cgarrett

ferret, i want you to consider that 99% of all u.s. natural resources are american owned and operated. the u.s. and britain put up with 2-3% foreign ownership. we canadians have 35% foreign ownership in natural resources with our key sectors of strength being completely dominated by foreign ownership! and this number is growing! and existing policies continue to seek to "encourage" this by dropping taxation for these foreign investors. many of these entities don't pay any taxes at all!

i haven't seen much in the media about this... yet. unfortunately, i don' think many people are aware that this is happening as the current b.c. liberal government have stopped issuing press releases for such things. http://www.caut.ca/en/bulletin/issues/2004...privateuniv.asp essentially, the b.c. liberals have begun to provide "university" status to the private sector. its the end of higher educational institutions in canada as we know them in favor of the american system. this is indeed a major social change that canadians seem completely unaware of. when someone comes from an american university then the question is always "which one?". because any "school" in the u.s. can use the word "university". so, in the u.s. there is a hierarchy of "universities" where the most well known and respected are also the most expensive and inaccessible. its their business model to be so. when people come from canadian universities, then like so many other countries, there is no question as to the quality of the education received. because all universities must meet strict quality assurance objectives regarding their curriculum throughout the country. the reasons that our public universities will not survive is not related to their quality but because of their implications to "free trade" as described in this article. http://www.bctf.bc.ca/social/globalization...Agreements.html its only a matter of time before the subsidizing of these institutions is brought to a halt by "free trade" challenges from the private sector.

the current exemption is definitely too low... no one can acutally live on that kind of money.

i think this is, quite simply, a great idea.

the basis of all feminist thought, no matter how confused by factions for or against, is that women are under represented in the decision making processes of our society. there is no excuse for this. women have every right to fight for equal representation whether they meet the criteria set out by men to participate or not. the world would definitely be a different place with them equally represented. maybe some bad... but lets face the facts. when evil things happen in the world then men are always to blame. men are behind guns, strip mines, gas chambers, nuclear weapons, serial killings and commercial airliners aimed at tall buildings. the situation in vancouver is monstrous and is as much deeply rooted in the infamous vancouver police dept old boys club. this dept, more than any other is in bad need of routing out. there needs to be much more representation by women in the force. not just in the public relations dept! and as i have said many times... depts policing themselves is never adequate.

hang on a second!!! are august and other suggesting that each and every shareholder hire an auditor to audit every company that he either holds shares in or is thinking about buying share in!? because he shouldn't trust corporate management? because corporations are not responsible to their owners? listen, if you bought a business and then the managers told you everything was rosy and then one day you found out exactly the opposite... then would you think... should have bought a different business?! stupid me? this is ridiculous. the abbreviated real story... as early as 1994, the financial accounting standards board (fasb), the independent body that represents the association of chartered accountants was raising the red flag on the rising practice of not reporting stock options as expenses. the security exchange commission agreed. corporate america quickly descended on washington and found mostly republicans as great friends of the cause. fasb was told to shut it and stop pissing on the parade. then the auditors started advising their clients! another fasb and sec no-no! and again, fasb was told to shut it and the sec chair was replaced by some pro-corporate lackey! then... the tech stock market crash and what came out of it. enron, worldcom etc etc... serious crooks! if you like the idea of public ownership then you better like the idea of regulated auditing. there is nothing scarier to an investor then not knowing what one is buying. and the financial markets will never recover until investors trust that public companies are following strict guidelines regarding the reporting of their business health.

first of all, what do you mean exactly by "free market"? capitalism ensures that wealth is created... not that they are distributed in any meaningful way. take the simple example of the minimum wage... if it doesn't exist, then it doesn't get paid. ok... so who owns those efforts? i know that your going to call me communist again... but this is what the debate is all about isn't it? if every man owned his own efforts then life would be much different. our current hierarchy relies on ownership of capital to stay at the top. again, if i can use my capital to create/buy a business and then go sit on the beach for the rest of my life... i'd do it! but my effort is zero... and the rewards! i don't have the exact figure handy, what is it? 50% off the top? unless of course you have friends (see the case against the seagrams family moving close to a billion dollars out of canada tax free). this seems to be the focus of this kind of argument. is "ourselves" the only thing we own? living within national borders? whats the point of democracy if we have no right to control anything but ourselves? in the most extreme case, i'm not taking a bullet for country if all i own i myself! this is part of the debate, definitely. when jobs get shipped overseas the compensation sinks to zero for people restricted by borders.

