Is Crusty Stunned?

Is it just me or has Crusty been hit between the eyes with a sledge hammer? I mean, she has a stunned look on her face as she trys to baffle us with BS. That's what this whole parade of promises are, BS. So as someone has already pointed out, now we have to swallow the BST? Crusty here's the facts. We've all seen LIbERal promises in the past. What are they worth? 1. See the election promises of the LIbERalS in 2001, 2005, 2009. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being completely full of lies, all are a 10. Second Crusty, we know what the HST is. It's a gift of $200,000,000 each month to the corporations and people who paid for your elections. Guess who pays it? We the taxpayers. On top of that we, the taxpayers get;
1. Hospital closures.
2. User pay fees for doctors visits.
3. User pay fees for emergency room visits (don't worry they're on the horizion).
4. Broken down infrastructure.
5. Increased user fees for post seconday education.
6. School closrures.
7. P3's out the ying yang that our childrens grand children will still be paying for.

Would you like me to go on? I don't think so Crusty, you get the picture don't you.

Hmm

Would I vote to pay $1400 in HST on my $10,000 renos or just $500.

Seems like an easy choice to make.

Fish-counter ...

/faceplant!

Fish-Counter

"because I don't like the NDP folks much either. "

Too many women?

How can Clark fulfill her

How can Clark fulfill her promise for July 1, 2012, or July 1, 2014, she may be sitting on the Opposition benches by the Fall of 2011, if she calls a Snap election?

Have no doubts, this "bold" move on her part will become a carrot during the next elections, using our money to bribe us to vote for the BC Liberals.

WHEN YES MEANS NO AND NO MEANS YES

Sounds like the rapists defense, "when she said no, I thought she meant yes". Christy must have the same lawyer as the rapist or be a rapist herself, because her no really means yes. Did I get that right? Yes? No?

HST

IF ALL IT TAKES IN BC IS GET ANOTHER OR TWO OPPOSITION PARTIES LIKE BC FIRST PARTY AND THE BLUE CONS PROVINCIALLY TO LOWER THE HST, THATS NOT BAD MAN.

SOMEBODIES FEELING THE HEAT EH!

THE HST REALLY OTTA BE 9% EH.

NOW FEDERALLY WE COULD GET ANOTHER OPOSITION PARTY OR TWO EH.

MAYBE WE END UP WITH BETTER MONEY MANAGEMENT AND JOB CREATION EH.

THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF A REAL THREAT WHEN THE BOYS (MLA'S AND MP'S) JOBS ARE ON THE LINE EH.

SORTA LIKE AN OSAMA BIN LADEN THING EH.

LETS SEE HOW ALL THIS ICE HOLE STUFF PLAYS OUT EH.

YOU CAN BET THE TAXPAYER WILL WIN IN THE SHORT TERM UNTIL DA THREAT IS ELIMINATED EH.

A REAL CLUSTER F--K AND CIRCLE JERK OF SORTS IN CANADA EH.

Quote: IF ALL IT TAKES IN BC

Quote:
IF ALL IT TAKES IN BC IS GET ANOTHER OR TWO OPPOSITION PARTIES LIKE BC FIRST PARTY AND THE BLUE CONS PROVINCIALLY TO LOWER THE HST, THATS NOT BAD MAN.

SOMEBODIES FEELING THE HEAT EH!

THE HST REALLY OTTA BE 9% EH.

NOW FEDERALLY WE COULD GET ANOTHER OPOSITION PARTY OR TWO EH.

MAYBE WE END UP WITH BETTER MONEY MANAGEMENT AND JOB CREATION EH.

THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF A REAL THREAT WHEN THE BOYS (MLA'S AND MP'S) JOBS ARE ON THE LINE EH.

SORTA LIKE AN OSAMA BIN LADEN THING EH.

LETS SEE HOW ALL THIS ICE HOLE STUFF PLAYS OUT EH.

YOU CAN BET THE TAXPAYER WILL WIN IN THE SHORT TERM UNTIL DA THREAT IS ELIMINATED EH.

A REAL CLUSTER F--K AND CIRCLE JERK OF SORTS IN CANADA EH.

Looks like someone forgot to take their med's
today.

bob1964, realistickman, Fish-counter and OwlRol

I've seen them all on here before and they are just all PAB's, and no doubt on here to mislead. Just to clear up the miscomception they are perpetrating when they ask you to vote no. No means you will allow the HST to continue. YOU MUST VOTE "YES" TO DEFEAT THE HST! Remember "YES" to defeat the HST!

Argh ...

"A bath and a haircut!?!"

/shakes in utter baffled bewonderment at the total idiocy

Globe and Mail...hmm

Isn't that a Toronto paper?

Cool Music for Cool Hand

"Makes sense as the guy has too much political baggage - fake memos, Glen Clark's left-hand man, '

Adrian's fave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYRz5_rnSo0

From a more 'local' source

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/polls/wednesdaypoll.html

D'Ya learn this from Iggy?

"....personal approval numbers eventually affect political party polling numbers."

What they don't say is how they will spend HST revenue

If they are going to use the revenue to fund public health care, restore health care, fund education, public transit, and other public services, I'd be ok with it. BUT THEY DON'T SAY. And when Campbell introduced it, he said he'd spend it on corporations. OVER OUR DEAD BODY. I'm sick of these fake liberals. I want change. Real change.

P.S.

WHEN WILL VOTERS STOP BEING SO DAMN GULLIBLE AND STUPID.

you mean,

stop demand services you don't even pay for now! The problem with democracy is when the populous is smart enough... or stupid enough, to vote itself gifts but not pay for them. There will always be a politician to obliged us. One doesn't last long as a politician telling the people what they don't want to hear, you can't have everything and pay for nothing.

REPLACE THE HST

They want tax money? There is lots of it to be had, just replace the HST with an FTT (Financial Transaction Tax) of .05% and watch the cash roll in. The poor would pay less, the rich would pay more and the filthy rich would hire more tax lawyers, so they still wouldn't have to pay anything.

as always

Someone else should pay for the services you use.

Luke

You clearly don't understand how to read polls. Your numbers came from a different part of the poll, which you somehow confused with the "approval" question. And then you somehow managed to confuse those numbers with the third set of numbers on negativity. And bizarrely you somehow concluded that Adrian had a high negative rating and Christy didn't.

"As for some of the comments here about Christy Clark, better look at the most recent Ipsos poll showing a 47% approval for Clark v. 25% for Dix."

The actual numbers from Ipsos were 36% approval for Christy, 20% for Adrian. Christy and Adrian both had the same negative rating, 22%.

38% said they were neutral towards Christy and 5% were undecided.

59% said they were neutral about Adrian and 12% were undecided.

Party support was at 41 for the Libs and 39 for the NDP.

"Dismal for Dix as personal approval numbers eventually affect political party polling numbers."

Again, they both had the same negative rating.

In future, ask me and I'll explain the poll to you.

Why not introduce the HST and close all the casinos?

We already know, a priori, that casinos cause crime. A Vancouver police officer was recently charged with the theft of a $400 chip from a casino.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/120228184.html
"On Dec. 9, 2010, RCMP Const. Nick Sharma allegedly took a $400 cash ticket left behind by another patron in one of the slot machines and cashed it, police say".

What more proof do we need than that? Nick Sharma allegedly took advantage of an opportunity and allegedly made himself a thief. If the opportunity were not there, he wouldn't be charged with theft, would he?

Just about every government in Canada is jumping on the gambling goat-train to raise revenue and we know it is the road to perdition.

I would prefer we raise revenue by honest means, not be taxing the foolish and those without hope. We are part of the problem, because we consistently demand more "free" services every year.

I have published several books and am constantly asked, "Why don't you get a government grant, so you can sell the books cheaper?" The questioner is asking me to do work so (s)he can "save" money by having you pay for the book. It is a common streak that runs through most Canadians, unfortunately and it is infuriating.

If the HST makes life simpler, we should retain it, much as we hate it. There should be no exemptions either. That would save women a lot of trouble when they are buying shoes. They would no longer have to buy "childrens" shoes to avoid the GST. Also, we would pay tax on cookies regardless of whether we bought one, or seven.

Why not introduce the HST and close all the casinos?

We already know, a priori, that casinos cause crime. A Vancouver police officer was recently charged with the theft of a $400 chip from a casino.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/120228184.html
"On Dec. 9, 2010, RCMP Const. Nick Sharma allegedly took a $400 cash ticket left behind by another patron in one of the slot machines and cashed it, police say".

What more proof do we need than that? Nick Sharma allegedly took advantage of an opportunity and allegedly made himself a thief. If the opportunity were not there, he wouldn't be charged with theft, would he?

Just about every government in Canada is jumping on the gambling goat-train to raise revenue and we know it is the road to perdition.

I would prefer we raise revenue by honest means, not be taxing the foolish and those without hope. We are part of the problem, because we consistently demand more "free" services every year.

I have published several books and am constantly asked, "Why don't you get a government grant, so you can sell the books cheaper?" The questioner is asking me to do work so (s)he can "save" money by having you pay for the book. It is a common streak that runs through most Canadians, unfortunately and it is infuriating.

If the HST makes life simpler, we should retain it, much as we hate it. There should be no exemptions either. That would save women a lot of trouble when they are buying shoes. They would no longer have to buy "childrens" shoes to avoid the GST. Also, we would pay tax on cookies regardless of whether we bought one, or seven.

More Ipsos

Only 7% of BC "approve strongly" of the performance of the BC Liberals.

28% “approve somewhat” :)

36% “disapprove strongly”

25% “disapprove somewhat”

So the Liberals are stuck with only a 35% approval rating for the party and 36% for the well-known leader.

No wonder Ms Clark looks and sounds so desperate, changing policy almost every day.

She must have patterned herself after fellow Liberal Stockwell Day.

Ipsos poll on the HST

I thought these numbers were interesting, showing that the pro and con sides are not along party lines.

58% of BC Liberals support the HST
33% of BC Liberals will vote against it

20% of NDPers support the HST
68% of NDPers will vote against it

27% of BC Conservatives support the HST
67% of BC Conservatives will vote against it

39% of NDPers support the HST
49% of NDPers will vote against it

46% of men support the HST
45% of men will vote against it

26% of women support the HST
58% of women will vote against it

Liberals are Liars

If anyone believes ANY promise from the BC Liberals then they are too naive to even buy a second-hand car. The people controlling the BC Liberals (like Gwyn Morgan - Google this modern Machiavelli) despise the common man & feel justified in doing anything to win, win, win.

