BS: Canuckistan budget

Subject: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 04:53 PM

$138 for a new pair of shoes? The fucker! The ARROGANT fucker!

They raise their pensions and raise the age of retirement? The fuckers!

They... the fuckers!

I am a tad pissed off. I may write a god damned letter! (Canuck joke)

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: bobad
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 05:10 PM

Huh? Did I miss something? I thought the budget was coming out on Thursday.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 05:50 PM

He bought new shoes today. 138 bucks. Saw the SOB smiling on the CBC news while he was paying for them. Fucker. 138 bucks for shoes he doesn't need but his road is paved with gold while Canucks suffer from coast to coast to coast to border? Oh dear me. I am beside myself. What an arrogant ignorant prick.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 05:55 PM

Hey, man...they're in massive debt to the bankers who were enabled to create this societal mess through a practice called "fractional reserve lending" (you are legally allowed to lend out 10 TIMES the money you have on deposit if you are a bank!!!) (it goes where? Back to the banks! And they lend it out 10 MORE TIMES!) (and that goes where? Back to the Banks...and they lend it out 10 MORE TIMES!) (etc....to infinity) Pyramid scheme!

That is what has put almost every country in the world into massive and unpayable public debt. To the BANKS!

And who pays the interest on that debt?

THE PUBLIC PAYS IT!!!!!

And how do we pay it? Through all kinds of taxes. Income tax is just the beginning. And through inflation. And through the privatization and dismantling of our social services. And through the decline of public infrastructure. And through downsizing the work force. And through job losses. And through union-busting.

Harper is complicit in supporting the fascist, criminal, oligarchic forces that created this incredible situation. He's just one of their little political errand boys, and he's well paid. Don't expect him to buy inexpensive shoes! I bet Obama's got some expensive shoes too.

Or is it Ontario's Dalton McGinty you were referring to? Well, he's just another little political errand boy, like Harper. Hudak would be another, and probably even worse. I think the real message of the bankers to all of us is this: "resistance is futile"

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 06:06 PM

Bobad... yes... I think tomorrow is Thursday, innit?

From somewhere...

Jim Flaherty kept with tradition and purchased a new pair of shoes ahead of giving his annual budget speech. Wednesday afternoon Canada's Minister of Finance stopped by the Aldo store at the Rideau Centre in Ottawa and purchased new lace-up black shoes from Aldo for $138.98 (total included insoles and tax).

Fucker.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: bobad
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 06:08 PM

Flaherty was a classmate of mine from first grade to when he went to a private high school - he was always a bit aloof like he was destined for loftier heights than the riff-raff.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 06:12 PM

Ah...yes. Loftier heights. First you become a lawyer. Then you become a politician. You will never have to wear cheap shoes again.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 06:14 PM

gnu, has this annoyed you or something? I think, from your posts, that you might be slightly irritated.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 06:16 PM

Just a tad.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: ollaimh
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 11:28 PM

the sad thing was canda was on the road to solvency after eleven years of surplusses brought in by the liberals. the tories increasded spending by almost forty per cent in the first two and a half years of power. before the recession. and lowered taxes. this threw away 80 to 100 billion. if they had stayed the course there would be little or no new deficits now. people think we are still in good economic shap. however our national debt is now rivaling that of italy. our banks are ssfer but we are courting disaster. all brought to you by the same assholewho ran deficit after deficit in ontatrio and only covered it up by selling permanent assets and playing with the books.

most canadians i talk to seem to have no idea we just ran the two biggest deficits in canadfian history.

however nger would be better diredted to those still covering up the murder and torture of native children in residential schools. this country committed genocide. that really should make people angry

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 11:34 PM

$138 for a half decent pair of shoes isn't too expensive these days .... but if they are from that cheesie shoe store Aldo then he got royally ripped off .... but then again, isn't that what politiks is all about.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 11:48 PM

Gnu mentioned up there that it is tradition, but just to clarify some more for our non-Canadian friends here that it is the custom (as long as i can recall) for the Minister of Finance to purchase a new pair of shoes just before he delivers the budget to the nation.

