Another Economic Update Coming from Government

Apparently in the next two and half years, the last eight years' worth of federal debt service payments will be wiped out. Banksters love high quality debt like Canada's with 33 million co-signers, lax environmental laws, oils sands from here to eternity, and a government that doesn't believe in full employment or competitive economies in order that their parasitic creditor friends continue bleeding the country slowly but surely without actually killing the host.

We'll tie our stooges' hands with expanded social programs that have existed for years and years in a gaggle of other rich capitalist countries!

I think deficit will still be taboo if you don't have the pedigree of the cons...for some damn reason?

I know I have brought it up, but like many things on babble it does often take a back seat. Of course I AM a conspiracy theorist so I am not taken serious on some of this stuff. Unfortunately it sounds more tin foil hat to those that don't see this onion of devilish details. How could something so complicated be enacted without it falling apart? For that reason alone-people don't believe it could happen so it easier to get away with. It seems too grotesque for it to happen in our own country even if it is true.

KenS wrote:

Of course it will still be possible to break the taboos of raising taxes and short term deficits for program spending. But it vastly overstates to sy the taboo has been broken. Tax increases are still a third rail. Look at the Liberals: we're past the extreme hysteria about deficits and obsession with tax cuts, but the Liberals will still not go near tax increases.

There are two different taboos here. One is the taboo on deficit spending and the other is the taboo on raising taxes. The deficit spending taboo is relatively weak now while the taboo on raising taxes is as strong as ever. Since the taboo on deficit spending is weaker then the taboo on raising taxes, governments can implement programs by first going into deficit. Once these new programs are implemented and made a fait accompli, subsequent governments will have to find the funds to sustain them. If the economy grows enough, higher taxes may not even be required to sustain them. Otherwise taxation levels will have to be raised. This is what has happened in social democratic countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. In these countries, social democratic parties had a clear idea of what kind of country they wanted and implemented the programs needed to achieve it. Afterward they found the taxes required to support these programs. Now even right-wing governments in these countries have to maintain these established programs.

What's most important for progressive parties is that they have a clear vision of what programs they feel society should have and not fear going into deficits in order to implement them. This requires a clear concept of what society should look like. The NDP and Conservatives seem to have a clear idea of what society should look like. The Liberals don't. The NDP envisions a country like Denmark or Sweden. The Conservatives also have a clear vision. They want to erode social programs as much as possible and look to the US as their model. The Liberals have no real vision of what Canada should look like. They take their cue from the NDP and Cons and then try to find a middle ground that gives them as great a political advantage as possible.

But the good news here is that progressive polices will be implemented if the NDP can come up with a compelling vision of Canada.

Instead of focusing so much attention on the misdeeds of the Conservatives and Liberals, NDP'ers should fashion a vision of Canada so compelling that Canadians buy in to their program. I would like to see a day on Babble where there was no mention of how terrible the Liberals and/or Conservatives are. The only thing mentioned on that day would be ideas of what Canada could look like in the future and how we could get there.

A new EKOS poll has the Cons with a 7 point lead over the Libs....The interesting thing about this poll is supposedly the Cons are down 3 points in Quebec so make with that as you will.

I try not to pay attention to polls but you'd figure with a record deficit,the country's lost respect on the world stage,the blatant lies,the wedge politics etc...that the Cons would be MUCH lower in the polls.

They are not.

If one was to pay attention to polls,for the last 4 years Canadians supposedly think Harper is the best leader in Ottawa.

Fact is,right wing,EXTREME right wing parties are gaining popularity in the Western world.

I don't know why but it may have to do with economics and a growing intolerance of immigration.

This is the same political climate that gave birth to fascist governments in Europe following the Great Depression.

If this trend continues,we as progressives,are screwed. 

Weird been a lot of double post lately, not sure if its babble or bell.

KenS wrote:

And while the NDP is not enslaved by the taboo of tax increases to the degree of the Liberals- witness last years NDP initiative... the NDP is going to have to go further than that at some point. Its not as easy as people around here think [just need the "guts"], but it has to be done.

The NDP seems to be going ahead.

http://www.straight.com/article-353041/vancouver/jack-layton-takes-inequality

KenS wrote:

But it could also be no more than the 'dog whistles' for the base.

It's music to my ears.

