jacee

If Canadian 'leftists' are anti-semitic or anti-Jew for opposing Israel's aggression against Palestinians ... What do you call Canadian Jewish leftists who do the same? What do you call Israeli Jewish leftists who do the same? Are you the official arbiter of how Jews must act and think to be considered 'good Jews'? How many 'good Jews' are there in Israel, Bob? I've heard that over 60% of Israelis support Palestinian independence.

I can't imagine how the ultrarich would even have knowledge of the ultrapoor, unless they accidentally caught a few seconds of some documentary while flipping channels maybe. I haven't found the ultrapoor to be "stupid". They have 'savings' plans - they loan money to each other to 'save' some cash for food later in the month, for example. God help you if you ever get stuck being owed a debt in one of these spiralling domino chains of 'maybe tomorrow' paybacks, though. They eat pasta almost every day because it makes you feel full. They bust chops instead of calling cops, saving public money and their own time. They don't waste phone time telling you they're not coming: If they're coming they'll show up.. They'll hold a bus for you, throw your purse in your bank parking lot for you, give you a smoke, a beer or some food or meter change if they can and you need it, and they'll never rat you out for driving or bylaw infractions, except speeding where there's kids around. They know all politicians are shite, corporations too, "but what can you do", and they can program your phone or tv in a flash. Some spend an extraordinary amount of time following trucks around as they'll offer to get you almost anything that can fall off a truck, but you might not want to take advantage of their 'scratch and dent' sale. If you ignorantly flaunt your money around them you'll lose it (on principle) but find 'gifts' at your door. (And learn an important life lesson). If they laugh at you and curse you out they like you, but watch out if they start talking nice cos you've pissed someone off. They'll chat you up and 'escort' you safely across the street away from 4 angry-eyed guys (who want to bust their chops), thus again maintaining peace and order without expensive police involvement. They'll tie your lost dog to their front porch for you to find so you don't have to pay the SPCA. No, I don't find the ultrapoor "stupid" at all, even though perhaps unemployable in the traditional sense due to the chronic and cross-generational chaos that is the world as they experience it. They may find us exceedingly stupid for fussing about nonsensical things like tidy-perfect rooms where no one can live comfortably, tidy-perfect timelines when life is a cornucopia of unpre dictable events, and tidy-perfect budgets when opportunities that exist today may never come again. Nobody lives in the "now" like those with nothing, and nothing to lose. But that may just be my experience. The ultrarich? No clue. But I somehow doubt that they ever enjoy themselves any more than two excons with a case of beer belting out a tune in two different keys.

I think the "bimbo" and "sloots" labelling was uncalled for. Dechert and the journalist are equally creeps for flirting-while-married. Dechert is also stupid for leaving a govt-issue electronic trail. I doubt they'll make much of this, to avoid upsetting China.

I think it's ... Hudak will 'burn your health cards, steal kids' school lunches, and deliver sacrificial babies to corporate tables' ... Or something like that. And they didn't even have to put in "kick all the foreigners out" as Hudak did that for himself. I agree that the prospects for this election just aren't too interesting ... Though Andrea Horwath seems to have her hand on a good lever ...

