melhurtig.ca

Floundering US Economy / On Potash – It’s Looking Like Victory

You’ve probably seen my comments about how the average Canadian worker has done so poorly when compensation is compared to inflation during the past quarter century. Now the Conference Board forecasts that in 2010 and 2011, net wage increases will likely be non-existent, and, contrary to so much right-wing propaganda, public sector increases will be well below private sector compensation. Overall, average employees across the land will probably end up poorer by the end of 2011.

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Looking once again at the sinking U.S. economy, their federal deficit was a horrendous $1.55 trillion in 2009, it will be at least $1.5 trillion in 2010 and who knows how much higher with a hung Congress in  2011? They’re looking at a debt to GDP ratio of 80% by the end of next year, what the Conference Board describes, correctly, as “Third World Territory”. The implications are ominous, including for U.S.foreign policy as well as domestic policy. And, sadly, for Canada too!

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Jeffrey Stevens points out that with the Tea Party in Congress, what we’re likely to get, at best, is “voodoo solutions”. Yes, the impact on Canada will be substantial. Thanks to “ the lobby-infested money-soaked swamp of U.S. politics.” So much for the myopic geniuses who wanted us to become much more integrated with the U.S.  Rejoice, John Manley has taken over from D’Aquino as our #1 pro-American. No surprise.  That’s what he was in cabinet too.

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It’s still a bit early to rejoice, but at the moment we now have 5 Premiers against the Potash takeover. Bravo to Brad Wall and Bill Boyd in Regina!  Looks like all our efforts are paying off.  Too, the people of Saskatchewan are now firmly against!  And, how nice it is that our sellout PM, Mr. Harper, is caught in a really difficult spot with all those Conservative MPs from Saskatchewan also against.  Looks like a delicious win for our side.

And a big BOO to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

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Back to the floundering U.S. Looks like they will be spending a gigantic, unprecedented $4 billion on this week’s mid-term elections. And of course most of it will be secret, hidden money from big corporations or extreme right-wing billionaires.

So much for democracy.

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Alas, the recent OECD report on Canada says our GDP to 2017 will likely grow at only a bit more than half the rate of the period 1998 to 2008. So much for all those Conservative and Liberal projections that growth will take care of our burgeoning deficits and debt.  Look for major fiscal restraint coming in the not too distant future.

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As I pointed out in The Truth About Canada, Canada has abandoned peacekeeping where we once were the much-admired leader. And, while almost 70% of Canadians still support our role as peacekeepers, the Harper government isn’t interested.  So much for this “defining characteristic” of our country.

Mel Hurtig Still Carries Nationalist Torch

 

Front page article from the October 24^th, 2010:  

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Hurtig+still+carries+nationalist+torch/3718188/story.html

posted by Jillian

Desperate Pakistan Still Buying Fighter-Jets!

 

The new edition of The Monitor (CCPA) has some very good stuff. In particular see the excellent articles on money-saving pharmacare and Bruce Campbell’s on neo-con economics.

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Print journalists don’t seem to understand how much trouble Canada is in because of our steadily deteriorating current account balance which has plunged from an almost $10 billion surplus in 2006 to a deficit of some $13 billion in 2010. The downward trend is ominous and will certainly bring very painful consequences.

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So, the government of Saskatchewan has finally woken up to the hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced profits and royalties the province will receive if the BHP takeover is allowed. It will be criminal if this is allowed to go ahead.

I continue to be amazed at how ineffective the unions, the NDP and academics in the province have been todate.

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Reich shows that the richest 1% of Americans now take almost 25% of all income in the U.S.

Obscene in the extreme!

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People seem to be celebrating the fact that only 27% of the developing world’s population in living in extreme poverty. Meanwhile we’re all far behind in our broadly-agreed to UN Millennium goals.

Think Harper cares????

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Patrice Lagace points out that the flooded disaster of Pakistan, pleading for money, is still spending $1.4 billion with our friends from Lockheed to buy new fighter planes.

