Wild Bill

Get your own facts straight, too! There have been many union members on the local radio talk shows complaining that they have never been allowed to vote on this pension issue. How do you know its only a few workers when you won't allow them to be counted? Rolf better hope its only a few! If it's a lot then he likely won't get re-elected. Still, I don't defend US steel. I hope Clement sues their ass off! US Steel broke their agreement because being an American company they were far more afraid of Obama than of Harper! Obama said "America First!" and US STeel of course said "Yessir!". Besides, Canada had never challenged broken promises by foreign companies before. This makes Clement's job more difficult. There's no legal precedent so they're breaking new legal ground. Still, apparently Clement feels it's worth it to try. Even if they can't make it stick they will at least be able to draft new agreements with other companies that will stick in court. Following US law instead of Canadian doesn't excuse them, of course. They made a deal in this country and they should abide by it! Still, that doesn't change the pressures they are under. They have to find ways to stay profitable. If giving in to Rolf would put them out of business in Hamilton it makes sense to just close Hamilton. I would rather that a Canadian company had bought Stelco in the first place but no one wanted it or could afford it. I've been in and out of that plant many times over the years and was always struck by what a primitive, screwed up mess it was! No wonder they built Nanticoke to have something modern and productive! Hilton Works should be made into a museum! It's obvious US Steel only wanted it for Nanticoke and the coke ovens. If US Steel hadn't bought it the City would have had to bulldoze it under. That's what I don't understand about so many union/management negotiations. It's not just a matter of who has the most force. Money doesn't care. China is cleaning north american steel companies clocks with cheap steel! Our steel plants are closing no matter WHAT the unions want! If companies and unions don't work together to figure out how to handle foreign competition they're toast, pure and simple! If they don't do it, they deserve to be!

Once again, nice evasion! You never addressed a single point I made! Did I vote for you once? Your way of doing things seems familiar...

Waldo, I can understand you taking your usual position, that is, trying to get good shape on the debate! Couldn't you put that aside a moment? Maybe share some of your knowledge in the search for truth? Does CERN's experiment mean that there is at least one other factor than just CO2? Are said experiment's results significant or trivial? Why? Or is it that everything is dependent on CO2, nothing else but, forevermore no matter what new evidence?

Are you seriously implying that the UN would send enforcement ships, planes and/or troops against Canada? Surely you realize that the UN has no forces of its own. It has to ask member countries to donate them for each and any mission. What's more, these days most countries wuss out anyways, expecting Uncle Sam to do the job and have to pay the bill. So just where is this UN enforcement going to come from? Even assuming you could get a number of nutbar terrorist nations to back your play, what resources do they have? What would they do if we simply told them to "piss off!" and fired on the first blue helmet that invaded our territory? What would they do if we simply told them that we considered their actions to be acts of war and immediately suspended all relief, food and aid programs that we give them? Anybody can make a wish! I'd like a pony! The question is, how do I get one and how can I look after it on a city lot? You never seem to have anything that is "real world". Always dreams and visions, never reality.

You completely evaded my point! I was NOT defending U S Steel in its present dispute with Local 1005! I was merely using Local 1005 as an example of unions not seeing the big picture, or not caring. Watch that situation closely, Rick. Comrade Rolf is going to get U S Steel to close that plant. When it happens, he will lay ALL the blame on the company! Afterwards it will get very interesting. Sooner or later he is going to have to face a vote from his membership, if not on the contract then about his own leadership. Steelworkers have long memories. The federal government is suing U S Steel for breach of its agreement. Personally, I hope they hang them! So what? How does that change my point that unions today are living in the past? The fact that you so completely missed my point to pounce on my model is EXACTLY what's wrong with much of union thinking today! Because the union leadership doesn't have to worry about the company's day to day struggle to be profitable they seem to believe that NO ONE has to worry about it! That it is written in the stars that the company will always be there to employ their membership! I've worked for two companies that went bankrupt. Both times the writing was on the wall for months, if not years. Yet when the axe came down fellow workers all around me were totally shocked! They just couldn't believe it! Sadly but also laughably, at one firm some tried to organize some kind of effort to FORCE the company to stay in business, despite it's being broke and in debt! Most of my career was in sales and one thing you learn early is that in any deal or partnership it has to be good for both parties if its going to last. If a deal is so much in your favour that it breaks your opponent then you both lose.

