago, but becoming reality about 40 to force the world under corporate dictatorship, under the guise of "globally competitive free trade". The only "free" in this racket is the free exploitation and enslavement of the world.

These are not "think tanks", but carefully planned PR agencies for the sugar coated sale of colonization and self enslavement of billions.

What we got out of their racket is an over 1000 % inflation of our living costs, whole sections of our economy, like foods, totally under the Soviet style collectivization and control of 2-3 of the multinational corporate mafia, who are destroying real private enterprise with their price fixing schemes, killing farmers, stealing the public blind, through the control and ownership of governments.

All in the name of "free enterprise", of course, legalizing the criminal actions of the worst criminals in history.

The world wars and the death camps of Stalin, Hitler and Mao took some 70 years to kill about 110 million people, but the neoclassical theory, advertised and sold by the likes of the Fraser Inst. and taught almost exclusively in our universities, manage to kill the same number in about 4 years with starvation, bad waters and easily preventable illnesses.

Wealth can not be created, only taken from other sectors, the environment and the future and this is what these so called "economists" are covering up and selling to the public with their Ponzi schemes disguised as "science".

No economic theory in history has ever been a science. They're nothing more, or less, than religions feeding on the gullibility and ignorance of people.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

The comparison to UBC is spurious

UBC supports the creation of peer-reviewed research. The FI produces carefully crafted propoganda.

Futhermore, UBC subscribes to certain ethical standards in the application and dissemination of that research that the FI does not.

The FI behaves like a group of 'Creation Scientists', churning out 'evidence' to support a pre-existing political/social agenda.

As soon as I see or hear the words:

Fraser Institute I ignore the rest.

As Ed Deak sated - its just a promoter and sugar coater of the economic exploitation of people for a relative few!

Did they not hire unschooled Ralph Klein!

Nuff said!

A success

Find a bunch of right wing media outlets, that's not hard almost all of them are, compose the message they all want to hear, don't tell anyone who funds you, and that's a success. O good morning joke,

Of course, calling all these

Of course, calling all these jerks a conspiracy, would be a "conspiracy theory".

Labour unions are, in their warped minds and propaganda "conspiracies" and "economic distortions", but unions of big business groups with multimillion dollar "earnings",
are "competitive free enterprise"

What are the Trilaterals and the Bilderbergers talk about in the secret meetings, protected from eavesdropping by the police and the military of host countries?

Of course, questioning their actions and intentions would be a "conspiracy theory".

Ed Deak.

I see all these people demonizing free speech...

of someone they rightfully disagree with.

I don't know why they don't demand the Canadian Human Rights Commission investigate the Fraser Institute at this rate!!!

Not demonizing free speech..

Just objecting to the favored access the Fraser Institute enjoys with the MSM. As for the shite they pass off as fact, that's a whole other issue.

It figures.

I never ascribe to deliberate malice what I cannot at first ascribe to laziness and incompetence. Nearly all publishers are cheapjack greedheads driven by the bottom line who will not willingly give their journalists time or resources to invetigate anything thoroughly. Most journalists are only too willing to accommodate them, and content themselves with re-typing press releases sent out by the Fraser Institute or various government spin organizations.

QUESTION: Who supplied a

QUESTION:

Who supplied a guest on Labour Day to help CKNW's Premier-in-Waiting Clark celebrate the brave history of trade unions?

ANSWER:

The Fraser Institute

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2009/09/labour-day-canadian-heritage-moment.html

Northern Insights excerpt about CKNW Labour Day program

How fortunate we are to have the Fraser Institute available on this statutory holiday. Here to counsel us about social programs. Under the chairmanship of one of BC's lesser billionaires, with a who's-who board of preciously rich folks, where anyone whose wealth can be measured with fewer than nine digits in front of the decimal is patronized, the Fraser Institute steps forward to tell us we don't deserve universal medical care.

if you buy The Sun you are part of the problem

How I wish more people read this stuff! More please.

I love the Vancouver Sun anway...

Vaughn Palmer gave some insightful info on CKNW today, including how the HST is forcing the gov't to have an invoice system for parents w/ autistic kids to protect that vital service from the HST. The same HST the Fraser loves.

Polakite

"Perhaps it is time to market a counterweight to the Vancouver Sun as aggressively as the Vancouver Sun markets itself."

That would be why many of us enjoy the Tyee. Sure it would be nice if it was bigger and had a daily print version but unlike the Sun, at least its readership is growing.

