Debt Forgiveness For All!

The "Occupy Bay Street" movement has its defenders. Most notably the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and the current federal Minister of Finance. Both of whom say without hesitation that people have a right to be concerned and to be angry, and to express both those emotions, quietly, lawfully, even mildly, albeit civilly-disobediently.

Although Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, while upholding the reason for and right to protest, still knows enough about the inchoate and leaderless protest to caution that those who do so "be sure what one is protesting about". Unemployment and fears it will rise, certainly. Tough economic times, resulting in government cut-backs in services and the loss of public-service jobs, certainly. Anger at the reality of Bay/Wall Streets sitting pretty, why not?

People are angry, and they're just not going to take it any more. From the tax-funded government handouts to wealthy financial institutions who simply went on stuffing rich emoluments at their executives as rewards for failing the public trust, to the immense losses suffered by ordinary people in the wake of a global economic recession.

They're angry about loss of hope for the future. They're angry about the still-rising deficit and the impossible debt.

But most of those worried people haven't gone out on the streets. Those who have, do represent in part, people concerned for all those reasons. But it's also party-time, time to pull on those carnival costumes, bang the drums, get together for a common cause, even if the common cause eludes some of those appearing in the public eye, confronting wary security personnel.

Hard to credit unions with concern over the rising deficit and unemployment; they've been doing all right for their members. The peace-loving anarchists are out there, behaving themselves. The anti-Semites have emerged from their dark, dank cellars to the full light of day, joyfully embracing yet another opportunity to lay all the global financial problems at the feet of conniving Jews.

Canadians don't have to fret that Canadian banks got their tax dollars; that happened in the U.S. But it did impact on us, regardless, didn't it? We're paying for that financial collapse big time, though we didn't hand out the worthless paper with nothing backing it that the American financial houses did, throughout Europe, casting their finances into hellfire too.

And although their premiere financial institutions bred the clever, sleight-of-hand manoeuvres that beggared the globe, while acting as a training house for leading finance figures of the U.S. and British governments, we in Canada were more cautious with our oversight and our conservative expectations of all our financial transactions and banking rules.

It's just that the people out there, completely sincere, no doubt, and having no clue what motivates investors aren't very realistic. Demands such as "free college education", "bring the fossil fuel economy to an end", and "immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all", are representative of adolescents lingering in dreamland.

Capitalism based on profits and gain works. But it only works well when there are recognized limits, and when some responsibly-authorized governing body is around to ensure that everything is above-board and ethically undertaken. Gain isn't a dirty word; it's what keeps people investing and producing jobs for those who can't invest.

People become industrious for gain. We saw what happened with socialism under the USSR: nothing worked; people will not exert themselves if their exertions do not result in commensurate reward; guaranteeing a modest living does not impress people. We are a greedy, acquisitive breed; it is bred into our very marrow, hard-wired to our neural synapses.

Unfortunately, we also like complaining, a lot. Not that we haven't plenty to complain about. Those dastardly industrialists with their big-money capitalist-entrepreneurial financially unethical skills do burn us. The ever-growing gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is bloody well unfair.

Just think about all those people who idolized Steve Jobs, and mourned his passing, then stood in incredible line-ups the week following his death to acquire his latest Apple toy, further enriching that very rich enterprise....