20 February 2009

"Majority" Support Stimulus Package?

That would be the conclusion drawn (as one blogger has) of the most recent Gallup poll regarding public support for the US stimulus package.

The conclusion may well be true. The US package appears to throw at least some crumbs to just about everyone.

On this side of the 49th parallel, however, such is not the case. Therefore, if Canadian polls exist which indicate a majority support for the Harper "stimulus package" (and no doubt they do exist), I'd beg to ask a few questions:
  1. What newspapers do survey participants read regularly?
  2. Do they watch television and if so, what stations do they prefer?
  3. Do they have a phone and/or work two or more part-time jobs at minimum wage?
I'd like to ask these questions because many people at the lowest two income levels with whom I'm in touch don't support the government's rescue package for corporateers.

But then, not a lot of the people I know get to participate in telephone surveys. Some haven't phones. Others are out earning minimum wage at two or three part-time jobs which provide them no additional benefits, including the benefit of collecting Employment Insurance should they become unemployed.

If capitalism is going to be forced on everyone, no matter how good or bad the times are for any of us, then let it be forced on EVERYONE. Don't, when profits are plummeting due to corporateers' massive errors in judgement suddenly allow the system to morph into something else that permits corporate welfare.

Many of us at the bottom of the well looking up know that the return to free-market capitalism will happen once the corporateers are happy again. In the meantime, nothing at all will have changed for us except that our lives will have become harder.


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