“The fact that the decline in Harper’s fortunes seems to go lock step with a decline in the stock market indicates that the entitlement psychology has spread far beyond starving artists and cranky university students: apparently middle class Canadians now feel “entitled” to a rising stock portfolio and soaring real estate values, and feel that it is the job of the state to guarantee those things.”
Bingo.
ET at 1:15pm. That’s a pretty good meta-analysis of Canada’s descent into nanny state entitlement mentality. I would summarize yet further by saying that it began under Uncle Louis in the 1950s, started to get traction under Lester Pearson in the 1960s, but really accelerated under Trudeau. That was the era in which Ontario fully caught the entitlement disease, along with many major cities in the other provinces.
The cultural marxist accoutrements (multiculturalism, media and academe political correctness, special interest group lobbying, the charter and the thought police really do date from the Trudeau era. We have had little, if any serious rollback of these under Harper, and with another minority CPC government (or, God forbid, a Lib/Dip coalition government) we can’t look forward to any rollback for many years.
As for an economic crisis wringing this entitlement and cultural marxist crap out of our system as some posters here have suggested, the scale of economic tsunami that would be required to wring it out would likely finish us off first. As I stated earlier in this thread, I am still looking for a reason to be optimistic.
Jack and Dion are slamming Harper for his comment last night about buying stocks right now, Harper said that the businessman at the Toronto luncheon he spoke at, suggested that there is some good bargins out there right now.
I guess Canadians have a choice: invest in the NDP or Libs who want to hammer the corporations with more taxes or invest in Canadian corporations that provide the jobs.
Boomers should be entitled to their housing bubble ? Ask the kids.
There is no free lunch – just redistributed lunch.
Politicians can’t fix things – they just break them.
A coming main street hurt ? – Depends on how long the sell off stays down. 1987, nothing. 1929, lots.
’29’ – the common folk buying stocks with credit.
’08’ – banks buying junk with derivatives.
Sell offs happen when the commodity is held by too many weak hands. (over extended hands)
Oil going straight down – USA dollar going straight up. What’s it saying ?? CNN talking heads of 2 weeks ago knew effall ! (Will you keep listening to them?)
Taxpayer $$s to help one group will always hurt the others. (That is why Politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths. SPIN !!)
Remember the experts saying “cash is trash ?” King now.
Leveraging, spec houses and auto leasing fell out of favor in 08. Bank on it.
This is a credit, liquidity crunch – aka, everyone has the loan. No one has the money to lend. Including gov’ts, institutions, banks.
Those that do have money to lend are unwilling at the moment because the collateral may fall in price. (See Japan 1995. aka deflation)
Deflation in today’s society would be the ‘Mother Of All Bulls In A China Shop’.
Bail outs are meant to achieve(try) a soft landing. Not to restore all the former wealth. Same as taking our money(taxes) and giving it back to ourselves( less adscam commissions).
RIM Berry going in toilet, needs cash. Lost almost a third of it’s value in one day. Should not have given to the UN’s One World Governance scheme .. $30 million. Loosing ground to apple, ect.
Loosing ground !? Potash Corp in free fall since Green Suzuki figured out biofuels are a dumb idea. (Our Farmers will wear that one big time) We may be asked to bail that one out too.
The easiest money will be made in the months after the Bull stands up.
“ET at 1:15pm. That’s a pretty good meta-analysis of Canada’s descent into nanny state entitlement mentality. I would summarize yet further by saying that it began under Uncle Louis in the 1950s, started to get traction under Lester Pearson in the 1960s, but really accelerated under Trudeau. That was the era in which Ontario fully caught the entitlement disease, along with many major cities in the other provinces.”
But it isn’t as though Canadian politicians (esp. the Liberal party and its CCF, later NDP, cheerleaders) hatched this on their own and made it all up as they went along. Their model above all was post-WWII Great Britain, but other European states as well (Tommy Douglas didn’t “invent” nationalized medicine, as our pathetic mythology would have it).
Felis:
And I thought I was a pessimist….
The Gods of the Copybook Headings will return, but how many will be capable of understanding what’s happening and what’s needed, or will they all just rage?