@Fish counter

Why not just close the casinos? Nobody minds paying taxes. Oh they grumble a bit but it is the cost of a civilized society. They do insist that everyone pays their fair share and they do insist the tax money be used prudently. None of that discussion took place on the HST. It was introduced by stealth based on a lie because the BC Liberal discovered that the budget the promised would have a manageable deficit suddenly had a huge deficit. It was predicted by almost every other group but they fudged their budget and now needed cash. Hence the HST. All the chickens have come home to roost for Christy and we are suppose to endorse this insanity by voting "no".

So if you want to get rid of casinos there are ways to do it honestly.

@skeletor

For most of my working life, I have paid for services I never used. My recreation came in the unorganized, undeveloped outdoors. To have some young upstart tell me that I want services but object to paying for them is something an immature Young BC Liberal would say just to make a political point.

This is not about not paying taxes! It IS about not wanting to pay the other guys share and it is about objecting to a BC Liberal government that seems to think the taxpayer are a bunch of morons that need to be fleeced every time they (the government) screw up. Some of us have had enough of this bunch and I'm hearing that more and more. Comments that sound juvenile just don't count much.

@skywalker

I don't much care who you THINK I vote for. In fact I am quite socially progressive, but fiscally conservative. I don't choose to score cheap political points because I frankly don't give a rats a$$ about politics anymore. I used to, but I have grown tired of the childishness of it all, the fact NEITHER side tells the truth or can make the tough decisions. Maybe you could learn from this young upstart about debating sans getting personal too, calling me immature is just well immature.

The fact of the matter is that at least your generation but probably you yourself do not in fact pay. I don't know your life so I'll stay away from personal points but the facts are clear and we have huge debts and far larger unfunded liabilities. Though yes when people were paying for healthcare 40 years ago no one knew of all the wonders of modern medicine we have to do, and cost so much, fine. What we DID know was our demographics. We have always known about the babyboom. Yet pension surpluses we allowed to be spent to cover deficits rather than be saved to pay future liabilities. Healthcare contribution Rates weren't raised to match longer lifespans and higher cost procedures.

Who is to blame? Its not one political party but all of them. It is the system and the people for rewarding the party all parties who did this. No one told the truth, get we have some hard decisions. Look what happens when any politician tries to raise taxes or cut a service? You mention healthcare other than to dump more money in, your dead. Nevermind its one of the lease cost effective in the developed world plus we don't even have great services where the Quebec court has rules people die on waiting lists.

PS if you were hearing "that more and more" I would expect they would not keep getting voted in. I didn't vote for 'em and you didn't but it seems enough people did.

skeletor

For the last 6 decades people have been paying a lot of tax and for most of that time it covered our budgets.

When it didn't, it wasn't because of the high cost of social programs and its unfair to characterize it that way. Brian Mulroney ran up most of Canada's debt and its not because he was big on social programs. People like Ronald Reagan ran up huge debts at the same time and again it wasn't because he brought in lots of social programs in the USA suddenly.

In fact I recall a newspaper report back in the mid 1990s saying that StatsCan had said only 6% of our debt was the direct result of social program costs.

Our debt growth, and that of the US, had a number of origins but social programs played only a minimal part.

Policies to reduce inflation created a lot of our debt (and unemployment). Continuous reductions in the revenue from the business sector played a big part.

But to blame the little guy who has been paying most, if not all, of his share of the taxes over his lifetime is ridiculous.

It is in fashion however to tell the average guy he needs to bail out big business, banks and insurance companies or the world will end.

That instituting policies that protect the wealth of the richest 4% so they can make way more money from speculation than they lose from inflation is somehow the best way to spend the little guy's tax dollars.

You say you're a young guy so you grew up in a world where the right-wing media is dominant so its no wonder you repeat many of their talking points. The central one being the little guy has been living beyond his means and that taxing the wealthy and corporations hurts poor people.

Ipsos poll on the HST

Above I gave numbers for the NDP voters twice, the second time (after the Conservatives) should have said that that was for Green voters.

Sly Offerings of Distracting Tidbits

Fish-counter wrote:

Quote:"Christy smiles for the camera and for the voters. She proclaims "Families First" and she is believable.

She has eliminated the $5.00 daily parking fee from provincial parks and she is talking about reducing the HST by 1% to make it palatable to the electorate.

Whether you like her party, or not, you have to give her credit for recgnising the will of the people." End of quote.

The will of the people?!

Funny stuff.

No, this is just clandestine tinkering - it's CC's sly distraction strategy .....copied straight from Mr. H.'s playbook during the federal election:

Avoid all crucial and meaningful issues like contempt of democracy/parliament, human rights, economic equality, child poverty.

And of course steer as far away as possible from The BC Rail Corruption Scandal.

And thus control the debate through the now well-developed political traits of cowardice, evasiveness, arrogance and deception so that those members of the public still snoozing will be lulled further into REM sleep by the relative minutiae being oh-so-generously offered up.(As exemplified in the amusing and meager elimination of a $5.00 daily parking fee from provincial parks.) Hey, that should re-instate economic equality!!! Why didn't we think of that before?!

Why not , instead, ask CC who put that nasty parking fee there in the first place....and then ask her if she voted, along with her party, for it?

No, someone's counting on an electorate that will keep being distracted by the meaningless and the minuscule so that they never wake up to the massive realization that their province and their country has been betrayed and sold out, BIG time, in both crucial and meaningful ways, by the criminal gangs now more desperate than ever to hold onto power.

Thanks Frank.

No need for me to respond to Skelator. You did it nicely. He has obviously learned from the politicians he despises...or so he says.

A tax by any other name is still a tax

In the UK, they railed against the VAT. It came anyway. Here we call it the HST. I think we just don't like change.

Please don't tell me the old system was good, because it was AWFUL! You could buy six or more pastries and not pay the PST, but if you bought one and ate it in the store, you paid PST. children's clothing was PST exempt so women made usre they bought "children's" shoes to avoid the PST.

Canadian Tire and several other stores were caught charging PST on items that were exempt and vice versa. The system was so complex even they couldn't figure it out.

As for Christy Clark, she is a corker and I would rather have a corker for a premier than someone who was corked.

All politicians are crooked, but some are better-looking than others. I am ready for a bit of skirt to run over me with her truck. Call me progressive.

The IQ of some voters postively amazes.

I remember high school elections and the basis on which most of my chums, and me included, voted. Fortunately the years helped.

Like a badger in the headlights

"All politicians are crooked, but some are better-looking than others. I am ready for a bit of skirt to run over me with her truck. Call me progressive."

Sorry, but some would suggest that the more accurate term would be 'roadkill'.

Fish-Counter is anything but progressive....

he's a disgusting sexist.

We are all progressive, Sunshine Coast Girl.

We get progressively worse with time. Look, can't you take a bit of humour? Does everything have to be so frigging serious?

Politics is a joke. It always has been. When you can make a joke about it - that is called freedom. They can't make political jokes everywhere, you know. Like in China. Canada, on the other hand, is bursting with political jokes, most of them in Ottawa.

Me, a disgusting sexist? Did I parade on the streets of Vancouver with a big-ass sign saying, "I am a slut!" No I didn't. Those were women strutting their stuff on Robsonstrasse. Don't pick on poor little fish-counter, or I will play my victim card and complain to somebody. I will tell them you hurt my feelings. I do have feelings you know. How about you?

We are all progressive, Sunshine Coast Girl.

We get progressively worse with time. Look, can't you take a bit of humour? Does everything have to be so frigging serious?

Politics is a joke. It always has been. When you can make a joke about it - that is called freedom. They can't make political jokes everywhere, you know. Like in China. Canada, on the other hand, is bursting with political jokes, most of them in Ottawa.

Me, a disgusting sexist? Did I parade on the streets of Vancouver with a big-ass sign saying, "I am a slut!" No I didn't. Those were women strutting their stuff on Robsonstrasse. Don't pick on poor little fish-counter, or I will play my victim card and complain to somebody. I will tell them you hurt my feelings. I do have feelings you know. How about you?

HST Now Favoured by BC'ers - New Ipsos Poll

60% of British Columbians approve of announced changes to HST.

‘Keep HST’ - 42% (up 6 points)

‘Scrap HST’ - 40% (down 12 points)

Yep, looks like the tide has now turned on this matter and trending.

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5249

i am all for social programs

Actually I am all for social programs, as long as we pay for them. Bailing out big business is probably not the best way to spend out taxes but don't act like business is bad. Anti business types don't seem to understand that business creates jobs and that all of our pensions though there will certainly be none left for me sit invested. If companies collapse so do our pensions and jobs.

Also to characterize all speculation as bad is naive. Why do you think people create a business rather than just work somewhere? Why would someone take on way more risk starting up rather than simply collective a salary. Often its because they think that with this risk they may be rewarded and not only with money. There are several reasons why if you look at the list of most innovative companies in the world most are from the USA. No one says they have a particularly fair culture however it does give the most reason to innovate. Innovation is the future of an economy. Currently living in France I can tell you first hand how the culture and policies here stifle innovation, why would anyone take on the risk of being an entrepreneur here, its sure not to be rewarded! There is always a balance to be struck between too much reward and not enough. Too much you get too big to fail bailouts and too little you get a stagnant uncompetitive economy with high unemployment.

Now I find Canada to be a pretty good blance between all the great things socialism brings with what capitalism offers. My issue is simply a financial problem that the next 30 years is going to be not nearly as good quality of life wise as the last 30 years because we will be paying off the debts of those 30 years. So in actuality the great times of the last 30 years were great because they weren't paid for at the time, they were artificial good times.

Finally we should move to a more clear system of taxation. The more complicated it gets the more the rich pay experts to find loopholes. Exempt basic food items like veggies and stuff for kids that way the poor pretty much don't pay taxes except for this big screen tv's on the credit card and the rest of us can pay taxes on everything not random exemptions for some things but not others.

oh and

Growing up with right wing media gimme a break I grew up with the Internet. I read any media I feel like. Unlike some, I was taught to listen to the arguments of BOTH sides rather than simply reading what I agree with. Question and challenge your assumptions, learn from everywhere. Plus I grew up reading French news, France's right wing is further left half the time than our left wing. Between the French papers and al-jezeera I have my Left covered better than my right.

