The ongoing sell-out of Canada

2007

Canadian direct investments abroad...$1,182,416,000

Foreign direct investment in Canada...$521,127,000

Statistics Canada

I see Manning being more concerned with the takeover of Canadian resources by companies hailing from non-white countries, rather than any true security concern about foreign takeover in itself. He didn't once murmer anything, that I've read at least, about foreign ownership as it pertains to America's controlling interest in the Alberta oil patch.

quote:Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
You read the table incorrectly. $1 182 416m is the number for all assets, not just FDI. Outward FDI was $508 596m.

During 1997-2006, Canadians owned more FDI abroad than foreigners held here. The decline in 2007 is due to the appreciation of the Canadian dollar, which has the effect of reducing the value of assets held abroad.

[ 09 June 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

I did so. Thanks for pointing that out, Steven. While I find the Statscan website fascinating, I do have trouble deciphering the stats. No excuse for my mistake though, just in a hurry and careless.

quote:Originally posted by jester:

For every article bemoaning the 'hollowing out' of Canada there is another one cheering Canadian global competitiveness.

I think you're the only one in this thread cheering Canada's lack of political transparency and lethargic showing for ECGI. Canada's democracy gap is largely to blame.

quote:Originally posted by jester:

The thrust of LTJ's article in the opening post is that Canada's corporate managers are either not motivated enough to thwart foreign takeovers or complicit in the takeover for personal gain.

Or maybe they're just bad managers. I was at the Canadian Economics Association meetings in Vancouver over the weekend, where U of T's Dan Trefler gave the Innis Address. It focused a lot on productivity and innovation, and why Canada does poorly there when compared to the US. One possibility might be some sort of cultural thing, in which Canadians don't innovate because it's considered to be bad manners or some such. But then he cited a bunch of opinion polling data about attitudes towards entrepreneurship, and attitudes in Canada and the US are pretty much the same. So it's hard to conclude that there are any cultural reasons for the gap.

But there was one question where there was a significant difference. When asked what sort of education was required to do well in business, Canadian managers were far more likely than their US counterparts to say that a university degree wasn't necessary. Of course, that might be because 70% of Canadian managers don't have a degree, while that's the case for only 50% of US managers. As Trefler said, "Canadian managers are underachievers."

So it sort of makes sense that Canadian investors would be willing to sell their shares to foreigners. They're dumping poorly-managed domestic firms in order to buy into better-managed foreign companies.

quote:Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
Who Owns Canada Now?

When even Diane Francis and Preston Manning start to worry about Canadian sovereignty, we know we've got a serious problem...

I was interested in giving that a read but I didn't want to give Diane Francis any money. Oh well, to the library, I suppose.

It's definitely passing strange watching those who were so bullish on removing all restrictions on investment and trade running away so quickly from their former position.

[ 09 June 2008: Message edited by: Doug ]

quote:OOriginally posted by Steven Gordon.

But there was one question where there was a significant difference. When asked what sort of education was required to do well in business, Canadian managers were far more likely than their US counterparts to say that a university degree wasn't necessary. Of course, that might be because 70% of Canadian managers don't have a degree, while that's the case for only 50% of US managers. As Trefler said, "Canadian managers are underachievers."

Underachievers or perhaps promoted (the Peter Principle) above their level of competence. As a retired businessman and resource contractor,I can vouch that business accumen and technical skills can only take any entrepreneur so far before the dynamics of an expanding business overwhelms an over-achieving but under-educated entrepreneur.

Not technical education but the sort of education that expands an individual's ability to get ahead of the curve. I read an article about MBAs stating that the degree costs six figures and is not necessary for a quality career but the days of building a better mousetrap in your barn,expanding it into a family manufacturing concern and passing the business on to the next generation are over.

From my perspective, it is always the individual who stays in the office, has the organisational skills and hires the technical and operational skills who prospers, eventually driving under or buying out the competitors who are hands-on but lack the organisational skills or motivation to stay ahead of the curve.

quote:Originally posted by Doug:

I was interested in giving that a read but I didn't want to give Diane Francis any money. Oh well, to the library, I suppose.

It's definitely passing strange watching those who were so bullish on removing all restrictions on investment and trade running away so quickly from their former position.

