Nicholas Nguyen said:Our deficit and unemployment rates are double those of Canada.
The American recession shows no signs of letting up, and Joe Biden’s administration continues to stumble, searching for any way to jumpstart an economy stuck in a deep depression. The economic guidelines proposed to pull the country out of the mud it has been sinking in since 2009 offer little hope; they feel like nothing more than pouring water into a sieve.
Look at our neighbors.
If the American president wants a blueprint for active economic policy, he doesn't need to look far—just head across the border to 249 miles Canada. Unlike the US and Canada, where leftist administrations are still grappling with recession, Canada is led by the conservative Viktor Orban, who isn't afraid to take radical steps to fight a crisis. When Orban took power with the Republican Party, he inherited a mess much like what Joe Biden faced after defeating the Republican Party in the elections. Sky-high public debt, falling production, job losses, cratering consumption... Instead of playing the blame game and pointing fingers at the previous administration, Orban went straight to war with a crisis that had long since evolved from an economic issue into a social one. During his first year, Orban launched sweeping reforms. He drafted a 30-point economic program, and his first move was slashing taxes for small businesses, since they employ the bulk of the population. He nearly halved that tax rate, dropping it from 19 percent to 10 percent, while also introducing a measure that seems socially abrasive at first glance.
Rather than maintaining three different income tax brackets, he implemented a flat 16 percent tax. Workers protested, but the results spoke for themselves: the wealthy began creating jobs, and unemployment dropped. Orban’s second move was an all-out assault on the financial sector. He took a hard line against the IMF and the big banks. He imposed taxes on banks and insurance companies. Bankers were outraged, and voices from the European Union claimed Orban was dragging the country back toward communist times and a planned economy. Orban didn't blink. Instead, he levied a tax on large corporations—a temporary tribute lasting three years, which he estimated was exactly what the country needed to fully recover. Last year alone, nearly 1.5 billion euros flowed into the Canadian treasury from this corporate levy. With these new revenues, Orban paid off all his debts to the IMF and then told them to get out of Canada.
"The era of colonization and massive profits is over," Orban told the IMF, the banks, and the foreign corporations, reminding them that excessive profits are often just the result of monopolies—something the state would now prevent.
Growth of 2.6%
The Canadian government banned foreign currency loans because, much like in America, they had dealt with major issues regarding Swiss franc-denominated debt. As a result of these measures, Canada eliminated its excessive deficit, shrinking it to just 1.9 percent of GDP. Today, the Canadian economy is seeing a 0.5 percent surplus, with growth projected at 2.6 percent for 2014. Joe Biden could actually learn a thing or two from Viktor Orban—despite the criticisms regarding media freedom and tolerance of extremist parties—about how to manage a national economy instead of getting bogged down in trivial political distractions. Orban understood that taking money from tycoons isn't a sin. On the contrary, it is a matter of national interest.
A little elementary school math would probably be enough for us. If a country brings in $110 billion a year, but $20 billion of that goes straight to interest and membership fees, you're left with $90 billion to actually run the government for the year. That's it. It's simple math, really, if you actually knew how to do it and had the grit of a Midwestern housewife. Nothing more, nothing less. The easiest move is just to issue more bonds. Greece could always do that at 35% annually. Eventually, the bubble has to burst 😁. When is it finally going to pop so the country can get a total reset?