cannuck

there are a lot of questions/issue here, so let's try to deal with them one at a time. Personally, I abhor the idea of government simply stealing the assets of an individual or company outside of through legitimate taxation, but that is the view of someone who lives in a democratic society that respect such concepts. But, Venezuela today is NOT that kind of state, but a "Bolivarian republic" - which is to say a Marxist style of socialism. Within that frame of reference, all assets should belong to the state, so it is open season on all property. Just so happens, that Chavez used the USA as the ultimate foil for his megalomaniacal rampage. The "cure for cancer" analogy is completely out of context. Sick care is (or SHOULD be) a social service, not a business. This is what defines the very difference between the USA and the rest of the G7. While in the rest of world it would be perfectly acceptable to intervene, it would not fly in the USA. It would meet some resistance in Canada, but IMHO would be done. BUT: GM cars are hardly a social service, There is simply no way outside of a genuine Marxist country that you can justify such a thing as "for the public good". This marks another milestone in the loss of rule of any kind of law in Venezuela. Personal morality DOES scale up - in a genuinely democratic society. Well, in most anyhow. Venezuela long ago ceased to be such a state. I think you fail to realize what a "corporation" is and what "limited liability" in that sense means. A corporation is a "virtual person" and is indeed completely responsible for everything it, and its employees have done. The limits of the virtual person's liability is the assets of the company, not its shareholders. Directors are a different thing, and while not liable for commercial things, are indeed generally personally liable for environmental, legal, criminal and payroll obligations of the corporation they direct. If you are thinking of the the term LLC, that is far more of a tax construction than anything else. It allows a company to behave differently, more like a partnership or owner-operator, but in no way limits the company's liability for its actions. It does set up a veil over the assets of the shareholders, as does any other corporation.

The only reason that the literal center of the world's financial malfeasance...er BUSINESS - is that ONLY one central bank in the entire world belongs lock stock and barrel to its private member banks. From that position, it is so cheap and easy to buy each and ever successive administration for a pitance. Thus, the laws and regs to allow the unbelievable greed, avarice and recklessness disregard for ANYONE else on the plant to have their way with the world are written by and for those very same people who own both the central bank and the administration. Only in America, as they say. And, NO, I don't think things are all that much better with banking in this country.

That guy is simply spouting the same line of absolute BS that banksters have perfected. "Now we come to the big and nonobvious number: the excess profit that the Federal Reserve has made from the bailout, and given to Treasury. The Fed has added trillions of dollars of securities to its balance sheet as part of its various programs to put cash into the world financial system and hold down interest rates to help the economy. The Fed did this by creating money out of thin air and using it to buy interest-bearing securities. That interest is pure profit to the Fed — and the Fed, by law, turns over its surplus profit to Treasury." This money that the Fed "created out of thin air" is ultimately a liability to the taxpayer. Not only that, but it is a massive pent-up inflationary force. Expanding the money supply without changing the real value of the underlying assets is exactly what Casino Capitalism is all about. While this is all going on, the banksters get to line their pockets with the ill-gotten gains of money not earned by creating wealth, but skimmed off of the "money from nothing" that THEIR central bank conjured up. What was needed was for the institutions/businesses that screwed the whole world over with their games was to go TU - as would any other business. Yes, the world's economy would suffer a terrible correction, but the sooner it does that, the sooner it can get back on track to funding Main Street instead of Wall Street.

In my youth, I took a year off of school to become a banker (close to home for family reasons). As a management trainee, I was shoved along at quite a pace, but remember oh so well being clearly told how to sell debt to farm clients. This was in a period of high inflation. Past the level of authority I had at the counter, we were instructed to hustle the sucker...er CUSTOMER...into a meeting with our ag reps. Decades later, I did a lot of work with a group who investigated illegal farm foreclosures, that both the banks and courts were all too willing to execute. I also traveled with a committee of MLAs on a "farm debt tour". Turns out, when we sent them into the ag guys, they were convincing many to incorporate, thus avoiding the whole property coming under the "Homesteader's Act" (sic?) that would have protected some properties from foreclosure. Instead, the landowner got protected for the home quarter and the bank walked away with the land - just as they had planned decades earlier. That, and the games played such as "can't finance that used piece of equipment, but we CAN write a new one (unsaid, or sometimes openly suggested - from the dealer down the road we finance). I could literally write a book on the games that were played, so this is no surprise at all to me. Banks are NOT the same as any other business. They exist and enjoy the ability to do what they do with our money based on their charter and a web of legislation and regulation that grants them certain privileges that are available to no other business. The lessons about how treacherous the world of finance could be was forgotten in the years since 1929, What SHOULD have happened in 2008/9 is that banking should have been cleaned up by realizing that over the years, they have managed to boondoggle the politicians and idiotic bureaucrats into letting them do more and more things that are a blatant conflict of interest. The Yanks REALLY screwed up by rewarding them for their treachery with literally TRILLIONS, ultimately at the expense of the taxpayer (too long a story for here). We didn't miss by that much, banks here are now able to sell insurance, be investment banks and depository institution. Just like the US. Worse yet, they have literally transformed our economy from being based on productivity and creation of wealth to nothing more than redistributing wealth by speculative shell games. THey have betrayed our trust in the most egregious of ways.

