Moonbox

Coming from you that criticism is absolutely hilarious (see my signature lololol). As for the Red Book, what are we actually discussing here? Neither you nor GWiz have actually discussed anything about the platform itself, instead spouting your usual diarhea writing about nothing and instead criticizing posters like you usually do. It speaks well of your ability to present a proper argument. Did YOU read it? They certainly didn't say anything to refute my or Scotty's original post....

It certainly seems like it with his platform. Ignatieff is floundering around with his policies trying to find SOMETHING that might strike a chord....

Exactly. Ignatieff is blowing hot air here. Harper haters have been decrying all of his "once the deficit has been tackled" promises and yet the Liberal leader comes out with a 40 year environmental plan that means absolutely nothing.

Most of Canada does not want a reform-style government. I like their fiscal policies but the Bible Thumping aspect of the party turned me off completely. Old Reformers can lament all they want that has taken its party away from its roots but splitting the party again would simply put Canada back into Liberal majority territory. As for Harper's replacement being even more right of centre, that's highly unlikely. One of Harper's biggest failing is that he has trouble connecting with women, and that's largely because of how out of touch he is with abortion etc. Harper's replacement will be a palatable man/woman who can court the red liberal tory. The hardline CPC vote can be taken for granted.

If taxes are higher then that's a cost of doing business and it goes right into the cost of whatever is being sold. The tax applies to everyone so everyone transfers the extra cost to the price of their goods/services and the competition remains unchanged....at least in your country. It makes investment in Canadian business less competitive overall.

This thread is moronic. When the government increases public sector spending, the budget suffers for it. That has ALWAYS been the case. There has NEVER been a case where spending on public sector employees has reduced the deficit or increased the surplus. The math simply doesn't work that way.

So, like Bonam said, the people in functional families doing more than monkey work. That sounds great to me. I don't think Harper's really interested in courting the welfare vote.

No it's probably because she's a good client with a good job and isn't a big credit risk.

The lenders were willfully misrepresenting their income. They do that in Canada too. That's why USUALLY most banks require borrowers to provide verification of their income. The banks in the US got so greedy that they didn't even bother with that REALLY basic requirement. What would they have gained by pointing out to the authorities that they were stupid and negligent? It was common knowledge already. It seems we do agree, though I'm not sure why you brought Greenspan, one of the architects of the financial meltdown, into the argument saying he doesn't understand mortgage agreements. He's full of BS. They're completely related. Your risk of default has nothing to do with how complicated the mortgage agreement is. There's nothing to hoodwink. Everyone knows what their income is. The mortgage payment is spelled out to you VERY clearly. It doesn't take a colossal mathematical and reasoning skills to determine whether or not the mortgage is affordable to you, unless we're talking about drooling idiots with nails driven through their skulls. Okay but take your agreement one step further and consider that when I say the problem is systemic I mean that it's cultural and goes from the very top to the very bottom. The problem was in the corporate and financial systems, its poor regulation, the government and all the way down to the rich and poor consumers alike. They were ALL greedy and they ALL got themselves into the mess together. A very few people probably made out like bandits with their bonuses, but they were no more greedy/incompetent than the rest of the country. They were simply in the right place at the right time.

Wtf are you even talking about? That doesn't even make sense. They did not state that they were willfully deceiving homebuyers. That's called fraud. Listening to Alan Greenspan weigh in on this is absolutely laughable. Time Magazine lists him as #3 on the list of people most responsible for the financial collapse. It was under his benign influence that the sub-prime fiasco was allowed to happen and he allowed it and encouraged it. As for mortgage agreements being indecipherable, that's retarded. Basically all a homebuyer needs to know on his mortgage is how much the mortgage payment is going to be and how long it will take to pay off. That is ALL he needs to know to determine whether he can afford the mortgage or not. It wasn't indecipherable banking language that confused the poor homebuyers into complicated agreements where they had no idea what they'd be paying month to month. The mortgage agreement says: "Your payment is 'X' dollars monthly" and the homebuyer signs on to that. Homeowners were signing the mortgage agreements and defaulting DESPITE their payments not going up. You don't need to be a financial expert to buy a home. It's REALLY simple stuff. The problem is systemic and across the entire population. It's a shining example of why regulation is required in the financial industry. It shows us that, if not restrained, greed will eventually blow up in everyone's faces. It blows up in shareholders' faces, in blows up in employees' faces, it blows up in the government's face and it blows up in the average persons' face as well.

She's not naive. She's out of touch and full of herself. Her whole party is out of touch.

The distinction is illusionary. The lenders were not deceiving the homebuyers. The lenders were just irresponsible. They didn't tell the homebuyers that the mortgages were affordable for ever and that they would never be foreclosed on. They told the homebuyers that they could approve them for x-sized mortgage. Many of the homebuyers likely lied when it came to their income, because they didn't have to confirm it down south. People act like the home buyers were helpless baby rabbits who had no choice and couldn't do basic math and budgeting. They were greedily trying to get themselves into homes that they couldn't afford realistically and the mortgage lenders greedily wanted to give them mortgages that were unacceptably risky. The banks screwed themselves just as badly as the homebuyers did. It was bad for both groups. I'm sure there were tons of executives and brokers who profited in terms of bonuses, but they were doing what their shareholders and directors were telling them to.

