cannuck

you really need to read up on what the frick Marxism is.

No, only greedy assholes who seem to think they need more of everything to somehow justify their existance think in that way. People who have actually succeeded and want to contribute something to their fellow man realize that making money is easy. Being productive and useful is really difficult. Having the balls to admit that some things are wrong is even more difficult. I have the privilege of sharing one board appointment with people who were in their working years entrusted with the task of advising heads of state on how economies, finance and monetary policy fit together, and how those things relate to the social policy goals and needs of their countries apply. You look at the world through the very narrow viewpoint of Argus' bank account. I have leaned to look at it as a member of the human race. Still have a lot to learn, still have a lot to accomplish, but will never stop working in that direction.

Having funded and managed or owned many startups, including publicly traded companies, I think I have a pretty good idea of what this stuff is about. Marxism is NOT about taking money from what you very loosely think are "successful" people, it is about the state owning the means of production. In that case, there are no successful people to take money from, as it belongs to the state. You can actually just read Marx's stuff and find that out. Some day when you grow a pair and are prepared to genuinely put money and effort at risk by actually BEING in business, come talk to me about it. Meanwhile, you can just sit there in your corner and continue to be greedy and hedonistic. You see, what real success is is realizing you are not the only person in the world.

You are REDISTRIBUTING wealth, no more, no less when you (or anyone else) cashes in on a speculative gain. Sadly, since you don't seem to have the ability to be productive, why should the rest of the world carry you? I don't think you have a clue about Marxism. There is one hell of a difference between the state owning the means of production vs. it being owned privately. I am a capitalist, but emphatically NOT a caino capitalist. I believe in earning money and creating wealth, not taking advantage of privilege to redistribute wealth. What you worship is no different from the socialist notion that they can simply redistribute wealth without adding any value and things will be just fine. As far as inflation goes, the only reason we are not in the Weimar republic of the 21st century (yet) is that our economy is tied to the US economy, and the US economy belongs lock stock and barrel to the member banks of the Fed. When they increase the money supply to cover the expansion of money required to cover the inflated (should be the word that explains something to you) values from market rise, the resulting inflationary pressure on the greenback forces every other central bank to jump in and buy to prop it up, as much of their own worth is tied up in instruments denominated in USD. One big correction came in 1929, and the next SHOULD have come in 2008/9, but the banksters owned enough of the administrations of two succesive governments to simply drown the real issues in another $10 Trillion in US debt. THAT is massively large inflationary pressure, and it will remain on the greenback until the day the correction comes. BTW: you keep using the term "I invest money in a company". Unless you are buying an IPO or PO, or making a private placement, you are investing in nothing. Not one red cent of what you for a stock that is trading goes to the company. You put a bet on the value of the stock, you are not in any way investing in anything. You seem to understand capital markets and equites about as well as Marxism.

I have to say I agree in pricnipal, the problem is who and how values would be determined. We are so far away from understanding the full life cycle costs of what we do that there just is no body of work to fall back on to figure out the costs and who and how that factor would be distributed. Government, sadly, is so inept at just about ANYTHING outside of cashing their own paycheques, I would be hard pressed to hand trillions of dollars of authority to redistribute capital to them.

Because you are not likely INVESTING at all. The only investment per se was made on the IPO or subsequent PO. THOSE are real investments. When you buy an existing equity, the company gets not one red cent. You are not investing, you are simply gambling on how "the market" will value the stock at any given point in time. You are creating NO WEALTH whatsoever, and if you do sell it for a speculative gain, the resulting inflation bill is passed on to every taxpayer in Canada, so you profit directly at their expsense, while investing nothing in the real economy. Why should they pay your bill for your trip to the casino? IF you were an actual investor, and put your money into an equity IPO, PO or private placement, as I clearly stated, your dividend should be tax free.

IMHO: what should be shared should be a direct function of how the money was obtained. If it was from a speculative gain, 99% on day one, 98%% on end of first month, tapering down 1% a month until capital gain is at the nominal tax rate. If the money was earned from creating wealth instead of just re-distributing it, taxed at corporate tax rate when earned and the dividend should NEVER incurr any further tax liability when it is distributed to investors/shareholders. Canadians ARE entitled to a certain standard of living, as the assets of the country belong to its citizens. As to foreign aid: You really need to see what happens to aid dollars in most countries where there is a need. It usually ends up in the hands of someone NOT intended, and will only get distrubuted (if at all) at a very high personal cost to the recipient. What most foreign aid does is simply reward a country for overpopulating and missmanaging its own resources. In most cases, it is the cause of people's problems, not the solution.