I agree with you on Kevin Falcon, I don't on the premier.

The marketplace for newspapers

Great article. The competitors in the marketplace of ideas sure are envious.

They're envious because something about the Fraser Institute's school rankings, tax freedom day and discussion of private health care procedures resonates with people.

Canwest - being the evil capitalist empire that my fellow commentators suggest it is - wouldn't put it on the front page so often if it didn't sell newspapers.

Perhaps the left needs to do a better job explaining why the Fraser's Institutes ideas are dangerous, instead of reverting to this smug, 'conservatives are just evil and stupid' refrain.

I think the comparison with UBC is especialy apt. UBC creates all the evidence the left needs to counter the F.I. when it's wrong, but the research never seems to reach the Tim Horton's crowd.

Last time I checked, the party of Liberal smuggery is running second in National Polls and a distant second in BC. And where was Stephen Harper yesterday? Campaigning at Tim Horton's in Ontario.

Marketplace for Newspapers?

In the "Marketplace of Ideas", if I promote that the sky is polkadot successfully for 30 years, does that make it true? Apparently. The market has spoken and the market always works perfectly and can be applied to everything all the time. As for selling papers, running Fraser "studies" doesn't seem to be working out for them real well. But then, one wonders of the wisdom of having newspaper content that appeals to people who don't read in general. Also, if you're looking for smug Liberals, look to Gordon Campbell who announced his intention to run again just after screwing BC with the HST and is a Liberal as much as any neoconservative Socred can be.

Tyee readers right on point

I love the Tyee for many reasons. One is for the impressive goup of readers, who comment with alacrity and intelligence on many Tyee stories. This community itself expands the nature of the Tyee into an interactive community, far more than the old media monopoly foruma that has failed so badly.

The comments above reflect a more accurate analysis of the Fraser Institute's relationship to media than does the article. But nevertheless, kudos to young Mr. Turner (student) for authoring an article and becoming curious about 'think tank' groups like the Fraser Institute. I recommend this topic to him, and encourage him to continue this study. It is most likely he will have to do additional reading outside the syllabus of the university settng. Universities have faced significant contraint in the area of free speech,

First, a must read is Blinded by the Right by David Brock, a stunning, first hand, insiders view of how think tanks and neocons behave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_by_the_Right

Secondly, research the Washinton Time, a daily newspaper that prints right wing propaganda, day in, day out, and never makes money. Why? Because it is meant to publish, publish, publish neocon propaganda, funded by Unification Church Sun Myung Moon. I mean, you can't make this stuff up! When I first read this material even I was skeptical. But check it out. All true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times

As Ed Deak and others noted above, there are around 100 think tanks like the Fraser. Many were started in 1973. The Heritage Institute was an inspiration for Canada's mini-me version. Funded by the Coors family, and added to by other millionaire interests, it currently has operating revenues of $48 million.

And then there is the American Enterprise Foundation, which has helped deny global warming, has received milllions from ExxonMobil, and pumps out more, neocon propaganda like the others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

The list goes on. Sadly. It is up to each of us, particularly those with intellectual aspirations, to dig deeper than the surface knowledge, develop courage, and stand up to systemic, economic elites who have little regard for the pain and injustice they inflict on others. It is at first a daunting task, but very, very rewarding. Great discussion!

kida0101 - dissenting ideas not published in MSM

kida0101 said:
"Perhaps the left needs to do a better job explaining why the Fraser's Institutes ideas are dangerous, instead of reverting to this smug, 'conservatives are just evil and stupid' refrain."

I know that with a name like SharingIsGood, it is pretty obvious that I philosophically oppose the Fraser Institute, but at least I am up front about it. The Fraser Institute, with the use of the word "Institute" as part of its moniker, pretends to be a place of advanced learning and searching for truths as though it belongs in the ranks of M.I.T. or even BCIT. This facade of a name is a metaphor for the hollow words spewn out by their right-wing hacks. These words are then carried aloft to the printing presses and onto the TV and radio news reports of our main stream media. That same media, of course, donates to both, the BC Liberal Party and to the Fraser Institute. The Campbell government's multi-million-dollar Political Affairs Bureau rounds out the scheme by releasing data that complements the MSM and the F.I. Of course, the owners of the MSM get back many of the dollars they have invested in the F.I. and the BC Liberals by receiving lucrative advertizing contracts from the BC Liberal Party and the provincial government’s coffers. The circle is completed, and BC wage earners are continually fed more of the lies, manipulations and partial truths purchased with their own sweat.

kida0101: There have been many people (myself included) who have done great gobs of research and provided much empirical evidence to counter F.I. reports published in the MSM; however, counter arguments rarely get past the editors of the MSM. When the MSM do report a left-wing view, reporters like Baldry, Good, Palmer and Darling often chop away at the words by employing a sneer or a sigh in their delivery. As MSM is Big Business, anything but hard-right thinking is counter to the goals of having good little low-income consumers working 2 jobs and spending every last looney they can borrow to be able to afford a place to live.

