Jerry J. Fortin

It is my hope that sooner rather than latter politicians will come to the conclusion that the accumulation of personal wealth results in lower government expenditures. When they finally arrive at that realization then there is the hope that they will begin to act upon it. What this, as well as all other nations need to consider is that the individual must be the prime focus of legislative efforts and political policies. The advancement of the cause of improving the human condition has become the only logical avenue of political endeavor. All other efforts undertaken by governments detract from the progression of individual rights. Those rights are what humanity has sought from the beginning of recorded time and now that we have come so far in attaining them we find ourselves confronted with a problem of our own creation that we seem to have difficulty addressing. That problem is the balance between economics and politics and is based upon our consumers society and the laws of supply and demand. It is the macroeconomic models that are flawed because of their focus on credit and consumption rather than production and debt. Our current problems are not merely economic, they are monetary and political as well. There is an ideology that we have adopted that compels us toward a decision making process based on consumption instead of production. We have accepted a global economy and a world community that denies governments the ability to protect their citizens from economic complications in favour of corporate governance. We are entering into a phase of corporatism that serves only a small percentage of the populations and yet is acquires a vast majority of the accumulated wealth. This is not an anti business rant, it is a view that has been created over decades of observation. The loss of productive capacity in this and other first world nations and a shift in employment to third world nations has resulted in high profits for corporations at the expense of the our own working class citizens to benefit the more affluent investor class of citizens in this and other nations. Yet these citizens are indeed a minority. It is my hope that those who would seek to lead our people will come to the conclusion that the citizens they seek to represent have the right to expect protection from their representatives. Citizens should have an expectation that their representatives will act in their best interests. All citizens deserve government services when they are in need, and the key is to create the environment where there are less needy citizens. It is in the best interests of citizens to have legislation formulated that would serve to provide the opportunity for the citizen to attain the greater personal wealth that would result in the government having to spend less providing services to the citizens in need. Governments that spend less providing services to those in need can lower levels of taxation and provide a higher level of disposable income to their citizens. So ends my little rant.

The current plan is garbage. It costs a lot of money but gives very little in terms of net gain to the citizens. Once again a case of the government thinking political optics instead of economic impact.

In my view Iggy is making progress. Perhaps too much progress for the government to accept but time will tell. If the recent increases are sustained for a little while longer, then Harper has a large problem. When Iggy can see a way out of the coalition and into power then the hammer will fall.

The Provinces should be given the opportunity to appoint Senators to represent them. That can be done without a constitutional amendment, yet it would require the consent of the PMO. Further to this, there should be an equal number of Senators from each province. Term limits are something that would require an amendment, not somewhere most governments would care to go because of the can of worms effect.

Lucky for everyone I am not Prime Minister because I would call a little press conference and have the media show up by the flame in front of the Parliament Building to watch me tear up the NAFTA document and toss the pieces into the fire. What the Americans are doing is violating the agreement, give them their 60 days notice and wait and see what happens. We import a lot of their stuff into this nation, tax the hell out of it. We need to be aware of the implications of "their" stimulus package.

If Harper wants a majority, he has several avenues to approach the problem from. The best choice in my opinion s through an appeal to the people, offering them their own money to keep in the form of tax reductions. While on that route he needs to decentralize government and empower the provincial governments. Harper needs to tell the people why the cost of government is so high, and tell the people how he plans to reduce those costs. Harper needs to begin a phase of deconstructing the power structure of Ottawa and transferring powers and authorities onto the provinces just to reduce the cost of the federal government, those expenses will have to be transferred to the provinces as well and be deemed to be simply the price you pay for greater independence. Harper needs to redesign the federal government to simply function as the heart and soul of our government, not the arms and legs. Foreign policies and defense are the place to hang his hat. Harper can get out of the domestic firestorm with all its attending pitfalls by undertaking this journey. There needs to be any constitutional debate, just executive orders to initiate these forms of changes. Leave the government in charge of setting appropriate benchmarks and leave the provinces the right to manage. The federal government needs to reorganize itself as a board of directors instead of managing operations. Should Harper choose to take a step back, he may find himself taking leaps forward.

Harper has won? More like Iggy has set a stage. He has given Stevie the Wonder PM a free ride until the end of March. Then Stevie is subject to a House of Commons leadership review that triggers a confidence vote. Meanwhile "Don" Iggy pulls the strings and watches the puppets dance. Guess who is calling the ball, cause it sure isn't the PM.

I think Iggy will listen first then decide what to do. I hope the government is not defeated, but that is up to our elected representatives. I think Harper can be compelled to do what the public wants this way.

