The overheated Alberta economy has screeched to a halt. And it does not look like the 'engine of Canada's economy' will be saving the country from recession anytime soon. So while manufacturing declines in Ontario, especially auto manufacturing, the result will mean even further decline in the need for gas and oil.
Opp's didn't plan for that did we. Of course not Alberta politicians provincially and federally oppose any concept of 'economic planning'.
And its not like we haven't been through all this before! Alberta Oil Jobs Evaporating
Despite the provincial governments head in the sand approach to oil development Albertans are speaking out, even as the oil economy bottoms out. Petro-Canada's planned pipeline bad for Alberta
And once again Alberta comes calling to Ottawa to bail it out!!! And of course the Alberta based Harpocrites are only to willing to oblige. But don't worry this is typical Conservative hype, they are simpy reannouncing previous commitments to capital investment.
Crisis forces Alberta to consider red ink
Opposition parties have been warning for years that the Tory government's spending was out of control, and that it was not doing enough to save the eye-popping surpluses it was reaping from soaring oil and natural-gas royalties. This year's surplus is expected to be $2-billion, down from the record of $8.6-billion in 2005-06.In 2007, the finance minister of the day, Lyle Oberg, speculated a deficit was possible if the province could not rein in its runaway spending. Since 2005-06, total government spending has jumped at least 32 per cent and per capita spending has been higher than that of any other provincial government.
Energy prices blamed as Alberta faces first deficit in 15 years
Alberta's decelerating energy sector can no longer be relied on to be the sole engine driving the province's economy, says a report issued yesterday by the Royal Bank of Canada. "While our new forecast for the provincial economy still reflects some degree of vigour, it does show a fair amount of steam seeping out of Alberta's engine," said Provincial Outlook, penned by economists Robert Hogue and Paul Ferley. The most visible example of the fading vigour is the delay or outright cancellation of several upgrader projects worth approximately $45 billion, as well as plans to scale back drilling because of low natural gas prices, the reports says. RBC has revised its GDP forecast to 2.1% for next year, down from a previous estimate of 3%.
Alberta inflation takes breather at 2.1 per cent
ATB Financial senior economist Todd Hirsch attributed the price jump in fruits and veggies in part to a weaker Canadian dollar."Alberta's inflation figures are being swept lower by falling commodity prices, especially crude oil and gasoline, but also by softer consumer demand," he said. Still, Canada's inflation was two per cent in November, the first time in two months that Alberta's inflation edged higher than the nation's.
Nearly across the board, oil companies have begun cutting spending. A survey by Barclays Capital found 2009 capital budgets were 12% lower than 2008 spending plans, and some believe they might head lower. Budgets in the U.S. and Canada are being cut the most, as projects in the high-cost oil-sands and unconventional natural-gas fields now make less economic sense. Companies such as Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips have delayed announcing budgets to spend more time assessing the market.
Alberta projects get$1B boost
PM commits gas tax funds to rebuilding infrastructure
A day after announcing it would sink deep into the red, the Harper government waved around a lot of green Friday in Conservative Alberta.On the heels of declaring it would run deficits totalling tens of billions of dollars over the next few years, Ottawa announced about $1 billion worth of previously committed infrastructure funding for projects in Wild Rose Country.The capital dollars come from earlier federal funding pledges, including $100 million to twin the Trans-Canada Highway near Lake Louise--with construction officially commencing today --and a promise by the Harper government to permanently allocate gas tax dollars to infrastructure.
Ottawa to give Alberta nearly $800-million
Calgary -- In a bid to keep Albertans working and help municipalities keep up with growing infrastructure demands, Ottawa announced yesterday it will pump more than $798-million into the province between 2010 and 2014.The extension to the federal gas-tax funding agreement could see cash earmarked for projects involving public transit, roads, water and waste disposal. Federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose said the money will provide a "strong stimulus for the economy."
SEE:
Alberta Loses Billions
Recession Hits Alberta
Capitalism Caps Tarsands Expansion
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:$100 oil, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, Canada, peak oil, royalties, oil, profits, Province, Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,Big Oil,oil royalties, Ed Stelmach,, Premier,, NEP,, Alberta,, tarsands,, environment,, poltics,, Green,, Conservatives,, Government,, Baird,, Tories,, green house gas,, climate change,, global warming,, petroleum,, oil,, oil sands,, Liberals,
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Harper and Flaherty's Conversion
Ottawa faces up to reality of deficits Here is the real reason that Harper and Flaherty had their economic conversion on the road to Damascus.OTTAWA - Canada's parliamentary budget officer is publicly questioning the projected budget surpluses of the Conservative government's recent economic statement and is asking for evidence to back up the predictions.
Kevin Page asked Finance Deputy Minister Rob Wright to turn over details on the projected spending reductions in departments and asset sales that the government has said will generate $10 billion in savings over five years. These are seen as key to the maintenance of a federal surplus.
Page's letter, sent on Dec. 3, has now been posted on the budget office's website. It asks for a reply this week.
He also asked for economic data and assumptions used for the 2008 budget and recent economic statement. Finance refused to give the data for the 2008 budget even though the numbers are routinely turned over to Bay Street forecasters. The assumptions, key to estimating the impact of economic volatility, used to be published by previous governments.
In his economic statement, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty projected a budget surplus of $100 million for 2009-10 based on the sale of about $2 billion in assets that he didn't identify.
Page tabled his office's assessment of Flaherty's economic statement last week, but the report got lost in the storm of the political crisis sparked by the Liberal-NDP coalition's attempt to topple the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative minority.
Kevin Page asked Finance Deputy Minister Rob Wright to turn over details on the projected spending reductions in departments and asset sales that the government has said will generate $10 billion in savings over five years. These are seen as key to the maintenance of a federal surplus.
Page's letter, sent on Dec. 3, has now been posted on the budget office's website. It asks for a reply this week.
He also asked for economic data and assumptions used for the 2008 budget and recent economic statement. Finance refused to give the data for the 2008 budget even though the numbers are routinely turned over to Bay Street forecasters. The assumptions, key to estimating the impact of economic volatility, used to be published by previous governments.
In his economic statement, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty projected a budget surplus of $100 million for 2009-10 based on the sale of about $2 billion in assets that he didn't identify.
Page tabled his office's assessment of Flaherty's economic statement last week, but the report got lost in the storm of the political crisis sparked by the Liberal-NDP coalition's attempt to topple the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative minority.
But as usual they will use a red herring to distract us from their complete failure to address this crisis earlier. Just as they used the opposition coalition as a red herring to seize power in Ottawa.
