Icebound

Oh, how about Alberta's Aryan Guard. It just happens that they haven't got a hold of the firepower yet. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/calgarys-in-your-face-neo-nazis-take-to-the-streets/article573162/?page=all On an international scale.... here are SIX more, right here: http://www.salon.com/2015/04/07/6_modern_day_christian_terrorist_groups_our_media_conveniently_ignores_partner/

Yes... apparently the leadership to address those has not emerged. And a good portion of the public..... just like a good portion of those browsing these forums..... all believe that if only I had one more dollar in my pocket, all will be well.... while, of course, the world crumbles around them. There are lots of answers out there to your questions.. One that I kind of lean toward is this one: http://www.amazon.ca/Leverage-Cheap-Money-Destroy-World/dp/1118122844 .... but we do not have the political will to change directions. Maybe the end result of our current path is not yet sufficiently evident, but when it DOES become evident, will it be too late to do anything about it? ...

Do not look at the TPP in isolation. You must look at it within the overall framework of Free Enterprise and the Capitalist System The best description of the TPP in this overall framework is here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/robert-reich-saving-capitalism-tpp-1.3256940 A few excerpts: ... ...

None. Gallup in the USA has already admitted that polling is impossible in todays technological world... and they have stopped polling the Presidential race: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/gallup-poll-2016-pollsters-214493 I don't know what percentage of people have call-display, but I am sure it is substantial, especially in cities. None of those people answer their phone to pollsters. Polls are useless, and when a leading Polling Company admits it, then it probably is true.

hmmmm... He IS advocating for the destruction of Canadian institutions.... but then, so is Harper.

Public service growth has in Ontario has been not much worse than in Conservative Alberta... in fact, as a percentage of population, it has probably been less. Alberta's public service grew from 261,000 to 400,000 in the 2000-2015 period, while the population grew 3 to 4.12 million. Thats about 54% increase in the same time period as a 37% population increase, a factor 1.5. Ontario's grew from 1 million in 2000 to 1.3 million in 2015... on a population increase of 11 million to 13.6 million.... Thats a 33% increase of PS on a 24% pop increase... a factor of 1.4 Above based on StatsCan CANSIM Table 282-0089

... OKAY FULL DISCLOSURE... SERIOUS THREAD DRIFT BELOW.... (maybe even another point on the Moderator's warnings list...I just can't resist) Well, yes, with conventional thinking... all studies seem to support that. Yet..... as the rural population dwindles (outdoor farm work, etc), and the urban population grows (desk jobs), the incidence of skin cancer has INCREASED....??? Maybe there IS advantage to being OLD STOCK.... My mother would throw me and my siblings out into the sun for an hour or two every day as babies, as toddlers, as children.... might that have been the riight idea and given us some protection???? Whereas today's chemically soaked SPF50 child... at age 25 spends 5 days at his artificially-lit desk... hits the beach on the weekend and the result is predictable ? ? ? ?

Sure. I would just remind you that GOVERNMENT spending and corruption is a lot better "checked" than PRIVATE corruption. Public audits, Freedom-of-information investigations, etc. At least so far, as long as we maintain an "open" government, (and I will let you decide who of the 3 major parties is LEAST likely to do that) ...

I'm interested.... so the actual quote is: "...you can't access the training you need. Stephen Harper doesn't know what that's like. When he was first elected, Windows-95 was still two years away..... and the cutting-edge way to apply for a job was to send in your resume by fax. Well, its 2015, and times have changed. Canadians who are looking for a way to improve their lives, deserve a government that will make it easier, not harder, for them to get ahead....." .... which.... I would say .... is quite probably an insult to Harper.... What I am interested in is this: How do those words parse into an "insult to old people" ? ? ? Now... had he said something like.... "morons were still using Fax and WIndows-95"..... then maybe I can see your point, but that's not what he said, nor anything like it, is it? ... ..