[ 09 June 2008: Message edited by: Doug ]

What I find interesting about many columnists and authors, including Ms. Francis is that they are more interested in making a book sale than they are in making a case.

quote:Originally posted by jester:

What I find interesting about many columnists and authors, including Ms. Francis is that they are more interested in making a book sale than they are in making a case.

Would you be anymore interested in her bookish opinion if you knew she is now a supporter of free trade and "increasing foreign competition", whatever she means by that?

quote:Originally posted by Fidel:

Would you be anymore interested in her bookish opinion if you knew she is now a supporter of free trade and "increasing foreign competition", whatever she means by that?

I'm well aware of Ms. Francis's opinions. I read her regularly but that does not infer agreement or even any regard for her opinions.

This 'ongoing sell out of Canada' canard crops up occasionally and is flogged mercilessly via innuendo supported by little fact. Quoting good old Mel does little to alieviate the complexity of a subject that,in AD 2008, is compounded by the size of the corporations eating or being eaten.

Vale, Extrata, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are all in play with the added threat of Sovereign Wealth Funds acquisitions. In a purely economic sense, government intrusion is not helpful but the threat from SWFs is more political than economic.

Canada's low inflation, high dollar and strong fiscal capacity should protect it from predatory takeovers but if our homegrown corporate flagbearers are too compacent, lazy or indifferent to the threat, they will be eaten.

quote:Originally posted by Fidel:
Canada's Mel Hurtig said in 2002, The Vanishing Country, p.341:
To be a better country, and to aspire to be the best country, we're going to have to spend more money on health care, education, social programs, defence, and innovation. Where are we going to get the money? . . .

Where are we going to get the money?
Not by killing off energy exports and chasing foreign investment away.

Oh! Hey - lets tax the rich and chase them out of the country too. If it works for Mugabe and Fidel and Chavez, its gotta work here too.

Don't worry about that 3,000% inflation thingy either, its only stoogocrat capitalist propaganda perpetuated by the lackys of the MSM.

That was a close one!

A couple of lines in, I was preparing to have to agree with you, jester - an unusual situation, as I'm sure you'd agree.

But then you said that stuff about Paul Martin probably being a decent man, and gave me my out.

Thanks for the break. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:Originally posted by jester:

Where are we going to get the money?
Not by killing off energy exports and chasing foreign investment away.

You're not making sense, jester. There are examples around the world where big oil companies cough-up the royalties, and pay their fair share of taxes on resources. The proof, as I have laid out before thine eyes several times before, are the whopping petroleum funds stored up by Norway, and Russia since just 2004, and Venezuela, and the higher natural resource tax regimes of several other economic zones including Saskatchewan and Alaska.

quote:Oh! Hey - lets tax the rich and chase them out of the country too. If it works for Mugabe and Fidel and Chavez, its gotta work here too.

Neither Cuba nor Zimbabwe(Rhodesia) have Alberta's unparalleled in the world oil and gas to give away for a song in padding the pockets of crooked politicians and multinational energy companies the way it is here in this Northern Puerto Rico with a dwindling population of polar bears.

Mel Hurtig already points out that real OECD countries have real overall tax revenues to pay for things which are necessary for competitive capitalist economies. Once again for the hard of hearing, Canada does not rank in the top ten most competitive capitalist economies. So it looks like we need real politicians in Ottawa and Alberta to encourage and nurture a much more competitive form of capitalism than this very non-transparent and uncompetitive gravy train form of it that exists here for a long time running.

quote:Don't worry about that 3,000% inflation thingy either, its only stoogocrat capitalist propaganda perpetuated by the lackys of the MSM.

You're comparing Canada, one of the largest countries in the world with unparalleled natural resource wealth in the world to countries no larger than PEI or Newfoundland and which have been targets of vicious, and and according to the democratic vote of United Nations, illegal and genocidal trade sanctions and committing political interference in those countries' democracies for far too long. Just between you and me, it always helps to compare apples with apples, jester. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]

Taqa

quote: The utility and petroleum firm last year made acquisitions worth some $11-billion around the world, including the purchase of Canada's PrimeWest Energy Trust for about $5-billion.

In the present, much of the foreign investments by SWFs have more to do with dumping FE holdings in USD into Canadian holdings in a flight to safety than any nefarious control agenda.

Make no mistake listening to the BS emanating from Central bankers,especially the American. Bernanke is calling a halt to rate cuts because he has to save cuts to address the next crisis, not because he has any intention of addressing inflation.