Canada's banks are being set up.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has misplayed the financial crisis from the start. The lack of political leadership in this country is staggering. Now Mr. Harper – who dictates lines to his Finance Minister – has finally woken up to the fact 2009 will be one grim year for the domestic economy. '10 doesn't look too hot either. Someone will wear responsibility for a deep recession. The Conservatives are skating hard as they prepare to pin this one on the banks. The politicians will claim the banks hoarded capital, and refused to lend, and that sent consumers and corporations over the cliff. It's nasty, it's cynical, it's destructive and it doesn't happen to be true. But that's clearly going to be Mr. Harper's line.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has misplayed the financial crisis from the start. The lack of political leadership in this country is staggering. Now Mr. Harper – who dictates lines to his Finance Minister – has finally woken up to the fact 2009 will be one grim year for the domestic economy. '10 doesn't look too hot either. Someone will wear responsibility for a deep recession. The Conservatives are skating hard as they prepare to pin this one on the banks. The politicians will claim the banks hoarded capital, and refused to lend, and that sent consumers and corporations over the cliff. It's nasty, it's cynical, it's destructive and it doesn't happen to be true. But that's clearly going to be Mr. Harper's line.
And despite Flaherty threatening the banks, the Harpocrites have not addressed the increased service charges on credit cards the banks have made, the fact that interest on credit cards is as high as it was during the recession in the eighties, and that banks still charge usury rates on ATM fees.
Feeling the crunch
Rising card transaction fees may mean higher prices, retailers say
Rising card transaction fees may mean higher prices, retailers say
Suddenly the issue raised by the NDP is no longer pie in the sky. However unlike Stelmach, the NDP called for the elimination of ATM fees, not just a cap. And we need to see a reduction in usury interest on credit cards. Banks loaning millions to capitalist enterprizes will have less effect than reducing /eliminating service charges, reducing credit card interest and eliminating ATM fees.
New Brunswick Senator Pierrette Ringuette is calling for a federal probe and stronger regulations on fees charged by credit card companies .Canadians hold 64.1 million credit cards, and 80 per cent of them are issued by the two main players in the industry, Visa and MasterCard. Consumers already pay an average of over 24 per cent interest.Visa and MasterCard have about 80 per cent of the national credit card market. Credit card companies are, therefore, extremely wealthy and powerful. Is this a 'collusion' situation because of this 'quasi monopoly' situation?" Ringuette also raised the concern felt by business and retail lobby groups that rates for debit card transactions could increase. There has been concern that the Interac Association, the non-profit group which administers debit and direct payment, could change to a "for-profit" organization. If this happens, the retail council is concerned that the private corporation could be purchased by the credit card companies and therefore create an even greater monopoly over plastic in Canada.
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce said it would tighten credit card lending through 2009, as it announced its fourth-quarter profit fell by 50 per cent from the same quarter in 2007 — mainly because of higher credit card delinquencies. Some banks have also raised credit card interest rates by five percentage points for customers who are late with their payments. Art Thornton, a bankruptcy trustee in Ottawa, says the changes will mean more business for him."It's going to increase the interest rates noticeably to people who can ill-afford to pay, and it's going to render them — in many cases — insolvent."
And this NOT the issue that Flaherty or Mark Carney are addressing when they challenge the banks to free up credit after bailing them out and reducing the Bank of Canada rate.
Hyer Questions Gov't on Credit Card Processing Fees
Friday, 28 November 2008
Ottawa, ON -- Thunder Bay Superior North MP Bruce Hyer was up in Question Period on Thursday. Hyer was questioning the government over the cost of credit card processing fees.Here is the transcript of the exchange in the House of Commons:
Mr. Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay—Superior North, NDP): Mr. Speaker, small businesses create a huge percentage of all the job growth in Canada. We should be helping them, not hurting them.The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is demanding that this government act before the big banks' next big cash grab. Our small businesses are facing a 10,000% increase in their Visa and MasterCard merchant fees. Is this fair?Does the government believe that it is not its problem, or that it can just not do anything about it? Which is it?
Hon. Diane Ablonczy (Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member raises an issue of real importance to small business. As he knows, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has been speaking with the players about this issue. The fact of the matter is that the banks in this country are competitive. They are free to put forward products to all of the customers they have, including small business.The Minister of Finance has written to the banks about this issue asking them to deal with it. We are awaiting their responses momentarily, and we believe we can work on it together.
Canadian consumer-banking profit rose 20 percent to C$344 million from a year earlier as personal loans rose 21 percent and it added more mortgages. Commercial loans and credit-card revenue also rose from a year earlier.
Canadian Banking net income was $2,662 million, up 5% or $117 million from last year, reflecting solid volume growth across all businesses and effective cost management, partially offset by margin compression and increased provisions for credit losses. Net income was up 13% over last year, excluding the impacts of a $326 million ($269 million after-tax) gain related to the Visa Inc. restructuring and a $121 million ($79 million after-tax) credit card customer loyalty reward program liability charge recorded in the fourth quarter of 2007.
Canadian Banking's average assets grew by $21 billion or 14%, primarily in mortgages. There was also strong growth in personal revolving credit and other personal loans, as well as in business lending to both commercial and small business customers. Card revenues were a record $397 million in 2008, an increase of 8% from last year. International card revenues increased 11% due to strong growth in Peru, the Caribbean and Mexico. Canadian revenues were up 6% year over year, due mainly to higher transaction volumes. Credit fees of $579 million were $49 million or 9% higher than last year. There were higher acceptance fees in Canada, from both corporate and commercial customers.
A recovery in consumer spending will have to wait until Canadians pay down the excess credit card and mortgage debt accumulated in the past decade. Total personal debt nearly doubled between 2002 and the first half of 2008, when it stood at $1.2-trillion. The ratio of debt to disposable income rose from 98 per cent to 130 per cent over that period, while interest payments as a share of available income were virtually unchanged.
Canadians were besieged with advertising messages that promoted borrowing over those years. With credit so cheap and housing prices surging ahead, households took on a lot of risk. Now debt burdens look much too high.
We can take some comfort from the fact that the loans outstanding here are nowhere near as risky as mortgages in the United States. According to the Canadian Housing Observer, Canada has “a negligible subprime mortgage sector; [and] it is characterized by prudent underwriting.” And in Canada, mortgage insurance to protect the lender is mandatory for high-ratio loans.
But there is no insurance to protect the borrower when housing values decline or when someone in the family loses their job. If you ask people living in homeless shelters what sent them on a downward spiral, the common theme is a combination of losing their job, being unable to work because of injury or illness, and then losing their home.
This is a terrible price to pay for doing what was advertised as the smart thing to do.
Canadians were besieged with advertising messages that promoted borrowing over those years. With credit so cheap and housing prices surging ahead, households took on a lot of risk. Now debt burdens look much too high.
We can take some comfort from the fact that the loans outstanding here are nowhere near as risky as mortgages in the United States. According to the Canadian Housing Observer, Canada has “a negligible subprime mortgage sector; [and] it is characterized by prudent underwriting.” And in Canada, mortgage insurance to protect the lender is mandatory for high-ratio loans.
But there is no insurance to protect the borrower when housing values decline or when someone in the family loses their job. If you ask people living in homeless shelters what sent them on a downward spiral, the common theme is a combination of losing their job, being unable to work because of injury or illness, and then losing their home.
This is a terrible price to pay for doing what was advertised as the smart thing to do.