To get past the rhetoric of Big Business, one needs to begin looking in places where Big Business does not publish. One needs to visit places like The Tyee that offer ideas and reports counter to the MSN. Above all, one needs to be a critical thinker. One needs to be critical of everyting he or she has ever been taught as "truth". For 3 decades, I strongly believed in capitalism; over time, I have learned to change my thinking. Capitalism fails when one learns to give up consumerism, think wholistically about the planet and truly respect all beings.

http://www.nupge.ca/node/2533

I am intrigued by "demonizing a fine institute".

Perhaps somebody could tell me one good thing that the Fraser Institute has done for society in all its years. Just one that has improved th human condition..

It's just a name.....

Well said, Sharing is Good.

The Fraser Institute is as much of an institute.... as The Red Sea is red.

Fraser Institute - Who Are They?

Examine the Fraser Institute, consider their motives. I'm working on the list but, as I have it now, their Board:

Chairman
Hassan Khosrowshahi – age 69, born in Iran, educated in Iran and England, Inwest Investments Ltd., founder of Future Shop (1982), estimated wealth $770 million (2008).

Vice Chairmen
Edward S. Belzberg - Vancouver, BC, Jayberg Enterprises Ltd., investments

Mark W. Mitchell – President, Reliant Capital Ltd., Vancouver, BC, private lender funding real estate loans to $5 million.

Gwyn Morgan – Victoria, BC, Oilman, Director of EnCanaCorporation, SNC-Lavalin, Alcan HSBC and others.

Board Members

Salem Ben Nasser Al Ismaily - Sultanate of Oman, Executive President & CEO, Omani Centre for Investment, educated in Britain and USA

Louis-Philippe Amiot – Montreal, a Montreal electronics engineer who later became an orthopedic surgeon, founded Orthosoft Inc.

Gordon E. Arnell – Calgary, Chairman of Brookfield Properties Board since 2000; President and CEO of Brookfield's predecessor, Carena Developments Ltd., for eleven years; senior executive roles at Oxford Development Group Ltd. and Trizec Corporation Ltd.

Charles B. Barlow – Calgary, Barlow Brothers Ltd., Oil & Gas Exploration & Development.

Everett E. Berg – Victoria,

T. Patrick Boyle, founder of The Fraser Institute, formerly Vice President MacMillan Bloedel

Peter Brown, Chairman of Canaccord Capital, is a member of the board of directors of the IIROC- Industry Association and is a past member of the board and of the executive committee of the Investment Dealers Association. He is a past Chairman of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, BC Place Corporation and BC Enterprise Corporation.

Joseph C. Canavan, Chairman and CEO of Assante Wealth Management ($24 billion assets managed)

Alex A. Chafuen, a native of Argentina, he is president of Atlas Economic Research Foundation. He served as an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Buenos Aires, founding trustee of the Acton Institute and a board member of several other institutes and foundations. He is author of books promoting right wing economics.

Elizabeth Chaplin, co-founder of Sea to Sky Real Estate Ltd., joined The Whistler Real Estate Co. Ltd. in 1998.

Derwood S. Chase, Jr., president, founder, and chief executive officer of Chase Investment Counsel Corporation, which manages over $4 billion for 206 institutions (including two mutual funds) and high-net-worth clients in thirty-six states. Mr. Chase is a trustee of Reason Foundation.

James W. Davidson, Chairman & CEO, FirstEnergy Capital Corp., an investment dealer focused on Canada's energy sector.

John Dielwart, President & CEO, Arc Energy Trust, one of Canada’s largest conventional oil and gas royalty trusts.

Stuart M. Elman, President and CFO of Medisys Health Group, a healthcare services company.

Greg C. Fleck, computer distribution

etc.

The etc.