We as citizens need to leave the he said, she said, at the door. We also need to leave the partisan crap there too. The reality is that government leaders need to be a lot more cognizant of their spending habits. Reports should be submitted in the Commons for every public dime spent. The public should be aware of the costs of running a government because it simply isn't cheap. Even so, the spending habits pale into comparison with department budgets and spending there. Far more is hidden and buried deeply than many would believe. Citizens are entitled to know what happens there as well as what the representatives spend on their little junkets. The problems are much more complicated than the public is aware of. The government leader should not be traveling on seat sales, nor should any government representative on official business. Our goal should be to define what official really is, then design a means of transporting these elected representatives in the safest and most economical manner. That means less flying and an introduction into rail and bus travel. Time isn't a factor in these considerations for most of the travel, and therefore we need to review it.

Online voting is a great idea, especially if you favour, as I do, direct democracy. In my opinion I believe there would be a great deal of support for such a concept. I think any political party worth its salt would slip the concept into their next platform. This kind of thing would work toward dealing with voter apathy. That is the real demon, the democratic disease of apathy. Getting folks to participate in the political process may or may not provide better government, that is up to the individual to decide. The point is, the technology is there, and the concept is there, yet politicians seem to be a long ways from supporting it. It would in fact detract from their power, and that is what you face with this scenario.

In my view Iggy would be a lot smarter to sit in the weeds and wait for more stable conditions before making a move. Whoever is sitting in power is bound to take a large beating over the next year. It would be much smarter to hide in the shadows and pull the strings leaving Harper to shoulder the blame without getting getting dirty hands. Besides this is all about strategy, not tactics. From a tactical position, stay away from advertising what you are about to do.

If folks think it is bad now, they will be a little surprised at what is about to happen. Things are going to get a lot worst. House values will decline another 20-35% in some areas, and job losses will begin to accelerate. Government spending will increase and social program expenditures by the provinces will force most into deficit. By this time next year some folks will start looking into all of those hundreds of thousands of created jobs over the last few decades, and how much they paid. They will compare those burger flipping baby sitting jobs to the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the auto sector and all of those other union jobs in manufacturing and wonder what it was that lead them to believe that NAFTA was such a great idea. We are about to enter into a generational debt burden the likes of which we have never seen before. Not so much here as in the USA, but it will impact us just the same way to only a smaller degree. They are our largest trading partner, so when they stop buying we stop selling. We need to think about that. While there are indeed other markets for our goods and services, they may or may not be acceptable to the USA. That will cause some rather large issues in the political landscape department. We are about to slip into a deflation cycle, where much accumulated wealth will contract to the point of failure for many Canadians. As it stands there are far too many citizens burdened with debts. Our mindset has been the accumulation of leveraged assets. Buying houses with little or no money down, then borrowing the equity to purchase consumable goods and services. Everybody is using the credit available to finance purchases, now when the credit disappears and their assets start shrinking what will become of them. The cost of utilities is not going to go down, and neither is the price of food. The cost of debt servicing is not going to go down either, even when the government drops the prime the public lending rates are going up! There are tough times ahead.

The Canadian approach to stimulus seems to be throwing money at a problem instead of finding out what has gone wrong and only then attempting to do something about it. Our government seems to spend our money rather freely without much concern for what impact their actions will have in the long run. I think it is time to change the direction of legislative effort.

Some folks believe that giving money to corporations keeps employment up. That employment represents the employees disposable income, and the concept is that when a person has income they spend money consuming goods and services which in turn employs more people. The problem with this is that tax dollars are subsidizing business efforts and causing our spending to reflect debt servicing payments which also keep taxes high. In addition, in hard time people spend less and at least try to save more. From my viewpoint giving money to corporate efforts is folly. They either can or cannot succeed in their ventures and that simply is not the business of government. Nor do we want it to be the business of government, such a thing is called communism. What governments around the world are now doing is protecting the corporations and investors at tax payers expense. In other words society is protecting the most affluent at the expense of the least affluent. We are perpetuating a class based society through these efforts. What really needs to happen is let the free market system stand by itself. The problem with that is simply trade agreements. We are unable to compete due to our higher standards of living. We have allowed corporations to move their operations to locations with lower production costs and that is the root of the problem. Good paying jobs disappear, the tax base shrinks, government expenses go up and so do your taxes. The entire system is a house of cards that is beginning to show all the signs of collapse. The way to increase consumer spending is through two avenues. The first the government can do, the second it cannot. The first is reducing taxes to provide greater disposable income. The second is to provide the employment that generates the income in the first place. So this is where all the talk of infrastructure programs comes into play. Many advocate a building program to employ citizens. The problem with that is that it is very specific and has few spin offs unless carefully designed.

