Irony. Oh, bleak irony:
The Honourable Minister of State (Finance) Kevin Sorenson and Lucie Tedesco, Commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), officially launched Canada’s third annual Financial Literacy Month (FLM) today.
[...]
Under the theme “Financial Literacy across Generations,” this year’s FLM puts the focus on learning or brushing up on the basics of money management at any age and will include events for Canadians of all ages. “Understanding the basics such as budgeting and saving as children is the first step,” said Commissioner Tedesco. “Learning how to manage credit and debt and plan financially provides Canadian youth with the tools they need to navigate through the financial realities of adulthood. Ultimately, this will help to ensure that their finances are in good shape as they enter their retirement years.”
That is unless the federal government goes bust.
I sometimes wonder if the hacks who put out these releases aren't giggling to themselves the whole time, amazed at what they're getting away with. You work for a Conservative government that wades through a sea of red ink every year. This same government has no credible plan to deal with the entitlement crisis, except point out how we're less screwed than the Yanks. So naturally you go about lecturing the common folk on how to balance their chequebooks. This is like the morbidly obese diet coach of legend.
We see here a unique combination of patronising contempt and arrogant presumption that does not, so far as we have been able to determine, exist outside of Ottawa. Even the Soviets assumed that an ordinary adult could balance their personal budgets without being lectured to by a full time commissar. Then again they were communists, not nannies. Herein lies the great difference between the totalitarian projects of the last century and the petty authoritarianism of this one, the end result. The communist, fascists and Nazis envision a new man who would change the world. Note the underlying assumption: Man.
At some point, after rigorous indoctrination, the boy would become a man. The modern nanny state assumes that the boy never becomes a man, he's always a boy needing to be hectored to and monitored. As the press release notes: "...brushing up on the basics of money management at any age and will include events for Canadians of all ages." No matter how old you get, the federal government will be there to tell you how to manage your affairs. That generations of Canadians did this quite well without government involvement never comes up.
If you were to point to when Canadians started losing their financial wits, it was about the same time the welfare state expanded from safety net to padded hammock. Managing your money is a basic necessity when the poor house beckons toward all but the very rich. When the welfare state pays for your education, health care and retirement, why would you need to be careful with money? Why care at all? If something goes wrong Big Brother will always be there to catch you.
So the government is trying to solve a problem it essentially created. Except governments don't solve problems, they either exacerbate or create them. They won't even make a dent in the issue of financial illiteracy by lecturing people on how to spend their money. If the credit card happy populace won't listen to their parents, their friends or their bank manager, why would they listen to a government press release?
Make that patronising contempt, arrogant presumption and impressive stupidity.
Comments