Excellent Writing

As one of the wealthiest societies in the world, it is staggering to see our elites pretend we can't "afford" to help the poor and disadvantaged in our society. OF COURSE we can afford those services. OF COURSE we can raise the minimum wage (which would immediately level the playing field for all employers, thus negating their argument that they will be driven out of business).

In the end, it comes down to whether a society lives by ideals and aspirations, or is run by greed and materialism. Most people in BC are interested in the former, while sadly the business and financial elites are not. Great article.

The problem is the present

The problem is the present fraudulent economic system that gives a certain sector legal rights to colonize and exploit others, backed up by the fraudulent calculations and statistics provided by the priesthood of economists.

The GDP may grow to the clouds, while an increasing number of people are starving and sleeping in the streets.

I was working, at the age of 28, as an apprentice for a .75 cents per hour minimum wage in Vancouver in 1955. My wife was making similar wages. But our rent was $35./month, and even in the early '70a we could feed our family of 5 very well from $25/week. We bought our first bungalow in Vancouver 1966 for $6,500 for $500 down and a monthly mortgage payment of $45.

There are no comparisons with the gross exploitation and power of imaginary capital, freshly created by some bank, in today's world.

If we still had the same proportional breakdown between wages and living costs as we had 40-50 years ago, the minimum wage would have to be close to $50/hr.

And this is something our brainwashed and miseducated economists and governments owned and controlled by the corporate mafia are unable and unwilling to comprehend.

And now even this is not enough. They're engaged in secret negotiations to bring in the "free movement of labour" between the 3 NAFTA countries under the SPP racket, to make us "more competitive" and destitute.

Ed Deak.

Quote:“I’m fairly

He's dreaming if he really thinks that the fear of "what the world will think" is actually going to encourage any real meaningful action on poverty.

More likely, we'll see a whole lot of short term emergency measures designed to "clean up our streets" (aka Scam Sullivan's 'Civil City' crap) and then a big clawback after the circus packs up and goes home, leaving us with the bill and the social hangover.

A short excerpt

From Evo Morales speech to the United Nations Sept 24 2007

Capitalism has twins, the market and war. The market converts life into commodities, it converts land into a commodity. And when capitalists cannot sustain this economic model based on looting, on exploitation, on marginalisation, on exclusion and, above all, on the accumulation of capital, they rely on war, the arms race. If we ask ourselves how much money is spent on the arms race — we are never concerned about that.

This is why I feel that it is important to change economic models, development models, and economic systems, particularly those in the western world. And if we do not understand and thoroughly discuss the very survival of our peoples, then we certainly not will not be addressing the problem of climate change, the problem of life, the problem for humanity.

It is important that we learn lessons from some sectors, from some regions. Let me avail myself of this opportunity: I come from a culture based on peace, from a lifestyle based on equality, of living not only in solidarity with all people, but also living in harmony with Mother Earth. For the indigenous movement, land cannot be a commodity; it is a mother that gives us life, so how could we convert it into a commodity as the western model does?

This is a profound lesson which we must learn in order to resolve the problems of humanity that are being discussed here, climate change and pollution. Where does this pollution come from? It comes from, and is generated by, the unsustainable development of a system which destroys the planet: in other words, capitalism.

I want to use this opportunity to call on sectors, groups and nations to abandon luxury, to abandon over-consumption, to think not only about money but about life, to not only think about accumulating capital but to think in wider terms about humanity. Only then can we begin to solve the root causes of these problems facing humanity.

Because if we don’t think that way, if we do not change, it won’t matter if business owners have a lot of money, no matter if they are a multinational or even a country — no one can escape these ecological problems, environment problems, and climate change. No one will be spared, and the wealth that some country, some region or some capitalist may have will be useless.

I feel that it is important to organise an international movement to deal with the environment, a movement that will be above institutions, businesses and countries that just talk about commerce, that only think about accumulating capital. We have to organize a movement that will defend life, defend humanity, and save the earth.

I'm disabled and can't afford a winter coat

I think giving people a much higher standard of living works because it helps people to live more healthy lives, all around.

So as far as where the money comes from, well, we are a first world nation, and we do tax our incredibly rich people don't we? The people who have more should help the people who have less. This is just so basic.

The problem is, the people who have more than enough to go around the block 2,347 times don't want to part with a cent of it.

You can't expect a person like myself who gets $530 measly dollars a month to have any decent quality of life. I live in a run down Eastside hotel because that's all I can afford and I'm disabled. This can hardly be called a just society.

So yes, the answer IS to give us money to live so we don't have to worry about how we're going to afford a winter coat.

The SLATE

The 'idea' of poverty is the root of the problem here. Because its polar opposite 'rich' has the same problem.

Ethical decay.

Some may say that the poor have a bad ethos about themselves; equally so could be said of the rich that they have a bad ethos about 'everyone else'.

Equally there are some whom may say that the 'poor' have chosen a different state of happiness, or what makes them happy than the choices made by the 'rich'.

As these regard the 'solutions' presented by Alan James, here are my thoughts on his solutions, in the light of an 'ethos'.

1 – Increasing income assistance:
non-starter. Consider what 'income for a lifetime' has done to the morality of the native populations within the 'reserve' system in Canada? Rather than doling out $$$, why not start with a better view of education? One that is not tied to everyone's children being 'sent off' to state run schools? Thus cutting off the supply of those whom will 'income assistance'?

2 - Removing barriers to getting assistance:
Insane!
This is just another path to Plato's Republic, where everyone is a 'servant' to the state, since they would be 'connected to' the income stream that was stolen from all the others. What happens when there are more on the dole than off?

3 – Removing the 100 per cent clawback on additional income:
Of all the ideas given, this one makes the most sense.
This, would at least, encourage those on 'assistance' to find a way out.

4 – Raising the minimum wage:
Not required.
All this would do is -wipe out- the starting businesses, something that is hard enough as it is.
Those of needed skills - especially the trades when they are in short supply - will be able to COMMAND their own rate.
Yet another reason to not become such a specialist that you are 'put out to pasture' the day after your specialty gets automated.

5 – Building 2000 units of affordable housing per year:
In Vancouver?!?
This man is insane!
The province has plenty of 'crown land' that is located all over the province. By teaming up with organizations like habitat for humanity and other such foundations, the 'homeless' in Vancouver can be found HOMES elsewhere in BC. Why must the provincial or civic coffers be emptied to build homes for those whom are unwilling to build for themselves?

These are just another attempt to 'wipe the slate clean' so that a different repubic may take their place.

None of these will happen, of course.

As Rhea puts it there will be an intense SHORT TERM effort to 'clean up' (why bother really when in February all that is needed is to have really-really dark window tinting on the olympic SUV's & busses and hope that it is raining too hard to notice the shadows moving outside), especially within 2 blocks of all olympic venues and routes thru the city.

Long-term solutions, require long-term thinking, something that a politician that gets elected every 2-4 years cannot do, ever.

Wonder what would happen.........

........if the "limited liability" aspect of the corporation were revoked............?

Liability

Rick.W above suggests removing the limits on liability for companies. I believe this is a very good proposal, and might even indirectly go a long way toward repairing the damage caused by the clear monetary fraud Mr. Deak points to so persuasively.

There was a case some years ago in the midwestern US that illustrates the value of liability in influencing corporate behaviour.

A metal plating company, which used vats of cyanide for plating gold had taken advantage of the cheap labour provided by new immigrants with poor language skills. Many such people worked there, pretty much untrained and the managers had no proper way to communicate with them, and made little effort to talk to them or train them anyway.

One of these workers unwittingly exposed himself to the cyanide and died. The president and one other officer, in charge of operations I believe, were charged with capital murder, tried in criminal court and convicted.

In the year following this conviction, the US sales of safety equipment were reported at nearly triple the previous rate.

The connection seemed quite clear. When the operators of one company were made liable for the consequences of the company's behaviour, the behaviour of many companies improved.

The gaudblasted broken record

‘…that place where the blame for poverty is finally laid at the feet of capitalism itself.”

“…had taken advantage of the cheap labour provided by new immigrants with poor language skills.”