Finally

Healthcare eats half our budget so to say social programs don't cause debt gimme a break. Universal healthcare is the best freaken social program we have! it just needs to be seriously reworked! It wastes way more money for less services than other countries.

skeletor

Okay, so you don't think corporations should pay more tax?

Out of the 41.3 billion in revenue corporate taxes account for just 1.8 billion of that.

Healthcare accounts for 50% of that budget? If so that would be around 20 billion. Safe to say that the taxpayer's share of taxes (income, sales, MSP, fuel, carbon, tobacco, property transfer, other fees plus the federal share of taxation coming back to the province) more than covers the cost of healthcare and education.

As for speculation, the wealthiest 3.8% control 2/3 of Canada's total wealth. How much more do you think they should have?

BC is full of wingnuts who still think there is a free lunch

Every second person feels entitled to a minimum-wage income for doing nothing. For some, the dream comes true. The former city manager in Nanaimo still enjoys his $200,000.00+ salary, and will be on full pay for two years after leaving office. that weas quite tghe settlement package! There are thousands more who think they deserve a free ride, too.

As a whole, most British Columbians think they have far more rights than responsibilities. It only works as long as we can pay the interest on the accumulated debt. Canadians are still paying for ther excesses of the Trudeau years.

Frank

"2010/11 BC budget revenue:39.893 b."
"Total projected provincial health spending including the Ministry of Health Services, health authorities and health services delivered by other ministries is $17.5 billion in 2010/11"

I never said corporations should pay less. Some pay none like GE which is ridiculous but to raise all corporate taxes cause some find ways out just hurts the little guys who create more jobs anyways. You seem to not understand that every change has a reaction. Its nothing to do with good or bad its just an equilibrium. The restaurant industry was saying the HST adding the provincial portion of tax to their meals was going to result in an insane number of lost jobs because they had less profits to give out in salaries. So which is it, does paying more taxes not affect anything or does it put people out of work?

The problem is that we live in a global world where we complete GLOBALLY. If we raised taxes too high business simply leaves. If you decided to put a cap on salaries watch a lot of top talent leave. In oct. 2010 just 2 hedge funds as, evil as they might be, leave london for swiss costing the UK around 200M pounds a year in lost tax revenues. If people don't feel they can make a good return here on their money then they go elsewhere or never come at all. What kind of economy will we have if we have no money for start ups? No smart people immigrating here to start their dream business.

AS far as the top 3.8% controlling 2/3rd of the wealth in Canada I would bed that IF you lived in one of the biggest 3 cities in Canada and owned a house for the last 30 or 40 years you are probably in this top "richest" category. A house in vancouver that in 1979 cost 110k in 2008 sold for 1.2 million! So I don't really think your at first astonishing statistic means a whole lot. Futher, I looked up what the top 5% earn a year in Canada and its only 89,000 a year! If you live in Winnipeg and can buy a house for 40k that's a ton but in one of the bigger cities 90K Isn't that much. The top paid nurses in BC make over that. You get dual income families into the mix and I can see why the wealth numbers end up the way they are. Of course the average family income is much lower but to be honest costs of living are different all over Canada. 35k family income in Vancouver you are below the poverty line but in the hinterland you might own you house. Sure your house is worth a lot less so as part of your stats they own far less wealth but still own a home. Wealth is relative. Total wealth is not all that matters it is what that wealth represents. Opportunities are what matters to me. I still think in Canada you can come from the lower middle class or lower and have a great chance to do whatever you want to do in life. I did, I worked during school and summers I paid for my own education, I paid for my own master's. I still had money and time to travel so I didn't miss out on life.

Debt

Debt can be good or bad. If you can leverage debt then it is good. If BC needs a new bridge for example which will make our economy grow then maybe spending money we don't have is worth taking on because it gives us something. The bridge last many years and we can cover the cost+ interest over many years. Debt is good if we can smooth out a recession by keeping services as revenues temperately fall and pay BACK this debt when times get good again. (somethings we don't do)

Debt is not good when it does nothing for us. Structural Debt doesn't work for us it just adds interest payments which adds to our debt without even increasing out revenues. Blindly dumping more money into our inefficient healthcare system is bad debt. We don't have to reinvent anything, just copy the best practices that other nations with more efficient systems do. You know, as in countries that don't have being dying on waiting lists yet spend less money per capita that Canada.

skeletor

"You seem to not understand that every change has a reaction. Its nothing to do with good or bad its just an equilibrium. "

How do you square that with your view that corporations already pay enough tax and your previous statements that the average Canadian doesn't pay enough?

"If we raised taxes too high business simply leaves."

And if we tax consumers/citizens too much business will leave because our domestic market won't be rich enough to purchase goods.

"If you decided to put a cap on salaries watch a lot of top talent leave."

But if we have low minimum wages and higher taxes on lower income individuals instead everything will be good? Is that not the same as saying the rich don't have enough and the rest of us have too much?

"So I don't really think your at first astonishing statistic means a whole lot. "

Fair enough but I don't think a whole lot about your belief that concentrating 2/3 of Canada's wealth in the hands of less than 1.2 million people is meaningless. It means the other 30 million has to get by on just 1/3 of the country's wealth. That sort of inequality, which has been increasing, does not produce a stable society. You need to take a more long-term view.

"So which is it, does paying more taxes not affect anything or does it put people out of work?"

You're the one that's been saying people don't pay enough taxes.

"Blindly dumping more money into our inefficient healthcare system is bad debt."

And blindly building bridges people don't use, roads to ski resorts and hosting 2 week parties is good debt? If you have a healthy population that doesn't have to declare bankruptcy when they're sick you're a richer society for it.

Besides, the people pay more than enough tax to cover healthcare as I pointed out already. All those taxes I listed exceed the cost of healthcare and education combined. Healthcare is not causing our debt.

As I said before, you seem to have bought into the mantra that's been repeated endlessly over the last 3 decades that healthcare causes debt, that social programs are unsustainable, that raising taxes on those most able to pay would hurt our economy and so on.

You have yet to state how you would square all of this. How would you pay for it all without hurting the economy or lowering our standard of living? Or perhaps you believe that our standard of living must be reduced?

At some point people are going to ask questions.

BC's revenue

"Total projected provincial health spending including the Ministry of Health Services, health authorities and health services delivered by other ministries is $17.5 billion in 2010/11"

Personal income tax,sales tax, taxpayer money from the Feds, fuel tax, tobacco tax, various property taxes, MSP premiums and other fees add up to close to 30 billion. Education is just over 5 billion and advanced education is just under 2 billion.

"In oct. 2010 just 2 hedge funds as, evil as they might be, leave london for swiss costing the UK around 200M pounds a year in lost tax
revenues."

In Britain there have also been protests outside stores whose head offices are in the offshore islands or places like Luxemburg to avoid taxes. In spite of the fact they are for all other intents and purposes British companies. They even advertise themselves as being British.

black and white

You seem to have an issue with everything having to be black or white. Saying if you run out the rich and powerful with high taxes and anti business policies is NOT the same as saying raise taxes on the poor. I clearly stated necessities should be not taxed thus Poor people who spend most of their money on such necessities wouldn't pay much if any taxes. As a student making under the tax limited I never paid taxes.

You avoided my most important point that total wealth doesn't matter. You can below the local poverty line for Vancovuer but live in a small town owning your own house. So statistically yes you are fairly poor. But practically you own your own home and have a nice life. I will give you an example from my life. My girlfriends parents in France are not rich. They are in fact considered poor. One is a housekeeper and anotehr a swim teacher. They live in a tiny town and own their wn house which is worth nothing. They have great lives, they have the little toys they want for the most part. i have be happy to have the life they lead! Now if they lived in any big city they would be below the poverty line. If you measured they net worth and or family incomes they would be wayyyyyy out of any top percentage of wealthy folk. But on a comparison level they live the lives that if someone wanted and equivalent in Paris they would need millions of euros. Just like we can't compaire dollars direct we use PPP (what we can buy with those dollars) we need a similar way to measure what we get for our wealth.

Also I would like to know how that number was achieved. Did they add up the net worth of people and measure it against the value of canada? what about foreigner ownership?

cont'n

How would I square all this off? Well making very large corporations that dont pay ANY tax pay is a start. Making teh very rich that were until recently hiding their money illegally in Swiss numbered accounts pay taxes and I sure as hell wouldn't give them a free pass (no criminal no penalties)for declaring it all after decades of breaking the law. I would stop raiding the cpp to make our deficit seem smaller or fake a surplus as it only screws us later when we have to borrow the amount back. Obviously I agree not blowing it on bridges we don't need or ferries. I would lower education costs but not make it free. Finally I would look into efficiencies. Gov'ts have a problem where they don't have ANY performance measures. You say healthcare is not why we have debt but not that it could not be more efficient. We have a VERY inefficient sytem for what we get vs what we pay. The govt says they are making things more efficient but when asked they didn't even know the costs of surgeries! How can you know you made any progress on efficiencies if you have no base line for costs?! its insane. the entire govt is run like this. Someone needs to go in and look at everything and say ok this service costs X does is it worth it? Can we make it more efficient? Are our dollars better spend putting that money in another program? Where can we get savings through proven prevention vs expensive care later. my friend is a nurse and one time she added up all the costs of the bandages and bed a homeless mental patient used. It was over 60k not including many costs like her time. For far less money we could pay someone to check up on this man. This guy was pretty disturbed so many he would have been better in an institution where he wouldn't not be hurt as he was. It still would be cheaper!

I don't have all the answers I am no one special. I just think its a big sad that no one in positions of power, we don't vote them in, has any more answers than I do.

I don't believe that our standards of living MUST be reduced but I believe that they WILL be reduced if we ever want to get on the right track. Taxes will have to be collectively higher services maybe a bit less. We will all share the pain never equally it never is.

"From Confederation up to

"From Confederation up to 1991-92, the federal government accumulated a net debt of $423 billion. Of this, $37 billion represents the accumulated shortfall in meeting the cost of government programs since Confederation. The remainder, $386 billion, represents the amount the government has borrowed to service the debt created by previous annual shortfalls."