Let's just put it this way: Government spending cuts? Yes ... all corporate subsidies will be cancelled. All salary raises for the political wing of the public sector will not exceed those of the public service. All 'expenses' of the public service and political wing will be carefully scrutinized for necessary reimbursements to the public coffers. Tax increases? Perhaps ... but first ... All wealth acquired (from earnings or investments) in Canada will be fairly taxed in Canada according to current laws. NO tax amnesty for overseas funds. IF the 'hidden' wealth of wealthiEST is used to provide capital for businesseses, (as suggested by CPFPW) there are already tax breaks for that. Canadian banks providing 'tax haven' services will be scrutinized for illegal and unethical practices. Where necessary, laws and regulations will be corrected If we don't address the issue of hidden wealth, then what message does that send to the rest of the Canadian taxpayers? If there are valid justifications for not taxing - eg - money used for capital investment in Canadian companies - then these justifications should be built in to tax law (and I believe they are). And if 'ordinarily wealthy' Canadians want to protect the superrichEST's practice of hiding wealth from Canadian taxation, then the 'ordinarily wealthy' can pick up the tax tab for them. But Canadians of average-and-below incomes and wealth are NOT paying the (debt and deficit) tab for the bailouts through increased taxation or government spending cuts (job losses, service reductions, etc). IF overseas untaxed money exists - eg for capital projects - then it should have been used for the bailouts, NOT heavily financed (ie, nonexistent) public money. In the current environment of inequity and civil unrest, threatening those with average-and-below incomes and 'wealth', who are already struggling just to pay for necessities (food, shelter, transportation), with increased job loss, taxation and service reductions is just ... stooooooopid! HOW THE HELL ARE THOSE OF US BELOW THE AVERAGE, WITH ONLY 6% OF THE WEALTH SUPPOSED TO BAILOUT THE ABOVE AVERAGE CABAL, WHO HOLD 94% OF THE WEALTH GENERATED FROM OUR COMMONLY HELD RESOURCES???????????? WE CAN'T!!!!!!! (And those commonly held resources belong to each of us in equal measure, regardless of income/wealth.) So like I said, if the above average 49% of Canadians, who hold 54% of the reported wealth of Canada want to pick up the tax tab for the other 1%, who hold 40% of the reported wealth, then fill yer boots. Let them laugh at YOU suckers this time all the way to the Caymans. In other words, it is time for the above average earners/wealth holders to have a serious conversation among themselves about how they intend to pay down the public debt/deficit. It has absolutely nothing to do with those of average-and-below income/wealth this time. It's all on you guys.

Naaa ... he's talking about Canada, And he hasn't offered to give up his health card yet. What about it Zack? Are you revoking your card or not?

He can leave freely of course, but no person can be left stateless. He could give up his health card freely though, since he's pholosophically opposed.

Psychologists can help people cope, but they don't do the required surgery.

Strawman. I never said free. You get your costs and a reasonable living/profit. You only 'own' the resources as a member of the public collective, no more no less than each other. And that's a fact. Move on maybe?

Not letting someone eat at your house isn't oppression. Letting them eat at your house and ranting at them might be oppressive to them. Want to do business with the public? You serve us all. See what we have as collectives of pretty live-and-let-live people are ground rules and that's how you do business with the public. Want to open a private racially segregated club? I think that's illegal too, but it evolves by choice. Fill yer boots.

I would hazard a guess that most of the world is tired of right-wing Israeli histrionics, such as threatening to rip up the Oslo Accords, overreacting mercilessly to largely ineffective homemade rockets, etc. I congratulate the Palestinians on stepping outside the endless recriminations to try to take a bold step forward, to benefit their people. Bob I am curious under what circumstances you would accept a Palestinian state ... only if it was far, far away from Israel? And the "treasonous" left wing politicians, don't they in fact represent a 60% majority of the Israeli people? Doresident/citizen Arabs vote in Israel?

It's true some Canadians go to the states for specialized service or just for faster treatment. They are often (but not always) more affluent and able to pay for private medical care. However, most of those people would and do travel to specialists all over the world, not just the US.That doesn't account for your higher health costs, which are due to higher administration costs due to the multiplicity and duplication of health insurance services. I've seen two studies that drew that conclusion, one actually calculating the costs, and one a survey of doctors who said that the variety of insurers and procedures costs them a lot in staff time too. In the former study, the increased US costs were substantial, about 20% overall I think, all due to administration not health care costs themselves, which were comparable.

Billie Holiday died waiting to be seen in one of those free market hospitals. A black woman just wasn't a priority in those days.I appreciate your concern and interest in these topics. I hope in addition to expressing your opinion you will also consider information provided to you.