actually, i agree with you dookie that those who work harder to promote our economy are entitled to extra! the question is... to what extent? the extreme right seem to be of the view that there is no limit to the "perks" that should be granted to the movers and shakers of the economy. in fact, they advertise that they should be unregulated in anyway by democracy itself! globalization itself is an attempt to participate in the wealth building aspects of an economy without having to be responsible for the costs involved in maintaining it. and august, the pie is not fixed and i've never implied this... i simply imply that the efforts to grow wealth are those of every participant. our democracies have already taken steps to ensure that everyone enjoys the fruits of those efforts. but again, it seems to be human nature that if you "own" something then you resist any restriction on your profit from it. we already do not allow wealth to be removed from our economy without a steep penalty. and trade barriers prevent participation in an economy without benefit of those who are also making an effort from the non-ownership position. again, globalization seeks to remove these barriers.

good job reagan... you worship those guys! they pay a good share of your healthcare because you voted to have a better share in this countries wealth (i'm assuming you live in alberta as you said)... thats not happening out of the goodness of their heart! we canadians have been lucky this last 60 years, but there could very well be a military draft in the next term of office for our american friends. anyways, find yourself lucky to live in a province that still has mandatory overtime pay! because the b.c. liberals have dispensed with it... and those good hearted rich guys aren't paying overtime now.

no problem dookie... really. i'm just saying that i'm glad its not coming out of my pocket! i'm happy that the u.s. is cleaning up at their own expense... and i know its expensive... what with an entire percentage point of the u.s. population dropping below the poverty line last year alone, more money spent on arms then all federal money spent on everything else combined, the national debt being a staggering five times gdp... no one has ever accused the current administration of "not having direction"... if thats the direction that the voters of the u.s. really want.

very cute story.... lets look closer into the lives of our characters, shall we? so the eight poorest men ask the two richest men. how did you become so rich? and the 2 richest men said, well, we made that money off of you... using american resources and labor to produce the products that we sold to you at a profit. the poorest man said, i use a small amount of the countries infrastructure, how much do you use? and the richest men said that they owned huge industries that relied on huge amounts of the countries infrastructure for roads, water and energy. and the poorest man said, i voted for one party that didn't win, who did the richest men vote for? and the richest men said, it doesn't matter who you vote for because i can afford to donate vast sums of money to all parties to ensure that my interests are protected and that you have a tough time competing with me for anything. and they also said that if anyone tried to take this power away from them that they would take the fortunes that their country had provided them and leave! and the restaurant owner told the men... you know you owe me for five years worth of your food because i have been giving you deals and you have been borrowing the money from the rich men! you owe them a great deal of interest! and the poorest men went home with full bellies to shacks with dirt floors and in the morning received a telegram instructing them to show up at the local military office to be shipped overseas for battle. and they wondered about what it meant to be a citizen of a country that offered them little and asked for their lives in return. and the richest men went home with full belies to their mansions... and slept soundly.

i'd like to add that the bush administration is more about unwarranted fear than anything else. lets face the facts regarding the "war on terrorism". more people die of work related accidents every year in the u.s. than have EVER fallen victim to terrorism. there is currently a plague sweeping the u.s. in the form of obesity which now affects tens of millions of americans. i don't see this administration deciding to bankrupt a nation for the cause of keeping people safe in the workplace or eating less and being healthier. 9/11 was a great excuse to create a new "perpetual war" just like the "cold war" and bush seniors "war on drugs". if the event was not created or condoned by the current administration, then it was certainly a godsend. try to imagine bush without this war... just some guy trashing the economy! no excuse to be there!

i've actually seen this replicate on a couple of site but its interesting... shows how the rest of the world would vote if they could. http://worldpeace.org.au/virtualelection.asp

well, i find it hard to believe that fox news has anything close to a "canadian domestic perspective"! thats hilarious!

more money for weapons + less money for education = easy CONTROL

sore losers "reagan"? i'm not voitng in YOUR election because i am CANADIAN. i've been examining your posts in particular today... i think you've given far too much away. i suggest that you log in with another handle and go discuss your situation with the manager of the conservative u.s. think tank whose desk you are sitting at. this forum is CANADIANS.

looks pretty tough for bush if you ask me. if statistically the most hated president ever is re-elected fairly then it would be a miracle. note my use of the word "fair" here...

lefty rants are funny... take Al Franken as an example. hilarious! now why is it that right wing rants are NEVER funny? why are right wing rants usually the opposite... full on anger and hate and promote fear more than anything. except of course when bill o'reilly yells "i want to go to a gay bathhouse"!

