blueblood

Exactly. I consider China's "miraculous" growth to be drastically overstated. To the extent, for example, that "Chinese demand" is driving oil prices higher, I think much of their oil purchases is for speculation. That activity (in addition to Katrina and power problems, etc.) has created the sharp moves in oil prices, first, up to $77 (right after Katrina), then down to $54 (in November 2005), then up to $80 (July 2006), then down to $50 (November 2006), and now back in the $60's. As most posters know, I do not go for "far out" theories. However, China's "prosperity" is based upon short-lived cost advantages based upon what amounts to slave labor. They are frequently, from what I know, putting down small rebellions that never make the press here. Similar to the way oil-based dictators, i.e. the Venezuelan, Mexican [democratic on surface but not really], Saudi, Iranian, Indonesian [democratic on surface but not really] and similar governments do not invest oil proceeds in local development and helping poor people, the Chinese oligarchs (more similar to the emporors of old than Communists at this point) invest in the stock, bond and futures markets rather than in their own country. I believe that at least some of their "demand" is a result of Chinese "playing the market" rather than coming from real economic activity. When and if this implodes (as it usually does, witness Malaysia, Indonesia and Russia circa 1997-8) the price of oil will drop drastically. Think the Hunt silver debacle of January 1980, where silver dropped more than 70% in one day (I don't remember exact figures, but think it was from $40 to $8) and gold dropped from around $800 to around $600. So yes, I consider Chinese prosperity to be largely a Potemkin village. Invest in India and the price of oil should stay relatively high and make China have to compete.

There are a lot of fringe spending which i'm not a fan of. If your a small business owner I think you can claim up to 750,000 on capital gains exemption and might be in luck.

IMO if Timmy paid for a ticket, he paid for the movie, (but that is up for debate and our disagreement) Am I happy that people buy my canola and then resell it at a higher value and make more money on it than I can, yah, but that's their right. That's the parallel I'm drawing with this. Let me put it this way, if there was a law protecting industries the exact same way the entertainment industry, there would be no industries going under and a lot of pissed off consumers. Lets throw out copyright laws and we'll see how efficient the entertainment industry really is. Maybe the workers at a theatre might get off their lazy asses and check to see if people are bringing in cameras and recording devices.

O'Connor Lies but apologizes for misleading Canadians only! Where is CPC accountability again? At least he owned up to it and it didn't take an RCMP investigation and a high profile inquiry to get to the bottom of it like a certain other canadian political party.

Then I don't think that Bunge, Nestle, Robin Hood, etc. should be allowed to do the same thing with my grain, I'd like royalties too. If that doesn't happen, then timmy can sell pirated movies. Listen farm boy. Does someone actually have to explain the concept of intellectual property to you? You are not comparing apples to apples. What you produce: grain, is a COMMODITY. It's is readily producable by anyone with seeds and a tractor all over the world. Movies take TALENT, often one-of-a-kind unique talent. As well, movies are an extremly risky business. They invest in 100 busts for the chance of 5 megahits which pay for the rest of the shit that loses money. If timmy with the camcorder takes away the profit potential of the 5 hits, the investment isn't worthwhile and hundreds of cameramen, makeup artists, lighting technicians, drivers, caterers, costume seamstresses all lose their jobs because timmy wanted to make a few hundred bucks. There is a reason China is a manufacturing power but hasn't INVENTED anything of value over the past 100 years: they have numbers but don't protect intellectual property. ANy civilized mature economy should respect those intellectual property rights of others. The way I look at it, if the movie makers sold their "property" to the film companies to distribute them. When you sign something away, it's gone. Any idiot with a camera can make a movie too, some do it better than others. If Timmy can distribute better than the film companies than that's the film company's problem. They can have their staff search people for cameras. Like I've been said to hundreds of times, if an industry is inefficient it's time to gut it. The entertainment industry is the most inefficient industry there is. Lets stop subsidizing this dead horse. Intellectual property is property that can be bought and sold like anything else, and it's not up to us to pay for other's incompetance.

