Harper/Ignatieff/Bureaucrats Don't Understand

[August1991]

OTTAWA—They spent nearly $100,000 on a table for a two-day meeting.

Now, half of it is sitting in storage. The federal government tried unsuccessfully to flog it on its equivalent of eBay then couldn’t even give it away, the Star has learned.

Toronto Star

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s week of international summitry will be capped off with a very special dinner date.

When the APEC summit wraps up Sunday afternoon, Mr. Harper and his wife Laureen are headed to central Tokyo.

There they will cross a moat and pass an eight-metre-high stone wall that protects the city’s Imperial Palace.

G&M

----

We are collectively paying for a nomenklatura of Soviet proportions. It accomplishes nothing, and hinders us all.

I believe in democracy and think that a smart, young politician will stop it. Ordinary Canadians, French and English, will vote for this woman or man.

There is a political void waiting to be filled. This nonsense must stop.

Edited November 14, 2010 by August1991

[nicky10013]

Toronto Star

G&M

----

We are collectively paying for a nomenklatura of Soviet proportions. It accomplishes nothing, and hinders us all.

I believe in democracy and think that a smart, young politician will stop it. Ordinary Canadians, French and English, will vote for this woman or man.

There is a political void waiting to be filled. This nonsense must stop.

You're joking, right?

[August1991]

You're joking, right?

I'm not joking at all. (For exmple, young people live in a world of text messages.)

Our politicians/bureaucrats (Harper/Obama etc) live in a world of meetings requiring complex, costly logistics.

This G-8/G-20/bureaucratic system of international meetings is not sustainable.

It doesn't work.

----

A smart, young, ambitious politician will have the courage to change it.

Edited November 14, 2010 by August1991

[Jack Weber]

Considering all that was accomplished at this meeting,it could have been done by conference call....

It would have saved alot of people the time and money...

[Shwa]

A smart, young, ambitious politician will have the courage to change it.

A smart young person would wait until there is a price reduction through Crown Assets, snap the table up and use it as a centrepiece in a remake of 'Dr. Stranglelove or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb.' This would be a great prop for the underground war room shots! But instead of evil Communists being the target, it would be evil Islamofacists. Yeeeeeeeee-haaaaaawwwwwwwww! (cut to Major Kong bronco riding a nuclear cruise missile into the entrance to a cave somewhere in West Pakistan.)

Then after the wrap-up party for this movie remake, the smart young person would then begin another production, this time an updated, snazzy remake of 'Camelot' with this table as the centrepiece King Arthur's Round Table.

Both of these movies will break box office records and the smart young person - a little older by now - will donate the piece to the Smithsonian (because the Nationally Gallery doesn't 'do' Hollywood) where it will remain for ages as a symbol of how smart young people can remake movies using piles of old government junk retrieved from Crown Assests. (the nuclear cruise was also bought from Crown Assests too; that caused quite a stir in Parliament so they stopped offering weapons of mass destruction for public asset disposal).

So yeah, I agree, all it takes is a smart young person to make this all right as rain. Of course the other scenario is that a not-so-smart young person bypasses the G20 table offer on Crown Assests, goes straight for the nuclear cruise and we all die in some accidental conflagration.

Edited November 14, 2010 by Shwa

[Argus]

Toronto Star

It's a table. A very, very large round table, plywood and laminate <shrug>

Have you tried buying furniture lately, August?

I went into a local furniture store this summer, Ormes furniture. Without even trying hard I could have paid five thousand dollars for a bed. That doesn't include the mattress or box springs, btw, just the frame.

When I was in procurement for the government we routinely bought office chairs at $1000 each. We bought entire new furniture sets for directors a few times for, I believe, about $15,000. That was for a desk, round table for four, cabinet, low shelf and computer table.

The interesting thing is they bought this giant table second hand from the US. I wonder what the US paid for it new.

[William Ashley]

What I think you are all missing here.. is that this is a table the government bought, clearly it must be worth only a fraction of the value they bought it for.

Although I know of someone who bought a very expensive table for acoustics purposes, this allows resonance to happen in a certain way, vibration control etc.. the purpose of this could have to do with high tech acoustics technologies, so there could be a substantial although perhaps overly paranoid reason for it to be crafted as it is - I could think of some things it could be used for that would involve sensors and balancing sound dampening or other things or even high quality recording without bouncing of voice for high precision recording purposes. It would be something you might see in a studio - I don't know about a meeting desk - unless you are into gratuitous purchases. Afterall isn't the goverment a multibillion dollar industry these days even if it borrows about 1/5th of that. When you have billions of dollars to spend on yourself what is 100,000 clearly Stephen Harper Economics does it right - afterall what are voters in a non democratic dictatorship?

Apparently though as mentioned above it seems only half of the table is in storage now?

Guess it pays to check the crown assets offerings on the government surplus site.

Edited November 14, 2010 by William Ashley

[nicky10013]

I'm not joking at all. (For exmple, young people live in a world of text messages.)

Our politicians/bureaucrats (Harper/Obama etc) live in a world of meetings requiring complex, costly logistics.

This G-8/G-20/bureaucratic system of international meetings is not sustainable.

It doesn't work.

----

A smart, young, ambitious politician will have the courage to change it.

You do realize that many, many, many other meetings other than face to face meetings happen at lower levels of the bureaucracy, specifically foreign affairs during the meeting period of a G8/G20, right?

[Smallc]

You do realize that many, many, many other meetings other than face to face meetings happen at lower levels of the bureaucracy, specifically foreign affairs during the meeting period of a G8/G20, right?

There's also the fact that studies show that face to face meetings generally produce better results.

[August1991]

It's a table. A very, very large round table, plywood and laminate <shrug>

Have you tried buying furniture lately, August?

Have I bought a $100,000 table? No.

When I was in procurement for the government we routinely bought office chairs at $1000 each.

I recently bought a "used" chair for $200 - it was federal government surplus, originally priced at $800. (I was told that it sat in a BDC conference room.)

Look Argus, it is one thing to see politicians and their friends driving away in a taxpayer-funded limo, or sitting around a table for a few hours. (I happen to think that Stephen Harper should write a letter to the 20 taxpayers who paid $5,000 each for the table. How much federal tax did you pay last year, Argus?)

It is another thing when the politicians can't say no to the police:

B.C.’s attorney-general released figures Monday showing that taxpayers shelled out $102.8 million since April 2001 to put the Port Coquitlam pig farmer behind bars.

...

Taxpayers coughed up $11.7 million to pay for Pickton’s defence counsel and $9.2 million for prosecution services.

The biggest cost proved to be the RCMP investigation, which totalled $69.9 million.

BC Province

$69.9 million? You could build a small bridge in Alaska for $70 million.

----

As I say, someone young and smart will come along and change the rules of the game. This is no longer about left/right, socialism/capitalism.

I suspect that Harper/Ignatieff/Bureaucrats don't understand what is about to change.

In the past 30 years or so, there have been changes in the private sector. Banks and media, to pick two examples, no longer operate as they did in the 1970s. ATMs and the Internet have changed how both function.

But government, the public sector and politics? They still live in a world of 1970.

Edited November 16, 2010 by August1991

[August1991]

So yeah, I agree, all it takes is a smart young person to make this all right as rain. Of course the other scenario is that a not-so-smart young person bypasses the G20 table offer on Crown Assests, goes straight for the nuclear cruise and we all die in some accidental conflagration.

You are naive about government, and what happens in summits, or any public sector endeavour. Edited November 16, 2010 by August1991

[August1991]

You do realize that many, many, many other meetings other than face to face meetings happen at lower levels of the bureaucracy, specifically foreign affairs during the meeting period of a G8/G20, right?

Of course I do, Nicky. I participated in far too may than I care to remember. For the most part, it was a large waste of time and effort. We were bureaucrats involved in PR - and we were lousy at the job. Edited November 16, 2010 by August1991

[Bonam]

Seriously, a $100,000 table? Know what your contribution to that table was? Somewhere around 0.3 cents. I dunno about you, but I walk past lots of pennies on the ground every day and don't bother picking them up.

Oh and as for smart young people, why the heck would they go into politics? If you're smart, you can make way more money, have way more privacy, way more freedom to act as you want, and still have power and influence if you care to, in many other fields besides politics. Seriously, the life of a politician sucks, make even the slightest oops mistake in your private life and it will be a huge national scandal.

Our system cannot and does not attract anything close to our brightest minds to politics. We just get average moderately well educated people going into it. Working in industry is just way more fun and rewarding.