Ah, I think we are missing the whole point here. If a teeniebopper can be turned into a pothead and fry enough brain cells, he or she will then vote Liberal.

You speak as if intellectual ability was a gift that bestows wealth (it can) and all poor people are somehow short on common sense. I can tell you from my experience, some of what we credit with being "most intelligent" (a very bad choice of phrase, as it usually is measured as those with best recall, NOT intelligence at all) are some of the poorest managers of their personal finance. They just have more money to waste than those in lower income stratae. I agree, that the status quo for ANYONE in Canada is far better than most people outside of the G7 could ever hope to achieve, but that is due to our ability to waste a finite gift of natural resources and our ignorance in allowing our governments to rack up trillions in debt that is not being reduced at all. Because we consume without balancing production, and imitate the US by wasting our finite capital on speculative ventures instead of investing in wealth creating industry, we are just digging a deeper hole. We do indeed teach our children about "finance" - by our example. The very notion that you can run an economy on speculation is total bullshit. You can, just as government can plump up a very sick economy with debt inflate your position within the diaspora by redistributing weath by speculative gain - while passing the bill on to your fellow citizens from current or future inflation. What we do NOT teach is how wealth is created, and the value of actually doing so. You boastful participation in the very instrument of that abuse is a perfect example. There is a HUGE difference between intelligence and just being smart enough to screw over the system without enough intellectual discipline to have a conscience about it. Being successfully greedy is very, very different from being successfully productive. THAT is why very few genuinely brilliant people are ever very wealthy.

If we were to have some kind of commentary system for citizens, I suggest that the cost of the army of bureaucrats who collate, summarize, and in turn draft into proposed legislation wouild not only cost as much as, if not more than our current parliament, but now you have taken out of the hands of someone elected to represent you and I and put into the hands of unaccounable bureaucrats to generate what would ultimately become legislation - and that would be an even BIGGER disaster than what the current army of bureaucrats and lobbyists pull wool over the eyes of parliamentarians now. No, I could not support the idea of that kind of "direct democracy", but what I could support is elimination of rule-by-special-interest. Make lobbying highly illegal, and make partisanship also illegal. Representatives would actually represent, rather than toe some party line that was shaped by donors and lobbyists. Overlap terms as do the Yanks so there is always an experienced core. Parliament would elect ministers from their ranks according to qualification, and have the power to remove same. Ditto on full recall for elected members by the electorate. THEN, I believe we could have some sort of direct democracy that was effective by having your representatives present proposals that have been vetted and debated for online voting, instant referendae for critical issues. Ditto recall of representatives or legislation they had passed would need only sufficient number of voters to chime in on line. BTW: earlier, someone commented that Canada produces the best of politicians: how the frick do you explain the unbelivably poor excuses now sitting in Cabinet and 24 Sussex?