Shaun Francis,
Ned Goodman
Arthur N. Grunder
John A. Hagg
Paul Hill
Stephen A. Hynes
David H. Laidley
Robert H. Lee
Brandt Louie
David R. Mackenzie
Hubert R. Marleau
James L. McGovern
Mark R. Mullins
Eleanor Nicholls
Roger Phillips
Herbert C. Pinder, Jr.
R. Jack Pirie
Conrad S. Riley
Gavin Semple
Rod Senft
Anthony W. Sessions
William W. Siebens
Anna Stylianides
Arni C. Thorsteinson
Michael A. Walker
Catherine Windels

Now I get it

I see. Just a bunch of hard working, blue collar types interested in freedom and fairness and justice. What a great bunch! And to think, I thought they might be motivated by money and power. How silly.

Thanks for this background information, Norman Farrell.

Not exactly household names ... in fact ... is this some colony of the Bilderberg Group? Strangers in our midst, guiding our affairs?

To have any real meaning at all...

Thanks as well, Norman. I've seen this list before, but it's useful to see again, and be reminded of.

Though I did get my emphasis a tad wrong in my comment above. These guys don't just speak FOR Business, they ARE Business. (Yes again, with a capital B.)

They are the "unelected" power brokers amongst us, spoon feeding their ideas into our lives, and "guiding" neo-conservative state policy. They are part of the "real power" within the economic base, from which platform they exert their capitalist influence and control over all aspects of social, political and economic life in our society , including "democratic and electoral" policy and practise.

They are even then only a partial manifestation of the real ownership-authoritarian power that controls the economic base in which everyone participates and upon which we all depend. They are the power that needs to be usurped and democratized, for the content of democracy to have any real meaning at all.

Fraser Institute member rewards

Now that we have been shown by Norman Farrell just who sits at the Fraser Institute (generally those belonging to or aspiring to belong to the exclusive to top 1/10th of the top 1 percent of income earners -one in a thousand), we can see the disparity that their radically rightwing neoconservative economic policies have created for the citizenry of the country just to our south. After all, the US has been practising hard-core capitalism for at least a decade longer than Canadians have do so - though Canada's federal Conservatives and Liberals and BC's Liberals have been doing their damndest to catch up.

This September 26, Georgia Strait article by Charlie Smith lays out the numbers. The figures are quite impressive if you are part of the uber-elite; repressive if you are part of the bottom 90%. Hoarding by the rich is the major reason the world has had the economic collapse of that spans from 2008 till at least some time in 2010.

http://www.straight.com/article-259929/study-shows-stunning-gap-between-us-rich-and-poor

The figures from the Georgia Straight article come from here:
http://www.nupge.ca/node/2544

If the info found in the above NUPGE link intrigues you, you may also wish to visit the links found to the right and bottom right of that webpage.

Contagion of Chicanery

The Campbell Government cares little about business, in its broad definition. They care about "Big Business", the boys and girls who deal, not with thousands, but with tens of millions.

The latest story about the three largest national and international companies being allowed to sell imported wine as BC Wine, despite zero content of home grown wine, demonstrates my statement.

Most of the players in BC wine making are "small business", so they can be pushed aside with fraud and deception, if the big companies need an advantage. Is there any other conclusion available than the assumption that our politicians have sold their souls to the highest bidder. Campbell has. I conclude the other Liberals have as well because the voices of dissent are quiet.

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2009/09/contagion-of-chicanery.html

...its the little things...

I don't agree with the Fraser Institute very often, but I do think that over the past several decades, they have been a positive contribution to public policy debate in BC.

Maybe its not significant, but while Turner did include several website addresses for the FI, he seems to have missed that of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (http://www.policyalternatives.ca/).
Subtle, but I wonder if the Fraser Institute has zombied him?

jnewcomb

You said:
"I don't agree with the Fraser Institute very often, but I do think that over the past several decades, they have been a positive contribution to public policy debate in BC."

Inclusive person that I am, I am always glad to listen to just about all sides of an argument (as long as they aren't based on meanness, greed or lies). Since the main stream media does not often publish information that is counter to the Fraser Institute and they fail to point out the mistakes in Fraser Institute logic and methodology, I must say that the Fraser Institue is not part of a debate: the Fraser Institute is a propaganda machine representing the elite rich. Our main stream media (like Mr. Turner has describes above) provides blind-eyed assent to their reports.

The main stream media has never published any of my many letters - even those that are polite, short, witty, and to the point - that counter the Fraser Institute's claims. The main stream media is a sham, and the Fraser Institute is not an institute. The Fraser Institute is not what people generally expect of an organization using that title.