Conservative canines are always getting stroked by Harper and Company.

The mutts on the left deserve some attention too.

KenS wrote:

In the same way, when all is said and done it doesnt matter whether or not the Conservatives intend specifically for the failure of stimulus funding.

Just by doing whatever they please regardless of future costs [the jets] and by cutting revenues, they are deliberately hobbling the choices of future governments.

Yes.  I think it could be a workable strategy for the NDP to simply stress the Conservatives' fiscal irresponsibility and its impact on future governments, particularly when it comes to popular programmes like universal health care, that may now need to be funded by tax raises in the future.  (Perhaps they are already doing this and I am unaware?)  It doesn't even matter whether it is a deliberate strategy of the Conservatives or simple incompetence and/or irresponsibility since the effect is the same.  Focusing too much on whether it is the former could come off as conspiracy theorizing whereas just focusing on the financial impact might play better.  At the time of the last budget announcement (July?), when the Conservatives announced our worst-ever deficit and also announced that it would be paid off with spending cuts in the next five years, I trembled a little, although it didn't occur to me that spending so stupidly could be a deliberate strategy.

But why do you think that what used to be the party of LBP and PET, which currently boasts people like Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy, and Ujjal Dosanjh, has been [i]so[/i] willing to let the Conservatives set the agenda and play by their rules??

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I'm with the CLC on this -- working people need this

May is out to lunch. Interestingly she is taking a position that is fundamentally anti-environment. Here is why: When you fail to secure your population and provide social justice then the only way they will try to find security is by inflating the size of the economy-- finding what they cannot achieve through equality through growth which destroys the environment. (The idea is if we allow excess for some and more, more and more then even the poorest will have enough.) The "raising the tide lifts all boats" argument is also about perpetual growth rather than social justice. This is of course the fundamental weakness in May's environmentalism and why her party is a failure intellectually not understanding that social justice and environmental sustainability are mutually dependent -- only the NDP understands this and May displays her ignorance here for all to see. A proper pension is nothing more or less than a measure for social and effectively environmental sustainability.

I like May as a spunky individual but this is in a nut-shell why I would never, ever, ever support her politically. You have to get these relationships and she unfortunately does not. And for the most part neither does her party.

And replying to Ken S. , Evening Star says:

"But why do you think that what used to be the party of LBP and PET, which currently boasts people like Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy, and Ujjal Dosanjh, has been so willing to let the Conservatives set the agenda and play by their rules??"

Sean continues to promote a central fact in Canadian political economy, that people are not about to take up sackcloth and ashes in the name of environmental or social causes. And this survival instinct is exactly what the Cons rely on to persevere in power (Alberta minister of Finance and Enterprise, Ted Moron, is quoted in the Globe today saying "I think the romanticism of the Kyoto era has passed," and he can meditate on a "30-year, a 60-year, a 90-year" process of adapting economic needs and envitonmental. With a straight face. Before a public that has nowhere else to turn except to the Wild Rose folks whose time-frame of adaptation would be something like forever.

Evening Star points to the narrowness of the economic room left for two parties of the right that are not about to ignore the developments in the world of finance capital that now anchor the common people - and unions - to their own market investments. So that they might avoid an impoverished old age.

There are technological innovations that a party of the left can recommend while respecting the need of the people to make a living and save for their future (no, it's not just about solar and wind, as we are coming to see), but the LEFT that is mired in pure politics, bereft of economic reality, would never allow such association with realities such as pension-dependent corporate entities with social goals.   Associating with corporations except through an appointed pension board is still considered amoral (and certainly not wise, politically).

This thread has been a marvelous breakout from dogmatic and moralistic orthodoxy and Sean is to be thanked for his continuing attempts to show that, indeed, the babble Emperor is naked without understanding economic life out there in the burbs and condos - as well as the apartments.

As the neo-con once said, he works toward the diminution of government until it has reached the size that its remnant could be drowned in the bathtub. 

Does not need a Grand Theory of Conspiracy, just another conspiracy in history.

Googling up the "drowned in a bathtub" scenario (attributed, I see, to a Grover Norquist in Bush's time) one comes across more hardnosed assumptions as a result of the economic hole dug for us all - and promoted by the cons and populist clowns like Clinton.

