hitops

How much money did you donate to the UN this year? Be specific.

If you believed that then you would be quite happy with your old deal. But I'm sure in your personal finances you are of course very concerned with it. When it comes to the rest of our money though.....hey deficits are not important. There is very little to any connection between education outcomes and teacher compensation and benefits in the public sphere. The US spends more per student than any nation on earth and has terrible results.

Seconded. More than usual even.

Will most likely be a conservative minority government. A wide plurality of people prefer the overall trajectory of the CPC on fiscal issues especially, however the variety of odd characters associated with the party and 'scandals' in the last 2-3 years will probably cost them a majority. Newsworthy items like Beb Oda's $16 orange juice matter to enough people to make a difference, unfortunately. I think the NDP is heading downwards. Their voting share from last electrion is inconsistent and Mulcair is not inspirational. Are you running? I think I've seen that exact political flyer in the last 3-4 elections, or some variant of it. Of course the party always differs but you've got the message template basically down. Just remember careful on the robo-calls.

I think the system you dislike is not really the election system itself, but rather your fellow citizens who by and large are simply uninformed and uninterested. You can't blame the media or the politicians, you can't force people to engage. It doesn't really matter what kind of system you promote, if people are engaged it will be very democratic and if they are not, then it will be less so. If 80%+ of a riding was highly motivated to find out about their local MP's you might see more parties and more independent candidates and less party allegiance.

There's no question about it, UN money is almost entirely eaten by bureaucrats on the administering end and corrupt officials on the receiving end. Very little actually makes its way into the hands of people that might need it. Even the money that does make its way, is rarely put to any good long term sustainable use, and usually just results in 'eating the seed corn'. These facts about the UN are obvious to those of us that follow it. The 2 possible exceptions are generating data for reports and studies, and peacekeepers. The data is useful and highly interesting (although it rarely results in anything productive happening, as mentioned). The peacekeepers don't really do anything either, but at least the money does make it into the pocketbooks of the individual soldiers. The UN is kind of like a club you need to be part of to be considered an ok country, but it's practical relevance is highly questionable. There's no question this drought initiative we dropped was completely pointless, and the money going into it contributed pretty much nothing apart from probably hosting a few nice parties. All that said however, it was probably not worth the symbolic blow-back to save $300,000.

Seems you can't even just agree to go along with the person who is desperately trying to help you bail yourself out of the hole you are in. It makes no difference who's education they are paying for. They get education, then they pay later. it is not free. That's all that matters in terms of the economics of the system, and that's all that will matter to any prospective student considering the system. If you have any hope of explaining this to anyone in the future, stop the 'it's free' argument. It's not, you just pay later. We are actually trying to help you here. And if the system only exists because past graduates are paying into it, then it's no different than the American social security system. In other words, a Ponzi scheme. How is that system going for them?

Exactly, and not only this but the fact that in creates the incentive to just take anything because its free, translating into a lower percentage of graduates with actual marketable, productivity-increasing education. The burden of the whole system will of course fall on them, but that won't be enough and it will fall to the taxpayer.

Sounds like a reasonable policy. I don't understand why this would hit the actual retirees though, since the extra benefit was only as a tax break to those paying in. But ya it makes no sense that one form of RRSP should have a better tax break than another. Not so sure about that. Single women tend to be those who make stupid choices and would up pregnant without the guy. Those are usually the 'mad at the world' type, and will normally go for anything that takes money from anyone else to give to them. After all, its hard to be a single mom so therefore we should all pay for their sexual choices and relationship misfortunes, right? Only a small fraction are spinsters or widows.

The funny part is the 'you are turds' comment was in the same paragraph you were whining about ad hominem attacks. I guess you don't fail to grasp every concept, you did master irony.

No, no! You took that WAY out of context. His exact words were 'you are turds'. It's not just one person. Please, please realize how this remark is actually intelligent and reasoned when you consider that.

So you admit you lied about calling people trolls. My mistake on the context. Here is the entire post: Oh ya much better. Grow up and learn to control your temper.

False: And that's just this one single thread. Your entire posting history consists of insisting on bizarre ideas, nobody agrees, and then you start yelling. Your ideas don't make sense. The only person on this forum who does not realize this, is you. And yes you have called people trolls many times. Twice in this thread alone. So please at the very least stop lying about insulting people and calling them trolls. The only other posters who come close to you in this regard, are your own past accounts.

No because you would have a greater number of people graduating with non-employable degrees or not graduating at all under your system, which means many more would need to run from obligations than be able to pay them. You have yet to explain how you system does not introduce more bureaucracy.