Diversity

This discussion would be more interesting if it weren't so predictable. I must say I find The Tyee often as shrill and one-sided as I find the Fraser Institute - and most of the comments. The FI is attacked as a tool of the capitalist class - which of course it is - instead of dealing with the issues they raise. Example: students in private schools get higher test marks than in public. The FI brings this fact to light. What then should we, from a left, collectivist perspective, do about that? Shutting up the FI would not change the fact. In find the left's responses (coming in the Tyee from what Jeffrey J. thinks are an "impressive goup of readers, who comment with alacrity and intelligence") often are as ideological and hackneyed as the FI's, and that's saying a lot. That said, the article by Geoff Turner is fine as far as it goes. What he does not examine is why the stuff the FI comes up with "resonates" (as kida0101 puts it)with so many people?

DNA

To counter the FI's ranking schools, one should look to the factors as to why private schools fare better. One one looks more deeply, one finds that two factors success are common to the most successful schools be they public or private: education level of parents and the amount of money that the parents make. Therefore, West Vancouver school is more likely to have successful students than depressed and poorly educated communities. Culture, alcohol and drug use, violence and nutrition adds even more dimensions that have huge effects on school success but are not related to the services delivery of the school. After all, a child learns more by the age of 2 than he or she will for the rest of his or her lifetime. If those first two years were filled with turmoil and there is no positive remediation, the child will have a most difficult time being successful in school. Further, there is hardly a difference in scores separating a school that sits at 30% from the top with the school found at 30% from the bottom, but they are ranked as being very far apart. The newspapers do not point out this and many other facts about the silliness of the FI rankings.

DNA

From where I sit the Fraser Institute does one thing really well, and that is tell half the story and dismiss the other half as irrelevant. The mainstream media in their usual fashion accept the FI's dispatches and regurgitates them as gospel, no in-depth investigation required. You cite the fact that private schools outperform public schools year in and year out. Any right thinking person can't be surprised by this, as the private schools can now cherry pick who they accept as students thanks partially to the Socreds decision to partially fund these private schools from the public purse. The public school system doesn't have this luxury as they must accept all comers, rich or poor, well fed or not fes, normal or special needs, etc. Which learning environment would one think would lead to better results. The MSM's penchant to not let facts get in the way of a good story puts things out of perspective.

The bottom line is the FI stirs the pot and the MSM blindly carries the message making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Only one problem.

"The FI is attacked as a tool of the capitalist class - which of course it is - instead of dealing with the issues they raise." How many times is it necessary to do just that and still the MSM regurgitates their message. It is the incestuous relationship between the FI and the MSM that one needs to break but here's the rub. You never will because they are two sides of the same coin. I've heard it all before, most people have heard it all before, and still it goes on.

Fixing schools

Easy Peasey - just tell the private institutions they're entirely on their own. Cut off the funding they get from tax dollars and plow that money and capital stock back into the public system where it belongs.

Private schools are elitist institutions - they ought not to get a single penny of public funding and, if they still manage to operate at a profit, they should be taxed on that increment too.

If you want to fix things, some things are going to have to be torn down...those parents who don't like the public system are free to send and pay the tuition for the alternative....

The Fraser Institute's affection for free market solutions would surely make them supporters of such a program of self-sufficiency for their acolytes in the private school industry.

The Right Prepares the Way for the Left...

"The FI is attacked as a tool of the capitalist class - which of course it is - instead of dealing with the issues they raise." How many times is it necessary to do just that and still the MSM regurgitates their message. It is the incestuous relationship between the FI and the MSM that one needs to break but here's the rub. You never will because they are two sides of the same coin." Skywalker gave us in quote, and his own read of the reality.

Which says it about as well and succinctly as any.

For myself however, as I tried to indicate some above, I do not really despair about it, or even the dominant, increasingly extremist "rightist" character of the period. I think, now that the last great "prosperity period", and increasingly, all its "class illusions" are being shattered and out of the way, it is a period we are going to have to go through, whether one likes it or not. Right now, there is even precious little that can be done about it, and even the ineffectual "working within the system" experience of the NDP is as well helping to make this reality increasingly clear. (Check out Germany's "election" of an increased rightist predominance in the news this morning. And along with that, the further decline of the collaborationist Social Democrats. But as well also note, the increase in vote share, quite spectacular really, of the old communist led united front, now modified some and appearing as the United Left.)

