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The NDP is not folding. They are at least in the game and creating "political instability" in Ontario according to bond ratings agencies/charlatans for international marauding capital.
And this is still WorstPastThePost. We can't slide past the post by offering socialism inside one four-year term. That was made impossible financially some time ago. Now it's a battle to stave off marauding capital from conquering Ontario in the same way they've laid siege to Greece and other countries. And we can't go to the central Bank of Ontario because there isn't one. The anti-NDP party never mentions that cold fact.
You're labouring under the misapprehension that Moody's downgrading of Ontario was caused by something the NDP did.
Quite the contrary. Moody's [like their pals in the Ontario Conservative Party] is unhappy that the deficit isn't being reduced even faster than the Liberal-NDP Majority Government™ proposes to reduce it. The NDP did their level best to fall in line with the demands of "international marauding capital" by accepting a piddling tax increase on a handful of plutocrats in order to pay down the deficit even further, but that wasn't good enough for Moody's.
As for "political instability", well, there's a hell of a lot more political stability than there was two weeks ago, now that we have a Liberal-NDP Majority Government™ with a firm hand on the tiller.
Vindictiveness against those who are a little better off than you might cost you your job.
On the contrary, the creditors and international marauding capital fully realize that debts that can not be paid will not be. You are mistaken if you believe that the name of the neoliberal finance game is to cooperate with governments and aid them in running things efficiently. This may be what the neoliberal schills told various governments of Yugoslavia, Russia, Argentina, Nicaragua, Thailand etc in the 1990s. But it was a lie.
The real aim of marauding international capital is not to expect debt reductions through debt service payments paid on time, absolutely not, Name one country where this has worked to stave off the real consequences of maruading capital?
Marauding international capital 's real purpose is to foreclose on entire nations and deliver the economic medicine as a result of ballooning debt overheads experienced by governments. Observe McGuinty paying more in debt service charges than Ontario spends on any of post-secondary education, economic development, or transportation.
The neoliberal financial regime's real goals are to cripple economies through economic shrinkage thereby exacerbating the situation of debt overhead.. Marauding capital want our public services, our infrastructure, water and sewers, roads, power generation and distribution, health care services and daycare! Haha they don't want our money, you foolish person, Spector! No, they want tangible assets and land and public property - things that really are worth something. And when all sources of government/public revenue are dregulated and privatized and pawned-off to the four winds, it will be checkmate on any of your future plans for socialism.
Thanks Madmax.
babble is quite the comedy fest tonite.
Yes it would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
They are using tear gas to breakup demonstrations in Greece. Tear gas was declared illegal even for military use by a UN order under the terms of the Paris Convention agreement in 1993.
We are in the final stages of bankruptcy leading to a situation of being laid siege to by international marauding capital.
They don't want our worthless money - that's just a game of distraction.
They want our souls.
it'll be pretty slim pickens for any of those around these parts...
So what's your plan? Let's hear it? Quit holding out on us like this. I don't see anyone out on the streets yet.
Give us your best plan and strategy to win the next FPTP election in old bankrupt Tory-Liberal Ontario. Shall we promise socialism in one bankrupted province? What will your platform for socialism in one term look like? Cat got your tongue?
We thought so.
It seems that when real advice for a real situation is what's needed, the room suddenly goes quiet.
Day of Action Against the Cuts April 21, 2012. More than 15,000 strong.
That's really nice. I like it. And if they amount to a phony majority of voter support more than showed up at the polls last time, then even better.
But for now it's worstpastthepost by a dysfUNcTioNal and hopelessly broken electoral system if we can even call it an electoral system. FPTP is basically electoral fraud, and the anti-NDPers among us have misplaced faith in the bad electoral system. They want the NDP to risk going where the poor in Ontario went during the Harris regime. I don't like the odds in old bankrupt, long-time conservative and now wishy-washy Liberal Ontario with Tories next in line for the job given an opportune vote split on the left.
That is the sad-sad reality of it.