It probably would have been more appropriate should Flaherty have purchased a pair of loafers.

bill .. ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 09:11 AM

Or work boots.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 10:51 AM

or stiletto heel moccasins with steel toes

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 12:09 PM

Ha! Ha! ;-D

What should be done is arrest the major bankers right across the world for having perpetrated a giant pyramid scheme, try them all for fraud, and declare the existing government debts to the banks NULL AND VOID...cancel them...and start all over again at zero, with no national debt. There would then be plenty enough money in government coffers from the existing tax base to provide all our social services and maintain our public infrastructure.

Then nationalize all the stuff that's been privatized and sold off to private industry in the past 40 years of neocon robbery/insanity.

And nationalize the damn banks too.

Start doing things to help the general public across this world instead of just to make obscene profits for a tiny consortium of billionaires.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 02:40 PM

sIx... the prick doesn't even need new shoes. But he spends $138 at a "fancy" store while Canucks buy crap from China at Walmart because they can't afford better. I'll better the fucker put it on his expense account too.

Rap... you may have something there.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 03:08 PM

THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE
       by Joe Hill

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

Main Chorus:

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and Pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

And the starvation army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray.
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you are on the bum:

If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

Last Chorus:

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 04:38 PM

A good pair of 'loafers' at $138 is reasonable. Good work boots are expensive. At Hudsons Bay, the Swim brand loafer is $159 and Hush Puppies $150.
A workman's cap toe boot is $200 (but on sale for less). A Rockport waterproof is &170 (sale $120). Really good boots are higher.

Seems to me the complaints here are nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 05:43 PM

I don't actually care about the price of Mr Flaherty's shoes. It isn't of any importance. What I care about is fractional reserve lending, a practice which has enabled the largest banks to rob the rest of society blind, dominate elected governments, shape policy, and bankrupt societies right across the world.

It has enriched a tiny financial elite and mortgaged everyone else's future to unpayable debts. That is a crime, and it was perpetrated by a few people with the complicity of elected officials who have been paid off by those few people.

That matters. Flaherty's purchase of some new shoes is of no importance whatsoever, and if this discussion was just about the price of his shoes, then, yes,....it would be nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 06:25 PM

THE BANKS ARE MADE OF MARBLE
             by Les Rice

I've traveled 'round this country.
From shore to shining shore;
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.

cho: But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the worker sweated for.

I saw the weary farmer,
Plowing sod and loam;
l heard the auction hammer
A-knocking down his home.

l saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore,
l heard the bosses saying,
"Got no work for you no more."

I saw the weary miner
Scrubbing coal dust from his back,
I heard his children cryin,'
"Got no coal to heat the shack."

I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land,
l prayed we'd get together
And together make a stand.

Final Chorus:

Then we'd own those banks of marble
With a guard at every door
And we'd share those vaults of silver
That we have sweated for!

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 07:21 PM

Flaherty's purchase of these new shoes is of importance here. It demonstrates the incompetence of a very high ranking government official in the decision of where and what he paid. Aldo shoes is a chain of very cheesie shoes stores masqueraded under a facade of high fashion. In actuality they sell cheap konock-off shoes of low quality made in the Pacific rim at a price which much exceeds their value. In short, would you trust these type of clowns spending your tax dollars on such high tech items such as F-35 fighter jets, submarines or even (ahem) smart phones.

biLL   ... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 07:28 PM

Nonsense, Q? I don't pay those kind of prices and *I* could afford to. You are out of touch with the reality that Canuck families are STRUGGLING to raise their children. Seriously, although I admire you greatly for your posts and wisdom, that's pretty low. Tell that to my buddy trying to raise three kids when gas just went up again... when his food budget has more than tripled in four years... when his taxes have gone up... when his emplyoer cut profit sharing... and so on.