Yes, we can argue efficiency.... but efficiency is quite another issue.... is is not "government" or "private" which defines the efficiency.... it is the people... managers, workers, ... that are involved. There are sections of government that are VERY efficient, just as.... I submit... that there are sections of private enterprise that are NOT. Of course, we don't KNOW about private inefficiency, because they don't have to give us any information. Whereas government... at least so far... is much more open to scrutiny through public audits, etc... Also, we have relatively frequent government change which helps to weed out the worst offenders. Nor do we have good measures on efficiency. Governments may choose to go with some program... buying F-35s, for example.... then scrap it mid way... was that inefficiency, or good management in response to new information? Private industry writes millions of line of computer code that never sees any useful product. Was that inefficiency, or was it research? And here is an insider's take on some other forms of "inefficiency": https://books.google.ca/books?id=fA5ZCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT107&lpg=PT107&dq=wasted+computer+code&source=bl&ots=MgLd3cLTix&sig=Kv8bsJGvwZuzr0JX-gj87DI3amY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBWoVChMI4_rV3oeGyAIVyI4NCh35Qw9X#v=onepage&q=wasted%20computer%20code&f=false Furthermore, as our society increases in complexity, it is not that easy to determine "efficiency". Even the computer models that might try to determine it for us, have to come with some assumptions which may or may not be true. Not to mention that the "economy" is working at cross purposes: One laudable goal of "the economy" would be to have the participation of the greatest number of people for which they receive a good living wage.... But MY goal, in my little tiny world, is to maximize for me, me, me. So MY goal is to get rid of as many people as I can. You can consult any number of witch doctors that you want as to how those two goals are going to get reconciled, and I am betting that you will get as many different answers as there are consultants. When companies merge... or when companies divest.... etc. there may be "efficiency" for that particular group of shareholders.... but how does that merger/divestiture affect the REST of our broader economic goals? What overhead is being shucked off onto somebody else? Nobody knows.... The "efficiency" of this transaction...for the broad economy of a country.... will not be known until the effects can be analyzed much much later, and maybe not even then. And your final statement in the snippet above (about the obsolete job) is false.... i would hope that this is inadvertent and not purposeful deception. . Government jobs have and do become redundant, and people have been terminated without cause (other than job redundancy). Of course, the terminations came with suitable severance pay, etc. etc. But you can ask any number of Federal employees that were terminated thusly during Martin's budget-balancing exercise of 1994-97 or thereabouts. Sidebar: many at the time would have argued that a lot of the terminations were service-reductions that were NOT obsolete, but that is another arguement. Those terminations did happen, and even now, Harper claims to have cut 35,000 federal jobs or something like that... in the past few years. Not saying that either case was warranted or not... but lets not spread the falsehood that it can't happen. It can and it does. ... ...

That is part of the point.... you CAN'T know who is a reliable company. For 50 years I thought Volkswagen was a reliable company. Turns out that they have been KNOWINGLY cheating on pollution produced by their cars, and getting away with it since 2008 http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKCN0RK0IK20150920 One thing about having government do this kind of work is that government has much greater forced transparency through public audits, Freedom-of-information, etc. etc., than do private companies. If government is bought off with bribes, we are a lot more likely to find out about it, than if your private tester were bought off with bribes. ... and if we want some semblance of "safe" societies, this kind of work has to be done and paid for, and whether you call that taxes, or you call it higher prices, the net result is the same.

Further follow up..... The analogies above were for simple single industries, but the problem is infinitely more complex with thousands of industries, globally influenced. I am betting that if you looked at it industry by industry, there are tons of industries that are not paying their own way.... if you included the overhead that they have sloughed of on somebody else. Tha'ts what lobbyists are for.... to make sure that I pay as little of the overhead as possibly, and have YOU pay it instead. Has the oil industry really been cleaning up all their pollution, air, water, soil and other? Not bloody likely. So hopefully we have taxed them hard enough to cover it. But maybe if we tax them too much, that will kill the industry.... so lets tax their workers... or other industries.... or whatever..... but the costs still have to be covered. If we really believe that economists understand those intricate inter-relationships.... and.... even if they do..... that they are actually publishing the most truthful facts..... well, I think that is just too much to believe and that is where I tend to agree with the Denniss "witch doctor" characterization. ...

