Jerry J. Fortin

Not really, but I will vote against it every single time.

You can blame who you want for whatever problem you believe to be the cause of the entire auto industry. The bottom line is that our government has committed to a 20% total cost of a bailout for this industry to only two of the legion of players who will be bellying up to the bar with open hands. The politicians have blinked. If they do not act they will be roasted alive at the polls, if they do act they will be roasted alive at the polls. The difference being that there is a small hope that some jobs may be saved, but there is no hope of saving tax dollars at this point. The harsh reality is that we are entering into a depression. We are just now starting to see deflation. Not only consumer goods are coming down, everything is. Commodity prices, stock prices literally everything, accept for the price of gold. Economies will contract, folks will lose their jobs, this isn't going to be pretty. In the end the politicians will lose their jobs as well. Remember the phrase "The New World Order", well guess what, its here.

It was and it wasn't. It was the mortgage issues that caused that problems, and even then it was the banks trying to profit from these mortgages by selling them as one thing when there were really another that caused their own problems. Had you or I did that, we would have been charged with fraud and been put in jail. Not them, the fat cats walked away with huge dollars, the little investor who was lied to got burned badly. The buyout goes to the banks not the investors and there is little help for the folks losing their houses to the banks. To address your specific issue, the governments and the financial industry are focusing on dollars and cents. The people need homes to live in and jobs to work, so what is the real need here ? Bailing out failed business with tax dollars, or looking after the best interests of citizens. Those politicians are folks we hired, they work for us. That means we can and will fire them at our leisure. The thing to remember is that we are supposed to be living in a capitalistic society, not a communistic one. Business is supposed to pay its own way, and reap the rewards of their efforts. Now what is going on is the citizens money is being used to corporate advantage with no net benefit to the tax payer. That is simply wrong. There is however a political reality to consider, so what we are about to get is a radical compromise that displaces principles for situational ethics and political considerations. We are in fact selling our souls for pieces of silver here. Having said all that, there is yet hope. We can still change our ways and depart from a path that leads toward the rise of corporatism. We can hold our politicians accountable, they can face losing their jobs if they act against the wishes of citizens. It is too late to stop the bailouts, these things are a done deal. Business gets a walk from the government and the citizens are getting ripped off. That page has been written in tax payers blood. The money is gone, and it isn't going to come back. Everyone that believes that this was an end to the bailout packages is delusional. That total required will require more than 150 billion dollars for the North American industry. Canadian tax payers were just committed to 25% of that total. Once this is all said and done, the citizens will start showing up with their hands out, with just cause since its our own money being spent. That is why there is still hope, the government will have a hard time denying something to citizens that it grants to corporations. Citizens would fare well from having a five digit deduction from their tax load.

Look folks, the equipment needed is task dependent. If you have all kinds of tasks you need all kinds of equipment. The thing that needs doing is the updating our military, period. If the roads are unsafe, then you either make them safe, or don't use them. Its all about risk management and a command authority. This isn't business, this is war. Economics don't apply, munitions and equipment do. That is the way things are, it is a reality.

I would like to see this nation step way from its current path. Lets look at the bottom line, the people. What can a government do to help people? Cut taxes sure, but that only impacts the government revenue stream without actually adding jobs. From the view at the bottom of the food chain, people want jobs to earn money to buy themselves things. Taxes cut into their ability to do that. So how do you reduce taxes and add jobs to the economy. The answer to that is to make home purchases tax deductible. Do the math. how many people can get employed with one home purchase. Now look at another side of the equation. Tax revenues received from all those folks working on that house verses the tax savings of the person that bought the house. The government earns more money from the employment than it does from the tax deduction. At the bottom line the citizen realizes a net worth increase, which also improves their financial position, the employees building the house benefit from a little job security, there is no down side. Money is made, or wealth created at each step of the development process. Considering the entire application of an economic stimulus package is to spur economic activity this fits the bill on a grand scale. The auto industry bailout will cost billions to the tax paying citizens, but not all citizens will benefit or even have the opportunity to benefit from the program. Even so, it is political suicide not to head down that path. Economic suicide if we do, and political suicide if we don't.

