Sums of money that you and I could never count or imagine, in a very real sense, are being shifted about the world a lot now and over these last few years. There has been money to bail out banks (unbelievable) and large corporations and governments. Through it all, the same colossal mistake is being made, over and over.

Quite a while ago, when the world economy started to pitch, I recommended, relatively seriously, that every household in Canada be given a million dollars. My point was that people (you and I) would use the money to help the economy recover: we would pay our debts (bailing out the banks), buy things (helping to boost sales), eat out, go on holidays and, maybe, even start home based – or better – businesses ourselves.

Naturally, no one with real influence took the recommendation to heart but, let me say, that I was not the only one making the suggestion; there were financial know-its saying the same thing. Those same “no ones” did not bother to listen to them either.

However, the current policy – everywhere – of giving all the money to the folks and institutions who had already made a botch of having lots of money is not, I wish to point out, bringing the global economic crisis to a happy resolve.

What is much worst is that the money being blown on banks and corporations and governments is being taken from the people to whom money should have been given to help solve this huge dilemma – you and me. In every case, we and our children are being made responsible for the debts of those who have had the money – our money, by the way – in taxes and patronage as consumers.

At the outer rim of this catastrophe is Greece. In accepting 130 billion Euros or $170 billion (see what I mean about not being able to imagine how much money that is?) to prop up its failing government, the onus of this debt is dumped on Greece’s common population: lower minimum wage, reduction in the civil service, ergo, an increase in unemployment, which is already in a desperate state with 30% unemployment of people between the ages 18 to 25; lowering of state pension and, without a doubt, slashing all social programs, including medical and educational.

And who suffers? The middle classes and lower income people.

Here in Ontario, really at the other end of the scale, one ought to add, financier Donald Drummond would also have the provincial government attack the middle classes and lower income folk to pay for the deficit the Ontario government currently supports: reductions in education, health care, public service, social benefits.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on the same band wagon with plans to change the Canada Pension Plan, intending to raise the age limit to 67, for a start. This will make no difference to higher-income pensioners, but it certainly will impact on the middle classes and lower.....

Are we seeing a pattern here?

The pattern is as old as money itself. For the fact of a national or international “economy” has always assured lower incomes and vast incomes. And the people in power, who are in the “vast income” category, have and will always see to it that everybody else pays for the mistakes they make during the course of their ruling, whether in parliament or the banks.

Wait a minute, just a minute, before the letters come in accusing me of being a “socialist,” let us just take a moment to reflect on a) what I am trying to convey and b) what one ought to mean by the noun “socialist.” Namely:

Education is the most important element of our economic structure, inasmuch as it is only with a well educated youth that the nation can progress under an intelligent and well informed leadership, which leadership should not be expected to come solely from the higher income families but also should tap into the whole of society from which a well balanced source of capabilities and perspectives will influence for good the direction the various levels of government take.

However, it is only when the whole society has With access to Your excellent Permission education that this can be the case.

So, well-funded education is a must for the future of the nation.

We have agreed with Tommy Douglas, since 1967, that Canadians have the right to universal medical care, funded by us all. It is not the care of patients that is overtaxing the medical system but the overwhelming inefficiency and clumsiness of the system that is so expensive. For example, a person can have a CAT scan at the Headwaters Health Centre in Orangeville which cannot be read in a Toronto hospital because the two are on different computer systems, meaning the patient must take another scan, at great and unnecessary cost to the public’s purse and the patient’s health. Just for starters.

It would be a good thing to bring these problems into line and to discover the real reasons for the multi-hour emergency waits, to understand why a nurse in another hospital is running a CAT scan by herself for a 12- hour shift and so on.

Cutbacks to health care have to be about common sense solutions, not reducing the level of care.

Well, well, our government toadies to corporations who close down their operations and do not increase the number of employees they hire. Corporate tax cuts do not equal more employment. At the rate our Prime Minister is taking the country, the government may thrive, big business will thrive but, somehow, this wealth will not, as it is not, be reflected in the well being of the common person, the middle income or lower income person.

Let me defend so-called socialism, which actually means “the potential abundance which modern society can produce belongs to the whole community,” in this way: a) People in power never acknowledge that their power comes from the very people they dump on until those people rise up and remind them. b) The common person, the middle of society, is the foundation of the economy. Without that person or those people’s wellbeing, financially and in every way, the national economy must fail because, on a practical basis, they do most of the buying and selling of everything that is made and produced. c) We are all in this together. Without the strength of each, there can be no power to the whole.