In reference to Mayor Chris Burger’s contemplation of casinos to boost his budgets, surely after 38 years of totally privatized government debt funding it should be crystal clear that as long as this continues, so will all government debts escalate.
No government in Canada is now free of crippling debt and municipalities, having the least clout, are on the end of the line. The nation’s central bank, which returns all profits to the nation, is by far the most sensible place to supply such funding, and was a prime reason for the establishment of that bank. Its abandonment as a source triggered the tsunami of debt which has escalated for years and is fast consuming every nation which uses privatized debt funding.
A prime reason for the establishment of the Bank of Canada was exactly that — to fund the national government’s debt at cost, with profits reverting to the nation. The benefits were distributed as large transfer payments and grants to all provincial governments — which eventually reached the municipalities, but this process was abandoned without explanation in 1975, hence Mayor Burger’s problems. Vast sums of tax revenue have since been passed to the great banks for interest, which used to return to the nation; and would have been had our business-oriented governments looked after the nation rather than the private finance sector.
Debt control effectively ended with the abandonment of central bank loan funding, and all government debts — here, in the U.S.A. and across Europe, all using the same system — continue to escalate regardless of six years of record low rates of interest. Six European nations are now in default; the U.S. has incomprehensible, quite un-payable debt; yet the one proven and fundamentally sound funding method is not even contemplated by our national government. It remains the best kept secret in Canadian politics.
But many other countries do it — China of course, and Malaysia and India, all developing like crazy; and little Norway has a $600 billion sovereign wealth fund, where we have a $600 billion federal debt — and $56 billion provincially; we can’t pay that either.
And alone in the fiscally chaotic U.S.A., little (poor) North Dakota just over our border has no debt at all. I bet they aren’t thinking about casinos to balance their budgets — they haven’t run a deficit in 50 years. Guess why, Mayor Burger. Perhaps you should give them a call.
Russ Vinden
Errington
