The Incompetent Scum-Bags Dither

So, the Great Economist/Warrior leader is having his finance minister delay the budget. It appears that our Great Economist/Warrior leader is as big a coward on facing the economy as he is facing down terrorists.

Unthinking right-wing fuck-faces used to crow about harper's sterling handling of the economy. During the 2008 - Present financial crisis, Canada's banks only needed an injection of $114 of taxpayer's money to save them from their own mistakes. The dollar was strong. Deficits were low. Unemployment was low. The economy grew.

In reality, harper hadn't had the time to free Canada's banksters from the regulations that kept them from emulating the super-criminals in the USA's banking sector. He wanted to though. Just as he wanted to emulate all the ponzi-scheme antics behind the US real-estate bubble. harper was only saved from himself by his relatively late ascension to power. Then, in response to the crisis, his cretinous finance minister, the late, un-great Jim Flaherty, wanted to embrace the austerity policies that have mired Europe in recession, high unemployment, deficits and civil unrest. Thankfully, the incompetent "conservatives" were forced, kicking and screaming by the opposition, to implement counter-cyclical spending that averted catastrophe.

Of course, "averted catastrophe" doesn't mean "economic nirvana." Unemployment remains high. Wages have stagnated or shrunk. Canadian households have gone further and further into debt to keep the economy wheezing and huffing along.

Now, however, the bloom has gone off the rose. harper's policies of class war were all to be mitigated through his delusions about making Canada an "energy super-power." Ignoring the vast scientific consensus about catastrophic global warming, and ignoring his obligations to the lands of the First Nations, and through eviscerating our entire environmental regulatory edifice through omnibus bills, and through harassment of environmentalist groups with CSIS, the RCMP and punitive audits from a corrupted Canada Revenue Agency, harper would use all his fraudulently-arrived at power to champion the Tar Sands over sanity, humanity and the Earth.

Unfortunately for him, Saudi Arabia decided to declare war on fracking, and Obama let them do so because the side-effect would be to weaken the economies of Russia, Iran and Venezuela. stephen harper means shit to the Americans. Always has, always will. Canada means shit to Washington actually. If we get clobbered as an innocent bystander watching the big-boys fight, well, too bad, so sad.

So, now Alberta's economy is going into the shitter. Precious Alberta! The province that super-patriot harper wrote he wouldn't mind if it separated from Canada. (The same way the owner of the super-patriotic "SUN News" network would like Quebec to separate from Canada. Just what is it with these anti-Canadian right-wingers????) Some people are expecting Ontario's manufacturing sector to benefit from a weaker dollar and lower oil costs, but is there much of a manufacturing sector to be revived? And will it produce the jobs?