Harper amongst the shoals

There is one thing about those of us who live our lives at sea in ships: we must occasionally make landfall. It doesn't matter how much deep water I traverse, I must regularly engage my pilotage mind and negotiate the rocks and shoals of coastal waters.

There are millions of rocks around the globe which could tear out the bottom of my ship and turn that vessel into an international disaster. Thus, when it comes to those millions of rocks, there is one very simple rule I am obliged to observe: Miss every goddamned one of them.

So after the sunshine and smoke that Stephen Harper and his coterie of sycophants have tried to pump up your ass, you have to ask, "What form of economist is Harper?"

This speaks volumes.

Canadian consumers are about to rein in their spending, cutting off some of the blood flowing to the economic recovery.

Tapped out and debt-burdened, with net worth slipping, the all-important shopper will have to juggle the budget to allocate more to repayment and less to discretionary spending as borrowing costs rise. The expected pullback comes in a key selling season for retailers in the run-up to Christmas.

Well, doesn't that make Harper's forecasts of sweetness a little bitter. But it gets worse.

Almost 60 per cent of Canadians live paycheque to paycheque and say they'd be in financial difficulty if their paycheque were a week late.

And the great economist, Stephen Harper, leads the way. Having racked up the largest debt in Canadian history he has no option but to stop it.

And he doesn't have a plan to do it without ripping the fabric of community to shreds.

It's what you get for electing a navel-gazing hillbilly.

Stephen Harper the economist. He couldn't balance the checkbook of a raincoast faller and he certainly can't find his way out of the rocks.