Nonsense? Fuck me. That is rich.

And, as for the CBC, who's ass are they kissing by putting the "spin" on "it could have been much worse" one thousand times in ten minutes? The loss of 20k fed jobs is a GOOD THING? WTF? Oh, it will be thru attrition, so that's okay? No loss of services? Faster immigration is a good thing? Lees environmental regulation id a good thing (for the oil companies)?

And the capper... raising the age of receiving the old age pension to 67. Did the fucker change the law for mandatory retirement at 65, did he?

I ask that question in earnest. I don't know the answer. Did he?

If not, he should be hung from the nearest tree... even if he did, I still think he is a rich, arrogant asshole for sucking the dick of the oil patch ande fucking over the people who built this country.

Rap... yer fuckin right I am slightly irritated.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 07:49 PM

Hey gnu .... Canada has abolished the mandatory retirement age. As per the CBC, well as I said before here in the Madcat it is not the CBC news it used to be ... it's CNN north ... spin, spin, spin.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 08:03 PM

So, if you have a fed job, you don't have to retire at 65? Seriously?

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 09:11 PM

It is not mandatory for fed employees as of December 2012. For all others across Canada there is now no mandatory retirement age (certain jobs are exempt, see blue linky) .... and .... EXCEPT for those in the province of new Brunswick. Yup, New Brunswick. The have not province of Canada. Not only are we screwed by the Harper's feds, but we are also screwed by the Alward government.

Feds do away with mandatory retirement

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 09:13 PM

I retired at 65. Didn't really WANT to, but I did. We are getting by, but I know some who are still working (and will be for a while) who can't make ends meet even though they live frugally.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 09:49 PM

I know what you're saying Rap. I took the 'package' offer last fall. I was actually thrilled to get out of the rat race. We're also getting by but in saying that I have been getting some consulting work offers. I have taken some on and will continue to do so. It not only gives us the advantage to have some extra $money$ but it keeps my brain active.

I have also started to get my CPP payments monthly. With this budget I was interested to see if I was still eligible to receive my old age pension when I turn 65 ... and as it turns out it looks like I will.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 10:08 PM

My brother served 20+ years in the Army and is 40% disabled according to the Veterans Administration. The amount of his VA compensation is deducted from his military retirement pay, which seems like a rip-off to me.

But that's life in the good ol' US of A these days (this little dodge dates from Bush II's administration).

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 10:59 PM

Terrible slap in the face, Rap. Terrible.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 10:18 AM

There are bills in Congress attempting to remedy this...discrepancy...but they seem to go nowhere. I can tell you this, neither he nor I are going to go to war the next time they want us. They'd better send a division or so to drag us in, 'cause we ain't goin' willingly.

I would not recommend a career in the military to ANYONE right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 12:01 PM

"Seems to me the complaints here are nonsense."

Ditto what Gnu said about your research abilities. But straight up front with regard to the quoted remark, Ya gotta be rich in the first place to think like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 12:49 PM

My father was in WWII, Rap. He drove a tank for the Allies. He advised me in the strongest terms NEVER to enter the military and never to get involved in any war, based on his experiences. He said it was the biggest waste of lives and material that he ever saw and ever expected to. (And he did feel at the time that the Nazis had to be defeated...but still, he advised me never to get involved in any war.)

The Germans he met after the war felt exactly the same way about it that he did. "Never again" was their motto too, not just the motto of those whose relatives perished in the Holocaust. War between nations is the biggest mistake people can possibly make.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 01:48 PM

The problem is that "people" don't get to decide, LH.

I just listen to the full interview with my Uncle Chic on a CD I got FREE from The Memory Project. I suggest you go there and listen to the vets, LH. I think every Canuck... well, everyone should. It should be mandatory in our schools.

Oh... ah... Q... sorry for such a testy response but I believe in the gist of my post. I am very upset that my government chooses to engage in unjust war and make the elderly pay for it and... and... and...