You have come far closer to the truth in this matter than any other post. The wrangling about rich people and taxes is not just noise, it is based upon a pretty general understanding that something is wrong with wealth distribution today, The "haves" want to be left alone to maintain the status quo, because they have what they want, or at least feel it is within their grasp. The "have nots" simply get into the politics of envy because that is how politics is used to lead massive blocks of vote around by the nose. that, and by comparisson with what they see as displays of wealth on the boob tube every night, the "have not" got their fair share. Thing is: in a country as wealthy as ours, why is there so much of a divide/spread of levels of wealth? In a country as flush with social programmes, sick care benefits, pensions, welfare, etc., why the rankor about the 1%? The answer is that people may be ignorant, but they are not collectively completely stupid. They KNOW something is wrong, they just don't exactly know what it is. So, you ask, "what is it?" We have to look at how money is earned, and what activities result in what kinds of reward. In a purely capitalist economy, all means of production would be owned privately, and when money is earned by either adding value to a resource, or delivering a service in support of that, wealth is created. Thing is: in addition to our capitalist economy, we have two more economies in effect: one, the socialist economy, very visible, uses the power of government to tax and re-distribute wealth according to what is supposed to be the common good of society. And, we actually DO that, to a great extent. The third element is the "market economy" that exists to some extent everywhere in some manner, but in our developed and some developing nations, the use of capital for purely speculative purposes has been blown far, far out of proportion (I refer to this as "Casino Capitalism", but others come close with "Corporate" or "Crony" Capitalism). You see, the really big bucks that come from the activities of "markets" and the world of finance CREATE NO WEALTH, they merely re-distribute it. BUT: the elephant in the corner of the room is that they do increase the money supply. With no value being added, that is purely an inflationary force that in turn passes the bill for those with the privilege to play behind the desk at the casino back to each and every citizen in form of either inflation, diminished value or pent-up inflationary forces that will eventually burst the bubble. Yes, the so-called "right wing" mavens of Wall/Bay Street are absolutely no more productive to the economy than the indigent on the small "s" street. In fact, they are far, far more damaging to the real economy (Main Street) than every welfare and pension recipient combined. Where Eyeball got it wrong: the really wealthy have absolutely no reason to challenge authority. In our political system of "rule-by-special-interest" they OWN it. What we really need is for the ignorant to become informed and participate in democratic debate and restructuring of government. At this point in time, it is in the business of dispensing privilege. What it needs to be doing is writing rules (especially tax law) that rewards productivity, not simply accomodating greed and privilege. It needs to govern, instead of distort. John Q. seems to be oblivious to these facts, but he/they KNOW there is something way out of whack. The kind of money that makes billionaires seldom any longer comes from producing anything (i.e. actually creating wealth), but from the privilege of being able to cash in the chips from the casino. The struggle is who gets to re-distribute - the socialists or the casino capitalists - leaving the real economy, the capitalists on main street stuck out in the cold. (on edit) I should add: the Main Street crowd are the very ones the Liberals targetted with these tax measures, and as within their ranks are the majority the people and businesses that acutally create most of the wealth in our economy, they have every right to be outraged. Oh: before anyone gets on their high horse that doctors don't "produce" anything, go back to my definition of how wealth is created. They deliver a service that is VITAL to the funtion of society and people - sick care, and some even go way outside of their box and contribute to health care.

These are fair questions, and ones that SHOULD have been asked of immigration authorities before ANYONE gets into Canada in any way. That no longer happens. Immigrants and "refugees" simply pay an immigration consultant to be told what to write and what to say, and our bureaucrats just rubber stamp and let them in (I am exaggerating a very small amount on that count - I am sure they cash their paycheques, takes a holiday and coffee break, check their benefits and penion funds and THEN rubber stamp whatever is on their desk). My friend and business partner managed a major government owned company, had 80,000 people under him, and was paid very, very well for his expertise. I know him quite well and can verify how he made his money. Why would they come to Canada? Because there is no way he and his wife wanted to raise their son in the filthy environment of Beijing. He had left government for private business, and had the top job in the world in his field for GE - but based in Beijing. He wanted a life for his family similar to what we expect here, and that is what they have now - and are very happy to enjoy. One comment I will never forget: kids in Chinese society are under HUGE pressure to accomplish - and have no time or chance to simply be kids. He can and does work anywhere in the world - endless opportunity for someone with his skill and experience, but his home is now Saskatoon - by careful choice. BTW: we live here for similar reasons: worked internationally and spent two years looking for best place on planet to raise kids - chose here. Another factor you haven't considered: people in China over 40 clearly remember living under Maoist version of communism. They are STILL ruled by the CPC, and it could swing any way, any time. A lot of Chinese immigrants/residents to Canada are only "sort of" here as an insurance policy should things to sideways at home.