Obscene again! This poor country has 10 million people who should be paying taxes, but only 2.5 million do.

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D. Francis updates my own figures. In  2009 Canada was the leading market for 35 of the 50 U.S.States and U.S. trade with Canada was larger than combined trade with all 27 European Union members.

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I’ve asked Jillian Skeet if she can include a link with Dick Haskayne’s excellent September 21st National Post article about the foreign takeover of Canadian companies.

 

Here is the link: http://opinion.financialpost.com/tag/dick-haskayne/

Great Canadian Voices on Harper

 

Mel thought you would like to see this review by Peter Newman of Lawrence Martin’s new book in case you missed it on Saturday.

HARPERLAND: THE POLITICS OF CONTROL
By Lawrence Martin
Viking Canada, 301 pages, $35.00
Reviewed by Peter C. Newman

Not that long ago Canada was described as a self-governing colony, a mildly amusing oxymoron like Microsoft Works or Ottawa nightlife. But  there’s a more disturbing predicament in the air, raised by this book of revelations, and that is:  Do we have a federal government ruling the country – or is it a hit squad that represents  very little beyond belligerent self-interest?

According to Globe Columnist Lawrence Martin, the trains run on time in Harperland but all else is left to the tight-fisted control of its namesake.  Since Canada isn’t blessed with a resident king, queen, Pope, Imam (yet) or any role model except Don Cherry, the country’s leader – politically, economically, culturally and yes, even spiritually – is our Prime Minister — Stephen Harper — by name and by vocation. He has shifted the Conservative party into a libertarian cul-de-sac that has prevented him from winning parliamentary majorities three times running.

In this first political biography of the man and his times, Mr.Martin briefly acknowledges Mr. Harper’s success of becoming the only head of government in Canadian history who  didn’t serve his apprenticeship with the Grit or Tory synchronized swim teams that usually splash about at the federal summit.

He simmered up as a key organizer and campaign chairman for the Reform Party, which took over  Alberta’s right-wing franchise from Social Credit.  Because he arrives in the book’s pages fully formed, there isn’t nearly enough background to explain how this self-confessed outsider managed to stage a reverse takeover of the Conservative Party. That might have provided some clues to Mr. Harper’s disturbing habit of periodically lapsing into an ideologically-driven Zen state that triggers an unerring compulsion to go for his own jugular.

Unlike most of the newshounds in Ottawa’s Parliamentary Press Gallery, Mr. Martin has an original mind and plays no fear or favour.  Both qualities make him suspect by his peers but in Harperland he comes out swinging, retaining his journalistic neutrality by attacking everybody. It is no bloodless audit.

Even before the book was published, Dimitri Soudas, who is Mr. Harper’s chief spokesperson, was dismissing it as having been written by “a big-L Liberal sympathizer.”  Hardly. Lawrence Martin was fired by the Asper family (whose newspaper chain was then loyally Liberal) as their Ottawa columnist for leading the assault on Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien during the Shawinigate scandal.

Significantly, it is Mr. Harper’s senior advisers who emerge as this book’s most productive sources. They are quoted twice as frequently as his Liberal critics. And what a story they tell. This is Stephen Harper  unplugged. “Much of his story involved a campaign against himself, against the opposition within,” the author maintains. “That opposition was the dark, vindictive side of his character – a side that at times he could not subdue, and that on several occasions threatened to bring him down.”

The Harper power trip’s worst characteristic is how personal it can be. One of his government’s welcome features has been to return a feeling of pride to our military by treating them with the priority considerations they deserve. The front-line cheerleader on this mission was, of course, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier whose only misdemeanour, according to Harperland, was his popularity which was  enough to prevent his re-appointment.  Even more puzzling has been the PM’s treatment of Helena  Guergis who was fired from cabinet, barred from the Tory caucus, and forbidden to run in her riding as a Conservative.  All this, despite being totally cleared of any wrongdoing by the RCMP and Ottawa’s ethics commissioner. No explanation has been given or offered for her shabby treatment.