We're in the game as opposed to sitting on the sidelines in the event of another phony majority dictatorial government, which is what hudak and Tories, and Bay Street and "volatile markets", were hoping for. They don't like it that the NDP even has a hand in the game. The privateers are scared silly that the NDP would do a CCF of things and demonstrate fiscal responsibility is a real possibility. That's bad for neoliberal "wealth creation" in Ontario and their plans for asset stripping.
As long as thos representatives, progressive or not, are dependent on the banksters for funding the budget, they're folding. It's literally too expensive to do otherwise. Having interest rates jacked up on the say-so of ratings agencies is a pretty big hammer to use against governments.
Yeah, not to mention the Occupy Movement getting into gear again. Or the quarter-million people in the streets of Montreal on Earth day.
But of course the parliamentary fetishists pay no attention to mass unrest. They're too preoccupied with making excuses for the status quo and telling everyone there is no alternative.
The Ontario Budget of the ONDP Caucus Salaries By the Numbers
http://rabble.ca/blog/15861
"...In 2011, Andrea Horwath made $158,156.96.00, Cheri DiNovo $129,722.63.00, Peter Taubuns $123,334.34.00 etc.
Much, much worse is an income of a single person on welfare. That was approximately $597.92 a month prior to the budget. It will increase by 1 per cent to, stunningly and appallingly, around $603.90.
That means a yearly welfare income of, for a single recipient, approximately $7,246.80
Seriously.
It also means an increase of only around sixty dollars a year while none of the ONDP caucus members will see their taxes increase by even that amount. In fact, their personal taxes will not increase by one penny.
So when we talk about the alleged 'courage' of a tax increase that will not even apply to them, let us at least recall that the ONDP caucus members that made this choice, (and it was a choice), made around 16.5 times a year what a single welfare recipeint did, and around six times what a minimum wage worker did.
Next time you wonder about income inequality in our society and why MPPS of any stripe don't seem to want to do anything about it, it is worth considering these numbers."
This is always the way it is, those underneath are sacrificed by those above to keep it that way. For those under to vote for those above is pathetic and ridiculous. They are the representatives of those like them, not those like us. They are class enemies not friends. 'Cats make friends with cats and nowhere in the world do cats make friends with mice' - Mao
ndp = no difference party
That's why it's foolish to depend on the support of the banksters if you want the kind of social change that is so obviously necessary. Who says governments have to borrow money to pay for social programs? Why, it's the plutocrats - the ones who hold all the money - who want to lend it to the government in order to accumulate even more money for themselves.
Governments don't have to borrow money from the rich. They can tax it from them.
Yes, and it's also important to put this 1% "increase" into context. This 1% is insufficient to cover the highest rent increase guideline in a decade (3.1%), and a hydro increase next month of 8%.
Did the NDP budget amendments restore the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit or the Home Repair Benefit? Did they eliminate the cuts to discretionary benefits for things like funerals, glasses, and emergency dental care? As far as I know they didn't, but somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. Please.
And finally, this budget comes less than a year after the Special Diet Benefit was gutted, reducing many of its former recipients' cheques by $250/month.
That's right. And that is especially true of federal governments in, say, Norway where social democrat governments levy taxes on natural resource exports. But it takes a strong central government to do it. Imagine tiny Norway divided up into ten provinces and territories and most of the crude oil claimed by one or two provinces. They would be divided and conquered by right-rightist governments and their friends in the energy sector as easily as Alberta and Saskatchewan have. Soc-dem Norway is a net creditor nation with well-funded social programs only because they have strong central governments which are anathema to multinational corporate raiders.
That's true about tax cuts not stimulating economic growth. And taxes on the rich and corporations in Ontario haven't been this low since the 1920's. But hold that thought because we can agree to disagree on the last item in Laxer's list of concerns WRT the neoliberal regime in Ottawa.
I'm not sure which part of the world ML is talking about, but it can't be neoliberalised Canada. We've seen flights of capital and jobs from Ontario and Quebec and especially since the very neoliberal trade deals CUSFTA and NAFTA. If it isn't nailed-down, like oil and natural gas and electrical power, then it is wide open to be moved to other provinces suffering federally orchestrated neoliberal policy and even to offshoring. In the 1970s Montreal had more head offices of finance and manufacturing corporations than any other in Canada. Today it's Calgary and U.S. cities that have gained from flights of head offices from Ontario and Quebec.