The problem is not with the idea of unions or collective bargaining. Rather, it is with the innate intelligence of most unions. Virtually all unions in the western world were formed during times when their companies market was mostly domestic. They competed with other domestic companies and "split the pie" according to domestic factors. The problem today is that few if any unions have paid any attention to the fact the world has changed! Their companies' competitors are now global. Unions are making demands that companies can no longer afford. If they give in, they will simply go bankrupt, either in a short time or a bit longer one. Here in Hamilton we watched for years as the Steel company offered various profit sharing schemes, to try to tie their labour costs to their profitability. The union flat out rejected the very idea every single time! Now we have the local union out on strike for nearly a year, mostly over the pension scheme for new hires. Amazingly, their negotiating committee won't even allow their membership to vote, for fear they might disagree with their leadership's stance! The union leadership is demanding a deal that no other steel company anywhere in North America gives! The company really has no choice. They have over 9,000 pensioners and only 985 or so workers! That's a 10 to 1 ratio of those making the company money and those draining it! How can ANY company stay profitable in such a situation? I understand the situation with the car companies is even worse, especially with GM. If unions would only recognize the new factors it would make their demands much more reasonable.

Here's the next lines: You owe us the fruits of your labour Just because we say! The contract is forever 'cuz we Remember it that way! "So keep giving us your money So we all end up like Greece!" You may say I'm a dreamer But at least I buy my own.

While the Liberals get to break deadlines for paying for their election financing, over and over with impunity. Of course, there is no double standard! The Tories get charged because well, they're Tories! The Liberals get off because well, they're Liberals!

Well, the digital switch was 3 days ago now. Can anyone confirm if the world has ended?

There are good things and bad about any tax, Argus. With all the electronics involved, the savings from a combined HST are trivial compared to what they would have been a few decades ago. Still, that leaves the argument of consumption vs. production taxes and as I said, there is good and bad. However, from a political perspective it doesn't really matter. The fact remains that the GST was the most hated tax in our history and the hatred has not really ebbed by today. Combining it with provincial taxes only makes the resentment worse, not better. It's a gut thing and not a head thing. Frankly, I don't know if there's anything any government can do to change people's feelings. Logic certainly won't! Perhaps one of the reasons may be that the GST was a watershed moment in our culture. A lot of things came to a head when Mulroney introduced his tax. We had been looking for something different after the Trudeau years and had given Mulroney the two biggest majorities ever. Then after the feeling that he favoured Quebec to buy support and that with Meech Lake and Charletown different promises were made in English than in French we began to feel like suckers. People talked about how Paul Martin registered his ships in foreign countries, to dodge taxes, along with island tax evading bank accounts for the rich, which included many politicians. Priests were revealed as sex offenders. There went our faith in churches. PetroCan, which had been tooted as a tool to save us from being gouged by "evil oil companies" had had enough price history to show us that they were always the first to raise prices and the last to lower them at the pumps. There were a lot of other examples which I'm sure you're just as familiar with as anybody else. The cumulative effect is that as a nation we lost our virginity! We no longer had much faith left for anything! What's more, with the GST coming about on top of all this, we no longer felt the need to be honest with our government! The level of black market deals escalated to levels far beyond what we had ever seen before. We always knew that governments were inefficient and a little bit corrupt but by the time the GST was introduced we were far more cynical. If the government and our institutions were so hypocritical and dishonest with us why should we be honest with them? We no longer took pride in being obedient citizens of good character. Rather, we felt like chumps who were being used. So you can justify the GST and the HST all you want. As I said, it doesn't matter. There's an old saying that once you have lost respect it is FAR more difficult to get it back. ADSCAM was perhaps just the last straw, branding the Liberals just as bad as the PCs. Now Harper has deliberately pursued a policy of making the CPC look as much like Mulroney's party as possible! Is it any wonder that people like me vote for him only by default, ready to drop him on a dime if something better comes along? Is it any wonder we see anomalies arise out of the blue, like the incredible NDP result in Quebec and the spectacular fall of the incumbent BQ party? Or the poor support for Charest's Liberals without any real new warmth for the PQ? Canadians everywhere are at the point where they'd vote for a dog if he was any different, as another old saying goes. Keep on defending the GST/HST if it makes you feel better, Argus. Perhaps you'll find someone somewhere who actually cares!

Thank you! I will remember your words the next time if ever I am in traffic court. "Your Honour, Let me off! I had no intent to break the law and speed. My attention wandered and it simply happened!" If I can, I'll let you know how it works out.