It certainly is.

The result of printing your own money is a devaluation of your currency. The entire financial market is designed outside of this effort. An interesting note to this is reality of the "money" supply. Nearly 90% of the money supply of this entire planet is not in hard currency or cash but instead it is "credit" That credit comes into being not in the form of paper or coins but instead in the form of interest bearing debt. That debt provides income, on paper, to financial institutions, so they can lend even more money and collect even more interest on a debt they created themselves to expand the money supply! Given the reality of our current economic status, it is a wonder more folks don't start asking questions about the "financial crisis". To reply to your question Jack; yes we could simply print some money or create some bonds or something and just pay off our debt, but the resulting consequence is that it would serve to make the money or bonds less valuable.

The government will do what it wants or can get away with. Sadly that is the wrong approach and it will yield a direction not desired. I find it strange that the entire planet seems to be consumed with the concept of stimulus packages that translate to little more than corporate welfare. I wait patiently for some government in some nation to begin a new path. The pursuit of improving the human condition will eventually be undertaken by some wise or enlightened civilization. They will of course profit from the effort, but it seems that it will not be our society that gains.

Names?

The nation is not screaming for a stimulus package it is screaming for leadership. Contrary to the media spin and the political twists and turns, citizens just want the government to actually deal with the problems of the day. Today it is the recession tomorrow who knows? The government is about to enter into a corporate welfare system and for no more than political reasons. Harper has abandoned his roots long ago and is now seeking the popular support he desires to retain power. The man has compromised his principles for political power. That is the sad reality here.

Traditional infrastructure is in fact not a federal undertaking. I do however advocate a federal undertaking in this regard. Crown corporations designed and created as non-profit organizations to first of all provide a needed service and secondly to repay the public investment in its creation. One of the few areas where this can work is in a "green effort" to provide alternative energy sources for consumers. For starters, the government should be looking at providing tax incentives for combined heat and power sources for residential use. It should follow that up with further incentives for residential production of alternative energy, paying for the cost of reverse meters. In addition the government should encourage the use of geothermal energy and provide tax breaks for retrofitting existing homes and the creation of new homes. Do you folks see the focus here, citizens instead of business, because the citizens are the largest demographic and that is where the biggest bang for the buck can take place. Reducing consumption and providing alternative energy on a larger scale at the same time. That is where the government should be headed with any kind of focus at all. To return to infrastructure and alternative energy; on a much larger scale the federal government should be considering utilizing the production of alternative energy to power an enhanced transportation system that was designed to move "people" at higher speeds and at less unit cost per mile traveled. Public transportation on a much larger scale than previously considered, a national transportation network of "green" design. The spinoffs that I was referring to are these kind of things. Not merely the production of energy, although that should be the focus simply because it is the one thing that we ALL use and it is the one thing that all of us would benefit from. It is the value added manufacturing of energy and transportation systems that would serve to provide the employment of citizens while providing needed services that is required. There needs to be considerable thought put into the effort, of that there is no doubt, and yet there doesn't seem to be much thought put into stimulus packages beyond corporate welfare. The government needs to provide leadership, its needs to become innovative, it needs to push the limits of our abilities because that is how we adapt and overcome our problems. We need challengers in order to achieve a higher level of civilization. The net effort of government needs to focus on a higher ideal of improving the human condition. This challenge before us, the recession, is actually an opportunity to be embraced, not a thing to be feared. The utter collapse of the world economy and the shifting political demographics are providing an avenue of exploration for us that we truly need to welcome with open arms.

So why not eliminate regressive forms of taxation altogether? Dump income taxes and replace them with consumption taxes, are we not a great consumer society? Dump property taxes on principal residences and raise taxes on ALL other forms of ownership, including leased land. Restructure our revenue streams, reform our spending practices, reduce our bureaucracy, and enhance our lifestyles.

It is my belief that the religious right will contain themselves with walls of their own design. They are by nature an exclusive group, not an inclusive one. This is a poor doctrine for political organizations to pattern themselves after.

Well Molly I hate to burst your bubble but, there are more rich folks than ever before. There are more poor too! Yet you are right in suggesting the middle class will pickup the tab. Under Harper you can expect two things; 1) increased taxation for the middle class 2) service reductions.

The Young Liberals are a very important tool for the party. That is where they can begn to spread their word from, Iggy knows this. It shows a little foresight on his part I think, working toward some character development that he will need. This is a step Harper has not taken, in a direction that Harper should consider himself.

Its almost time to change that phrase to...."I am not a crook."