coverups

quote...
Funny how we don't read about this in the Vancouver Sun or see it on Global TV.

This is not new. They will continue to cover up this campbell government. Ask any
reporter, management member this question..."If gordo is guilty along with VBV, would
you vote for him again?". I have asked some newspaper editors that question, and they
would not answer. Seems that their masters would not like it. They
continually cover, confuse and deceive many. I am very thankful that there are
media outlets, like Tyee, to show us some truthes.

The decade of scam

I think the Liberal's divine rule of BC will end in a whimper and history will show it was the decade of scam and flim-flam, abetted by the incestuous media moguls.

I see now that the mighty NW/98 is interviewing Tyee reporters! It seems that the public is beginning to see what the Liberals are really about - scam, flim flam, purveyors of snake oil and ponsie schemes!

We have ideologically warped

We have ideologically warped governments provincially and federally, living and working on the lies of the neoclassical market economy theory of the total abolishment of government, which means the destruction of democracy, and replacing it with corporate dictatorship that jacks up the phony figures of the GDP, etc. to mislead people into submission.

Like one of Bush's cohorts was quoted: "We want to reduce the size of government so we can dump it into a bathtub and drown it".

Anybody who reads the books of Milton Friedman and his disciples can accurately predict the next pack of lies and their overall action plans:

No healthcare, no minimum wage, no UI, no govermnent pensions, no government regulations etc. Everything based on the "marketplace", or rather on the orders of the controllers of the marketplace, the multinational cartels, we already have operating, controlling oil, gas, foods, etc.

In their warped minds the only role of government is foreign policy, defence and the protection of the free movement of imaginary capital.

These books have been around and taught in our universities for 40 years, with Harper and Emerson among the graduates, so there's nothing new in their plans and actions.

The problem is that very few people bothered to read them and so they follow their lies into self destruction under the rising costs and loss of public control over the privatized services.

Ed Deak.

To Ed Deak

You said it best.

Sounds like all those spin doctors

Sounds like all those communications experts appointed by OIC 656 - Sept 12, 2006 - just hadn't been in harness long enough to make Carole Taylor’s compromises with the truth sound like anything other than ‘compromises with the truth’.

When you take into consideration the effects of running the health care system in this province on the back of an envelope in Minister Abbott’s suit pocket, combined with a lack of consistent planning and professional management throughout the regions, it should be no surprise that costs are rising while quality of service and patient satisfaction have gone down.

Without a lot of dedicated and hardworking doctors and nurses who are committed to their jobs and the preservation of ‘public’ health care, things would have been a lot worse.

No thanks whatever to Carole Taylor and her controllers; do you think she’ll be wearing Gucci’s this year?

After TILMA comes in all

After TILMA comes in all these public rights will disappear and we the public will have no say.
The Georgia Straight letters section a reader wanted more info regarding TILMA instead of explaining it Colin Hanson went on to defend it, I wouldn't believe a word out of his lying mouth.
We should all be very worried about this very despicable piece of corporate take over of our very Democratic Rights!
This Gordo government should be overthrown and banished.

fascists always like to dress snappy

Sappy shoes are really a KOOL STATEMENT ,they show the distance between the klass structure that so many politicians deny.

More important a-political things than shoes ...

Yeah...

But everyone of all political stripes should wear clean gonch...ya never know...and NO , 100% Cotton is not necessarily environmentally friendly either.

However, continual cleaning impacts the environment...ah sh!te, can't win nor please everbody.

Message to Campbell ...

Figures lie and liars figure as my grandpa used to say.

Surplus on the backs of the poor, the ill, and the old..........

http://timethief.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/bc-surplus-to-top-3-billion-this-year-and-next/

Why am I not surprised

If health services were costing half of what they are now the tactics would still be the same. Remember the debate around free trade and the threat to social services which was bound to follow. Any service delivered by governments that does not allow for competition from free enterprise is deemed to be too costly. That is the first step to getting their foot in the door. They see massive profits in being part of delivering an essentail service. We are now seeing the pressure from that bastien of free enterprise south of the 49th where 40 million have no healthcare coverage and taxes are supposedly lower. Why would we be surprised?

It is all ideology and has little to do with reality. Expect that any money saved or any surplus will for the most part be used to lower taxes for those who are so far above the poverty line that they still see anyone else as existing for the sole purpose of keeping them in their life style. Oh, expect a few crumbs to be thrown at the peasants like a green plan without money, a party in 2010 and a few more highways.

