Brian McLeod takes some quantum economic leaps of logic in implying that social programs and “socialist rhetoric” are causing currency “jitters.” (St. Albert Gazette, Commentary, Jan. 12).
Social programs aren’t frills and an impediment to a well-functioning economy. They are “productive,” or add to the quality of life of citizens, which is the whole point of any country and government. Military equipment, on the other hand, a huge expense in the U.S., adds nothing.
A healthy country, moreover, functions much better and is more productive than one where the health of citizens is compromised by too much stress in providing basic necessities, lack of affordable health care, poor nutrition, unhealthy working conditions and unhealthy environment.
These factors determine the stability of a country and directly involve currency stability. Canada then, except for its dependency on the U.S. dollar, can offer business the advantage of not burdening them with employee health-care coverage.
The value of money depends on the goods and services it represents, and unfortunately, the U.S. dollar, on which the value of our dollar depends, represents much less than it used to since the 2008 extravagant $4-trillion U.S. bailout of unsuccessful, irresponsible and probably fraudulent financial institutions: the worldwide banking system required a $7-trillion transfusion to prevent a world banking collapse. This money was simply printed, represented no goods or services and thus lowered the value of the currency.
Ten years later, the same unaddressed problem reappears. Socialism for ordinary people has nothing to do with it: socialism for the very rich and powerful has everything to do with it.
But the particular socialism referred to in this article is the “wave” of discontent in the U.S. and elsewhere based on the failures of capitalism as manifested in neoliberalism.
The free movement of capital has facilitated offshoring and the replacement of well-paid, benefit-providing permanent jobs with part-time service sector jobs with no security and no benefits. The one per cent/99 per cent divide has been rationalized as the inevitable result of the natural hierarchy of “competency” rather than favouritism, appropriate social/political connections, unfair, unlimited competition for the lowest labour costs, and in the U.S., vast subsidization of favoured sectors like dairy and farming, along with welfare contributions to low-end earners in part-time work or minimum wage jobs. This is a subsidy in fact for the owners and managers of the low-paying businesses involved.
Taxing the rich saved the U.S. economy before under Franklin D. Roosevelt and it’s certainly not going to worsen the situation now. The rich may run with their money but they can’t hide it. As a result of the deregulation of the finance and banking sector and the 2008 bailout, much of that money is strictly ephemeral – on paper only. And the push is to invest it in something tangible: real estate and infrastructure.
What we need to avoid is the temptation to privatize at discount prices infrastructure paid for by ordinary citizens for their benefit, not that of rich investors.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
