Perpetual Peasants

We Canadian peasants aren't saving enough for our retirement according to this article. Okay, this is news. The people should know and be warned, perhaps they will strive to put more money away.

Yeah... You know that is not the way the author or the talking heads are going to react on this though.

What is the first conclusion our 'White Knights' in government suggest? Is it that Canadians should be warned that they have to do more or they will not have sufficient funds to carry them through retirement? Um, no.

Is it a call to personal action and personal responsibility? Don't be ridiculous.

"Stand back Peasants!"
"I, Government the Good will do all the hard work for you..."

“More and more people are going to start realizing they don't have enough savings,” Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan predicted.

He and his provincial counterparts joined federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty last week in launching a sweeping reappraisal of retirement savings – one that's set to spark a heated debate about whether to expand the Canada Pension Plan or create some other supplemental scheme."

Yup. The first action of government, any government in Canada these days seems to be to say "Look, we can't trust people to take care of this themselves. They are just too stupid or apathetic or poor... so the Government /sigh/ will have to do it for them. We will have to save them from themselves."

Alright... the /sigh/ was there for dramatic effect. The truth is they aren't sighing they are rubbing their hands together in gluttonous glee, because they are going to get to expand their precious governmental toy. They will get more of your money, they will have more freedom to act on your behalf, they will have more control of you and you will have less.

This automatic and reflexive jump to governmental control or expansion every time a "bad thing" is occurring or might happen is government's secret weapon.

It makes us what the government wants us to be... Perpetual peasants looking to them for answers, solutions and salvation.

The government points at a negative outcome (any negative outcome) and offers to leap to our rescue like a knight in shining armour, and we, sit like peasants cowering in the dirt marveling at their power and the shininess of that armour.

The problem is that most of us poor peasants never realize that the government has the shiny armour because we peasants paid for it, and if they didn't take so much from us we would probably be able to stand up for ourselves, to do for ourselves in whatever way makes sense and fits with how we want to live our lives.