THE ONE PERCENT VERSUS THE REST OF US

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this opinion piece by Thomas Walkom titled "Why the one per cent has it all and the rest of us don't". Mr. Walkom is studying a paper produced by a political scientist at George Brown College. Mr. Walkom states that this paper surmises "-that income is not distributed through the competitive magic of the impersonal market, but through naked power struggles in institutions that are near monopolistic. Think National Hockey league." WOW!

Society is becoming more unequal for a variety of reasons including corporate concentration. In other words as large corporations absorb smaller ones, competition including in prices goes out the window. Also the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) takes a lot of the blame; just about as exactly its'critics at the time suggested. Canada's manufacturing base has gone south, east and west courtesy of Free Trade with Mexico, the U.S. and China. Thank you very much Canadian politicians who have sold out to your monied pals leaving most Canadians worse off. Greater foreign investment combined with fewer viable unions has exacerbated the inequality problem. All in all it's been a twenty year very sucessful program to shift wealth upwards into fewer and fewer hands. Expect more of the same.