Remember how compound interest works? We dont actually have such a massive debt but if we never pay it off we are borrowing money to pay the interest which leads to more interest.

Its neither services nor any specific spending that puts us into deficit its a combined over spending. The govt wastes money on corporations or letting them not pay taxes JUST as it does on stupid programs or vastly inefficient programs that could be made better if someone actually made a realistic effort.

skeletor

"You seem to have an issue with everything having to be black or white. Saying if you run out the rich and powerful with high taxes and anti business policies is NOT the same as saying raise taxes on the poor. "

But on another thread you said "How about ever stop B*ching about taxes grow a pair and pay off YOUR debt."

"I clearly stated necessities should be not taxed thus Poor people who spend most of their money on such necessities wouldn't pay much if any taxes."

I agree, which is why we shouldn't have sales taxes.

"You avoided my most important point that total wealth doesn't matter."

No, I didn't. I disagree with you that it doesn't matter but the fact is I was talking about "relative" wealth. 3.8% control 66% of the wealth. I wasn't using absolutes.

"You can below the local poverty line for Vancovuer but live in a small town owning your own house. So statistically yes you are fairly poor. But practically you own your own home and have a nice life."

I find that hard to believe. Assuming you move to Bruno, Saskatchewan and buy a house for $7,000 you will indeed have a roof over your head. But you also say you will have a "nice life". Yet, there's no jobs in Bruno and therefore no way of enjoying a nice life. If there was those houses wouldn't have dropped to $7,000. If they're lucky enough to have jobs in those small towns then sure, but there's a limited number of jobs. The self-employed who work from home could all move there but for whatever their reasons, they don't wish to.

"Also I would like to know how that number was achieved. Did they add up the net worth of people and measure it against the value of canada?"

I don't know.

"You say healthcare is not why we have debt but not that it could not be more efficient. We have a VERY inefficient sytem for what we get vs what we pay."

Perhaps, but I'm not arguing whether the system is efficient or not, I was simply arguing that healthcare is not the reason for our debt. Efficient or not.

skeletor

My own view is that our system used to have much less inequality. Corporations paid a far higher share, the wealthy paid a higher share and so on. Corporations didn't leave.

Beginning in the 1980s we seem to have decided that lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthy was the way to go. We allow foreign companies to buy our domestic companies and we thus lose head office type jobs and R&D jobs. We're living with the problems of being a branch-plant economy.

And although we've made a lot of money off our resources, we seem to not want to change being hewers of wood and drawers of water. We're always looking for more resources to sell instead of applying ourselves to looking for ways to add value. In some ways we're actually regressing, we used to sell lumber, now we sell raw logs. We want to sell oil and let someone else do the refining.

Those who want more mines, more wells, and more raw log exports always justify it by saying we can't all work at Starbuck's. Well their strategy is a recipe for failure. Exporting raw resources, especially when the corporations doing the exporting are foreign also, does nothing for us. No long-term investment in our people in return for exporting a finite resource. We should be the ones using our resources. If someone else needs them we should be the ones selling the finished product.

Skeletor

Editorials talk about attracting Microsoft to Canada, or some other company. Yet that doesn't help us in the long run. What we need is companies of our own that keep profits in Canada. Instead profits from our labour simply leave the country. The same editorials cheer when foreign companies take over domestic ones. They complain about protectionist laws we used to have like the Foreign Investment Review Agency. Says it hurts investment.

Back in the early 1980s Mel Hurtig wrote a book where he said repatriated profits were leaving the country at a rate of $4 million an hour. Canadians should find that outrageous but they've been told over and over its a good thing when a foreign company buys out a domestic company or when a foreign company buys up our natural resources or employs our labour. As if we're a third world economy.

Anything Canadians need could be made by Canadians. We have a small population and immense resources. We're a trading nation but we have less reason to be than most countries. Yet voices on the Right want us to give away even more and tax the people we're giving our resources to even less. We even build, at our own expense, much of the infrastructure for foreign corporations so they can more easily remove our resources and ship them outside our borders. We even lower our royalty rates so they will do more of it.

And we wonder why we have a large debt and so many poor and increasing inequality? Its not rocket science, we're just not very smart. We don't make enough money off our people and resources. We let others do so though. Some of the same people we owe our debt to.

Observation

Maybe I'm being biased, but it seems to me that proponents of the HST have resorted to throwing whatever sh*t they can think of against the wall in the hope that something will stick and CON-vince people to change their mind and vote to retain the HST.

This may be considered as a minimal cost, but how can anyone justify a sales tax on deposits of returnable containers, fees for environmental deposits on electronics, automobile tires and batteries and even plastic bags that some stores now charge a nickel for?

If you go into a deli and purchase a bun, a few slices of meat and a slice of cheese, you pay no HST. If you buy the same items combined, called a sandwich, you not only pay more for the convenience of having it constructed for you, you get to pay HST on the items plus the labour added to the cost of these items.

If you buy an artery clogging donut at Timmys you pay the HST, but if you buy 6 or more of these bad boys, you get a pass. That must be good for our health care system's customer pool, but not so much for its costs.

Reality is that the GST was a gigantic ripoff when it was implemented and all the HST has done is take it to a whole new level.

Vote "YES" to get rid of the worst tax any government could ever come up with. And when someone brings up the fact that the government will have to hire back about 300 people to deal with the return of the PST, just tell them that the cost may be almost revenue neutral to the government's bottom line if they dismiss their roster of spindoctors known as the Public Affairs Bureau. I don't think that having my tax dollars spent on employees whose job is trolling the web and spreading false propaganda is good value.

Cannad does not have a large

Cannad does not have a large enough population to make everything we need in Canada. Its simple math. We have a tiny population and we can only specialize in doing so much. This is how trade works. This is a win win situation. Even If we stopped allowing buying imports that would likely result in other countries being pissed off and stop selling to us. That would result in an economy something like north Korea. What Canada SHOULD be doing is selling our abundant natural resources lowly and pocketing the profits. Norway does this and for now all parties have agreed not to touch their massive rainy day fund. They are even smart enough to take some of these profits and buy up OUR natural resources. Instead Alberta doesn't have a prov tax... and didn't even have anything saved up for the recession.

Microsoft came to Canada in part because the USA has much harsher immigration laws. Canada on the other hand would let them come in and hire immigrants for very well paying jobs who then pay taxes and live in Canada. You don't want any non Canadian companies in Canada? Good luck having an economy.

you want jobs in canada? Education. Education Canada's youth to what the WORLD economy needs. we dont need kids getting paid 18$ per hour sweeping the floor of a ford plant. We need to tailor our education system for the modern economy. We are a service economy not a manufacturing economy. We need creative, innovators, entrepreneurial skills. Check our Richard Wozel for his thoughts of the future of education. To me protectionism is short sighted.

skeletor

Its not a case of closing our borders and declaring ourselves to be like North Korea. Its a case of doing jobs ourselves when we can do them.

You say our population is too small? Its big enough. We can build our own ferries. We can build our own bridges, transit and other infrastructure. There's not much we can't do for ourselves.

You say we need education. That line has been used over and over long before you were born. Fact is we have a highly educated workforce already and many of them are unemployed or underemployed. We have university grads working at low wage jobs all over Canada. Considering the kinds of jobs we have available we're over-educated. More education isn't going to help unless there's a reason for those people to get more education.

You say we should sell our natural resources and pocket the money. Sounds good but the reality is we've been doing that for over a century and we've had the educated workforce for decades. Selling resources alone does not create jobs for an educated workforce.

How do we do better without putting up the same barriers you just said in your post you don't want? How do you stop Chinese or American companies from buying the resources outright and paying us a small royalty for taking it away? Assuming that their doing so is even beneficial to us.

"You don't want any non Canadian companies in Canada? Good luck having an economy."

And you don't want any Canadian companies in Canada, good luck having a reason for people to want to get an education.

"we dont need kids getting paid 18$ per hour sweeping the floor of a ford plant...We need creative, innovators, entrepreneurial skills."

We need more than sound bites. If a business has full access to the Canadian market regardless of whether its in Canada then it will use the cheapest workforce available and that will mean somewhere else or it will mean our highly educated workforce working for very little money. Something we already see.

To me, trying to fix the problems in a domestic economy by declaring it will be beneficial to us to give our resources away and allow everyone the same access to our domestic market as Canadian companies is like wishing upon a star.

Its all based on hope and little else.

And so on

UBC and SFU were built with revenue from forestry, fishing and mining.

Univ. of Alberta became a top school because of oil revenue.

In Saskatoon it was farming and potash.

In Ontario it was manufacturing, the $18 an hour job at Ford has allowed families to be raised and the kids have been able to go to good schools.

And so it goes. The resources have been sold, the institutions were built, the domestic market became wealthy and the workforce has been educated.

The answer going forward is not continuing to sell resources cheap, its doing something with the rewards of what we've done in the past. We should be now moving away from being a raw materials economy, we should be a country that has good jobs and a reason for people to want a good education.

Instead, in many areas we're regressing. Our future shouldn't lie in going back to the 19th century where we catch fish and beavers and collect rocks for export. Education isn't required in such an economy.

If we don't build "Avro Arrows" here our brightest will leave Canada and go build them somewhere else. If we allow foreign companies to take over and shut down our tech companies our educated workforce will disappear.

The world wants our raw materials and access to our domestic market. If we choose to give them away we shouldn't complain when we're left with nothing in return.

ONe thing is clear

This discussion isn't as gone to shite with Skelator and fFrank. We were talking about the HST at one point.

The HST makes life simpler for all businesses

My question is this: if I bill the local school district for $50.00 for an outdoor workshop, does HST apply to that?

Under the old rules, it was classified as "personal goods and services", and one paid something called "income tax" on it.

The TV ads on the HST are quite convincing, actually. I really wish people in BC could get off their conspiracy theory bandwagons and get back to work.

A relative by marriage used to say, over and over again that the Glen Clark NDP guvmint was "illegal" because it did not have the majority of the popular vote. No matter how many times he was told that it was the number of MLA's elected to office that determined the ruling party, he kept repeating his mantra over and over again.

