In case people think we can't afford to build our own excellent nuclear subs, for our own defence purposes, the reason for this claim is our deregulated and almost fully privatized debt-based banking system., which focuses on keeping inflation down for the wealthy, rather than full-employment.
As it so happens, my higher education is in economics, and I can't recall having seen a sillier assertation since the last time I got a "Social Credit" phamplet in my mailbox. Without spending my entire lunch hour on this, we can simply look at the historical record to see which system usually outperforms the other: Highly regulated banking systems or deregulated "for profit" systems. The times the deregulated systems fail is usually when there is some sort of ill advised government intervention into the economy or the banking system.
Your "higher-education" in neo-classical economics won't help you here. During Worl War II, Canada's government DID intervene in the banking system, as our Bank of Canada, naionalized in 1938, forced private banks to increase their reserve holdings, and created nearly interest-free loans to pay for our military.
Canada was in a depression, people were unemployed--all of a sudden, everyone was employed, we built 15,000 planes, 600 ships, WITHOUT going into debt. How? We borrowed from ourselves. The Bank of Canada IS the government, so the government is paying itself, which gives it tonnes of flexibility.
Inflation is the scourge of the poor, since the wealthy have the resources to shift their assets into "real" goods which keep their value, while the poor find their monetary saveings, pension plans etc. are eroding in value as inflation eats away at the value of money. During the Carter presidency, inflation was tearing the heart out of the Western economy as the savings pool dried up (rich people moving assets to real goods, and what was left was loosing its value), yet unemployment was also spiralling out of control. Keynsian and Marxist economic theory wasn't any help (in fact Keynsian theory explicitly denies that inflation and unemployment can move in the same direction at the same time), it took a combination of monetarist dicipline on the part of the US Federal reserve to reign in inflation, while deep tax cuts by the Reagan administration jump started the US economy. In a seven year period, the United States increased GDP by 30%, and it can be argued that if the USSR didn't exist, government spending would not have increased at the rate it did to support the political imperative to defeat the USSR.
You talk about the "western economy." They don't need to act globally. There are differences. The "economy" improving in the U.S. often accompanies rising debts or rising unemplyment and income gaps.
Keynesian argued that tax cuts and public spending could stimulate an economy--that was ideological, it doesn't always make a difference.
Reaganomics argues that tax cuts AND cuts to public spending will stimulate an economy. For who?
Marxist is a grey term.
Regarding the U.S. federal reserve, they're not exactly like the Bank of Canada, they're a cartel of private banks.....the Bank of Canada is a crown corporation....the U.S. federal reserve is not:
www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/3/powerfortress.htm
www.wizardsofmoney.org
Short summary, tax cuts stimulate the economy and increase overall wealth. Today, the same thing is happening, as tax cuts and eliminating double taxation is propelling the US to an annual 5% increase in GDP (which vastly increase American wealth and power over the Bush administration.se a compound interest table to figure out why), while bringing unemployment to the lowest figure in the industral world.
Cutting taxes for the poor would be a good idea, but tax-cuts in Canada and the U.S. means tax cuts for billionaries, and that means the only thing that will be stimulated will be their offshore bank account.
As for subs, the public clearly does not want to increase Defense spending. With a $9 billion dollar surplus being posted this year alone, there is enough government money to buy almost any defense system we could desire, but no will to spend it that way. I would argue that the best thing to do in this situation is to reduce taxes by $9 billion, and let economic growth power increased Defense expenditures (1.1% of a growing economy is an increase in real terms).
Economic growth is not possible with growing foreign ownership, unemplyment. Only tax cuts for the poor would help, because the rich don't spend most of their money, they horde it.
I never said the public wanted subs badly--I said we could easily afford them, which we could if we abandoned what John Ralston Saul refers to as the familiar "Laissez-faire" economics of the pre-depression era, from the 19th century to the 1930s.
Canada had its most prosperous period post world war II, when we regulated our banking system more. We built our trans-Canada highway, subway lines, financed a big military, health care with no problems, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Expo '67, etcettera. Now, we produce wealth more efficiently, but have growing gap in real income, and are told we "can't afford anything," we have to "pay down the deficit and cut spending" only a fraction of which is due to spending, the rest debt-payments to private banks.
Here is a great essay by John Ralston Saul on globalism, and the awful lassiez-faire liberalism that goes with it:
www.cryptogon.com/docs/theendofglobalism.html
This is still the best site I've found on alternative economics, and can explain things much better than I can--Paul Hellyer's baby, yeah the guy who unified our armed forces:
www.comer.org