Doesn't tell the whole story

Comparison of expenditures against percentage of CRF doesn't tell the whole story.

First, it presupposes that government accounting for these expenditures has stayed the same over the last 25 years, which is not true.

Second, there are facts behind these comparisons which make a big difference. For example, what were the unemployment rates during different periods of this chart? Of course social spending did and should go up and down with how many people are on welfare and are currently employed.

The current state of the economy dictates some of these figures, and it's fair to say that today's economy is radically different from that of 25 years ago.

Finally, this column presupposes that the percentages of provincial expenditure on local government, transportation and social assistance were correct in the past and are incorrect now.

This is far too simplistic a view. I'm not saying that the mix today is correct; just that painting a pretty graph simplifies and ignores far too many realities.

Where are the lies?

I don't know that there are any secrets here. I think the BC Government has been very clear that it has a mandate to keep spending growth at or below the rate of inflation.

I see this as quite a positive thing. The government continues to spend less and less, and our standard of living continues to increase.

I read a very interesting article on yahoo finance by Ben Stein - a more progressive (i.e. democratic) capitalist. He made a very good point, which is relevant to Canada.

He said it is very evident that more and more wealth is being controlled by fewer and fewer people. He asked himself, how was this possible. In the U.S. everybody has access to free education and cheap, convenient access to investments, trading and saving mechanisms. Basically, he commented that by and large, the playing field is relatively even. In fact, while some are wealthy because they are celebrities, athletes or from inheretance - the majority of the wealthy are self-made, from middle class roots and became wealthy because they ........ get this ...... saved!

He made reference to his former bodyguard (or something to that effect) named Yariv, who was a recent immigrant from Israel. He said that Yariv was a young man with nothing, not even all that smart. He knew how to follow instructions. He became a contractor and was so good at following instructions, he became foreman. He saved and before you know it, made the connections to take an equity stake in the very projects he managed. Mr. Stein commented that he is well on his way to being one of the wealthy, he is young and knows how to save.

I am in my 30s and financially secure. In fact, every year that goes by, life gets that much easier. I got this way because I saved!! I got into investments at a young age, got into government savings bonds and made a little bit of money flipping properties. I got a good job, became well educated and always worked hard!

The bottom line is that we live in a great world, where all of the mechanisms are there to allow us to take care of ourselves! They really are. We have to stop relying on the government to take care of us. I realize some will slip through the crack - and those people deserve our help.

It is the freeloading culture of entitlement that Gavin West, Alci and others promote which puts a burden on society - and prevents resources from making their way to those who need it.

YlaReina

Nice input. Get used to reading Mr. McMartin's statiscics. This is what he does, and most people see through it.

In statistics, there is something called "sensitivity analyses", which create what are called "ranges".

Mr. McMartin takes a very simplistic view, fails to consider fundamental outliers and paints a very broad picture by plotting X and Y variables. We (and most readers) recognize that the world is a lot more complicated that X and Y.

There are economic "experts" out there who are actually pretty good at this stuff. These experts are often relied upon in court. This bogus analysis wouldn't withstand 2 questions in cross-examination.

In fact, there are reasons beyond media bias, why this would never be published in the Vancouver Sun.

YlaReina: Quote:First, it

YlaReina:

How has it changed?

"Don't believe it" is what Robin Mathews says, too

From: More Deceit, More Lies, More  Cover-Up.  The Gordon Campbell BC Government and CanWest Global Press and Media.
By Robin Mathews: Vive le Canada

It doesn't stop.

One rotten deal (of many) has been cut off.  The others continue.  The attempted heist by Gordon Campbell/Alcan of the Nechako River has been blocked.  The "suspects" were caught red-handed.  Their deal?  To give Alcan a contract guaranteeing, on-going, a profit of 1400% from energy sales to B.C. Hydro.  Campbell fronted for the deal, publicly calling it a good deal for British Columbians (and trying to keep its terms secret).

The B.C. Utilities Commission ruled Campbell's claim false.

Campbell went to Kitimat, remember, didn't meet the Mayor or City Council.  He ignored them.  He announced a very large expansion of Alcan aluminum smelter capacity to come soon.  That seems to be false, too.  Alcan keeps saying that unless it gets the 1400% profit deal it may just freeze everything.  Or go away.  So Campbell's announcement was fog, fakery, flunkeyism.