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
High Tech Capitalism Crashes
I always like to remind folks of the boistorous boom minded pro capitalist ideology espoused by the high tech futurist guru's at Wired magazine. Of course they said this just before their own boom busted.
The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980 - 2020 By Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden
We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom, and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?
Today we see that the exuberient predictions of high tech capitalisms endless growth are slapped down by a dose of good old capitalist reality.Capitalism is crisis prone, anyone got a problem with that?
From The Times
December 20, 2008
Electronic Arts cuts 1,000 jobs as sales of games stall
In this case EA has bought up successful Canadian companies and is now closing them. Thanks to NAFTA and intellectual property rights, we all suffer the same fate when America crashes. And when in doubt lie about your intentions. Which has always been EA's modus operendi.
EA cuts jobs, moves Black Box studio
Earlier today (December 19), the Georgia Straight reported that Electronic Arts has announced that it is vacating a facility in downtown Vancouver. The news comes a week after the video-game developer and publisher revealed it was not going ahead with plans to open a new studio in the city’s Yaletown district. During its period of fastest growth, EA was often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then producing drastically changed games of their franchises. For example, Origin-produced Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott and these two are considered by manyas not up to the standard of the rest of the series.
And of course it's all about the bottom line, lining the bosses pockets. After all capitalism is not about production for use value, or even exchange value, its about making a profit for the boss, at any cost. Whether it is high tech or not.
EA Sacrifices Workforce For Income
Videogame maker is trimming staff and secondary titles to bolster profitability.
John Riccitiello is aiming to boost his bottom line at the expense of the top and at the expense of a good chunk of the staff of the company he leads, Electronic Arts. Mr. Riccitiello, age 48, has served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of EA since April 2007. Prior to re-joining EA, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner at Elevation Partners, a private equity fund.
High tech nerds, and high tech pundits and promoters who ignored the reality that high tech capitalism was still just plain old capitalism, thought they were different from the high tech wage slaves working in silicon virtual factories. They learned that under high tech capitalism they too wer wage slaves, the factories were offices with cappacino bars, beds, basketball courts etc. But a sweat shop is a sweat shop regardless if it is air conditioned or not.
In 2004, Electronic Arts was criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 100 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)". The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime".The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by programmers was settled for $14.9 million
Again nerds and factory workers get sold out by private equity, hedge funds, and the rest of the ponzi crew. 25 year boom my ass. Once again these predicitons of how capitalism has developed a 'new economy; that will boom and not bust are the dreams of those who sold us tulips and the south sea bubble.
SEE
Super Bubble Burst
Monopoly Capitalism in Cyberspace
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Wired, long boom, John Riccitiello , dot com bubble, EA, Electronic Arts, Rothbard, Von Mises, free market, high tech capitalism,
The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980 - 2020 By Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden
We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom, and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?
Today we see that the exuberient predictions of high tech capitalisms endless growth are slapped down by a dose of good old capitalist reality.Capitalism is crisis prone, anyone got a problem with that?
From The Times
December 20, 2008
Electronic Arts cuts 1,000 jobs as sales of games stall
In this case EA has bought up successful Canadian companies and is now closing them. Thanks to NAFTA and intellectual property rights, we all suffer the same fate when America crashes. And when in doubt lie about your intentions. Which has always been EA's modus operendi.
EA cuts jobs, moves Black Box studio
Earlier today (December 19), the Georgia Straight reported that Electronic Arts has announced that it is vacating a facility in downtown Vancouver. The news comes a week after the video-game developer and publisher revealed it was not going ahead with plans to open a new studio in the city’s Yaletown district. During its period of fastest growth, EA was often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then producing drastically changed games of their franchises. For example, Origin-produced Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott and these two are considered by manyas not up to the standard of the rest of the series.
And of course it's all about the bottom line, lining the bosses pockets. After all capitalism is not about production for use value, or even exchange value, its about making a profit for the boss, at any cost. Whether it is high tech or not.
EA Sacrifices Workforce For Income
Videogame maker is trimming staff and secondary titles to bolster profitability.
John Riccitiello is aiming to boost his bottom line at the expense of the top and at the expense of a good chunk of the staff of the company he leads, Electronic Arts. Mr. Riccitiello, age 48, has served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of EA since April 2007. Prior to re-joining EA, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner at Elevation Partners, a private equity fund.
High tech nerds, and high tech pundits and promoters who ignored the reality that high tech capitalism was still just plain old capitalism, thought they were different from the high tech wage slaves working in silicon virtual factories. They learned that under high tech capitalism they too wer wage slaves, the factories were offices with cappacino bars, beds, basketball courts etc. But a sweat shop is a sweat shop regardless if it is air conditioned or not.
In 2004, Electronic Arts was criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 100 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)". The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime".The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by programmers was settled for $14.9 million
Again nerds and factory workers get sold out by private equity, hedge funds, and the rest of the ponzi crew. 25 year boom my ass. Once again these predicitons of how capitalism has developed a 'new economy; that will boom and not bust are the dreams of those who sold us tulips and the south sea bubble.
SEE
Super Bubble Burst
Monopoly Capitalism in Cyberspace
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Wired, long boom, John Riccitiello , dot com bubble, EA, Electronic Arts, Rothbard, Von Mises, free market, high tech capitalism,
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Not A Technicality Anymore
So much for the spin that this is only a 'technical' recession. It is now official....
"While Canada's economy evolved largely as expected during the summer and early autumn, it is now entering a recession as a result of the weakness in global economic activity," the bank said in a statement.
It was the first clear admission by the bank that Canada is joining most major economies in sliding into recession, typically defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, although Governor Mark Carney had hinted at it last month.
Funny but we have been in a global recession since September of last year, when the first British mortgage bank Northern Rock crumbled .
The past year has been one of collective denial by the powers that be.
And now they are suffering a collective flashback.
For example, the last time Canadian interest rates were as low as they are today was in 1958 when Canada was emerging from recession. The economy, valued at about $32-billion at the time, was carried higher by a huge investment boom throughout the mid-1950s. Growth rates reached as high 9% in 1955 and 1956.
Then the boom went bust. The unemployment rate, which was 3.4% in 1956 hit 7.2% in 1961; growth slowed to about 1% as business spending fell off a cliff.
SEE
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,consumer spending, tax-credit, Stelmach, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence, Economy, asset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,Bernanke, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession,
"While Canada's economy evolved largely as expected during the summer and early autumn, it is now entering a recession as a result of the weakness in global economic activity," the bank said in a statement.
It was the first clear admission by the bank that Canada is joining most major economies in sliding into recession, typically defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, although Governor Mark Carney had hinted at it last month.
Funny but we have been in a global recession since September of last year, when the first British mortgage bank Northern Rock crumbled .
The past year has been one of collective denial by the powers that be.
And now they are suffering a collective flashback.
For example, the last time Canadian interest rates were as low as they are today was in 1958 when Canada was emerging from recession. The economy, valued at about $32-billion at the time, was carried higher by a huge investment boom throughout the mid-1950s. Growth rates reached as high 9% in 1955 and 1956.
