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Mark, it sounds like you are describing Obamacare. It was pretty much forced on a huge section of the population that did not want it for the so called moral argument. And it to will steal and impose penalties etc... Almost imperialistic. But I do love the way you write and make your arguments. No kidding, if you ever write an article or book I would love to read it and understand your perspective.
They have more option now than they had before. "Tax payer dollars" are a very appropriate source for housing the free market is not providing. Either you pay more taxes, Kend, or you don't undercompensate the poor as an employer. What you don't pay in wages, Kend, you will pay in taxes. If you refuse to do either, Kend, and prevail, the plight of the poor you purport to care so much about will go unassisted, unimproved and will, no doubt, worsen and spiral deleteriously.
Kend, you are an employer, those who work for someone else have nothing that doesn't ultimately come from you or other employers. We cannot all be business owners. Even in your perfect world, where everybody's perfectly ambitious and entrepreneurial, some people will have to work for someone else. The only question is will they be justly compensated. What you don't pay in wages you will pay in taxes but the question remains will they be justly compensated. Compensating them as little as you can get away with is NOT just compensation. The question is are they getting a fair percentage of the profits and are they getting the decent life they deserve (unlike the poor you concern so much about).
There should be no such thing as the "working poor". That, itself, should be oxymoronic, that, itself, is injustice. Nobody should have to work full time for the privilege of living in poverty.
And, everybody deserves a job.
It's not only way out there, Kend, it's imperial (by the way, I have a reply for you on Friday's blog). Trying to force your way of life on another culture is, by definition, imperial, no matter how well intended it may seem.
Anyway, it's absurdly self righteous. Should someone else, perhaps a coalition of parties ostensibly oh so concerned about your moral character (never mind if you morally disagree with them) - but really, maybe (probably) only after your oil (ultimately imperialism is always about that, oil or some other natural resource they want to steal; the moral argument is just to get less materially avaricious fools behind it) - impose sanctions on Canada because of something they disapprove of in your country?
Really!
As a Canadian I am proud to say we did not sign the agreement. We don't shake hands with the devil. If Iran wants us to lift sanctions Iran can show some good will like letting women drive or they could stop killing women for being raped. I know this one is way out there but maybe freedom of religion.
A legitimate function of government is to protect the weak from the strong. Right wing libertarians and opponents of government intervention are generally of the "strong" and are concerned only with the vested interests of the owners of business - more narrowly, big business - and consider those who work for someone else expendable and dispensable like so many objects for their own use or discard. To remove government intervention is to leave the strong to prey upon the weak at will.
The "magic of the marketplace" theory is, therefore, a patent sham, it merely allows the weak or less powerful to be consumed. If you point this out to an exponent of the theory they don't deny it but say, in the same breath they just finnished saying the magic of the marketplace assures everyone's well being without government intervention, that it is OK for the less powerful to be sacrificed because everyone's well being should not, after all, be assured and that that's for the sake of everyone's freedom (but not the freedom of the less powerful, I suppose). Actually, of course, it's not for everyone's freedom but for their own class privilege. It's only for that that the marketplace has any magic.
Re: local vs. national government
Whenever someone makes the blanket statement that decisions made locally are better than nationally I remind them of the history of corruption of the South during the 60s. Other examples exist, such as Chicago. Recently on this show we heard where DAs in small towns are not proscecuting child deaths by parents who do it for religious reasons.
Just think about it. What if we had government local to the city block. Can you imagine the variation in competance, enforcement and intepretation from decisions made even in one city, much less a country? Hell, we don't even know who is on our school boards. You want decisions made at the right level of government. Some decisions can be made locally, some at the state level and others are appropriate at the federal level. To paraphrase Einstein: "Decisions should be made at the lowest level of government possible, but not too low."
World economy is losing and if we just talk about it then there is chances to be disappointed.
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Gotta go for now...final episode of Boardwalk Empire!
The government is supposed to be by the people, and for the people...not by the wealthy few, for the wealthy few.
And I know from experience (from when I had to work in Edmonton one time) that Canada does try (or at least did try) to protect Canadian jobs. Do they offshore jobs like they do in the US? Beautiful cities!...Edmonton and Calgary. And I've been to Vancouver and Toronto, too.
Palin I don't know any wealthy person who looks down at the ones who don't succeed. they want everyone to succeed. I guess I must be made up different as I don't care if someone was born into money or got lucky Good for them. One less who isnt struggling.
down there politics does work a little different I can't believe how weathly they get in the USA. just google them on celebrity net worth it will blow your mind. A government worker all there life and worth millions.
I do have to remind myself I live in a different country than you and things are a bit different. We are taxed more here and you don't have to work a day in your life to get health care and a good education.
