Jim Flaherty likes to wag his finger. Two days ago, he wagged it at the business community for sitting on $500 billion. It was the private sector's time, he said, to step up to the plate. However, "at a certain point, it’s not up to government to stimulate the economy.” The truth is that -- only when it faced its imminent execution, in 2008 -- did Flaherty and his boss deem it appropriate for the government to give the economy a boost.
Tom Walkom writes in the Toronto Star that, as with Stephen Harper's claim that science will determine the fate of the Northern Gateway pipeline, the government is working at cross purposes. Science will do nothing, if those who do the science have been cashiered.
Fiscally, Ottawa began to pull back on spending. Instead, it focused on reducing corporate taxes.
The assumption here was that if businesses were allowed to keep more of their profits they would invest them productively.
But in the real world, corporations don’t invest when the economic outlook looks gloomy. Why hire workers if you’re not sure you can sell what they produce?
Instead, corporations took the extra profits provided by government and sat on them — either in the form of cash or short-term cash equivalents.
Businesses won't invest if consumers don't have money to spend. And without jobs, they have no way to buy what business is selling. Harper government policy has put more money into the hands of those who already have it -- and less into the pockets of those who don't have it.
The myth has been circulating for some time that this is smart policy. The truth is that it is monumental stupidity.
6 comments:
Harper gives millions of our tax dollars to, banks, mines, big business and his favorite charity, big oil. He also gives them huge tax reductions. Harper steals from us to give to, the wealthiest outfits in the world. This was seen, on the House of Commons TV channel. Harper now does his dastardly deeds, behind closed doors.
Of course the wealthy corporations hoard the money, that's how they start recessions. This stops the cash flow around the globe, and everything crashes.
Flaherty knows all about that. He knows Harper pays his charity's, at the expense of the tax payers. He knows the Harper Conservatives thieve and waste our tax dollars. Including himself, Flaherty also loves his luxury hotel suites.
Don't lecture Mr. Flaherty. We all know where the big money is. We also know where and how, our tax dollars are thieved and wasted. Shovel out the Harper Conservatives and your backyard first. You Conservatives gave big business our money. You fix it.
I like that phrase, Anon: "Shovel out the Conservatives."
i live in teddy menzies (statesman for finance or some such title) home range
back in the day when they could still make a statement without having it PMO approved teddy wrote an article glorifying the benefits of the reductions to GST.
he published it in our local paper.
he gave three examples with the calculation of savings
he got ALL three wrong.
simple percentages...grade 9 math....true story
gawd ...i'm writing this and i'm speechless.
harper wants to rebuild canada and there is zero evidence he could build a doghouse.
and as much as i love "democracy" there has to be some way to keep a failed farmer from being second in command of our finances
I'm unfamiliar with Teddy Menzies. But it would appear that he can't add.
I'm not sure Jim Flaherty can do much better.
if you googled teddy menzies i have sent you on kind of a goose chase
i started calling ted teddy when i saw an interview with the harper where he said he didn't mind what he was called
just don't call him stevie
both have stuck with me
menzies has been a front and center back bench-er,
because of the strength of his district he gets sort of high position
but as he is totally inept not much profile exposure
as summed up by a friend
"he stands where hes' told , votes as hes told and eats plums" although towards the end of the last session
he was becoming more of a belligerent talking head than his usual bobble-head mode
don't know how to tag this link in
but it shows titles and his great thinking regarding education of Canadians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Menzies
i call both teddy and jimbo the "princes of tides"
i don't believe either of them has any control over our economy
all they can do is watch it go up or down
and take credit on the rise
and assign blame on the ebb
and endlessly fiddle with the numbers
Thanks for the wikipedia link, Anon.
What I found most interesting was that as parliamentary secretary to Josee Verner -- who was responsible for Le Francophonie -- Menzies did not speak French.
It sounds like he meets the criteria to be a member of the Conservative caucus.
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