How do you like that geothermal? I was always fascinated by it. My wife and I lived rural for a number of years and I heated my home almost exclusively with a wood stove and loved the heat, hated chainsawing the wood. Always thought about converting to geothermal, but life changes dictated a move to the city..... Free AC in the summer, plus it throws heat pretty good, I'm satisfied with it, plus it lowers the hydro bill a lot. The thing with wood heat is that your insurance rates go up quite a bit. Chainsawing wood is half the fun of it, I love that type of work. the bad thing about it is that you can't let the fire go out and it costs quite a nice chunk of money to get, fuel, oil, hard on trucks, need a skitter and a tractor out in the bush, salvage permit, have to drive out to get it, it surprisingly adds up.

The actions of one individual are literally a drop in the ocean that will change almost nothing.That obvious fact is why there is a problem. Why should I change my behaviour if it makes no difference to me? In my case, it helps me save money. I guess it's a small change, that sort of thing.

Looks like it's a go, the Bloc is supporting it, very interesting.

Replaced oil furnace with wood/electric, then went to geothermal thru MB hydro. Practice zero-till and minimum till (reducing diesel used) No gas pickups debating on whether or not to get into an agreement with a conservation group concerning poplar trees on pasture land. straight cut combine wheat to name some off the top of my head.

If you think that efficient practices and the equipment you are using didn't originate with some university "clowns", then you are ignorant and confused. If it was up to high-school grads and high-school dropout farmers, you'd still be farming the way it was done 100 years ago. Hahahahahahahaha. Sure I would. Your want a shovel to help with that hole your digging? Practice of summerfallowing was invented by a farmer, zero till was invented by a farmer, chem fallowing was invented by a farmer, crop rotation invented by farmers. Countless types of tools and machinery invented by farmers. Didn't need a PhD to figure that one out. Does it honestly bother you that people who are only high school grads and drop outs make money and sometimes a lot more than people with 4+ years of school?

I pay my taxes. If you need money the welfare system is there for you. Please enlighten me to all these Govt. and "whitey" owned casinos, and don't say Vegas, Reno or Atlantic City. I'll make sure to tell everyone I know to only go to them. 50% of FN live off reserve paying the same taxes you and I do. All of BC's 20+ casinos are owned by companies and none are, as of yet FN. I know of no FN's casinos in Sask or Alberta either. Postit covered the equality point quite nicely. Status gets the tax breaks no matter what, your 50% might not be status, and there are two FN owned casinos that I know of that are 400 k of each other, one in Yorkton SK, and one in The Pas MB.

If farmers were smart enough to read up on efficient practices, they'd be using more of them and they wouldn't need to reinvent the wheel. Those "clowns" with the PhD's have already done it but most farmers aren't smart enough to find out about it. They prefer to "learn" from word of mouth and to resist efficient practices because they want to do things the way they've been done for generations. Your money isn't going to pay for daycare in the city. Your money doesn't pay for anything in the city. It is the city that pays for many of the services in rural areas - rural areas just don't generate enough funds to sustain themselves. If you spent a bit of time reading up on the facts, you wouldn't start with the false premise that your money pays for anything in the city. But hey, it must be "word of mouth". Daycare will allow more people to work in the city - consequently, the city will pay for its own daycare and generate more funds to be spent in rural areas. In addition, your products go to the city and if city dwellers have more cash, they can afford to buy more of your products. It's a win-win strategy both for cities and rural areas but you obviously can't see that far. Like I said, lets see a PhD grow a 50+ bushel an acre crop of canola and make money on it, after all he's university educated. If you think farmers grow crops like they did in the 50's your are just either ignorant or missing the boat. If the high amount of tax dollars from the ag sector actually stayed in my town, we would be able to sustain ourselves. I'm sure Alberta's oil comes out of some cubicle too. If daycare was found to be the magic bullet, I'm sure many corporations/businesses would put in a daycare centre on-site and hire a full time worker. But I guess we do need daycare for your vision of Canada where we are taxed so hard that we absolutely need two incomes to make ends meet, pay the mortgage on a 1/2 million dollar house, and pay off the sky high visa bill because a credit card is now necessary. Chavez would love to have you in Cabinet. I think there is also a correlation with having both people work and a declining birth rate, even with this daycare idea I don't know how the population will sustain itself, oh wait immigration, taking the smartest people from countries where they are actually needed and hindering their growth, another brilliant idea.