The book’s most telling chapters deal with the Prime Minster’s absolute domination of his party, his ministers, his cabinet and the every aspect of government. No sub-groups that ordinarily share power with incumbent PMs-such as a youth wings, ethnic wings, provincial wings or regional councils -are allowed to exist.  Every detail of every function is master-minded by its master, right down the wardrobes of his spokespersons and the call of the fake loon in the fake G20 lake.

According to Tory Consultant Tim Powers, this garrison mentality amounts to, “Effectively a battle on a daily basis-and everything is calculated that way.”  Mr. Martin describes the confrontation between the PM and Michael Ignatieff, as “Nobleman versus the Doberman.

One of the volume’s most fascinating undercurrents is that the omnipotent Harper mystique has its limits. None of his confidants dare to speculate about a Harper majority following the next election. This is forbidden territory, since such a prospect would frighten the horses.

Lawrence Martin praises Stephen Harper as “one of the more talented Canadian political leaders to come along in decades. His range of knowledge, the precision of his mind, his degree of discipline, his capacity to strategize, to work his way through whatever maze stood before him, was of an unusually high standard.” But the author also issues a warning.

“It was no small wonder that Canadians feared what Harper might do with a majority government,” Harperland concludes. “With that kind of power he could establish a hegemony the likes of which Canadians could not imagine.”

Two volumes of Peter C. Newman’s most notable writings–Champions, Dark Horses & Icons and Rebels, Renegades & Anti-Heroes – are being published by Harper Collins later this month!

Obscene Potash Deal / More Disturbing Indicators

 

Sorry.  Been away.  Edmonton was great.  Mary Simon gave a first-class talk.  CBC’s Ideas will broadcast it. U of A Provost gave a very nice dinner.   All in all, two great days.  Off to Ottawa for celebrations to mark the 25^th anniversary of the publication of The Canadian Encyclopedia.

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Back to that obscene potash deal. Now it looks like the incredibly greedy CEO from Chicago and his buddies will rake in some $700 million in the deal. Stephen Jarislowsky called it what it is: “absolutely obscene”.  Aside from Haskayne in Calgary, the rest of the Canadian “business community” are stupidly silent, greedy shareholders or just plain dumb.  Or, probably all three.  As someone has already said, if it were a war they would be led off to be shot.

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Our dumb media continues to say that Mulroney won the 1988 election  because of support for free trade.

Nonsense and B.S. The Liberals and NDP, both opposed to the FTA, won far more votes that the sellout Conservatives, 50% to 43%. We need more journalists who can count.

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Hope you’ve read my chapters on distribution of income and wealth in The Truth About Canada.

If you haven’t, you should.  They’re some of the most disturbing in the book.  Now we have updates on the even more awful U.S. figures, where the gap between rich and poor last year grew by the biggest margin in history. The top fifth of Americans took just under half of all income in the U.S.  The bottom fifth earned all of 3.4%. The disparity between rich and poor was almost twice as much as it was in1968.

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Sorry. Re the $700 million mentioned above, looks like it will be at least $800 million. Where are Ignatieff and Layton in Question Period????

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Talk about colossal gall. U.S, Steel is shutting down its steelmaking operations at the former Stelco plant in Hamilton. Promises?  What promises?  Commitments?  What commitments. Crooks?  You bet! U.S. Steel executives should go to jail.

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Carol Goar of the Star points out (with Citizens for Public Justice) that the Harper government has rejected every single one of the Senate’s 74 recommendation in their excellent report on Poverty in Canada. “The government seems unwilling to make any commitment to work with the provinces to develop a poverty elimination plan for Canadians”

Anyone remember the unanimous House of Commons resolution 19 years ago to eliminate child poverty by 2000?  Hmmmn.  Let’s see.  What year is this again?  Who said Stephen Harper doesn’t give a damn about the poor?