Renegade

eureka, I can hardly believe my eyes. we have something which we both agree on.

You are missing the point that necessity and desparation is a two way street. There are times where business are desparate for certain workers, and there are huge economic implications of not filing those jobs. As a result the wage offers for those positions will rise to meet the need. In any case if a worker takes a position out of desparation, why does it have to be a long term situation. That worker should realize that they are in a position which has low market value and is easily replacable. That worker has the option to upgrade skills or change occupation to differentiate themselves from the rest of the labour pool. It is only if they CHOOSE to do nothing, will they be in a position of desparation and that would be a situation of their own making.

err, thank-you for addressing the question. I'm curious why you distinguish industries by "human necessity" and "luxury". Would not all the arguments you previously made apply to "luxury" industries?. By your argument doesn't a clerk working in the "luxury" automobile industry deserve the same "good jobs" that someone in automobile insurance does? Since you have distinguished between "human necessity" and "luxury" as your criteria for if an industry should be publicly owned, I am also curious how you have come to the conclusion that the LCBO is a "human necessity"?

Of course hard work is not a guarantee of wealth, nor is it the exclusive domain of the wealthy. I have never said that. What I have said is that it is without basis to attribute the accumulation of wealth to simply good luck, and as such warrants redistribution. There are many choices and actions any of us can take in life which will enhance our opportunity to accumulate wealth. Job experience, education, risk-taking are a few examples. You may define luck to include all of these areas, but I do not, and I would guess the population at large does not. When have I done that? To be honest, I am surprised that lottery winnings are not taxed in Canada. It is an obvious an easy tax grab for the govenrment. When you say that "I do not think that is right", are you saying you are against taxing lottery winnings? I have not yet made an argument for this. You have made a statement about the purpose of democratic society for which I see no backup or evidence. First, are you saying that the majority of Canada is poor? I would dispute that contention. Most of Canada is middle-class and is relatively affulent. The self interest of the poor is to better their own position. There are many cases where the self-interest of the poor are served by excesses of the rich. (Eg By the wealthy take luxiorious vacations, they have fostered a tourist industry which creates jobs in the service industry. Those jobs serve the self interest of the poor)

err, you seem to have an inflated view of wage rates. Have a look at this link: Sales and Service Occupations Admittedly this survey is a little out of date (from 1999), but as you can see a cashier is not considered a high-skilled, high in-demand occupation and thus commands a hourly rate of $7-$9 per hour. As you can also see from the table there are plenty of occupations with higher rates, a cashier looking to enhance their earnings has opportunity to do so by adjusting their occupation.

I have to commend it to you, err, you did a good job of diverting the thread into a discussion on embargos to Cuba and other issues when you did not address the arguments put to you on LCBO privitazation. The same question was put to you 3 times by different posters which you declined or were unable to answer. You've resorted to stating that posters have "mean-spirited conservative attitudes", when all that has been put to you is a case for privitazation against which you have been unable to defend. I understand your point. You feel sorry for the LCBO employees because their well-paid jobs would be threatned by privatization. A noble sentiment to be sure, but it is unclear to me why the LCBO employees should not have to compete in the same free-market economy as the rest of us. LCBO employees can protect their wages even under privitazation but it would require them to take actions on their part, such as upgrading their skills or entering a profession where there is market demand.

eureka, is there ever a case where an individual achieves his wealth by the sweat of his own brow? Is there ever a case where an individual achieves his wealth by investing in his own education to increase his skills, and thus become more valuable in society? By your definition of luck, if a man works hard, he is lucky because he has the opportunity to work hard. This viewpoint seems to discount that anyone has any influence in their wealth by their choices or actions. When people participate in a lottery, they take a risk by exchanging money for a ticket. If they win, their risk-taking has paid off. By your viewpoint, the lottery participant does not deserve the winnings because the proceeds were obtained by luck, and thus rightly belong to eveyone. So are you advocating that we confiscate the proceeds of lottery winners and redistribute them? If you do, you can clearly see how it would be a disincentive for anyone to even participate in the lottery to begin with. Please provide some evidence that this is a purpose of a democratic society. The reason eveyone participates in society, is primarily to better their own self-interest. This is true both for the wealthy as for the poorer.

RB, I can't even begin to seriously respond to your post. It is rife with sexist generalizations such as: If you have real evidence of how we are putting barriers to women, I would welcome hearing it and we can have a ratiional discussion on how it can be overcome, but please stop with the ridiculous generalizations. It only serves to weaken your argument by pointing out your bias.

takeanumber, you seem to contridict yourself: Does that mean you are for "defending human rights for everybody" only so long as the are not part of the majority? Do I read by your statement that you would not protect someone from discrimmination simply because they are a man or caucasian, wheras in similar circumstances you would protect that individual if they were of a different race or gender? Here is the definition of "racist" from the American Heritage® Dictionary: I have seen no statement which suggest one race is superior to others. If you have point it out. The only statements which I have seen which advocate ideas "discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion" are those which promote favourable treatment for women or other "vunerable" group. So either defend your use of the adjective or withdraw it.