The political conversation in BC is a broken record and we need a new groove. Resistance to change is futile; we all need to evolve. What concerns me is that the more our politicians talked about "value added" in the forest industry, the more raw logs we shipped abroad. It seems that we are so busy fratching over the wrong stuff that we are totally and utterly impotent.

I understand that everyone who works for the BC Oil and Gas Commission is an ex-forestry worker and that between them they have never discovered one cubic metre of oil or gas. They just fired the one guy with industry experience and one wonders why. The BCOG no longer has a Director of Natural Resource Development. I would have thought we needed one more than ever. Apparently, we don't.

Of course it does.

Business pays less. Its simple!

And...

...she smiles. Right?

Most businesses in BC are sole proprietor, Skywalker

There are thousands of folks that operate a small business that generates less than $30,000.00 a year. Under the old GST rules, they were not required to pay GST or get a GST number. They may end up paying more tax than before, depending on the products and services they provide. It doesn't affect my argument either way.

Under the old rules, retail stores had roughly twice a much tax work to do, threading their way between the exemptions. It cost them up to two days per month to reconcile their taxes.

In my case, I hire an accountant to figure it out. He knows all the legitimate exemptions and he keeps me out of trouble. That costs me about $100.00 per year. Even with 250 receipts and less than $30,000.00 kpa in revenue, it is worth it.

I prefer Christy's smile and girlish enthusiasm any day over Gordon Campbell's scowl. Is that wrong?

LOL!

Fishdiddler said:

"There are thousands of folks that operate a small business that generates less than $30,000.00 a year."

Do you have any data at all to back up this rather remarkable claim?

"In my case, I hire an accountant to figure it out. He knows all the legitimate exemptions and he keeps me out of trouble. That costs me about $100.00 per year."

Either you're lying, or your "accountant" is just a friend taking a minor stipend and doing your books as a favour. It costs more than $100 per year to get basic income tax done at H&R Block, never mind accountacy procedures keeping business books straight.

The Tax Will Stay.

The change of face @ superficial policy changes seem to be working with the BC public. No matter what the opposition to the HST says, its very noticeable that the support for the tax has gone way way up. Bets that Clark can win this one, right or wrong....

"Our future shouldn't lie in

"Our future shouldn't lie in going back to the 19th century where we catch fish and beavers and collect rocks for export. Education isn't required in such an economy. "

In one post you claim Canad is over educated then you said the above. So whichis it do you want a manual labour economy or you want being to be educated and do something more? I refute your claim Canada is over educated. Canada has a similar composition of education to the USA and many companies including google and microsoft each year publish reports saying they do not have enough qualified grads. Hey if we don't produce them some other country will. To be honest its not long time Canadians getting the education any ways its the Children of immigrants. 2nd generation Chinese have a rate over 98% having a university degree, then its Indians and other Asians, Scandinavians and i forget the rest. Long time Canadians have a dismal percentage and women are far above men. Like it men have more opportunities than women to have high paying jobs sans uni degree and immigrants tend to move to cities where degrees are more useful for employment plus these cultures obviously put more emphases on higher education. Regardless Canadians are NOT over educated. Education does wonders for your total career salary even the difference between a degree and a masters.

Foreign companies don't take over they might use our workforce but they are happy to. Think of India. It is is making fortunes on outsourcing. They don't care that so many companies are not local as they till create jobs. The days of long term full time employment are over. MY future lies not with one company but with keeping updated skills they are in demand. This means I will be part of the first generation to truly never stop learning. If i do stop, ill be out of work. For me this is fine. I am happy. I don't expect some 18/hour sweeping the floor job then complain when ford decides to build cars in elsewhere where they don't have to pay a useless tool 18bucks per hour to sweep the floor.

"Our future shouldn't lie in

"Our future shouldn't lie in going back to the 19th century where we catch fish and beavers and collect rocks for export. Education isn't required in such an economy. "

In one post you claim Canad is over educated then you said the above. So whichis it do you want a manual labour economy or you want being to be educated and do something more? I refute your claim Canada is over educated. Canada has a similar composition of education to the USA and many companies including google and microsoft each year publish reports saying they do not have enough qualified grads. Hey if we don't produce them some other country will. To be honest its not long time Canadians getting the education any ways its the Children of immigrants. 2nd generation Chinese have a rate over 98% having a university degree, then its Indians and other Asians, Scandinavians and i forget the rest. Long time Canadians have a dismal percentage and women are far above men. Like it men have more opportunities than women to have high paying jobs sans uni degree and immigrants tend to move to cities where degrees are more useful for employment plus these cultures obviously put more emphases on higher education. Regardless Canadians are NOT over educated. Education does wonders for your total career salary even the difference between a degree and a masters.

Foreign companies don't take over they might use our workforce but they are happy to. Think of India. It is is making fortunes on outsourcing. They don't care that so many companies are not local as they till create jobs. The days of long term full time employment are over. MY future lies not with one company but with keeping updated skills they are in demand. This means I will be part of the first generation to truly never stop learning. If i do stop, ill be out of work. For me this is fine. I am happy. I don't expect some 18/hour sweeping the floor job then complain when ford decides to build cars in elsewhere where they don't have to pay a useless tool 18bucks per hour to sweep the floor.

people aren't "useless tools" & HST

Skeletor referrs back to NA labour being overpriced and he is rude to the people providing it:
"I don't expect some 18/hour sweeping the floor job then complain when ford decides to build cars in elsewhere where they don't have to pay a useless tool 18bucks per hour to sweep the floor."
It takes about 30 hours worth of labour to build a car. This includes insurance and pension for modern "useless tool" floor sweepers who drive sweeping and mopping vehicles around the floors while avoiding hitting people, product, robots and airhoses etc.) The cost of labour for building a car in North America is about 8% labour. That's generally somewhere in the $1500-$4000 range - depending upon options. A person earning $18 per hour earns less than 40,000 a year. I don't know anyone in BC who can buy a house on 40,000 per year.

skeletor

"In one post you claim Canad is over educated then you said the above. So whichis it"

I didn't realize you'd have so much trouble following that. What I said was our workforce has too much education for the jobs we have available. How many university degrees do you need to export beaver pelts?

But if you want to play that game, you say you want us to sell water, logs and rocks but say we all need to have more education. Why?

"do you want a manual labour economy or you want being to be educated and do something more?"

They are already educated and they're serving burgers and coffee.

"Canada has a similar composition of education to the USA and many companies including google and microsoft each year publish reports saying they do not have enough qualified grads"

They're lying or what they mean is they're not plentiful enough to pay minimum wage to. I've spent 25 years in software development and the facts are its one of the easiest jobs to ship overseas. Many of the positions can be done from home or from India. Which explains why for awhile there computer science programs were filling up and then they didn't. People here could see unemployed programmers. They don't want to compete against India. If you're going to work for low wages anyway you might as well work in the tourism or service sector.

"Hey if we don't produce them some other country will."

We produce them and so do other countries. Software development is not restricted to any particular country.

"Regardless Canadians are NOT over educated. Education does wonders for your total career salary even the difference between a degree and a masters."

You're arguing against a reality those of us in the workforce know to be true. In 2008 an article from Canadian Press said :
"Nearly one-quarter of young Canadians are working at low-paying jobs beneath their skill level, such as pouring coffee and answering phones, the highest rate among 16 countries studied, a new report suggests.

A Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) study released Thursday says 23.7 per cent of Canadians under age 25 report feeling overqualified for their jobs. That's the highest of among 16 nations that belong to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD.

Canada's ranking is worse than that of the United States, where 19 per cent of youth say they feel overqualified in their jobs. "

That doesn't sound to me like an uneducated workforce. Nor does it sound to me like we need to sell our raw materials in order to provide more education. We already have it.

part deux

Here's another report from the OECD :
"In most OECD countries, between 7 and 27% of 55 to 64-year-olds (adults who entered the workforce in the 1960s and early 1970s) have completed tertiary-level education.

However, in Canada and the US that figure is over 30%. Among younger adults aged 25 to 34, at least 30% have obtained tertiary qualifications in a score of OECD countries, with 40% or more in six others–Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Norway and Spain–and over 50% in Canada and Korea."

Sounds to me like Canada's population is more highly educated than most.

"The days of long term full time employment are over."

This is not a good thing.

"This means I will be part of the first generation to truly never stop learning. If i do stop, ill be out of work. For me this is fine. I am happy."

For now, we'll see how happy you are in 40 years.

I'm glad you see yourself as being on the cutting edge of some sort of new age. But to me its "Brave New World" stuff. Average people shouldn't have to get crapped on all the time because a small academic elite thinks the world should be run based on what's good for them.

If the new economy isn't good for average Canadians then we should use our advantages to change that. The economy should serve people, not the other way around. An economy is a man-made creation designed to help us allocate resources and labour better for the betterment of all of our lives. When it fails to do that we should change the economy, not continue to worship it as if its more important than us.

useless tools & HST (cont.)

The median price of an new car is about $30,000. A single person earning $40,000 per year is lucky to clear $30,000 a year even if he or she lives rent free at home in mom and dad's basement. Put insurance on that car, buy a phone and a few other things (like steel-toed shoes to go to work) and he or she is lucky to clear $25,000. So, a single person working at the car factory, earning 40 grand a year, living at home, saving every possible dime can't even afford to buy the median priced car that factory makes without taking out a loan. The average labour cost would be about $2100 for that $30,000 car. The labour price for a Model T Ford worker in today's dollars would put the average annual salary of a Ford worker over $100,000 - and that's with no pension and no insurance. The workers made about $650 -$700 per year and they could buy a new Model T for less than $300 (even as low as $200 in some years.) The labour costs about the same for the amount of work done, but there weren't concrete and asphalt-covered car lots with air-conditioned showrooms either. The cost of cars has gone up because of increases to management, increases to shareholders, increases to dealers, and advertizing costs. So, Skeletor, please quit picking on the average Joe who needs to secure a decent wage by doing monotonous work, day in and day out. I worked in a factory in my youth, I don't wish that life on anyone. Factory workers deserve to make a decent living.

Now back to that HST and taking money away from the poor, the working poor, and the middle class while giving breaks to the filthy rich stockholders of resource extraction corporations. What a lousy tax for the average Joe.

link to industrial floor sweeper

For Skeletor:
This link should go to Factory Cat 290 Industrial Rider Floor Sweeper - the kind they use in Ford factories. (If the link doesn't work, just plug the name in your search engine and you should get something.)