What you see is what you get in this matter, unless you work for the Leonard Asper family at CanWest.  What you have to see (if you're normal) is Gordon Campbell acting in flagrant breach of the trust placed in him by the people of British Columbia.  That is not, however, ever, what you hear or read or see from any of the CanWest lap-dogs in B.C., including the Vancouver Sun's editorial writers.

Questions have to be asked about them all.  Are they hired because they register below the moron level in I.Q. tests?  Are they so indoctrinated they can't think?  Are they so terrified of losing their jobs they'll write anything?  Or do they have a clear design? The answers don't really matter.  What matters is that British Columbians are misled, deceived, told half-truths, fed obviously false Gordon Campbell propaganda, indoctrinated with corporate bilge, and led away from seeing the primary breaches of the trust they have placed in the Gordon Campbell government.

Do the flacks at CanWest really do all that?
...........................................................................

Read the full story at Vive le Canada. The treachery isn't only about B.C. Health Care (although we need to know about that too). It seems to touch upon every tree, fish, mine, mill, human being, school ... everything we hold dear.
- BC Mary.

hmmmm

The world is more complicated than x and y, but getting rich is just a matter of saving? Hmmm, something doesn't add up. You might want to rework the talking points a bit, and I'd suggest pretending to be in your 40s. It's a more believable charade.

As to the culture of entitlement, that expression is getting a little old and worn out.

Bottom Line - No Long Term PLanning for Health Care

Whatever the statistical manipulation, it is quite obvious that 'we' have not planned for health care in the long term!

The impact of the 'baby boomers' could have been figured out and budgeted for a long time ago!

Stump

What do you suppose we call it? I don't know it is as much an expression as a statement of fact. Do you get tired of calling a "dog" a "dog"?

People like yourself believe you are entitled to the luxuries of a capitalistic society - people like me believe you have to work for those luxuries....

Capitalism's Luxuries?

So Cappy what are the luxuries of capitalistic society according to you?

freebear

Look around my friend.....everything you can see, smell and touch. You don't see the Cubans or the former USSR inventing televisions, personal computers or the internet. You can thank the Americans for all of that!

Your favourite movie, your favourite TV show, your favourite meal at your favourite restaurant - all products of a capitalistic society - where merchants identify human demands, and create a product to satisfy those demands.

The car you drive - whether it is an SUV, a sports car or a safety inspired mini-van. These corporations realized the needs of the market and filled those needs.

cappy's luxuries

"People like yourself believe you are entitled to the luxuries of a capitalistic society - people like me believe you have to work for those luxuries...."

Actually cappy, I think that some of us would argue that we could do without most of these so called luxuries. It's people like you who think that you're entitled to them. This is evident when people like you rile against people like us who have serious reservations about globalized capitalism. People like us would never claim to be entitled to an SUV; however, you seem to think that because you work hard (I don't question your work ethic but every time you characterize those of us who may not share your limited world view as lazy good for nothings, you make yourself look like a jacka$$) that you're entitled to SUVs, trips to Vegas, etc.

And spare us the econ101 lesson. Most of us comprehend classical, neoliberal economics better than you've demostrated.

And finally. The whole calling GWest Gavin, really isn't that funny. You see, when posters referred to you as "Mabel", that was funny because of your formal handle and the fact that it's a feminine name (and you made it quite clear that you're a male). Calling Gwest, Gavin, when most of know that his name is Garth, really doesn't make sense. Not that I need to defend Gwest - he's quite capable of doing that himself.

No time for more, only to

No time for more, only to say that I'm a private enterpriser, and all for individual incentives and opportunities. But NOT when they're used to steal, enslave and even kill to fill the pockets of international cartels, all in the name of "free enterprise".

There's no such thing, only the question "who controls enterprise" ?

And it is bad when either the government, or some predator class does it. There must be a rational distribution of rights for the benefit of the public and the environment and we don't have it under either communism, or capitalism.

Something the ideologically brainwashed have never been able to comprehend, sending humanity from one disaster into the another.

And when I say "private enterpriser", I don't mean some jerks sitting by tickertapes, phones, or now by computers, buying and selling the lives of others, filling their pockets with stolen goodies, while thumping their Bibles, Wealth of Nations, or Marx.

This is about all from me for today. (Thank goodness say the faithful?)