Then the boom went bust. The unemployment rate, which was 3.4% in 1956 hit 7.2% in 1961; growth slowed to about 1% as business spending fell off a cliff.
SEE
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra
tags
Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,consumer spending, tax-credit, Stelmach, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence, Economy, asset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,Bernanke, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession,
Bank Rip Off
Gosh folks are surprised that Canada's Big Six banks are greedy and won't pass on the interest cut to you and me. Bank slashes key rate to 1958 level
Six Canadian Banks Fail to Match Central Bank Cut (Update6)
Big banks keep slice of deep rate cut
Big 6 lag behind central bank's lead
Bah humbug to banks’ greedy actions on rates
Why I am shocked, shocked I say, shocked that the media and pundits expected these greedy bastards to act like good corporate citizens. After all the last time Carney cut the interest rates, only a month ago, they didn't pass them on. And despite Flaherty and Harper bailing them out to the tune of $75 billion, the banks increased interest rates and service charges on credit cards and have refused to loan money to credit agencies like GMAC and Ford Credit. When you give these guys money with no strings attached they use it to increase their profit and to pay off their bad debts and criminal activities.Of course Mark Carney knows this he used to work for Goldman Sachs. Flaherty knows it too. When the bank and commerce committee met to review credit card and bank card user fees and interest rates they got the cone of silence from the bankers.Truly this is a case of throwing good money after bad.
And while they will claim they are looking after the interests of their shareholders remeber who that is , why you and me of course with our mutual funds, our CPP and other public pension funds who are institutional investors in the banks. In fact we own them.
Time to socialize the banks along with the auto industry under workers control, the only solution to this crisis of capitalism is socialization of capital.
SEE:
Back To The Fifties
UBScandal
Pension Rip Off
Credit Card Rip Off
Canada's Billion Dollar Rip Off
Bank Union
Service Charges
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
criminology, corporate-crime, white-collar-crime, sociology, hedge funds, scandal, criminal-capitalism, workers, employees, theft, crime, layoffs,, Canada,, banks,, banking,, BMO,, natural gas,, Bank of Montreal,, Banks,, Canada,, bank, Royal, Bank-Of-Nova-Scotia, banking-regulations, disclosure, Bank of Canada, dollar, Canada, deflation, loonie, exchange-rates, 1961, Diefenbuck
Sunday, December 07, 2008
On The Dole
I love ths headline, speaking truth to power as they say, too often unemployment appears to have no apparent cause but it does of course, the bosses decide....Canadian employers wipe out 71000 jobs
Even though the bosses were given HR advice not to do this, they can't help themselves they have no plan to deal with the recession so they fall back on the old tried and true, lay off workers.
Fears of a million layoffs a month in corporate America
And as usual the cheery economic advisors to the bosses didn't expect this.
Canada lost 70600 jobs in November, about three times more than many economists had expected, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.
As strategist Ed Yardeni wrote, "the latest batch of economic indicators is so bad that we are either spiralling into a depression or we are within a few months of a V-shaped recovery."
Put Mr. Abramson, 42, firmly in the V-shaped camp. He doesn't believe a years-long slump is lurking in the shadows, although the markets have been trading that way.
"It's been a rough economy, which we underestimated," he says. But the market response reflects a "psychological meltdown" that has taken stocks down to ridiculous valuations.
"We've been fully invested for a period here, because we didn't believe this was going to go as far down versus valuation and economic reality as it has. We thought this was going to be a normal 20-per-cent correction." Oops.
So while Harper created a political crisis to avoid addressing the economic crisis, it slapped him in the face like a wet fish. Indeed can you say recession, the word he refuses to use. And he has no plan to address it, so he creates a political crisis to distract us from the bad news.
Harper shuts down Parliament while unemployment hits recession levels
We are in a recession, and the dark clouds of depression creep over the horizon.
Canada loses 70600 jobs in a month, most since '82
Ontario's crumbling manufacturing sector is a major reason why the 66000 of the 71000 jobs that disappeared in Canada in November did so in this province. ...
Yep the oil crash of '82 was when we had one of our worst recessions.
Good News — Conditions Resemble 1973-74!
The recession of 1974-75 was the worst since the 1930’s Great Depression. The 1973-74 bear market in anticipation of that recession was the worst bear market since that of the 1929-32 bear market (which led to the Great Depression). The mid-1970’s were indeed a miserable period.
And that was just last months unemployment figures the news continues to be bad across Canada.
GM to lay off 700 more workers in Oshawa
AbitibiBowater to shut mills, axe 1100 jobs
Closed mines, broken dreams in the town that nickel built
However we are not alone in this sudden realization that the economy is crashing, like Harper the other recession denier sits in the White House south of here.
US Loses 533000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974
The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that last month, companies around the nation shed jobs at the fastest rate since the early 1970s, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest level in 15 years.
The figures suggest the year-old recession will approach or even exceed the 1981-1982 downturn in severity and support expectations that Federal Reserve officials will soon lower interest rates to levels not seen in a half century.
That was just the monthly unemployment rate it gets worse in the U.S. which does not have our style of EI as the unumber of unemployed or underemployed workers not on unemployment payments ballons.
Broader Unemployment Rate Hits 12.5%
One in Ten Americans Now Uses Food Stamps as Unemployment Continues to Rise
But still there are those economists who claim that the glass is half full, same guys that said there was no recession....
Unemployment hurts, but it's not a crisis yet
And some are down right optimistic......
Recession over by June?
And they are just plain wrong like they have been for the past year.
If recent downturns are any guide, it may be well into 2010 or perhaps even 2011 before unemployment peaks, which means the global economy should not count substantial U.S. consumer spending rebound any time soon. "The economy is now locked in a vicious downward spiral in which employment, incomes and spending are collapsing together," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.
Along with the credit melt down unemployment is also a global problem.
OFF THE CHARTS A domino effect in the global work force
THE world recession is spreading, and the employment outlook is turning down almost everywhere.
Even in countries like China, the latest surveys of companies show they are reducing their work forces, providing more evidence that China cannot be the engine of the world economy when the traditional industrial powers suffer.
China fears a reverse migration
China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration that has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.
Fast-rising unemployment has led to an unusual series of strikes and protests. Normally cautious government officials have offered quick concessions and talk openly of their worries about social unrest. Laid-off factory workers in Dongguan overturned patrol cars and clashed with police last Tuesday, and hundreds of taxis parked in front of a government office in nearby Chaozhou over the weekend, one of a series of driver protests.
Amid the global financial crisis, China's small and medium-sized enterprises, largely labor-intensive and vulnerable to fluctuations in domestic and external demand, are affected most. In the first half of 2008, 67,000 such companies, each with a business volume exceeding 5 million yuan, closed and laid off more than 20 million employees, said the National Development and Reform Commission. That figure doesn't include service industry firms or small companies with sales of less than 5 million yuan, as there are no authoritative figures available on those categories.
