Did Stephen Harper Have Prior Knowledge Of Financial Crisis?

Posted on Monday, September 29 at 13:51 by Kevin Parkinson

Stephen Harper’s Conservative party continues to hoodwink the unsuspecting public as the current election campaign mirrors the party’s well known, secretive modus operandi.

 The campaign so far, is conspicuous not by what Stephen Harper says, but by what he doesn’t say.

  It’s a coincidence that Harper called the election just before the U.S. financial meltdown, because the adverse affects have already started percolating down. The inevitable decline of the American dollar will take our Canadian currency into the Global basement with it, and our buying power in Canada will diminish. Already Canadians with investments are feeling the pinch and confidence in the market is on the decline.

 Perhaps someone made a phone call to Stephen Harper in early September to warn him what was coming, and if he wanted to call an election he had better do it quickly, so the Conservatives could avoid the public backlash, which will begin soon.  But thankfully for Harper, he will likely have another four-year mandate from the unsuspecting public by then.

 The media pundits are still scratching their heads about the election call; there must have been a compelling reason for Harper to break a promise to only call an election on a fixed date. Ironically, he had made this change to create “transparency” in government. Oh well, we can’t expect “transparency” all the time, can we? Especially when it doesn’t suit the government.

 The fact is that Harper has downplayed the economy, and as a sitting prime minister, is ingenuous in his refusal to initiate and talk about an economic plan that Canada will need over the next 2 to 3 years or longer, in responding to what the media and news websites are saying is the “greatest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression.” But our Prime Minister says that we in Canada have a modest surplus, and not to worry?

 Related to the above issue and one that has also been secretly   advanced under the radar is the SPP, or the Security and Prosperity Partnership well into its fourth year of planning. Readers might remember the big conference in Montebello, Quebec last year when Bush and Calderon met with Harper.

  There was typical “Conservative” secrecy at the conference and no media were allowed to participate. When interviewed, Prime Minister Harper said the conference was all about “the export rules for jellybeans” and condemned people like myself for asking tough questions. Basically, Harper laughed in the face of all Canadians when he made this remark!

 I can tell you what the SPP is all about because I have written about it on my website, www.realitycheck.typepad.com, and refer to it as the upcoming North American Union, which is what it is designed to become.

 It will mean that Canada will be part of the North American Union by 2010, similar to the European Union, and that our resources and agricultural, health and environment issues, to name a few, will be controlled not by Canada, but by the government of the North American Union, likely to be housed in the United States.

 I believe absolutely that the North American Union will bring about the greatest challenges that we have experienced so far in our life times here in Canada, and it is deplorable that there has been absolutely no public discussion on the issue. The NDP have made token attempts to mention it in committee, but have taken the cowardly way out and refused to make it an election issue.

  If our citizenry allows the North American Union to come into existence, then our way of life will change drastically. With privatization of our resources, increased foreign ownership, and a Canadian government in name only, we will become ‘North Americans’ and our sovereignty will be forever lost. You don’t think that will happen?

 The new North American currency has already been designed and is ready to go. It’s called the “Amero” and is the brainchild of the Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S.

 As the financial crisis deepens in the U.S. people will cry out for a government solution, and lo and behold, one will appear- the NAU and a new currency to get North America on its feet again!

 In the meantime we’re wasting a lot of taxpayers’ money to run an unnecessary and irrelevant election so the Conservatives can batten down the hatches for the next 4 years and tell us that they knew nothing about the imminent changes facing Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

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  1. Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:55 pm
    No offence intended Kevin - but everyone knew of this crisis for years. I've been telling everyone to plan for it for as long as I can remember.

    Then again, I'll bet Nostradamus even predicted it.

    If he didn't know about it, then I'd be concerned.

  2. Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:35 pm
    But you miss my point Doctor. Sure, we all knew the crisis was coming, but not WHEN. I think Harper called a snap election because of this knowledge.

  3. Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:12 pm
    Ahh. In that case, yes. The signs have been around since the beginning of the summer that we were going to take one on the chin once Labour day ended, and business resumed as normal.

