More Economic Pain Ahead

Historically speaking, Canadian finances get better and are maintained appropriately by the Liberals. It is also true that a surplus of $15 billion left by Paul Martin’s liberal government has long been washed away, and now Canada faces a heavy debt load which is due to our Prime Minister Harper’s policies in deed.
A lot of closed stores across Canada including Toronto’s busiest commercial streets give a depressive look, and the members of permanently laid off work force seem to have exhausted their EI benefits. Neither are there any replacement jobs in sight nor is any glimmer of hope for an easy reversal of the ongoing embarrassment.
Thus, another economic slowdown as predicted is quite worrisome. Modest gains, if any, would be noticeable, yet too insufficient to make a quicker come back of a promising financial strength to the general public.
Apart from speculations, an open market economy goes through fluctuations and adjustments. Nevertheless, the Canadian economy has proven stronger than many other global economies throughout the last couple of years despite the recessionary pressure, yet we are so strongly tied with the economies of our trading partners that we have to be affected naturally as a result.
A lot of dollars have been flowing into our economy for the last two or so years.
It has to be admitted that our regulation of financial institutions despite its flaws is still better than many others because of its help to protect us through tough time. However, the increased value of our dollar makes it much harder for the Canadian exporters to deal with other countries as well as it discourages foreign tourists to come here.
A drastic change in the demographics could be the main culprit. On the contrary, Canadian dollar value has nothing to do with exports as our manufacturing sector has almost been outsourced to foreign lands. But, it is true that there is a decline in the visitors to Canada of course. A shift in paradigm, demography and climate change has all contributed to turning everything upside down indeed.
To control inflation, the Bank of Canada has increased interest rates by 0.75 percent since June, after holding the overnight rate at the hyper-low 0.25 per cent level for over a year. Meanwhile, Finance Minister has vowed that “all government stimuli” introduced two years ago will be terminated in the spring of 2011. That means it is an intended slowdown ahead in deed.
Bank of Canada’s policy to increase rates again to further slow down our economy is beyond our comprehension. The question is - in case of any excuse to jack up prices - will there ever be a time for us to get out of debt? The answer is very simple as there isn’t even a remote possibility.
Despite some positive results in the stock market, economy may be slowing down due to mismanagement by the Harper government. In fact, our GDP figures and employment data showed no considerable progress. However, a few companies enjoyed an artificial growth due to their downsizing and the stimulus package. Since the things are in for a down-turn now, just wait until all of the fallout from the HST and higher Utility Rates hit those of us in Ontario, BC or elsewhere who are struggling subsequent to loss of their employment income, insufficient pension and lack of other facilities.
The worst case scenario, of course, is we as Canadians need to prepare for the future in view of the soon ending government stimulus. Harper's response to the current situation ending the economic stimulus is more painful, as the same money is going to be rechanneled to the purchase of fighter jets.
Had the conservatives spent $9 billion for job creation for Canadian work force instead of undertaking an extremely expensive deal of military fighter jets ($35 billion over five years), Canada would have been in a much better economic shape.
The reason for preferring Canadian Air Force over the Canadian Work Force is best known to the government. Furthermore, spending more than billion dollars on the G8 and G20 Summit could have also been utilized on job creation. What a neglect by the Conservatives of the working class?
According to TD bank and other reliable sources, there's probably more economic pain coming.
Will another federal election be called along with the coming pain? Let’s wait and see if there's little or no chance at all for Mr. Harper to get re-elected into the majority he desperately wants. However, that seems to be the only desire he has at the very moment.
On the other hand, our trade deficit has been mounting as we consume more imports than our exports.
This negative balance of trade is responsible for hammering and damaging Canadian economic power. Since, Canada is full of experts to neutralize bad news and invent good news instead, investors are so puzzled and are unable to guess. The jobless situation and a Real Estate market have almost peaked; hence expensive credit market could lead the economy going sideways. Such a scenario can also lead to a future market crash in both the TSX and the real estate market, resulting in a further increase in job losses.
Industrial technologies are surging at various levels to newer areas. They tend to drag along other areas like wages, banking issues and financing costs relocating from one geographic area to another based on general economic costs. Cheap costs and political considerations have seen a huge re-allocation of world resouces for instance from many western economies including Canada towards China, India or other destinations. Such an outsourcing is costing Canada a huge job loss due to an 'absent contingency plan' to deal with such a variable scenario.
Realizing the pattern and prediction of how any particular change may affect you - is one of the most important issues in maintaining long term stability in any particular place. We live in a world, where people want a better lifestyle. Those who have good standard of life -  really don't want to lose it. Why should they? So we struggle to maintain what we have.
However, there exits a fear factor of losing, yet the main beneficiaries of the ongoing trend of shifting economic opportunities, outsourcing and other cost cutting measures -  are the big corporations and businesses. They are out there to make money even if they have to create an artificial shortage of work for local workers.
As the economy is in a fragile mode due to an unusual uncertainty, Governments at federal and provincial levels should be more vigilant about economic woes in order to rescue the victims from its worst effects. Otherwise, our economy is poised for doom unfortunately. Nevertheless, the governing Conservatives, the Real Estate agents, the bankers and investors are somewhat in the denial mode about the state of the economy.
 Since the Liberals are closely in touch with Canadians’ lives, all Canadians  especially the poor class and the middle class will be more comfortable with the Liberal platform, as it focuses on  health care, education, child care, retirement and pensions.
Nevertheless, under the circumstances, the important steps mentioned below are extremely essential to minimize the upcoming pain for the ease of the concerned Canadians:
a) Cutting government wasteful spending including government studies of projects only to find out that the study was a waste and the project contributed nothing.
b) Reducing personal income taxes, and eliminating any income tax for the unfortunate.
c) Correcting market inefficiencies in the housing sector because of restricted buying power.
d) Reducing property taxes
e) Giving incentives to manufacturers for bringing the industry back to Canada for sake of our own economic prosperity.
f) Leaving the interest rate with no more hikes.
Above measures are highly recommended to save the Canadians from suffering the most severe pain in the days ahead. Surely, if the system functions with enough resources and continues to add to the general wealth, national and regional areas would keep prospering. Hence, Canadian government should encourage high tech industries to offer multiple opportunities to local workers for increasing wealth in general.