It is meaningless to blame ‘capitalism’. You might as well blame guns for war, or cans of pesticides for evironmental damage. The ‘blame’ lies with the operator, not the soulless instrument he uses.

The dead gold-plating worker, and the ensuing kerfuffle, simply opened a window of opportunity for yet another group of entreprensurs, those who manufacture safety equipment. When will we understand, that the one thing we need to improve the quality of is ourselves, human beings? We cannot idiot-proof the world, or life in it, but we can make fewer idiots. This is the direction in which we should look. Do not fight the existing reality, but make a new model which renders the old one obsolete (Buckminster Fuller).
Quality before quantity (Desmond Morris). All true. But are we listening? Evo Morales’ mother had seven offspring, but only three survived to adulthood. He has two children. Way to go. Updating one’s methodologies. I believe the man has smarts and can see how to build a future.

Stop the endless stream of ‘cheap labour’. Put a cork in it. Don’t deliver the numbers to those exploiters. How do we make it clear to those who haven’t seen it yet? Before we do anything else, we must find an answer to that. Otherwise, we will continue our endless cycle of Ragnaroks, clean-ups, and rebuilding from square one. Bon appetit.

new social model?

so Canis Latrans
what is your "new social model" ??

whom will pay for it?

Quote:"In the end, it comes

You forgot the provincial government, Jeffrey J. On second thought, maybe you didn't.

pie in the sky

Is this pie in the sky stuff? Not at all! Raising the rates, allowing for individual earnings, and raising the minimum wage are simple, effective ways to alleviate some of the struggles for the poor.
Why is poverty not a priority? Ideology. It's not about the money. If our surplus was ten times more than it is, there would still not be a desire by those presently in power to help the poor.
How to paraphrase their thinking?
-don't do anything for anyone that they can do for themself.
-there is no free lunch.
-helping someone will destroy their personal initiative
-I made it on my own, so can you.
Coupled with selfishness and greed and a massive lack of empathy we have ended up with our present state of "third world conditions" on our doorstep.

Mugs and Wamps...:-)

so Canis Latrans
what is your "new social model" ??

whom will pay for it?

To your first question, for starters, not the class system of either so-called "liberal" capitalism of "liberal/ruling class democratic" Amerika, or the "state capitalism" model of the old USSR, or the current so-called People's Republic of China. Other than that, whatever evolves out of the needs, wants and demands of ordinary, working and lower class folks, and their experience with all the current and historical models of capitalism.

The point being, of course, that it is not only I that get to define it. Though I "suggest", being as you have beens so kind as to ask me, that it should better be based upon recognition of the reality that even the current economy of production, marketing and consumption as currently exists within all capitalisms is based upon a "social model", engaged in by masses of people, and would work more "equitably" to meet the needs of people, communities and nature if that were but firstly recognized and conceded, and then "the system" reconfigured to bring ownership, management and direction, at least of its major corporate enterprises, similarly into line with this reality. In short, the economy, its fundamental ownership, management, and structural forms need to be "democratized", so as to integrate/create a new model based upon community, social interest groups and worker direction and control of individual enterprises and the entire economy.

Both "Laissez Faire/Libertarian" and "State" Capitalism have demonstrated their failure at being capable of consistently, over the long haul meeting the needs and aspirations of the mass of the citizenry of all societies, and of larger nature. As it moves quickly here into a new crisis mode, as a consequence particularly of the rise of the Neocons and the "deregulation" of capitalism, it is past time to move on.

Continued next post

Continued...

From previous post.

Capitalism, over the course of its evolution, after emerging out of feudalism, went through a prolonged period of economic, social and all other manner of upheavals and unrest, in the course of establishing itself as the socio-economic model norm-, before which most still currently genuflect. One should similarly likely expect that the evolution of such a socio-economic model as I describe, will similarly go through a period of trial by fire, even disruptions and temporary failures. Perfection has never existed-, only relatively better solutions, practises and forms than existed in the past.

Evolution, including social, economic and political evolution is likely a never ending process, at least so long as there are people and changing conditions. What is mostly clear, from this place and point in time however, is that it is past time to evolve beyond capitalism.

Even though I see Dorothy is suddenly alarmed that I briefly agreed with her, and has reverted to her more typical mug-wamp stance-, as in her mug on one side of the fence and her wamp on the other. :-D lol

Oh, and Murdock, if I may be forgiven, I would answer a question with another question. Who the frig' has always paid for it-, in the final analysis? :-)

Doubtless, nothing will change in this regard either.

Greed

From all that I've read, folks, the only people who've successfully dealt with the problems that greed promoted by materialism brings to communal living, were groups living in extreme long-term isolation with no introductions of disruptive technology or philosophy. There, all resources are known and ownership long since decided. Accumulation of wealth in such a situation can happen ONLY at the expense (poverty) of others in the group, and was virtually unknown, as was theft.

At the outset of his modernisation of Czeckoslovakia, Tito sent agents into remote regions of the Balkans with the objective of promoting modern rules of ownership and governance. They were met with extreme resistance by locals who pointed out that everybody knew who owned what, and what was community property.

Similarly, everyone knew what his role in the group was, since it was handed from father to son. This, they said, prevented greed from spreading discord within the group, obviated the jousting for status, the need for fences and property lines, and prevented the very divisive accumulation of wealth by individuals.

A similar situation has been posited for villagers living in the remote high Andes.

A similar situation also obtained within aboriginal groups, marred only by the widespread use of slavery.

I’m unaware of the Andeans, but in the case of the Balkans and NA aboriginals, these groups were also marked by extreme hatred for other similar groups (villages, tribes) to the point where interactions were carried out only in the presence of armed escort (“aliens” killed on sight), and languages were unintelligible to each other. Internal harmony was thus maintained through distrust of the “other”. So, while internal materialism within the group was under control, it was expressed by the group in warring for resources and territory.

The point I’m trying to make here is that while materialism is a normal and perhaps necessary trait in humans, greed is a cultural phenomenon, and as such can be controlled. For example, since theft was virtually unknown within tribal cultures, FNs had no word for it, However, since it was normal outside of the tribe, it was described as “counting coup”.

All of which leads to the question : “If greed by some leads to poverty for others, and if greed is a cultural phenomenon, has there ever been a religious/cultural/economic system within recorded memory capable of controlling greed?”

I don't think so

Surely you mean Yugoslavia.

greed

asks ME2

good question.

I suspect that the answer will fall into one of two broad categories where it is yes for limited time or space, but no for wider limitations, which is to say the world at large.

For a short time it is very possible to limit greed, for a limited space or number of persons again I think it is very possible. Once a certain 'critical mass' is reached though any such system of control will break down.

Either internally, where secretive cabals will form then after seizing the control over the resources for themselves they will show their control more and more overtly. al la 'animal farm'

Or externally, such as you mention with the village or tribal approach taking hold and while all is shared within the 'tribe'; nothing is shared with those 'outsiders'.

I think that it is both human nature and a natural law of progression (where it is within the nature of systems to become more complicated over time - entropy effect) that drives those within any community whom see how to 'have more' within that community to go on and HAVE MORE. There is also an element of human nature to be empathic towards our fellow man, like those within the family structure, which over time has been applied to the tribe, the village, and now the nation. The problem has become again one of 'scale'. I say that we are trying to distribute the available resources out FAR too thinly. While there remains many untapped potentials within those self-same persons whom are drawing away the resources in the name of compassion.

I know that you will dislike this, but the harsh reality is a 23 year old male capable of walking, talking and lifting ANY tool of ANY sort does not deserve to be on income assistance. While at the same time I do think that those born with complications, do deserve the compassion of our society and should recieve income assistance; the question remains, how much and for whom?

GREED will play a part with those on income assistance just as much as those whom are 'affluent' within our society = do not try and tell me that there are no fully capable 23 year old males whom are 'on the dole', part of my work in the past was to find such persons and PROVE them capable of normal function.

5 unjust items

Alan James' five point plan and their 'injustices'

First of all what is 'just'
1. Honorable and fair in one's dealings and actions: a just ruler.
2. Consistent with what is morally right; righteous: a just cause.
3. Properly due or merited: just deserts.
4. Law Valid within the law; lawful: just claims.
5. Suitable or proper in nature; fitting: a just touch of solemnity.
6. Based on fact or sound reason; well-founded: a just appraisal.