    I'm sure in the context of the NAU that Harper would have seen this as well, and is hoping for a majority. Which leads me to another point - a recent survey on political 'brands' showed that people believe the Greens are the most trustworthy, but are in the bottom of the polls. The Opposite for the CPC - least trustworthy, highest in the polls.

    WTF? If we don't trust them, why would we vote for them?

  4. by RickW
    Mon Sep 29, 2008 11:05 pm
    WTF? If we don't trust them, why would we vote for them?

    Habit? Lizzy May's (unsubstantiated) allusion to Canucks being "stupid" may have some substance after all. We've been scared to near-death to vote for Libs or Cons.

  5. Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:00 pm
    Caleb makes an excellent point above, about the disconnect that is currently in place between peoples stated perceptions and their actions. It is the indicator of a confusion occurring in the "mass mind" about what is the precise appropriate response, combined with the pull of past habit on the present, and future "possibility".

    It is important to keep in mind, I think, that we are still only at the very early stages of this historic event occurring-, and not for the first time within capitalism. People's thinking, which excludes none of us, near always lags behind reality, to greater and lesser degree, and gets pulled along behind it, kicking and screaming-, which I believe it was Karl Marx once said actually. (My memory is not what it once was. 8) )

    But what it is important to understand, I think, going into this, is that everytime it happens, a new opportunity is created in the space time continuum, for significant, even radical change in the content and direction of human society and its underpinning economy.

    I don't really think Harper saw anything more in what has been taking shape for the last 25 -30 years, since the collapse of the post Second World War, Regulated Prosperity Capitalism Regime. It is just that it has been so obvious over the recent period however, that even he could not have helped but to notice, as anyone with a serious political mind should have.

    As Naomi Wolf, a writer on the coming storm had to say in a recent CBC interview, the US is pulling an entire battalion out of Iraq and bringing them back home this week. There is a popular fury about to be unleashed within US Empire society, as easy to see gathering as a hurricane in The Gulf. Those troops may well, as Naomi Wolf is convinced, represent preparations indicating that "they", the extreme right governance regime there, see what many of us see: That "the war" may be about to come home.

    Check out Naomi Wolf and her End of America views.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

    The emergence of such moments as these in the space time continuum of society, are not only an opportunity for The People, and those of us who await such moments for their "radical social change" possibilities, but also the fascist last line of defence for capitalism too, become emboldened.

  6. Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:09 pm
    "coyoteman" said

    Check out Naomi Wolf and her End of America views.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc


    Read her book, of the same title. Scary stuff.

    On another note, Some Chomsky:

    "In general, markets have well-known inefficiencies. One is that transactions do not take into account the effect on others who are not party to the transaction. These so-called "externalities" can be huge. That is particularly so in the case of financial institutions. Their task is to take risks, and if well-managed, to ensure that potential losses to themselves will be covered. To themselves. Under capitalist rules, it is not their business to consider the cost to others if their practices lead to financial crisis, as they regularly do. In economists' terms, risk is under priced, because systemic risk is not priced into decisions. That leads to repeated crisis, naturally. At that point, we turn to the IMF solution. The costs are transferred to the public, which had nothing to do with the risky choices but is now compelled to pay the costs - in the US, perhaps mounting to about $1 trillion right now. And of course the public has no voice in determining these outcomes, any more than poor peasants have a voice in being subjected to cruel structural adjustment programs.

    A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialized, while profit is privatized. That principle extends far beyond financial institutions. Much the same is true for the entire advanced economy, which relies extensively on the dynamic state sector for innovation, for basic research and development, for procurement when purchasers are unavailable, for direct bail-outs, and in numerous other ways. These mechanisms are the domestic counterpart of imperial and neocolonial hegemony, formalized in World Trade Organization rules and the misleadingly named "free trade agreements."

  7. Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:53 am
    The costs are transferred to the public, which had nothing to do with the risky choices but is now compelled to pay the costs - in the US, perhaps mounting to about $1 trillion right now. And of course the public has no voice in determining these outcomes, any more than poor peasants have a voice in being subjected to cruel structural adjustment programs.

