cannuck

I may not be able to stop laughing long enough to get any work done. That said: I understand why you would say that, but it simply flies in the face of what "left" and "right" in a business/economic sense can be defined. Marx would have the means of production in the public hands, but in Canada, that public vehicle is a crown. You seem to thing that the slimey limeys actually have access to those assets (which, once again, I understand that you also believe as do I that the BNA still applies).

Marxism dictates that the proletariat own and control the means of creating wealth. That is exactly what a crown corporation does, and exactly what nationalizing parts of the oil industry, aircraft industry, pipeline industry, potash industry, etc. are doing. Yes, Venezuela nationalized foreign equity (not necessarily capital) but as with PetroCan, Potash Corp, Eldorado Nuclear, Wheat Board, etc. these things deny the ability of business to employ capital to create wealth from resources in the times beyond nationalization from the investments and work put in by them before government took them out of the picture. As you point out, the Crown already OWNS the resources, all that nationalizing them does is ensure total fuckups run the show for the benefit of what their political masters wish to appear to be doing during their short term in office.

Now THAT makes sense given the timelines and geopolitics. Thanks for suggesting.

Sad part is that it is NOT shining the light where it can see the real problem. Our government(s) simply hide it all behind this mindless PC crap. BTW: we call the kind of driver you are referring to "one way drivers" (and a fair number of other names, that are DEFINITELY not PC). Most can struggle down the highway going forward (busses full of kids notwithstanding) but are totally incapable of backing a single trailer, never mind a B train.

You may be right, but it's not how they tell it in Morocco. Since I was not around for the Egyptian NOR the Moroccan version, I will give both equal weight.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/new-federal-semi-truck-driver-regulations-to-come-into-effect-in-january-2020-1.4987477 Thanks to the "newly arrived Canadian" who murdered 13 and maimed 16 innocent victims as part of our "open borders" and "politically correct" approach to running Canada, the Feds and Provinces have FINALLY agreed to set some kind of standards for people who drive 30 to 60 tonnes of hardware down our highways. The upside is that this is long, long overdue. Further, it is Canada for once operating as a country and not deferring authority to the provinces. What few people seem to realize is that one of the massive economic advantages the US has over Canada is a very good Interstate highway system - whereas we have essentially one road that is in my places only two lanes wide to move our freight. While there are differences state-to-state in the US, the "standards" in Canada change dramatically from province to province - and there is only one way around (i.e. use the US Interstates). We need some kind of federal consistency for driver training, safety certification (more-or-less in place now, but not Federal) and equipment specifications (again, still a bit of a hodge-podge). The downsides are many. The already ridiculously greater cost of freight service in Canada (making us uncompetitive with the US) will now increase only here. We share the highway systems with the USA and Mexico, and drivers holding those licenses will have fewer barriers to entry and the industries South of 49 will have lower costs. We need INTERNATIONAL standards under the Can/US/Mex trade agreements. We come close with IRP and IFTA for registration and fuel tax, but still no cigar on standards for equipment and drivers. Worse yet: it doesn't address the actual problem. While new drivers are a start, it is the existing drivers on our roads that are still a problem. Mexico and the US will be somewhere below our standards for new drivers (the demand due to high turnover means there are a LOT of new drivers on the road all of the time). BUT, on top of that, you can just wander into Canada with another country's driving license (that may be real or forged) and simply drive in Canada!!!!! One of the leading reasons for this is the ethnicity of the largely criminal organization(s) that have taken over the trucking industry in Canada. Sidhu was a good example of how this works. Here was a new driver that had met (possibly) Alberta standards. Now, to most of us, that means driving test passed due to demonstrated skill. I have no idea (yet) as to what happened with Sidhu, but it is common knowledge that people from his culture have a habit of doing here what they do at home: bribe an examiner or even put their own examiner into the system to flaunt the intent and standards of the law (and/or regs). So, here you have a brand new driver from a culture that doesn't take the rule of law seriously at all not starting out his career in a small straight truck, but loaded to max gross (63.5 tonnes) in a B Train (that he can drive WITHOUT having been tested in multiple trailer, high gross driving). Why am I so down on him in this case? Simple: he had two log books. For those not familiar with HOS rules: it means that he and/or his employer intended from day 1 to drive more hours per day/trip than is legally allowed (for extremely good reason). At the extreme I have seen in ON a fleet of 50 dump trucks, all brought to the repair center by different drivers, but only ONE driver's license for the whole lot. As you might guess, once again Sikh operator. EVERYONE in trucking knows what is going on - everyone it seems except governments. It would be duck soup to shut this lot down for regulatory and criminal violations, but we are so busy being PC that we open the borders, invite them in, let them ILLEGALLY operate and simply take over an entire industry and seldom bother to investigate or enforce what little rules are in place. Sorry I can't link stats, as I don't think the ethnicity question can be found in any data base of accident reports - that wouldn't be PC.