1 – Increasing income assistance:
1. this is not 'honorable' to the voters of BC whom did not have any voice in this matter, even indirectly since this was NEVER any part of either the Liberal or NDP platforms.
2. is it morally right to make others dependant on handouts? do we think this is so for the FN communities that are disintegrating before our eyes?
3. for what merit do these persons on assistance deserve such an increase?
4. There are laws made already governing this 'income assistance' plan, we have elected officials whom oversee it. Why is it now that these things must be changed? Why not when an election is in progress? Why not have the opposition actually bring these items before the government in the Legislature?
5. there is no example 'in nature' where non-productive elements within a society are kept that way by providing for their needs by taking away that produced by the others.
6. while I agree that no government really has sound reason, I do not think that this proposal is sound either. It will only bleed away more funds, and get faster once the bad weather hits Toronto and the news of the 'increase' hits their streets!

-cont-

5 unjust items 2

2 - Removing barriers to getting assistance:
1. again what is honorable about permitting someone to become dependant on the state?
2. the morality of our society, by paying someone for nothing, just to 'live' here? How can we say that we are a moral society, when we are encouraging this dependance on the generosity of the state? Especially in light of the growing federal/provincial/civic debts?
3. the system already has a merit clause, what advantage is there in lowering it?
4. the system has a law, currently laxly enforced, what point is there in trying to change it from the street? This should be done within our house of governance, and I know that many are thinking that the current BC government is unjust etc, too bad! This is how our system works, next time work during the campaign, volunteer for your candidate = become one!
5. if it were that suitable, then why not just hand out the $$$ to everybody who lives here? by the same token, hand outs to none encourages US all to WORK together at a more LOCAL level to solve the wants and needs problem.
6. these 'barriers' were already reasonably sounded out, sound out more if you must, fine, but do not expect all of society to think that your version of what a 'barrier' is and what my version to be the same. Thus a vote will be called, and like it or lump it our system is a 'majority rule.'

- cont -

5 unjust items 3

3 – Removing the 100 per cent clawback on additional income: (I have already said that this is one provision I actually agree with, however)

1. there are many in the past whom have dealt with this provision, and what shall be said to them whom have 'just' left the program? Will they have 'grandfathering' rights to claim back amounts within this adjustment? where is the fairness in that dealing, when many have accepted this provision within the program and are working now to make their way out while reporting correctly? Where is the enforcement of this provision now?
2. is it morally right to pay out from the government coffers, then when a 'claimant' has been working to not 'take back' that part that the government has provided for the basic sustenence of the claimant at the start of the month? is this not an income ASSISTANCE plan?
3. the claimant whom has worked did not merit more, therefore why should they keep their part of the income assistance, when others go wanting?
4. the current law is such, so what provision has there been for changing the law? This committee is discussing the funds, not law changes. Law changes are something that the whole of the Legislature are for, not just a committee.
5. removing this 'clawback' represents a 'greater' amount than the 100% called for in an income assistance plan, therefore the Government will be said to be subsidising certain businesses (where those on the income assistance work) by permitting these businesses to keep workers at a lower pay rate or lower number of hours then these businesses are at an unnatural advantage than others, why should the public purse pay for such a private gain?
6. there are no sound facts to state that keeping the total amount presented to all in the income assistance program is a bad thing.

this was all presented as a thought experiment again, since I actually agree with the premise that 100% clawback is silly, but you can see where the argument against can come from.

-cont-

5 unjust items 4

4 – Raising the minimum wage:
1. how will raising the minimum wage be said to be honorable in the governments' dealings with small business owners whom will have to be the ones to actually 'foot' this bill?
2. the whole premise of a minimum wage is to create a 'floor' at which one is able to 'live'? Considering that the minimum wage is only going to be paid for the absolute lowest of skills, this should act as an incentive to improve skills and move 'up' the income ladder.
3. the entire concept of 'minimum wage' is at odds with the reality of properly due or merited! It is a socialist construct whose time is done...something Canis Latrans seems to agree with?
4. we already have laws to permit valid claims of unjust treatment of workers regarding wages, now we plan to complicate it more?
5. there is nothing in nature that can be compared to the 'minimum wage', this is a non-sequitur.
6. the only 'sound reason' for raising the minimum wage is to make more $$$ for the government thru taxation of those increased incomes. Do you really want that?

-final next-

5 unjust items 5

5 – Building 2000 units of affordable housing per year:
1. the height of dishonorable actions would be for the provincial government to pay for any 'free' housing in the most expensive real-estate market in Canada.
2. so it is morally right to make all others in BC pay thier property taxes, so that there is some public good like sewers, water supply, police, fire etc; yet those 'deemed' poor get to live for free? worse yet, we collectively get to pay for the roof over their heads as well?
Then we get to pay for all this in one of the most expensive cities in Canada?
3. how is it that someone deemed 'poor' is of merit to get a free house, yet someone whom has lived all their lives in BC, worked in a community, to build its water supply, keep it clean, and paid his share of taxes - then gets to be 'moved about' from rest home to rest home and not merit any house of their own? like the 'poor man' would get?
4. it is currently within our law that a property owner still has to face the possibility of losing his home to 'appropriation' yet that property owner will be paid 'market value' for that home. Tell me what is the market value for 'free housing'? What becomes of the value for all other housing once you start handing it out for free? Do not all other home-owners then deserve to be paid 'value' for their homes now? that way all then become 'free'?
5. how is it suitable that those deemed 'poor' get their housing at below market rate, while those that 'miss' the poor train have to pay their own way?
6. it is completely UNREASONABLE why the rest of the province should have to pay for the building of housing in the most expensive city in the province, when other more suitable places exist, or could be made to.

Murdock, in the cultures I

Murdock, in the cultures I described, your 23 year-old man would simply have been booted out of the village/tribe, since the integrity of those systems depended upon a contribution from everyone,

OTOH, if what I have come to understand is correct, it simply would not have occurred to anyone to slack off, just as it would have been unthinkable to steal. Cultural precepts can be so "self-evident" as to be totally unquestioned, indeed virtually invisible a such.

I am one of those who believe we are programmed by our learned cultural idioms and believe those are promoted by our power elites. Thus, while people can be easily aroused by the "welfare bum problem" it is hard to even get their notice when they are told of such excresences as the Exxon exec receiving a > $400 million retirement gift.

I suspect that if we added up this and the myriad other excessive corporate executive payouts (given by themselves to themselves, to boot.), the total would at the very least be equal to that "leeched" by those like your 23 yr olds.

A spin-off from this moral decay, now so obvious throughout the business world, is the justification in the minds of many "common people" that since "ripping off the system" is a forgivable business practice, it is OK - even natural - for them to do it too.

I have tried many times, without success, to convince some of these people that they are in effect only ripping off the rest of us.

Neuro-linguistic name calling

Dear murdock; You fall into an old trap of believing the functional fictions that have been fed to you in your bedtime stories.

The fiction you seem most attached to is the exact same one the Nazis used to promote the exact same eugenic cause you seem unable to escape.

Money is in fact a fiction. Most of the cultures invented by people never used it. Most of the ones that did used it only peripherally, for foriegn trade and paying armies.

When you call a 23 year old man a "leech" because his life is lived outside your philosophical comfort zone you are in fact only one or two short steps away from reinventing National Socialism. When you call debaters who argue other points of view "marxists" you are on very familiar ground.

I dislike this name calling. However, when people are trying to listen and understand, certain historical parallels are inescapable. I wish you would try to keep your visceral emotional reactions under control.

Please allow me to offer you five true things to advance this discussion.

1. Humans live in groups. Always. families, tribes, comunities, nations.
SOCIETY IS THE MOST REAL HUMAN CONSTRUCT THERE IS.

2. Everyone born deserves to live. Even if they piss you off.

3. Everyone who hungers must eat. Whether they obey your dictates or not.

4. The real contributions of a human life have nothing to do with money. All such correlations are imposed from outside. Most people, the old, the young, the impaired, will never be able to deal in money. The things they contribute are not commercial. Any philosopy that states that they must, must abuse them when they can't.