The point is, we are destined for this rightist dominant period, and even, for the future growth and increased viability of the "serious left", one ready to seriously take on capitalism in a major and more openly combative way, and get public support/ sympathy for that, it is likely an experience "the masses" need to have and become majorly disillusioned with. And there is only one way to do that of which I am aware. They must as they are, experience it. As they will and increasingly, already are. Even if they don't know right now, where to turn next.

(Hence a massive non-voting sector of the public, the significance of which continues to be ignored, about equal with those who do vote. Which makes the disillusioned already the majority. Even if it needs to be tapped into and organized, for more than just a vacuous X on a ballot in a rigged electoral system.)

The right however, and its policies of social contract destruction from the previous prosperity period, are already and going to prepare the way for what is to come, in my view... a rebirth of a more serious, militant, anti-capitalist, and effective left, compelled to sharpen its ideological and programmatic vision.

In a strange kind of way, "The Left" even really needs the increasingly extremist right, to prepare the ground and way for us. It's the dynamic that is objectively at work anyway, whether one likes it or not.

The "charitable" Fraser Institute

This gang of ideologues is a charity registered with the Canada Revenue Agency Charities Directorate--which among other things allows them tax exemption and the ability to give charitable receipts to supporters. Odd, since the law allows charities to spend no more than 20% of revenues on political activities or "advocacy." What does that say about the culture of our national institutions?

G West

Generally speaking, I think not many people realise just how much the "private sector" depends on public money to be "successful".

BTW, Hitler had Goebbels. It's only fitting that Campbell & Co. have the FI...........

Do the math!!

I’ll ignore for a moment whether it’s even relevant to compare citations between UBC and the Fraser Institute – but to say the paper sources Fraser proportionately more than UBC is dead wrong.

Take this article’s numbers – Fraser is sourced in 601 articles since Jan 1 2004. I looked that up on Infomart (which they sourced) and I get 631 – understandable as some time has passed since their search. Then the claim is that UBC was only sourced in 1024 articles. My search turned up 6159 articles in the same time period – and when I included in the search terms like “University of B.C.” the number jumped to 9476.

Then take staff numbers: at UBC, there are 4669 staff/faculty researchers. The article never says how big Fraser is, but their most recent annual report says it used 350 researchers. To find out how many articles per researcher, just divide – and you’ll find there were 1.8 citations per Fraser Institute researcher… and 2.0 citations per UBC researcher. So UBC actually wins in both absolute and relative terms.

Just to show how spurious this logic is I wanted to find out if the Tyee disproportionately quotes CCPA. The search tool says there are 676 search results from “Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.” But when I look up “Fraser Institute,” it says there are “about 1300” articles! Sounds like either the Tyee is biased towards the Fraser Institute (cough) or there’s a lot more hand-wringing articles like this one out there to debunk.

Cheers

Jon

comparisons

It could be interesting to know how many of the UBC papers / authors are peer reviewed compared to those of the Fraser Institute.

Interestingly, the membership of the "etc" column (as in above) in the American Heitage Institute are listed as "Scholars" and include such intellectuals as Rush Limbaugh.

Fraser Institute - who are they?

An update to an earlier comment describing the Board of Directors at our home grown think tank:

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2009/09/fraser-institute-who-are-they-anyway.html

Norman Farrell

From your link:

Notice the "except". When rightwing theories are advanced, there is ALWAYS the "except" caveat, which is universally glossed over by the offhand comment: "Well, of course there are exceptions! Otherwise, it would be anarchy!"

But these rigtistas NEVER explain the nuts 'n' bolts of the "except" caveats.

If they had to, the only rational description they could come up with would be that of the very system they are trying to tear down.

Norman Farrell & Coyoteman: Right On.

"Thanks as well, Norman. I've seen this list before (FI owners), but it's useful to see again, and be reminded of...These guys don't just speak FOR Business, they ARE Business. (Yes again, with a capital B.)"

Nuff said. Best postings all month.

Envy?!

S - single
H - handedly
A - aided and abetted
M - monumental
E - exploitation

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
- Thomas Jefferson

"In a time of Universal deceit, telling the truth is a Revolutionary Act." - George Orwell

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it." - Maya Angelou

"No problem can be solved by the same level of conscious that created it." - Albert Einstein

This very dire turning point in BC must be named as something political and other than the Olympics; because all of these severe problems have hardly anything to do with that.