Monday, May 16, 2022

Puppets On A String

 


I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled as to how the recent increases in interest rates will combat inflation, given that it is mostly caused by external factors over which we have little control. While some have suggested it will bring a much-needed cooling to a housing market that has soared nationwide to absurd heights, it is only Heather Scoffield who has put it into a different, some would say sinister, context.

She starts off by observing that Joe Biden seems to be directing his attention toward profiteers in the corporate sector.

He issued an executive order, set up a high-profile antitrust unit, told it to crack down on profiteering, and pinpointed exactly where he wanted to see action.

Airlines, telecommunications, prescription drugs, the web giants — the executive order called them out.

Such boldness and focus are absent in Canada.

Here, the focus is on making sure workers hit by higher consumer prices don’t push for higher wages. The fear is they’ll set off a wage-price spiral that would launch already-high inflation into the stratosphere.

Wages have been creeping up at a much slower pace than inflation. In February, average hourly earnings rose 2.7 per cent from a year earlier, while consumer prices rose 5.7 per cent. Of course, the numbers bounce around month to month, and wages are picking up a bit of steam. But they’re not on fire like the prices workers face when they go to buy their groceries or fill their cars with gas.

Just to make sure wages don’t surge, the federal government is easing the way for a huge influx of temporary foreign workers in low-wage industries. 

While the Bank of Canada is putting its foot on the necks of workers, corporations seem to be enjoying a free and fast rise to record profits.

Net income for corporations across all industries was up 5.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the three months earlier. On an annual basis, non-financial industries were seeing profits 52.2 per cent higher, while financial industries were up 14.2 per cent on the year.

And while the government has made mewling mention of improper corporate behaviour, our country

has fallen far behind its global counterparts in cracking down on anti-competitive behaviour.

And I have yet to see any sweat forming on the collective brow of Corporate Canada, no doubt reassured that it is pulling the strings on a federal government it knows identifies with and fears it far more than it does the working person.

Perhaps Allan Baker of Scarborough, writing in The Star's Sunday print edition, sums it up best and demonstrates that corporate fealty is not limited to the feds:

Politicians help corporations as people go hungry

Lagging wages just how Ottawa wants it, May 6

Heather Scoffield writes that, in contrast to Washington, where President Joe Biden has taken “a big swing at corporations,” in Ottawa “the focus is on making sure workers don’t push for higher wages.”

To ensure that wage rates for Canada’s lowest-paid workers remain at a minimum, “the federal government is easing the way for a huge influx of temporary foreign workers in low wage industries.”

This is a deliberate attempt to keep corporations highly profitable at the expense of hard working people.

Our friends and neighbours, who are working in low-wage industries, are already suffering from higher housing costs, increased food prices and gouging at the gas pumps.

 Scoffield also reports on the increases in corporate profits over the past year: “Non-financial industries were seeing profit 52.2 per cent higher.” At Loblaws, Canada’s largest grocery chain, profits were up nearly 40 per cent over 2021, which was also a profit-making year for the company. Loblaws eliminated a temporary increase in pay for front-line workers long before the pandemic ended.

In Ontario, Doug Ford has refused to change Bill 124, which limits wage increases for nurses and other government employees to one per cent.

Ontario politicians need to demonstrate to voters how they will reduce income inequality, and, I hope, eliminate the need for food banks.


 

 

 



8 comments:

  1. just a test - as Anonymous Lorne.. see if it works

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, Googly has managed the impossible. Log in and it forgets your name when commenting, so that everyone is now Anonymous.

    As for profiteering, well it's at a peak now, isn't it? Our government(s) has never had a strong consumer interest. Been saying for 25 years that if you want to make easy money and get away with it, Canada's the place to be. The US has lemon laws for dud cars, we don't, yet we're supposed to be the socialists and they the capitalists. Just one example of the way we complacently believe ourselves just wonderful.