The expression is derived from Berbers - the tribes along the coast of Morocco. The most common reference is to the "barbary coast", which is (was) a corruption of "Berber coast". The North Atlantic current combines with a sharp shift in magnetic deviation that made navigation along the coast of Morocco particularly difficult. It was a favourite area for pirates, who were often Berbers - who would tend to anchor in the harbour at Sale (North side of Rabat) until an earthquake raised the seabed in that harbour to be too shallow. If anyone cares: the nav error I mentioned above put a lot of ships aground along the coast South of Casablanca, especially where the Canaries caused a sharp increase in the Southward flow of the ocean current as far as Tarfaya. To this day there are a lot of wrecks along the shoreline. The Saharoui would collect the cargo and survivors and use them to mine salt and transport across the dessert where their captives would be ransomed, sold or in some cases just released (as a reward for being good workers with no ransom value).

I think an Ontario Islamist Party would be a great thing. It would give the West a great excuse to separate.

Never heard of Petro Canada? Nor Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan? The Canadian Wheat Board? How about the Trans Mountain? Or a thousand fed and provincial crown corps? The Marxist leaders of our country have seized property many times, giving some sort of compensation, but still putting the state in the driver's (business) seat. Karl would be so proud of our efforts to own the means of production. The real difference between Canada and Venezuela is that we were able to defeat Trudeau #1, hopefully just as we will avert further damage by removing Trudeau #2. Chavez and Maduro were simply able to be better socialists than the Trudeaus.

sorry, you are quite right. I should have written "liberal" - although historically the separation between Liberals and all of the versions of "conservative" is a very fine and fuzzy line indeed.

1. The CPC is about one millimeter to the right of the LPC. 2. Bible, tora, Quran, Mein Kampf - all just a bunch of pure bullshit. Same/same. Also, those condemnations were what guided the sponsors of the Crusades, which are simply the counterpart of jihad, which is no different from the Final Solution.

There is some truth to what you say, but the fact is only governments have the power to fix it. Of course, when you consider that Goldman Sucks has owned the last ten or so US administrations...

Governments have 100% control over both regulatory and taxation regimes. Those two things define exactly what business and finance can do.

I thought I made it clear it was just the LAST of many, many acts and a signal, not a cause due to its regulatory content. I will be more specific next time (under big time crunch as trying to get some of that good old capitalist pig stuff out of the way from year end).

The opening volley was bank deregulation. When Klinton wrote off Glass-Steagall that was the last remaining check on the banks and a green flag to simply "do whatever you want", and they did. The resulting orgy of incredible greed and corruption led to '08 The nukes were already dropped when instead of letting the street crash when it had to they were declared "too big to fail" and bailed out whilly nilly on the taxpayers' backs. You want me to take a pocket knife to a nuclear war.

It was (and IS) our responsibility to get involved in the political process to stop those things from happening. Before you say one person can't make any difference, I can assure you that all differences start with one person. In my own daliances into partisan politics, our very small band of shit disturbers have had VERY large impact.

legal because WE granted through our governments the privilege to do so with a free ride on the tax system - thus driving "investment" money into speculative activity and not into productive financing. The big whoop is all of that speculative gain increases the money supply, diluting the taxpayers' equity in the money supply. No different from execs getting stock options that dillute the shareholders to nothing, but since we let ourselves get switched from a capitalist economy to a casino capitalist economy, nobody is buying equities for the dividends, just the profits from speculative trading.

As I said, all that is merely the diversion from the main event. The rise of Casino Capitalism was the result of giving government free reign to bestow the privilege of raping and pillaging the real economy. Anyone who was alive and mentally capable of understanding is responsible for simply letting it happen when WE had the tools (of what was once at least some kind of functioning democracy) to prevent it. If you drank from the speculative cup, IMHO that makes one an unaccused co-conspirator.

Because you, and anyone else intellectually capable of being objective are fighting the diversionary battle and surrendering the main prize to those who are simply steeling it by privilege.