5. There are and always were some people who invest so heavily in their fictional philosophical constructs that they will be willing to do that abusing. Will rob the poor to make themselves rich. It will always be important to resist those. Their message is always the same, however they try to soften it:

Pay me or die.

It's the whole basis of the Enron way of life. And it's a crime.

All forms of competition

All forms of competition increase costs.

The only purpose of today's economic competition is to collectivize and colonize the economy into the hands and under the control of a small group of multinational corporations with the perceived power of imaginary capital.

The biggest cause of all these problems is this hysterical propaganda, swallowed by the public, to be "more competitive", which includes the licencing of grand theft by certain sectors.

If somebody steals a few dollars worth of goods from a store, it is a criminal offence. But if the bank "creates" enough capital for him to buy a chain of stores, or automate production systems with huge increases of energy inputs, and fire hundreds, or thousands, so he can steal the wages of the fired employees, that's "good competitiveness" and even "growth of the GDP.

Workers have to be laid off, or fired at times, for a great number of legitimate reasons, but when a profitable business fires workers "to cut costs" or to "restructure", and especially when they raise prices at the same time and pay millions of the stolen monies to their executives, that's crime and theft.

One of my neighbours just told me that the prices of the best calves are down to around .90 cents a pound, while, as we know, meat prices are rising in the stores.

This means that hundreds of ranchers will be ruined this year again by the conspiracy of the multinational corporate mafia who control the feedlots, and generally the global food supply, and decide what will be paid to producers and charged in the stores.

This is not competition, but a crime wave, legalized, endorsed and blessed by governments.

Until these crooks are stopped, their criminal actions will increase until they enslave the world, especially now with the proposed SPP, bringing on the "free movement of labour", planning to flood North America with Mexicans ruined and destituted by the NAFTA racket.

Ed Deak.

In the end

Poverty is an easily addressed problem. In my view.

Most of the world, far more than half, is poor according to various definitions - relative in some cases, absolute in others.

In the past 30-odd years the amount of the world's wealth which is being held by fewer and fewer individuals has become so concentrated that some 96% of it is now in the hands of less than 2% of the world's overall population.

Solving poverty here in Canada is the simplest thing in the world. Change the tax structure - solving it for the rest of humanity is equally simple - remove from the levers of economic power the bony fingers of economic monopolistic capitalism. A transfer of wealth from the few rich nations to the many poor ones - combined with a change in the consumption patterns of the nations in which many of the wealthiest 1% live would not only remake the world - it would save it.

Even if the very rich had the will to do it themselves they won't.

You can read about one proposal for a mechanism they could use to do that here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(This used to be only available to subscribers but the NYTimes has now made some of their archives available to anyone.)

Sadly, it won't happen. In fact, I don't think 'charity' is the way to approach this...but, just from a practical point of view - to ascertain how relatively easily it would be for the west and the wealthy to 'deal' with world poverty - it is an eye-opener.

Red is the color of....

“it is hard to even get their notice when they are told of such excresences as the Exxon exec receiving a > $400 million retirement gift.”

It could be, because ‘they’ are rational enough to recognize as fact, that every penny of the > $400 million has been handed over, voluntarily, by consumers like and including themselves. If the shareholders are willing to pay this kind of money, who really gives a rat’s derriere? If we wanted no part of this scenario, we could have walked instead of buying their product, no?

“When you call a 23 year old man a "leech" because his life is lived outside your philosophical comfort zone…”

Comfort zone, nothing doing. It would be, when he lives at my expense. He is someone else’s child, so they can pay. My kids earn their keep, and not because they sailed into pampered positions; they each carved their own way and are still doing it. I agree with the sentiment.

“Everyone born deserves to live. Even if they piss you off. …..Everyone who hungers must eat. Whether they obey your dictates or not.”

- says who??
- Not Karl Marx. His input was that ‘He who will not work should not be fed.’

“mug-wamp”?? I know! You’re taking revenge for my Danish address in another blog by speaking a language you believe I don’t understand. So, you think I’m a fence-sitter? Maybe I’m just ‘outside your philosophical comfort zone’, yes? However, I do know that the revolution does not need sympathetic doctors, and that another meaning of ‘mugwamp’ is “someone intelligent (far) beyond their education”. I will dismiss that one, since you cannot know how far my education goes. Yet another reference has it that “'Mugwamp' is an endearment among Sasquatches”. Eh? You haven’t seen my feet, so that is likely a non-starter. I’ll stack my chips that you’re going with this one:

Classical liberal=paleo conservative.
Current liberal =neo fascist.
Progressive =current lib in drag.
Neo conservative =mugwamp.

While I would normally appreciate the quest for linguistic diversity, I do prefer insults I do not need a dictionary for. Seeing red (ha, ha) is not a process easily done in a step-wise fashion. Just for you, I will reveal a pertinent piece of my murky past. This is where I grew up:

http://www.dr.dk/Regioner/Nord/Billedserier/2006/20060501155306.htm?PagePos=1

When I was a kid, my father would have been one of the banner-bearers, and the youngsters would not be in the parade, but gawking on the sidewalks. You will notice, that the day is May 1st, and the banners are red. No wimpy ‘labour day’ picnics there. (but plenty of beer and talk afterwards, in accord with the old ways). What can I say? I am , as is everyone, my father's daughter. Easy categorizations are inferior to real argument, no?

It's a beautiful red

Dear Dorothy; Thank you for Marx's input. Most people agree now that the culture that was built from his words kept slaves, so your point is good, though I can't quite follow it's direction.

I would like to hear you restate your argument above without using the word "pay". The gist of this whole discussion seems to be on one side that the poor cannot ever "pay" for food, shelter or anything else, so should not have them. The fact that without these things humans must soon die, and are dying every day is always omitted from consideration.

On the other side, that since only a small minority of humans are able to be "producers", and only producers produce, then they must produce for all. If they do, then the contributions of the others, non-commercial those may be, will then be available, and will probably surprize us all. If they don't, many will die.

Why do the producers seem to be so angry at the idea that people without their talents might also benefit from their work?

I congratulate you on your own productive capacities. I congratulate you on your wonderful children. You sound rightly proud of them. I suspect that the idea of making them pay for their childhood milk and cookies rarely came up.

So you provided for them because they are your own. This shows that you really do believe that some categories of unproductive people must be supported, and that if they are supported well enough, they will eventually probably contribute something, that being the nature of life.

It's not really such a stretch to ask you to expand your categories enough to include everybody, is it?

I suppose the Exxon chairman

I suppose the Exxon chairman was a "producer" on a large scale, that's how and the scores of executives with multimilion dollar salaries "deserve" what they steal from the public's pocket ? Let's hear the justification of this grand theft.

Funny thing is, I have the education, the training in academic, art, trades, and have been working 7 day workweeks all my life. The last time I remember having had a so called holiday was 3 days of camping at Osoyoos around 1968, don't drink or smoke, have no so called bad habits that I know of, have had several businesses since 1957, and have virtually nothing in the bank.

Some of my neighbours are sitting on hundreds and thousands of acres of land, have hundreds of cattle, also work 7 day weeks, on call for 7/24, their bodies are broken from work, falls from horses, and are going broke, because of the "producer" middlemen are stealing us blind, as they do the whole world.

This has nothing to do with Marx, as our brainwashed friends always claim, but the realities of any and all economic theories, including Marx's that can be twisted into slavery and mass murder, as neoclassical market capitalism is used now, killing tens of millions every year.

How about quoting the "invisible hand of the self interest" theory of Adam Smith and I'll be happy to quote, verbatim, what he really said, how the crooks have distorted it and how it is now being taught in our universities into the justification and legalization of theft and murder?

The only difference between the slavery under Marxism and now under market capitalism is that the communists have used the power of weapons, while today's crooks are using the perceived power of imaginary money, created by banks to take over the properties, children and lives of billions.

By the way, I have seen the real face of Marxism, have lost many friends to it, fought against it for 45 years and have the scars to prove it, unlike some brainwashed ideologues who may have read about it in some books.