A HUNDRED per cent of the global economic growth next year will come from developing countries. This, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, former US deputy treasury secretary, is the first time in history that developing countries will shoulder the full responsibility of pulling the global economy.
The European and US economic engines are not firing and therefore will not be able to pull the world economy along as has been done previously. Some economists, including David Carbon, chief economist at DBS Bank, believe that Asia is now more capable of standing on its own.Why then should the worker in a factory in China or Malaysia be concerned when the region, by most accounts, is in a much better economic situation than in the US and other more advanced nations? Why should economies in Asia and indeed other developing countries be concerned with rising unemployment in the US and Europe?The fact is that even though Asia is not as badly off as the US, Asia's growth is also slowing. In today's highly interconnected and globalised world, what happens in one part of the world is rapidly transmitted to the other side. Contagions spread faster. Thus, with the economic meltdown in the US and massive job losses, the demand for goods and services also falls. Offshore centres in India and in other parts of the world are also feeling the heat from the US financial and economic meltdown. The production and assembly line that snakes around the world, and in some cases making its way into remote villages, has also been affected.The unemployment numbers in Europe and other developed countries are also on the uptrend, with more joining the jobless ranks every day. This, according to some, could be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s
Ok folks lets do the math. Recession + Unemployment = Depression
US "Great Depression" has begun: Best of the Boards/Blogs
There's no mystery about what the government is trying to do. After the Black October crash, the government and the Bank of England got out their history books and started looking at what happened in the Great Depression. In September 1931, as unemployment reached three million, the national government slashed interest rates and abandoned the gold standard. The value of the pound fell by 25%, just as it has today. Interest rates fell from 6% to 2% - deja vu - and this led to a modest, export-led recovery. Unemployment fell marginally in 1935 as a recovery in the housing market, mainly in the south of England, boosted economic activity. The government is clearly trying to do the same today.
However, this isn't the 1930s. For one thing, there was a lot of spare capacity then in the economy, which is not the case today. We also had the Empire. Britain erected tariff walls against imports and used the colonies - yes, we still had them - to provide cheap food imports. The 1930s depression wasn't caused by consumer spending and debt, it was a classic crisis of ineffective demand.
Also: it didn't really work. Unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout the 1930s outside the south-east of England, and it was only rearmament, as the Second World War approached, that ended mass joblessness. We are in a very different situation today. We cannot seek salvation in another unsustainable boom and we certainly cannot afford to go to war.
And depressions lead to workers revolt.
Workers at Republic Windows continue sit-in after company closes
Sit Ins and plant occupations were popular in the 1930;s as well, and are far more effective than strikes, they can lead to the only obvious solution to the capitalist crisis; workers control of the means of production and the socializtion of capital.
SEE
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:social credit, Major Douglas, Prairie, agrarian, farmers, populism, populist, producer, producerism, distributionism, Hilare Belocq, Regina Manifesto, George Soros,CCF,workers control, Canada, US, Grange, Marx, protectionism, socialiism, libertarian socialism, Engels, U.S. economy, Great Depression, market crash, free trade, capitalism, recession, communism,capitalist crisis, bourgeoisie, NDP, Canada, Convention, Layton, Resolutions, Nationalize, Nationalization, WorkerControl, Community, Control, Anarchism, NewLeft, Self-Managementasset-backed commercial paper ,, gold, homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,Bernanke, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, market crash, free trade, recession, Harper, Conservatives, deficit, Government, libertarian,, libertarianism,, anarchy,, anarchism,, mutualism,, free-market,, Proudhon,, self-government,, politicsagorism, counter-economics, left libertarian, new libertarian or Movement of the Libertarian Left.politics, Flaherty, Budget, GST, politicsCanada, Surplus, Economy, Taxes, EI,
Even though the bosses were given HR advice not to do this, they can't help themselves they have no plan to deal with the recession so they fall back on the old tried and true, lay off workers.
Fears of a million layoffs a month in corporate America
And as usual the cheery economic advisors to the bosses didn't expect this.
Canada lost 70600 jobs in November, about three times more than many economists had expected, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.
As strategist Ed Yardeni wrote, "the latest batch of economic indicators is so bad that we are either spiralling into a depression or we are within a few months of a V-shaped recovery."
Put Mr. Abramson, 42, firmly in the V-shaped camp. He doesn't believe a years-long slump is lurking in the shadows, although the markets have been trading that way.
"It's been a rough economy, which we underestimated," he says. But the market response reflects a "psychological meltdown" that has taken stocks down to ridiculous valuations.
"We've been fully invested for a period here, because we didn't believe this was going to go as far down versus valuation and economic reality as it has. We thought this was going to be a normal 20-per-cent correction." Oops.
So while Harper created a political crisis to avoid addressing the economic crisis, it slapped him in the face like a wet fish. Indeed can you say recession, the word he refuses to use. And he has no plan to address it, so he creates a political crisis to distract us from the bad news.
Harper shuts down Parliament while unemployment hits recession levels
We are in a recession, and the dark clouds of depression creep over the horizon.
Canada loses 70600 jobs in a month, most since '82
Ontario's crumbling manufacturing sector is a major reason why the 66000 of the 71000 jobs that disappeared in Canada in November did so in this province. ...
Yep the oil crash of '82 was when we had one of our worst recessions.
Good News — Conditions Resemble 1973-74!
The recession of 1974-75 was the worst since the 1930’s Great Depression. The 1973-74 bear market in anticipation of that recession was the worst bear market since that of the 1929-32 bear market (which led to the Great Depression). The mid-1970’s were indeed a miserable period.
And that was just last months unemployment figures the news continues to be bad across Canada.
GM to lay off 700 more workers in Oshawa
AbitibiBowater to shut mills, axe 1100 jobs
Closed mines, broken dreams in the town that nickel built
However we are not alone in this sudden realization that the economy is crashing, like Harper the other recession denier sits in the White House south of here.
US Loses 533000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974
The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that last month, companies around the nation shed jobs at the fastest rate since the early 1970s, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest level in 15 years.
The figures suggest the year-old recession will approach or even exceed the 1981-1982 downturn in severity and support expectations that Federal Reserve officials will soon lower interest rates to levels not seen in a half century.
That was just the monthly unemployment rate it gets worse in the U.S. which does not have our style of EI as the unumber of unemployed or underemployed workers not on unemployment payments ballons.
Broader Unemployment Rate Hits 12.5%
One in Ten Americans Now Uses Food Stamps as Unemployment Continues to Rise
But still there are those economists who claim that the glass is half full, same guys that said there was no recession....
Unemployment hurts, but it's not a crisis yet
And some are down right optimistic......
Recession over by June?
And they are just plain wrong like they have been for the past year.
If recent downturns are any guide, it may be well into 2010 or perhaps even 2011 before unemployment peaks, which means the global economy should not count substantial U.S. consumer spending rebound any time soon. "The economy is now locked in a vicious downward spiral in which employment, incomes and spending are collapsing together," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.
