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What B.C. really needs is a good bank

The new NDP/Green government faces three problems which control all other decision-making. The first, electoral reform, is already acknowledged and sensible action will probably follow.
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The new NDP/Green government faces three problems which control all other decision-making. The first, electoral reform, is already acknowledged and sensible action will probably follow.

The second, party funding by donation, only surfaced prior to the recent election, but I believe it is the bought influence which so undermines the whole basis of electoral choice. It could be removed with a $5 annual fee on each of the multiple millions of income tax returns, and would produce a fully adequate sum, to be allocated according to each party’s electoral support; a tiny cost for getting uncompromised politics.

The third problem, the privatization of all government debts, has been very carefully swept under the rug. The idea that capitalizing a nation’s inherent wealth in order to fund its needs without the imposition of interest (just like the state of North Dakota, and China, and others) was simply discarded without Parliamentary debate 40 years ago, and today the interest bill on all our government debts amounts to some $60 billion – nearly $1,800 a year for every man, woman and child. This, on debts which can only be extinguished now by outright cancellation.

This is the overriding but never-debated problem which our government must face without delay, as government debts are doubling from this source every decade or so, and every program is being underfunded to the point of crisis in futile attempts to balance books inundated with interest-on-the-interest. If readers doubt this, they should Google “Bank of North Dakota” for an eye-opener; and then ask why China has exploded from nothing to the No. 2 world economy in less than 70 years.

Russ Vinden

Errington