If Bernanke tries to go hawk with an interest rise, the precarious derivatives mess will collapse around him. If he doesn't, inflation will eat his agenda. The only weapon he has is to try to talk the suckers into believing that 'the worst is over'.

The fact is that the most volatile of the worthless paper has not yet rolled over and the smart money from Abu Dhabi to China to Brazil is frantic to get out of the dollar into holdings in secure, plodding currencies backed by high retail savings rates,government surplusses and low inflation.

Got any ideas on dull plodding currencies with good backing? [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

My understanding is that Molson does not own Coors and that Coors does not own Molson: rather both Coors and Molson are owned by a third entity, MolsonCoors Brewing Co. More than 50% of the shares in MolsonCoors are owned by members of the Molson and Coors families. I wouldn't characterize this as a takeover of a Canadian corporation by an American one, nor as a takeover of an American corporation by a Canadian one. I believe that the technical term is "merger". I might note that this Canadian-American hybrid, MolsonCoors, wholly owns not only Molson and Coors, but also Coors Brewers Limited, formerly Bass Brewers, in the UK. Reverse colonization?

quote:Originally posted by Fidel:

Ya, how about the Russian rouble?

Because if our deeply integrated economy goes down with interest rate hikes, those foreign-owned and controlled energy companies in AB could decide to shelve oil sands production for a while.

I have a certain optimism that Canada is decoupling on a complete economic platform basis, even if our trading dynamic is dependent on our southern cousins at present. The old saw that when the US sneezes Canada comes down with pneumonia is based more on insecurity in certain Canadian circles than on today's reality.

Canada stands on the cusp of greatness, held back only by the timidity of its chattering classes. Sir Wilfred Laurier just got the centuries mixed up.

Given the latest oil inventory reports, the likelihood of understatement of demand and overstatement of supply for political purposes and the scrabble to get out of the USD while simultaniously voicing unqualified support for it, there is little likelihood of any abandonment of petroplays in safe jurisdictions.

Speaking of the rouble, the Russian currency could have a bright future were it not for the fact that dear Vladimir has a penchant for hanging on to one end of it. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Why take a chance on playing rough with the bear when the timid titmouse in Alberta is begging for a decent rogering?

Ok swame then why did the Bank Of Canada back down on the interest rate cuts today, was it that the US said they wheren't going to cut theirs 2 days ago? So glad the harper approved(stamp pending) new BOC governor is a total lackey for the states as opposed to the half lackeys we are use to.No need to be independant, which brings to mind why after HUGE price hike in commodities over the last year we haven't seen the dollar rise a LOT higher(the supposed reason for the rise after PM PM began fucking us over in 2004), instead it is hovering at par. Can you say SPP anyone? Make it a lot easier to integrate when your currency and pricing is the same non?

quote:Originally posted by thorin_bane:
Ok swame then why did the Bank Of Canada back down on the interest rate cuts today, was it that the US said they wheren't going to cut theirs 2 days ago? So glad the harper approved(stamp pending) new BOC governor is a total lackey for the states as opposed to the half lackeys we are use to.No need to be independant, which brings to mind why after HUGE price hike in commodities over the last year we haven't seen the dollar rise a LOT higher(the supposed reason for the rise after PM PM began fucking us over in 2004), instead it is hovering at par. Can you say SPP anyone? Make it a lot easier to integrate when your currency and pricing is the same non?

Is that a question or a stump speech?

The Bank of Canada backed off an interest rate cut for the supposed reason that inflation in Canada is lower than expected but I'm guessing that the real reason is a concerted effort by central bankers to keep their powder dry to fight another day.

I'm sure that central Canada wants an interest rate cut to prop up an unhealthy manufacturing sector and the rest of the country can tolerate the cut because the effects of a rate cut will NOT filter down to the little folks anyway due to liquidity constraints from derivatives exposure.

The real problem is that contrary to the outright lies that the 'worst is over', the worst is still ahead as more toxic loans reset when bank balance sheets are weakened from previous losses.

Concerted effort is required to avert a credit collapse and interest cuts are being saved for the magic moment.