Ed Deak.

ubiquitous

Its like you to boil it down to something like that. I never said you believe you are entitled to material luxuries. Believe me, I'm frugal. I live well beneath my means. Personally, I think spending money on depreciable assets (i.e. is a waste of money). You can stick $30K into a mutual fund - in 10 years it will be closer to $60K. Your SUV will be worth $5K.

I'm not talking about SUVs. I'm talking about welfare, living standards, health care and education, roads, highways, subsidized farm products. You people wake up in the morning and believe you are entitled to this. Many of you believe this stuff magically appears - it doesn't - somebody is footing the bill.

I don't, I believe that every person has to contribute to this system. People have to wake-up in the morning and do their part.

You are entitled to one thing: your own time. If you want to spend it unproductively, go ahead. Just don't ask everybody else to subsidize it. If you want to devote your life to your work - live like Jim Pattison - nobody is stopping you. Some people choose free time and lifestyle over hard work. Some people make sacrifices and choose prosperity and wealth - it is your choice.

In them meantime, too few people are willing to put everything into wealth. As a result, they control more of it and you revert to the Kingdom. The Kingdom doesn't work either - so a government is neccesary to ensure people's basic civil liberties are upheld.

Gavin / Garth

I actually didn't know it was Garth, though I certainly did know it wasn't Gavin. I've gotten used to calling him Gavin - I kind of like it.

Give it a rest

Every time somebody argues for a more compassionate and caring democratic society the Campbell fan club turns out the vision of the Cubans or the USSR showing that they understand nothing about intelligent comparison of issues. Even the facts have no effect on their firmly held opinions because to do so would undermine their inflated egos. Oh and how they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps never receiving any help that was not provided for every one else in society. It all gets so tiresome.

They also seem to think that because they hear all their notions regurgitated back to them by CanWest that it is really the prevailing public opinion so they must be right and righteous.

Freedom is defined by pure capitalism, democracy is defined by corporate interest business and corporate freedom is the same as individual freedom. Yeah sure and pigs fly.

cappy

"I'm talking about welfare, living standards, health care and education, roads, highways, subsidized farm products."

You're absolutely right. I do believe that we're entitled to these things. I'd rather pay taxes for them that pay for them through the private market. What you describe are public goods (very basic econ101 concept). Public goods are?....Time's up! Answer is: A market failure. That is, (and I still insist you missed this lecture) goods that cannot be provided by the private market. Free-rider and drop-in-the-bucket, ergo, government provision. If a few people take advantage, so be it. I really believe that in the long-run, it's cheaper for society (not just in monetary terms) than privately provided public goods.

Ben Stein, Ben Stein

I'm pleased to see that Ben Stein has entered Capitalism's pantheon of great economists. Was it necessary to displace Ben Bernanke because he recently expressed some mild concern about the growing disparity between haves and have-nots in America?

I expect Ben (Stein) will be pleased. Last time he got any kind of positive mention in the media (although Tyee's status as a 'player' in that area is a bit weak) that I recall was when he and Jimmy Kimmel won an Emmy as best game show host in, what was it, 1997. And I don't think Ben (Bernanke) will be that troubled either,

I had no idea you’d decided to give up economic analysis (although that is a good idea) to enter the field of Tyee comedy. It’ll be a tough road to hoe though, maestro has the farce gig pretty well sewed up.

Anyway, if you’re interested in how well Canada’s doing in terms of looking after the welfare of its children (since you’re so into equality of opportunity) then you might want to look at this report:
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/presscentre/presskit/reportcard7/rc7_eng.pdf

And you might want to listen to the 'wisdom' of Ben Stein a little less assiduously and read a bit more from this fella:

"In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness."— Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in "The social welfare state, beyond ideology", Scientific American, November 2006.

I think you’re one badly mixed up dude, Cappy. And I feel kind of sorry for you. All that stuff and no real knowledge. All that money, and no concept of community. All that enthusiasm, and no compassion.

Kingdom

You say: The Kingdom doesn't work either. So a government is necessary to ensure peoples basic civil liberties are upheld.
I say: the Kingdom doesn't work either. Corruption is necessary to ensure governments and corporations deny peoples basic civil liberties.

What gives a country like the US the right to spend trillions of dollars each year on it's war machine? It's a culture where the communications companies for example spend millions to try and control the internet. The coalitions trying to save net neutrality are varied and in some cases have little in common other than seeing the loss of more liberty to the giant news media. Not sure if this is relevant or not... but it's one example of this lobbyist culture that overrides real justice and liberty. The rest as Ed says is just plain theft.

