Sunday, August 7, 2011

Economic Crisis; What Would Bob Rae Do?

As the western world teeters on the brink of another major recession, Liberal leader Bob Rae has started dispatching economic advice to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Keep spending and take it easy on the cuts. Thanks Bob. While it is true that Rae has previous experience dealing with financial turmoil (his entire term as Premier of Ontario was one big economic crisis), he sure as Hell ain't my go to guy for solving fiscal problems. The Tories have signalled that there will be spending cuts, and already you can see the Liberals and NDP lining up to attack every single one of them. It will give the opposition a rallying point to join forces against the government. They'll fight to defend global warming jobs at Environment Canada.

At this point it is still questionable whether or not we should have done the first stimulus, but Ignatieff demanded it as a condition of supporting the 2009 budget. Plus the Americans were doing a stimulus, so it seemed like the popular thing to do at the time. Canada's economic recovery in the last recession was among the fastest and most efficient in the western world, but that likely has more to do than with the strength and stability of our economic system rather than tax money pumped into the economy. We did not have a recession because our economy is broken, it happened to us because we are so closely tied to America and Europe who are broken.

When all is said and done, I'm going to willfully disregard economic advice from Bob Rae, and you should too.

8 comments:

  1. Bob's common sense has left the building.
    Anything he says is irrelevant.
    Retreads need not apply.

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  2. just what canada needs financial advice from buffalo booster bob. old white guy.

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  3. It's actually arguable that the tax cuts implemented before and during the recession had more to do with the strength of our recovery than any infrastructure spending did. For that reason, Mssrs Flaherty and Harper should perform that form of stimulus along with spending cuts during the next round. We can be a leader in the world again in performing good fiscal policy. We should also be a leader in paying off our accumulated debt.

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  4. Harper can't balance a budget. he runs record deficits without advice from anyone.

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  5. Bob Rae -the economic genius who solved the Ontario health situation by paying universities to not teach doctors.

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  6. Would you let BOB hold onto your wallet? Nough said.

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  7. "it happened to us because we are so closely tied to America and Europe who are broken."

    Agreed, and it's time for Canada to diversify its markets. The quickest way to do that is to build the gateway pipeline. Not only would the construction phase produce thousands of jobs for Canadians across the board in engineering, construction workers, pipeline material, and equipment, it would also create many hundreds of the full time jobs required to inspect and maintain the pipeline, to operate the pumping stations, and create the construction of homes and small communities to house these permanent workers.
    In addition, it would spur even more development in the oilsands as producers rush to meet the pipeline's product requirements.
    It would also bring in billions of dollars in investment and from the sale of oil to the Asian markets, thus producing huge tax revenues for the government.
    This project alone would help to insulate us even further from the disasters about to befall the U.S. and Europe.
    It is time for the Canadian government to quit messing around with the native bands and their pipedream spinning shyster lawyers and press ahead with this project.

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