Federal Election 2011

Four Federal elections in seven years says a lot to us worn out Beavers about present day Canada. Perhaps the strongest message is that none of the national political parties appeal to a significant number of us. We are fed up with their false promises, their corrupt practices and their constant bickering!

At the CFP website you can click on "links" at the top and visit their websites. Wow - what a bunch of motherhoods and malarky?

The Conservative slogan is "To work to keep taxes low." Well if that isn't a piece of weasel scatt... Since when did any beaver who has paid their taxes think that taxes are low! The Conservatives think taxes are low! What would it take for them to think taxes are high!

And then the Liberal slogan is "Putting an end to waste". Well I'll tell you, I've smelled some "ends" that don't stink as much as their election platform. Having this election is a gigantic "waste" so what the heck do they mean? If you see the number of times they mention Big Beaver "Harper", it is obvious they can't think for themselves... they can only criticize someone else... These aren't acceptable values or credentials to get any beaver's vote.

And the New Democrats have a slogan of "Practical First Steps". Sounds a bit like they can only take "Baby Steps". They do seem to make a few promises that will appeal to the majority of Beavers, but they don't have a mature enough vision to make changes without sinking the canoe.

I'll tell you, it is sure frustrating to have to be patient until we can officially afford to launch the CFP as a serious political contender. In the meantime, I hope some "federalist" beavers will stand up and become independent candidates. Canadians need a real choice and none of these old, worn out, americanized "copy cat" parties have earned any respect by the voters.

I'm amazed how many concerned beavers have decided to boycott this election. Perhaps the final voter turnout will give us a true idea of how many beavers have been brainwashed by media hype.

The Canadian media crows love an election because they will have 6 weeks of "news" stories. But don't expect them to dig down to the grass roots to discover what most of us really think.

I was hoping to put my snowshovel away... but it looks like I'll be needing it to shovel a growing mound of c..p!

Well, keep your head to the stump!

Bob the Beaver

Government Beavers' Wages 42% Higher!!!

WOW! We all suspected beavers on government pay cheques were wizzing down the rapids on bigger and better logs and living in fancier beaver lodges, but 41.7% higher compensation than comparable private sector wage slaves is downright larceny!

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business reported this statistic on page 9 of its' newly released report: Restoring Canada's Fiscal Fitness. Basic salaries are 17.3% higher for the same jobs in the public vs. private sectors.

With their unions repeatedly extorting (extort: obtain by intimidation, importunity, etc.) the politicians, who graciously accept pay raises to keep up with the unionized civil servants, the whole Canadian economic engine has been gummed up and slowed down to a snails pace. Since 1968, when the teachers unionized, the government beavers and weasels have grown fat whilst the private sector corporate wage slaves have been tossed in and out of diminishing paying jobs by voracious pythons of global origins.

Many of these former private sector workers are maturing self-unemployed in the invisible ranks of "consultants" who don't even show up on the unemployment statistics. But, if they do have one good year, the fat cats at Revenue Canada grab marginal taxes at rates of 39%, which leaves little for needed boosts to meagre pensions or savings.

There was a day in Canada when the private sector accumulated family net worth and then created innovative new enterprises. They usually earned about 10-15% more than their comparable service sector employees. But by the 1970's this situation dramatically began to change and by 2011 the private sector workers earn only 70% of what the service sector workers earn. The servants have become the bosses and Canada's entreprenneurial initiative has been robbed.

Canada isn't alone in the expansion and domination of public sector workers to the point that national economies are strangled by government borrowings and massive fixed government overheads for job protection and lucrative pensions. Greece, Ireland, Spain and even Britain have all favoured government instead of private sector growth throughout the past 40 years.

We all have a difficult path ahead to restore an equitable re-distribution and balancing of wealth. There are also many other emerging priorities related to Canada's ageing population and $1 trillion debt.