The land and resources of Canada are not "unowned". They belong to us all collectively. You can't just go and claim private ownership.

They are NOT "unowned". They are commonly held. Stealing commonly held resources is "parasitism". You didn't create the resource. You have the right (or acquired a public license) to look for the resource, but your right or license only entitles you to sell the resources on behalf of the people, returning the money to the common coffers, minus expenses and a reasonable living/profit. If I 'find' your car that you lost in a parking lot, is it mine?

The water (or gold, or oil) is a commonly held resource regardless. His labour and ingenuity are his own, minus the common effort to feed shelter and nurture him him while he's labouring of course. Because they weren't sitting lazily but busily conducting the labours of survival of the whole community, including his share of it, because he's busy digging. NO. It is not HIS water ... NEVER 'his'. And I think I'm starting to see where the obsessive paranoia sickness comes in. Let me be clear: When you dig, drill or otherwise extract or use commonly held resources, THEY DO NOT BECOME YOURS. They are still commonly held resources and the wealth that they generate is commonly held wealth, minus your labour and other costs and a reasonable living, etc. Man, that was enlightening! You don't seriously think that because you break the locks of the bank vault, whatever's in there belongs to you ... do you? Kind of reminds me of something that Indigenous people say: "It's not clear how 'their' oil got under our land."

Thanks SirB. I guess "more wealth than you would ever need in this life" is what I see as "obscene wealth", though I might excuse enough for descendants as well.If one was inclined to hoard more potatoes than one could ever consume, we'd. Easily recognize the emotional disturbance that entails, especially when other people are short of potatoes and they're rotting in your basement. But somehow with money the disturbance issue is overlooked. The other element of course is the view of some obscene wealthy that they are responsible for determining 'what's good for us' - how much of their wealth needs to 'trickle down' to the unwashed masses to keep them alive but not so complacent that they no longer want to work (for them ... and only on command, of course) . That's where the bullpatootie really starts flying. For one thing, that perception is mired in 1950's Skinnerian (operant/classical conditioning) views of thinking and learning and motivation. Very elementary and unsophisticated learning theory, certainly relevant to starving rats in a cage, but not representative of the full range of human cognition. There is more enlightened humanity among society's dispossessed and discarded struggling street people, who naturally organize themselves for survival and protection, than among the sickly obsessed wealth hoarders. They certainly have nothing to 'teach' the rest of us in that regard. If we're all sharing a pond for drinking water, and one depletes the commonly-held-and-protected supply by hauling barrels of water out and locking it up to sell back to us for personal profit ... Who's the stupid one? If we are kind we will simply banish him and he'll move on to the next pond and try again - because he isn't thinking 'smart' about his own survival and comfort, it's a sick and driving obsession for him. Eventually, all his locks broken and barrels destroyed and banished from all human contact, his survival becomes endangered. Smarter? I don't think so. Just sicker. Maybe the time has come for the unwashed masses of our time to teach that important life lesson to the obscenely wealthy who have taken FAR more of their share of our commonly held resources, including our labour, without sufficient replacement in kind ( sufficient jobs to make up for loss of commonly held natural resources, for example). People are capable of extraordinary things when all are focused on common goals and common understandings of what is good for us all. However the extraordinary abilities of human societies are disrupted by those sick individuals whse sick obsession and hoarding has been pandered to by those we chose to represent Canadian humanity (governments), and by those we've given the responsibility for guiding the flow of our commonly held wealth (bankers). And of course, we all bear the collective responsibility for correcting the broken system we have allowed to occur on our watch. It matters not what the sick obsessed wealth hoarders think: They are sick thinkers. We must re-patriate that part of their wealth that is obscenely derived at society's expense and take back control of the flow of commonly held resources. And this is where both lobbyists (communicators) and people's feet become the tools of constructive change. X

Because there wasn't la enough evidence for the lawyerss to get him convicted. That won't be changed by tougher sentencing.