Thank you. Coming from where it is, I consider that a compliment.

based on your posts, I'm calling BS on that one.

That is a very good and appropriate question. With the idiotic idea of simply bringing everyone who will likely vote Liberal into the country, the foreign services simply don't vet very well. They are also swamped with the very unrealistic quantities they must process. Even if they did, it is not much different from how some applicants learn the rules of how to get a job or get into an institution of higher learning - you simply lie. Many Asian cultures, for instance, place very little value on what to us is absolute "truthfulness" as the end to them justifies any means. I have business interests in India, and can tell you that the "truth" there is only a pipe dream. China (for different reasons - i.e. theirs is a contextual language) can be even worse. For example: many grad schools simply trash most applications from China since literally every one has perfect scores, perfect references, perfect EVERYTHING - simply because they know that would be preferred - thus those institutions miss out on the genuinely very high quality of the applicants they passed on out of hand. What may help to understand the situation is that our foreign services (and pretty much the entire domestic bureaucracy of Canada) is there to seek out and direct business opportunities to Quebec, not to be bothered with keeping jihadists and drug dealers out.

Let me take a wild guess: you haven't really spent any time there, have you? You certainly have no understanding of their culture. I didn't say it was impossible, I just said "good luck". Japanese are about the most discriminating racists on the planet, but there are several other countries that try the best to catch up.

They are not just "homogenous" they are very much a closed society. You can live there, but good luck on your grandchildren every becoming citizens.

But, that is EXACTLY what every politically correct, globalist Liberal wants to do - CHANGE this country. It happens to be that the majority really IS of Judeo-Christian CULTURE, if not religion. That culture may be loosely based on those religions, but in most of the country, religion is really no longer relevant to daily life. Bending every rule under the sun to accommodate those who DO adhere to religious dogma really does destroy out culture as it stands.

I don't think I am the only Canadian who believes in the rule of law within a democratic institution. I don't really consider myself part of any particular religious identity or culture, nor am I all that fussy about defining myself by race (although what my ancestry is remains a fact). My only concern is that Canadians have a choice in defining what they want Canada to look like and BE like - and that at this point in time is very much dependent upon immigration policy. I can see you actually DID spend time in Japan, as only one with first hand experience would appreciate that the most offensive thing there is to Japanese is an individual (which is why one of my personal heroes is Soichiro Honda). Unlike you, and most Westerners, I am completely at home and ease within MENA, particularly KSA. I can fit in very well there, but the last thing I would EVER expect to do or have them recognize is changing their culture to accomodate mine. So why would I want to change my country to suit them???

I don't live in WWII Germany under the National Socialist Party, and I have no interest in ANY religious BS of any sort.

Who in their right mind? The majority, that is who. I don't remember in my entire life of taking part in ANY "genocide" (I should add: my children are eligible for status but outrightly reject anything as racist as accepting it). Morality has nothing to do with it, plurality does.

I would like to introduce you to a novel concept: democracy. If the majority of Canadians want this to remain a Judeo-Christian, predominantly white county, than that IS very much OUR choice to make. What puzzles me is why it is not alright for us to wish to maintain our cultural identity, whereas virtually EVERY other country is fiercely protective of theirs. Worse than that, we are the "racists" when we won't bend over and take it up the hoop to accommodate foreign cultures and religions within OUR country. Go and spend some time in Saudi Arabia or Japan, THEN come back here and tell me what you think racism is and what is or is not acceptable behaviour here.

I guess that makes me a cynic.

I am still on the fence about most immigration issues, but when it comes to the economic side, I see some distinctly different values related to country/region of origin. Europeans obviously constitute the core of business in this country, and due to the culture and educational standards, Euro immigrants can arrive one day and be paying taxes the next. I think back to the Vietnamese refugees who came maybe 30 years ago. The parents seldom spoke any English, and few "went to work", but their children assimilated economically very quickly and successfully - while still clinging to their culture within their communities. India seems to provide us with immigrants who - let's just be charitable and say they behave here pretty much as they did at home. Again, though, second generation at least around here pretty much just blend in and get on with life. Strangely, I find Central and South American immigrants from arrival seem to do pretty well here (would love to hear other's experience and opinions on that one). I would like to cut some slack to the ACTUAL refugees coming here from Syria (and other conflict zones) and can just hope that their second generation will do what the first is very unlikely EVER to do (i.e. contribute to Canada economically in any useful or meaningful way). BUT: I have absolutely no tolerance for economic "refugees" who seem to be bringing not much of anything except criminal records to our country (I understand that over 50% of those now crossing from the US have criminal records). It is hard to ignore the clear ethnicity of certain criminal groups related to drugs and violence in places such as Toronto. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that this is mostly a "barren land". Uh, you COULD say that about the North, but the South is pretty much all arable and potentially very productive. What I do NOT see is a wave of immigrants flooding to those vast open spaces, but instead clustering around the social services of the second most expensive places in Canada to live (big cities - the far North is by far the most expensive). If there is any one thing I could say about the difference between Canada and the US is that rural USA is FULL of a completely diverse range of business and industry, whereas in rural Canada, we have pretty much nothing but services to the ag and resource industries outside of the a-hole factories...er...I mean major urban centers.