Back in September, for instance, the observation:

The Global Systemic Crisis: Towards a Serious Breakdown of the World Economic and Financial System, Spring 2011

There is a very depressing widespread reality, a real trip to the heart of darkness, which is that tens of millions of Americans who no longer have a job, no longer have a house, no longer have any savings, are wondering how they will survive in the years to come. The young, retirees, African-Americans, workers, service employees...they constitute this mass of angry citizens who will speak violently next November and plunge Washington into a tragic political impasse. Supporters of the Tea Party and new secessionist movements... want to break the Washington Machine (and by extension that of Wall Street) without having feasible proposals to solve the country's myriad problems. The November 2010 elections will be the first opportunity for this suffering America to express itself on the crisis and its consequences. And, won back by the Republicans or even the extremists, these voters will help to further cripple the Obama administration and Congress (which will probably swing to the Republicans), only pushing the country into a tragic gridlock just when all the signals turn red again.

Evening Star wrote:

siamdave wrote:

 

* I suppose I'm going to get accused of spamming again, but I have talked about all of these things, their origin, and what they mean, and why I think most people don't really understand what is happening here, here - What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html . And it really does matter whether it's simply "incompetence' or something else - if they are doing this intentionally, which I believe is pretty undeniable, then they are stealing not only trillions of dollars, but our country too. And they won't be stopped until people start to understand what is really happening, and get out on the streets and *take* our democracy back from these usurpers - while we still have a chance. The window is not going to be open much longer, I think.

Thanks for the link.  I will look into the monetary policy issue further.  I don't know that I totally see answers to my questions here though.  The NDP is certainly not a corporate-sponsored party.  While the Liberals are, corporate funding is much more strictly restricted than it is in the US.  Plus, it is clear to me that not everyone in the Liberal party is or has been a corporate shill, particularly the guys I mentioned, all of whom are major figures in the party.  Trudeau was a fan of Galbraith while he was PM.  So, if the situation really is this simple, why do you think they are willing to go along with the conservative agenda?  Presumably, they also have access to top scholars and economists.

The Liberals in Canada and Democrats in the U.S. are required to walk the narrow path of a capitalism that has undergone a sea change, beginning in the 1970s - even as Trudeau (and Nixon as well) consulted Galbraith on how to break the hold of stagflation. It was the Chicago school that solved it, finally, by making credit easily accessible to all, and, politically, by requiring government at all levels and in all regions to lower corporate taxes...or the corporations would take up residence elsewhere.  It was the appearance of the economic imperative in business and its effect on politics, whereby all other considerations played second fiddle to the maximization of profit, and corporations that did not achieve acceptable showings on the market were gonzo. Suddenly all had to walk the line.  It was also the moment of decline for unions and social welfare generally (at least there was no more expansion...except where the neo-cons wanted to leave the state ever-deeper in the debt trap.

Robert Reich describes all of this in Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.

George Victor wrote:

The Liberals in Canada and Democrats in the U.S. are required to walk the narrow path of a capitalism that has undergone a sea change, beginning in the 1970s - even as Trudeau (and Nixon as well) consulted Galbraith on how to break the hold of stagflation. It was the Chicago school that solved it, finally, by making credit easily accessible to all, and, politically, by requiring government at all levels and in all regions to lower corporate taxes...or the corporations would take up residence elsewhere.  It was the appearance of the economic imperative in business and its effect on politics, whereby all other considerations played second fiddle to the maximization of profit, and corporations that did not achieve acceptable showings on the market were gonzo. Suddenly all had to walk the line.  It was also the moment of decline for unions and social welfare generally (at least there was no more expansion...except where the neo-cons wanted to leave the state ever-deeper in the debt trap.

Robert Reich describes all of this in Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.

- 'had to' is not  correct - chose to is what they did. They had options then, as they do now, options which would NOT have resulted in the massive national debts that all countries now claim dictates their actions. This would, of course, been against the wishes of the bankers and other wealthy elite which are the real rulers of the country, and trouble may have ensued - but if we had, then or now, some politicians with the courage to put the real options in front of the people - well, who knows. We'd probably lose, but at least we'd understand what was happening.

To say the Chicago school 'solved' anything is somewhat misleading - to say they solved the problem of how to make the dismantling of western democracies sellable, would be accurate, by turning the power of money  creation over to private banks, cutting taxes, and thus running up great debts that would soon justify slashing programs that give democracy strength (healthy, well-educated, well-informed citizens are pretty necessary in a democracy).