Ed Deak.

poverty - issues

Poor people in BC, as a percentage of their regional populations, are over-represented by these specific groups:

1. Children
2. Disabled
3. Rural
4. Single mothers
5. Aboriginal

The least represented groups are people:

1. with advanced educations
2. with high IQs
3. with wealthy parents
4. who are empty-nesters (aged 55-64).

Greater Vancouver and the Capital Region, though they have larger "visible" impoverished populations, have it better than most regions in the province. About 1.1 % of Vancouverites are on Social Assistance. 1.1 in 100 is not a great fraction when one considers how hard it is for many to live in the world. The East Side is where places to live and congregate are available for many poor Vancouver people, and it is easy to see that there are great numbers of poor people in Vancouver by going to the East Side.

I believe that housing for the underpriviledged needs to be created throughout the city - North Van, West Van, Point Grey, Burnaby - you name it. This housing and social assistance should be provided in a way that is proportional to the average earnings and holdings of the people who live in those areas. In this way, wealthy people can show their compassion and their understanding that life is probably not as easy for some as it is for them. All people deserve to feel like they are part of the greater community, and the community around them needs to feel as though all of its people fit into the community.

$513 a month is a ridiculously small amount of money to provide to a disabled person. The average rent in Greater Vancouver seems to be about $1000 per month. In some areas it is over $2000 per month. It is bad enough that a person has a disability, as the services for many of the disabled are in the big cities, we need to provide space for them to live in the big cities.

To those who want to blame the poor for being poor, it has been my experience in working with people living in poverty, the vast majority of them would like to have a different life. Most either grew up this way and have known nothing else, or they have a disabling condition that keeps them from being able to compete in our highly competitive capitalist world. In this incredibly wealthy nation of ours, we can do a better job of sharing. We can do a much better job of feeding and housing and educating everyone. We can do a better job of showing compassion. It hurts no-one to share with others if we all share together.

If using pot is turning 1/5 of Canadians into criminals, we need to regulate it like we do alcohol. This would do much for reducing money spent on convicting and housing people of a "crime". The money could be better spent on dealing with the reasons people want to escape from reality - to self medicate.

minimum wage

If increasing the minimum wage will make it unaffordable for businesses to remain in buisness, then we need to provide subsidies on a sliding scale based upon the income for businesses that will be adversely effected. These subsidies can be slowly phased out over time. Once a reasonable minimum wage has been created, the minimum needs to be reassessed and linked to the cost of housing, food and necessities on a yearly basis.

For Bailey

“Why do the producers seem to be so angry at the idea that people without their talents might also benefit from their work?”

Not angry. Unable to see any line of circumscription of the demands. There are any number of contingencies of people not only in our society, but worldwide, who represent failed exploits of entrepreneurs, such as people with empirialistic aspirations and economic experimenters; as well, we see the deplorable results of religious dogma high-handedly imposed on native cultures, robbing them of their harmony with the land and the knowledge of the checks and balances required to live on it without destroying it by over-breeding, e.g. in the valley where the ancient city of Coban once flourished, there are now the same number of people living there as then, and growing corn, and well on their way to deplete the soil once again, so there will be starvation and breakdown.

My question is: How many other people are we responsible for? Where will you draw the line, if anywhere? Is the newest wave of political correctness bandied about by Bill Gates and others not simply a fear of losing the unending supply of cheap labor, and therefore immensely self-serving? I would not mind going to a community dinner and forking over $200 for some worthy cause along with my dinner, if I am told up front that those are the terms, but I don’t remember anything being mentioned about fundraisng for the poor and sick in Africa, when I bought my Windows 3.11, 98, or XP. I therefore consider that Bill G. has acted dishonorably in his pricing policies, and has in fact collected taxes for which he had no mandate. I think he should refund his customers instead of affecting largesse and taking credit for it.

to be continued...

continuation of comment

Benefiting from my work? Of course people do, or they would not employ me. The benefit they are entitled to is what is in my contract and job description. I can say I never deliver less, and usually go the extra mile. As far as talent goes, I subscribe to the norm, that between 6 and 60, you either work, look for work, or take training or school. I have carried newspapers, chopped salad, and scrubbed hotel bathrooms and urinals. I do hold a university degree, but I do not consider any honest work beneath me, and do whatever work I do to the best of my ability. My children certainly paid for their milk and cookies. They baked the cookies and cleaned up after themselves, and they shopped for both ingredients and milk. We were never wealthy, so priorities had to be made. We carefully distingusihed between the things that would make a difference in their lives ten years down the road, and those that wouldn’t. They mostly wore second-hand clothing, but they had hiking boots and skis which fit them and were of good quality, and we spent our vacations hiking the backroads and camping. We never went to Disneyland, but by the time they were teens, I could have dropped any of my kids off in the boonies in October, and they would have survived. Recently, when someone at a convention handed me a cute circle map of ‘things you can do for the environment’, I had to laugh out loud: Our family had always done every single one of them, plus quite a few that weren’t on there.

'Support' doesn’t mean to max out one’s credit card in a sentimental fit, as in the American Express ads. It means to model a value set which will carry through tough as well as good times.

And that is why I have a problem with these uncritical demands for ‘compassion’, where we are just supposed to open our wallets and let the stuff roll. They fall far short of the mark!

How tough will you tolerate?

Life is a complicated affair. There are few lines which can be found again, if you look away for a while. And those there are are not drawn by me. Where do you draw yours?

Tough times are exactly what this is all about. You think you follow the norm only because the circumstances of your life have been such that your vision is blocked.

While you have been 'working, looking for work, or studying' millions, maybe tens of millions have been murdered, enslaved, deprived of basic needs by warlords and pirates, most of whom are quite corporate looking these days. Driven from their homes. I think if we started counting that might turn out to be hundreds of millions.

Maybe not in your neighbourhood or mine. But still. These are already pretty tough times, Dorothy. The philosophies under discussion here are all really nothing but smokescreens, hiding the realities of their own consequences.

If you want to know who's been doing the hiding, follow the money.

Out of courtesy, I'll attempt to answer your question. I admit it's a speculation, but I have experience with speculation, so I bet you I'm right.

We are all responsible for our own delightful selves. For all children. For the widows and orphans. For those who struggle and weep. For the beautiful people and the ugly ones. The smart and the dull. For the poor and for the rich and the lost and the ones who are still in hiding. For nourishing the hopes and dreams of the hopeful and the dreamers, for comforting fears and helping dreams come true. For rendering unto the least of these.

This is our world, Dot. We're all of us responsible for everything that crosses our paths, as long as we live. Could it be otherwise?

well said, Bailey

And, if I may, Bailey: the greater the wealth and power that one holds is proportional to one's responsibility to take responsibility. There are no do-overs in life - one's actions are either noble or they are selfish.

Tyeing up loose ends...

"This is our world, Dot. We're all of us responsible for everything that crosses our paths, as long as we live..."

Everything that crosses our path? So, why do you chastise me for not seeing things, i. e. ‘blocked vision’? Not everyone crosses my path. Do you want me to go out in the World and look for multiple miseries, so I can feel righteous about ‘feeling responsible’ for them? Is that what you do? And how do you act on all this sense of responsibility? I think I am entitled to ask, since you endeavour to patronise me. If that stretches you courtesy too far, I am sorry.

It seems to me you could run the risk, with such an abolutist view, to end up in some sort of cop-out, given the virtually limitless magnitude of the responsibility. With all the complexity, as you so rightly say, which surrounds us, I have done best by taking on limited, defined commitments, bite-sized so to speak, where I can actually monitor whether I get the work done or not.

With or without courtesy, I will answer your implied question, which I neglected to do before:

"Thank you for Marx's input. Most people agree now that the culture that was built from his words kept slaves, so your point is good, though I can't quite follow it's direction."

Put that there in order to point out, that both ends of the 'ism' spectrum actually agree on this, so there is no grounds for slapping the neocon label on those who subscribe to it.