The risk of the shock treatment is a descent into savagery.
Invest in resorts and spa’s like the AIG executives after the bailout. All the stress no doubt. hahaha! Kate killed the post from the Washingtonpost.com or google AIG 85 billion bailout resort
Can I make a suggestion to the SDA nation.
The result of this election is being decided right now. The blogosphere has a role to play.
I’ve been on the various forums and media sites for the whole election, trying to promote the Harper approach, trying to make it clear how disastrous the Liberals and NDP are for Canada. It’s a constant daily battle, and hundreds are fighting it.
Join the battle. Go out to the websites of the major newspapers, the TV networks. All of them – the Toronto Star, the CBC, CTV, Global, National Post, Globe and Mail, and any others you can think of. Call the radio shows. Voice your support for Harper.
Voice your opinions. Approve the good ones, disapprove the bad ones. That’s how public opinion is influenced.
You might influence some opinions. But sitting here won’t influence anything.
The most active site in the Canadian media is the Globe. Make your voice heard there, and elsewhere. Don’t let the liberal lies go unanswered.
Sure the Toronto Star is a scumsucker of a newspaper. Sure the CBC makes you sick. You can disdain the battle, or you can join up, post, and say you fought for what’s right.
There’s a week left in this election. I sense that it’s all still in the air.
I’m glad SOMEONE on the other side has the good sense to assist Stephen Harper in assuring Canadians that their banks are solid.
Ironic that the guy that would do anything to win realizes the importance more than the Doomsy Twins!
Stock market is in tank, and Dion is beaming.
It seems Grits finally got their wish for something bad to happen to Canadians, so they could take advantage of it. Don’t offer solutions, offer panic, offer meetings, offer lies (worst performance in G8, in recession).
Harper right on with buying opportunity. The TSX is roughly 1/3 off its highs. Good quality companies can be bought right now with margin of safety. Even if market drops a bit further, you have 33% return locked in to when it goes back to high, which it always does, the only question being time. Quality stock markets (hit: not Nasdaq) always return their values, and it’s hard to believe banks, who make money in virtually all environments, will shed value permanently, or long term.
Dion and Jack trash Harper as being out of touch for saying that there are buying oppurtunities out there. Of course this is news to be repeated over and over by the cbc and ctv. Today the TSE goes up proving that Harper was right. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this fact to supplant the leftards opinions on the news.
Posted by: Lori at October 8, 2008 3:30 PM
Good idea Lori. Been hammering comments on G&M. Commented on VC Sun.
Lets everybody do it from SDA. Maybe in at election date it might work.
Absolutely Shamrock. AFter dumping my stocks at TSX = 15K, I’ve been buying on the dips for the last couple of weeks.
Yet to see any money…. LOL…. but I’ve no qualms, and I’ve no delusions that I really know where the bottom is. All I know is that it’s not that far, and based on all previous market experience, markets get oversold in a panic, and always have a small to medium bounce-back before setting for the long slow recovery.
Bank stocks are on sale. I bought mine yesterday 🙂
Shamrock – “It seems Grits finally got their wish for something bad to happen to Canadians, so they could take advantage of it.”
It’s called “la politique du pire”, and it’s essentially a less violent version of the same approach that terrorists use to de-stabilize their target states.
“There is a key concept of revolutionary guerilla warfare that has, oddly, no standard translation in English: “la politique du pire”. Literally, it is the strategy of (making things) worse. The idea is that the guerillas, who lack the military strength to beat their opponents in open battle, should concentrate instead on destroying the structures and services on which the population depends.” (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/20/1061368352297.html Warning, author is Gwyn Dyer)
MJ at 2:50 pm.:
Of course the Libs and Dips did not invent the Canadian nanny state and political correctness on their own; but they did superintend its roll-out in Canada.
Re: Lori’s post 3:30 PM Oct 08/08:
“Sure the Toronto Star is a scumsucker of a newspaper. Sure the CBC makes you sick. You can disdain the battle, or you can join up, post, and say you fought for what’s right.”
