My Daughter has lived in

My Daughter has lived in Europe for the last 3 years and came home for a holiday this summer. She went down to a local cell phone store to purchase a card for her phone. It was going to cost her in the neighbourhood of $100.00 and she said forget it. In Europe it would have cost her €10.00 which is about $14.00. Now do you think that we're being ripped-off? That's why I don't have a cell phone.

Thats why after 9 years I am

Thats why after 9 years I am going back to a land line. Cell Phones are a rip off. I am getting a Shaw phone, I always wondered why they were not in the Cell market, hopefully this gives them a push.

That's a switch

Gee - someone at the Tyee is actually promoting innovation, competition and American-style entrepreneurship.

If you think cell phones are a ripoff in Canada due to government-stymied competition, think of a few other industries...like health care, air travel, satellite tv and cable, banking...I could go on.

Let me get this straight...is competition, ergo the lowest price/best service, the most desirable economic outcome?

Let's play the game WITH some rules! (1/2)

Ok! Ok! Here is a reality check for the capitalists who don't like governments!

IF all capitalists had morals, made no mistakes, and followed rules (instead of trying to find loopholes or illegal tricks), AND if the rules were fair and enforced, AND if all capitalists were truly skilled and innovative, there would FOR SURE be fewer bureaucrats and less red-tape. Unfortunately, some capitalists are just bad hockey players resorting to faking being tripped or sucker punching the best player on the opposite team. That being said, there is an abundance of bureaucrats who are also like bad hockey players! :) Mediocrity knows no bounds. Human errors is, well, human. Some people lack scruples. And, rules are sometimes unfair. Hence the notion that all games need to be refereed and that all players must use fairplay. Hence the notion of balances and checks! Hence the notion of a government withn a capitalist system.

As a true liberal (in the sense of not being a partisan because there is a party or ideology to follow it) I am all for competition, but there needs to be rules. And, we need an entity to observe that rules are respected. As such, I do not share the views of the manicheists and ultra-capitalists. We need governments and we need bureaucrats to keep in-check the unskilled and unscrupulous capitalists. How much? How many? What rules?

Let's play the game WITH some rules! (2/2)

IMO, there is good capitalism and there is bad capitalism. The one that is based on innovation and following fair rules that give all capitalists a chance to compete is the one that I favour. The thing is those rules.have given to some an unfair advantage. Many of the "successful" capitalists are NOT truly innovative AND scrupulous. They probably had a forebear that took advantage of a loophole, was lucky, and/or bought his/her way into a situation of competitive advantage,... The ones who have large capital (acquired IMO mostly unfairly) have an unfair advantage. In other words, the game has been fixed. Therein lies the problem. Because of their power, powerful capitalists can make the rules that benefits them. And, guess what, they prefer fewer rules because they have power. Maybe they are nothing more than grade 7 bullies who bullied smaller and younger kids! Then and now, they need to be dealt with!

It is clear that a capitalist like Wall-mart entrepreneurs who had a huge market to expand has more capital to outbid the competition. While it is maybe true that capitalists like Wal-mart entrepreneurs were skilled, their success is also due to their huge capital that they leveraged to destroy competition. It is clear that pro-global capitalists are nothing more than corporate colonialists who, like their forebears, conquered/developed (robbed/destroyed) regions and employed (exploited) the people. Global-neo-colonialists are not reinventing anything. They are using people of countries that are at a different level of development. They are using their capital to buy cheap land, cheap factories, cheap material, employ cheap labour and transportation system to be more competitive. How can the small capitalists really fight and win? It is my contention that capitalism to function like the purist would love it needs a government, needs red-tape, needs fair rules. It is also my contention that the system as it was set up has --is and will-- continue to move to entropy and chaos, unless there is a fundamental shift in value! What will it take? Is it possible? Do we have time? Maybe we need more drastic means. A revolution? Go rent V for Vendetta! Not my preference, surely! But, between two evils,...