I wish to make clear that I have never been, nor am I now, a Marxist. My home tradition was and is grounded in Social Democrat thinking, worker's rights, which Ed Deak provided for his staff without any brainless battle, for which reason he likely never had to deal with shop stewards. A fair day's wages for a fair day's work, I think is the deal. That, and being treated with dignity.

Personally, I do not carry the flag of any 'ism', but rather I subscribe to the Golden Rule, and in addition try to be as pragmatic as I am able to on my way through life, for I believe this is less messy than any other choice.

I'd only add

That there are a lot of ways to measure value.

Vincent Van Gogh didn't sell a single painting during his 'miserable' life.

Recent studies of Chimpanzee communities are actually very interesting.

Frans B. M. de Waal at Emory University has been involved in this important work, which looks closely at how primate behavior is not so different from human behavior. Perhaps the chimps can teach us something too.

I thought it was worth posting, what do you think?

http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/pdf_attachments/altruism_plosprimer07.pdf

Ending Poverty

I loved this when I first read it and still do.

It may be short on analysis but I think it's long on substance when it comes to explaining what causes poverty.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote this poem, a brief elegy for his friend and fellow writer, Joseph Heller:

Joe Heller

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace!"

--Kurt Vonnegut

Neighbourhoods and villages

I think that the concept of neighbourhood - even the concept of family - in these times of so-called global markets (economically speaking at least) is due for a big expansion.

That business about altruism not extending much past the local street corner or one’s extended family is a central tenet in feminist philosophy...I'd say that it is probably its weakest point too.

I see talking heads on TV everyday completely obsessed with what Britney Spears or Tom Cruise is doing with their 'personal' lives.

Surely, given some media and governmental leadership and a rekindled sense of empathy and human value we could do a hell of a lot better than watch as people are being bulldozed by the military in Burma...I'm not suggesting we invade any more than I wanted us in Iraq but there are ways – did you know Canada buys far more from Burma than they purchase from us – among which, apparently, brassieres. Maybe, just maybe, if every woman returned their made in Burma underwear to their retailer it would begin to get the point across.

But first we have to give a shit.

My problem is that if we don't give a damn about whether or not our next-door neighbour lives or dies - when we have the power and the resources to actually do something positive about their situation (even something as dumb-assed as the Food Stamps the Americans have used for two generations) - and suggest that it's perfectly ok to sit on our hands and do nothing except when our own kin are involved - then we are in very bad shape as a culture.

call it neighbour hood or community

That's the point I was making earlier in my "poverty-issues" post, G West. I used the word "communities" to imply neighbourhoods. Further, I believe that exclusive neighbourhoods need to be made more inclusive. I believe that Point Grey needs to provide living spaces for and include homeless people in their neighbourhoods. I believe they need community potlucks. Until one actually lives with people of all races, social statures, and beliefs, one has a greater chance of pointing blaming, fearing and/or feeling superior to others.

Pumping more money on to the

Pumping more money on to the poverty fire by reconfiguring welfare rates, raising minimum wages and building more affordable housing certainly won’t extinguish it. It may suppress or contain it momentarily (letting the smoke clear just long enough to delude those focusing on Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics into thinking all is well in Campbell land) but given the way corporations are constructing societies, globally, it will be status quo in a very short period of time thereafter.

Folks, from the moment they are born, are being trained to see the world the way corporations and institutions want them to see it. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply a failure to recognize we are being hoaxed about things like status, beauty, the importance of wealth, the collection of material things, and on it goes … The end result is that nobody wants to be the first to give up what they have in order to make way for a more egalitarian world.

For the longest time I believed that folks like Suzuki, Alexandra Morton, Naomi Klein and Al Gore (although he’s no surprise), weren’t deconstructing problems associated with forestry, fishery, mining and the corporate raison d’etre deeply enough to become aware of root causes. If they did they would recognize they were simply dealing with symptoms, not causes. But it dawned on me (I'm a slow learner) that they don’t want to look too closely and get past the symptoms; they might see themselves in the list of perpetrators.

The problem is far removed from fraudulent economic systems (capitalism or communism or any other ism) creating inequities in wealth distribution. Even if Evo Morales and the barking dog are successful in organizeing movements “that will defend life, defend humanity”, and “bring ownership, management and direction into line with this reality”, those measures won’t save the earth unless there is a coresponding change in how societies are trained to think.

And therein lies the key. But you can bet there are more than a couple of powerful institutions (the Church being one of the most destructive) that will do whatever it takes to make sure people think as distortionally as possible. Good and bad aren’t realities; they’re simply cues in the conditioning process.

Who will pay?

The same people that don't mind paying for war and interest on a currency scam. Getting rid of these two costs would leave plenty to provide everybody with a living wage whether they entered into indentured servitude or not. There would be a lot less stress and more security all the way around.

Being productive is part of the problem, since productivity is only measured by how much it contributes to the GNP. If productivity was measured in terms of social capital, rather than economic capital, many of the elites and wannabes would be seen as the biggest leaches of the batch.

I'm doing my little part, keeping as informed as I can, while contributing as little towards the economy as possible. It keeps me happy.

Wow

Seeing as you contribute as little as possible to the economy, which pays for welfare, and you're so concerned about the poor then what is it you do to help them? How much Social Capital do you invest and what is it? Do you even pay your own way?

different system for different folks

I think that people on either side of the issue are making one false assumption, namely that all people are fair. That's nto true! Whether or not this trait is acquired or not, we should maybe make countries, regions based on what people want or believe. Those who cannot live without thinking of buying another SUV to feel better or show off,... should be compensated to live on one region where people live in competition against each other. These 2 systems or region should not be in competion. One region or many that have the same type of philosophy. When we will recognize that they are some people who are greedy and competitive,... more or less so than others,... and other are less,... then and only then we can build societies that are suiting people.

Well, ED, I grew up in the

Well, ED, I grew up in the 30's to 50's in Vancouver, and like you my recollection of those times is that doors were never locked, burglaries a front-page item in the Sun, and in our neigbourhood a stolen bike a thing to evoke cries of "What is the world coming to?"

Crime, as we knew it, was something that happened in "downtown" Vancouver, and for a successful business-person to be appointed to a Government post was seen as a singular honour, as a "dollar-a-year man", his probity was beyond question.

Following WW2, things began to change. In the mid-Fifties the Fascism we had theoretically gone to war to fight began to show its pre-war face again. I remember the Police Chief Walter Mulligan scandal ('55) and the subsequent cover-up and acquittal which reached into Socred Attorney General Robert Bonner's office.

Concurrent with that scandal was the Robert Sommers case when as Socred Minister of Forests, he was convicted of accepting bribes in the granting of Tree Farm Licences. Though he was the first Cabinet Minister in Commonwealth history to be so convicted, many thought then, and still do, he was just the fall-guy.

The great unrest of the 60's followed retiring President Eisenhower's warning:

"In powering the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."..... President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation - Jan 16th 1961

Following the Sixties and early Seventies, the Corporate Fascists closed ranks and re-emerged with a media firmly under their control, and which - for all practical purposes - remains so.

The point of recounting this old history is to answer those who think the near total disregard for honesty and human welfare by our business-dominated Fascist governments which seems to be generally accepted by the public, can be attributed to the constant neocon propaganda which is fed the public, even in our entertainment.

In short then, those "naieve" pro-human values which came out of the Depression, and which were reinforced during WW2 when anti-social actions such as hoarding were held to be aiding the enemy, have been dashed by seeing abusers of those values rewarded, and replaced by Neocon propaganda designed to convince us that the only real values flow out of an accounting of how many toys we've acquired.

In that situation, why should we care if politicians or Corporations lie and cheat? Who cares just as long as they deliver the toys??

Have our religions - always partners with ruling elites - failed us??

Me2, We moved to Vancouver

Me2,

We moved to Vancouver in May 1955 and remember both the Mulligan and Sommers cases very well. I believe Sommers became a piano tuner after he was released from jail.

A few years back I read a paper by a Chicago U law professor, who went into great detail arguing that it is perfectly OK for a corporation to break laws, as long as the fines are less than the profits gained.

Right now there are scores of multimillion dollar fines imposed on large corporations,
Boeing was hit with $50. million recently, Wal-Mart has hundreds of them, without any criminal records, publicity, or trials, by "business friendly" governments. At the same time petty thieves are jailed.

