Talking to Americans!

Good Day Readers:

Late yesterday morning we decided what the hell why not and registered with The Huffington Post's Community Service for bloggers. Our first attempt was entitled,Canada claims founder of American Tea Party movement! - equal parts satire, tongue-in-cheek and jest remembering a "lot of truth is spoken in jest." We pointed out then Federal Finance Minister Paul Martin almost 20-years ago accomplished what Tea Partiers are struggling to do today under similar circumstances while the nation was verging on bankruptcy.

The deluge was swift. Here's a sampling:

(1) canuckjen August 8, 2011 at 2:21 pm

Total hyperbole. Why leave "raise taxes" off your list? The tenets of the tea party have nothing to do with Canadian policies or philosophi­es.

http://thestar.blogs.com/davidolive/2011/08/the-globe-and-mails-barrie-mckenna-makes-the-point-which-would-be-of-great-relief-to-americans-if-they-only-knew-that-unlik.html

To reply to this comment, follow the link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/pieuk/toronto-stock-exchange_n_920904_101645428.html

(2) Russg August 8, 2011 at 2:31 pm

Martin is hardly in step with tea party philosophy­. Sure, he slashed and burned, which is something they would respect, but Martin still represents a type of big government that the tea party cannot tolerate. Simply slashing deficits does not a tea partier make.

(3) viewfromuphere August 8, 2011 at 2:48 pm

I see your convenient­ly forgeting Martin telling the banks "no, your not going to merge into one too-big-to­-fail monster"..­..he got called all manner of "big govenment" things at the time "While the Conservati­ves may reap electoral rewards for the good economy (comparati­vely speaking), much credit should go to our banks and to former PM Paul Martin who, as Liberal finance minister, refused to let Canadian banks merge with American banks back when they all wanted to." Peter Worthingto­n article May 2 2011. Name me a bagger candidate who'd really say no to a big bank ... rea­lly...

(4) kensp August 8, 2011 at 3:15 pm

Ridiculous­.

(5) pjlowry August 8, 2011 at 3:44 pm

I remember my taxes going up during that time too... so that right there disqualifi­es Martin with anything the Tea Party stands for.I didn't realize Martin was planning a return to politics since everyone is attacking him all of a sudden with these Tea Party smear tactics.

A couple points for contributors. When posting to Huffington there's a 250 work limit. If you return to our original article, Canada claims founder of American Tea Party movement! you'll notice there's a postscript which references Canada's experience with a VAT (Value Added Tax). Unfortunately, that had to be deleted it what was sent to HP along with a few other changes.

To viewfromuphere you are indeed correct. However, we did not "conveniently forget, rather, we'd forgotten. Back in the 1990 then Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Finance Minister Martin blocked Canadian banks from merging principally two reasons. First, God knows they were profitable enough and a concern client services would suffer as a result. Seems they were smarter than we think eventually avoiding the "too-big-to-fail syndrome."

By The Numbers

American National Debt (August 9, 2011) = $14,6 trillion (14 zeros)
Average daily increase since September 2007 = $4 billion (9 zeros)
Annual interest payment = $413 billion
Each citizen's share = $47,000
Portion of debt held by citizens/institutions = $62%
Portion held off shore = 38%

With those debt numbers expenditure reduction will be insufficient significant tax reform will also be required.

A financial analyst talking the other day about world economies vis-a-vis Canada put it rather succinctly, "You have the nicest house on the street but what good is that if the block burns down?" BTW, when we had our financial armaggeddon we too lost our triple A rating. Took us 10-years to get it back.

Are you still sure you wouldn't like to borrow Mr. Martin for a while to help The Tea Party he founded?

Shortly we'll be stirring the pot again with another article on The Huffington Post Community Service. Remember, you can add your two cents by visiting us at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/pieuk/toronto-stock-exchange_n_920904_101645428.html

We'll post the creme de la creme of responses received on this site.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk