Scotty

I don't have a major problem with people protecting their property - within reason. But my issue with the G20 riots was police running amok assaulting people who had NOT broken any windows or committed any crimes. I also don't like the idea of citizens being kidnapped off the street and thrown into cages when they've done nothing wrong and there's no evidence they intend to do anything wrong. Call me funny that way.

You obviously don't know me, nor have read much of what I've posted. For the record, I've written before about bringing Singapore's answer to street vermin to Canada. I don't have a big problem with corporal punishment suiting the crime. It'd be a lot cheaper and more efficient than a few months in prison in many instances. I like the idea of prison 'at hard labour' too. I am, in short, no bleeding heart liberal. But here's the thing. I think punks who attack people on the street should be severely dealt with EVEN if those punks are wearing uniforms.

The sad thing is that is EXACTLY what happened. God knows there are enough videos on the internet if you cared to stir yourself enough to look.

I suspect by 'every western country' you're thinking 'well, here and in the US'. Because it's not like there are any other western countries...

A hundred billion is kind of small change when looking at a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit.

Right. Which is why those CEOs now think exclusively in the short term. Who cares if the company goes under in ten years!? I've got to maximize my yearly bonuses!

In other words, as I said, it has nothing to do with how hard workers actually work.

It was so tiny, if it actually existed, that it would have been fairly easily handled had the recession not arrived.

Higher rates of production are generally more related to higher investment in technology and efficiency than whether one worker is 'better' than another worker. Canada sucks as far as investing in technology goes.

They're succeeding there, too. Only, they also have a better lifestyle than us. They have more time with their families, less stress, less fear of what happens if they lose their jobs as they have far better social safety nets. How are you measuring success anyway?

Actually, shaving is such a pain in the ass I don't know why women don't all get laser hair removal. imagine doing that awful waxing stuff (youch!) for forty or fifty years. If I had a daughter I'd give her laser hair removal as a present on her eighteenth birthday. I assume you can't do it on the face or I'd hear of men doing it.

The point is you and others are arguing we should treat workers more miserly, while I'm arguing we can treat workers more generously so everyone has a better life. We know they succeed in many countries. Why shouldn't we look at how they do it and try to emulate them? Wouldn't that be better for most people?

We don't have to be "like" them, but which society do you think would be better for the great mass of people? A society where everyone got decent wages and benefits and vacations, or one where they got as little as possible, worked like dogs till they were barely alive, then ate dog food like American seniors?

And yet, businesses manage to thrive in Germany, in Switzerland, in Finland and Sweden and Austria, and in many other countries...

Why yes, I actually do. You see, I remember back to the Clinton days, when economic forecasters were predicting, with those big budget surpluses, how long it would take to pay off the national debt. Then along came the Republicans, and huge tax cuts for the rich, and huge entitlements for -- corporations. And the rich got richer and richer, and the budget deficits grew year by year. Here's a news flash for you. The entitlements in Germany and the Nordic countries, in Finland, in Austria, have been WAY more generous than anything the United States ever imagined for many decades now. For that matter, Canadian entitlements are more generous too, and we were having lots of surpluses up until the big recession hit.

So you think the appropriate punishment for breaking a window is death?

Even if you believed in that sort of extremist bullshit, you still would have to be an imbecile to justify the police arresting people who had absolutely nothing to do with torching cars or breaking windows, weren't even in the neighborhood, and who didn't know the first thing about the people who did.

The proper analogy you're looking for is "If I dared to walk down a street the day after someone had torched a police car, then I'd deserve to be beaten and arrested too!" Which is about as brainless an opinion as I've seen here in some time.

Yeah, like the United States, which has weak unions and no mandated vacations. Meanwhile the Nordic countries, Germany and other places where all workers have had mandated 5 or 6 week vacations, unionized or not, for the past forty years, are doing comparatively much better despite having a much more powerful union environment. So it seems whether you balance the books are not is not necessarily closely related to how much you pay your government workers, or what kind of benefits in general your private workers get.

The 'conflict of interest' is entirely the product of your imagination.

Government unions have the power to get people fired? Where do you get this from?

And we wouldn't want to go bankrupt like those poor Nordic countries, right, or the Germans or Swiss or Austrians. Is that what you're saying?

Because that won't work and can't work. But there are plenty of countries which treat their workers well, though. So it's not like that's impossible... So why do you seem to think it is?

Granted. But none of that is a factor in this study, where they sat down and watched thousands of hours of live footage and graded the participants on a sliding scale of civility. And they decided the opposition was less civil than the government and the majority of the questions weren't even looking for an answer.

Well, perhaps if 60% of the questions weren't rhetorical they'd have a better shot at an answer...