The US economy is tanking; there is no doubt about it. So why is the Canadian Dollar losing value against the greenback?
At 8:05 a.m. EDT, the Canadian unit was at C$1.0767 to the U.S. dollar, or 92.88 U.S. cents, down from C$1.0686 to the U.S. dollar, or 93.58 U.S. cents, at Tuesday’s close.
Crazy!
Compare that to this:
A Zogby poll on 20 August put Barack Obama five points behind his Republican rival, reversing the seven-point lead the pollster had given him the month before.
Senator McCain 71, now leads Senator Obama by a 46 per cent to 41 per cent margin, according to a latest poll released by Zogby International on Wednesday.
The Canadian Economy is far from faltering (but tottering on the edge) with Canada being a major exporter of Oil and other natural resources. One wonders if perhaps the Tories have not done enough to nationalize the value of said resources? As nominal conservatives; the idea must seem anathema to their ethos of spend and cut instead of tax and spend. Then there is the whole idea of Canada getting involved in the US’s War on Terriers. Canada isn’t a target for international terrorism, it’s hardly even a splash damage candidate, why get involved at all until the shooting is over and Canadian peacekeepers can “keep the peace”
Yet, here we are. Canadians and Americans seem determined to vote in another series of Conservatives, and the eagerness of the timing of Harper’s (broken promise) election is eerily like a coordinated plan to make a solid bloc of Conservative governments in the West (the UK is heading for a Tory victory too) with the Russians getting poked with a sharp stick like they are, we are looking like a return to the Thatcher and Reagan era.
Are people really this stupid?
Obama is no savior, he’s barely (at least rhetorically) a left winger; he’s about 2 degrees from McCain rhetorically; but McCain is the servant of some very sinister paymasters, whereas Obama is more of a stooge for Capatalists.
Wondrously dangerous times indeed.
Look at this dispatch from America; and doubt that the conservative political machine has gone out of control:
The Richland County (S.C.) Sheriff’s Department has acquired an armored personnel carrier complete with a turret-mounted .50-caliber belt-fed machine gun for its Special Response Team.
Sheriff Leon Lott told the Columbia State newspaper that he hoped the vehicle, named “The Peacemaker,” would let the bad guys know that his officers are serious.
“We don’t look at this as a killing machine,” Lott told the paper. “It’s going to keep the peace. We hope the fact that we have this is going to save lives. When something like this rolls up, it’s time to give up.”
The Peacemaker has a top speed of 30 mph.
You see the reasoning there; we have a giant gun and a tank and we are going to use them. This is military hardware in the hands of the police as a response to the “out of control” levels of resistance they are experiencing. Which is of course a fallacy; I haven’t seen a single report of anti-tank weapons used in police firefights (please correct me if I am wrong).
This is the country that is not going to elect Obama, not because he is black (which is probably why 25-35 percent of them won’t), not because he is a Democrat (25 percent of Americans still think Pres. Bush is doing a great job, they will vote for McCain if he eats a Jewish baby on stage, it’s best to just ignore them) the majority of the remaining 40-50 percent are scared. They are scared of the future and think that the rhetoric of the people who have scared them for the past 8 years will come to pass and they will vote a nearly straight Republcian ticket and get the government they deserve.
The same is true for the Canadian dollar, the dollar is a strong alternative to the Greenback, but as Canada is tied so closely to the fate of the American Endeavor (through the strong economic and social ties that have been formed) The loony falls on the whims of the US rhetoric, which is as changeable as the wind and rooted in fear, not hope.
Another in a Continuous Series
Published by NiteMayr on September 4, 2008As I pointed out in an earlier post, the fate of the loonie seems to mirror the political futures of the Liberal Politicians of the day; when the Loonie/Liberal is doing well, it is to blame for the decision to destroy lives (look for it to be the liberals fault that American lives were lost in Iraq and Canadian lives were lost in Afghanistan). So; when the Loonie is strong, obviously it is smarter to pull the jobs from the newly empowered Canadain workers and put them in the hands of people with lesser purchasing power; oblivious to the fact that workers with greater purchasing power (and their neighbours) can toss more money into your coffers through actual purchase of goods an services, not to mention the ancilary tax breaks that come from doing business in an affluent area (due in no small part to your proximity as a business and employer)
Communities reward longtime employers with services and perks, recognizing the value their proximity brings (when I worked for Symantec I got breaks on all sorts of stuff just for being an employee, like free transit and so on). However, corporations, like any other hardcore capatalist, looks only at short term benefits and pull out of communities for whatever reason is in vogue; thus the fortunes of the Loonie has “doomed” a few businesses in Canada.
This is of course the time when the Government should re-invest it’s increasing purchasing power in the nationalisation of industries that do not depend upon foreign investment, or if dependant upon foreign purchases, are based upon resources or services unavailable in client nations. Like Oil.
So too are the fortunes of the Liberals, when plants close during the reign of the Liberals, it’s the Liberal politicians fault, but during the reign of the Tories, it’s the Loonies fault. It may be implict that the Tories are at heart the guiding force behind the economy; but the average reader of a newspaper may not make that connection.