I did just what you suggested several days ago by signing onto the CBC website. I had been posting and voting on comments there for a few days, that is until today. Apparently, they don’t appreciate my opinions and the way I vote, because today they blocked me from accessing the comments section for all of their news items. I did sign in with my original name and password today, I can still read the news articles, but I am totally blocked from the comments.
I guess this is how they get the counts up so high to favor their lefty skewed opinions on almost any issue.
Our tax dollars out there – working against us!
Dion is on newsworld,right now,mangling english and every question.
Jack Layton is shocked, shocked I tell you at the insensitivity of Stephen Harper telling Canadians that there might be some buying opportunities.
After he is finished his press conference, manages to gather himself from the Harper outrage he ….. calls his stockbroker.
What a hypocrite, telling us he interested in what’s going on at the kitchen table, with family income over $400K per year, hanging out with union bosses and other self-appointed (and taxpayer funded) elites.
Posted by: Shamrock — Dizzy, do you know the difference between the “market” and the “stock market?”
This is not a matter of Economic Science.
The question is why people are turning away from Harper.
And his image, his history & his recent words “let the market work itself out” place him in the market populist, small government camp.
Ironically, panics & wars, when people turn to the government, usually increase support for the government. He could still turn the drain around.
I don’t in fact think this the only factor — in Quebec he has misstepped a couple of times.
What’s your explanation for the drop?
Do you agree with the paste, which reeks of Brecht’s jibe that the people are not worthy of the government [so why not “dissolve the people and elect another?” ]
Let’s see. What’s the story?
The global financial crisis is being blamed on Harper. It’s all his fault. People are worried and he will not run around promising billions of dollars to anyone who asks for them. The country is going into, not a recession, but a depression! SO! let’s switch our vote to a party that promises to completely knacker the economy with government Green Stuff, i.e. taxation.
This whole decline in Harper’s numbers doesn’t make sense.
Do people really want a massive increase in taxation?
Do people really want the Dijon babbling on unintelligably?
Do people want to be brought to their knees by over-taxation; higher gas-prices?
Do people really want the childish Parliamentary behaviour we had in the last minority?
Do people really want yet another PM from Quebec?
RW:
Hell no! I’m a resident of Quebec.
“If they don’t Harper gets at least a minority and a Liberal opposition that can’t afford another election for 10 years.”
rat
That is exactly right. That is why the best thing that can happen to the Liberals is a Conservative majority government. The Conservatives will act as a majority if the seat breakdown is similar on Oct 15 as it is today.
The reason why things are good here in Canada compared to the rest of the world is because of the tories. It is why the US Federal Reserve is asking Canadian banks for help and why they are buying American assets right now.
I’ve watched politics since I was a teen, and have voted for almost every conceivable party over the years. I’m distubed at the decline for the Conservatives in the polls especially in consideration of the unrealistic platforms of the opposition. Between the arts and culture flair up (Hell hath no furry like the entitled being pulled from the Public teat), and the want of someone to “feel your pain” the hopes of a majority are in doubt. If I want someone to comfort me I’ll buy a dog. What I want is someone firmly in control, that I think can run a country. So, I’m with Harper all the way.
ET and Joe Canuck, good comments although somewhat harsh. Americans were always the pioneers, Canadians the colonials. I’ve long suspected it’s a genetic proclivity. The end result is sound banks north of the 49th. Rather than buy U. S. assets, how about bailing out little Iceland. I’d hate for Mad Vlad to get another death grip on a country in crisis. Plus, the large regional banks in the U. S. are quite fluid and laying low. You all do the same. Things will slow up for a few months and then momentum will rebuild. If, on the other hand, BO gets into the White House, hunker down for a long, squalid death spiral to socialism.
iowavette, thank you for noticing. The political finger pointing and blame game is running at high gear now in both our countries. I share your same concerns wrt the socialist agenda – both the Liberal and NDP parties here want to entrench us in their warm fuzzy versions of classless cradle-to-grave nanny statism. Not my cup of tea either.
Good luck to you all down there. I hope what emerges out of all this turmoil will be improved versions of both of our great nations.