Moonbox

Pretty much yes to all of the above. The government won't crack down on unions for fear of losing their votes. When we find a politician who doesn't give a **** what they think then we'll be laughing.

Care to back up those figures? You don't have any clue what you're talking about. As of about a year ago Honda and Toyota had something like a $35/hour labor advantage in North America. That's why GM and Chrysler were never able to compete. In 2006, health care and holiday pay alone cost GM about $2300 extra per vehicle over Toyota. That's a fraction of the overall benefits. When you look at pension and other benefits, the UAW single-handedly sunk the auto-makers. You can say all you want about debt and poor product offerings, but when your competitors can offer thousands in savings for comparable cars because your unions are gouging you on uneducated and unskilled labor, even if you were offering the right vehicles you STILL wouldn't have been competitive. I'm not saying management at GM was good. I'm saying that regardless of management, the unions screwed everyone over. I'm paying for their greed.

Interpreting a technicality every 20 years is hardly justification for the position. There's little to no importance in it. We're hardly going to be remembering Michelle 10 years from now on her groundbreaking contributions. The same respect we give anyone who dies. Read the obituary, move on. We're all capable of reading the news, and given that this topic is unlikely to elicit any real discussion beyond my sarcasm, what were you expecting in posting it? I'm from the same generation as you. Practically nobody respects and admires the position. Look up some polls. Most Canadians don't even know who our head of state is. Out of the minority that do, how many do you think admire and respect a symbolic appointed position that has little or no power to directly influence Canada?

He's a symbolic leader of the country and at that, only a representative of the symbolic of another country. The Governor General is an almost useless part of our government and at that, is an appointee. Put a suit on a monkey and it could serve as our GG. Maybe then Canadians would pay the position more notice.

Not to sound insensitive, but I really don't see why this is front page news.

Yeah I don't know of any big ones. Maybe this thread can be moved to the business and eco sub forum?

After it was too late. It should have been apparent by the early 2000's that Honda and Toyota had a 33% cost advantage in North American labour and that this was reflected in the cost, and overall value, of the cars they were selling as compared to American. It was quite clear then that the Big Three were doomed unless they could get big concessions and the unions were too greedy to care. Fast forward to 2009 and the inevitable happened, and the concessions the unions are giving I imagine (don't have the numbers on me) still don't leave them competitive with Honda and Toyota. The Canadian taxpayers have had to shore up the difference and bail out their pensions. Freaking awesome. I'd have been happy seeing them screwed in retirement, because they deserved it collectively.

On their own? Without government regulation? That would be 100% totally completely and catastrophically a disaster. We need regulation, despite what some nuts think, when it comes to securities trading. It's always been and always will be the smart and informed investors making money off the stupid and uninformed (in general). Government regulation doesn't necessarily prevent this, but it at least helps prevent outright fraud.

Yep those are some big ones. There are lots more I couldn't think of too.

If I had all the books I could let you know. I just know that spending has increased faster than inflation over the last few governments. Look at Borg's list. I mostly agree with it all. Social loafing is where the cuts can be made and there is TONS of social loafing going on. As far as anger is concerned, I don't give a flying **** if some crybaby on welfare or EI moocher is unhappy that they're not getting as big of a free check. As far as I'm concerned, if you're not working for the majority of the year, and if you don't have a work history, you should have access to food, shelter and the means to find a job and NOTHING else. No I already said this. You can't cause a deficit with spending. You cause a deficit when your spending goes over your revenues. If you reduce your revenues, you should also reduce your spending. It's not the tax decrease that's the problem. It's the spending increases. Amen to that. Unfortunately our governments typically believe that they have better uses for our money and Obama and friends have decided to screw us all over with bailouts whose primary beneficiaries will be the Unions.

It's not the centralization that's the problem. It's just been bad regulations.

I'm 100% in favor of a national regulatory body. The current system is so backwards it's not even funny. The benefits of a national regulatory body are as follows: 1. Being able to make trades while out of province. 2. Not having to get your securities licenses changed when you move to different provinces 3. Streamlined processes for similar transactions across the country (huge benefit) 4. Being more compatible with the SEC in the United States. Currently the SEC in the US doesn't want anything to do with our regulatory bodies. There's very little cooperation between them and this is because the SEC doesn't want to have to deal with 9 different regulators with different rules in one country. Since our economies and financial systems are so completely intertwined it's silly for us not to have uniform (or at least reasonably so) processes and laws in regards to securities.

No argument. The deficit would have hit because of the recesssion, and in this I agree that the tax reduction left less of a cushion, but here's the crux of the argument. You CAN cut taxes as long as your spending is in line. Our spending has gone out of control under the last two governments (Harper and Martin) and thus it we're more heavily in debt than we should be. The solution then is not to raise taxes, but to lower spending. AND even if you want extra tax money, take it from the top tax brackets, not from everyone else via a gst increase. In the end, you can NEVER have a deficit because of taxes. The only thing that can cause a deficit is spending.

That's pure drivel. Look up some numbers and get back to us. Show me how leaving the GST stable would have allowed us enough room to maneuver. It wouldn't have even been close. Add the fact that consumption tax cuts are DEFINETLY an indirect form of stimulus in the first place, and the argument gets even stupider. The deficit is cause by the recession and over spending. Tax cuts are more money in my wallet and less for the stupid and the lazy. We pay enough to cover Health Care and legitimate EI. What we need after the recession is another Chretien-style axeing of social spending.

What on earth are you talking about? You make less and less sense every day. If you're going to respond, try to make sense. Your rantings are pure nonsense. Explain the connections, don't just blabber on about stuff.

Management should be confronted, if somehow the public sector was being treated unfairly as compared to the private sector. If not, the union can screw itself. I'm sorry, but I don't think garbage truck and bus drivers are particularly skilled or trained and as such they should earn what an unskilled and uneducated grunt is worth. Yeah. I'm sure that would go over well considering how little support public sector unions have amongst the populations. Take Toronto as an example. 24,000 people on strike in a city of millions, most of whom are angry at the striking workers. Revolution?

Oleg you have no idea what you're talking about, as usual. Just another pointless rant. Banks don't charge anything for welfare cheques. You can get that crap directly deposited electronically into your account.

For the record, Topaz, the deficits aren't due to reduced taxation. It's due to increased spending solely. Less tax is always good. Spending increases simply can't outpace tax decreases.

Social services like the 9 week work year (screwed up EI) and funding to special interest groups can't really be called social services. Those are penalties for working hard.

I piss on the Trudeau name and everything he stood for. I'll probably leave the country if he ever becomes PM.

The Holy Roman Empire was Germanic Catholic Empire. The Russians, as far as I know, never claimed any connection to the HRE, as they were never a catholic nation but rather an orthodox christian nation. The Russians claimed to be the 'third' Rome and that they carried on the traditions of ancient Rome and Byzantium, but everyone and their mother claims that so it means nothing. As for Ignatieff, he's an ugly mother and doesn't look anything like a Roman aristocrat. I take offense to that because I'm a Roman history buff

It won't pass.

Proportional representation would be good for nothing but alienating the rest of the country even further from Toronto and Montreal.

I agree and it's too bad Bush paved the way for Obama. If Bush hadn't been such a disaster Obama probably wouldn't have had a chance with this crap.

Our censorship is to block junk like kiddie porn, beastiality and racial hate. China's censors are to hide the truth from their own people. The Chinese government, just like the Stalin USSR and the North Koreans, does not want a well-informed populace that questions what they do. I'm not saying the Chinese people haven't done good things. I'm saying the Chinese government holds China back from being respected by the world.