... and smile while buying $138 shoes. I still can't believe the arrogance and the ignorance.

Rap... yes, I am still pissed off.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 03:19 PM

Yes, gnu! The problem is exactly that. People don't get to decide for themselves. Their "leaders" decide for them...and the police and the courts enforce the decision. If you refuse, you get arrested, fined, imprisoned, beaten...maybe even executed (depending on where and when).

That's really a dictatorship, although it pretends not to be in order to keep us relatively cooperative with its objectives. Every government claims to be defending "freedom" (while simultaneously denying freedom to a great many of its own citizens).

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: number 6
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 04:01 PM

There's is nothing in the comfortable life that we live in that compares to such a fundamental need like hunger.

There is a woman in Somalia
Scraping for pearls on the roadside
There's a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive

This is how she's dying
She's dying to survive
Don't know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave

She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives a life she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand-new shoes

Hurts like brand-new shoes

There is a woman in Somalia
The sun gives her no mercy
The same sky we lay under
Burns her to the bone

Long as afternoon shadows
It's gonna take her to get home
Each grain carefully wrapped up
Pearls for her little girl

Hallelujah
Hallelujah

She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives in a world she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand-new shoes
Hurts like brand-new shoes

"Pearls" by Sade

I dunno. This song came to mind while reading this thread

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 04:13 PM

Wow. That's a powerful song.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 04:33 PM

All the usual howls from those who oppose the one true Canadian Conservative policy of Prime Minister Harper, who is trying to lead the country back into solvency.

Military expenses are excessive and should be cut. 'Nuff said.

The innovation encouragements are a plus, but Canadians are very poor at innovation efficiency and development, and shy away from taking the risks necessary to growth. I hope that the budget has some effect in this regard, but Canada has a long history of cowardice in business.
The differences in median income, Canada vs. the more innovative U.S.- Alberta c. $36000, Ontario c. $30,000; U. S. $45,000 in spite of the strong U.S. downturn in 2009.

Increase in the retirement age to 67 from 65 is overdue, in view of the increasing life expectancy and the number of pensioned unproductive years. Plans are that the budget will gradually implement the change over 10 years.
The provinces must do more to budget their expenses- $19 billion transferred to Ontario this year.

The EcoEnergy retrofit programs are eliminated. They did nothing toward developing new energy. (I took advantage of them to get a discount on a new furnace and new toilets, but savings in these 'feel-good' energy measures are illusory.

Dicontinuing the penny is long overdue.
$17 million additional to Natural resources to increase isotope research may be too small to have the desired effect.
Some tax credits wil be eliminated. Other fluff- MPS will have pension excesses trimmed.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 04:37 PM

I've paid USD 89.00 for a pair of work boots; I wear them a lot. Usually I won't pay more than UDS 40.00. I try to get everything on sale, if I can.

Were I the man who bought the shoes I wouldn't have done it. Then I could have made the point that I didn't because others couldn't. A symbol is sometimes far, far preferable...symbols can make or break a leader or a government.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: bobad
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 05:28 PM

Q wrote "Prime Minister Harper, who is trying to lead the country back into solvency."

Let me point you to this piece written by columnist Andrew Coyne which is excerpted from here:

"Be under no illusion about this: the five years of "austerity" on which we are now embarked will be, after inflation, adjusting for population growth, the five biggest spending years in the history of the country — other than the last three. All that the Tories are proposing to do is to roll back some of the increased spending that they themselves introduced. The public service from which the Tories pledge to trim 19,000 employees is the same one to which they added more than 30,000."

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 06:32 PM

The "conservative" movement launched by politicians such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Brian Mulroney and others who have followed in their footsteps has done nothing to restore solvency. To the contrary, it has enriched a very small ruling elite of bankers, corporate CEOs, and other people at the very top of the financial pyramid while bankrupting whole societies, destroying jobs, inflating our currency, exporting our manufacturing sector to countries like Mexico and China, eviscerating the public sector, and generally making the situation considerably worse for everyone EXCEPT the financial elite.

