Dear Editor:
One of the fundamental principles of sound investment is never placing your eggs in one basket.
Thanks to the West, the Chinese economy has become up to now, the strongest in the world. We depend on them for practically anything. We have also exported to them large numbers of tax-paying manufacturing jobs – to their advantage and to our detriment. Had we invested in our economies the billions of dollars we have invested in China and kept our manufacturing jobs, we would have been in a better economic position than we are now.
The weakening of the Chinese economy is dragging all of us down due to the decreased demand for and the subsequent oversupply of oil. With the resulting weakening of the Canadian dollar, all imports are now much pricier. We import from the United States 80 per cent of our produce which is paid in U.S. funds. Groceries are now much more expensive for all of us.
Why can’t we outsource our produce directly from other countries that grow them the whole year round and for which we do not have to pay in U.S. dollars? Free trade may not allow us to do it? Obama had no such concerns when he killed the Keystone oil project, depriving Canada from billions of dollars in oil sales revenue
We are not really a sovereign country when we are at the mercy of other countries for our economic well-being. We somehow tend to unrealistically think that the needs of others must supersede our own needs. I do not think we can expect much from the feds except more futile patriotic optimistic speeches and from our provincial government and others, just more and higher taxes, premiums and fees. We should count our blessings.
The recent B.C. (property) assessments have made most of us much “wealthier” than last year. The fact that more of the so-called snow geese are now spending their vacations in the Okanagan rather than in the United States, must give you a clearer picture of the shape of things to come.
John Bueno
North Vancouver
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