The time has arrived for Canadian beavers to get their heads out of the muddy water, take a look around, and choose new political masters who can take a body check and still get down the ice to score some goals.

Keep you sticks on the ice!

Bob the Beaver

TSX-LSX Merger Anti-CDN Interests

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan identified "wild-eyed nationalists who don't know international business" as being irrelevant in the discussion concerning the approval of the stock exchange merger. I can only assume he was pointing a finger at us nationalistic beavers.

Little does he know that he was still in diapers when when many of us were involved in international businesses.

After his political career is finished he will be looking for a lucrative international business job. Does this mean he is biased and may not act in the best interest of Canadians? Should we be confident his ethical integrity will overcome whatever personal interests he might have in the outcome of the merger proposal?

This $3 billion proposal will undermine Canadian influence over $trillions in our current economy. From personal experience in one of Canada's largest foreign controlled businesses, I know that the Cdn president asked for American approval to spend a miniscule $25,000 that wasn't previously approved in his hundreds of millions of dollars budget. Foreign control is exactly that and a merger creates foreign control. Don't believe for a minute that Canadians will have control of a new TSX-LSX!

The bottom line is that the owners of the merged TSX and LSX alone will profit by access to a larger pool of commission paying and registration paying stocks. The fact that a company is headquartered somewhere else in the world doesn't matter to them. After all, many foreign resource stocks are already listed on the TSX.

In fact, the TSX is the pre-emminent resource stock market in the world. So, if some resource companies in London can't raise capital, they should list on the TSX where this kind of capital is already plentiful. This would be basic good "international business" sense.

Canadian beavers need to be wary of the domestic and foreign weasels who proclaim our market is "too small" for "international business" needs. This is pure poison ivy. We have served the global resource markets effectively for 100 years.

In fact, most legitimate investors prefer the Canadian stock exchange because they know it has a reputable level of integrity and is closely policed. In a global business world where even huge financial institutions have had their paws in the honey-pot, "international business" men truly prefer the security of Canadian controlled markets. Furthermore, those who claim our markets eventually will be bought up by Americans are globalists who want financial moguls to establish even more influence and control over our Canadian autonomy and independence.

Canada should be involved in "international business", but we must stop shipping out so much profit to foreign companies who own or control the trading in our resources. These funds are lost to internal Canadian re-investment and are easily structured to avoid paying significant taxes here. The bottom line is that the small cap beavers end up paying the Lion's share of taxes and these foreign concerns send zillions to their managers and directors outside Canada.

Canadians need to pressure our politicians to begin the process of securing our global autonomy. This merger should not be allowed to occur.

On the other hand, if the LSX is so short of investment capital, maybe they would like a national beaver fund to just buy them out?

Sorry guys... bite my tail... if you dare!

Bob the Beaver

Back to Basics for Banks

The fat bankrupt bank beavers have been bailed out by the taxpayers, so it is time for them to get back into their proper social roles. Leveraged derivates can only lead back to another precipice, so how about some good old fashioned banking?

Canada built their rich banks on the backs of homeowners and entrprenneurs, not hedge fund gamblers. To move forward, we need the banks to get back in bed with ordinary Canadians who need ordinary loans to finance their property, capital equipment and inventory investments. These are the loans that stimulate our economy by creating new jobs and new industries.

We also need the porky government agencies to lose some weight and the high metabolism tax weasels to go on a diet. Everyday Canadian beavers need a chance to pay off their lines of credit, credit cards and car loans/ leases. Income taxes need to be cut much more than corporate taxes.

By improving the balance sheets of middle class and lower income Canadian beavers, we will be able to create a stable and growing job market for all Canadians. Canada has always needed a strong small business sector that provides 70% of employment.

Our government policies must not continue to favour international corporations who close plants and lock out workers as soon as a cheap labour market emerges elsewhere. We can not endanger our autonomy by signing international trade agreements that give these global players legal control over us. It is time to finance domestic businesses- not investments by foreign corporations and foreign government agencies.