Along with the credit melt down unemployment is also a global problem.
OFF THE CHARTS A domino effect in the global work force
THE world recession is spreading, and the employment outlook is turning down almost everywhere.
Even in countries like China, the latest surveys of companies show they are reducing their work forces, providing more evidence that China cannot be the engine of the world economy when the traditional industrial powers suffer.
China fears a reverse migration
China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration that has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.
Fast-rising unemployment has led to an unusual series of strikes and protests. Normally cautious government officials have offered quick concessions and talk openly of their worries about social unrest. Laid-off factory workers in Dongguan overturned patrol cars and clashed with police last Tuesday, and hundreds of taxis parked in front of a government office in nearby Chaozhou over the weekend, one of a series of driver protests.
Amid the global financial crisis, China's small and medium-sized enterprises, largely labor-intensive and vulnerable to fluctuations in domestic and external demand, are affected most. In the first half of 2008, 67,000 such companies, each with a business volume exceeding 5 million yuan, closed and laid off more than 20 million employees, said the National Development and Reform Commission. That figure doesn't include service industry firms or small companies with sales of less than 5 million yuan, as there are no authoritative figures available on those categories.
A HUNDRED per cent of the global economic growth next year will come from developing countries. This, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, former US deputy treasury secretary, is the first time in history that developing countries will shoulder the full responsibility of pulling the global economy.
The European and US economic engines are not firing and therefore will not be able to pull the world economy along as has been done previously. Some economists, including David Carbon, chief economist at DBS Bank, believe that Asia is now more capable of standing on its own.Why then should the worker in a factory in China or Malaysia be concerned when the region, by most accounts, is in a much better economic situation than in the US and other more advanced nations? Why should economies in Asia and indeed other developing countries be concerned with rising unemployment in the US and Europe?The fact is that even though Asia is not as badly off as the US, Asia's growth is also slowing. In today's highly interconnected and globalised world, what happens in one part of the world is rapidly transmitted to the other side. Contagions spread faster. Thus, with the economic meltdown in the US and massive job losses, the demand for goods and services also falls. Offshore centres in India and in other parts of the world are also feeling the heat from the US financial and economic meltdown. The production and assembly line that snakes around the world, and in some cases making its way into remote villages, has also been affected.The unemployment numbers in Europe and other developed countries are also on the uptrend, with more joining the jobless ranks every day. This, according to some, could be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s
Ok folks lets do the math. Recession + Unemployment = Depression
US "Great Depression" has begun: Best of the Boards/Blogs
There's no mystery about what the government is trying to do. After the Black October crash, the government and the Bank of England got out their history books and started looking at what happened in the Great Depression. In September 1931, as unemployment reached three million, the national government slashed interest rates and abandoned the gold standard. The value of the pound fell by 25%, just as it has today. Interest rates fell from 6% to 2% - deja vu - and this led to a modest, export-led recovery. Unemployment fell marginally in 1935 as a recovery in the housing market, mainly in the south of England, boosted economic activity. The government is clearly trying to do the same today.
However, this isn't the 1930s. For one thing, there was a lot of spare capacity then in the economy, which is not the case today. We also had the Empire. Britain erected tariff walls against imports and used the colonies - yes, we still had them - to provide cheap food imports. The 1930s depression wasn't caused by consumer spending and debt, it was a classic crisis of ineffective demand.
Also: it didn't really work. Unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout the 1930s outside the south-east of England, and it was only rearmament, as the Second World War approached, that ended mass joblessness. We are in a very different situation today. We cannot seek salvation in another unsustainable boom and we certainly cannot afford to go to war.
And depressions lead to workers revolt.
Workers at Republic Windows continue sit-in after company closes
Sit Ins and plant occupations were popular in the 1930;s as well, and are far more effective than strikes, they can lead to the only obvious solution to the capitalist crisis; workers control of the means of production and the socializtion of capital.
SEE
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:social credit, Major Douglas, Prairie, agrarian, farmers, populism, populist, producer, producerism, distributionism, Hilare Belocq, Regina Manifesto, George Soros,CCF,workers control, Canada, US, Grange, Marx, protectionism, socialiism, libertarian socialism, Engels, U.S. economy, Great Depression, market crash, free trade, capitalism, recession, communism,capitalist crisis, bourgeoisie, NDP, Canada, Convention, Layton, Resolutions, Nationalize, Nationalization, WorkerControl, Community, Control, Anarchism, NewLeft, Self-Managementasset-backed commercial paper ,, gold, homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,Bernanke, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, market crash, free trade, recession, Harper, Conservatives, deficit, Government, libertarian,, libertarianism,, anarchy,, anarchism,, mutualism,, free-market,, Proudhon,, self-government,, politicsagorism, counter-economics, left libertarian, new libertarian or Movement of the Libertarian Left.politics, Flaherty, Budget, GST, politicsCanada, Surplus, Economy, Taxes, EI,
Friday, December 05, 2008
Harpers Putsch
Since winning power in 2006, albeit as a minority government, Stephen Harper has been set on gaining a majority to keep HIM in power as PM. That first summer his reading included a biography of Stalin, the Man of Steel. And like Stalin his recent political machinations reminded me of the intriques in the Bolshevik Party as Stalin played off alliances of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, and other central committee and politburo members, against each other to maintain power.
In porouging parliment he saved his job and his government...for the moment.
And despite his protestations about saving demoracy, his actions are the opposite. Which is typical of the right wing, who use language to mean its opposite. For instance Freedom of Information acts passed by right wing governments are anything but that, they actually limit freedom of informantion and access. Just as the Harperocrites transperancy and accountability act is anything but.
And right wing parties manufacture political crisises in order to create the conditions to either take power or stay in power.
So when Harper talks about democracy he means something other than parlimentary democracy. Rather he looks south and want to create a PMO with the power of the U.S. Presidency.
"The Canadian government has always been chosen by the people," the prime minister declared in his mid-week televised address to the country.
But now, he told viewers, a coalition of opposition parties is trying to oust him through a backroom deal "without your say, without your consent and without your vote."
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."
But now, he told viewers, a coalition of opposition parties is trying to oust him through a backroom deal "without your say, without your consent and without your vote."
Just how valid is Harper's claim that changing governments without a new election would be undemocratic?
"It's politics, it's pure rhetoric," said Ned Franks, a retired Queen's University expert on parliamentary affairs. "Everything that's been happening is both legal and constitutional."
Other scholars are virtually unanimous in their agreement. They say Harper's populist theory of democracy is more suited to a U.S.-style presidential system, in which voters cast ballots directly for a national leader, than it is to Canadian parliamentary democracy.
"He's appealing to people who learned their civics from American television," said Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University.
In Canada, there's no national vote for prime minister. People elect MPs in 308 ridings, and a government holds power only as long as it has the support of a majority of those MPs.
"We have a rule that the licence to govern is having the confidence of the House of Commons," said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto professor and adviser to past governors general.
"I'm sorry, that's the rule. If they want to change it to having a public opinion poll, we'd have to reform and rewrite our Constitution."
