Comment 78638

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted June 18, 2012 at 15:38:36 in reply to Comment 78607

>> creating and investing in make-work projects will not get us out of the recession...a world war did

Right, but why did WWII create millions of jobs? Because the government bought lots of stuff, which forced businesses to hire workers.

Our federal government is laying off federal employees, cutting back on military purchases, which is the opposite of what they did during WWII.

>> Are people saving more? Is that why household debt is at record highs?

In 2006-07, Canadian corporations saved $42-43B each year. In the last two years, they have increased their savings to $62-63B. If you assume that a job pays $35k, that works out to 571k jobs that were not created because corporations saved rather than hired.

Canada's workforce is approximately 18M, which means those 571k jobs would translate into a decrease of 3.17% on our current 7.3% unemployment rate.

In 2006-07, households went into debt by an average of $47B/year. In the past two years, they have gone into debt only $33.7B. That's $14B in higher savings/less debt than in 2006-07.

If the feds wanted to counteract this higher level of private savings (approx $34B) they could do this quite easily. Just stop collecting the GST. That would put an additional $28B in the pockets of the private sector.

Don't you think an extra $28B in consumers pockets would help drive sales and jobs?

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