[ 11 June 2008: Message edited by: jester ]

quote:Originally posted by Fidel:

I think if Canadian dollars were to become a hot prospect, there has to be demand for them combined with economic growth. And with our Central Bank taregting two percent inflation, I don't think economic expansion in Canada will increase much above the two to three percent rates we've been used to since the 1980's. More economic activity in Canada would mean more demand for the dollar, more businesses needing capital, and global money speculators hopping on for the ride, but I don't think the Canadian economy will be surging ahead at Russia's Keynesian expansion rates of 7% and 8%, and never mind China's growth rates anytime soon.

Inflation is around 1.7% and probably won't hit 2% Slow growth is good for canada right now because we do not have either the capital or brainpower or manpower to forge ahead at present.

Ontario can assume a large position in oilsands upgrading and petro-chemical manufacture but it needs the political will to counter existing strategy in sending raw bitumen and raw gas south. Stripping NG means the manufacture of plastics and building product components as well as fuel gasses and presently,it all goes to Chicago.

Canada needs to address education and training as much of our expertise retires in the coming years. The typical Canadian laziness in depending on immigrants for skills rather than investing in training and slouching along living off a low Cando rather than investing in productivity is ended.

The revolution is upon us,Fidel. Will we persevere or will we underachieve, claim victimhood and look for someone to blame?
quote:
Very little of the multi-billion dollar oil and gas profits hemorrhaging from Canada every year are reinvested back into the country for R&D or new businesses, or new infrastructure etc. Canada is a good place to extract money and invest for the purpose of controlling interest in money-makers like oil and gas, but there isn't much in the way of long-term investment. Like old Diefenbaker giving an entire aerospace industry to the U.S. with Avro Arrow, today Alberta is losing out on a whole petrochemical refinery industry when they allow oil sands to be shipped south for processing in the U.S. Yes they've ridden us mighty hard over the years. Put in the least to extract the most, and they've had a lot out of Alberta over time. Not a lot to show for it in Canada though except a $130 billion dollar infrastructure deficit across the country and lowest growth rates in our largest provincial econmomy. I'd love to see a Canadian economic boom. We have everything we need to be a self-sufficient economy.

Everything except political leadership. I do hope that the ensuing turmoil will force responsibility onto the younger generation to lose their acquiesance to defeat and mobilise to throw the bums out - all of them.

[ 11 June 2008: Message edited by: jester ]

quote:Originally posted by jester:
Canada needs to address education and training as much of our expertise retires in the coming years. The typical Canadian laziness in depending on immigrants for skills rather than investing in training and slouching along living off a low Cando rather than investing in productivity is ended.

Canadians are perennial underachievers, and its not for a shortage of clever people. Canada has let 650,000+ well educated Asians, first and second generationals, return to Asia since the mid 1990's, and it's because those BSc's and BA's and P.Eng's and MBA's and PhD's, MD's etc couldn't see any future here for ultilizing their education and skills. The NDP has pointed this out time and again to no avail in Ottawa.

It's difficult because there is no real successful model for the new Liberal capitalism, ie. economies based on banking and financial services. Unless we build a huge military, Canada can't emulate the U.S. economy whereby every other country buys U.S. debt while Americans live beyond their means. At some point the feds have to invest in human capital and shore up this $130 billion dollar infrastructure deficit. We can't compete with those top ten countries which are doing those things well until we stop the bleeding of untaxed profits leaving the country. Big energy isn't going to invest in educating more physicians or scientists or engineers or in green infrastructure projects. But they'll be more than happy to skip the country with profits from oil and gas and timber and minerals and hydro-electric power if no one does anything about it. It doesn't have to be this way. We need a competitive electoral system in Canada before money speculators will ever consider the loony for a reserve currency.

Sorry, I read Turner's article wrong. He was talking about top dollar housing in Vancouver and GTA.

I think what bugs me most is the fact that people today are having to take out 40 year mortgages at all and end up pouring most of their life savings into a single commodity for which the value of is becoming more of an inflated gamble. Canadians used to payoff mortgages by 25 or 30 years' time.

And as Turner said recently, what will values of these new mini-mansions be, thrown up in record time by housing developers, years down the road when home heating costs rise even higher? I think private banks and insurance companies are hoping the debt pyramid will explode at some point with them in the driver's seat and cleaning up on real estate and other physical assets. And this is after creating 95% of the money supply as interest-owing debt out of thin air. Privatize plunder and socialize risk, is their way.

