The Tide's Going Out

Carol Goar writes that Stephen Harper's reputation as a brilliant economic manager has more to do with luck than expertise. That luck showed up in the person of Mark Carney:

As Harper and Flaherty implemented their hit-and-miss fiscal plan, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, moved sure-footedly, slashing interest rates more aggressively than any other central banker in the world. After watching with a mixture of awe and doubt, his counterparts in Washington, London and the European Union eventually followed his lead.

It was Carney’s swift action more than anything else that blunted the impact of the recession. Low borrowing costs kept consumers spending and triggered a surprisingly robust and long-lasting real estate boom. That, combined with China’s growing appetite for oil, the prudence of Canada’s chartered banks and the surplus Harper inherited all allowed the prime minister to claim credit for developments over which he had little control.

Carney will soon be gone; and the economic winds are not blowing in Stephen Harper's direction:

But heading into 2013, Canada’s two pillars of economic strength — residential construction housing and oil and gas exports — look wobbly. Condo prices are falling, the U.S. is becoming self-sufficient in natural gas and the Chinese economy is slowing, reducing its demand for oil.

In addition, the structural problems that existed before the recession — low productivity, high personal debt, overdependence on the U.S. market — still hamper the nation’s prospects now. Forecasters expect the U.S. to outperform Canada in the coming year.

Don't expect any humility from Mr. Harper. Don't expect him to give Carney credit for Canada's (relatively) good fortune. But, as Shakespeare wrote, "There is a tide in the affairs of men."  And, in Mr. Harper's case, it's going out.

Abstract Thinking

This week, the Harper government  legislated Canadian Pacific workers back to their jobs, claiming it was "protecting the economy." It used the same argument to justify its back to work legislation at Canada Post and Air Canada. But, Tom Walkom writes this morning,  General Motors' announcement yesterday that it will shut down one of its Oshawa assembly plants reveals the Harper claim for what it is -- a lie:

When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives talk about protecting the economy, they are speaking of an abstraction.

They override the right to strike of rail and airline workers in order to further this abstraction. They run roughshod over the environment in its name.

But the real economy is not an abstraction. It is people’s jobs and wages. It is our livelihood. It is how we get by.

And this real economy is not doing well.

The fact is that the real economy is slumping all over the world:

Worldwide, the real economy of jobs and wages is in deep trouble. Europe’s ham-fisted handling of the eurozone debt crisis has thrown millions out of work in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece. Britain’s ill-advised government austerity scheme has thrown more out of work there.

Faced with slowing growth and consequent job losses, China is engaged once again in a game of currency devaluation, in a bid to boost its exports.

These events in far-away places have ricochet effects around the world. On Friday, the U.S. announced that its already too-high unemployment rate has started to inch up again.

The prime minister has been leading the austerity charge at home and abroad. GM's announcement is just another example of the wages of austerity. Stephen Harper is not concerned about the wages of ordinary working folks. In fact, he's doing all he can to lower them -- because the concept of wages, like the economy, is an abstraction.