(no subject)
Splitting the State
Every day, there are people, the same ones every time, who demand that our state corporations be privatized. If they can't get what they want, they'll order that rates be hiked so their taxes can be lowered.Oh, yes, it was great when they privatized Petro Canada, which, dixit Stephen Harper, is now defrauding us; great also the CN, now forming a private monopole with CP and 70% American-owned. And what of Teleglobe, now an Indian ownership, Biochem Pharma,an incredible success sold out to the British, and even Air Canada and airports, who have since consistently managed to give us impressively crappy service.
They shall not give up until every single collective good (of which they carefully maintain animosity toward) has been privatized. Those who demanded the privatizing of Hydro Québec, water management and the SAQ also wants to split the Caisse de Dépôts et Placements. Always the same. "Too big!" they insist. The CDP has assets worth 200G$. The RBC has 724G$. TD? 563G$ Bank of Montreal? 416G$. According to this twisted logic, these banks ought to be split too, but no! They think themselves too small and want to merge!
The French Caisse de Dépôt is much larger than ours and massively involved in the economy. Well, so what, Nicolas Sarkozy created a second state investment fund with 160G$ starting capital. Did you know the French government own majority stakes in Renault, France Télécom, Gaz de France-Suez, Airbus, Électricité de France etc.? And here are a few other state investment funds nobody would consider splitting: Norway, with assets worth 400G$, United Arab Emirates (875G$), Singapore (330G$) and so on so forth and so on, so forth... China has three funds totaling 700G$ in worth.
Yet according to all these pundits, the public sector will forever be too large, and the private sector is chronically too small. Wal-mart, owned by the USA's Waltons, and Exxon Mobil are ten times larger than Quebec, but they're just fine. The Walton family can manage an empire covering the entire planet and employing a hundred more people than the Quebec government, with revenues to scale, but we, as a collectivity, cannot. Why is that exactly? According to that logic, society's advance can only ever involve private, capitalist interests. Doesn't that sound awesome as a social project?
Lauzon, Léo-Paul, "Scinder la Caisse", Métro (Montreal), April 30, 2009, p. 30.
Every day, there are people, the same ones every time, who demand that our state corporations be privatized. If they can't get what they want, they'll order that rates be hiked so their taxes can be lowered.Oh, yes, it was great when they privatized Petro Canada, which, dixit Stephen Harper, is now defrauding us; great also the CN, now forming a private monopole with CP and 70% American-owned. And what of Teleglobe, now an Indian ownership, Biochem Pharma,an incredible success sold out to the British, and even Air Canada and airports, who have since consistently managed to give us impressively crappy service.
They shall not give up until every single collective good (of which they carefully maintain animosity toward) has been privatized. Those who demanded the privatizing of Hydro Québec, water management and the SAQ also wants to split the Caisse de Dépôts et Placements. Always the same. "Too big!" they insist. The CDP has assets worth 200G$. The RBC has 724G$. TD? 563G$ Bank of Montreal? 416G$. According to this twisted logic, these banks ought to be split too, but no! They think themselves too small and want to merge!
The French Caisse de Dépôt is much larger than ours and massively involved in the economy. Well, so what, Nicolas Sarkozy created a second state investment fund with 160G$ starting capital. Did you know the French government own majority stakes in Renault, France Télécom, Gaz de France-Suez, Airbus, Électricité de France etc.? And here are a few other state investment funds nobody would consider splitting: Norway, with assets worth 400G$, United Arab Emirates (875G$), Singapore (330G$) and so on so forth and so on, so forth... China has three funds totaling 700G$ in worth.
Yet according to all these pundits, the public sector will forever be too large, and the private sector is chronically too small. Wal-mart, owned by the USA's Waltons, and Exxon Mobil are ten times larger than Quebec, but they're just fine. The Walton family can manage an empire covering the entire planet and employing a hundred more people than the Quebec government, with revenues to scale, but we, as a collectivity, cannot. Why is that exactly? According to that logic, society's advance can only ever involve private, capitalist interests. Doesn't that sound awesome as a social project?
Lauzon, Léo-Paul, "Scinder la Caisse", Métro (Montreal), April 30, 2009, p. 30.