This is nothing less than the legalizing of crime, and if it is OK for one sector, what and who can stop anybody following their example?

In my time as a custom furniture designer and maker in Vancouver, from 1955 to 79, I have circulated among the high and mighty and seen enough of what's going on behind the scenes with tax deductible call girls, "hospitality suites", dinners, etc. Remember the case, when an executive shot his wife's head off with a shotgun, because of her hospitality suite activities? I knew them and the suite very well.

Does anybody believe that when Jimmy takes out his yacht with the world's VIPs, or the costs of his palatial compound, are paid from his own pocket? Like hell!. All those and thousands of other cases are paid for by the taxpayers. I have seen how it is done.

If anybody wants to see some real "social housing" coming out of taxes, go up and look around the British Properties and Shaughnessy. I worked in enough of them, paid by corporations as tax deductible expenses, beside their own trades people on corporate payrolls.

And then people are arguing whether the minimum wage should be raised a couple of bucks, while the big crooks are raking in billions from the public's pocket?

Some of the $400. million golden handshake to the Exxon Chairman came out of the $900.
I paid last month to fill up my farm fuel tank, so I can raise calves at .70 to .90 cents a pound, when years ago we would get $1.40 or .50. Now look at the profits the feedlots make on ranchers' blood.

Ed Deak.

Murdock

I feel you draw dangerous conclusions in your first post. If I were sure you were being ornery, I'd say you were posting "straw-man" arguments to make a caring opponent look bad, but on the off-chance you are that caring person you think you are, here are reasonable answers to your first post.

"1 – Increasing income assistance:
non-starter. Consider what 'income for a lifetime' has done to the morality of the native populations within the 'reserve' system in Canada? Rather than doling out $$$, why not start with a better view of education? One that is not tied to everyone's children being 'sent off' to state run schools? Thus cutting off the supply of those whom will 'income assistance'?"

Income is useless without something to purchase. With most natives living on reserves well out of the mainstream of society, with no stores to purchase things at, no way to get goods to market, assuming they could start businesses, no possibility of utilizing this new concept of "land ownership" foisted on them by Western 'civilization' by means of mortgaging their own property (forbidden by the Indian Act) it is no wonder they're not the model for society we'd not hoped they'd be.

Education - in any language - is useless without opportunity. The point has been adequately made that children of wealthy parents have more opportunities to increase their wealth. The social capital of well-connected parents is always discounted, but is nevertheless a non-taxed form of wealth handed down to kids to be squandered or invested. The tragedy is that so many kids growing up since the 1960s feels that this social capital is a result of their own superior intelligence or hard work, rather than a lucky cast of the genetic lottery. And this is the echo in your words that troubles me most.

...more

And...

"2 - Removing barriers to getting assistance:
Insane!
This is just another path to Plato's Republic, where everyone is a 'servant' to the state, since they would be 'connected to' the income stream that was stolen from all the others. What happens when there are more on the dole than off?"

Insane? Why should there be barriers to getting assistance to conduct your basic affairs (let's recognize there is a genuine debate about what qualifies as valid assistance) of food, shelter, medical treatment, education and employment opportunity? There is no breath of making everyone a "servant to the state" and you are rude to suggest so.

By definition, income assistance is means-tested, and there would be no way that more people could be on the dole than off. Poverty is defined as being below a minimum income standard on a Bell curve below which the aforementioned basics of life are not possible. If you do not understand this, you do not understand the complexity of the market forces that hold in check supply and demand, and thus underpin the notion of capitalism. Your argument echoes the Fraser Institute's 2001 study which notes that wealth accumulation is not a zero-sum game, when in fact economic scarcity defines that it is. This is what is distrustful about their work - their promotion of neo-capitalism as a wealth-generator for all disregards the view of the selfish man, the one who acts solely in his own interest, and further distorts the basics of economic theory that most markets (ie most people) adhere to. Their theories may be great theories, but they always have an excuse as to why they didn't work in that situation or the other one....

Besides, if wealth accumulation were not a zero-sum game as they say, you would not fear the increased numbers on the welfare rolls, as the wealth generated by society would always be enough to pay for it. And yet you knew instinctively that that wasn't true.

Although....

"3 – Removing the 100 per cent clawback on additional income:
Of all the ideas given, this one makes the most sense.
This, would at least, encourage those on 'assistance' to find a way out."

Perhaps here we agree.

But....

"4 – Raising the minimum wage:
Not required.
All this would do is -wipe out- the starting businesses, something that is hard enough as it is.
Those of needed skills - especially the trades when they are in short supply - will be able to COMMAND their own rate.
Yet another reason to not become such a specialist that you are 'put out to pasture' the day after your specialty gets automated."

Any business that requires the subsidy of its employees in order to conduct business does not deserve to be in business. Once again, the free market, appropriately advised, will determine the fair price of any product, service or good sold on the market. If McBurgers are uneconomic at double the current minimum wage, it is because the market has been encouraged to artificially value them too low. I've often thought we pay too little for our food, but there has been a tremendous marketing effort to get us to pay less for our food on the premise that it is a commodity equally as nourishing and fun to eat when you pay very little for it as when you pay more for it.

Of course, that's why we all go out to McDonald's on our special anniversaries, isn't it?

Illogical bunch, we humans.

Of course, we have learned to play the same game. We occasionally hold our labour for ransom and sometimes demand wages in excess of what a truly free market would bear. But business has more tools and subsidies than individuals and can thus play that game to win, and does.

Yet when business is bad, wages plummet along with employment figures, and business is first in line to demand additional subsidies from employees to conduct business. Nice work if you can get it.

First steps to correct this require a complete revamping of the tax system to remove tax on things society deems as good, such as personal income, and funds used for productivity upgrading or education either by individuals or businesses. Taxation should be implemented on stale capital (interest or dividends), pollution and waste, businesses that do not produce a durable good (brokerages of any sort whether stock market, mortgage, or marketing), business that rely on artifical restrictions or monopolies, such as real-estate sales, and excess income (defined as total monetary reward in excess of x times the amount of the lowest-paid worker in the company).

This may have the unintended effect of making the harmful market-distorting corporate structure obsolete, but that's a discussion for another time and place.

Most excellent posts here

Greed is the spawn of ownership, bred by prestige and pride. It is nothing more than this... and most certainly nothing less.

And whether or not humanity follows God or Godlessness, the issue of tackling Greed and that greed spawns including poverty and war, is a moral one. A humanitarian one. An issue that clear cut defines the issue and existence of right... and wrong. The destruction of environments and the life substained by them, does not hide or lie. The evidence is there.

We know that the issues of ownership, prestige and pride, are not only micro or individualistic, but also macro... belonging to groups. And in this age, groups have perfected their bid to ownership, prestige and pride, through the corporate economy of capitalism. And they are the names without a soul, the sons of perdition...

Did religions offer the solution to Greed, pride, prestige and the dullard gluttony of over indulgent over consumption where the insatiable appetite is never fed enough? We can lead a horse to water... but...

Who do you worship?

And do you long to be free?

For freedom, dear tyee readers, only comes through the exercise of self control... and to set free, the imprisoned will of others. And whether it be a system of government that imprisons will, or a group, religion, corporation, or merely ones self... I'll ask it again. Who do you worship? And do you long to be free?

For the lords servant is a free person. And there are no laws of God that chain. But when you break them... they'll chain you. And for anyone who seeks the truth of it, there is no paradigm shift that comes quick enough to hide through illusions, slavery unto disfunctional beliefs. Its all as transparent as glass.

Lorne Mccuaig
Revelstoke, BC

And once more....

"5 – Building 2000 units of affordable housing per year:
In Vancouver?!?
This man is insane!
The province has plenty of 'crown land' that is located all over the province. By teaming up with organizations like habitat for humanity and other such foundations, the 'homeless' in Vancouver can be found HOMES elsewhere in BC. Why must the provincial or civic coffers be emptied to build homes for those whom are unwilling to build for themselves?"