Canada needs its own Sovereign Investment Enterprise, just like the Saudi's, Chinese and other wealthy nations around the world. We need a long-term strategy and game plan.

It just doesn't make sense to be generous to those who are making hay out of our oil reserves and forcing Canadians and our industries to pay "world" prices for our plentiful supplies of this important resource. The Saudi's and Americans are setting the price of our oil- not Canadians!

We can't be shy beavers anymore. The next round of world trade negotiations will be over our fresh water reserves. The oil rich persian gulf countries have invested $trillions in their new infrastructures while Canadians just puff up our government bureaucracies.

Come on you beavers. It is time to defend and take care of our own pond!

How about sharpening your teeth on the head of a wooden muscrat bureaucrat?

Bob the Beaver

Bill C-24 is SCARY!

So our paranoid cousins to the south want our government to pass Bill - C24 that gives them all the private info on Canadians boarding flights passing through USA airspace. Maybe with this info they can scramble some jets to force your flight to land on USA soil?

Canadian beavers are personally concerned about the rapid spread and integration of databases around the world that contain personal information that is quickly outdated and unfortunately contain erroneous or incomplete data. These databases are extremely difficult to modify or correct and thus often create more problems than they help resolve.

Bill C-24 is yet another process for creating huge collections of information that rarely, if ever, produce more effective investigations than standard security practices. There is a mythology developing that these databases will find a needle in a beaver dam or a beaver dam with a needle. But as anyone with common sense, who are not suffering from muscrat paranoia, will realize, criminals will have false identifications whenever they travel. Thus, the database will only identify beavers who have had minor past indiscretions or been afflicted by bureaucratic errors.

Canadians really don't feel that we should be creating a global digitized personal identification network for future generations of Canadians. I think this step will encourage more marginalization of individual thinkers and lead to greater mass paranoia and extremist groups. There is a crucial balance between individual rights and individual freedom that can be thrown into imbalance by excessive monitoring and control. We don't want to lay the groundwork for the world to become prison-like for future generations.

As you know, during the past twenty-five years there has been accumulating sympathy for an eventual global government. Such databases and international integration will pave the way for such a freedomless New World Order. Canadians must put their paws down now and refuse to participate in this perilous journey.

In the case of Bill C-24, it is crucial for the conscience and soul of our politicians to rise above party solidarity and stand against this further intrusion into personal privacy.

Also, real criminals or political terrorists will travel with fake ID anyway and these databases will not provide any advantages over traditional security investigations.

Beavers around the world are watching our response to this imperialist demand by our giant neighbours. Frankly, aren't they big enough to take care of their own security without creating the beginnings of a global personal database?

Frankly, it seems that we are turning into americanized Buffalo stampeding towards a precipice instead of individualistic and industrial Beavers which is our cultural heritage.

Keep your tails away from falling trees!

"Bob the Beaver"

Who Really Benefits From Quantitative Easing?

So the world is finally learning the truth about $USA, Yuans, Euros, $Cdn,Francs, Lira, Yen, Pesos, etc. Currencies are merely empty promises by governments to pay their currency promises with currency promises. They even eliminated their old promise on currencies to pay the bearer an equivalent amount in silver or gold. Now currencies are merely described as "legal tender", meaning they can be used to pay off debts.

(For those of you who are new readers of Bob the Beaver's commentaries, you should know that Bob uses plain, beaver on the pond, language and terminology as much as possible.)

Thus, countries in debt can just print legal tender, or create more electronic records of legal tender in computer databases, and use this extra supply of money to pay off existing debts.

Of course, if the creditors, public or the media saw what was happening they would slap their beaver tails in warning. But governments obscure what they are doing by selling new money at a discount to banks who can borrow cheaper than anyone else and lend it out at a profit or buy interest earning debts to make more profits.

