Renegade

I doubt that they are going to starve but no doubt the won't have the comforts many of us take for granted. I guess it vares upon where they live and their expectations on the lifestyle they intend to live, but IMV someone on minimium wage should be focused on improving their employment choices and not have an expectation of a house or kids. They simply can't afford it. Possibly yes. Did their parents have everything they did while earning minimium wage? Did their parents live in an area of less popuation when land was cheap and nobody cared about the cost of polluting the environment or lived at time when social programs were financed by debt? Why exactly should each future generation expect a better and better lifestyle? Yes how indeed. That are all good questions that each person should be asking themselves as them make choices on where to live, and what career choice to embark on.

Pat, how many kids did your parents have?

Not necessarily. First, rules change all the time. The young should have little confidence that the rules won't change by the time they are old. Second, many of those who are currently old, never actually paid the price when they were young. Through much of the 70s, 80s, and part of the 90s social programs were financed by debt, which in effect transfered the cost to future taxpayers. So the current taxpayer, is in effect paying for past social programs given to the old, as well as paying for the current crop of the old, without any real guarantee that they will recoup what they paid. Not necessarily true. The ones who are truly paying are the high-income earners. Unless they suddenly become impovrished by the time they are old, they will likely only recoup a small subset of what they are paid. That would seem to be your opinion of what a civilized society is. I don't happen to share that one, nor do I believe there is concensus of what constitutes a "civilized society". I pretty much agree with you here. I think the article takes too simplistic view of why Canadians have fewer children. This is the part I'd like someone to address. Everyone seems to assume that less population is a bad thing. Personally I see many benefits of a smaller population.

Unfortunately Melanie, this article paints a one-sided view. Sure it is tough for parents to bring up kids, but so what? The question which warrents further examination, which the article pretty much ignores, is what if any are the negative consequences to the rest of the population of people having less kids. If the main consequences are that OAS and Medicare won't be properly funded with a continued population decline, then perhaps the solution is to look at how those programs are financed and change their structure so that the don't depend upon continual population growth. I'm not seeing the link you suggest. Certainly the most economically productive (per captia) countries aren't the ones with the largest population. Why would we think that by increasing the population we would be more productive.

What you mean is that *some* or *most* fans like it. and *some* or *most* players want it. What of the ones who don't, especially players who don't want to risk their careers in a brawl? Perhaps it does, because they look at the older leagues as examples for their behaviour.

Why is that preying? Aren't poorer people entitled to mortgages?

No, of course they do. But if fighting is the primary reason that they watch the sport there are other venues where they can watch or participate. Of course knowing that there is fighting, however, is a different thing than saying that they are willing participants in fighting or willing spectators to fighting. If a player wants to play professional hockey but doesn't want to be assulted, does he have that choice?

I'd like to understand what specificly "preying" means. My expectation is that legislation such as this is appropriate to address the behaviour of mortgage brokers: Draft regulation - Standards of practice - Mortgage Brokerages

If what they want is to watch fighting, they have an option, its called MMA. Two willing participants locked in combat is what the UFC produces. At least in that case the participants and audience know what they are getting.

Sure we do. By making the penalties trivial we are infact allowing it in games. If the penalty in life for assault was to sit on the sidelines for 2 mins, how big a deterrance would that be? Perhaps if you included jail and substantial fines to the penalties which were routinely handed out for fighting, tripping, boarding, high sticking, inteference, cross checking, spearing, you would see less of it.

No, it woudl only be criminal fraud if the fine print didn't tell you that the rate was going up. If you don't read the fine print then you in essence are agreeing that you don't care about the terms.

That will very much vary according to the individual situation. If the mortgage-broker misrepresented the mortgage while knowing full well the terms, then they alone should be responsible for the loss. If the teaser rates and their expiry were documented and signed off by the customer, they probably have much less recourse for redress.

I agree that full disclosure should be required from both sides. Buyers should not be allowed to misrepresent their income, assets, and history and all parties in the mortgage should not be allowed to misrepresent the terms of the mortgage. However, it is common knowledge that it is not what is said that counts, it is what is written on the paper which is signed. I suspect that terms written on paper do specifiy exactly when rates get reset. The home-owner has simply not bothered to read it. As far as the institutions are concerned, they too, didn't put in the diigence into making their purchases, and they too deserve their fate. Yes for the most part Canadian home-owners have fared far-better than the US, I still don't support regulation which forces risk-adversion. In Canada we have regulation which limits the mortgage risks which home-owners and institutions can expose themselves to. The crisis was not broght on because institutions and individuals took on too much risk, it was because they didnt KNOW how much risk they were taking on. I woudl support regulation which called for full-disclosure rather than limiting the risk that individuals or institutions can undertake.

Why limit that argument to games? Why don't you apply it to our everyday interactions in society?

You are presuming that both parties in the fight are willing engaged in the fight. It is clear in some cases that the desire to combat is not mutual. In that case it is not a fight, it is assault. We don't tolerate that in normal society, why allow that during a game, regardless of what the spectators want.

