Bill Carroll of CFRA sounded off about how great his RRSP has been doing. Not a bad thing to do in and of itself, and congratulations to him, but a symptom of the patient that will not heal itself that is the Canadian body economic. It cannot make itself better because its physicians, whether it be academia, politicians or, like Carroll, the Media, deny there is anything wrong with it (outside of Alberta). This is chiefly, in turn, because the physicians do not themselves ail. They've made their bones and, last time they checked their RRSP statement, the economic World looks just fine from their smug snug corner of it.
Well, it's not fine for a lot of Canadians, and especially in comparison with the one country that matters the most to us - the US. Worse, this wilful, selfish disregard for the situation is often due, at least in the last little while, to our elite's disdain for an America led by Donald Trump. If what he was doing was being done by Obama or the PM of Sweden, all of our leadership would clamour to copy it. But, our betters' being bound and convinced that they've nothing to learn or ape from that rude, illegitimate Russian agent Trump leads them to disfunctionally deny any benefit from so doing. Instead of praising him and trying to emulate him, they instead deride his "boasting" about "unbelievable" triumphs when if they could achieve even half of what he claims he has done (much of which we were told he could not ever do), they would be the first to bumptiously and shamelessly take the credit.
But the real problem with this is that this has been brewing long before Trump was even a public celebrity, let alone a TV star or a candidate for President. What is "this"? This is the gap between us and the Americans in income compounded by our status as Marks for our greedy and overprotected Business sector and their accomplices in Government. In 1984, the US had 17000 per capita and we 14000 - a 22% advantage. In 2002 (tellingly after the FTA and NAFTA were solidly in place) the Americans were at 38000, we at 30000 - a 27% difference. Now it is 60000 to 45000 or a 33% difference (meanwhile, the Australians have caught up with us).
The latest data show that the lower and working classes in the US are seeing faster income growth than that of the rich and management classes. Indeed, they show that literally all US groups from young to women, from hispanic to black from disabled to uneducated are seeing their pay packets rise quicker than has been seen in decades. Our limp response to the fact that our income has grown barely a third as much as theirs is to set up the Orwellian "Ministry of Middle Class Prosperity" and pledge to cut cellular bills by 25% while making them artificially high by state action and taxation. Our economic growth, unemployment rate and job creation also all lag badly behind the Yankee Colossus.
Meanwhile, throughout this period, instead of adapting to the new competitive trade world, we continue to tolerate interprovincial barriers to trade and regulations that the US have never had that make even staples of life more expensive for us than for an American. Whether it be energy, poultry, dairy, banking charges, booze, airline tickets, cellphones, clothing, books or cars, we are paying more than Americans while they earn more, a toxic combination. Everywhere, whether it be in our regionally biased employment insurance system and equalization program, our poor infrastructure or our underdeveloped post secondary sector and the myriad ways our governments penalize or discourage industry and investment, we are making ourselves artificially uncompetitive and unproductive.
On top of this, we protect large parts of our economy from competition which not only hurts consumers but also actually hurts the businesses we try to protect by making them flabbily unproductive. This has been especially cruel to our workers and shortsighted strategy as we subject ourselves to one free trade agreement after the other with nations that are far meaner and leaner trading partners like China. (indeed, but for Trump, we would have continued to see auto and other manufacturing jobs drift to Mexico under NAFTA without any succour in sight.)
The sad fact is that our political leadership and their cheerleaders (including that 'conservative' national newspaper, the National Post) are "Alright, Jack!" and so conclude we all are and say and write things like,"The real way to win elections is to talk immigration or Gay Rights or 'foreign policy and defence'" as the economy is great. The discussion about how the Conservatives in particular might finally regain government or who they should crown as their Leader has hardly even broached the issues of the cost of living, productivity (the sure way to lower the first) and competitiveness. Above all, no one remarks how we lag especially and most importantly when compared to the country that transacts 80% of our trade and is most analogous to us. Instead of being the 24/7 national obsession of our Business, Media, Academia and Polity, this does not even merit a footnote of thought in even one pundit's column.
How to show an elite represented by people with an actual daily bully pulpit, like Carroll, that this is a problem? Well, maybe we can start by pointing out that, if Bill had had his Stock Portfolio in an IRA in the US, his total capital gain would be something like 2 or 3 times better under the evil stupid Trump. Then maybe just maybe he would see the needless pain we put ourselves through and how it hurts us all, not just those poor aspiring classes that our leadership ignore or barely feign interest about their concerns. For our relative lack of competitiveness and productivity is not just impoverishing us, as if that was not bad enough, it is seeing us fall back as a nation.
The obsession of our elite with getting a seat on the UN Security Council is only the most recent example of how our leadership worries too much about "Saving the World" but not "helping Mom with the dishes" of COLA, productivity and competitiveness. Without an intense new laserlike, energetic, dare I say, Trumpian new obsession with closing the income and expense gap for Canadians, we will find it harder and harder to be heard or considered in the grand corridors of glamorous international power and debate and thus to give the World more Canada on issues of Trade, Aid, the Environment and Security.
If the prospect of more money and more glamour from helping our poor benighted taxpayers, workers and consumers does not spur our elite to action, maybe we need to get a new elite.
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