THe decline of unions could be attributed to either their failure to understand what was happening or, more likely, their selling out to corporate-banker power. Like all of our other quisling leaders then and since.

KenS wrote:

Does anyone actually say you are spamming Dave, or is it just something that [understandably] concerns you?

I must see you plugging your work as often as anybody, and it never strikes me that way.

- thanks for the support - spamming certainly is not my intention. I was just a couple of days ago accused of spamming on one of the other threads, and earlier this year I was told by Rabble admin to "stop spamming" their news stories when I was suggesting the same as I do here - if anyone is interested in a longer explanation of the things I am talking about, they could check out the full essay.

KenS wrote:

It wasnt just the elites campaigning against social programs. Sustaining the programs over the longer term- especially while more were being added- was more expensive than adding them on. and the Liberals- as very much an itegral part of the elites- were never willing ot go there.

...

- I don't distinguish between the Libs and Cons since the 80s - two branches of the Bay St party, they play 'we really hate each other!!!!' games for the public circus, but they do the same stuff in power ....

siamdave wrote:

[Those government programs, plus more] were, and are, affordable - if we want it.

Quote:

Yes, but not with your painless [for the people] recipe focused on a different role for the Bank of Canada. Continuing on the social program trajectory of the 60s and early 70s- and which continued in Europe and even Thatcher's Britain- required, and still requires, a fundamentally different taxation regime. More taxes for most people, not merely the foregoing of the corporate tax cuts that we got.

The Liberals did not change- they never went there.

....

- it *could* be relatively painless, in theory - in practice, of course, as I have noted, the Rulers are not going to give up their great privilege easily, so will certainly be very dog-in-the-manger-ish if 'we the people' ever try to depose them - but that's another story.

I think the restructuring of the entire economic system that would result from getting the banks out of the money creation game would have benefits many cannot even imagine yet. Taxes for one - along with the bankers, the capitalists will soon follow, as the support of the banks is required to establish and maintain large capitalist fortunes - when money is created for 'we the people' purposes, rather than maintaining capitalist power, the 'excess wealth' created by a very productive society will accrue to those who create it - we the people, not they the capitalists. This great fortune will, somehow, be collectively *ours* - and for that reason alone, taxes can probably be discontinued almost altogether. Also, a LOT of current tax money, going back 30+ years, has been collected for no other reason than paying interest on national/provincial debts - that can be forgotten once we get out of letting private banks create our money. As far as I can see, taxes are just a modern incarnation of titheing - and when we depose the kings, we no longer need to tithe them.

When I say a new world is possible, I really mean something so far outside the capitalist dystopia it is hard to imagine. We are in Plato's cave, and what we see is nothing more than shadows on the back wall, compared to what we could have.

KenS wrote:

I certainly agree with that goal.

I'll say again that I dont buy and will never buy the thesis about BofC and money creation and the role that changing that could play.

But I hope that is something we dont need to agree on to exit the capitalist dystopia.

Obviously, at some point on the exit ramp road, the money and BofC thing is a question that would have to be resolved. But in my books, we are nowhere near that point.

- we do appear to have the same ultimate goal, which is why, no doubt, we can continue to talk. But I myself am completely convinced that this money creation stuff is *the key* to getting rid of the capitalist dystopia - everything they do revolves around money, and allowing the banks to create and control the money is the key to everything. If you do not believe this, I would be curious to learn why you do not see any fault with the current money creation system.

If you have not done much research on this, as most people seem not to have, and might be open to a bit of new info without going to my essay, you might ask your local library to get you a copy of Ellen H Brown's 'Web of Debt', or check out a guy called James Robertson, a brit but he's around 70 and has been doing this a long time and has a lot of good stuff on his website - downloadable PDFs free - or a Cdn film called Oh Canada, or another called Money as Debt.

The thing is, to me, once you understand the money creation process, the theft of literally trillions of dollars is so obvious that I think even the average pretty apathetic Cdn citizen might be galvanized to action if they understood this - and also it is so obvious that the national debt is so unnecessary, that claiming the necessity of dismantling our country in the name of this unnecessary debt is also an obvious and blatant lie that can be used to expose these people completely for the criminals they are.