The problems we have with immigration are multiple, and complex. Certainly, the quality of refugees that have been dragged here after the Europeans have had their pick do not bode well for a positive outcome. This seems to be where the Liberal party places most of its emphasis, and one can only conclude that is because they are most likely to hold that vote. Sad part is: by simply giving the money to those same refugees to stay where there were, about 10x as many could have been helped, and we would not suffer the long term costs - financial and otherwise - of supporting and accomodating them. I am not terribly sad about so many immigrants going to the big three in cities, as let's face it, they are not really very productive places. Happy to see the cultural, economic and criminal problems stay where they belong. The business of why "traditional" Canadians are not reproducing at a sustainable rate has a lot to do with us not understanding the difference between creating wealth and just re-distributing it. The latter (allowing in fact PROMOTING speculation as a legitimate way to make money - when it only redistributes it) is what requires Mom and Dad BOTH to have to work to pay for "location, location, location", not to mention the "stuff" that seems to define lifestyle these days. No time left for those pesky children thingies that keep at least one parent busy 24 x 7 for decades if you want to raise them yourself. Cost so much to contract what work out, second income is too reduced to have that big mortgage payment. But, as has already been mentioned, why in the name of anything sane would we want to grow our population at all??? Instead of taxing the living shit out of citizens, we can afford a whole lot better by learning to control totally out of control government spending. Add to that: kill the speculative crap and costs drop dramatically. Now: on to those "professionals" coming in from Asian and African countries. What I have seen is generally the standards of ethics, integrity and professional skills simply are NOT up to "traditional" North American standards. Yes, there are a few diamonds in all of that rough, so let's take those and keep the other 99 out of 100 right where they belong - at home in Asia or Africa. Before you simply jump to the conclusion that I am against all immigration unless from some kind of Euro-centric sort of source, nothing could be further from the truth. I just want to see the Liberal version of seeking quantity replaced by some as-yet-to-be-seen conservative version of quality. That doesn't mean bring in nothing but PhDs (we have enoughj post hole diggers already) but families who's SECOND generation are most likely to be very successful. Yeah, right off the first gen, as they will not likely ever just blend in, but their children are a very different story - and the "they" I mean certain countries or people with certain proven accomplishments and successes who will raise their children to take full advantage of the ample opportunites in Canada. One of my closest friends for many years just immigrated from China to SK. Both he and his wife are engineers, his professoriate level, but they came here so she can stay at home with their son while he goes out to bring home the bacon (having had as many as 20,000 people under him should tell you he has a pretty good idea how to make stuff happen). While they got in under immigrant investment programme, it should be pointed out that anyone who can meet those requirements is very, very likely to pay their own way in this country starting pretty much on day 1. But their children I expect will go on to REALLY contribute as Canadians, borne or naturalized. What IMHO should be the #1 requirement, though, is that immigrants qualify financially from places or situations where they EARNED their money, not acquired it through privilege and the skim (puts quite a dent in most African candidates).

I would think that even Barbie and Ken would have the sense NOT to just get in line behind the Euroweenies in the carbon crusades.

Yup. That was the brain surgeon to whom Trudeau entrusted the future of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Sorry not to have replied, kind of knee deep in a client's problems right now, trying to get their plant up and running. only flashes of time to go to a computer. I got that information from the C Pro C guy who did the background checks on Trudeau when he was first elected. The DND guys were horrified, and worried about what would happen to them - and of course after Hellyer's white paper, the once definitive defence force that defined itself at Vimy Ridge was turned into a social services agency in the "Just Society" (which pretty much meant that when Trudeau was done with industry, military, etc., we would have nothing left, just society.

that is a red herring. The only reason it can even be mentioned is due to the idiotic notion that Islamic immigrants will assimilate and just fit right in.

Yes, the difference is that the Vegas terrorist was doing things diametrically opposed to the teachings of the society from which he came. Islamic terrorists are fullly in compliance with what radical imams preach. I spend a lot of time in islamic countries, and the version of Islam that I have come to know does NOT support violence and jihads. The probem here is that those who have come to be community leaders here are either fundamentalist extremists or willing to turn a blind eye to the existance of that faction.

BTW: you heare the crickets from opposition because the left wing media covers only Trudeau, and does so only in glowing terms. It is easy to understand how and why. If you are going to BE a journalist, you have already chosen never to do anything productive with your life, so sucking off of the public tit is your natural environment. NOTHING has been a greater enabler than Liberal politicians and governments.

"Trudeau" and "thinkging" is an oxymoron (with the emphasis on "MORON")

You are absolutely correct. Allowing, even encouraging immigrtation from Islamic states is the cause, and once here, our endless generosity funds them.

Uh,,,NO. It is a fact. Pierre Elliot Trudeau carried a Communist Party card when he studied at the Sorbonne - taking "walking trips in Eastern Europe" on several occassions. I assume that is public record.

Michael, I hoped you would know better. It is not the Antioch Baptist Church that is radicalizing NA borne Muslims. That is a 100% imported problem. By saying that by being borne here (such as Khadr) that makes them "Canadians" and "Home Grown" is nonsense. Their families and the commun ity imported from outside has not assimilated, in fact done exactly the opposite. Have ALL Muslim immigrtants become radicals? Of course not. BUT: were those who did influenced by assimilating long established Canadian (or American) values? Of course not. Most of all, the community that SEEMS to be "moderate" is in most cases abundantly aware of the radicals within, and does nothing to expose them. Nor is it a competitiion between WASP terrorists and those from Islam. It is a problem that can easily be dealt with by terminating immigration and expelling all who have associated with radical elements or aided, assisted or covered up for them in any way.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/us/new-york-shots-fired/index.html and the left-leaning media criticize Trump for identifying the problem as a Muslim problem.

We elected a card carrying communist as Prime Minister, they don't need to infiltrate, they ran the place.