Translated: "You ALL took it the wrong way, no matter HOW many there are of you!"

Sure you can! Everybody else does! Hamas and others get to lob rockets into Israeli bedroom communities, blow up buses full of orphans and generally have a hell of a good time, all this being just "cultural expression". If Israel retaliates and does an air strike against the rocket launcher site, this is an unjustified attack that stymies the advancement of the peace process and is generally a crime against the Universe!

Geez, Shakey! Considering Angus has been a combat soldier, putting up his life for this country, isn't your post a bit...smarmy?

I guess I make it at least two readers. Seemed pretty obvious to me!

Well, let's be 100% efficient! We all sign our entire paycheques over to the government and they just kick us back an allowance.

No kidding! over 2 centuries ago communities built homes, schools and libraries themselves with only hand tools. No one had any money and certainly there were no government grants. Some of those buildings are still standing today! It's not just the natives! Just WTF is wrong with people today?! They can't seem to do the simplest damn things! Most seem to be just unskilled, useless, inept, fumblefingered metrosexual excuses for useful human beings! Put 'em on a desert island with you and all they'd do is be a drag on your resources. It's doubtful they'd even be nutritious, if nothing else! Any capable person would be better off waiting till dark and then scurrying away, leaving them to their own unproductive devices!

Well, that's the official excuse! To me, it makes more sense to look at a large organization and see if it's virtues outnumber its faults. Human rights is just ONE committee that is grievously flawed! Hell, even all those pennies for UNICEF we collected for Halloween became involved in a scandal! After a while you begin to suspect that "a lot of productive and necessary organizations." are actually in the minority.

Yeah, one generation put a man on the Moon. The next generation sits on its ass and expects the Moon to be handed to them!

When the UN can put countries like Libya under Ghaddafi as head of Human Rights Commissions, along with some fundamentalist, barbaric Muslim countries, what's the point of reading ANY UN report? One would think that such reports would be rather predictable...

So the Tories got charged and hauled into the courts over campaign spending accountancy loopholes that the other parties also use (TWICE!) while the Liberals can break all the deadlines about paying their debts. Of course, there is no double standard! Oh no, you'd have to be crazy to even think it!

No, Argus! I had zero money. I used to collect blobs of solder out of old chassis and re-use it! Virtually all my parts came from discarded radio and tvs that relatives, neighbours and friends of my parents gave me. I cracked open a power transformer out of a radio to remove the enameled wire from the windings to make my antennae that I hung up in the trees. I had NO way to get into town to buy parts! Even if there was a bus I had no money for the fare anyway. Surely if the kids can find money for booze and gas to sniff they could find some broken radios. Still, that's picking apart my model and not my point. Times have changed and my way might not be practical today. The point is that there are surely others today that would be! It's just that you have to TRY first! It seems that's the part that's missing. Easier to wallow in victim status, I guess.

Again, how do you account for Robbie Robertson, Graham Greene, Derek Miller and so many other great musicians who grew up on those same reserves?

I don't understand either, Bonam. I do understand their "official" reasoning. They want attention and publicity for their cause. What to me doesn't make sense is that usually their actions just don't do that! Rather, they just look like assh*les! Once again I think it "religious" thinking rather than rational thought. The protesters think that their cause is so "holy" that if people's attention is drawn to it that will be enough! They will be so awed as to instantly become converts to the faith! The protesters appear to lack even the basic concept of convincing others to their cause with evidence and reason. Or as Manny, the lead character in Robert Heinlein's book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" called them - "yammerheads"!

Sez who? I grew up in the country. The nearest girl my age was a couple of miles away. So I didn't visit her that often. 'Course, part of that was because she was rather bitchy but still, it shows I was on my own a lot. I had friends at school but seeing them afterwards often involved more walking time there and back than play time. I never got into any trouble! I ate a huge number of books and spent hours every day in the basement, blowing fuses learning about radios and electronics. Do you have to be white to learn how to string an antenna up in a tree? To learn how to pick up short wave broadcasts from all over the world? And what about music? Some of the finest musicians in Canada came from reserves. They CHOSE to put out the effort and discipline to learn how to play an instrument! Others CHOSE to get into trouble! Sorry Angus! We all have free choice. We are measured not by how much crap falls on us over our lives. That tends to average out for everybody. Rather, we are measured by how we cope! Some of us try to do something positive. Others sit around and look for someone else to blame. That's the long and the short of it!