Re: Canada

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Walker wrote:

>The WSJ is only too modest. A key part of the massive propaganda campaign to
>help sell the austerity program was a Wall Street Journal article claiming
>that Canada was about to "hit the debt wall". That, coupled with a "leaked"
>IMF memo was trumpeted through the Canadian media as proof positive the sky
>was falling. They went along and they went along and they went along until
>they met a Wall Street fox . . . "We're going to tell the king the sky is
>falling," said Chicken Little, Ducky Daddles, Turkey Lurkey and Canada
>Goosey Loosey.

I hear this from a lot of Canadians - the implication being that Canada
didn't have a debt problem. With a structural budget deficit of over 5% of
GDP in 1991, net government interest payments also over 5% of GDP, and the
second-highest net government debt position in the G-7 (after Italy), I'd
say those are numbers too big to ignore. With a net international
investment position of -41% of GDP in 1996, I'd say that Canada still has a
debt problem. When you've got a big debt, your creditors call the shots,
no? Or am I missing something here?

Doug