It's pretty obvious to me that Skeletor doesn't understand work in a factory/machine shop. He's blowing foolish hot air when he talks down on workers in manufacturing plants.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.industrialvehicles.net/Modules/WebStore/Images/210/Factory%2520Cat%2520290%2520Industrial%2520Rider%2520Floor%2520Sweeper.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.industrialvehicles.net/product_results.cfm%3Fsearchstring%3D48&usg=__lrpNUmcxWqooxbXEtxQXvQ0oJn0=&h=300&w=225&sz=29&hl=en&start=9&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=rMN2Fa9hsmnG3M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=87&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfloor%2Bsweepers%2Bindustrial%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&ei=zeXiTbL_N67OiALb5uDhBg

after sweeping - Skeletor

The floor sweeper guy has to scrub after sweeping. Here's a floor scrubber; here's the seat where a factory floor sweeper/scrubber might spend half his/her noisey, windowless shifts. Imagine doing this job year in and year out. Imagine having to maintain focus minute after gruelling minute - perhaps on the night shift for 10-15 years before you have enough seniority to get an afternoon shift doing the same sort of thing. Then imagine finally getting a day shift doing the same sort of thing after another 10-15 years. Yeah, work at the plant is loads of fun.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.industrialvehicles.net/Modules/WebStore/Images/165/American-Lincoln%25207765%2520High%2520Capacity%2520Sweeper%2520Scrubber.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.industrialvehicles.net/product_results.cfm%3Fsearchstring%3D82&usg=__7IrLjYMfKu1RdTvtW-UJzn77DxM=&h=340&w=400&sz=56&hl=en&start=37&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=kAapdtBrGxPzCM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=124&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dindustrial%2Bfloor%2Bsweepers%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D20%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&ei=JP3iTdXhAcPPiALmksW8Bg

fish-counter

"It is about time the provincial and federal taxes were harmonised; the GST/PST system was terrible. It was a patchwork of exceptions that even the major department stores couldn't figure out."

Yes, yes, we already know everything's terrible. But the bright idea that greater thinkers than you or I came up with was that RSTs (retail sales taxes) could be used to steer demand in an economy, make specialization profitable, benefit a local market over a foreign one, and provide genuine help for the poor without constructing a cumbersome income adjustment that wouldn't target the needy directly anyway.

That's not me talking, that's my old economics text. Retail sales taxes are still very useful tools for pinpointing small adjustments. However, the books also do acknowledge that when the number of taxes (and number of adjustments) becomes too great, then it's often time to adjust structural tax policy such as income, service, or exchange (monetary) tax policies.

That's why we need what Seth Klein recommends - a working group to evaluate our tax policy before we make changes to it, to be sure we're affecting the people or corporations, and the processes the way we want to.

Don't dismiss RSTs out of hand - they're still very useful, and they're still used in many places around the world.

@fFrank

what is the different between FEELING over qualified and being overqualified. I put exactly zero stock in such a "scientific" study. We can debate teh issue but measuring how people feel about it doesn't tell us much more than peoples cultural perspectives. Its like when they come out with reports on the happiest nations in the world and all these countries who have horrendous working conditions on averaged have much harder lives and struggle to get buy are much more happy than all of us in relatively rich countries with little to complain about. Yes we can debate various things as we are now but most of us have it pretty easy on a world scale.

In France for example I find they have very uncompetitive business policies. Jobs are hard to come buy especially buy the youth. IF you find a job you stick with it even if you bloody hate it. You stick with it until retirement. IF you have a job it is not very culturally acceptable to complain because at least you have one.

Your statistic tell me not that we are over educated for what we do but our education does not educate us for today's jobs. Ill be the first to tell you about how so many people i k now just do a university degree because it is expected but never thing about which subject will be useful.

I am actually all for raising minimum wage being the lowest in the country is embarrassing. I do have a problem with these living wage ideas something like $25/ hour in Vancouver. The idea makes sense but knowing places like Australia or Switzerland with very high minimum wages the only thing that happens is everything gets more expensive. You want a 20 dollar crappy pizza dinner in small town swiss? Be prepared to pay double or triple. You think rent is expensive in Vancouver check out Australia! Increases in wages tend to simply increase inflation so I see no point in VERY high min wages. They wont push up higher wages they just will inflate away the middle classes spending power. And shrink the job supply at some point. I know I can’t afford to go out to dinner much most places in Europe where it costs me 2 times more for a meal. I go in fact less than half as much.

corrections...

It is true, according to the most recent figures, that the majority of businesses in BC are SMEs - small/medium enterprises, which are defined as having less than 50 employees. It is not true that the majority of them are structured as proprietorships - the majority are in fact, incorporated. Yes, anyone earning less than $30,000 GROSS did not pay GST...and may now pay HST...now remember this is gross income, not net, or take-home income. These people are suffering if they have no other source of income.

The HST may benefit larger businesses, but that is not who employs the majority of British Columbians. In light of that fact, it is difficult to see the HST as anything but payoff to Liberal supporters. The facts have been in for some time on how regressive these taxes really are - but it's not about the facts, is it?

If it were about the facts, we would be encouraging small business with every tool at our disposal, yes? To increase employment, as well as tax revenues...The reality is that the most prevalent form of financing for small business - in the whole of Canada as well as BC - is, credit cards. Yes, you read that right, credit cards. The big banks that we have supported in the past with big tax breaks don't like to lend to small business, you will have to ask them why. But it is hard to build an innovative economy on the back of credit card financing...

These facts and figures can be found on readily accesible provincial and federal government websites, but to reiterate, it is never about the facts, is it?

@SharingIsGood

Who the hell needs to buy a 30,000 car? I had a 5,000 dollar used car. new one? there's plenty under 15k. Best thing I ever did in my teens was sell my car. The labour cost for a car is $2100? Maybe your direct labour cost but I remember reading during the car manufacture bailouts that the pension costs alone / CAR were $1200. Direct labour is only part of the cost. You have also all other costs associated. NON unionized workers in France costs a business an extra 50% in Canada little over 30% and USA around 15%ish. Costs of modern cars went up because of increases to management, increases to shareholders, increases to dealers, and advertizing costs? HA What about 2 Billion dollar modern robotic manufacturing plants. What about R & D costs? considering the motel-T was a glorified go-cart. Planning a new car model even 40 years ago took over 10 years. this process is now often 2 years. With the law of diminishing returns added efficiency in any area is exponentially expensive to develop. I agree with advertizing and dealership costs though. Not shareholders though those companies have been losing money for the most part especially the north American divisions, profits coming from the developing markets and Europe. Oh and my first job was dish washing, Ive worked in a soy candle factory and have even done contract work literally sorting garbage for municipalities for summer and not so part time work WHILE going to school.

Finally the floor sweeper. I appreciated the links to the modern floor sweeping equipment. I am already familiar with it from a job at a grocery store in my teens. The guys on the machine were not skilled. They we hard working guys that didn't speak much English but worked their butts on at two jobs a day. Still service grumpy yuppies their moca frappe double soy foam starbucks is a lot more difficult. Unfortunately the guy I mentioned was not using such modern equipment as amazing as that sounds, just a push broom. Worse still talking about this debate I was reminded by my GF that a class mate of hers in University makes 25 dollars per hour "cleaning" a sawmill in richmond.
This apparently involves pushing a broom around. Yet this poor guy still has over 30,000 in post secondary debt. Why? cause he has a really nice new car, an amazingly nice apartment in a prime place and parties too much. Now I only found this out yesterday but I am not so surprised our sawmills tend to close up shop.

I checked out the RBC mortigage calculator. with generous numbers a couple making only 40,000 per year can afford an apartment between $332,493 and $406,483. Even if you say they are biased and generous with their number you can get a decent place for 250-300k in downtown Vancouver not a house an apartment mind you. A single person making 40k has more trouble with $108,497 and $132,641, looking at the suburbs and a long commute, need to pair up.

HST is a regressive tax

The HST is a regressive tax. It hurts poor and middle income people the most. HST = Horse Shit Tax.

Skeletor is full of HS:
"I checked out the RBC mortigage calculator. with generous numbers a couple making only 40,000 per year can afford an apartment between $332,493 and $406,483."

I checked too, and on a $40,000 income and no debt, a couple with a $20,000 down payment would be lucky to buy a place that costs more than $150,000. They have property tax and heat to pay for as well as condo fees, "dontcha know" (as Luke would say). As they have no real credit, they will be lucky to get locked in at less than 5% for the first 5 years.

More Skeletor HS designed to deflect away from how bad the HST is:
In terms of the cost of labour for the car, as stated earlier, "the average cost of labour (INCLUDING PENSION PLAN AND INSURANCE)at the car plant is 8% ($2100) per average car. It is not the price of labour that makes the cars cost more. It is not the guy sweeping a floor. And, why shouldn't a guy that works in a car factory not be able to afford the average car being built? Your robots and R&D statements are red herrings. The engineers make far more than the working guy running a sweeper. It isn't the $40,000 floor sweeper making the cars cost more. You agreed with this statement/question: "What about 2 Billion dollar modern robotic manufacturing plants. What about R & D costs?" Yep, those are management/non-union jobs and decisions.

BTW, I've worked my way through a couple of degrees myself. It is easier for some than others. However, with so many people unemployed and employed making coffee, wouldn't it make more sence for people to have to work a little less hard?

It is all about the priorities of a society. Are you going to keep giving to the rich, or are you going to spread the money around?

I wish all news media would

I wish all news media would immediately start an HST Vote education campaign teaching everyone that a "NO" vote means you're in favour of the HST and a "YES" vote means you're opposed to the HST. Also, encourage everyone to educate at least one person daily regarding the Liberal's deceptive HST vote question.

skeletor

"what is the different between FEELING over qualified and being overqualified. I put exactly zero stock in such a "scientific" study."

The same questions were asked in each of the countries, one can assume there's not much difference between "feeling" and "being" in each of the countries.

"In France for example I find they have very uncompetitive business policies. Jobs are hard to come buy especially buy the youth."

How is that different from Canada? Its the same.

"Your statistic tell me not that we are over educated for what we do but our education does not educate us for today's jobs."

Both can be true.

