"I think we are slowly Enronizing the economy, Enronizing the budget."-- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle

Our world has been deregulated under the Free Market and the genius of capitalism has reached its apex with the Enronization of our world economy. With privatization, our employees live today under the corporations' performance system known as "rank or yank." Every employee's performance is ranked between 1 and 5, where 5 means being booted out and making sure that the bottom 15 percent of the employees are fired each year. And what do the top one percent of the employees do? Oh, they work hard, over time, deep into the night making sure to have all of it: cocktail, sex, and money. In this privatized world, the rules of our living have changed, the big corporations and politicians have taken over our democracies, and now our governments can go into deficit spending by giving tax cuts for the rich and famous and by putting common people out of work. This is has been called the New Economy! And I must tell you, at first I was being taken as well by this mantra of the New Economy. I was too naive to understand that this mantra of a New Economy was just a conspiracy for the benefit of the big corporations and fortunate sons.

Sometime ago I stated that we must compare apples and oranges, and yes, we must keep comparing apples and oranges! Don't ever stop comparing apples and oranges, you must only stop doing so while in front of a judge, and even then I would challenge the specificity requirements for fair judgments. And don't let be fooled by our leadership; this leadership is only able to give you the numbers, and when the numbers don't add up, then what they do is pointing the finger, the blame. That is, our society has become a gambling casino and our leadership finds its social balance by giving the finger, either by stealing from common people, or by pointing the blame.

I am smiling cynically as I am thinking about the highly contentious issue of dollarization and its implication for the sovereignty of the country. Do we have to dollarize? Our pundits, politicians, economists and businesses are all debating about the pros and cons of dollarization. And you know what I do? I compare apples and oranges, and as I do I am thinking about the relevance of dollarization as our borders are going to be taken over by a U.S. four star general overseeing our homeland, and as our neighbor is telling us what to do, for instance that we don't need to ratify the antipollution Kyoto agreement.

Please keep your sanity and keep comparing apples and oranges. Too much is deregulated, and too much is privatized, and everything is Enronized!

References:
Pertinent articles in Ensign

Enron cocktail of cash, sex and fast living, News Telegraph, Philip Delves Broughton, 28/01/2002 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/28/wenron28.xml&sSheet=/money/2002/01/28/ixfrontcity.html

More Canadians could be led by U.S., by Hugh Winsor, January 28, 2002, The Globe and Mail

Canada shouldn't ratify Kyoto, U.S. envoy says, by Steven Chase, January 26, 2002, The Globe and Mail