The panel appointed by the Harper government recommends we sell out faster: Federal panel recommends allowing Canadian banks to merge, and wants controls loosened on airlines, telecommunications quote:With 65 recommendations touching almost every aspect of the economy, the competition panel provided the framework for a shake-up that would go a long way to dismantling the foreign investment controls that have been a key part of Canada's policies for decades.

Mel Watkins, one of the country's best-known economic nationalists, called the report "a wish list for business on the way they want things done."

"It is utterly unimaginative. ...They (the panel) are utterly faithful to a narrow business interest."

Watkins said the panel ignores the reality that "mergers and acquisitions are leading to increasing levels of business concentration and monopoly."

Dylan Penner, a spokesperson for the Council of Canadians, said the results of the report "were pretty much predetermined."

"I would have been surprised if they had come out with a report that said `We need to protect the environment and health and reduce globalization,' but that's obviously not their agenda."

According to the Unified Theory of Babble (that all threads ultimately lead to an exposure of all problems as being deeply rooted in the USofA—which subsumes Professor Gordon’s First Rule of Babble [that all threads lead to Cuba]), it would seem that Canada has only two choices: (1) “deep integration” or (2) suffer a military attack.

Which is better?

Discuss.

P.S. For the many babblers who look at the USofA as a nation of evil that is on par with (or likely worse than) Nazi Germany, I can’t think of a third alternative to (1) and (2) that would plausibly fit within that world view.

quote:Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
Your input today is as useful as ever, Sven.

Thank you!! From you, I'll take that as a compliment!!

quote:put the show on the other foot
Thanks Stargazer - that image made my afternoon!

The "old softshow" (Mr. Bojangles)?

The final frontier: our airwaves up for grabs.

I am going to make a polite request George that you stop using that sobriquet 'the Great Unread' every single time that you are talking about what the public in general thinks about something.

I know that you think its a matter that we all have to 'face reality'.

But a.) the point has been heard (and before you said it the first time, let alone the umpteenth time later); and b.) most of the time you use the phrase it is like here: a gratuitous toss-in with no substantive contribution to the point.

And, what was the point... that squeeking chalk on the board sound was too distracting.

As to the argument itself, is the problem ignorance, or is it lack of engagement?

In the first place, informing oneself has nothing necessarily to do with 'reading' per se. In fact, the whole experiential notion of 'reading' as you use it is bourgeois individualist contemplative to the core. It can make you very informed, it is no doubt the best way to make you very informed... but it is not a prerquisite to being an informed member of the citizenry.

I've known lots of astute people who rarely read much of anything. The males among them often don't even read novels. Logging camps and First Nations communities are situational specifics where to this day there is a lot of communal and oral education. None of that in the rural community where I've now been for decades... but even here there are those astute individuals who just watch the TV like everyone else.

When I went to the UK I was amazed how politically engaged and aware the working class was. Same thing: many of them don't read beans, and get essentially the same crap as we do from the mass culture.

You decry how North Americans are going from bad to worse in being the 'Great Unread'. But they have NEVER been engaged like Brits and Europeans were and are. I would argue that lack of engagement is the cause, and political/social/civic ignorance is the effect. With your notion of 'unread' being a red herring, let alone being an obnoxious irritant when you just wave it around in a gratuitous manner.

When I said that "that category of Canucks can include library board members" Kenneth, I was attempting to show that "being unread" is not limited to TV watchers. Library board members in Cambridge are not widely read. In fact, they read very little outside of the usual fiction for escape.

How about you? I have quoted Susan Jacoby often over the last couple of years. In The AGe of American Unreason she shows that, indeed, reading habits have been changing very considerably over the postwar period...to the detriment of reason.  Al Gore, whom I've also quoted often from his The Assoult on Reason, also attempts to explain how vulnerable Americans are to distortion of thetruth (particularly in campaigns) .

"In the age of propaganda" writes Gore (the CBC program names it the Age of Persuasion)education itself can become suspect. When ideology is so often woven into the 'facts' that are delivered in fully formed and self-contained packages, people naturally begin to to develop some cynicism about what they are being told. When people are subjected to ubiquitous and unrelenting mass advertising, reason and ogic often begin to seem like they are no more than handmaidens for the sophisticated sales force. And now that these same techniques dominate the political messages sent by candidates to voters, the integrity of our democracy has been placed under the same cloud of suspicion."  You know, Ken..."yeah, that's just politics."