Making RCMP candidates be members of visible minority, and either Francophone or bi-lingual. No Anglophone Whites need apply. The RCMP doesn't do affirmative action anymore, my bro went in, and he's a white anglophone who doesn't speak french. It's a straight up competition now with an extensive background check, 1 in 5 applicants get in. Put judges to the same high standards or even higher and we'll get better judges. They should get a tough selection process and a "judge college" where they would all be trained the same so there wouldn't be any bias left or right of the spectrum.

Actually, yes, the average Canadian is too nearsighted to know what a good investment is. I know you don't like daycare, education and training but those along with investment in infrastructure and technology are the "projects" that produce the greatest economic growth of all. Bombs, prescription drugs and paying people to sit at home do not produce economic growth - just the opposite. Those are the FACTS and reality won't change because of your sentiments. Btw, that graduate with a PhD in agriculture is not there to grow crops, he's there to find out how to grow better crops and to pass it on to the people who do grow crops. It is kind of a waste though - farmers are notoriously bad and slow learners. And I'm comrade??? Hehe!! I don't know but the gov't investing 1 billion dollars into an oil rig out in NFLD would do a lot more for the economy than dolling out 1 billion dollars for farmers or daycare. No clown with a PhD has ever taught anyone from my area how to grow a crop, it's just trial and error, and word of mouth on more efficient practices, I devote 1/4 section for experimenting. I wouldn't say we're bad and slow learners, we're just cautious when it comes to new practices, if we see that it's better we go for it. For example zero till saves me a fortune on my fuel bill and doesn't hurt my yield, therefore I go for it. How is having more money in my pocket bad for the economy. When I have more money I'll spend it, it helps out the businesses in town. If my money is going to fund daycare in the city, then I'm going to tighten up the purse strings and not spend, therefore hurting the businesses. Me having the money to pay for a new piece of machinery helps me be more efficient, helps the dealer make money, and helps the salesman with commission. Me not having money means I'll make do with what I have, the dealer doesn't make money and the salesman doesn't get commission, but Timmy gets a space to raise his kid for him. You put way too much stock in Education, a driller from the rigs and a farmer will see a lot more money than someone with a 4 yr. Arts degree, what did his education do for him? He pissed away 4 yrs. of his life and gets a mediocre at best job.

Sorry, Blueblood, I didn't notice your previous poll.Any way, we should do this every few months to see what new posters think and to see if regular posters have changed their opinion. I selected BQ this time because that's how I'd vote now. I'll probably vote ADQ in the Quebec election. Given my riding (and modern democracy in general), my choice will change nothing. I still usually vote for the fun of doing it and talking to the polling people. In the 2004 federal election, I was a scrutineer for the Conservatives and had a nice chat with the BQ woman at the table. (The untalkative Liberal showed up at the end only to get results.) ???? I thought the BQ was too left wing for you.

Why? Because he is a Conservative and conservatives are "fiscally responsible" by assumption? Mulroney, Harris, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II - all prove that assumption is nothing but a myth. Quite the opposite - good conservatives have produced the largest deficits and largest debts both in Canada and the US. Fiscal Conservatism means Conservatives looting the bank and filling up their coffers. Didn't Trudeau help create the huge deficit, I'll concede that Mulroney did nothing to help except implement the GST to help pay it off. I don't know if Diefenbaker ran a huge deficit or not.

