@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ INSTALLMENT 2/N: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 From: Phil Agre <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: editorial by Sid Shniad Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 From: D Shniad <•••@••.•••> Subject: My editorial in the TWU Transmitter (continued) THE SAME THING IS HAPPENING IN CANADA The problem of increasing economic polarization and growing misery isn't limited to the States. The same things is happening here in Canada. We have been in an economic "recovery" since 1992. As in the States, however, this recovery has been very one-sided. Corporate profits have soared, but unemployment has remained high while wage increases have barely kept up with inflation. The recovery has seen business and corporate profits zoom. Corporate profits swallowed 44.8% of the increase in national income between 1992 and the first quarter of 1995. (Over the past 20 years, corporate profits averaged about 10% of total national income.) In this period, the increase in profits was much larger than the total increase in wages and salaries. People like Professor Angell argue that increases in profits lead to increases in investment. But this has certainly not been the case for the past several years. Since 1992, profits as a proportion of GDP have increased by nearly 32%. In the same period, investment has increased by about 5%. Instead of being used to increase productive capacity, profits have gone into huge dividend increases for shareholders. Dividends paid out to foreign shareholders jumped from $1 billion in 1992 to more than $12 billion on an annualized basis in the first quarter of 1995. In 1992, unemployment averaged 11.3% nationally. Over the first half of 1995, the rate had decreased somewhat, averaging 9.6%, but coming in at 9.8% in July. This is a far cry from the rates of unemployment that prevailed in this country during most of the postwar era. There is little prospect that things will change for the better. According to a recent report from the International Monetary Fund, Canada's "natural" rate of unemployment is 8.75%. The IMF suggests that if Canada's unemployment rate drops more than 1% below its current level, inflation would increase, requiring the Bank of Canada to raise the country's interest rates, choking off economic growth and raising the unemployment rate again. Clearly our universities, our media pundits and institutions like the IMF are not concerned with the fact that high unemployment and declining real wages are having a devastating effect. According to a Statistics Canada report released in mid-September, the country's rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Canadian families' real incomes, adjusted for inflation, have been declining steadily since 1990. According to Bob Glossop, of the Vanier Institute of the Family the situation is serious. "Even families with two wage earners are having an increasingly hard time to make ends meet. All are feeling increasingly financially insecure," Glossop explains. For single-parent families, it's even worse. "You have an appalling rate of poverty among single-parent families that is in excess of 60 percent at this point with devastating consequences for the long-term prospects for their children, educationally, healthwise and so on," Glossop says. "In addition, you've now seen across various provinces, particularly Ontario, the decision to cut back significantly on social assistance and welfare benefits available to these people. It means that these lone-parent families, which have been struggling in poverty for the past ten years, are going to be really hitting the wall very soon. The prospects are pretty bleak," he concludes. (continued) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ INSTALLMENT 3/N to follow @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore <•••@••.•••> Wexford, Ireland (USA citizen) Editor: The Cyberjournal (@CPSR.ORG) See the CyberLib at: http://www.internet-eireann.ie/cyberlib See Cyber-Rights library: http://jasper.ora.com/andyo/cyber-rights/cyber-rights.html You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages and online materials for non-commercial use, provided they are copied in their entirety, with all headers, signatures, etc., intact. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
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