Um ... I think HARPER just made it worse. “As you know, when I travel, whenever I travel or, for that matter, any of our ministers travel, on government aircraft that is for personal usage, we reimburse the treasury the [equivalent] commercial cost of that,” Mr. Harper told reporters during a visit to Saskatoon“When [the jets] are used for personal or private travel, that we expect that travel at commercial rates to be reimbursed to the taxpayers,” he said.“That’s what I do and I think that’s protocol that should be respected across government.” So ... just how often does Harper use $12,000/hr government aircraft for personal use, and pay for a $500 commercial flight? Is that supposed to make it ok?

Why change taxes? Just collect what's owing And change the laws and oversight so Canadian bankers can't hide peoples money offshore. "Equal" does not mean "same", as for example, men and women are equal, but they are not the same. Net monetary worth is not a measure of the worth of a person. Take babies for example ... most of us would die to save one, suggesting that somehow they have more worth than ourselves, are "more equal". Someone who got D's in school and cleans your pool for peanuts might be the one who does the Heimlich just before you drop dead choking on steak. What would his worth be to you then? Priceless? The poorest Canadians have negative wealth. Try getting more from them! Tax the working poor more and they won't be able to pay for transportation to work so they become unemployed or bankrupt. The middle income people are fast disappearing into the unemployed or working poor categories, even faster if 'cutbacks' decimate the public services. That leaves the well-off to rich people to consume enough goods and services to keep the economy floating, AND to pay down the debt and deficit. Now wouldn't you rather we get the superrich to just pay their fair and legal share instead? Bill Gates is right - They are damn lucky to get superrich with the support of governments - ie, TAXPAYERS. Warren Buffett is right. The superrich of France are right. Time for the superrich of Canada to step up and do the right thing too. And those featured in Macleans would be just the poster boy examples to start the trend.

I don't think tinkering with the system is called for until we make sure we can fully implement the tax laws we have. Maybe that's why some of the superrich of France are petitioning the government to collect more taxes from them? Maybe they want to avoid such scrutiny? Maybe ours will too? I found out the source of the "1/3 of the world's wealth offshore" : It's from the 1998 Merrill Lynch/Capgemini World Wealth Report (can't download). Referred to in a comment link on this page, below the abstract for this other article on that topic; http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/03/31/the-missing-wealth-of-nations-evidence-from-switzerland-1914-2010/ New : Europe and the U.S. net Debtors or net Creditors? FEEM Award at the 2011 EEA Congress Working Paper, July 2011 "This paper draws on direct evidence from Swiss banks and on systematic inconsistencies in international accounts across countries to document the level of unrecorded wealth in tax havens, its nature and its evolution. I find that 8% of globa household net financial wealth is held in tax havens, of which one third is in Switzerland. The bulk of offshore assets are nvested in equities, in particular mutual fund shares. For this reason, 20% of all cross-border equities have no identifiable owner in international statistics across the world. Taking into account tax havens alters dramatically the picture of globa mbalances: with minimal assumptions, it is possible to turn the world’s second largest debtor, the eurozone, into a net creditor. With stronger assumptions, the largest debtor, the U. S., can be made a balanced economy. Europeans are richer than we think, because a significant part of their wealth has historically been held where domestic national accountants and tax authorities cannot see it."" ___________ Some animals are more 'equal' ... ? That's it? That's your 'philosophy'? You're just going to roll over and pay more taxes because the richEST aren't paying their fair share? I'm disappointed! I thought you were spunkier than that!

No. But perhaps predictable if he called them "animals" as he has on here.