That is one way. Another is to introduce them during ballots in general elections. But that does not address the issue of opening the constitution. How can it be done?

Then what is it that you think we need? The V22 can move troops, very quickly I might add. If you want armed helicopters that is another story, I do not advocate that course of action. If you want close support, I will suggest the AC130H Specter. Canada has very specific needs, the equipment needs to meet the needs.

Opening up the constitution is a VERY big deal. That little piece of paper can fix a lot of things wrong with the system, but the problem is that there are more than a few who what to do a little social engineering with it. Abortion is one example of the things many would like to talk about in the case of opening up that document. The only way to deal with this situation properly is to get unanimous consent from the provinces and Premiers to only go where they need to go with it. Limit the format, limit the discussion. Address the issues that need to be addressed, not everything under the sun.

Anybody figure out that free trade isn't what they told us it would be yet? How many jobs have we lost ? How many more can we afford to lose, as in the auto sector?

We need the senate, but not the way that it is now. Part of the problems we face are a result of our parliamentary system.

I would like to know how you abolish the senate without opening up a constitutional nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I want to see that document opened up. I want federal and provincial powers reformed.

I will for Liberal, for a change. The current government simply is too arrogant for my liking.

I will suggest that income tax rates be cut as well. Perhaps more importantly though there are many loop holes to close that will serve to generally enhance the revenue stream of the government. We need to look at providing tax relief to consumers if you want to increase consumer spending. Every dollar moved from a withholding tax in the hands of the government to a disposable income in the hands of a family means increased economic activity of some sort. Given that our economy is entirely feared in that direction it seems to be a no brain kind of solution.

Both the American and Canadian bailout of private ventures spells an end to an era. Capitalism has morphed into corporatism. Now the transfer of wealth from the individual to the government has evolved into a transfer of wealth from the individual to a corporation. It also spells out the terms and conditions of a North American union. That little 20% comment from Harpers government about the auto industry speaks volumes about where the Government of Canada is going.

I think there are an equal number of lefties and righties in this forum........

I will suggest a few squadrons of V22's is what we need. Why not its Christmas time!

You want evidence that a tax cut will help an economy? Look at what making housing tax deductible did in the USA.

I have trouble with the concept that Canadians belly ache about the Senate only when a PM exercises their power! Pick a partisan sect either one of the only true ruling parties stack the deck whenever they can. The media doesn't help, and apathy rules in this nation. The greatest demographic by a long shot is the guy that simply doesn't vote. So it isn't really the PM's fault, its our own. Its our fault because we don't get off our butts and do something about it. This nation needs a severe makeover in political terms and we simply won't see things change for the better until the system is reformed, period.

The state of the economy is much more to blame than government you say? So in that case its nobody's fault at all because business will accept no responsibility either. I guess the next logical step in that line of reasoning is to bailout everybody for everything, the tax payer has limitless funding available for wealth transfer. In truth I guess you get headed down an ideological path with this. To intervene in the economy or not, that would be the question. This time however the equation is very complicated, to not intervene is political suicide, even if it is considered a leftist path. The politics of the situation require a leader with real balls. What is good or perhaps in the best interest of the public is to NOT spend billions of tax dollars during a time of decreasing tax revenues. However, when the public becomes unemployed due to the incompetence of private enterprise it costs the government in terms of public benefits. The question then becomes one in which the government has to determine which course of action it can afford. Here is where Harper takes it in the ear. It simply doesn't matter which side of the street you are walking on, because you are going to be wrong no matter what you do. It isn't just our economy that is in rough shape, it is everybody elses' too. To add to our problems we have our entire economy geared toward export and import. We sell off and export cheap unrefined resources and then import and buy them back as finished products. Since we have entered trade pacts with everyone and their dog, we gave up controlling the ebb and flow of products across our border. This makes middlemen and retailers very happy, and the consumer is lead to believe that they get cheaper products. They sort of do get reduced prices, but they gave up some jobs in the manufacturing sector to get them. While this whole crisis began with problems in America, it has spread around the world and nobody is blaming the US for the trouble, funny how that works. Sort of like not having a SARS outbreak, or even one single BSE cow. I guess it depends on what you test for doesn't it?

