Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Spending $50 Billion Just to Stand Still

My talking point for the day. Flaherty's fifty-billion dollar deficits were incurred to preserve the status-quo.

Before 2008, we always heard how spending on the environment or on infrastructure for the 21st-Century was unaffordable.

Supposedly, today we need a "steady hand on the tiller" which belongs to the finance minister who never saw it coming, and a prime minister who wants to dump another $45 billion on fighter planes and prisons that we don't need.

But before they do any of that, they have to spend $50 billion they don't have to keep the economy going because the deregulated financial system (which we can't regulate because it will stifle "innovation" and maybe "harm the economy") imploded due to its own corruption and greed.

If you're a conservative before you're 25, you haven't got a heart. If you're a conservative after you're 25, you haven't got a fucking clue.

3 comments:

Sir Francis said...

If you're a conservative after you're 25, you haven't got a fucking clue.

Hey, wait just a minute! :)

I think "If you're a Harperoid, fucktard, so-called 'conservative' after you're 25..." would be a fairer way of articulating that conditional clause.

And I've got another talking point for you: "Flaherty's fifty-billion dollar deficits were incurred to fatten an already bloated state apparatus". Not that the lobotomites of Harper’s “small-government” base are going to give a shit.

Beijing York said...

Here in Winnipeg, I've noticed a few "Canada's Action Plan" billboards outside of federal facilities. Does that mean that the fed are renting them and shoveling grant money through this program to upgrade the facilities they are renting? If so, doesn't that seem like a conflict of interest.

What I can't understand is how Harper can behave so scandalously without anything sticking to him and his government. Has he cowered the media to render them useless?

It's all so f*cking depressing.

thwap said...

SF,

"Conservative" has become such a debased word these days. I'm referring to the "conservatism" of the Blogging Tories, and the reactionary imperialism of those who would deny (say) Egyptians the right to democracy.

Thanks for the Ottawa Citizen link. Imagine that! A hiring boom in the federal public sector and nobody notices! No doubt most of those people hired are low-level harpercon hacks.

BY,

Technically, such stimulus spending is just meant to coins in local pockets. So upgrading the facilities of whoever conned the feds into renting rather than owning won't necessarily be seen as corruption.

But the media has been cowed. It's a capitalist media, so it has its limitations. I mentioned the other day though, how two columnists wrote about Tim Hudak of the Ontario PCs, and about the prospects for a federal election. Neither of them saw fit to mention either the murderously disastrous legacy of the Harris tories or that stephen harper has demonstrated serial contempt for Canadian parliamentary democracy which alone should galvanize sane people to call for his removal.

Their lack of idealism, their submersion in useless deadlines and their faith in our corrupted system, renders them unable to see what's in front of them.