i get it... you guys just like to argue! august, you have said in other posts that capitalism must be regulated... what are you saying here, that my only tools are to buy the products or shares or not?! so is it ok if company A does want to imprison or tax me? or pollute my drinking water? or leave with all of some non renewable resource? or use infrastructure while leaving the tax implications to the employees and those who never even interacted with the corporation? do you think my not buying shares in the corporation or not buying the product is going to make any difference? the product is probably for some foreign market anyways! gee, if i buy one share then i get one vote! if i have 51% of the shares then there is no voting because i rule! that's the tyranny i'm talking about. the controllers of corporations make big decisions regarding our economy everyday! i never voted them into power! i don't even know who they are! they're not required to tell me! they probably live somewhere else! so why are they making decisions for me? i thought that that was what my democracy was for... nobody implies in this forum that the free enterprise system or capitalism should be done away with... its just not to be left alone to do what ever it pleases.

well, august... not sure where you're going here... if my wealth is tied up in oil or the auto industry then i'm finished when you're invention hits the streets... when anything is free then its influence is removed from the economy. of course, if i have a patent on such a product and can enforce it...

except that the 'co-operation and mutual prosperity' is only within the bounds of the owner, employees and shareholders of the corporation and are by and large not democratically elected or transparent. in fact, capitalism is by its very nature a tyranny and not democratic. and i think this is the point... that we have these tyrannies jumping all over us... some with their own tyrannical economies the size of small countries. corporations would prefer we abandon democracy for feudalism which is the environment where they would prosper most... although they seem to enjoy the savings of having our democracy pay for stuff like infrastructure and security! hugo, would you say then that the influence of industry over our democracy is decreasing then? or just right? corporations are like super humans... no they don't always get their way but it seems that the right wing political machine is geared towards that end. the basic question is this.... are we here to fulfill the needs of corporations or did we create them to serve us! think about it... it seems to me that corporations serve a select few.

hugo, it must seriously pain you to know that you live within a socialist state... and that the most powerful economies in the world, including the united states, are also socialist states. in fact, anywhere you witness people as a group pooling resources to produce roads, electrical grids, sewers and disposal, communications, etc then you are witnessing socialism in action! the really hilarious part of manufactured right wing political views is that they do not advertise to dispose of these socialist activities... because they know that the economy would collapse. getting back to the original question regarding corporations. the powers of corporations and their ability to operate without transparency must be clawed back. particularly, they must be stopped from influencing our democracy in order to service their short term goals. that's the job of government, to regulate the free market economy to ensure stability and safety over the long term. but corporations have short term goals of making as much money as quickly as possible because business environments at the micro level are inherently unstable. much momentum is building even amongst business leaders in the u.s. that globalization is all wrong and was devised to feed the short term goals of business interests from the beginning. if company A decides to move some form of its operations offshore in a cost cutting move then that's beneficial for company A. but there is economic impact to moving these operations out of the local economy. if the local economy is company A's market, then people have less money to spend on company A's product. now if company B does the same thing then maybe that's fine too and works for company B. but what we are now witnessing is so many companies moving offshore and the economic impact is so great that the major market for these companies is disappearing. thus the trend for the average household income adjusted for inflation decreasing over time and economic vitality going with it... I certainly will not be investing in north american markets for awhile...

the recent hype in the media against the crtc is all designed to make this entity look like the bad 'big brother'. especially by such entities as can west global. media is a 'public trust in private hands' and this is part of the crtc mandate. this is very important. we as a society recognize that the public is educated by the media (mostly tv and newspaper) and that it is one thing to educate and another to portray opinion as educational material. this is a huge problem in canada and the unitied states. one needs a range of voices but as these media giants grow there are less voices and the giants have more power. can west global now owns about 70% of all canadian newspaper readership alone. and they have been very up front about the fact that the billionaire asper family has specific views that they use there papers to feed to the canadian public! its not about telling two sides of a debate... its about the one side of a debate that the asper family support. so yes, entities like the crtc are very important in regulating this because if not regulated then we would be educated by the views of a very few rich individuals if we were to rely on the free market system to decide who was to control time on the soap box.

i couldn't agree more ms... these are things that people just take for granted now! but they are too young or uninformed to know that it was brought about by organized labor. i was reminded of this recently watching a film called 'margarets museum' about people working as coal miners in the 20's and 30's in eastern canada. just about everyone working there were assured an early death due to accident or eventual mining related disease. and organized labor was met with violence and communist labeling!

oh i don't think so hawk.... lets face the fact that the bloc is about as socially responsible as the ndp. i think what we will see is a lot of deals made to maintain things like health care and fair taxation... deals made between the liberals and the ndp or bloc. i think there is still alot of bad feelings about the hostile take over of the progressive conservatives by the reform party as well... that leaves harper to continue with his rants... and when bush goes down in the states next year then he's really going to be lonely.