Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Speech from the Throne 2010 - "Now and For the Future Markets"


Today's Throne Speech is already leaking on the parquet, hours ahead of schedule.
.
We may have 1.5 million unemployed with a third of those jobs not coming back, but no worries because Steve has a plan :
and

"The Conservative government will use the throne speech and budget to allow for more foreign investment in Canada and fewer bureaucratic hurdles to business, a senior government official said Tuesday. It's also expected to include policies aimed at reducing the regulatory burden, luring foreign investors, relaxing foreign ownership restrictions, and recruiting foreign talent.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet believe Canadian business has relied on a low dollar over the past 20 years to compete internationally rather than investing in equipment and technology needed to become more productive."

What Steve and his cabinet actually believe is that it is government's job to promote private sector business so that a combination of its creativity and profits will trickle down to solve all our social and economic problems, relieving him of those responsibilities. Unfortunately the private sector's job is to be responsible solely to its stockholders. How's that working out for us so far?
Progressive Economics :

"Private sector non-residential capital investment is only expected to increase by 2.8% in 2010. This is despite expectations of an increase in pre-tax corporate profits of 15% this year and 16.5% next year, according to RBC’s latest forecast .

After tax corporate profits are set to rise even faster, with Harper and Flaherty’s corporate tax cuts giving up $8.6 billion in revenues this year, rising to almost $15 billion in 2013/14."

"Sometimes you have to walk and chew gum at the same time in this business," Mr. Harper told reporters in Vancouver. When what we really need here is a different brand of gum and a whole other way of walking.
.
Presumably the speech will also feature gloating and families and security and homilies and hand-outs that will last till the next election.
Be sure to wash your hands and put the seat back down on your way out.
.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The last thing I want to sound like is defending Harper and his merry little band of scum, but what would be your solution to this problem?

I really do not see either Harper or Ignatieff with any ideas whatsoever. For both parties, they merely bicker over the size of the next corporate tax cut. We also have a tiny group of Toronto-based cronies selling this country out one bit at a time and using their media and money influence to drive the public agenda in directions they want.

Speaking as a mechanical engineer, who returned to school to "improve my job skills" and graduated last April at the age of 36, the job market in this country is basically boned. At 36, I've had to move back in with my chain-smoking parents and the best I can get is a few hours here and there at a local production facility doing manual labour.

It appears that I'm going to have to leave the country, and if I do, I have no intention of paying my student loan. Of course, I'm deluding myself a tiny bit by thinking that I would even have the ability to pay it if I moved abroad.

What I've come to realize is that Canadians are actually more stupid than the Americans as many here seem prone to mock our neighbours whenever their political system offers up some for of outlandish comedy.

We are in MUCH worse shape than they are and no amount of cheerleading from our beloved Finance Minister can change that. It's so bad here that I'm not even sure there is even a solution and, finally, I've also come to realize that the Bloc Quebecois were ahead of the rest of the country in detecting how badly off-course we've become. It should make people wonder why the people who first labelled themselves canadien no longer want to be identified that way and as a (trilingual) anglophone, I think they're on to something.

Just my $0.02.

Alison said...

Thank you for your $.02, Anon.
I am sorry for your troubles, shared by so many.
Yes our smugness re the US is ridiculously delusional.
I don't have a solution that fits in a commbox, other than we have to stop feeding this beast and insist on our ways of living outside it.

Blog Archive