If we are to understand the current political situation and how we got here we have to review Harpers rise to power. Firstly he left the Reform Party as a short lived MP, having been a former assistant to its first MP Deborah Grey. He had an ego that would not let him work with Preston Manning then Reform Party leader who is a prairie populist. Harper however comes from the Calgary School, a modern neo-con politick influenced by Reagan/Gingrich Republicanism, and the authoritarian ideology of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. Several members of the Calgary School being ex-pat Americans.
The new conservative movement sled by Harper shed its populist appeal, and its base, while maintaining the language of reform to appeal to that base. Under the tutelage of Calgary School mandrin Tom Flanagan. the object was not Preston's agenda to reform Canadian politics, but to gain power and destroy their main opponent the Liberal Party. It was to hold power at all costs, first and foremost, democratic reform was abandoned for the politics of right wing political economic social engineering, to transform the state in Canada into a Republican lite government. In order to do this it was required to Unite the Right.
With the failure of the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance to do this, it was clear that a strong man, a man of steel, would be needed to bind the disparte right wing base together into a party capable of winning an election and begin the process of defeating and destroying the Liberal Party, Canada's Natural Governing Party, andultimately what these ex-American politicos hate most the liberal social democratic Canadian State.
This was the same agenda of the Gingrich Republicans and their Contract With America, to defeat forever the Democrats, who had been the Natural Governing Party in the United States.
With Harpers win of the leadership of the newly minted Conservative Party, which intigrated the Canadian Alliance with the old Progressive Conservative Party, purging the progressives and populist Reformers, the Republican Revolution model of politics was adapted to Canada.
The arrogance of the Liberals was finally met with an arrogant Conservative leader set with and agenda to seize power and destroy them once and for all. No other Canadian politician had ever been elected to parliment like Harper. None of the previous Conservative PM's had ever viewed taking power to mean destroying their political opposition.
This should have been clear to the Liberals, but in their arrogance as the Natural Ruling Party they chaose instead to view their defeat in 2006 as the fault of the internal clash between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. A clash that had led to Martin gaining a minority government bequethed with a Chretien era scandal. Even after Martin's defeat the party failed to realize how serious Harper was about his mission and political agenda to destroy them.
In their arrogance they held a six month leadership race complete with supposed party revitalization discussions. The latter ended up on the cutting room floor. The former was hotly contested, and included a front runner, Michael Ignatieff, brought from Harvard to battle the Calgary School boys. Unfortunately the race which got nasty ended in a lame duck choice; Stephane Dion, whom nobody really wanted, but appeared at th moment to unite the party as the best of a bad lot. Again the failures and foibles of all the leadership candidates were exposed for all Canadians to see, and their words used in the leadership debates would come back to haunt them.
In choosing Dion, they thought they would naturally regain power, they were unprepared for the total war that Harper was about to unleash on them.
With a minority government and buckets of money available the Harper government wasted no time in perparing for another election. And it began the day that the Liberals elected Dion as their leader.
Gone now were the catcalls about you had ten yearsto fix things, and accusations about the Quebec Ad Scam and being entitled to their entitlements. No the Liberals played into Harpers
hands, his strong leadership, his furherprinzpal, versus their milqutoast soft leader Dion.
They prepared for a spring election, spending on attack ads against Dion that left the broke Liberal party reeling. When that election did not happen they porogued parliment for the summer to return in the fall, blaming the Liberals for their failure to pass law and order legislation that was their stock in trade appeal to their right wing base.
By the end of 2007 they had wasted the surplus the Liberals had left them with GST cuts, tax cuts for big business and bloated military budgets for their war in Afghanistan. This was always a key element of the neo-con agenda, spend government money so that they had no alternative but to cut politically objectionable services and programs.
"I'm hopeful there will be some ideologically-driven, neo-conservative cuts to government," political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former chief of staff to Harper, said in an interview.
Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.
"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."
At a minimum, Flanagan said: "I think there's certainly room for some incremental cuts to useless programs."
The government has already used the economic crisis to put off plans for a national portrait gallery, citing the need for fiscal restraint in uncertain times.
From Flanagan's perspective, the government would do well to scupper a host of grants, contracts and business subsidies and to pare a lot of what he considers wasteful spending on cultural and aboriginal programs.
Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.
"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."
At a minimum, Flanagan said: "I think there's certainly room for some incremental cuts to useless programs."
The government has already used the economic crisis to put off plans for a national portrait gallery, citing the need for fiscal restraint in uncertain times.
From Flanagan's perspective, the government would do well to scupper a host of grants, contracts and business subsidies and to pare a lot of what he considers wasteful spending on cultural and aboriginal programs.
Despite passing legislation for fixed date federal election, with the next one being the fall of 2009, Harper kept up the election style attacks on Dion and the Liberals. It was always about Harper versus the other guy, who was a wimp, not a leader, etc. etc. Canada was kept on election footing, the Conservatives showed off their new war room for the election, and then quietly closed shop six months later.
Durng the Fall of 2007 through the spring of this year the rudderless Liberals prop up the Harper government, unable and unwanting to bring down the government, unprepared to go to the polls, Dion allows his MP's to bow out of critical votes, including confidence votes, with only token opposition to Harper.
Come the summer of 2008 and again government is porugued for the summer to resume in the fall. Everyone is busy watching the U.S. Presidential race, and watching house prices drop as oil prices rise, and the loonie gains on the U.S. dollar. Then everything begins to fall apart. The recession comes, a recession that George Bush spends a year denying, saying the fundamentals of American Capitalism are strong. John McCain his replacement says the same thing on the campaign trail. Heck even our Economist In Chief, our PM Stephen Harper assures Canadians that our economic fundamentals are strong, and a recession and credit melt down won't hurt our financial system and the government surpluses.
But Harper see's the writing on the wall, a recession would bring down his minority government, so being the opportunist he is he gambled on an early election, before the meltdown got to bad. Despite fix election dates he threw that aside like his promise not to tax Income Trusts. Two years of election style campaigning had left the Liberals and Dion weakened, and the polls showed that in the early days of the recession he was risisng in the polls, Canadians were looking for secure leadership in this time of unease and uncertainty.
So he called an election in September for October. The Man of Steelwas now transformed into Uncle Steve, the sweater wearing, father of two, a serious listner at the kitchen tables of immigrant and ethnic Canadians as nmumerous TV ads showed us.
And then the sweater came off. Harper announced political cuts to Arts and Culture programs, and denounced artists and cultural workers as effette elitists (read Liberals) who criticise the government that feeds them. And he introduced tough Law and Order promises to put teenagers in adult prisons. Appealing to his right wing base in Western Canada. But it bombed in Quebec and we were to discover that the Conservatives had contracted out their campaign in Quebec leaving them with no one to effectively counter the BQ attacks on these policies.
All along our esteemed Economist and PM insisted like his counterparts to the south that Canada's economic fundamentals were strong. And then the market crashed. And despite that crash Harper lied to the Canadian people saying that he would not have a deficit and that his government would still have a surplus. He insisted our financial market place could weather the storm, while promising $75 billion to bail out the banks.