See, that is exactly my point about the "witch doctor" aspect of economic theory. Nobody can answer those questions definitively. It could be that if it takes 10 inspectors to keep the meat healthy, then that is what it takes and the cost of meat will be that much higher.... but on the other hand... the proceeds are now spread amongst 10 people who might now be in a position to buy some meat themselves, and that could encourage the farmer to produce more. Or without them, the illness and death of workers would kill industry completely. On the other hand, the higher cost might kill demand, and nobody buys meat.... there is no definitive way to know. About the potash mine.... If the mine is profitable, it does not matter who pays the workers.... the money is coming out of the mine's proceeds whether the government or whether "private" industry is running it. It only becomes a manner of what is the more efficient management..... it could be run as a co-operative, or a worker owned enterprise, or public shareholder owned, or closely held corp, or government owned...or who cares.... The form of management and/or ownership will only affect how we want to divide the proceeds... government might be more prone to use some proceeds for other social projects... cooperative or worker owned might funnel more of the proceeds to the workers and less to management... shareholder might tend to squeeze the workers and push more proceeds to executive and shareholder owners, ... closely held will depend on benevolence of owners/managers. In today's world, the "best" system is probably that one that encourages the most possible people to work.... for a suitable livable return. If we run it with one man and a computer.... does that provide a living wage for a greater number of computer programmers, designers, and maintainers... than if we simply pay 10,000 workers with shovels and buckets.... nobody can say for sure. In ALL cases.... there will almost certainly be overhead that the mine will conveniently ignore or try to pawn off on somebody else... subsize their power?.... repair the roads they use? .... Somebody has to pay for that, and that is where "tax" comes in.... it does not matter whether we tax the workers or the owners, the net result is the same.... that is to say: paying for that overhead is PART of the economy, not a wealth-sucker. If the mine is not profitable, then why is it being kept open?.... Is it just to make work for some unemployed people? If so, then those workers are part of the country's overhead... how do we keep them alive and healthy and relatively happy? Do we give them a job? Maybe government is the only one WILLING to give them a job. Or maybe we should farm them out.... a few to each profitable business that exists.... or maybe we should just collect a little money from the profitable businesses, and give these guys an outright grant and send them home to spend it? Each witch doctor will give a different answer. In the end, the goal is to maximize participation in the economy, but the best way to do that IN A PARTICULAR CASE, is unknown.

That is some of that "witch doctor" thinking that Richard Denniss talks about. Government (... by means of taxes...) is simply that part of the economy that private industry has overlooked.... often because they are unable, but sometimes because they are unwilling.... For example... I am a farmer and I raise a steer, butcher it, and I sell the meat to you. One thing that I have NOT done and paid for, is some sort of procedure that guarantees that that meat is healthy and safe for consumption. I argue that it is.... you are skeptical. So the two of us have to hire a third party expert to inspect the meat and be the arbiter... That meat inspector is PART of the economy, part of the transaction. His labour is as important to the creation of wealth... to the creation of that meat product... as is mine in the raising and processing of it. You may want to argue that that 3rd party expert does nothing to create wealth, but without him, my meat is worthless, and YOU are hungry, or sick, or worse. So now somebody has to pay him for his labour...., and whether is should be me as producer, or you as consumer, or some combination.... is the eternal argument. "taxes" is what we collect from you, me, or both.... effectively increasing the price of the meat.... but that "government worker" is as much a part of our transaction as are the two of us.... It is a complete fallacy to disconnect the overhead that government pays for.... from the day-to-day operations of the economy that CREATED that overhead.... government and taxes are thus PART of the economy... not some wealth-sucker that you would have us believe. Finally.... we can argue about efficiency, but that applies whether it a private OR a government activity. ...

In some sense i agree with your point. There IS a difference between campaigning and actual leadership. I have often said that I rather vote for the politician who lies during the campaign, reverses himself while in power.... when the pre-election promise was the wrong thing to do and the reversal was the right thing to do. So if he splits the populace into old-and-new stock to gain votes, but does not really believe it, I can have some sympathy. But in an issue such as this, a "LEADER" might be more of a leader if he used his pulpit to educate rather than pander. ..

Most dictionary definitions of "oath" or "swearing and oath" include something about .... invoking a deity or other sacred object. "Oaths" are an anachronism, back to a time when religion .... ie: "God" .... was considered more important than secular authority. And even if that were so, I think today's society can be equally served by a simple, signed, witnessed contract/agreement.