I guess when people refer to "the government" they all have differing views as to what "the government" is. The people who call "the government" bad because they try to regulate the wolves from being rapaciously greedy really have very little room, today, to make such claims as they have gotten away with, literally, murder in the name of maximizing profits. They own the government because they control the government. They pay so little taxes that they are forcing the burden on those of us who are having a very hard time trying to make ends meet. Some of us are actually dying from the results of these greedy bastards who own the government. And people may have to resort to a self-defense mechanism, some day, and fight back lest they subserviently submit and resign themselves to their slavery and eventual death beds.
The government is supposed to be there for the majority of the people... not mollycoddle the wealthy. So, when the wealthy bad-mouths "the government"...they don't mean "the government", the corrupt government that assists in making them wealthier and more powerful..they are talking about "the government" that performs in the manner it was originally supposed to perform in protecting the people. They mean "the government" that regulates what they can and cannot get away with.
There are a lot of very hard working people that work a lot harder than many of those people who got lucky. The lucky ones were either born with a silver spoon in their mouths or they got lucky because they knew people...had connections. Of course, there are some exceptions...some people just got lucky because they thought of a good idea and took a chance in implementing it. But lots of people get good ideas but they don't all pan out. Some people just lose their shirts. It's a gamble isn't it? Just like going to a Casino...if you're lucky you win...if you're not...you lose. Many people lose. And it is the braggadocio, egotistical and selfish winners who look down their noses at those who lost. They develop a superior, holier-than-thou attitude over the ones who didn't make it. Their megalomaniacal and warped beliefs deserve the hatreds that they've earned. Oh sure, some of them may even try to make themselves look beneficent and generous by donating to some charity but they are merely giving back a little bit of the booty that they stole to begin with. We all would be way better off had they not stolen it to begin with. In France, when the snot-nosed wealthy thought they were too good to pay taxes and made the little people bear the burden, the little people rose up and lopped of some heads. Maybe it's time we break out the guillotines again!
DAnne you keep bringing up military spending, I hate military spending unless we are under a threat of attack.
I might of said this before but, I used to have low income apartments that I rented. People in my city built them and rented them because they could carry themselves and we would hope they would go up in value and we old sell them in our later years and retire. The city decided the rents where not low enough so they built low income housing complexes. With tax payers dollars. Our apartments where always cared for and well maintained as we had a lot of money in them and wanted to get good tenants. The city complexes became all run down and gang project looking. Owners like me couldn't compete with the bottomless pockets of the city so we did condo conversions on our buildings and sold them. There hasn't been a private low income apartment built in my city for 25 years. They are mostly city owned and run down. Those poor people have no option now but to stay iin those horrible buildings. So I find I very very hard to believe government can do it better. They completely screwed up the rental market here And it the poor who are paying for it.
Kend ~ Oh, gee, I don't know. I don't believe in bombing villages in Afghanistan; yet, somehow, I seem to be paying for it. Kend, you've asked that same stupid questions over, and over, and over again. Do you ever get tired of sounding like a gibbering idiot. I just defined insanity for you. You could expand that definition to include asking the same question over and over and over again--if you really expect a different result.
The government spends our tax money in efforts to meet the common needs of everyone as it sees fit. The fact that we don't always like or agree with how that money is spent comes with the necessary evil of government. There will never be a time when you, I or anyone else approves of how every penny is spent by the government. However, the simple fact of the matter is that the government is the only organization capable of spending that money the most efficiently. That means a bigger bang for the buck. When it comes to something like education, healthcare, and infrastructure efficient spending is my main concern. In addition, the government is the only organization that is answerable directly to We the People. That is why you will never convince myself, or, anyone else who agrees with me that something as critical as energy is something the government doesn't have any business in. As far as I am concerned investing in solar energy is investing in children's health care. It is preventive medicine. It is money that help to improve and maintain their health throughout their lives. If you're looking to fund actual health care why don't you pick cutting our military spending? That is a far greater waste of money with absolutely no return. Military spending only pays for death and destruction. That makes no sense to me at all.
The reality of the situation is this. The government has worked perfectly up until the time of the Reagan Administration. The wealthy interests that backed Reagan did so with the intention of stealing the infrastructure that We the People paid for through the government and then rent it back to We the People for profit. That was not the intent of the original investments. This crime is nothing new. It has already been done in Mexico. The result, the commons go unfunded and unmaintained. Meanwhile, the people get taxed twice, once to fund a "limited" government, and again to use the privatized commons. Great system. Since you love that sort of thing so much you should move to Mexico. You'd love it there. Hasta la vista, baby!