Edited November 16, 2010 by Bonam

[August1991]

Seriously, a $100,000 table? Know what your contribution to that table was? Somewhere around 0.3 cents. I dunno about you, but I walk past lots of pennies on the ground every day and don't bother picking them up.

Bonam, yours is the most terrifying way of viewing this. What's a few million among 6 billion? It's only 0.3 percent of the population.

I prefer to say that 20 Canadians paid $5,000 each for the table. It makes it personal.

Oh and as for smart young people, why the heck would they go into politics? If you're smart, you can make way more money, have way more privacy, way more freedom to act as you want, and still have power and influence if you care to, in many other fields besides politics. Seriously, the life of a politician sucks, make even the slightest oops mistake in your private life and it will be a huge national scandal.

Good question, Bonam. What kind of person takes the risk to go into politics?

Well, I'm a democrat and despite all, despite its faults, I think that democracy is the best way to organize the State. It may take time, but I think democracy will deliver a smart, young leader with a different approach.

Edited November 16, 2010 by August1991

[Bonam]

Good question, Bonam. What kind of person takes the risk to go into politics?

The kind of person that lusts for power and influence and doesn't care what moral, ethical, and personal problems they have to let into their lives to get it. In other words, exactly the kind of person we least want to have in power.

As for democracy being the best way to organize a state, I agree, in a manner of speaking. As Winston Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

[Bryan]

Specialty furniture has specialty prices, what's new? It's not as if a table large enough for a meeting like that is available in quantity at the Brick.

The table would sell, but not until someone needs it for a similarly sized meeting. That's why a used one was available in the first place. Makes one wonder though, why they wouldn't rent something like this rather than buy it for a two day event.

[August1991]

Specialty furniture has specialty prices, what's new?

Uh, Bryan. This is not about the price of specialty furniture.

This is about how politicians and bureaucrats spend other people's money. With access to other people's money, politicians and public sector employees are insulated from the "real world".

For politicians and bureaucrats, the money coming in is not connected to the money going out.

In other sectors, for example banks, media, telephone companies, car manufacturing - people have faced changes. Computers, robots, the Internet, free trade and foreign producers, outsourcing.

---

But for politicians and public sector bureaucrats, they are still living in a world of 1970 or even 1950. They may live in 2010, but their biggest fear is another Watergate scandal.

IMHO, the political sector is ripe for a hostile takeover.

Edited November 16, 2010 by August1991

[Moonlight Graham]

I'm not joking at all. (For exmple, young people live in a world of text messages.)

Our politicians/bureaucrats (Harper/Obama etc) live in a world of meetings requiring complex, costly logistics.

This G-8/G-20/bureaucratic system of international meetings is not sustainable.

It doesn't work.

----

A smart, young, ambitious politician will have the courage to change it.

I see your point, but there is also diplomatic value in meeting other leaders face-to-face. It strengthens relationships bn leaders. However, these face-to-face meetings must be done sparingly, or in a financially responsible way.

I'm alos sure most day-to-day international relations are done via telephone etc., and not face-to-face.

[Moonlight Graham]

I'm not joking at all. (For exmple, young people live in a world of text messages.)

Our politicians/bureaucrats (Harper/Obama etc) live in a world of meetings requiring complex, costly logistics.

This G-8/G-20/bureaucratic system of international meetings is not sustainable.

It doesn't work.

----

A smart, young, ambitious politician will have the courage to change it.

I see your point, but there is also diplomatic value in meeting other leaders face-to-face. It strengthens relationships bn leaders. However, these face-to-face meetings must be done sparingly, or in a financially responsible way.

I'm alos sure most day-to-day international relations are done via telephone etc., and not face-to-face.

[Smallc]

Uh, Bryan. This is not about the price of specialty furniture.

This is about how politicians and bureaucrats spend other people's money.

No it isn't. It's about how you personally feel...and the people on comments sections of news sites.

[ToadBrother]

Toronto Star

G&M

----

We are collectively paying for a nomenklatura of Soviet proportions. It accomplishes nothing, and hinders us all.

I believe in democracy and think that a smart, young politician will stop it. Ordinary Canadians, French and English, will vote for this woman or man.

There is a political void waiting to be filled. This nonsense must stop.

Yeah, because smart young politicians flip the finger to the Emperor of Japan...