Canada as a country wil never go bankrupt - it has too much in real value in resource wealth. The government, on the other hand, will some day reach a point where it is no longer credit worthy as we will not be able to service our debt. You and I will be worm feed by then, but it is our responsibility to those left behind to right the wrongs that we have allowed to develop.

Merely suggesting you pick the fight that is underlying pretty much everything. You are concentrating on the tactics but missing the strategy. The political wrangling is nothing but a diversion.

Banks/finance are waging all out war on the consumer/taxpayer. They lost one battle after the 1929 debacle, and should have been wiped out in 2009, but instead they have been rewarded for their treachery instead of being punished. Not standing up to right that wrong is an extreme lack of courage, sense and conviction. You (and most of the world) are tilting at procurement and poltical windmills all day long, while the foxes are emptying our chicken coop (intentional pun).

economic coward #2.

Main street doesn't get funded now. When you put money in Bay Street or Wall Street's hands, all it is used for is to inflate the value of the underlying equities. Business needs to be an investment target, not a plaything for financiers. THIS is why corporate governance has gone to hell - it is not the best business person running things, it is those who will best give the finance community gains without the bother of being a business. Reality is: we need the US to do the same thing, but after seeing what it is like to run a branch plant economy at the whims of American masters, we really don't need THAT kind of investment at all - as it is seldom an actual investment. You are exhibiting the kind of cowardice that lets us screw up the entire world of business and simply surrendering it to the world of finance without a fight because we are individually to frigging greedy and useless to actually be productive and too gutless to stand up for what is right.

First of all, it isn't 1/2 but far, far fewer people than that actually contribute to Canada with income tax. Half of the population is too old, too young, too infirm to pay any income tax. When you subtract the HUGE number of employees of Federal, Provincial, Municipal government, and those living on reserves even employed (which usually means by the band), THAT adds a significant number of people to the list. Yes, some of these may pay income tax, but since we pay them, it is not new money, just our same tax dollar rolling around in a useless, wasteful circle. I doubt that leaves 1/4 of the population actually paying the bills. The real issue is what are you taxing? EVERYONE pays the goddamnsalestax...er goods and services tax, so the idea that only top income earners pay anything out of pocket (although that money once again is mostly the same tax dollar recirculated) but to some extent, virtually every conscious and non-incarcerated citizen feels a bit of consumption sting in their pocket. What we do NOT understand or do is realize the difference between taxing wealth that has been created vs. wealth that is merely being redistributed. A government salary is redistributed wealth. Profit from ANY kind of speculative gain (be it real estate, equities, derivatives, etc.) is no different from a welfare cheque - it creates zero wealth - and the increase in money supply is inflationary - thus costing EVERYONE who pays tax or not by weakening currency. Instead of taxing income "progressively", we should give a basic personal exemption to everyone that keeps income tax OFF of the lowest stratum (I am just guessing something around $30k today) needed to survive. After that, stop penalizing success in PRODUCTIVE work or any other salary by increasing rates "progressively". One seldom discussed or understood is to stop inflating the shit out of everything by giving a free ride on the taxpayer to speculative activity (which also, as it happens is what drives capital into non-productive, speculative wealth re-distribution). Simplest way to end that nonsense is tax capital gains 99% day one, 95% year one, decreasing 5% annually until at the nominal flat tax rate. Bay Street free ride is a hell of a lot bigger than social services skim off of the top. You then kill a lot of birds with one stone. The huge differential in cost of big city living vs. rural or small town is gone, or at least greatly reduced. When have empty lots in Hongcouver going for over a mil and shacks in Hogtown damn near the same, how are people who are trying to survive supposed to afford housing? Stop putting all of the loose money into speculators hands for flipping property, doing M&A slight of hand or winning big at the derivative casino table. Yeah, those Bay Street maverns actually contribute next to nothing to the country - as the few taxes they pay on speculative gain come right out of the common pocket of every citizen. Biggest one of all: stop deficit spending. While we can throw a bandaid on incredible stupidity and ineptitude with government debt, the day of reckoning is being passed onto future generations in the biggest round of theft in the history of the world. Make governments accountable for their BS ideas by putting the bill on the table while they are still in office to answer to the taxpayer. Of course, the last requirement is to scale government back to providing services, not allowing it to pick economic winners and losers - and stop the rule-bys-special-interest function from dispensing privilege to screw the taxpayer and economy to death.