The United States has a chronic foreign trade deficit, a huge amount of domestic assets owned by foreign investors and a governmental deficit, yet our Canadian gurus are telling us we have to catch up with the United States standard of living. This is non sense as our economic gurus have lost their minds as they continue to manipulate statistical numbers with econometric (correlation) models.

We wrote few days ago about British econometric professor Ian Walker who has designed a dummy scientific formula which proves that time is money. Then we encountered journalist Bruce Little reporting the bad news that Canada continues to lag behind the United States in terms of productivity growth and standard of living.

Today we have economist Paul Krugman stating that the United States is in big economic trouble and this is due to pure GREED on the part of Corporate America. And I agree with Paul Krugman, yes, GREED is the fundamental economic problem today.

In fact, today we have Halliburton Co. being investigated by the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) for improperly adding $100 million to their 1998 revenues at the time Vice-President Dick Cheney was its CEO; and today we have Dennis Kozlowski, who built Tyco International Ltd., being charged with avoiding more than $1 million in sales taxes.

And for all those people who want Canada to catch up with the United Sates standard of living I have these two facts:

• Executive pay at top U.S. corporations climbed 571 percent from 1990 to 2000.
• Average real wages in the United States are at or below the wage rate of 1973.

References

Understanding of Time and Money: Econometric Professor Ian Walker versus Political Historian Kevin Phillips By Mario deSantis, May 30, 2002 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2002_600/desantis650/timemoney.html

Canada still lags U.S. standard of living By Bruce Little - Monday, June 3, 2002 http://www.workopolis.com/servlet/News/qresource/20020603/RAMAZ?section=Bruce_Little

Greed Is Bad. "The point is, ladies and gentlemen, greed is good. Greed works, greed is right. . . . and greed, mark my words, will save not only Teldar Paper but the other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A." by Paul Krugman, Originally published in The New York Times, 6.4.02 http://www.pkarchive.org/column/060402.html

Crunching numbers. Shouldn't Halliburton be blaming Cheney instead of its accountants? By Michael Kinsley, SLATE.COM, May 30, 2002 http://www.msnbc.com/news/759523.asp?0si=-

Day after resigning, Tyco tycoon charged with avoiding $1M US in taxes on art By FRANK ELTMAN, Yahoo! News, June 4, 2002 http://ca.news.yahoo.com/020604/6/mu74.html

The Age of Inequality by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, May 29, 2002 http://www.counterpunch.com/mokhiber0529.html