CPCFTW

That's your theory. In actuality nothing of the sort happened. You seem obsessed with the notion that the millions of employees in finance/banking all colluded to screw you and 99% of other people and transfer wealth to evil "predators" maniacally cackling at us all.

From my experience, there's a surprising amount of new Irish immigrants in Canada.

What's your point? Everything is securitized. Credit card debt and auto loans are securitized, if you think it's a big conspiracy then go short the companies holding credit card and auto loan assets. Soon you will also be the 1%!

There's nothing wrong with a sub-prime mortgage. Why would anyone not agree to it? A mortgage is just a loan and prime is just an interest rate.. Everyone who borrows money to buy a home is going to try to minimize their interest expense. The problem was sub-prime mortgages with no money down for people who could barely qualify for a prime + 15% credit card. Yes calling mortgage insurance illegal is laughable when it's part of the terms for receiving your mortgage. Don't mind jacee, she's not all there.

Good thing there is! All of this has nothing to do with public debt (the problem with the current economy) and everything to do with personal debt. And none of it matters because central banks can reduce money supply anyways. You're just describing borrowing from peter to pay back john. It's not a new concept. In your example, the guy can just roll over his debt by borrowing from another bank. Wow no default! Nice try deflecting from the actual problem (government borrowing to pay for socialist ideals and other voter pandering).

So what? Household/personal debt is not the reason the economy is messed up.

Thank god for Canada's aging populace or we might actually have to witness these clueless infants forming a government one day!

A privilege granted by government, not a couple thousand people who claim to speak for the 99%. Get out of the road you hippies!

And how exactly do they get a loan for $105 in an economy with no money supply? Worst example ever. Consider this scenario: Bob digs ditches, John builds shovels, and Peter shines shoes. They get some paper and write up "money" which they trade for each other's services. Bob digs ditches for $1 a ditch, John builds shovels for $1, and Peter shines both of their shoes for $1 a shining. They make 3 transactions a year and get $3/yr income. Now a bank comes along and offers to loan $100 to Bob for 5% simple interest. Bob takes the loan, buys 100 shovels, and hires a bunch of unemployed mexicans to dig ditches for $0.50 a ditch and makes $0.50 a ditch for himself in profits. The mexicans dig 3 ditches each in the year for a total of 300 ditches. The mexicans make $1.50 each on the year, and Bob makes 300x0.5 = $150. He pays back his loan of $105, and makes $45 on the year. Now Bob owns 100 shovels and has $45 and is employing 100 unemployed people who can now buy themselves a shovel or get their shoes shined! Magically there is more money in the economy because of the evil banks! Wooooo!! 10 years later and Bob has now accumulated significant wealth by continuing to borrow from the bank and make sound investments to create jobs that employ more and more people. But there are 5 Mexicans who are upset that all the women love Bob for being so entrepreneurial and that he can provide them with a comfortable life. They chant slogans like "we are the 99%!!", and spout meaningless statistics like "Bob controls 40% of all the wealth!!!" A few months later they get tired of sleeping in their own sh*t and having unshined shoes so they go back to digging ditches. The end.

Sure you can vote for it by not watching Global in the first place. Advertisers wont pay for advertising if people aren't watching. You are looking at things backwards.

To provide an example to the point August is making... the market "voted" for Apple and Google over Blackberry pretty damn quickly. The problem for the left is that they don't understand the market at all, so there is a disconnect between their social values and the values of the market. Want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on oil? According to many on this board, 60% of Canadians (those who voted NDP/Liberal) believe in this. Then why aren't 60% of Canadians using public transportation or driving a Prius or hybrid? Want to legislate maximum interest rates on credit cards? How about you stop using credit cards? Upset about jobs being shipped overseas? Why don't the "60%" of Canadians who don't believe in globalization only buy Canadian made products and services? Part of the "1%" are on the left as well. If they could manufacture goods and get 60% of Canadians to buy their products, then you could all hold hands and sing kumbaya. The problem with the left is that they think of themselves as a victim of the markets rather than a participant. You are free to buy products or use services from whoever you want, and you are free to invest money in whatever companies shares and bonds you want. If you 60% liberal/ndp voters want to unite and start a Canadian TV manufacturer that only employs Canadians, you can all invest in the IPO/shares, and be consumers buying $5000 TVs instead of Asian made $500 TVs. You have the power to effect change, you just choose not to and want the government to coerce others to change for you.