Overcoming Culture of Hypocrisy

‘Morality disorder’ in the form of rampant hypocrisy is deeply rooted in people all over the globe. Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, qualities, opinions, virtues and standards which someone does not actually possess is misleading indeed. In other words, hypocrisy simply means to present yourself as honest and upright to a degree where you are actually attempting to put others down and criticizing them for not having the same values while in fact you are almost on the opposite side.


This consists of an express or an implied deception of others; thus is a kind of lie which is responsible for social vices. It is human nature to judge others more severely than judging one’s own self. Whether we admit or not, most of us are moral hypocrites. In simpler words, the above said disorder is our worst enemy.


Ironically, when it comes to public officials, we have a tendency of condemning them, whereas we conveniently ignore our own dishonest actions of having evaded or cheated on our taxes.
Painfully, an irresponsible attitude towards conspiracy theories is a daily routine. A rampant culture of corruption exists in the society in one form or the other.
Committing corruption and worshiping of Lord (Allah SWT) simultaneously is the most evident example of the disorder. Accepting illegal gratification is another example of simultaneous action where people tend to doubly bless themselves for immorality and spirituality. However, some people spend their whole life struggling to commit or omit to come out of such a disorder of hypocritical behaviour.


Other examples of rampant hypocrisy include our government officials' unlawful practice of forcibly taking bribes. Cricketers’ involvement in match fixing gives rise to lack of discipline and image deficit. Obviously, these are problems of hypocritical nature. On top of that the political parties are hell bent to play with the masses by stealing their legal rights.


There are three signs of a hypocrite: Whenever he says something, he lies; whenever he makes a promise he breaks it, and if he is entrusted with something, he betrays the trust.
They always find ways to justify their sinful actions. Furthermore, the disease of hypocrisy exists at multi levels including public or private sector, individual or collective.