Good questions. Blogs and comments. Not sure of the source of the info yet, a couple of clues to follow. Posting this now ... to be continued. A Reuters blog comment ... he middle-class meltdown | The Great Debate 8 Sep 2011 … Do you feel the solid world melting?.... rich who are benefiting from this speculation are keeping more and more of their money off- shore, untaxed. Over 1 /3 of the world's wealth s held off-shore. … blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/... - Options Euro Zone Crisis | Reuters Breakingviews 2 days ago … The world's upper 1% keeps nearly 1/3 of their wealth off … blogs.reuters.com/columns/tag/e... - Options Reute http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/09/08/the-middle-class-meltdown/ A Huffington post blog comment ... cap 10:50 PM on 1/17/201 I heard on Dylan Ratigan today that 1/3 of the worlds wealth (I think the guests name was Ravi- reporter from England) and untaxed. For those who think the poor are wanting to take from the rich. http://www ­.lcurve.or ­g/ The US population is represente ­d along the length of the football field, arranged in order of ncome http://www.huffingtonpost.com/armand-f-pereira/globalization-and-modern-slavery_b_809765.html And they'd be mostly two parent families with children, your suggestion of 'average' family income. Yes the 'average' tpfwc incomes we've been comparing, for comparison purposes, are above the average of all Canadians incomes due to factors you've identified above. For best clarity, average incomes are not the best indicators to report because of skews in the data. I reported MEDIAN Canadian tpfwc aftertax incomes, for better accuracy in representing the bulk of the people of Canada, in fact the middle person on the full distribution of all (reported) incomees. Mr/Ms middle Canadian. The low income skew ... we are talking about the relationship of wealth distribution amongst all reporting Canadians. The .1% (ie, .001) of the wealth held simply doesn,t weigh enough to cause a ripple in the averages. The skew is effects of the many more heavier and especially heaviest wealth holders, noticeable outliers the top 1%. Looks like he's looking for company. Macleans list of pretty well known people and connections reflects only the top .1% of wealth holders in Canada, a snapshot of lifestyles of the rich and famous, for an example to distinguish from 'ordinarily wealthy' Canadians. We all wonder how they live, the wealthiest and all the rest of the 114,900 or so households that make up the top 1% of wealth holders. The question raised by the international data catches one's ayyention and begs the question of the good faith taxpaying of our own high wealth holders, the top 1% (115,000 households). In our own statscan data, mega high incomes do appear to skew the data of twoparentwithchildren by $20,000 aftertax dollars. Average $85,000, Median $65,000. Both stats are useful in combination, but we have to and did (much appreciated), compare apples and apples, and not cherry-pick for conflicting information. IF as recorded 1% of taxreporting world people have 20% of the world's wealth - resources and people's hard work - untaxed ... It warrants some questioning by intelligent people whether extraordinary and growing wealth has outstanding taxes due in Canada, with the media reporting on what's globally being called the "missing wealth of nations". Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised and all of Canada's wealth will be accounted for. Perhaps the research is already being done. The discussion of possible amnesty to bring money home occurs here and there, though, and you might have not disagreed that their might be some. Lol Not sure about Zachary but I'm not that young and I don't sleep on the ground. I believe tomorrow Sept 17 was the #occupyWallstreet tweet. Not much media hype .... http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/16/technology/occupy_wall_street/index.htm?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International

Mr Wong won his case because he used 'reasonable force' to restrain him until the police came (ie, citizen's arrest). "Beating the snot out of him" is excessive force, and would land you in jail. Two young employees of Canadian Tire chased and caught someone stealing a few dollars worth of goods, put him down and restrained him with a knee on the chest. He died of asphyxiation. You don't want to go there! Petty criminals often come from physically abusive homes. If you offered them a few lashes instead of jail, they would take it gladly. More time on the street is more 'earnings' for them. Physical punishment would not have the effect you are seeking.

Very relevant Wm. And it's very interesting that some of the richest people in France have signed a petition asking the gov. To raise taxes on the wealthiest. Wealthy powermongers in the US are grumbling and refusing. Maybe if Canada's wealthiEST follow France's excellent example, it will tip the scales in the US too.