And as Robert Reich points out in Supercapitalism, "the same competitiion that has fueledsupercapitalism has spilled over into the political process. Large companies have hired platoons of lobbytists, lawyers, experts, and public relations specialists, and devoted more and more money to electoral campaigns (also Gore's message). The result has been to drown out voices and values of citizens. As all of this has transpired, the old institutions through which citizen values had been expressed in the Not Quite Golden Age - industry-wide labor unions, local citizen-based groups, 'corporate statesmen' (some of the good guys of old, no longer extant) responding to all stakeholders, and regulatory agencies - HAVE BEEN LARGELY BLOWN AWAY (my caps) by the gusts of supercapitalism.

If you have not read these explanations of what has happend to us over the last third of a century, then you're right up there with the Cambridge Library board, Ken.  And I know that Deer Hunting with Jesus also offends your sense of propriety, but that's where we've wound up, and I'm not going to go about pretending it hasn't happened. This is a place of relative freedom, thanks be to GAia, where on can say such things.

You haven't presented any evidence. You've just repeated what you've said before.

Discussions that have gone and are going nowhere are prime candidates for walking away from.

I made the mistake of mixing a substantive argument with one that is essentially a question of 'style'- tho thats not the right word.

The substantive discussion is endless. The question of 'style' still stands: your use of "the Great Unread" is frequently just a gratutitous toss in. You think its about getting people to face facts. Its just obnoxious.

There are two different things going on about the subtantive discssion. One is about the truncated social and political consciousness that limits discussions we can have. And when people are talking about why that is anything goes. One thing that is part of the mix is the nostalgia of intellectual elites for a bygone day and their role in it. That also plays a role in where people like Jacoby lay the problems.

Which is why I went into 'non-reading/textual dominant' forms of discourse, and pointed out that class and critical conciousness was [still is somewhat] very strong in the UK while rooted primarily in community-oral discourse, and without benefit of any alternative media, with people glued to the telly for culture, etc.

In your hands it is worse then in the hands of people like Jacoby. You make much more definitive points and come off like a just plain snob. Your use of the "Great Unread" is an expression of that. And the epitomy of arrogance is attributing disagreement to lack of understanding, unwillingness to read great texts/films, fogged by political correctness, or unwillingness to face facts.

You are on very thin ice saying I'm all about strategy and tactics. "without any concern for these dynamics" translates into not being willing to accept "your facts".

And you really have to stop couching your arguments in texts and authors YOU think people have to read before you can have a real discussion. If their arguments are that valuable, then you can express them without the crutch. Its not just that you can .... you must. It is only in a seminar or a book club [which is just an unpretentious word for a seminar] that you pick texts everyone will read as the basis for a discussion.

You are ignoring my point about having discussions that do not depend on referring to 'seminal works'.

This is a public space. I operate on the principle that if I can't express it without reference to things only some other people have read, then it probably isnt the point that I think it is.

I didn't by the way say I had not read Bageant, let alone refuse to do so. But now that you mention it, yes I will refuse to do so as a condition for someone paying attention to what I have to say.

I seem to "persistently choose seeing that as an objection to the content of what (I) have to say...refusing to face the facts."  I'll ponder on that, Ken, but in the meantime, may I say, you will come nowhere near "the facts" of those peoples' lives unless you rid yourself of the assumption that you can come to that understanding by pure thought or osmosis.

Pure thought and the MSM will lead you down the garden path every time, Ken.  If you don't know what the enemy is reading, you're just engaging in rhetorical exercises, heavily dependent on references to straw.

I would have thought that your speculations on "Union organizing in the U.S." proves the need for a substantive reference, like Reich.

The return of Tim Horton's head office to Canada was induced by lower tax rates. Any mention of that inducement, Fidel? :D 

Chocolates and coffee. It's a start I guess.

Oh my god George. Now I just think you need some kind of outside help.

You dug up something I said in another thread, let alone in an entirely different context and about a different topic, and throw it in here.

Not to mention its pretty clear that I'm talking off the top of my head about something for which there is clear empirical evidence one way or the other- unlike the discussion above where there is litteraly no end to establishing 'what the facts are'. This is a discussion forum George not a point scoring game. Crazy to bring that little fragment of discussion here, but taking a look at it... that was probably a discussion where people were tossing out there thoughts... it would have been very easy to correct me with a summary sentence taken from an actual reading of the trends.