The problem is that by loaning the banks all this cheap new money, the banks are borrowing more money than ever before. In fact, their deposits have dropped from 10% of their borrowings to less than 2.5% in the USA and many other countries and 3.2% in Canadian banks. This leverage of 31:1 and over 40:1 is way beyong the 14:1 ratio between loans and deposits considered sustainable for the past 70 years.

In ordinary beaver family terms it is equivalent to owning a $500,000 home with only a $7500 downpayment, (2.5%). Such a family would likley have their house foreclosed if the value dropped to $492,500. Any business with only 2.5% equity or collateral would be put into receivership the next day. In basic language the banks have drowned and only artificial respiration can save them. (No beaver would ever give them "mouth to mouth" resucitation - especially in Canada where they have free health care if they can tread water long enough to get treated.)

So the bottom of the pond is that governments are printing money for banks faster than Mexicans can grow pot, Afghanis can grow poppies or Canadian Beavers can chug-a-lug beers.

All this extra supply of national "yingos" means that by 2011, imports are going to cost these countries more "yingos". But the big problem will be that the average beaver will have to pay more for his needs when he isn't receiving more of these new "yingos" in his paycheck. In fact, he will have to either borrow extra "yingos" or cut back his consumption of goods and services. This causes a recessionary whirlpool.

However, the fact is that China, India and other developing countries have billions of people who want a middle class lifestyle. These countries have acquired the new technologies of the past 40 years from the developed economies and are creating the next generation of technologies for themselves.

The economic and social momentum they have begun will be impossible to stop. They will still need the goods, services and commodities produced by the countries with decreased value currencies. What is happening is that they are transiting from net exporters to net importers.

As the education and skills and technology of a middle-class workforce increases the cost of their domestic products and exports, other countries will find them to be less affordable. Similarly, as the new middle class prospers, imports will increase and thus lead to trade deficits.

It was this process that occurred in the developed economies during the past 60 years and that will likley occur in the developing economies during the next 40 years.

Financing this economic cycle during the past century was strongly influenced by monetary policies designed to remedy major recurrent financial crises. There was no real global monetary plan or perspective so financial markets were relatively free to do the expedient in an increasingly liberallized financial environment.

But the underlying problem throughout this period was a lack of capital and cash to meet the needs of an increasingly democraticed world. Inflationary fears kept monetary supplies tight for most of these years. Thus, the financial sector had to find new ways to leverage sparse financial resources. The financial crises of 2007 through 2015 have been brought about by the excess leveraging of capital which was caused by a lack of financial liquidity in a rapidly developing world.

Thus, the hope and expectation of quantitative easing is to increase financial liquidity and reduce capital leverage in the near term. In other words, by expanding the size of the financial pond it will enable more beavers to become middle class citizens.

During this transition, wealthy beavers want to hold onto their proportionate share of the pond so that they can remain big beavers in a small pond. In the past they could control the flow of capital and size of the pond. In fact, there is evidence that they are redirecting the growing flow of new funds into their share of the pond that they have damned up.

But the good news is that the pond will be bigger sooner than later and the little beavers may soon swim in the new pond of economic order. How this will take place is the subject of another commentary.

Keep your teeth sharp!

Bob the Beaver

Potash Sale is Treason?

Unbelievable! Canada supplies close to 50% of the world's supply of potash, a key ingedient in fertilizer. This is a non-renewable natural resource. It is sheer stupidity to give control of this essential natural resource to a giant global mining conglomerate.

According to The Economist, the purchaser already effectively controls and manipulates global supply and prices for a wide range of minerals. Aside from a short term bribe to the Canadian government, how will their price fixing help us ordinary Canadians and our potash customers over the next few generations?

This government is wrong to assume they can make a decision to bind future governments to a sell out deal to foreign interests. Canadian beavers have a right to own these resources for our future generations.

We all need to slap our tails on the water and make so much noise that these muscrats and weasels in Ottawa will back away from selling our heritage.

Keep your teeth sharp on the legs of politicians.

Bob the Beaver