"Increases in wages tend to simply increase inflation so I see no point in VERY high min wages. They wont push up higher wages they just will inflate away the middle classes spending power. And shrink the job supply at some point."

There's not a lot of data supporting that argument or opposing it unfortunately. However, there's a good article to be found on the subject here :
http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp178/

"I know I can’t afford to go out to dinner much most places in Europe where it costs me 2 times more for a meal. I go in fact less than half as much."

The same thing has been happening here because of increasing sales taxes.

fFrank

"The same questions were asked in each of the countries, one can assume there's not much difference between "feeling" and "being" in each of the countries."

no this is completely false. Cultural differences are a huge factor in how people will response to how they FEEL about something. Maybe you
ll just have to believe me on this one but have had school programs with 25 nationalities in a class of 33. This is where I proved to myself that a study asking how people felt about something didn't work. Some culture tend to accept things the way they are, they will say they are happy about something that you or I would complain a ton about. I find it all rather fascinating but that's another topic.

France and Canada are nothing like each other for business policies. Canada is somewhere between the USA and France. Often a very good average of Socialism and some form of "capitalism". Finding work in Canada as a youth is nothing like France. French often do not even work until after a master's degree in Canada is it of little trouble finding a crappy job at the age of 16 and working part time and summers through high school and if one chooses university.

Increases in sales taxes are not doubling the price of a meal. If I have to pay 7% more for a meal fine. Honestly I don't understand why there were exempt from sales sale. Restaurant meal is not a necessity. It is not children clothes, school books, or groceries which I do see the value in keeping exempt to help the poor.

France and Canada

Are actually increasingly alike - especially in terms of prospects for graduates.

There are lots of jobs available flipping burgers at minimum wage or driving taxi; if you have an advanced degree - Masters or higher - the situation is entirely different.

There are hundreds if not thousands of highly educated young Canadians (people who were born here and whose parents were born here) who are working far below their skill sets as sessional lectures and doing post-doc research for next to nothing.

Increasing the tax on restaurant meals simply makes it harder for students in the low-wage ghettos of the service industry to make a meager living and, as is so often the case, help their partner support the family.

Not only have they to face the prospect of never owning their own home - they continually are confronted by the reality of not having enough money to pay off their student loans.

As for France

The OECD actually says this about our Gallic cousins:

France enjoys one of the highest hourly productivity rates among OECD countries...

Doesn't sound to me as if everyone is sitting around at the corner Bistro..

HST and owning/renting one's home

G West is entirely correct, the HST does make it harder for many to afford their own homes.

From today's Montreal Gazette we learn that I was correct, Skeletor's post is full of HS.

Click the link and just see the mortgage that that $50,000/year can provide:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/financially+ready/3671649/story.html

Then read today's Vancouver Sun article that tells about the true cost of buying a home.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/much+will+home+really+cost/3671682/story.html

Heaven forbid the furnace or the water heater break down for the family trying purchase their first home with student loans and eek by even on $40,000 per year. I've seen horror stories of youngish families (in their 30s with 2 and more degrees) living 4 and 5 to a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver. It's not just the rent that costs when a family is trying to get a start, it's that first and last month's rent plus the damage deposit. Just to move into an apartment, the family will have to have $4000 up front or be hitting their credit cards for groceries.

SharingIsGood

Apparently you do not know how to use the RBC mortgage calculator. As I clearly explained a couple earning $40,000 a year can buy a place b/w between $332,493 and $406,483. I then went on to say that a single person could afford under 150k. Now unless you think a woman's place is barefoot in the kitchen... a couple mean both parties working.

As a poor student when HST came in I benefited. I got more rebates so not all 'poor' people lose. To make categorical statements like that is BS and so is petty name calling. I would think someone apparently much more mature than this "young up start" would be able to debate with a little more maturity.

Of course 2 billion dollar manufacturing plants and R& d are management decision but if they did not make them they would be out of business along with all the jobs. Maybe you think it would be nice to still me driving model T fords around that that is not reality. I am happy we have far safer more efficient cars now. In the real world there is competition. Competitors try to out compete you and if you cannot keep up you are out of business along with all your employees. Domestic car manufactures have made TERRIBLE management decisions as have the unions working 'with' them' The are both the blame.
I don't think you have a grasp on reality. Would I like everyone to be able to have really nice lives without working hard, seriously hell yes i would. It is simply not reality though. I will not apologize when I say I don't think someone doing the job a monkey could do deserves 25 bucks an hour. One doesn't need to go to university either. One can go to school to be a plumber or carpenter or any other skilled trade. They are valuable jobs. But to say someone doing an unskilled job as pushing a broom deserves to be able to afford a luxury car the same as those with skilled jobs that take years to learn, its not realistic. If it was so what would be the incentive to invent years in learning skilled jobs? I don't think guys should be being paid 80% salary for a year while they don't do to work because the plant is shut down. That blame goes on management AND unions. We could of course force people to work less hours per week like France but to be honest I think that hurts poor people more than the rich. It also again makes your country less competitive internationally losing jobs for the country.

I agree it is all about priorities of a society but I will decide my own priorities. If i want to work more and earn more or less and have more free time. I assure you, YOU will not be dictating to me what MY priorities are or should be.

G West

"highest hourly productivity rates among OECD countries".

I keep hearing of this report but actually living here I really question it. I haven't yet found it to look at it in more depth to see the calculated efficiency and all that. But really You have to come here to understand the lack of efficiency in the country. The culture does not put an importance on the idea.

Regardless hourly efficientcy is only part of the equation. CAPEX costs, your property plant and equipment aren't paid off in terms of hourly efficiency. They are paid off by total output.

@SharingIsGood. I will again point you to my two above posts. I said a COUPLE not a SINGLE person could afford the expensive place. I then said a SINGLE person had more trouble. Obviously spouting off on rants is more your strong suit than reading comprehension.

Finally i would like to add it is a very anglo-sazon ideal to own a home. In many places there is much less emphases on ownership more people rent. This is because for the last 60 yrs owning a home in the UK has paid off. Same for most Americans and Canadians. Housing was not just a home but an investment. Now the prices are so high it makes home ownership much more difficult than my parents generation. Also the risk prices will continue to rise (and that home ownership is a good investment) also decreases. Personally I wouldn't buy in Vancouver now. I calculated it was much cheaper AND less risky to rent.

gwest

"Increasing the tax on restaurant meals simply makes it harder for students in the low-wage ghettos of the service industry to make a meager living and, as is so often the case, help their partner support the family."

How? As a poor student tax on restaurant meals didn't really affect me. Why? because I could not afford to go to restaurants. "Could not afford" is a qualitative statement though. I chose not to is probably more appropriate. I made many decisions that allowed me to both pay for my own education including master's in France and still travel the world when I had time. I still know many with 30,000 in student loans. They could have done what I did but rather they tend to have problems with the difference between a need and a want is. We all make choices. Going to university is a choice. It used to be that this meant giving up short term money and poor student lifestyle for the long term gain of an education with much higher total life type wealth. The problem now is that many student live the nice short term lifestyle not the poor student one. My parents used to share a can of soup for dinner when they were students. I chose not to own a car and not party or eat out at restaurants much. But most students choose to have nice cars, 700 dollar iphones and over priced apple laptops (start at 1300 + tax)

Young people these days really seem to not understand basic personal finances, something we should be doing a better job of teaching in schools. We expect everyone to buy a house but the vast majority of us do not know how a mortgage works or even how what compound interest is.

skeltor - you need to read more carefully

Why do you think HST on restaurant meals would be a problem for students who are supporting their family or helping their wife or husband support the family?

The students I'm talking about are WORKING at the restaurants in question - which should have been obvious from the context.

You clearly don't have a very clear appreciation of how difficult is really is for students these days.

The HST, and its impact on a restaurant's success or failure also affects the minimum wage STUDENT jobs of the people who work there and, hopefully, collect a few tips into the bargain.

Fact of the matter is, anyone who's working on an advanced degree, is not in the business of being free to MAKE CHOICES - they're in the middle of a very problematic choice they made several years ago when they decided to become an academic, a doctor, a research scientist or whatever.

Respectfully, I think you've been talking at length about things you THINK you know. The fact of the matter is, your observations don't have the ring of truth about them.

@skeletor

Skeletor says:

"As I clearly explained a couple earning $40,000 a year can buy a place b/w between $332,493 and $406,483."

You should have said a couple earning $80,000 per year or a couple, with each partner earning $40,000 per year, but you didn't, so your statement was false!

Further: Acording to the last StatsCan figure available 2008 (and I don't think it has risen since then), the median income for a BC family is $67,890. Remember now, the bulk of families are headed by people 30 and older. The majority of people under thirty don't earn that $40,000 a year you (perhaps unknowingly) misled us about. If they as a couple earn over 20 grand each, they get no HST rebate anyway!

Skeletor also says:

"I agree it is all about priorities of a society but I will decide my own priorities. If i want to work more and earn more or less and have more free time. I assure you, YOU will not be dictating to me what MY priorities are or should be."

Perhaps, after you have children of your own, you will lose your self-importance. Perhaps you will want yur children living in a world where their peers are clothed and fed and properly cared for by families that are not destitute and desperate. If you already have children, perhaps you will change your selfish worldview after you have had a serious accident or illness and you find that you can't look after your family's needs the way you intended. Perhaps your partner will fall ill and you will need to stay home to help him or her.

At least with a decent minimum wage and no HST, a couple might have a chance of having a coffee on the waterfront once or twice a month. If they have kids, they have little hope for anything but hard times. Even well-educated single moms and dads often spend a decade or more in poverty. Let us pray that it is not you who fall on hard times and have children requiring a fillings, orthopedic shoes and asthsma medication. Heaven forbid you ever find yourself needing a food bank.

The HST referendum question is perfectly clear

Anyone who doesn't get it needs a brain transplant. We are voting to scrap the HST. Voting "Yes" means scrapping it, and voting "No" means keeping it. We will have the vote in our mail, and we can actually take five minutes to read it then mail it back.

I don't care about the impact of the HST on restaurants for the simple reason that I rarely eat out. I can't afford to, with or without the extra tax. Besides, I spent 20 years travelling and have eaten more than my quota of restaurant food. My verdict: it all tastes the same.

