Canada Plagued By Dysfunctional Politics: Economist

The Economist is controlled by Zionist zealots who take a dim view of countries that disagree with the US war in Iraq.

The artical also mentions that the NDP "have not yet found their Tony Blair"

Wow, Tony Blair is something left-wing politions can aspire to?

"The Economist talks of the country's highly centralized system"

They got that right, an understatement to say the least.

The articles in the Economist point out that we have staggering potential. For the most part, the articles deal with how we have squandered (and continue to do so) this potential due to in no small part the political stagnation and political indecisiveness of our federal government. Instead of forging ahead, we dither and wait. Our federal politicians (primarily) are suspiciously unable to deal with any problem, preferring to let the courts govern for them (Clarity act, same sex marraige - not that I think the courts are doing a bad job, it's just that I thought we hired the government to do this kind of thing). The Economist points out our lagging productivity (reductions in GDP and PDI are specifically listed with comparative figures to the US). can be linked to a lack of leadership. What is especially worrisome is how markedly different our productivity is within the last 2 years. In their words, its as though Canada "has fallen off a cliff". This has resulted in the slowing of the ecomomy (our growth projections are behind that of the US for the first time since 2000).

The article makes good arguements and links their data to solid facts. For Canada to succeed, we need strong leadership. We need to stop vacilating and navel gazing. We need to get out there and do something. Now.

They don't provide any solutions (but if they did, the first poster would have been charging that the foreign Zionists were interfering), they are just making an analysis of our current situation.

“The latest edition says Canada is beset dysfunctional politics, grumpy anti-Americanism and three brewing political storms: one in the West, one in Quebec and one in its relations with the United States.”

“The magazine dismisses the NDP (Leader Jack Layton isn't mentioned) as "a socialist party from the old world that is ill at ease in the new one…”

“The Economist talks of the country's highly centralized system, where power concentrates in the prime minister's hands. Real opposition comes not from national parties, but from the provinces, it says.”






>> The Economist is controlled by Zionist zealots who take a dim view of countries that disagree with the US war in Iraq.<<<

You people and your cowardly code words. I am sure you are referring to those Baptist Zionist zealots again, right?

>>Our federal politicians (primarily) are suspiciously unable to deal with any problem,<<<

They don’t have enough incentive to. They know they can play the same old game of paying off the noisy, blaming the Americans and balancing the budget not by increasing productivity but by simply exploiting your natural recourses. Looking at a lot of the posts here shows that there is no need to change something that works so well. Their real incentive is to cling on to the status quo. (Socialism, CanCon ect might be seen as an outward manifestation of an inward desire.) In such a rapidly changing world anything that is done to thwart or discourage innovation, either by accident or design is suicidal.

>>The articles in the Economist point out that we have staggering potential.<<<

Staggering indeed. Which is what makes it all the more frustrating that progress can be so effectively hamstrung.

>>"a socialist party from the old world that is ill at ease in the new one…”<<

This coming from someone that thinks a dictatorship is a democracy or the National Socialism Party....(Nazi Party)!

As the holder of the 1991 copyright of the only scientifically correct defintion of economic efficiency, I would like to know what some of the posters mean by referring to things like " ...as Canada becomes more efficient.....etc" ?

What is their, or of the Economist's, definition of economic efficiency ?

And while we're on the subject, what did Adam Smith write about "self interest" and the "invisible hand"?

Yes, these are trick questions !

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

Did you say trick question, I thought you meant loaded...
Heh Ed: are you still beating your wife?

"As the holder of the 1991 copyright of the only scientifically correct defintion of economic efficiency"

scientifically correct economics. Impressive. I always thought economics was either obvious or irrelevant, but have not read your theory. I must google this. btw: Why is that if you put 3 economists in a room they could only agree to disagree? Witness the current debate to cut Mulroney's GST. If we have scientifcally correct definitions all economists should be forced by law to use them.

I would argue that your definition is not the "only" definition of economic theory. For those of us out there that don't know what we are talking about... Ed's principle is included at the end of this post.

Anyway, as you say in your own principle, fiduciary money is a concept, not a reality. However it is within that concept that we develop the bar by which we measure our economic gains and progress. This concept has worked for well over 500 years, and arbitrary though it may be, it provides a simplistic structure that allows us to reassign and re-evaluate our abilities based on that bar. For instance, it will always take the same amount of wool to make a sweater. How that wool is sheared, how the sheep is grown, how the dyes are injected, and how the sweater itself is manufactured can all change, but the physical work involved will always net out to be the same regardless of if it all automated or done by hand. It is only within our concept of economics that efficiencies such as mass production can be measured.

This post is a bit off topic, so maybe you need to open a new thread if you want to debate this further.

"A Principle for the application of physical efficiency to economics:
THE REAL, OR PHYSICAL COSTS OF A PRODUCT, OR SERVICE ARE CONSTANT
An efficient product contains physically efficient or ideal amounts of energy and matter, regardless of numerical or monetary considerations. Monetary cost efficiency can not exist outside the concepts of physical efficiency and becomes a cost transfer on other sectors. Therefore it is not efficiency, but temporary convenience.

Nothing can be made "cheaper" than the limits of physical efficiency of "no waste". Fiduciary money is a concept, not a reality and can not overrule the laws of physical, or ecological efficiency. Somebody, something, sometime, somewhere must pay the full costs."

The Economist is a propaganda machine for the neoclassical theory, therefore, whatever they say about Canada is within this context.

Gold based money, which in reality is a form of barter, vs. the creation of deregulated, unlimited amounts of fiat money are completely different concepts and principles, especially when the creation of the fiat money is handed over to a special interest sector, while society accepts the responsibility fir its conversion into benefits.