Unfortunately, such a rampant culture of hypocrisy is a norm in our society; runs through the blood arteries of our State functionaries. The laws are broken by those who made them. Contempt for the law has been in fashion throughout Pakistan's ruling class which has been presenting the best picture on the subject.


Resultantly, we have an incompetent bureaucracy, the ignorant lawmakers, and the military with a greed for power. Contempt for the law on the part of all three groups has created something like a social anarchy in the country giving a signal to the public that there is no law of the land and there are no rights whatsoever, except what they must grab whatever they can for themselves. What a greed?


The people's power cannot be under estimated. There is an urgent need of a miraculous recovery from such an illness of hypocrisy and rampant corruption in order to reform the whole society in Pakistan. Surely, If there is a will, there is a way. Remember! Justice Chaudhry and his team were restored because of massive support. Beyond any doubt, the people want justice. They believe in the need for laws, and they are capable of respecting them.
Nevertheless, it is the ruling class that routinely breaks the laws and considers it a privilege. These are the people who, for a change, are now fearful of the application of law under an independent judiciary.
Under the circumstances, we shouldn’t expect any change soon as our ‘Reborn Judiciary’ is in the midst of a genuine struggle to cleanse the polluted system out of the institutions that are bent upon crossing their legal limits, and thus violating the constitution.
Furthermore, the present administrative paralysis is the outcome of many years of inefficiency and corruption by some illegal and incompetent regimes. Shamefully, our government was in a “hands up position” recently while dealing with the devastating floods. The question is – if President of the country flew away with his huge team on national expense just to promote his son’s political future, what would you expect?


Preferring personal interest over national interest is not only unconstitutional but also immoral. Sadly, the rulers and functionaries have failed to care much about the Law and Constitution.
Hypocritically, they apply the writ only when it suites them, otherwise they don’t really care about the judiciary or the masses.
So far the Pakistanis have only learnt to live in a system which is heavily flawed against them. They are only familiar with a corrupt environment around them. Naturally, the masses look for the short cuts and an easy way out, therefore, they tend to offer bribe, use their connections, or other influence just to reach their goals.


Although, labelling such people as "law breakers" is probably applying salt to an injury by the ruling elite, yet laws are not made "for the people." Instead, the laws are perhaps made to be used "against them.” Mostly, it is the ruling class that routinely breaks the law and considers it a privilege. It is therefore only natural for people to violate laws whenever they can get away with it.


Fortunately, there is some remedial advantage in the form of an environment of regulations aiming to provide comfort and protection to the public. Yet, such laws have to be effectively communicated and appropriately followed by their fair and firm application. Hence, law abiding can quickly make life easier for everyone.


Most importantly, the best solution of the rampant disease is through practising the doctrine of “Altruism” which means the belief that acting for the benefit of others is right and good. Such an attitude or way of behaving marked by unselfish concern for the welfare of others is the best remedy to be spiritually fit, medically healthy, morally and legally satisfying for everyone of course. The selfless act done for another’s benefit is a humanitarian endeavor praised by all societies and is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions. Also, as an ethical doctrine this holds that individuals have a moral obligation to help, serve, or benefit others, if necessary at the sacrifice of self interest.


Scientific studies show that altruism is not only helpful to society - but helpful to the person performing the good deed as well. Studies have shown that the Muslim doctrine of " Amr bil ma'rouf wa nahi 'ani almunkar" (ordering good and denouncing or literally "dis-ordering", evil) has significant health benefits in both the physical and psychological realm.


Finally, It is worth mentioning that among the happiest of societies was the first Muslim society. Those Muslims were the reflection of Islamic doctrines in the Qur'an and Sunnah; they were helping each other, neither for money, nor for fame but for the sake of Allah SWT.
“The best charity is that given when one is in need and struggling.” (Ibn Katheer).
“…And they give others preference over themselves even though they were themselves in need….” (Quran 59:9). “By no means shall you attain righteousness unless you spend of that which you love….” (Quran 3:92).
May Allah SWT purify our conscience of hypocrisy and guide us towards what really pleases Him.