If Harper had a brain he would not hand over one tax dollar to inefficient corporations that are on the brink of going belly up. This bailout is folly, supporting business is not the roll of government, their function is to support the people. Now either we go full commy and nationalize the industry, or we don't give them a dime. I am sure there are lots of folks that want to spend tax dollars on the industry, for them and their desires let them have a special corporate welfare tax applied to them and only use those funds for a bailout of failed business interests. The rest of the citizens should not be burdened with this regional concern.

Figure a 30 billion dollar tab for a 20% pie of the auto bailout plan. Add in another 10 to 15 billion in other bailouts yet unseen and you begin to see the end of the beginning of the things to come.

I must admit that I did not expect Harper to fall into that one. The man claims to be an economist, so to use the term in the first place has interesting connotations. What it says to me is that Harper believes we are in fact on the brink but believes that he is smart enough to avoid the coming problems. Surprise Stevie!

I wondered how long it would take Harper's propaganda machine to get into gear, the jury is in on that now.

America once fought wars based upon principle, not merely for their own economic interests. The greatest political document of all time was your American Declaration of Independence, and those principles were applied to American foreign policy for nearly two centuries. It cannot be said that the second world war was all about economics. Then came the rise of the military industrial complex, and after the second war to end wars and with all of the manufacturing capacity already in place, and with the threat of the "Cold War" hanging over the head of the free world an arms race like nothing ever seen before began. To ignore this basic true is simple foolish. Shortsighted approaches to foreign policy are indeed the luxury of hindsight taken into historical context, even so it is clear that the reasons for going to war have changed since Vietnam. Correct me if I am wrong here, but it would seem to me that continuity indicates staying on the same course. So how does this apply to Iraq, after having backed Saddam in a war with Iran, who as a coincidence was at one time an American ally before its Islamic revolution? I think it is safe to say that American policy reacted to the changing demographics in the region. What Iraq really exemplifies is going to war for all the wrong reasons. America WANTED a war with Iraq, perhaps more specifically George W Bush wanted to respond to an attempt on his father's life in Kuwait years before. The fact remains that this war was not forced upon them, nor were many of the actions undertaken by the United States government since Vietnam. Before these events America reacted differently. To my knowledge a Pax Americana never existed.

We must choose to disagree. I maintain that American foreign policy is no longer what it was prior to Kennedy. With his death and the Vietnam war everything began to change. World opinion has shifted away from American support to as large degree. America has lost much respect. There was a time when wars were fought for peoples lives and freedom, it has become a question of economics in America. You choose to take another view, so be it. The war in Iraq was based on WMD's. The only ones there were those that America sold to Saddam years before. So the purpose of that exercise was what? To spend and be forced to replace munitions for the military industrial complex perhaps. Your assertion that I look into gun boat diplomacy was then merely to provide background information as to a continuity of naked aggression on the part of the United States government. I can see your point, however as I have said before the entire premise of the use of force has changed, you cannot see that point. I have never worshiped the United States of America, as a matter of fact I oppose US foreign policy. I was never a Kennedy fan, although I believe he had some good ideas, he was just another American politician. Yes your citizens are dropping like flies far from their homes, but that is a result of an interventionist foreign policy based on protecting American interests abroad. Face it, when you are the big dog you attract a lot of attention. The simple truth is that America replaced the British Empire with their own version. Empires rise and fall, America has risen and it may now be falling.