An all the while the Liberals floundered about with a lacklustre leader whose complex Green Plan was obtuse except for one fact, it was a tax increase. Harper leaped on this from the earliest days of the Green Shift even before the election to call it a deficit plan and a tax grab. And the Liberals could not convince Canadians otherwise. The Natural Governing Party entered the election as the Natural Bumbling Party.
Jack Layton on the other hand finally abandoned the politcs of being the Opposition and ran for the PM's job. While Elizabeth May and the Green Party finally got into the leaders debates.
Still we all watched the U.S. election campaign between Obama and McCain.
And despite the pre-election polling, the defeat of the Liberals and their leader, Harper won a pyrichic victory, he ended up with more seats, as did Jack Layton and the NDP, but Harper remained with a minority government, in the midst of the biggest crisis capitalism has faced since the Great Depression.
Dion having blown it,by leading the Liberals to their worst historic defeat ever, mopped around Stornmount, spending several days before announcing his retirement as leader of the Liberals. Dion was always his own worst advisor. And his shock at losing as well as his hubris and arrogance that he could be defeated so badly, would siber him up.
Despite bailing out the banks Harper insisted that he would not run a deficit, that he could balance the budget, that his government would have a surplus, as the loonie crashed, the Big 3 Automakers called for bailouts, and the market crash created a recession in Canada.
And so we come to the last two weeks as Parliment resumed. Promising a fiscal update to address the economic crisis facing the country and the world Harper produced a political document that was aimed at his long range plan all along, to finally destroy the Liberal Party once and for all. There was no investment strategy, no bail out for the Big Three, no economic plan perser. Hower there was further cuts to government spending, the only thing neo-cons know how to do, wage controls and the end of the right to strike for federal public sector workers, and the end of public financing of political parties. It was this that was the final straw that broke the camels back.
The path to Conservative political dominance is to financially bankrupt your opponents.
So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity. "There will be no free ride for political parties," Flaherty told the House of Commons in his speech on the update. "Even during the best of economic times, parties should count primarily on the financial support of their own members and their own donors."
So wrote Tom Flanagan, one of the deep thinkers of the conservative movement in Canada and a mentor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Flanagan's prescient op-ed piece from August appeared to come to fruition in Thursday's fiscal update when Harper's Conservatives moved to end public financing of federal political parties under the guise of austerity. "There will be no free ride for political parties," Flaherty told the House of Commons in his speech on the update. "Even during the best of economic times, parties should count primarily on the financial support of their own members and their own donors."
The irony is that public financing of political parties was a longstanding Reform Party demand, along with fixed election dates and Senate Reform. Even though it was introduced by Jean Chretien in his final days as PM, a legacy project, it passed the house unanimously. The Canadian Alliance, the former Reform Party, supported it becaue they saw it as a way of leveling the playing field, the Liberals had long benefited from Corporate and Union donations. For Harper now to eliminate it, without even having bothering to raise the matter during the election was simply another example that his agenda was to destroy the weakened Liberals. Finally Dion the doormouse woke up to the fact that the Harper agenda was not just power for its own sake, but the destruction of the Liberal Party. Indeed the entire Liberal cacus finally read the writing on the wall, which had been Conservative graffiti for a decade.
And the little professor saw a chance to be PM, in a coalition government playing right into the hands of Harper. The NDP and Bloc had begun coalition discussions and invited the Liberals in, as they fumed over the betrayl and attack by Harper. Their mistake was to allow Dion to remain in charge, thus playing into Harpers hands. Jack Layton had gotten more popular votes than Dion and indeed the NDP won more seats, and came in second in many regions including Alberta. The Liberals were decimated, and the little professor who would be PM was not seen by Canadians as worthy of the job. Even as leader of a coalition.
Harper played on that to his advantage, while lying about the whole way we had gotten into this mess. We had seen what was supposed to be a fiscal update, changed into a attack on other political parties, wage controls on the public sector, and cuts to government spending. No fiscal stimulaus, other than bailing out the banks, was proposed. No fiscal plan was offered, and still Harper and his ministers claimed they would have a surplus and would not go into deficit.
He could not help himself, he was true to his long term goal of destroying the Liberals, and he saw them severly weakened and he took advantage. He did not expect that the opposition would coalesce into a united front coalition that could offer an alternative to his government.
Which they did.
He quickly backtracked, withdrawing the offending proposals to remove public financing and the right to strike, though wage controls were not off the table. However the damage was done.
And he insisted the next election would be fought over public financing which he couched in the old language of the 2006 election, that the opposition wanted their entitlements.
Faced with a united opposition, a coalition prepared to govern in his stead, who had already let the Govenor General know that, he began another election campaign. With coffers full of donations, he launched his so called defense of democracy, note well not defense of Parliment, but of that American abstract notion of democracy, one person one vote.
Not willing to face the wrath of the house he approached the GG to porouge parliment, to live to fight another day. While he accused the opposition of courting a coup with their coalition, he in fact conducted a parlimentary putsch yesterday to stay in power for another seven weeks.And he did so not for the good of Canada, or the Canadian people, nor even for the good of his own party. He has no plan to deal with the recession and its spiral into depression, rather he will use the seven weeks to run yet another election campaign against the Liberals.
The Liberals mistake and the cracks are showing now with dissident MP's denoucning Dion, was to not have demanded Dion step down and appoint an interm leader to be the PM in a coalition government.
That option remains open. Or they could make Jack PM. Not likely.
So let us recap the Harper government is a minority, the majority of Canadians voted for the opposition. They don't want another election, only Harper does because he has the money to run one. He wants an election not to govern but to finally kill the Liberal party, to run a stake thrrough its heart so it will not rise again.
And that is all his political agenda was ever about. So lets not hear anymore about defending democracy, or being best suited to solve the economic crisis, which he denied we were in and still has not offered any solutions for.Or that he is fighting for Canadian unity against nasty seperatists that he was willing to join with to defeat the Liberal minority government of Paul Martin.
Let us understand that Harper and his cronies seek power for its own sake, to mold Canada in their neo-con image. He has pulled off a parlimentary putsch to stay in power. We need a strong coalition to defeat him and replace him in January.
SEE:
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, Government, PM, PMO, Harper, Stalin, Great, Leader, Autocrat, Conservatives, ethics, accountability, autarch, autocrat, politics, Stephen Harper, Harper, NCC, Reform Party, Conservatives, Conservative Party, politics, Government, PM, Ottawa, Canada,Leo Struass, Calgary School,Carl Schmitt,Harper, Canada, Quebec, federalism, Government, PM, PMO, Cabinet, BQ, seperatism, Canada, politics, Conservatives, opposition coalition, economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, NDP, Liberals, BQ, politics, , federal election, minoirity government Jack Layton, , left-wing, unite-the-left, socialism, Quebec, social-democracy, NDP, PQ, BQ,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)