Someone sent me a quick email saying New Brunswick doesn’t need Soviet style economic planning. I think they believe that because I am advising that governments and community leaders get focused on existing strengths and look for ways to build new ones that somehow that equates to some form of central planning of the economy.
Nope. I am actually advocating the opposite of government management of the economy. I am advocating the position that communities and governments need to make themselves attractive to industrial development and that being focused in effort has been shown to be a sucessful way to get it done.
But if my thinking on this became pervasive, we would have less government intervention in industry, less subsidization of bad business models and an overall stronger economy. It is precisely the lack of business investment and a strong private sector economy that compels governments to get more involved in bailing out companies, expanding the size of government and begging for more federal handouts.
Get that recalibrated and we will have less, not more, central planning.