Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Corona, 'The Science' or Scientism, Islam, the State, the cult of Gender Fascism, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion...
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
Socialism with an ugly face that stops economic growth.
by StFerdIII
According to anti-trade, anti-globalization ‘thinkers’, the world is becoming a mono-culture, dominated by those hated Americans as they, and their capitalist-Jewish friends, fiendishly rape and plunder our glorious mother earth of her resources. Central to this idea is that governments across the industrialized world are under attack and getting smaller – driven into retreat by the American-Jewish capitalist cabal. Capitalism according to the world’s media and educational systems, is simply immoral and wrong and our beloved big government model is eroding. Or is it ?
The two countries that supposedly represent capitalism in the eyes of the leftists and EU-philes are the USA and its little and not so friendly Lilliputian neighbor Canada. Yet in both countries government spending, size and regulatory control are simply out of control, costing us investment, jobs, economic and technological change and eroding our morality, spirit and individualism, not to mention turning most of us into cry-baby apologists for every dumb idea ranging from eco-fascism to the United Nations.
Consider this fact. In pre-1965 Canada, government size was smaller and less intrusive than in the USA. So since big government socialism ranging from Cuban health care systems to protected monopolies defines being a Canadian, one supposes that the poor dears living in 1964 Canada were not real Canadians. How interesting. Now with the rise of government controlled media, economic sectors and the secular religions of hating capitalism, the Americans and Western history, governments can rewrite society in their own image - for their own benefit. Europe has long followed the path of statism and state control but Canada has almost caught up. In 1965 the per capita spend by the Federal government in Canada was $5.000 – it is now $17.000. Other levels of government have followed suit. As government control and debt have exploded since 1965, so has economic growth declined:
Canadian Federal Government Power:
BILLIONS
C$
Total
Expenditures
Debt
Charges
Total
Revenue
Personal
Inc Tax
Corp
Income Tax
Surplus
Economic
Growth
1992
163
40
125
55
50
-32
2.8
1999
152
44
160
72
22
30
3.2
2005
200
35
200
87
30
4
3
Increase 1992-2005
23%
-13%
60%
58%
-40%
113%
7%
In Canada, just in the past 15 years, we have seen government increase its expenditures by 23 % or about 1.8% per annum, while revenues have risen by 60 %. Total debt is still close to $580 billion – or about $40.000 per taxpayer [start writing your debt reduction cheques before you die, merry socialists]. Keep in mind that the above numbers do not take into consideration the regulatory costs or government corporations under government control but off the balance sheet [such as Crown Corporations etc.]. As government power increases the economy suffers – a 3 % growth rate while better than Europe is far less than the 3.5 % necessary to generate jobs and improve living standards.
Similar trends are in evidence in the US. Bush has increased US federal spending by 35 % since 2001, from U$1.9 Trillion to $2.5 Trillion. This caused a budget deficit in 2004 of $500 Billion which in 2005 will decline to about $100 billion – thanks to tax cuts which have stimulated the US economy. But you do not initiate tax cuts and then increase non-military spending. Tax cuts are mandatory to reduce government size and stimulate the economy, but the corollary is that you must reduce spending. Keynesianism has always proven false and increasing government spend only leads to deficits, higher interest rates, lower economic growth and future taxation increases. The US needs to dramatically reduce it’s spend back to pre 2001 levels.
American governments however still only consume about 33 % of the economy vs. 43 % in Canada. As well US growth rates are higher than Canada’s generating currently about 190.000 jobs per month while Canada underperforms only adding about 8.000 or 40 % of what it should be adding. Productivity as well in Canada is ½ to ¼ of US levels ensuring that living standards in Canada will be far lower in the years to come. Economic growth in Canada will thus come from a cheap dollar, and cheap labor – not innovation and intelligence. So while I would argue that the US is mis-managed, over taxed, and over regulated – it is still far ahead of Canada and thereby far richer. What other nation could fight 2 wars, suffer Hurricane disasters, send billions in foreign aid, and still grow its economy by 3.5 % and add 2 million jobs ?
So the lesson is clear and you would expect that politicians would hearken back to facts and argue a pro-growth agenda as being in society’s best interests. After all as our economies have grown, poverty has been reduced by half. The last thing we need to do is to turn North America into another failed European experiment in benign dictatorship and febrile economics. There is a reason why we are rich and Europe is not. But we stand to lose a lot if we don’t restrain our governments and reassert our historical passion for growth, innovation and individual responsibility. Unless we the people get busy and start reducing the size of government we will soon be under the control of a Leninist state, replete with mausoleums for our exalted god-like dictators.
