Committee On Monetary and Economic Reform

Leaving out money too!

While this article raises many valid points about the future problems with a lack of pensions, being the pro-corporate neoliberal FP of course it misses the mark on the source of the problem and the solution.

https://sizone.org/R/parse2.php?r=https://financialpost.com/news/canada-pension-gap-threatens-retirement-security

The source of the problem is employers, in particular publicly-traded corporations, have no interest in forking out the expense of a workplace pension plan. They are in it to make money, and not offering pensions helps that.

Ironically, the article grazes the solution in talking of federal support for workplace pensions. So why use federal money to absolve employers of responsibility when you can just put that federal money directly into a better CPP? Clearly we cannot rely on private employers to provide adequate pensions, so it falls to the government to ensure retired people don't fall through the cracks.

There's also a hidden aspect to pensions, to grow their fund they feed into the global casino of financial markets. OMERS and the Ontario Teacher's Pension are some of the biggest in the world, and that's because they are massive institutional investors, often investing in questionable projects, like profiting off infrastructure in developing countries. Requiring investment in volatile and inequitable financial markets is no basis for securing one's future income.

A productive member of society who worked and paid taxes their entire life into the system should be able to rely on that system in retirement without needing any savings to pay for the basic cost of living. Luxuries in retirement will require savings, but the basics should be covered by CPP and OAS. It's the least the feds can do for the workers that generated economic activity that profited our corporations.

REITs are the most parasitic entities of the investment world, profiting from the human right of housing and driving inequality, and should be banned.

https://sizone.org/R/parse2.php?r=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-barlows-research-roundup-good-upside-ahead-for-these-reits-says-a-rbc/

This article and its fear mongering are the classic claims of neoliberal economists. But it reveals quite a bit about the farce of our economic and monetary systems.

https://sizone.org/R/parse2.php?r=https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/canadas-economy-is-on-life-support-and-country-is-in-recession-says-economist/

Firstly, this is what happens when you structure your system to require infinite exponential growth that comes up against secular stagnation, a natural ebbing of the economy. Nothing in nature grows without limit, everything ebbs and flows... except the economic and monetary system humans have invented. A recession is not bad, it's just an ebb, it's only bad for investors and banksters because the system they've been indoctrinated by isn't designed for that. Deflation and degrowth is kryptonite to this system.

The stats also belie the baseless logic of monetary policy:

"“It’s clear to me, unless the policy lags are just a lot longer this time around, that this is what 275 basis points of bank Canada rate cuts delivers: the grand total of one per cent growth economy,” David Rosenberg, chief economist and founder of Rosenberg Research, told BNN Bloomberg."

There never was a policy lag, there is no actual proof monetary policy does what it's supposed to do. Low interest rates can spur economic growth simply because borrowing becomes cheaper, but if the demand isn't there no amount of lowering rates is going to change what is ultimately driven by population growth, which has been lowering the world 'round since the 70s and is predicted to contract in the next 20 years. Economists seem completely oblivious to this fact, and stubbornly keep parroting the same baseless neoliberal assumptions.

If we do not transition into an economic and monetary system that can ebb and flow as nature does, the powers that be are going to drag us into their neoliberal death trap and collapse the system as we know it.