If anyone wants to whine about taxes, I respectfully suggest that they are about 100 years too late. The time to whine was when income tax was first introduced as a temporary measure for WW1. The only change in the last 100 years is the cost of the weapons.

gwest - I don't have any

gwest - I don't have any trouble relating to how hard it is being a student these days, i AM a student these days. I don't think you have any idea how it is. From what I can tell students hard it harder in my parents time. Students now THINK they have it harder but its all about choices as i said before. They choose what to buy and what not to. I personally know a lot of students with a lot of student debt but these are also people I know who have decent or even nice cars, take nice trips to part in vagas and mexico, have an Iphone when it comes out then upgrades to the new model as soon as it comes out, goes out partying spending 80$ on drinks, buys lower deck seats at Canucks games, eats out 5 times a week (i include lunches as one can with minimal effort brown bag it) These are not needs these are wants. I know because I see, I hear this at school and I see the pictures on facebook. I have savings because I made and continue here in France to sacrifices in not having everything I wanted/want.

SharingIsGood - im sorry that for my generation it is assumed both parties in a couple work. I thought you could figure out that by the two sets of numbers I have, the couple and the single person. I took the arbitrary number from YOUR post BTW, I believe it is what you said $18/hour equates too.

I don't have children and I dispute your statement I have a selfish world view. I simple disagree with you in our previous posts. Everyone who disagrees who you see the world is selfish? get over yourself. I think at this point the world is getting a big wake up call that debts are bad. You are happy for others to pay this debt. All i say is that i don't believe it is so simple.

When I have kids, I hope I don't pass on debt to them for that I DO feel is selfish.

Fish-counter, with respect

There is more in this choice than your own personal preferences and habits: Whether you dine out now and then or regularly; whether you eat at Bishop's or at McDonalds.

It concerns not just customers but workers too.

That's the whole problem with a society which tends to emphasize the impact of a choice (in this case a tax switch) on one group of people (in this case businesspeople and corporations) while totally ignoring the impact of that choice on another (much larger and more vulnerable) group of people.

It's not just about YOU. It's about how we function together as a society which actually GIVES a shit about all the members of that society.

That's the problem with anonymous posts

You haven't got a clue who I am, what I know and why I'm certain my impressions of what students (and especially ones pursuing advanced degrees), are going through in this country.

Furthermore, if you look again at what I wrote, you'll notice I never suggested you have a 'selfish' world view - whatever that is.

Furthermore If you'd take the time

Furthermore, if you'd take the time to use the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator and punch in some comparative numbers from, say 1980, until, say, 2005 I think you'll understand pretty quickly how much worse off students are today than they were a generation ago. Furthermore, there were jobs available for graduates then - now, NOT SO MUCH.

Hell, in the past 10 years tuition fees alone have risen by more than 100%.

I won't insult you by pointing out what's happened to the minimum wage over that same period....ok?

gwest

well I am pursuing an advanced degree so yes, I know what it is like. I have been in France since September but everything else was done in Vancouver. I also ran a started and a student association helping international students, so yes i feel I am pretty qualified to speak about student life. It is however not all students of course there are those who aren't spoiled brats who swim up stream fighting all the way for everything they get.

the selfish thing was not for you. You debate with respect. It was for our friend SharingIsGood, fan of the ad hominem.

I agree

My parents generation had an amazing roll of things and i don't expect such an amazing run. Mind you again in 1980 students weren't buying $700 iphones or $1500 plus tax laptops every 2 years either.

as we covered in another

as we covered in another post i said education was the most important investment in the future of a country. Tuition should be cheap, im not sure about free. Free scares me as if it is free people have the tenancy to go for no reason other than something to do. In Europe I find this to often be the case. Result is a waste to the system as school is expensive for the gov't but also a waste for the student who doesn't try at something they aren't interested in and finally a waste as they graduate with a useless degree as they never thought about what the point of the degree was get a job.

Kind of an issue when a grocery store clerk has 2 master's degrees one in water chemistry something and another in biology something. Problem is she never cared what she studied and isn't exactly motivated as a person. Finally the gov't encourages it because students don't count on the unemployment roll. They consistently get people off the bad books into useless school to look better. Again this is also a problem of archaic education systems not teaching what today's economy needs.

ps

to be honest THIS article headline scares me more than 7% extra at a restaurant and I think it has far greater consequences.

"Food Prices could double by 2030"

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/2011531143949529754.html

G West said ...

"It's not just about YOU. It's about how we function together as a society which actually GIVES a shit about all the members of that society."

Which is a very good point. And it is quite telling how frequently skeletor, Fishballs, and others of their ilk repeat the "It doesn't matter to ME" mantra, along with other rather empty anecdotes where they both rebuff and deny research and data because their personal experience doesn't back the data 100 percent.

skeletor - again with respect

I don't know ANY students pursuing an advanced degree who have $700 I-phones.

I do know a lot of them who have huge STUDENT LOANS.

The point here is that the tax shift from consumers to business hurts those (like students, single parent families, renters, commuters and the poor) who are already in serious trouble; people who have been forced, in many cases, to finance some of their education expenses with credit cards.

These people are already behind the 8-ball and every British Columbian who has made it out of the morass of student debt and into a decent job and a home should be voting against this tax shift because THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS who haven't had the same good fortune.

Our society cannot grow if the top 5% of the economy gets ALL THE BENEFITS of living in a rich and beautiful country.

This referendum is a teachable moment - an opportunity for all British Columbians to stand up and say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"!

@John Greg

your "ilk"? grow up

At least gwest can debate with respect.

Not that you will believe me but a quick bbm to my GF, she counts 5 iphones in her class currently in session now at capilano university.

ad hominen / logical fallacy skeletor

There is nothing illogical about my understanding your world view as selfish.

And, you have assumed that both parents didn't work in my generation nor my parents' generation. You made the ad hominen / logical fallacy of assuming that because I read your words to mean what they said at face value, as written.

Through the many incarnations of my family life in my childhood, all eight of my parents/step-parents worked to or nearly to their grave. My WW II vet father worked on the family dairy farm from the time he was born until he entered the war. After the war he worked as a meat-cutter for 60 years. He just retired a few years ago.

I paid my own way through university, and it wasn't any easier for me: I had had a business before returning to university. No student loans for this guy. I had to wear out, dismantle and sell off equipment related to that business that I had spent years building from the ground up during a decade when interest rates were well into the double digits and the BC economy was in the tank.

My wife and I have had to maintain two incomes to pay our children's ways through their childhoods and university. It was no easier for me than it is for you; but still, no matter what I had to go through and no matter how hard it was, it was still far easier for me to be successful than it was for many others. Yes, like you, I was careful with my money. In fact, I worked part-time while sitting on the board of a non-profit group and going to school while carrying as many as 7 and 8 courses per term - but I could handle it.

You see, I used to believe like you, Skeletor, and my many years of experience have taught me that I was wrong - I was selfish in my belif that others should be able to do as I had done. My years have taught me that the wealthy have gotten wealthy off of the backs of others - usually not from their own sweat. The children of the wealthy have their share of burdens to bear, but they generally have had a good diet, decent clothes, a vehicle to drive and post secondary school that is free for them. They can have a job at one of Mom and Dad's or Grandpa's businesses, or they can work for one of their parents' friends. If they are really wealthy, they may have to do nothing but let the trust fund take care of them. I argue for the playing field to be made a bit more level. I argue for post secondary to be free for all, though it was work and sweat for me. I argue that people should be paid a living wage for whatever they do, and I argue that it can be achieved right here, right now, in British Columbia. There should be no child poverty, and there should be full employment. We have the resources, the skills and the knowledge to make this happen if we want to make it so. We just need to work together as a society rather than as a collection of competing individuals. We have to work as a fully functional family rather than the selfish dysfunctional idiots we have become.

Again, please read carefully

This is what I wrote:
skeletor - again with respect
I don't know ANY students pursuing an advanced degree who have $700 I-phones.

I don't believe it would be unfair to mention that there are not many candidates for advanced degrees studying at what still ought to be called 'Cap College'.

The plethora of community colleges which have morphed into degree-granting institutions in the past dozen years (while institutions of higher learning like UBC, SFU and UVic can't find the scratch to actually hire anything but sessional lecturers and TAs).

We have now taken this argument full circle.

full circle?

Thanks for the pleasure, GWest and SIG especially but others too - it is always a pleasure to see that others understand that we sink or swim as societies, not individuals.

I cannot help but laugh here at skeletor, who mentions a 'quick bbm' to his girlfriend...Blackberries are expensive, my friend. Well, I am pursuing an advanced degree (which I look forward to finishing one of these days), and I have a Blackberry and a pretty nice laptop, too...the thing is, these things are required these days, as they certainly weren't for previous generations. It is a very difficult time to be a student, for sure, but then, it is a difficult time for anyone making less than $40,000/yearly without a partner. By definition of course, the 'average BC wage' means that 50% of the population makes less than that, so we really are talking about a lot of people who are finding things tough these days, not a few individuals who may not have learned financial prudence at their parent's knees. It seems a safe bet our current governments don't understand this...
It also seems a safe bet that that a few others don't.

Nobody, not even the wealthiest, can be exempt in their lifetime from needing the support of family, friends, and community at some point. And that is precisely why we nuture that ephemeral thing called 'community'...so it will be there when we need it.

(Now this is an aside...skeletor, I make plenty of spelling mistakes and typos...but really - anglo sazon for anglo saxon? What, precisely, is the nature of your 'advanced degree' program?)

skeletor

Further to your above argument about money and mortgages.

Please reread your original posting:

"I checked out the RBC mortigage calculator. with generous numbers a couple making only 40,000 per year can afford an apartment between $332,493 and $406,483. Even if you say they are biased and generous with their number you can get a decent place for 250-300k in downtown Vancouver not a house an apartment mind you. A single person making 40k has more trouble with $108,497 and $132,641, looking at the suburbs and a long commute, need to pair up."

It was really quite confusing. Unless they were channelling with you, I don't believe one could really tell for sure what your numbers were about.

VivianLea

"Nobody, not even the wealthiest, can be exempt in their lifetime from needing the support of family, friends, and community at some point. And that is precisely why we nuture that ephemeral thing called 'community'...so it will be there when we need it."

That is a beautiful statement, worthy of an advanced degree!