Okay.... just for arguments sake.... suppose that people feel that this is "not right". Does that justify explicit prohibitory legislation??? If so, then Canadians better get their priorities in order. there are a lot of other things that are "not right" that should be legislated out of existence...obscene T-shirts...tobacco....police with criminal convictions... bad rap music.... corporations fudging their car computers to circumvent the anti-pollution laws.... walmart .... and I could go on. These are things that I don't like and would like to see some action on.... WAY before spending what we already have on niqab legislation.

It is even MORE relevant.. Someone take a citizenship oath with her face covered affects ME.... personally .... ZERO, NADA... Some asking me to change seats so I could accommodate his religious beliefs is INCONVENIENCING ME..... me, PERSONALLY.

All kinds of immigrants live their own world inside Canada. I know a close relative, who arrived in Canada as a 6-month-old-baby, never went to school, never learned to read or write English in her 80-something years of life in Canada. Why wasn't it a problem? Because she and her ghetto were white and nobody noticed. When she walked down-town, she looked just like everybody else. And that kind of thing happened in all sorts of immigrant groups. Two or three generations later.... her descendants are all part of the "Canadian fabric" and the issue is pretty well no more.... THEY are now the ones complaining about people "not fitting in", forgetting that their grandmother never did either. There is no reason to believe this will turn out any differently. Canadian law weeds out the extremists... we have already had some convictions for honour killings and the like.... the rest will live in "freedom" to live and worship as they like, and become your kids' best friends. The woman in the niqab may become your grand-kid's grand-mother-in-law.

So what? Orthodox Jews won't sit with women on airplanes. Now..... if it came to legalities, would the government of Canada deem an Oath by a Muslim valid and binding and force compliance? I'm betting it will. Oh.... and would it force an Orthodox Jew to sit with a woman on an airplane?

.... and neither is there any reason to fear the face-covered Muslim woman....

We cannot prevent sinister thoughts. But we do not act on them. And we certainly should not run a country by people who think that way and act on it. and Kimmy may be right in that this is not PARTICULARLY sinister. But it still reveals a bit about the mind of the man. Leaders of this country should not be thinking that way. ...

The vast, vast majority of Canadians are uncomfortable in the presence of a biker wearing club regalia. Why do I doubt that they are more uncomfortable in the presence of a Muslim woman with her face covered? Which one is more apt to do them harm? Why don't we put THAT one at the top of our election issue list?

"money" (wealth) originates in labour. ... it does not matter whether that is "private" or "government" labour. If I have 50 people sitting on their asses in a field, there is no "money" being generated. If 1 of them goes and digs a well, on the "trust" that he will get something in return, that starts the generation of wealth... Another one might go out and rustle up some wood to build a shelter, "trusting" that he might get some water from the 1st guy in return, and a 3rd one might start to plow the soil and plant some seeds to grow food., in the trust that he will get some water and shelter from the other two...... and now you have the start of an "economy". Somebody else decides that rather than trading water directly for food or for shelter is too cumbersome, and develops the idea of a paper IOU that we can call "currency". That guy is not really adding anything to the wealth, but his contribution makes the economy more convenient than direct barter. Somebody else decides to teach the rest of the layabouts how to till the soil. This, too, is "overhead, not really adding to the wealth per se, but necessary in order to make the economy and generate greater participation. Thus, a government employee's labour generates "money" in the very same way that anybody else's labour generates "money". His labour might be "different", in the sense that is is usually to offset overhead that the "private" business did not cover off.... for example, if government did not provide food and shelter for the destitute, would private business have to spend extra labour ("money") to clean up the rotting bodies of the starved from the roadside? "Taxation" is simply a way to pay for necessary overhead. Just because "private business" elected not to pay for that overhead directly, it still has to be paid.... In any case.... the discussion of the past few pages, and especially between Michael, 69Cat, and msj, just proves the point that economics is quite analagous to the craft of witch doctors as described here: http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Ideas/ID/2675124985/

You can think whatever you want..... but certain kinds of thinking put you on the wrong side of the history of human societal evolution, and make you kind of inappropriate to lead a modern country.