I don't see anything wrong with government borrowing money at 1-3%. If you think of government as a corporation, governments have an incredible cost of capital. The problem is that governments placate the electorate with poor investments that have immeasurable, or negative returns. What I would suggest, which I think is a compromise people that both the left and right could live with, is governments participating more on the buy side of capital markets. My suggestion is that governments use the proceeds of their t-bill and bond issues to purchase a diversified portfolio of non-voting (except in the event of a takeover bid) shares and bonds of companies. The government should be employing financial analysts, investment bankers, portfolio managers, etc. since capitalism will be the means of production for the foreseeable future (regardless of what the heroine addicts have to say). I suggest non-voting shares, because we wouldn't want governments to begin placating the electorate by promising to elect protectionist or "green" board members that will reduce the competitiveness of the firms we invest in. However, as a significant shareholder, we would still want to retain the right to vote for/against merger/takeover offers. There are many benefits to such a model: 1. Heavy government investment in Canadian firms will provide capital for domestic job creation and international competitiveness. 2. We will have measurable returns on investment. 3. The difference between the government's return on investment and our cost of capital can be used to service debt, pay for infrastructure, military, socialist "collective" projects like health care and education, or even distribute dividend payments to Canadians. Basically what I am suggesting is that the government tax us to save for us. For the hippies, the "people" (represented by the government) will literally now control the means of production. If one of the means of production has to outsource domestic jobs, they will be generating greater profits for us as the owners, which we can re-invest in domestic companies that create domestic jobs (and you can feel good about providing jobs and wealth to the less fortunate in developing countries). I think you would find that the "1%" would be much less opposed to taxation if such a model were in place. The current system of taxation is basically "give us your money, we'll take 70% of it to distribute to bureaucrats, then distribute the remaining 30% to the lazy, uneducated, and handicapped". I think "the 99%" would find that most "1%ers" are extremely patriotic, but they just like to see a measurable return on investment (which is why they are 1%ers). I think this is a model that could work and make both sides happy.

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=19722

Will you be there to greet him?

What's with lefties and their sarcasm circle jerks? I guess simple minds are easily amused.

Don't you mean this? That's some unbiased moderation right there. It's not too late for an edit.

Maybe he's got friends and family in the west?

I'm sure the unemployed in Alberta are very grateful that there are uneducated secretaries in Ottawa earning 50k with a defined benefit pension to organize office parties and put the unemployed Albertan's welfare file in a filing cabinet. I already did the math. Pay attention.

Damn conservatives didn't buy out all of Greece's socialist debt to fix the world economy!!!

I doubt it. And we do have a west coast as well, why does BC not need large naval or airforce bases? Given the numbers, it's got a long way to grow. It's not even worth mentioning this "growth".

I never said they have anything to do with equalization payments, just that they represent another transfer of wealth from the west to the east. They are paid for by federal taxes and primarily located in ON and QC. Ontario and Quebec provincial governments are trying to play the victim to the big bad federal government and their crime bill, when they are heavily subsidized by federal government wealth transfers.

And what about Nova Scotia? Calgary has 4400 federal government employees. I already posted the link with a city by city breakdown. Perhaps refer to that link before determining how just the distribution is. And it certainly is unjust. Having worked in the federal government, I can tell you that there is a hell of a lot of jobs there that could be done in the west. There's no reason for the majority of the jobs to be at or near the "centre of the government".

I lived in Ottawa for most of my life and have worked in the federal government.

Whiner? I'm not the one protesting. All I said in this thread is that ON and QC have a weak argument and that they get plenty of transfers from the rest of Canada which can be curtailed, I included federal government jobs as part of those transfers since they are paid for with federal taxes. 27% of the population in the Western provinces get less than 17% of the cushy federal government jobs. Do they pay less federal taxes for that? No, they pay more in fact, and that overpayment is also transferred to ON and QC. My "whining" is limited to voting for the conservatives. They will run sh*t the most in line with my beliefs. I will not be calling for an Arab Spring to overthrow the government and its unjust distribution of federal government jobs. I will leave that type of whining to you hippies. Carry on.