Then those "unsophisticated people" should stick to financial instruments they do understand, like rent, instead of mortgages. If I did not understand how derivatives work and I speculated on derivatives and lost everything on financial instruments I did not understand, should I expect sympathy and perhaps a bail-out? Caveat Emptor. (BTW, that goes both for the home-owner, the lender, and the buyers of ABCP) So what? Some people think the only payment they need to make on their credit cards until they lose their jobs then they too end up left only with debt. The only difference is the scale. Ignorance is not an excuse and by accepting it as one, you are simply encouraging them to repeat the behaviour by absolving them of their true responsibility.

The war on the family Thoughts? Should government be intervening? What is the benefit to others in society?

Yes, however, it can still be wealth even if you refuse to sell it. What matters is if it is something that someone (including yourself) values. If is is not useful to anyone (including yourself) then it is not wealth. It is still useless crap. More or less. However you can also be the consumer of your own product. It doesn't need to depend upon an external buyer. No. A good way to create weath is to create something of value to others, but it is not the only way. The benefit of this method is that the producer can leverage economies of scale. If the farmer specalizes in producing apples, it is likely that 100th apple is less useful to him for personal consumption than the 1st. Similarly the rancher who produces beef will value the 100th lb of beef for personal consumption less than the 1st. They can each realize greater value from their creations by trading with others who value their product more than they do. Nonetheless, it is possible to create wealth which only your consume. If through my labour I create all nourishment, and shelter that I need, am I not wealthier than before I had any of those things?

The earth, rain, sun and seed were useless as nourishment unitl the farmer, together with his labour made them valuable? Wouldn't you agree that something of value equates to wealth? Exactly! In other words he translated his labour into wealth. Don't you consider that creation of wealth? Not true at all. 10 people having a peice of useful knowledge is more valuable than 1 person with that same knowledge. You seem to be confusing wealth with matter. Matter has always existed. Wealth does not exist until that matter is of value to someone. If no-one exist to value something then no wealth exist, as well if something exist but is not of value, it is not wealth.

If a farmer plants plows land, plants a crop, tends to the crop, then harvest the crop, has he created wealth by turning something which was useless into something useful? Not true. The audience is richer because they value the information you have given them more than the 50 bucks they paid. If the informaiton is of economic value, they can further translate that into monetary wealth. Presumably before man was on this earth, no "wealth" existed. If it exists now it somehow must have been created. Please explain how this is possible since "Wealth is not created but transferred".

Probably not, because as far as I can tell, my pee doesn't cause personal harm to another. Yes it is an interesting concept. Perhaps by making it punative to cause direct or indirect harm we would end up with a more sustainable and livable environment. Sure they should if they can reasonably demonstrate that their parents were negligent in setting their diet. Any proof of this? How do you draw the conclusion that the wiffs will only be "occassional"? Sure we should, as soon as proof is avaiable that campfires, perfumes, and colognes cause harm to others in the vicinty. While rude, I have never seen evidence that inhaling a fart is harmful. Irrelevant rant. I you can prove that second-hand does not cause harm. I'll agree with you that there should be no government inteference. IMV there is enough evidence that it does cause harm.

Smoking in a car or enclosed space is an assault on the others in that space. I'd like to see the law go further than cars and cover any enclosed space, including a private home. The law should go further yet. It should prohibit smoking in an enclosed space in the vicinity of anyone who hasn't explicitly given consent. Since kids aren't legaly capable of giving consent it would naturally include them. There should be no issue with smokers doing harm to themselves. The issue is should it be legal for them to harm others? I think the obvious answer is no! While we are at it, we should also make parents liable for negligent harm they cause to their kids. So, it the kids develop cancer later, and it can be reasonably shown that it was due to the parent's second-hand smoke, the kid should be able to sue the parents for damages.

Given the CAW and UAW's position, I find it surprising that they do not open their own car manufacturing facilities. They they would be free to pay employees whatever wages they now themselves demand, cut out the margin which now goes to the CEO, and no doubt produce an outstanding quality car for the lowest price. Hmm, could it be that what they say is not what they believe?

So where else would you apply that reasoning? Would you ban higher-risk sports such as sky-diving because of the increased cost to the healthcare system? Personally I believe he should be allowed to ride with no helmet if he chooses, but he should be required to pay an additional risk premium for health care coverage commesurate to the risk of riding without a helmet. ----- What's with the use of "Zekes" btw?

If there is NO benefit or "perk" to someone attending the meal, why does any business EVER do so? So the point is, the tax payer is indeed subsidizing you and your employees lunch. I don't know the arrangment between you and the company, but it is between you to figure out who absorbs the actual cost. You have gone from initially arguing that there was no benefit awarded to business/self-employeed over employees to now acknowledging that indeed that "the company will save $77.50 on it's tax return" and that you "don't consider that to be such a benefit". So all we are reduced to arguing, is how valuable the benefit is, not that there is one. You being the tax accountant, I'll take your word for the accuracy of the figures, but it reinforces what I have said before, there is a discrepancy between tax systems. BTW, did you note how radically differnt that tax rate is between corporate rates and individual rates? I bet you already know which is significantly higher.