Stephen Harper is an acolyte of the same Milton Friedman-inspired school of thought that Ronald Reagan subscribed to. He is intent on following that same disastrous course of action, whose ultimate accomplishment is the creation of corporate fascism, the prosecution of neocolonial wars, the abrogation of civil rights, and the establishment of a criminally irresponsible robber baron society run for the enrichment of "the VERY few" at the expense of "the many".

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 07:09 PM

If you shine your shoes they can look as good as new.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 08:21 PM

Q... "Back into solvency"? They destroyed the country and it's economy and it's solvency. They inherited a surplus and pissed it away. That is a FACT , no?

"Lead"? More like "Let's try to fix this so we can get our big fat pensions after six years of service and fuck the rest of the poor bastards." Ha ha ha... big joke. I ain't laughin. I am pissed.

They turned a surplus into a big debt. Didn't they? Am I missin somethin, Q? Educate me if I am wrong.

Seriously, I ain't up on things of this nature like you are. Help me out on this, please. Did the PCs inherit a surplus and then turn it into a deficit? A simple yes or no will do.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: bobad
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 09:09 PM

"....having inherited a $13-billion surplus, the Harper/Flaherty team spent so excessively that we were close to a deficit by the time the recession began. Let's recall the slashing of corporate tax rates and the government's easing of mortgage rules and backing of risky loans that further bled the treasury."

Lawrence Martin
The Globe and Mail Feb.14, 2012

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 09:15 PM

bobad... fiscal restraint versus fiscal complaint?

Shameful. Just shameful. Greedy thieves filling their pockets on the backs of the poor and the elderly. They should be in jail for their crimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Mar 12 - 10:07 PM

The longer I live the more I feel that a rebellion -- preferably a non-violent one -- is the only answer that will be available. The problem is, the leaders of rebellions tend to become bosses themselves. "New boss, same as the old boss...."

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 03:40 AM

Let's all take a deep breath and get folkloric for a minute, eh? According to Wikipedia , wearing new shoes on budget day is a distinctively Canadian tradition. The Brits don't do it. The You-Alls don't do it. Nice young men who sell antiques don't do it. But WE do it, quite often anyway.

The oldest example they cite is from 1960, but at that time the practice was apparently already considered "traditional". John Crosbie wore mukluks one time, and Paul Martin tried it with work boots on. In Alberta, Stockwell Day delivered a budget while wearing in-line roller skates. What a goof.

As far as the $138 goes, wouldn't your REAL plutocrat spend that much on his SOCKS? As a point of comparison, before I retired from letter carrying I was going through a couple of pairs of boots a year at $200+ a pop. By the way, as a crown-corp retiree I'm expecting the worst from the authoritarianos, if not next budget then the one ofter that. Or the one after that.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 12:24 PM

What a goof? Yup.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 12:49 PM

Ha! Ha! Ha! Wonderful!

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 03:40 PM

As a well-paid MP, Flaherty could be accused of hypocracy if he did not dress well.

Canadian shoes- Mellow Walk, but no oxfords or loafers.
Aldo is a Canadian (mostly) corporation, but its shoes and other products are made mostly in China, Brazil, and eastern Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 06:25 PM

Used to be all Italian leather goods as I SEEM to recall. "High-end" purses and shoes. But, ya can't beat Chinese cow prices, or Vietnamese, or Thai or...

I'd comment on MP pensions but I have high blood pressure.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 07:42 PM

Flaherty and his new shoes are not the problem. Neoconservative (proto-fascist) financial philosophy and policy is the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 03:22 PM

"Proto-fascist", "neoconservative" - whatever they are, they are meaningless in Canada, which hews to good Conservative, business-friendly capitalism. The major fault is failure to support innovative entrepreneurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: GUEST,999
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 11:51 PM

The innovative entrepreneurs you speak of are using tax dollars to entrepreneurialize that very same dollar. Little good accrues to the people of this nation.

