Jesus, when we Liberals return to power there'll hardly be anything left to pillage.
Mind you, if you can keep your job during a Depression you can make out like a bandit. The wife and I are doing okay so far. In six months or so, if everything continues on an even keel, we might pick up a couple of slaves.
As someone who is currently not employed I wish I could be as glib but I can't and I blame Iggy and the LPC (in part) for choosing to wait for a more politically convenient time to try and defeat this government. I am truly worried that Harper's do nothing budget will only lead to a much deeper and longer recession. So thanks LPC and Iggy supporters.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Cicely, it is an attempt at gallows humor more than an attempt at glibness.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as to the budgets, I think a Liberal/Coalition budget would have been a better budget, but really only at the margins.
Mind you, a Tory budget from a Majority government would have been alot worse. And that might well have been what we wound up with.
I hope those 129,000 Canadians enjoy their Harper holiday.
ReplyDeleteIt's senseless to blame the economy on either the Liberals or the Conservatives when the cause of it lies in the systemic weaknesses in the United States.
ReplyDeleteWe can blame all governments since Mulroney's for having tethered ourselves to that sinking ship.
There's nothing much a government budget can do at this point.
There's nothing much a government budget can do at this point.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it would have been preferable to prepare for the next inevitable downturn in the economy, government budgets can at least ameliorate the worst effects of this downturn. Not that Harper's will, mind you, but a competent government's budget could do that.
Well, that's point I'm trying to make. I don't really care about the budget now, since the systemic weaknesses have been ignored for decades. Even a budget that cushions the blow for the most vulnerable will, in all likelihood, just guarantee a re-establishment of the status quo when/if conditions improve.
ReplyDeleteSo TiGuy
ReplyDeleteare you advocating allowing it all to collapses and hope to hell that it will gets rebuilt in (some ill-defined) better way?
Pardon me if I don't have the luxury of waiting to see if that will work. Need to figure out a way to pay for rent and food and stuff.
Yes we have had several federal and provincial govts that have been content to focus only on what they need to do to get elected the next time out. There has been pitifully little leadership and vision. Sure we should have been moving to greener economy, increasing access to universities to ensure a larger talent pool for a new knowledge economy, eating all our vegetables and being nicer to our neighbours for the last 20 years.
It didn't get done. Should that mean that those suffering now simply suck it up and hope for the best.
I don't know about anyone else but I am tired of that and that is why I really hoped that the Coalition would happen because that dynamic hasn't be seen in a long time in federal politics and it strikes me that the working relation between the NDP and Libs in the past have offered truly innovative solutions (national medicare, cpp, etc.) A coalition govt may not have completely mitigated the downturn but the broad strokes plan from the fall was a damn sight better than this budget.
Even a budget that cushions the blow for the most vulnerable will, in all likelihood, just guarantee a re-establishment of the status quo when/if conditions improve.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. Over on the Macleans blog the resident dimwits are laughing at a woman who no longer uses her refrigerator in order to save money and cut down on her carbon footprint. The wackos have seized control of our discourse and as long as the media allows it to continue nothing will ever change.
Over on the Macleans blog the resident dimwits are laughing at a woman who no longer uses her refrigerator in order to save money and cut down on her carbon footprint.
ReplyDeleteAnd if wackos like those are all prosperity promises to produce (which, in last two decades, seems to be the case), then I find it difficult to credit.
"We can blame all governments since Mulroney's for having tethered ourselves to that sinking ship." -ti-guy
ReplyDeleteUh, and which ship would you prefer we tether ourselves to ti? China? Britain? Venezuela?
Seriously, someone who doesn't think the world's most prosperous economy will recover is more deluded then I thought.