It's been quite a week for the corporate media in Canada. They've tangled themselves in knots trying to outdo each other over what happened in the NDP convention in Edmonton over the weekend. The "Leap Manifesto" has been at the crux of most of the articles written, from the right, to the left. It's abundantly clear, however, that heart of their arguments are rooted in what can only be defined as the idolatry of the "free market"; the essence of neo-liberalism.
I think Paul Wells, from MacLeans (a magazine that may have been worth reading at one time, though I can't remember) magazine, characterizes the Red Tory perspective of what the Leap Manifesto meant to the NDP over the weekend. Wells goes out of his way to suggest that any significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada mean that the workers on the rigs in Alberta will be left out in the cold. Never mind that the Leap Manifesto calls for workers of all stripes to join together to build the renewable economy of the future. Wells conveniently leaves out the fact that industry in Alberta has pocketed untold billions of dollars of non-renewable resource-derived revenue, a resource owned by each and every citizen of Alberta. Now that the "oil sector has collapsed", or whatever convenient excuse is used to justify the lay-offs in Alberta, for some reason the public is supposed to pick up the pieces. This is classic neo-liberalism; given a choice over the health of the market (business) or the health of the people; you choose the market; profits are privatized, debt and real costs are socialized.
Then there's the release of the Newfoundland budget, a budget the CD Howe institute gives an F. If the CD Howe institute is anything like its cousin the Fraser Institute, I wouldn't put much stock into their analytical prowess. The amount of errors I found in just one of the Fraser's papers, and given that their review of public schools is at the analytical level of snail, both these "Institutes" deserve about as much press as the men's room toilets. Having not read the budget of Newfoundland but for the very highest level highlights, it appears they are at least partially shunning austerity.
Trevor Tombe, the young voice of neo-liberal economics at the University of Calgary (sponsored by The Patch), is concerned over the level of spending versus the level of debt Newfoundland will wrack up in the next few years, and MacLeans published a scathing account of the budget in Newfoundland. Valid concerns, by all means, but the public debt is not a critical issue. Austerity is a fraud, as the Panama Papers have laid bare at the feet of the prophets of liberal economics. It's a wonder as to who actually owns the public debt in Canada? Does it have ties to offshore accounts? Are the financiers of our public debt avoiding tax payments themselves? Why should the public service the debt of private financiers that are actually massive criminal enterprises? Evidence suggests that ownership of public debt in the US is falling into fewer and fewer hands; similar control of the public debt is likely similar in Canada. This begs the question; where did that money come from in the first place? How much of it was sequestered through illegal means? Do we even need to service the debt?
Back to Paul Wells for the denouement. Wells' thesis in his article is that you cannot govern in Canada unless you kiss the ring of the corporate masters; AKA you sell pipelines and you sell weapons to terrorist states. I guess it's not a surprise someone embedded within the corporate media would defend the status-quo; it has done him well. One has only to look South to see the rising tide of citizens in that country that have completely had it with the status-quo of cronyism and "free-market" ideologues. Wells is a good writer, but his views are outdated. The NDP youth and the youth of the world have had it with neo-liberal economics; the economics of the free market, private profits, mass inequality and debt-based social organization. The youth has had it with fact that their planet may turn into a toaster in the next generation, thanks, in large part, to unrestricted flow of capital and an assumption that you can apply the natural rate of growth indefinitely on a very finite planet supported by the Prophets of the Church of economics.
The very real question we all might think of asking is why do we even need to pay our debts if the majority of the money we're lent was sequestered through mechanism of deceit, crime and suppression?
I think Paul Wells, from MacLeans (a magazine that may have been worth reading at one time, though I can't remember) magazine, characterizes the Red Tory perspective of what the Leap Manifesto meant to the NDP over the weekend. Wells goes out of his way to suggest that any significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada mean that the workers on the rigs in Alberta will be left out in the cold. Never mind that the Leap Manifesto calls for workers of all stripes to join together to build the renewable economy of the future. Wells conveniently leaves out the fact that industry in Alberta has pocketed untold billions of dollars of non-renewable resource-derived revenue, a resource owned by each and every citizen of Alberta. Now that the "oil sector has collapsed", or whatever convenient excuse is used to justify the lay-offs in Alberta, for some reason the public is supposed to pick up the pieces. This is classic neo-liberalism; given a choice over the health of the market (business) or the health of the people; you choose the market; profits are privatized, debt and real costs are socialized.
Then there's the release of the Newfoundland budget, a budget the CD Howe institute gives an F. If the CD Howe institute is anything like its cousin the Fraser Institute, I wouldn't put much stock into their analytical prowess. The amount of errors I found in just one of the Fraser's papers, and given that their review of public schools is at the analytical level of snail, both these "Institutes" deserve about as much press as the men's room toilets. Having not read the budget of Newfoundland but for the very highest level highlights, it appears they are at least partially shunning austerity.
Trevor Tombe, the young voice of neo-liberal economics at the University of Calgary (sponsored by The Patch), is concerned over the level of spending versus the level of debt Newfoundland will wrack up in the next few years, and MacLeans published a scathing account of the budget in Newfoundland. Valid concerns, by all means, but the public debt is not a critical issue. Austerity is a fraud, as the Panama Papers have laid bare at the feet of the prophets of liberal economics. It's a wonder as to who actually owns the public debt in Canada? Does it have ties to offshore accounts? Are the financiers of our public debt avoiding tax payments themselves? Why should the public service the debt of private financiers that are actually massive criminal enterprises? Evidence suggests that ownership of public debt in the US is falling into fewer and fewer hands; similar control of the public debt is likely similar in Canada. This begs the question; where did that money come from in the first place? How much of it was sequestered through illegal means? Do we even need to service the debt?
Back to Paul Wells for the denouement. Wells' thesis in his article is that you cannot govern in Canada unless you kiss the ring of the corporate masters; AKA you sell pipelines and you sell weapons to terrorist states. I guess it's not a surprise someone embedded within the corporate media would defend the status-quo; it has done him well. One has only to look South to see the rising tide of citizens in that country that have completely had it with the status-quo of cronyism and "free-market" ideologues. Wells is a good writer, but his views are outdated. The NDP youth and the youth of the world have had it with neo-liberal economics; the economics of the free market, private profits, mass inequality and debt-based social organization. The youth has had it with fact that their planet may turn into a toaster in the next generation, thanks, in large part, to unrestricted flow of capital and an assumption that you can apply the natural rate of growth indefinitely on a very finite planet supported by the Prophets of the Church of economics.
The very real question we all might think of asking is why do we even need to pay our debts if the majority of the money we're lent was sequestered through mechanism of deceit, crime and suppression?
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