A 516.7 billion increase in personal debt and 140 billion in federal debt since Flaherty took over

#cdnecon An Appalling Performance from a Finance Minister. »

Whatever economic movement we've had has been fuelled by essentially personal debt, an astonishing  516.7 billion increase since 2006, at a staggering 165% debt to disposable income ratio. Only #banksters and the investor class benefit from such a financialization of the economy. And we’re 140 billion deeper in federal financial debt since Flaherty took over with a net debt balance of 650 billion and a stagnating global economy - the effects of which will be hard to escape since, lacking a diversified domestic economy,  all our economic growth eggs are in export markets and in particular commodities - namely oil and mining. The classic neoliberal agenda has failed miserably. Time for Drummond, Hyder, O’Leary and Co. to wake up from the dream.

 

Where is the $14-billion from the GST rate cut now? #cdnpolisoa.li/MOQwOlB
— barrie mckenna (@barriemckenna) March 25, 2013

The Unintended Consequences of Military Intervention:

The Roots of Mali and Algeria Crisis in Libya. And let's not forget Canada's gung-ho involvement in Libya - which might partially explain the interest in Mali now. what was unleashed in Libya is coming home to roost.

Bill McKibben on #IdleNoMore | The stakes couldn’t be higher, for Canada and for the world

"The stakes couldn't be higher, for Canada and for the world. Much of this uprising began when Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper rammed through Parliament an omnibus bill gutting environmental reviews and protections. He had no choice if he wanted to keep developing Canada’s tar sands, because there’s no possible way to mine and pipe that sludgy crude without fouling lakes and rivers. (Indeed, a study released a few days ago made clear that carcinogens had now found their way into myriad surrounding lakes). And so, among other things, the omnibus bill simply declared that almost every river, stream and lake in the country was now exempt from federal environmental oversight. Canada’s environmental community protested in all the normal ways – but they had no more luck than, say, America’s anti-war community in the run up to Iraq. There’s trillions of dollars of oil locked up in Alberta’s tarsands, and Harper’s fossil-fuel backers won’t be denied. But there’s a stumbling block they hadn’t counted on, and that was the resurgent power of the Aboriginal Nations. Some Canadian tribes have signed treaties with the Crown, and others haven’t, but none have ceded their lands, and all of them feel their inherent rights are endangered by Harper’s power grab. They are, legally and morally, all that stand in the way of Canada’s total exploitation of its vast energy and mineral resources, including the tar sands, the world’s second largest pool of carbon. NASA’s James Hansen has explained that burning that bitumen on top of everything else we’re combusting will mean it’s “game over for the climate.” Which means, in turn, that Canada’s First Nations are in some sense standing guard over the planet."

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