I would say in most cases you're right. Both parties can carry the blame but they also both got screwed in the end. The banks lost billions and billions over it. A lot of the people went bankrupt. Greed punished both of them. You can paint the banks as evil bogeymen all you want, but don't act like the people buying the houses are people we should feel sorry for.

Food motivates her I think. Food and the sound of hot air escaping her body.

Yeah...I bet. What are your terms? Do you keep your money under a mattress? LoL This is where you show you have absolutely no freaking clue how the banking system works. The vast vast vast vast majority of lending dollars DO NOT come from the Bank of Canada. You really really really don't know anything about banking. Look up what fractional reserve banking is. Maybe that will help you not embarrass yourself here.

How much money did they invest? Answer that or your number means nothing. Would you be happy if you invested $10,000 and earned $100/year on it? Similarly, would you be happy if you invested $10,000,000,000 and only earned $1,000,000. They're the same thing.

That's what happens when I take too long to respond.... Sorry. No I'm merely suggesting that, as a business (rather than a charity) the companies are there to make money. The banking industry in Canada is actually extremely competitive and there's always choice for the consumer. If you have a 28% interest rate on a credit card, you could always go to your bank or another and ask for a consolidation loan which would have a lot lower rate. If the other bank (who is always hungry for business) declines your loan application, that's a pretty good indication that your interest rate on your credit card is pretty justifiable because you're a credit risk. Your half a billion dollar figure is very interesting, but let's put it into perspective. For all we know, Mastercard could have $40 billion invested in Canada, in which case a return of $415,000 / quarter just plain sucks. That's a 4% return per year on the stock market. You can find GIC's that make more money. Get me a stock market report on Mastercard Canada and then maybe we can decide if your number means anything. You say that it doesn't sting when the credit card companies lose a few thousand here and there, but it definetly does when thousands and thousands of people are defaulting, which happens every year. The risk is HUGE.

I think you've made it completely obvious that you have no idea how the banking system works. The highest cost of doing business for a credit card company is people not paying back the balances and defaulting on the debt. The amount of credit cards that get written off or go to collections is staggering and when it happens it's usually a total loss for the bank. A low interest credit card is usually offered to clients who are very unlikely to default on their debts. Someone who has a relationship with the lendor (long time client), background assets and high income is usually the type of person who gets such a credit card. Personally I am pretty sick of it. It's largely money down the toilet. Welfae, as far as I'm concerned, should provide food and shelter and perhaps help finding a job (if looking). Disposable income for smokes and booze really isn't one of my concerns. Yep. They'd look after themselves. Overnight you'd see millions of credit cards revoked for anyone marginally risky and nobody with an under $40,000 income or security would ever have one. Nope I'm suggesting they're a business and looking to make money instead of a charity for poor people to get emergency money cheaply when they need it. Also, nobody is forcing the poor to borrow at 20% interest. They do that alllll on their own. Work hard, use your eductation (if you have one) and maybe one day you can! That's the beauty of this country!

If there was any real possibility of a coalition with the NDP, Liberal numbers would drop off a cliff. A huge portion of the Liberals' base is still the red conservative, particularly in urban/ethnic communities, who generally abhor the NDP platform. The Liberals would lose the GTA overnight if Ignatieff did as the OP suggests.

Get off your high horse. It's hypocrisy for the Liberals to attack the Tories on minor scandals when Adscam is still hanging over their shoulders. Only a moron would pretend that politics isn't purely a game of comparison.

Any rebuke by a committee of opposition members is going to be seen for what it is - a rebuke by a committee of opposition members.

Actually European Mercantilism operated much like the OP stated. The English started with the idea that they shouldn't buy more from someone than they sell to them. It was the reason they build their navy to challenge the Spanish Armada. Today's economy couldn't be any different, aside from the fact that the the poor and middle classes are still applauding while the wealthy continuously screw them. Instead of making this election about corporate tax cuts, why not make it about opposing the telecom oligopoly and rebuilding our manufacturing industries. That's far too involved for the average voter I suppose....

Your idea defeats the purpose of world trade altogether. The idea is to create economies of scale and have different areas building expertise and volume in different products. One country might not need anything from another, yet that other country may need something from it. Where the problem lies in unfair 'advantages' developing nations have in terms of labour costs and in the west's exploiting of these nations. If you want to solve the problem, you have ensure that there is a relatively level playing field. Either you insist on fair employment standards for foreign labour or you impose tarrifs. That's really the only way North Americans with (barely) high school educations will get their monkey jobs back pressing buttons and lifting stuff.

No that's not what we heard. We were told that the amount of money spent on contract employees went up by 78%. As far as I know nothing was said about how much these employees cost compared to their public sector counterparts. Even if the up-front costs were a fair bit higher, they'd likely be cheaper in the long run because we all know the golden pension and the benefits public sector employees enjoy is what ends up costing us the most.

That was really awkward to watch. The reports were out to fry Ignatieff on that.