Tell me what purpose is served Geroge by all the detailed textual reference, for a simple point that I was just wrong?

This is even worse than you repeatedly telling people- "How can what you say have any value since even after I told you how important it is you haven't seen Deer Hunter/read Bageant/read whoever?" while the tone is mild, and respectfiul on the surface, outside the seminar room that is intellectual bullying.

Maybe I've missed it happening, but I'm surprised no one has ever called you on it before. Hopefully its because on a personal basis it rolls off of people you do that to; and not because you intimidate them. But I'm sure that even if it doesn't intimidate people you have had exchanges with, it doesn't do wonders for encouraging lurkers to join in the discussion.

If I am openly shit upon, and the shitter walks away from the thread, I'm going to call them back somehow, Ken. Welcome.

I have been called on it before, Ken, but the caller did not leave me dangling, and we went toe to toe. I have not broken some Marquess of Queensbury rules, Ken, I've just used the only damned means available to keep you from a hit and run tactic. I don't believe that your position on union organizing is simply wrong. If you do not understand the means by which it was brought about, the revolution on the right - and Reich describes it very well - your position, if taken up by the unread, actually leads to a weakening of understanding, a counterproductive position (in the language of the old new left). 

Discussion also ended in the labour thread with the posting of the above excerpt that you find so offensive. Why? Reich is wrong? How? You deny the concept "Supercapitalism"?  WHY for chrissake?  It's all too important to our own understanding of our own political/economic situation. 

Buy cheap sell dear remains the simple modus operandi and with elites now paid bailouts to do it with, stripping the assets just got a whole lot easier.

May I quote from the holy of holies from Novembr of 2008 when it looked like we were entering a period of deep dung. The name, Chris Hedges.  The subject (so suspect hereabouts)  how many consumers/taxpayers are capable of understanding what is going on around them:America the Illiterate

By Chris Hedges

November 16, 2008 "Truthdig" -- - We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.

There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.

The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.

The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.

The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today's political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous "person" is Mickey Mouse.

In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that "Hamlet" can be as entertaining as "The Lion King" and perhaps as educational. "Culture," she wrote, "is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment."

"There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect," Arendt wrote, "but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say."

The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.

As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers-our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues-who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.

The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.

George you are really speaking of the "Colbert Nation" on one hand, and the evangelical dispensationalists on the other.

...there is something going on in that Evangelical element, and I think that they are being taught that fascism is communism, in some way shape or form, as  my relatives of that persuaassion who attend the deep south Evangelical churches as snow birds have been talking about   "communism would work, if people were not greedy", however when you get down to it, and start asking them what their perceptions are, really they are not talking communism, but fascism.

But thank you for your last long missive, was a clearly focused expose of the thought terminating cliches  used by so many, and accepted by even more.

The white collar world has in most cases clearly slammed the door on the blue collar producers in society,  by thinking they are smarter, better, and superior, and are thus the shepards or stewards of the actual working masses. Really what they have done is thrown the other workers of the world under the bus  with the destination sign "EGO GAINED HERE" and have chosen that route, as opposed to a solidarity route of equity for all  workers.

When challenged on their ego trip, they start espousing negatives against the challenger like; intimidation, resentment, jealousy, and other such nonsensical rhetoric, as all it means is they want to protect what they believe is their status achieved. And they will protect each other's asses in order to do so, while stabbing each other in the back in the next breath for "societal/career advancement".

"Colbert Nation" rather than the Great Unread?  Would that perhaps gain me dispensation to speak to the problem, remind?    I'll hafta try it.

fidel: ..."they seem to be managing fairly well with pulling the wool over everyone's eyes same as before, only different."

It is that difference that we are after, Fidel.  Our interests are shifting . We have more at stake. There's less altruism, more me-ism abroad. That is what's being played to.    No?

Ontario May Sell Stakes in Assets, Toronto Star Says

Let's sell off the money-makers to rich friends of the Liberal government of Ontario so that the Liberal government of Ontario can look a little better if only on paper by next election. It's all about Dalton McGuilty and the Liberals. Our fiscal Frankensteins are at it again in Ottawa and Toronto.