No it is not. That is the reality in your conspiracy world. Nothing more nothing less. So...a cop wont arrest a man on the street commiting a crime because he "may " be a lawyer? Yea , that happens. sheesh.... I guess my personal knowledge and inclusion in a case whereby one lawyer was suing another means less than your assertions? Funny....no one called the Law Society. Imagine that ! Tee 'em up....we will knock 'em out Agreed, if a cop suspects a judge is breaking the law they can slap the cuffs on him/her and cart their ass off to the clink. Whether the charges stick is a whole other matter and is up to the courts.

So the average Canadian is too stupid to keep the money they earn at work? Education and training? We don't need the entire country going to school, it devalues the degree, should people be going to school until they are 30? What's wrong with being educated on the job site? There needs to be "grunts" they have a vital place in the economy. Blowing money on unecessary education is completely ridiculous, it hurts our economy having people waste away in school. I'll tell you right now a graduate with a PhD in agriculture is not going to grow a better crop than me, the only use he has is being a prof. I'd cut corporate, business, personal taxes. Cut the Indian affairs dept., make cuts to welfare, cut all the billion dollar payouts, invest in army, healthcare, police., invest in projects that end up making a return, improve infrastructure, toss out nationalized daycare.

Actually it is cheaper for the auto industry to ship the finished car out west than your alternative. The cost to ship the parts would eat that at twice the amount. Magna is in S Ont and they supply a huge % of a cars bits and pieces. To ship it out west or east and then ship back the car is too cost consuming. This is the reason that in S ONt there is Honda, Toyota, Ford , GM Chrysler . Whoops forgot about the parts for a second. That part makes more sense. I would have contradicted myself in my previous post.

Nothing wrong with rural CDA mfg'ing. Nothing at all. But the relief in tax rates is more than consumed by higher cost for ..waste...water...trucking/transport..inventory/stock....know what I mean? It is just so competitive in this world, having small or medium mfg in rural areas just doesnt cut it. Now some industries can because the raw material may be located nearby thus negating the above. having it too centralised can cost money too, look at the auto industry, look how much it costs to send cars out west. I was suggesting that industries move closer to raw material the whole time. does it make sense to refine oil in Southern Ontario handling it twice, or to refine it in Alberta and deliver it straight to the pumps?

The way it is now. What is unfair about it ? Having elections for Judges makes it a beauty pageant. No thanks I'm not for elections in this either. I believe the current system allows for too much bias, it's more of a who you know instead of what you know. How's the screening process. I believe an RCMP style of application process would be the best way.

Last Thursday night I was called to the bar, they wanted me to sign the credit card receipt. I take it you can read other responses above on why this is a bad bad idea to have elected judges. What's a better way to pick judges that's honestly fair? I'd say pick them the same way they pick RCMP candidates.

It may very well be a pyramid. But what option do we have? As the pop ages, it means (1) less people to do jobs that need done (2) less tax income for an expanding retired force (3) less tax icome for a Govt If you have a large mfg'ing plant, and half your workers want to retire in the next 5 years, how do you plan on replacing them? What does " retirement and ....top of the pyramid to get used to a more realistic standard of living" mean? That's a good point, allow me to play devil's advocate though. Our country has high unemployment in some parts of the country, they can pick up some slack. Maybe the population aging is a good thing as the federal gov't would have to look at their programs and make some cuts to accomodate them. Which is another reason why I think having nationalised daycare isn't a good idea as we might not be able to afford it. Another problem is that when the seniors die off, what will the people who look after them do for work? Smart economics will get us out of this mess and I'm sure there is a plan already in place. More people also mean more expenses. I can see our country becoming much more efficient in order to deal with the retiring population. Mind you i am not really expansionist minded though and that bias shows.

This should answer your question. link

Hehe! Ok, comrade. We'll put it in the next 5-year plan. I wouldn't say the gov't make manufacturing go there, by send out I meant drop taxes on businesses, etc. Being called comrade by someone who is a die hard defender of state run child care is quite funny. . Lots of small scale manufacturing start ups couldn't get started because of oppressive tax rates. What's wrong with rural Canada having manufacturing? Does it go against your plan?