Yes. Our closest ally was attacked by a force that seemed to be located there (and elsewhere). The Cretin was wise to bow out on Iraq but I think showed a measured response in doing Afganistan. Yes, we went to war with horrible equipment, and that can be traced right back to Paul Hellyer and PET when they decided to destroy our military as a military force and use it as one of their social engineering projects. Plays right back into the party card PET carried while studying at the Sorbonne and make "frequent walking trips in Eastern Europe". Fortunately, the next version of government did a fair job of listening to returned vets and amending equipment aquisitions to give more support to the troops and less to Bombardier and Quebec,

Two tiered problem. On the bureaucratic side, we employ tens of thousands of wildly overpaid people to give away the taxpayer's money. Their job is to waste it, and their culture is to look to the biggest bang for what is NOT their buck. Not just government bureaucrats, big banking does much of the same thing. Within their culture, the paycheque comes whether you give out bux to to good or bad, but the badge of nonour is in doing the least amount of actual work to give out the greatest amount of $$$$. Now, turn to the politicians and their back rooms. Joe nitwit was let's say, oh...a high school drama teacher one day, and a politician the next. He (or she) has to rely on the political and bureaucracy staff to advise him on what should or can be done. Having struggled with no more than how to get some pot smoking teeney bopper how to sound like John Wayne being the top of his (or her) intellectual challenge, the politico will simply go with the flow. Of course, since the back room is also encouraging the endless flow of our grand children's money toward the party faithful, those sum up the things by which a decision is made, not some foolishness about pissing away billions that you and I don't and will never have.

As is the case with most issues, the status quo is worried about how to do more stupid things to maintain the status quo. Banning internal combustion private transport is yet another half-baked idealistic page from the tree-hugger's mantra. If they had ANY idea of just what is at stake, they would instead try to understand and plan for how to stop making endless, useless trips - many for the purpose of doing endless, useless jobs that create no wealth. That and breading like rabbits. The morons are focused on swatting flies while a Great White is about to eat their ass.

I doubt the CIC planned the attack, but definitely would have to authorize it. Rare opportunity to deliver a message to daesh with no civvies around (as this seems to be a command center), and as Rue had mentioned earlier, put Russia, Assad and Kim DUNG heap on notice as well. I would seriously doubt the actual cost of one MOAB is $800mm, as that is probably related to the programme costs including a mess of R&D and the usual very large chunk of pork thrown in to feed the trough.

American resentment of NAFTA is a result of it morphing from the Canada/US FTA - where two countries of similar culture, language and economic development - as well as two long-time military allies - just formalized what everyone knew made good sense. Canada needed into NAFTA as it superceded the previous agreement. At that time, 90% of all Canada/US trade was actually Ontario/US trade, and 80% of that was in the automotive sector (where brands were mostly owned, controlled or operated by US parents). I don't think either of the original partners had any idea what it would be like to open the border to trade with a developing nation that had dead easy transportation links into the US. Not only did Chretien campaign against NAFTA, so did Clinton. They had little regard for each other to begin with, but working through the NAFTA deal made them good friends, and both realized with the information they had before them that it would be in keeping with their globalistic ideals to put it through. We have always done well when we had personally friendly relations across the 49th - but we have never had that with a Trudeau in office. Wait a minute, guess that's not true. Fidel was South of the 49th, wasn't he?

Shit, I backed off already. I was going for Archbishop or Pope. You see (I guess you don't) when you have lived to personally witness the damage done to Canada by PET first hand, as a Canadian it kind of sticks in your craw. But, I guess once we elected a person still clutching his communist party card tight (from his Sorbonne years), the royal "we" pretty much deserve what we got.

That makes me a Bishop, I suppose?

Had a conversation with a business acquaintance who is a long time friend of someone who is...well let's just leave it as VERY close to JT. In a candid moment, he was informed that in all of his decades dealing with such individuals, JT is the least intelligent and capable he has ever encountered. There were some pretty rude and crude comments applied that I need not repeat, but you get the gist. Now, that was no big surprise at all, but what DID catch my attention was that apparently, the whole cabinet has not only abandoned the people of Canada (also, no big surprise) but are now going back on word given or implied to the Party Faithful of the Liberal establishment. Seems as if there is a high concentration of arrogant morons in power now (or should I say AGAIN?) Pretty much answered the question of this thread right on the button for me.