Michael Laxer makes no mention of the increase in absentee corporate landlords in Ontario or Canada since CUSFTA and NAFTA, and that make the alleged Liberal Party in Ottawa seem to have done something right during their neoliberal years from 1993 to 2006. What the Liberals did was float us all down the Mississippi in selling the environment to Exxon-Imperial and handing corporate America carte blanche access to raid Canada's resources at will.
How about those Liberals, Michael? You don't say?
We can challenge international capital. Yes we can. If any country can and note the emphasis on country and not any one province divided from the rest of Canada, it is Canada. I don't think we can do it from the fiscal confines of Queen's Park in Toronto. They are bankrupt as you know and without a central bank of their own and even less power to raise taxes across the country including those of energy and resource-rich provinces all in unison. That's how we would launch a respectable challenge to international capital. Meanwhile they are just smirking at our demands for the ONDP to go nose to nose with capital.
Except that you don't disagree. Laxer is saying neoliberal tax cuts don't prevent capital flight.
The only place you disagree on this point is that you have a list of excuses a mile long for doing nothing about it, whereas Laxer doesn't even try to make excuses for the Liberal-NDP Majority Government™.
Ah! So if tax cuts don't prevent capital flight, what does raising provincial corporate taxes do in Ontario where most of our richest corporations are based in Toronto?
Toronto is home to Bay Street and the financial sector. A lot of it finances mining in Canada and around the world as well as the oil industry out west.
What's stopping them from moving head offices to Calgary or Vancouver on even a tax whim like so many other head offices have shifted from Montreal and Toronto and even to the U.S. over the last 20 years?
No I don't agree with what Laxer is implying without him actually saying it. He's soft on the Liberals and their Mulroney-friendly NAFTA and...
Just like you have let them off the hook in countless threads where you defend absentee corporate landlords and majority-foreign ownership and control of three dozen key sectors of Canadian economy. Remember that? Because I do. I have wondered about your intentions more than once before.
Bay Street is now saying that Horwath is a socialist in the style of French socialists. They are saying Horwath is another Hollande wanting to raise taxes on the rich to 75% and not far behind Melenchon at 100%.
Bay Street is even saying that Andrea Horwath's NDP is promoting ethnic cleansing of a group of people in Ontario with calls for raising taxes on rich people who have benefited the most by Ontario's economy in the good times.
Bay Street and its corporate sponsored newz media/propaganda machine is a force to be reckoned with, don't you think?
There's life (and money) outside Ontario. This isn't to say there's no room for additional taxes on the wealthy aside from what was done but it isn't unlimited and isn't likely to be able to eliminate the deficit on its own.
Not that I agreed with the premise in the first place, but...
If the Liberals get have their shit together in Kitchener-Waterloo the NDP could very well find themselves with NO ability to influence next year's budget. This might have been their one and only shot, and they blew it.
The NDP could easily win the byelection in Kitchener-Waterloo too. If the Liberals manage to win it - it will be as clear a sign as any that they would have won back their majority in a province-wide general election.
I think it's difficult to extrapolate the results of a single by-election into a province-wide trend. And I somehow think the dynamics of a general election would be quite different if the NDP had brought the government down by opposing austerity.
"as clear a sign as any"?
And people accuse me of hyperbole!
Byelections usually go against the government. If the Ontario Liberals manage to win a PC seat in a byelection it will be a remarkably good sign for them and clear evidence that they would have won a province wide election.
"clear evidence"
LOL!
Not all people. Don't exaggerate.
49.2% turnout. And we want to gamble with the electoral fraud machine seven months later? Why? What makes anyone think Hudak wouldn't slide up the middle?
And there we would be with Mike the Knife Harris' other cousin, Tim the Knife, creeping us out in a grade b neoliberal slasher flic entitled: Night of the Living Heck in Ontario Part III.
No ta!
Don't forget cousin Dalton the Knife and his new girlfiend Andrea the Axe.