Kend ~ I believe you meant "redistribution." You know Kend, the definition of insanity is the repetition of the same act, each time expecting a different result. Limited government has been tried under Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan and after 30 years has proven itself to not succeed. "Trickle down" "supply side" economics benefits only the few at the top. The private sector does nothing with "a business atmosphere that everyone wants to invest in" other than take every advantage and screw everyone they can. Corporations are answerable to their shareholders and not We the People. That is the major problem. The only way to ensure that people have access to their basic needs--a good job with a good wage, retirement savings, a great education, and health care--is to place all of those services directly under the control of everyone; that is, the control of the government. Screw limited government. The government is the only thing that stands between regular people and the ravaging wolfs of Wall Street. The government is the only social resource that pools the power of everyone. The government is the best, cheapest, and most reliable source of providing all the services you are talking about. To leave those duties up to private, for profit organizations is the most stupid and irresponsible suggestion I've ever heard. Not only does it not make sense on paper, but recent history testifies that such a system is a catastrophic failure for everyone involved who is not directly profiting from it. The idea that such a system is a viable solution to these problems can only be described as the ultimate pipe dream.
Palin I agree corporate welfare has to stop. Remember I am for limited government. What is the government doing in any business. Solar panels or oil.
Yes I agree we can make better products but Americans don't by them.
Are you saying that you have to be lucky or crooked to become wealthy? some are just hard working driven people
DAnne if you believe in solar you should invest in it. But I don't so why should I pay for it with my tax dollars. Seriously it hasn't helped at all. Hundreds of billions and CO2 levels are going up in the US. I just think the money would be better spent on children's health care.
Palindromedary ~ I feel the same way. You won't hear the kids complain about it either... Less homework. Kids don't like to learn. It goes against their very being. It's like punishment. So money gets skimmed off the top, our future gets robbed right in front of us, and the biggest victims remain silent because they think they are making out like bandits. A very sad story. The educators have quite a reputation too. After all if you don't compensate well enough, what you end up with is what you end up with. You get what you pay for.
Speaking about getting what you pay for, our friend Kend seems to think that investment in solar panels is a waste of money. I fail to see the logic in that statement. Even if you can't compete with manufacturers in China you can still make better quality products that still have a market domestically because they have to be installed, maintained and repaired over here. They can't do that from China you know.
From my perspective any money spent on solar energy is money well spent. Solar panels last a long time. The energy they generate is 100% renewable. There are no waste products. It doesn't affect the environment. Over time, the money saved using solar energy pays for the equipment many, many times over. If you really want to talk about "burning" money lets talk about the petroleum industry. Here you have the production of dangerous liquid fuels that cost--and therefore burn--money with every use. The truly sad fact of the matter is that by using fossil fuel you have to include in the cost the "actual" cost of using the fuel. First you have the sales price. Money instantly and literally up in smoke. Then you have the cost of the consequences, climate change, natural disasters, and preventable health problems. If you were to average in all the unnecessary cancers, health care costs, wages lost, and cleaning and rebuilding costs from super natural disasters then you can really talk about a technology that "burns money." Not only once, but twice. You can actually say that fossil fuels continue to burn money even decades after they have been used. The same is not true of solar energy. And that doesn't even mentions the cost of government subsidies to the petroleum industry. After all, Kend, government subsidies to the solar power industry are the only thing you are talking about. That is money well spent; and, my only regret is that we are not spending enough. The return on that investment is instantaneous and continues to build over time. That's the kind of investment I consider to be wise.
Kend: The wealth is being distributed alright...right into the pockets of the select few who were either fortunate enough to get all the breaks or who were ruthless and conniving enough to trick people out of their money. Not everyone can be as lucky or crooked as those few at the top who managed to "make it".
And let's not forget about the corporate welfare queens! They suck up more money off the taxpayer than most social programs. And they are the ones that are sending our jobs overseas..getting huge tax breaks...and hording their loot in offshore accounts. And, at the top of the list of the parasites are the military-industrial/spy/Gestapo-pig complex and oil companies.
When schools have to use Xeroxed copies of text books instead of the real thing...that is just a real shame. Using computers for that purpose might help if those computers aren't stolen right out of school storage...as has recently happened. Or, was it really merely a case of some outsider breaking in and stealing them...or was it an inside job?
Mark I think we both want the same thing. Of course I want everyone to have a good job, great education and health care. How we get there is where we are different. I think you think the answer is wealth distribution and I think we should do it by limiting government and creating a business atmosphere that everyone wants to invest in so more people can create wealth.
What've you ever said that isn't true? There are so many volumes that can be composed solely of that. It would be so much easier to list all the things you've ever said that have any truth.
Specifically, in this case, your claim that austerity has done Canada and its economy SO much good. And even if you return with a lot of "facts" to support your claim they will be worthless because of your reputation.
I'm afraid you've destroyed your credibility in this forum, Kend. You couldn't have done a better job of it if you were trying to. All the transparent, willful bullshitting that you often didn't bother to even make sound good.
Forget it, Kend. You're just making useless noise. There's no reason anybody on this site should pay the slightest attention to you.