Insane? Same reason the First Nations have done so badly (comment 1) is the reason why this wouldn't work. Shipping the poor out to the margins removes them forever from the possibility of gaining the opportunity to make a success of their lives. A communist country would ship the rich out to the margins to level the playing field somewhat - be thankful we do neither here in this country of ours.

Free-market forces are nevertheless continually encouraging this trend, and that is why it is so important to resist the free-market forces in this area. Because land cannot be created in order to increase the wealth of society, our notion of private property distorts the way the housing market works by attaching a competitive price to everything that utilizes land, whether it has utility to society or not.

A garbage dump has more utility to society than does a stock brokerage office, yet the office is valued higher, and by virtue of its monopoly and anti-competitive tax regime, can bid up the price of its office beyond that of the garbage dump.

If we're going to hold to the notion that private property ownership is a good (and I submit that any change here would be too big a shock to any society to reasonably absorb without considerably more thought) then we have to allow, as they do in much of Europe and certain parts of Asia, for those that are intrinsically unable to enter that market.

Social housing is not ownership and you are venal to suggest so with your last comment. Nobody is unwilling to build. EVerybody who has a place of their own wants to improve it. One who does not OWN the land is not PERMITTED to build - that is called squatting, even if you pay rent.

Turkey talk.....

...just a short post to say how much i have enjoyed and been educated by the many of the posts on this column.

Happy Thanksgiving-A time to celebrate our local food!

Thank you...

“Did religions offer the solution to Greed, pride, prestige and the dullard gluttony of over indulgent over consumption where the insatiable appetite is never fed enough?”

Some do, mostly indigenous ancient traditions, where you find that the ones that left written records have severe warnings against greed, as well as many wise statements about what really counts in life.

If you saw either The Thirteenth Warrior, or Beowulf and Grendel, the background culture is Norse, and the famous last words of Beowulf are, that he is happy to be remembered as a man who ‘never slew a kinsman’. Nothing about having accumulated any material gain or built any castles, or even gotten a single endorsement contract, but today, 1700 years after his likely death, we still remember him, maybe precisely for that reason.

The Norse scriptues, which I know best, the Havamal particularly, has numerous warnings and admonitions against hoarding wealth, even a very explicit reminder that ‘gold makes men mad’. The underlying philosophy asserts that ‘something only truly belongs to you, in the moment you give it away’.

I do not worship anyone or anything, and I believe the question was ‘rhetorical’, but I also think it is fundamental, and each human being must answer it for him- or herself, or their life has no meaning. We might remember, that the quest in the Grail myth is not to find an answer, but to pose a question, and the question is “Whom does the grail serve?”

Maybe this is all the new model requires. That we find the right question to ask, before we do any single thing, and if the question cannot be answered in accord with whatever else we know as truth, we should look for other choices in our actions. For “This above all: To thine own self be true. It follows, as surely as night follows day, you cannot then be false to any man.”

It seems to me, that everything we are troubling with here has that one thing in common: Falsehood. We are surrounded by ‘the people of the lie’, and the truth shall set us free.

Very Happy thanksgiving to everyone, thanks for sharing thoughts and personal experience, each one is giving a gift beyond price by doing so.

such an angry Happy

Seeing as you contribute as little as possible to the economy, which pays for welfare, and you're so concerned about the poor then what is it you do to help them? How much Social Capital do you invest and what is it? Do you even pay your own way?

I sense that Happy was motivated by an outrage that somebody would not value the Mammonist values that s/he holds so dear. This reminded me of a Canwest editorial a few years back just prior to the two year welfare limit, which stated that it didn't have a problem with the disabled, or with those that were in a temporary bad way but desired permanent employment, but was enraged at the "activist" types that were being enabled by welfare.

I identify myself primarily as an activist engaged against the corporate agenda to take control over every single aspect of our lives. I don't do much for the poor directly; I never give money to panhandlers but occasionally I'll make up a batch of sandwiches and hand them out, and I try to set a good example by being happy while living a life of voluntary simplicity.

Social capital is much harder to quantify than economic capital, it's more a qualitative thing which is something economics doesn't relate to at all unless it can put a dollar value on it. For me it mainly consists of: building up social relations with other activists and organizations; participating in public forums, demonstrations and government open houses; continuing development of my own social consciousness; researching and evaluating the news that the main stream media doesn't cover but should; and there are a few groups that I do volunteer work for. For me the question right now is not doing something different, but doing what I do more effectively.

continued

I'm not in favor of the current welfare system, which isn't driven by any compassion but rather is a form of insurance to keep the bottom end of the class warfare from rising open revolt and eating the elite. Our total system is one based on control and domination to prevent this from happening. People are either kept so busy on the rat race that they don't have time to think or participate in the governance of society, or they are kept so poor and stressed in survival mode that they don't have the ability to participate in the governance of society.

At a public forum on Economics and Global Justice held here in Vancouver 16 months ago, Stefano Zamagni, professor of economics at the University of Bologna, showed data indicating that there was a correlation between income and happiness up to a value of $10,000 per year. This is only half the poverty line, and a guaranteed annual income of this level would allow more people to participate and contribute to our society. However, this is contrary to the desires of the ruling class.

As for paying my own way, hard to say. I'm retired on a $900 a month pension, of which I donate ten percent to the church and activist groups that have no other source of funding. It's enough and it keeps my ecological footprint small enough that I can live with it. I've already done my time in the corporate world, thank you very much.

Interesting...

Interesting comments, and an element in the poverty piece no doubt, Zalm. I have always had great respect for your writing here.

There is doubtless in play here, as yet not sufficiently studied so far as I know, by way of at least a partial explanation for the intractability of "class" issues, an Alpha male and female vs Beta males and females element. Which tends to act to make the working class servile and obedient, and more accepting of their "lot in life"-, with exception to the rule revolts occurring occasionally, when the so-called Alpha element of society finally goes way, way too far, such that they arouse "sufficient" opposition.

It has been said, to which Fait Lux has occasionally seemed to point in some of his ideological treatise, though he would deny their ideological character likely, advertently or inadvertently, that all the wars in history have been fought by the Beta males, for, on the part of and serving the interests and diktats of Alpha male/female ruling society. To which, in my view, there is a large likelihood of truth.

The division of society into classes is a large part, even the larger direct part, of the explanation for the internal greed driven conflict and inequalities within human society, no doubt, BUT I think that there is at least a strong likelihood that the explanation for the existence of classes lies a great deal in this Alpha vs Beta explanation, and explains, in part, its extreme intractability, even in the face of extreme provocation by the ruling "Alpha" classes.

At least it is my "suspicion" that this may be the biological, hormonal, "chemistry" background social reformers and revolutionaries are working against here, and as the part of the background element explaiaining the existence of socio-economic classes in the first place. Into which your observations dovetail, in my view.

For which, other than the "empirical" evidence of course, I have no other actual proof-, known to me.

It just seems obvious to me that there has to be some "fundamental, physical based" explanation for why the working and underclass take so much shitt from ruling class society.

It seems to Beta society, shored up by the opiate of religious ideology, that this is just the way it is-, and there will be pie in the sky when you die(after you have finished loyally serving ruling Alpha society and the way God made it after all.)

Canis Latran ... well said ...especially ...

(or horoscope) I would like to add.

It is a well-known fact that the most uneducated are the most likely to believe in esoteric religion or predictions of future "systems". It is sad! I guess a good number of those believe in bingos and loteries as well! So sad! At the end of the day though, the ones that have money and power have considerable advantages.

I would also suggest that poor neighbourhoods should be getting twice as much educational services for the parents and thwe dtudents to give them better chances to get out of poverty. I would also suggest that anti-gambling and drug programs should continue to run in schools as we legalize drugs (to take out the financial gains that fuel it). Income assistance should be supported by mandatory programs to support the poorest and should be taken away if they do not want to benefit from these programs. Psychologists ands social workers, teachers and doctors should all be included. Of course, breaks should be given tot he ones that are trying the hardest to get out of poverty.

Thanks CanYs laTrans...

...but the real star of this whole effort is still Working Memory, the only one who is suggesting ways for us to actually make a difference - a difference with leverage - rather than peck at our keyboards and complain that the world will not bend itself to our indifference....