Miss a week's worth of meals and then come talk about it. You have that choice (to miss the meals). Too many people don't.

Also, Harper could use ONE day without perfect hair. That SOB spends more on haircuts than some folks do on groceries for a month.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 12:15 AM

I hope that his new shoes will turn on him and soundly kick his arse!

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 12:23 AM

I'm very much in favour of real capitalism as it once was, Q, which was hundreds of thousands or even millions of independent, locally-created businesses, built by local people, owned by local people, and with the profits and jobs going to local people. This used to produce a wonderful variety of unique businesses and it created jobs for millions of people HERE, not over in China or India. That was when we still made things in North America (other than bombs, jets, and cruise missiles, I mean).

But that's not what has been happening as a result of the neo-conservative movement, which is a movement that promotes the financial interests of only a small oligarchy of very large multinational corporations and very large international banking interests, and destroys our locally created and owned independent small to medium-sized businesses and replaces them with the same giant corporate chain stores in every sizeable community and virtual corporate monopolies (and price fixing) by a very few corporate players. It is the utter destruction of traditional locally built capitalism as we once knew it.

It's more like corporate communism for the sake of massive profit for a tiny ruling elite (just like in Soviet Russia) than it is like traditional capitalism that once thrived in North America and raised the living standard of millions of people. It wipes out all the small local players who used to be the heart of traditional capitalism. It also wipes out public services and creates a public sphere so pitifully gutted, feeble, and ineffective that it can't even respond properly to a major national emergency (such as Hurricane Katrina).

People who are by principle opposed to the very idea of government can't govern properly once in office! They are mentally incapable of it, because they don't even believe in it. They just believe in cashing in for themselves and their rich buddies, that's all. They have abandoned any sense of real social responsibility and they have sold out to the highest bidder. And they call that "freedom". They're as crazy as Hitler's Nazis...but in a somewhat different fashion...the Nazis' insane God was their imagined Master Race. The Neocons' insane God is simply: money. More money. And still more money. But only for the elite few at the top. That's a dictatorship, whether or not it holds the pretense of elections (which don't change a thing, because the elites who run all the major political parties have been bought out).

I suggest you read Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" for a very detailed historical account of how that has been done since the 1950s right up to the present...and where...and by whom...and for whom.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 02:25 PM

Minds me... ya know why there are yellow lines painted in the middle of the halls and stairwells in the fereral buildings in Ottawa? So that those who are getting in late don't bump into those who are leaving early.

Well, it's okay after a few ales.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 02:41 PM

Watch that stereotyping there, gnu.

In my office, most people are at their desks by 7:00 a.m., and many of them don't leave until well after 5:00 p.m. I roll in between 7:30 and 7:45 in the morning, and I'm usually one of the last members of the headquarters to arrive.

Of course, the people who log the longest hours are military -- they don't get overtime. Many civil servants work the same kind of hours, but the strict rules about overtime and stand-by pay cause such arse-pain that we take our extra work home and do it there.

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 03:22 PM

Well Charmion, we have to define between civil servants who do the work, politicians, and political appointees. Only the former are expected to deliver a days work for a days pay, and the others show up after Christmas break only long enough to gear up for Easter break. However they seem to be entitled to their entitlements. As for the military those who actually serve their country through dangerous missions are not paid near enough, but those on the upper deck of the general staff in Ottawa are not worth the cost! Certainly those who bought those lemmon subs from Britain or ordered the useless (without an engine)F-35's from the USA should be sent packing pronto!

Subject: RE: BS: Canuckistan budget
From: gnu
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 03:49 PM

Charmion... I knew lot's of people like you. When I worked for Marine Atlantic, I clocked 9 hours a day as an engineer and was paid for 7.5h. But I saw VPs lollygag in at 9 and leave at 3. In any case, it's a joke.