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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Look out capitalist running dogs, there’s a new dog catcher in town -- Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper is going to put an end to the “unfettered capitalism” in Canada’s financial sector. This cancer of free enterprise was discovered, just in time no doubt, by our newly re-elected Prime Minister with the help of 3,780 vigilant bureaucrats in charge of regulating Canada’s financial institutions. “Unfettered capitalism” was allegedly found hiding cowardly under 30,000 pages of federal regulations.
(David Brown, former chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission, described Canada’s financial regulatory system as "hobbled by excessive cost and complexity" that “can be unfathomable." Brown is obviously a bourgeois shill for the capitalist exploiters. I'm confident he won't fool Harper.)
In related news, sales of Das Kapital by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels have been steadily climbing since 2005. I’m sure that recent bulk order from the PMO helped.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be stockpiling gold and cherry flavoured cigarillos.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on October 18, 2008 in Canadian Conservative Politics | Permalink
Comments
S. Joseph Harper is going to put an end to the “unfettered capitalism” in Canada’s financial sector.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on October 18, 2008
What are you libertarians worried about. We're using a "fiat currency" that according to you guys has no value anyways. So until we move to a commodity based currency money is just an illusion. So don't sweat it.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-10-18 7:31:03 PM
The Stig: Your joke would be humorous if it were well-informed.
The claim is that the trust that underpins the value of money is trust in the word of the government. Currency is not backed with anything of independent value (like gold or silver).
Separately, gold bugs make up a small portion of libertarians anyways. The libertarians at Cato or reason magazine, for example, are not gold bugs.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2008-10-18 8:37:05 PM
Separately, gold bugs make up a small portion of libertarians anyways. The libertarians at Cato or Reason magazine, for example, are not gold bugs.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 18-Oct-08 8:37:05 PM
I simply don't believe that, Peter.
Besides, whether you're a monetarist or a sound money Austrian, you don't want the government to nationalize the financial system, which is now happening the world over.
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2008-10-18 8:45:58 PM
Matthew, when we hear the term unfettered capitalism, I wonder if anyone really knows what that looks like in practice. The sub prime mortgage fiasco for example, is described by Neil McDonald of the CBC as being caused by this unfettered capitalism and greed. Yet it was and is FAR from unfettered. And it is only quasi capitalistic.
Besides, speaking of it in a negative way such as we hear from the CBC, one must conclude that capitalism is actually a bad thing. The benevolent statists must fetter this evil thing to protect us from our own stupidity and greed.
Posted by: TM | 2008-10-18 9:49:26 PM
Fact is, between lobbyists for various corporations and the people that they lobby...our politicians, the "system" we have should be called a Corporatist government. Not a Parliamentary Democracy. As long as this system of lobbying continues...we can neither trust business or government. We need a seperation of Business and Government...then for the first time in history, we might actually get to see what true capitalism looks like.
As for gold bugs...so what! let them collect and advocate for gold, I'm ok with that. But realistically we aren't going to shut down fiat currency with a magic wand over night even if that were to be the goal. It would be a long gradual process of many generations to reattach cash to gold. Until then...use the "cash" instead of plastic...before the Cash disappears altogether. Don't go into debt because "fiat" or not, debt is real.
Posted by: JC | 2008-10-18 10:17:28 PM
Agreed, JC. Once you allow government to regulate business, then you open the door for business to lobby government. The only solution (not likely to happen anytime soon) is to get the government out of trying to run business, the economy, and our private lives.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-10-19 1:05:19 PM
Canada could teach the world a thing or two about how to run a stable banking system.
Posted by: set you free | 2008-10-19 8:31:05 PM
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