So what happens when a company ignores every commitment made to our foreign investment review board, and locks out its Canadian workers for months on end to try to bust their union?

This government backs them up with a cool billion.

Does anyone have a reference for the assertion that the Conservatives are going to allow corporate donations? The current regime (individual donations, no corporate or union donations) has worked well for them.

Foreign investment is a euphemism for when foreigners dump money into the country and inflate the money supply. Nothing is actually invested in the country, and especially so in Canada's case where Canada's big six banking monopoly has used the savings of Canadians to finance about two-thirds of the more than 12,000 foreign takeovers of Canadian corporations and crown assets since 1985 and mostly by rich Americans. The two old line parties have been running Canada a lot like a banana republic since Mulroney.

And then we have people suggesting that individual NDP provinces(and typically tiny prairie ones in the middle of another nation-wide recession) are to blame for being unable to or refusing to renationalise those things which were pawned off to foreigners at firesale prices and then inflated/blown-up in value on stock markets. And this is all the while Ottawa starves provinces of funding and leaves provinces to their own devices competing with with the others in what is generally known as the very neoliberal "race to the bottom".

Neumann is absolutely right. Harper has no respect for the net benefit requirements in the Investment Canada Act. The Act and its implementation had already been watered down under the Chretien-Martin era but at least they required token commitments, a drop in the bucket compared to how much money these multinationals were lined up to make. But still, those foreign corps were on their best behaviour for the most part.

In the last 2 days I've learned the 71% of the tar sands are in foreign hands, that Bick's Pickles are now made in the USA by Smucker's, and that we've essentially surrendered our sovereignty in every way, with American's controlling who can board an airline here, and patrolling Canadian soil and waterways at will.

To call this country a banana republic is an insult to the lands that grow bananas.

Funny yes Fidel-- but not so simple.

Yes doing so damages free trade legislation.

Free trade integration is not easy to reverse-- it is not like an add on -- like getting a car that you could switch for a bike.

The analogy is more like cutting off your leg to put on a bionic one so that dumping the bionic one leaves you legless.

What existed before free trade is gone and what now exists serves everyone but the people.

Replacement of integrated trade systems is a long-term project that will require massive investment and change over a long period. And action along that path will be urgent at every step (I say long period not to defend slow action but to acknowledge how much needs to be done).

It is also expensive and will be painful at moments as we try to rebuild structures that have been entirely destroyed. Some of the replacements may not look the same-- the industrial policy of today will not be designed to put back the one torn down in the 1990s but to build one appropriate for the future. Canada will require a series of regional industrialization plans to reverse decades worth of neo-liberal economic policy.

The NDP needs to invest in these because they will  take years to develop and need to be ready to go in 2015 should we get the opportunity to form a government. The approach must be regional because jobs need to be local, markets are local as well as national and international, and opportunities and resources are often quite local as well.

Much has been said about moving an economy from communism to capitalism and how long and coordinated that is. Going from radical capitalism to democratic socialism with a people first agenda is equally challenging. All three systems are quite different and what is required is a new approach to our economic system and investment to make that happen.

Free trade is a huge part of this-- the weakening of Canadian businesses in our markets make it harder for there to be Canadians able to hold on to these things.

If we want to reverse the loss of Canadian control over critical resource sectors then we need to do three things:

1) address and reverse the damage done by free trade to Canadian private sector ability to control key sectors

2) enhance investment rules to protect ownership through better regulation

3) take a greater stake by the public in these areas -- at least temporarily

All of these have a direct impact on Free trade agreements and legislation.

Some of those purchases will amount to expropriation or something close to. Not all players will be bought willingly at a reasonable price.

Yes, and I think we should re-establish the Trudeau-NDP Foreign Investment Review Agency gutted by Mulrony in 1985, several years before CUSFTA and NAFTA.

More regulation of Canadian banks using savings of Canadians to finance foreign takeovers of Canada. 

A national energy policy written by Canadians,  for Canadians and with some thought to Canada's environmental obligations to the rest of the world not solely for corporate America's benefit.

A public plan to invest in research and development in Canada, because the new foreign owners of Canada have simply not been doing this as promised by Anglo-American free trade theorists.

We could raise corporate taxes across the country without pitting one province against any other one. This is another aspect of neoliberalism in Canada that could be dealt with by a federal NDP government.