"With God's help we officially embarked on the ship of [Berlusconi's] Forza Italia."--Antonino Giuffre, turncoat Mafia Boss

We have been writing on these pages of Ensign social and economic stories for the purpose to recognize the need of changing our greedy and hypocritical paradigm of being number one within the imposing forces of the Free Market.

It is an absurdity to follow a number one philosophy in a world which needs cooperation to alleviate poverty, eliminate wars, promote justice and develop the self evident right to the self determination of people and societies.

I have been focusing on the American Free Market as it is the driving force of our major ills in the world, growing gap between the rich and the poor, unrestrained greedy capitalism, division among people, countries ravaged by constant warfare, people dying of hunger.

When I hear Walter Robinson, Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, saying that the Liberal government is corrupt I really wonder if he understood anything about our social and economic predicament. "We have met the enemies and he is us;" and as long as we preach the Free Market we will never eradicate corruption as corruption is endemic in the Free Market. Do you hear me Mr. Robinson?

No, he will not hear me, he has too much to do in lobbying for governmental tax cuts, the rejection of the Kyoto agreement, the governmental misspending on the gun registry program and I wonder what is the difference between Mr. Robinson or United States President George Bush. These people are supposed to be the experts yet they have no critical thinking.

Economist Dean Baker warned the business community of the impending collapse of the stock market as the ratio of the price of a share to corporate earnings per share were not reasonable and much above the historical ratio of 15. And today, December 2002, we have still gurus telling us to buy high tech stocks experiencing price earning ratio ranging from 71 for Network Associates to 217 for Yahoo.

This is entrenched oligarchic greed of the corporative Free Market and it is not a matter of amnesia as claimed by journalist Matt Krantz of USA TODAY. Silvio Berlusconi became the richest man in Italy by bribing his way to become Italian Prime Minister, only to publicly learn now that he received help from his friends of his friends of his friends.

I have exposed in the past the corrupt behaviour of our Saskatchewan governmental and health care gurus. We covered the now born again patriot Roy Romanow, former ministers Janice MacKinnon and Pat Atkinson and many others along with health care gurus Hewitt Helmsing and Brian Rourke and many others. My conclusion is this: these gurus use their corruption as a strategic tool to serve the power that be.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

References

Pertinent articles published in Ensign

Auditor General: gun registry costs to exceed one billion dollars Report states that "Parliament was kept in the dark" on "astronomical" cost overruns. Cost to taxpayers more than eleven times the original 1995 estimate. Canadian Taxpayers Federation, December 3, 2002 http://www.taxpayer.com/newsreleases/federal/December3-02.htm

Baker, Dean, TOO MUCH OF THE BUBBLY ON WALL STREET? This article originally appeared in Dollars and Sense October 1999 http://www.cepr.net/too_much_bubbly.htm

Baker, Dean, Dangerous Minds? The Track Record of Economic and Financial Analysts, December 2, 2002 http://www.cepr.net/dangerous_minds.htm

Krantz, Matt, Investors seem to have a case of amnesia, (pdf) USA TODAY, 12/4/2002  http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/ensign2/pdfarchive/USATDYAmnesia.pdf

Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers (pdf) Guardian Unlimited, 05 December 2002 http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/ensign2/pdfarchive/GuardianBerlusconi.pdf