    I trust government about as far as I can throw it. Bureaucrats hide misdeeds, politicians are out of control. Most people agree things are not too peachy keen at all and that the uber rich run us like lemmings, and yoked lemmings at that. Trust is not high.

    It's like this damned war over in Ukraine. You can sit around and get spoon-fed our propaganda every hour on the news, and find that any attempt to read what the Russkies are saying is blocked on the web. Wouldn't want us to know what the other sides' lies are, eh? It might disrupt the narrative we get fed as prices shoot through the roof, and Europe starts closing down its manufacturing. I'd rather hear some truth beyond the elite cheerleading and make up my own mind instead of being under mind control and hardly free. So then, when you do go looking, like on Indian web sites and alternatives, well, golly gee, all of a sudden I know I'm being fed fairy tales from my supposed betters here at home. Am I surprised? Nah.

    Bill Malcolm
    In case Gogglebox thinks I'm Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your thoughts here, Bill. I think some of the difficulty with our governments' priorities lies in the average voter, who is not engaged in a really healthy way with democracy. Because chequebook issues are uppermost in elections (and I can understand that), depth of policy and scrutiny are not things any party or government really strives for. Slogans and populism seems to carry the day as a result.

      Delete
  3. The transnational human resource racket is conflating the programme with immigration, while the pressure that Canada's ridiculously high level of immigration is exerting on the housing market is already putting the screws to low-wage earners. Members of the public pay no attention until they are personally affected.

    While we've been distracted by the public health emergency the racketeers have been working the politicians. The TFWP has been set to destroy the last remnants of traditional labour relations in Canada. This is what they wanted and this is what they got:

    Removal of the limit to the number of low-wage positions that seasonal employers can fill through the TFW program;

    Increasing the maximum duration to 270 days a year;

    LMIAs will be valid for 18 vice 6 months;

    Increasing High-Wage and Global Talent streams duration to 3 vice 2 years;

    Increasing TFW content of company workforce limit for seven specific job sectors to 30 vice 20%; and

    Terminating the policy that automatically refuses LMIA applications for low-wage occupations in the Accommodation and Food Services and Retail Trade sectors (for regions with unemployment rates greater or equal to 6%)..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is very interesting and disturbing information, John. It would seem that the powers-that-be will accept nothing but what they used to call " a disciplined workforce."

      Delete
    2. Worker shortage? The racketeers are always ready to crush anything that might help the slugs in Canada. Try unionizing that dog's breakfast.

      Delete
  4. One guesses there’s there’s a real grift to lobbying ..
    The late Saint Jim Flaherty - he of the State Funeral
    who died as Dr Kellie Leitch MP gave him the kiss of life..

    Flaherty had the grift down to an Annual Donor Pilgrimage..
    Morning religious service & a working brunch, sing Oh Canada..
    at a luxurious Remote Retreat, Spa & Country Club
    His Guests ? The CEO’s of all the major sectors leading entities

    An entire weekend to craft a new ‘To Do List’ for Stephen Harper to build supporting Legislation Accordingly..
    That’s what Harper & Flaherty built Omnibus ‘Budgets’ from
    An astonishing example is simply defunding The Small Lakes Experimental Center.. it’s why he also demolished existing Legislation protecting Canada’s Navigable Waters
    That was a no Brainer to do
    for Oil, Gas, Lavalin, TC Energy Pipelines & Alberta

    Any Investigator would say Qui Bono - Who Profits ?
    It’s classic symbiotic parasitism - both ‘Parties’ profit
    It’s also Apex Corruption done at Taxpapers Expense

    Salamander 🦎

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Following the money always yields some interesting results, Sal. With the Small Lakes Experimental Center, if memory serves me, it was saved by an infusion of provincial cash under Kathleen Wynne. The concept of the public good has, however, for the most part been replaced by the corporate good, a neoliberal tenet that is tenaciously pursued by our political 'master's.

      Delete