It doesn't really matter someone makes $17/hour or if someone makes a million dollars per year. They should be aware when theyve never had it so good, and by pressing for more they risk losing what they have.

err Let's use Alberta as a real life example to examine your prediction of the effects, as it has a close analogy with Ontario. The source is from the link I posed earlier. "It would be expected that the competition effect resulting from privatization should lead to a wider variety of products being offered for sale as stores compete with each other for customers. In 1993 there were roughly 3,300 liquor products sold in Alberta. The number of alcoholic products available in the province has consistently increased, reaching 11,108 in January 2004. Thus, privatization has produced the expected outcome." So your prediction is clearly wrong on this one. "The employees in the ALCB were members of the Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE). The average wage of an ALCB liquor store clerk in 1993 was $14.32. Under privatization liquor stores are no longer unionized. A survey of private liquor store clerk wages in 1996 found the average wage to be $7.19. As a result of lower wages and more stores employment is higher in the privatized market with roughly 4200 employees in 1996, about triple the retail store operations employment level of approximately 1400 just prior to privatization." So you are half-right on this. Yes the jobs which are overpaid (at least by market reference) would dissappear, as everyone on this thread acknowledges, but guess what, the number of jobs has greatly increased. Would you acknowledge this as a benefit? "Under privatization the mark-up rate was to be revenue neutral for the provincial government. In fiscal year 1993-94, the ALCB remitted $454.5 million to the provincial treasury. In fiscal year 2001-02, the AGLC contributed $489 million in net liquor revenue to the province. Hence, the privatization of liquor retailing need nor result in the province experiencing a loss in revenue." Not really much of a case for you to prove that there will be less provincial income, is it? "Real wholesale and retail liquor prices have remained relatively stable since privatization. From October 1993 to January 1996 the average real retail price of alcohol products in Alberta increased by 4.19 percent. From January 1996 to December 1997 the average real retail price fell by 2.38 percent.192 Retail prices were, on average, unchanged between December 1997 and December 1998. Between December 1998 and December 2000, the average real retail price declined by 2.9 percent. It has been noted that price decreases have been mitigated by the double mark-up occurring post-privatization; both the private retailer and the AGLC now mark-up prices while under state ownership only the ALCB marked-up prices. However, it should be noted that competition between private retailers constrains their ability to mark-up prices." You are correct on this one. But in a private competitive environment price increases are constrained by competitve forces, unlike a LCBO monopoly which is free to set prices at will. So the effect on prices is at worst neutral. So as I see it the only argument I see for keeping the LCBO as a publicly-owned monopoly is to protect the overpaid jobs of LCBO employees.

So you'd agree then that in Ontario, Mike Harris, being twice elected to majority govenments, implemented the social contract and consensus of modern society.

Let's see if we have any common ground. You say you would not condone the women's behaviour. Would you condemm it? You would not give her jail time. Would you punish her at all? I understand your point on circumstances, but you at least concede that both behaviours are wrong? I assume you are talking about wealth redistribution. How have you established that wealth is established exclusively by good luck. If someone ends up wealthier because he works 2 jobs for 80 hours a week, why is that good luck. I don't really see how you can establish that the root cause of wealth is good luck. Sometimes it is due to hard work, sometimes due to willingness to take risk, sometimes by choices we make in life, and yes sometimes by good luck. Are you arguing that wealth redistribution is justified because wealth is always due to good luck? This is not a valid analogy. In your analogy there is a clear set of actions by the perpetrator on the victim. You have not established that anyone who aquires wealth has done so by taking it away from an aggrieved party, as such deserves to be punished by having some of that wealth confiscated. A more suitable analogy is if a teacher asked all the kids how much lunch money they brought to school, then redistributed the funds so everyone had the same amount. Woiuld you condone such an action? Maybe we have some common ground here. It is pragmatic for the more wealthy to share it with the poor, because doing so lessens the likehood that the poor will try to take it by force. By giving the poor some benefits, it also gives them something to lose in case of social uphevial. For the wealthy, the cost of sharing benefits is likely to be less than the cost of increased protection and security to preserve their wealth. This is not a case of right or wrong, this is a cae of pragmatism. So what I'm saying here is that the wealthy have incentive to act in their own self-interest and share benefits. What I advocate is they be allowed to act in their own self-interest voluntarily without government forcibly intervening as is the case today.

Why create another thread on almost exactly the same topic as this? Should Harper be replaced?