Therefore, the system hasn't worked well for 500 years, because we're talking about 2 different systems, the latest one only 14 years old in Canada.

Also, the physical work involved in the making of a sweater will NOT net out the same regardless whether it is automated, or done by hand, because the automated production will require huge amounts of increased energy that goes into the invention, production and running of the equipment, while human labour is free of such costs, because it exists.

Also, when human labour is replaced by machinery, or rather when it is replaced so the wages can be diverted into the hands of a special interest sector, it increases the resource and energy demands on the economy, because the displaced humans must find other resource/energy bases for their and their families' survival. This in turn increases long term costs in the forms of unnecessary resource depletion and waste, only to feed the artificial entities of corporate shares.

I'm not advocating the return to the Stone Ages and am buying and using machinery all the time. But there's a tremendous difference between using tools and equipment for the enhancement of human life and used for its destruction. As a former manufacturer I can easily prove that while a certain amount of automation, mass production are necessary, many, if not most products can be more "efficiently" manufactured in small, energy efficient workshops and plants, using human labour, talent and ingenuity.

E.g. A skilled tradesman makes a coffee table and sells it for $1000. A massproducing manufacturer comes along, makes the same table and sells it for $125. with Asian slave labour, or $250. with North American. It can be proven that the $1000. table will be "cheaper" and more "economically efficient" to the local, national and global economy on the long run.

Also. The recent criminal charges against Conrad Black are based on whether he stole from the investors of his businesses? But if and when he, or thousands of other CEOs steal from their employees, or the environment it is perfectly legal and in modern economist jargon, "efficient"

As nobody volunteered to spell out the present, neoclassical definition of economic efficiency, it is, in several different versions all saying the same: "The biggest monetary returns for the least monetary inputs"

Which is, along with the GDP, Growth and Productivity figures, used by neoclasical economists, outright fraud and the biggest crime wave in human history.

I'm still waiting somebody to claim that Adam Smith said: "In competition individual ambition serves the common good"

Which is also a fraud and lie, along with the claim for "Economic Darwinism", justifying the "survival of the fittest", which again has nothing to do with Darwin, but another jerk by the name of Herbert Spencer who distorted Darwin's words, as Milton Friedman et al have distorted Smith's.

In short, we live in a system built on fraud, lies and crime, yet being taught as the "science of economics", sold to us by propaganda machines like the Economist, "perestigious conservative economic think tanks" like the Cato, Fraser, CD Howe Inst. and thousands of professors of economics around the world.

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

"Also, the physical work involved in the making of a sweater will NOT net out the same regardless whether it is automated, or done by hand, because the automated production will require huge amounts of increased energy that goes into the invention, production and running of the equipment, while human labour is free of such costs, because it exists."

Wow. Usually, when I call someone a Luddite, it's meant in a metaphoric or figurative sense. But it seems you're the genuine article.

Whether or not Smith said it, in competition individual ambition *does* serve the common good. I want the economy to be based on the idea of meritocracy. The race should go to the swiftest. The guy who works hard, takes risks and produces superior results should do better in the economy than the guys who loafs around, plays it safe and produces crappy output. What the hell is wrong with that?

Let me know when you've learned to read. Until then, I'm far too busy to waste my time on somebody who's only repeating memorized propaganda cliches .

Ed Deak.

I find this writing to be spot on with regard to Canada's almost unlimited potential, but otherwise a piece of raving nattering nonsense.

It makes several empty, fallacious and unwise assumptions. It suggests that any nation that does not follow the mad model of neo-liberal/neo-conservative greed-based economic and social savagery cannot be successful.

That is pure rubbish. Success is judged by the results that people want from their government and their economy. These may not in any way approximate what writers and non-thinkers of this stripe believe they should be. Nonetheless, if they satisfy the most of the people in the country then the nation has succeeded, even if the elites are not sated and unwholesome neo-con objectives are not realized.

It is also a fallacy that we are are or must continue be desperately dependent on the United States for prosperity. We should have a good relationship with our southern neighbour, but Americans will trade with us based exclusively on their interests, whether or not we wimper at their feet. Its way past time we recognized that, and governed our activities accordingly. They really look after themselves, the US is number one with them, first last and always. Canada should become first with us. Period.

It is nice to have access to their markets, but we do not need them to survive or prosper. With our resources, natural and human, we can build a diversified trade portfoilio and a domestic economy so strong that if they shriveled up and disappeared five years from now we would hardly notice it. All we have to do is learn to believe in ourselves and stop telling ourselves foolish lies.

In any federal state, particularly one as large and diverse as Canada, there will always be internal tensions. We need to build a country so attractive that no one will want to leave. Neo-con/ neo-liberal foolishness tends to exacerbate disparities, hurt the weak and encourage more talk of leaving. It truly is a mad model, and we should abandon it. It has nothing to offer.

Let's learn to pull together, share our great bounty more equitably and realize our potential, even if no neo-con could ever recognize it.

Finally, in my mind, anyone who either viciously attacks or is is irrevocably bound to socialism, capitalism, neo-conservatism, zionism or any other "ism" is crippled by their ideology, and of very little use to us. We should have already learned the futility of that kind of thinking. Our society should learn to use all of these ideas, and perhaps many others we don't talk or think so much about, each in its own special place and way to achieve specific desired results. Likewise we should be ready to toss any or all of them aside when and if they impede our progress. That's the way Canada can live up to what even writers like this recognize as a magnificent future.

I agree and have been writing on this subject, here in Canada, for 50 years, especially in the last 20, since I realized the extent of the fraud that keeps Canada chained to a dead end philosophy .

Ed Deak.