If the strategy is to avoid saying anything that could be re-framed, how can he get anyone excited about him? Pure personality?

Please everyone stop the madness. The internet boom and the 90's prosperity for the entire world was not because of Paul Martin, Bill Clinton or any other world leader. They were just there to happily go along for the ride and pretend it was all them. It's like giving Theodore Roosevelt credit for single-handedly conjuring up a widely prosperous munitions industry.

Or even identify them whatsoever, it would seem.

Nope. For Canadians living in the US, you pay taxes in the state you live. If you work in the US and live in Canada, or live and work only short periods in the US, then you would pay taxes in Canada, but this is an exceptionally small number of people.

There is no functional difference apart from nibbling around the edges. It's a delayed payment. It is as tax on those who used the free system. Every part of that tax definition is completely applicable to those people. But if they do, payment is mandatory, just later. ha You still don't understand how the actual effects and incentives of that system, will change the way people approach education and that change in behavior will make the system nothing but a money hole and waste of time for many more people. You also can't seem to understand even the basics of the costs of administering the system. The idea that it requires no administration defies logic. Someone has to enroll them, keep track of them, and bill them later. That requires a lot of someone's, and a lot of tracking that can only be done through a myriad of other departments, requiring them to increase services as well. It's bizarre you can't see this.

Unfortunately the past behaviour of Harper doesn't somehow make Justin's views clear. I'm no further ahead it seems. Are you suggesting the strategy is if you don't hold any positions than you are immune to being attacked on your positions?

Did you know you can get free furniture too? THE BRICK, THE BRICK, DON"T PAY UNTIL 2016! Which you pay, and you have no choice. Ergo, the education was no more free than my new fridge. Percentage of your income? Welcome to the definition of a tax. That would be the mandatory part. Student loans revisited, plus an added Ponzi scheme. This posits no benefit whatsoever over our current student loan system. And requires tons more people to be hired to run it. And will encourage nonsense education because its free, resulting in no job, resulting in no pay-back, and the Ponzi scheme falls apart. But we've already been over all of that.

No the US started going on a massive spending binge in the 80's to fight the cold war. Our unemployment rate is one of the best in the developed world, we're talking 7%. That is a dream scenario compared to most socialist democracies today. And with the EI reforms that should help lift that anchor a little and help us improve that even more. There are plenty of high-paying labor jobs in the west, pretty much for anyone that wants one. If you object to corporations making bigger profits, then don't buy from them. Do what our grandparents did and repair more things or make more things yourself. Better yet start your own company. Your appeal could be that you hardly make any profits and maybe some people would support that cause. And I'd applaud you for going for it. But don't hope that a company just starts handing out reasonably low stress but high paying jobs simply because it has money in the bank. If you want it to pour money into the Canadian economy, vote for the conditions that make them most likely to do so. The world has changed. You cannot have the lifestyle that you could 60 years ago with a high-school education. An no amount of legislation or taxation can change that, that's just sticking our collective heads in the sand. They tried that in many European countries and are now figuring out it does not work. It's actually kind of ethnocentric to assume that you deserve a certain standard of living, when today so many hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians and others are willing to do that same work for cheaper. Why should us in Canada or the west have some kind of divine right to those jobs? Just because we had them before? When people in other parts of the world can build things cheaply, that means the labor market domestically changes to support more people who do jobs that cannot move. Many of those are service jobs and professional jobs. We need to to vigorously embrace the changing world and learn how to thrive, not sulk that the old one isn't coming back.

So what are the party views? I'm not clear on that either. The best I can figure is "we also like to balance the budget and promote business but we don't have the kind of weirdos they do in the CPC". Is that about right?

Can anyone explain what his views are? I checked out his website https://justin.ca/ There is a section 'Justin's views'. Under that there is 'Justin's message', however I cannot see a single view in that message. You check out his 'public statements' under the same tab, but once again I can hardly find a single specific plan or number of any kind. What I did find was in the statement on 'democratic reform'. Here's the best I could do figuring out his positions: - Will not support PR - seems clear - Will make PBO totally independent - seems clear - Will Increase funding to elections Canada - by how much is not indicated, but ok - Will not 'anoint' any MP candidate. The meaning of this one is a little fuzzy. Other than that, I still have no clue what this guy believes. Does anybody else know?

No but it's free! And you just pay when you work, and nobody pays! And you have to commit to a portion you wage, the system is free! Nobody will get forced to pay, it's just that you pay 1%. Why are you not getting this?!>?!>! I haven't seen such a fun thread in a long time.