If the LCBO workers go on strike, the best thing the government can do is authorize alternate distribution channels such as supermarkets, corner stores, Walmart, even Brewer's Retail. What are the strikers going to do, picket evey store? After a year when strke benefits have run out and the public is comfortable at shopping at non-LCBO outlets, the strikers would come begging back. They should have learnt something from the NHL players. Bob Goodenow should be looking for a new job pretty soon, maybe he can represent the LCBO employees.

Don't forget that Robin Hood was a thief and he stole. I suppose that is no different that a govenment who steals our hard-earned income by force. Unlike you, I feel each of the money is our own, and we should be free to do with it what we want without govenment involvement.

well all those prohibited grounds for discrimination tells the story that groups are not accessing services and nor buying services in fact Canadians might as well be replishing constantly a dried out social system and increasing taxes for LINK, ESL, international professional program, health care Look at it this way, in Toronto there are 55% immigrants Toronto sits as a financial trading centre of Canada. Here is whats happening all of minority folks will say to you that they have experience discrimination in a recent past. Its not about LINK or a professional designation, its about systemic discrimination. These minorities wind up with survival jobs. And we are hoping and relying that these new people will uphold the Toronto economy. For the financial district, well, companies decide bigger is better, so merging with each other and getting bigger, this drives a small company out of business - and with no competition big companies set ridiculous price see: Eaton, Bay, Roots, A&P, Jets go A year later those big companies are folding. Well did I allude to Canada losing its identity to immigration. But get it the minorities are discriminated against and fall into proverty with no income to buy your goods and services and usless there is programs like AA you might as well be myopic. In a macro view its not about being favorable to minority groups but using their talents to the full potential to make the economy viable <{POST_SNAPBACK}> RB, maybe it's just me by I have no clue what you are saying. I know plenty of minority individuals who start from nothing and have become by any standard very successful. They didn't use discrimminatory programs to do it, they used their own hard work, self-reliance, and willingness to take risks. They also didn't do it out of a sense of benevolence. They did it for their own self-interest. Our capitalist system works very well. In Toronto you will find all races and minorities represented in virtually evey facet of society. Government attempts to intefere with the promotion of discrimminatory programs is short-sighted, and in the long run will simply cause resentment between groups.

Everyone here seems to agree that discrimmination exists and is instutionalized in law. Some seem to think that this discrimmination is justified because of historial inequities suffered by a particular group. We can call this discrimmination "leveling the playing field" or "affirmative action" however these don't change the fact that it is discrimmination. Any kind of favouritism toward one group, is by nature discrimmination toward another. Despite what generalizations are made about previous history, when discrimmination is tolerated, individuals will unfairly suffer. You would think that those who belong to groups which have been discrimminated against, assuming they were not hipocrites, would be the first to cry foul when a discrimminatory program is created, despite the favourable treatement they would receive. Alas, self-interest trumps any sense that we should have a consistent policy against discrimmination.

err, if the LCBO was priviatized with open competition, you and eveyone who wanted to pay higher alcohol costs to subsidize the wages of the employees could do so by their choice of where to shop. Conversely everyone who cared about the minimizing the cost of their purchase could also do so by their choice of where to shop. I suspect however, there would be very few people who would be willing to pay inflated prices and as a result those outlets woudl not be sustainable. So, in a competitive environment the LCBO's employees' current wage levels would not be sustainable.

Wow. Sweeping generalizations like that are going to ensure your posts are never taken seriously.

Sorry, I don't see how this response at all addresses the question asked. If you understand that some men might be uncomfortable, and you are suggesting that clubs provide for this, why not be consistant and advocate that male reporters be allowed into female athlete locker rooms and have the clubs provide for that case as well?

Sorry, it took me this long to post because I couldn't stop laughing.

Absolutely, thus increasing the liquidity of the market, reduceing the generational debt load and a whole basket of other good side effects. That is entirely besides the fact that you earned it, damnit you should be the one to enjoy it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yaro, so assuming that everyone is just as logical as me and spends all their money before dying, how is it that the govenment captures any tax dollars to operate?

Would it not then be more sensible to just ban both male and female reporters from the locker room? Then they would both have equal access. The problem with this argument is that it is built on generalizations. You have generalized that women have primitive fears about a strange man looking at them, and you have generalized that men do not. There will be women that don't care, and there will be men who will be very much intiminated by a strange woman looking at their naked self. By your argument the man who is intiminated in this case does not deserve the same protection accorded women in similar circumstance?

Great response. It clears up why some discrimmination are permissable or at least legal. In my view, discrimmination, even when it done favourble to a minority group is wrong and should not be permitted. The fact that we enshrine it in our charter is just an indictment of our own hypocrisy.