Wealth inequality, not deficit, is the real problem

You’d think someone might notice that, whatever either “free-trade” party says about the deficit and the debt, the one consistent result of both parties’ policies has been increased wealth inequality. Progressive voters correctly presume that’s the intended result for the Conservatives, and, no matter what the Liberals preach, the purpose of their spending and tax policies is not, and will never be, to eliminate the deficit; it is to relentlessly increase the wealth and power of “their” people. The fully intended purpose of corporate subsidy is to maximize shareholder profit.

A lot of PC voters think the increasing inequality is an unfortunate result the Conservatives are forced into — because somebody’s got to do something about the deficit. What they don’t notice is an inevitable result of that “deficit” concern that the human element is ignored in the overemphasis on the numbers.

The Liberals, and many of their leftish progressive supporters, continue to think that shaming the Conservatives for their fiscal hypocrisy and promising to enforce fiscal discipline will be the political move that will win over the voters. But, although they’re the only party that’s actually done anything to reduce the deficit, their political position has still weakened. Why, they wonder, are “their” people not voting for them? Maybe it’s because their primary efforts always benefit shareholders and the financial manipulators over the working people. Liberal pundits, CEO advisers, free-trade policy wonks and their Chamber of Commerce overseers in the back rooms of think tanks ignore the flattened hopes of workers since the 1980s.

You’d think somebody might notice that what’s important here, what really matters for the people and the country, is the growing inequality of wealth, not the deficit.

It isn’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t.

Don Ryane

Lethbridge