    A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialized, while profit is privatized.

    Excellent set of observations, Caleb.

  8. Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:57 am
    "coyoteman" said
    The costs are transferred to the public, which had nothing to do with the risky choices but is now compelled to pay the costs - in the US, perhaps mounting to about $1 trillion right now. And of course the public has no voice in determining these outcomes, any more than poor peasants have a voice in being subjected to cruel structural adjustment programs.

    A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialized, while profit is privatized.


    Excellent set of observations, Caleb. And pulled together nicely.

    I hope the extreme right's self-described "individualists" are paying attention here. :D

    Coyote

  9. by RickW
    Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:13 am
    This is right out of The Corporation: http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=47

    They call it "externalizing costs", and it is extremely profitable when one doesn't give a damn about any kind of future.

    In India, a mob of recently dismissed workers at an auto-parts manufacturer beat their boss to death.

    http://harpers.org/archive/2008/09/Week ... 2008-09-23

    Is this why that batallaion is "needed" back home?

  10. by crh
    Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:16 pm
    The canadian public has swallowed the argument that 'we need to be able to compete globally'. This is why they vote for the least trustworthy of the bunch. I don't buy this crap about needing to keep feeding the corporations, so we can keep our jobs. Our country has its' own resources, well trained and educated work-force, and stable political climate. If corporations are willing to walk away from this, then let them. I say, more protectionism and less free trade for our country and close the door on your way out to those who do not want to do business here.

  11. Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:03 am
    There were so many warnings about the fragilty of banks giving loans to whoever walked thru the door, that anyone would have to have blinders on to not see it comming. When oil pricers rose I used diesel I had aboard and avoided buying anything I didn't absolutely need , expecting a big drop as soon as the speculative bubble burst at the end of driving and speculation season. Even the Saudis, in mid summer, said there was no reason but short term speculation, for the dramatic rise in oil prices. Like any observer , it was clear that the boom wouldn't last thru the fall and that Harpers last chance of not facing the flak for the drop would end quicly once summer was over. BC's premier Campbell will not be so lucky next spring.
    Brent

  12. by RickW
    Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:01 am
    "crh" said
    well trained and educated work-force
    And both the Cons & Libs are working on correcting this major oversight.............

  13. Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:30 am
    Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the complete absence of any mention of the SPP by any of the leaders throughout this election campaign? I would think, especially in light of the current economic meltdown in the U.S. and the even greater impact that meltdown would be having in Canada if the SPP were already in force, that the SPP ought to be a major election issue. Are the leaders not touching the issue, or are the media just not reporting on it?

  14. Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:27 pm
    Thank you "Badtiming' for your comment, since what seems so obvious to me, isn't very obvious to most Canadians. In fact, let's face it, so many people know nothing about the implications of the SPP and the roll-out of the NAU, that ALL of the political parties can go through two debates, with absolutely no mention of it!

    I was particularly disappointed in Jack Layton and the NDP, who did a lot of posturing since last August, 2007, and raised the issue in a Commons' committee, but did NOT include any mention of the SPP during the campaign. If Jack Layton is so interested in 'saving' this country, why didn't he aggressively ask Harper to explain to the public exactly what the SPP is all about. Jack didn't ask, and no one else did either.

    And I think that's because some questions are 'taboo' and to ask them is to bring on a fury from the corporations(which have led the charge for the SPP, such as the Council of CEO's in Canada) and the Council on Foreign Relations. Think about all of the 100's of bureaucrats who have been involved for over 3 years, with hardly a leak, and no whistleblowers, yet.

    How can three countries, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. meet in Montebello, Quebec for several days, and basically just issue a few benign comments at the end. Is anyone curious?

    The truth is, that no prominent party exists in Canada that will tell the TRUTH to Canadians. And the truth is that the North American Union will make NAFTA look like a Sunday school picnic!

    Let's enjoy Canada for now, because the economic shock therapy this week in the U.S., as Naomi Klein suggests, is just the beginning of what's being planned for us.



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