Capitalism - Our standard of living is what?

I am confused. All I can assume is that I must not be living in the same province as you. Even if you ignore all those immeasurables (like sitting in forever longer traffic lines, hospital waiting lists, crowded classrooms, etc.) you can't ignore what institutions not usually known for their warm, fuzzy leftist thinking (Retail Council of Canada, Business Council of BC, to name a couple)are saying about BC's standard of living - it is by no means increasing. Only occasionally, where standard of living is calculated as per capita GDP does BC show any improvement. Most decent economists know that using per capita GDP as an indicator of standard of living has major drawbacks, including assuming that corporate dollars are equivalent to dollars in consumer's pockets. Which coincides nicely with your "more and more wealth" statement. Using the more complete indicator of Disposable Income per Person, BC's standard of living is still on a precipitous downward slide. If you don't believe me take a peak at last year's RCC budget submission:

http://www.retailcouncil.org/membersonly/submissions/budgets/prebudget_bc06/rero.asp

Here's a quote I loved from the RCC submission:

Sounds to me like they have suggested that the good people of BC might need some more of those government handouts to fulfill their "sense of entitlement".

I must echo the comments of Ubiquitous, Fiat Lux and others, especially with respect to the comment that most of us would do just fine without the luxuries you mentioned. The present government's gradual dismantling of what they perceive as luxuries (health, social services, education, environmental regulations) overlaps quite extensively with what Capitalism calls "the mechanisms we need to take care of ourselves".

American television

Actually, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of television history is aware that the medium is the result of work of an scientists from a number of countries including Russia, Germany, Hungary, Scotland, and of course America. Check out wikipedia if you think I'm pulling your cathode ray tube.

Not suprisingly, the American most often credited as the inventor of tv, Philo Farnsworth, was less than impressed by his country's use of the medium, as he had envisioned it as a tool to educate and inform, rather than brainwashing the masses into consumerism. Unfortunately, credit for the first television broadcast goes to Nazi Germany in the mid-30s.

Further, the most popular American television shows have often been rip-offs of British programs (Three's Company, Sanford and Son, The Office, and so forth). Those familiar with British television know it to be tightly regulated and not very capitalistic in nature.

My two favourite movies are probably Witness and Bladerunner. No, I don't have a thing for Harrison Ford! One was directed by an Aussie, the other by a Brit. To suggest that either movie could not have been made without America is ludicrous, although both were produced under the auspices of American production companies. Further, many of the best films have come from decidedly non-capitalistic origins and it's the rare director who would cop to being in it strictly for the money.

My favourite food would have to be pho, the beef soup that's an amalgam of French and Vietnamese cuisine. Neither country would be considered a raging capitalist state as far as I know.

To state that restaurants are the products of capitalism would be to suggest that everyone ate at home before the birth of the so-called free market. One would have to be blind to history to make such a statement.

The first personal computer would be the abacus, developed a few millenia before America. The binary system wouldn't exist without the Arab contribution to mathematics, specifically the number zero. One would also be woefully negligent to overlook the contributions of scientists such as the Englishman Alan Turing, or to forget the first working electric computer was ENIAC, was the result of work by two professors at the University of Pennsyvania during the Second World War. Again, capitalism does not appear to have been crucial.

The car of course was also developed in a number of countries, although America proved to be the first country to become well and truly addicted to the illusion of personal mobility... somehow brainwashed into the notion that driving yourself was better than being chaffeuered in public transit or getting some exercise via biking or walking. Thank you Madison Avenue!

Google H.G. Well's quote regarding bikes for the final word on that subject and seek out the work of Ivan Illich for an explanation why the time-savings credited to cars are an illusion.

Cuba, of course, is renowned for its contributions to the field of organic farming, a field (pardon the pun) which may well be of more benefit to more people than the vapid eye-candy that the Western World considers the ne plus ultra of entertainment.

In short Cappy, correlation needn't mean causation.

Me too, me too

Count me amongst the idiots that were under the impression that that's what my taxes are supposed to go towards, rather than two weeks of Olympic excess for the benefit of advertisers and Intrawest.

jimmy_laroux--

jimmy_laroux> How has it changed?

As McMartin points out in this article:

Both measures had the effect of reducing CRF transportation expenditures.

There won't be Health care

There won't be Health care when TILMA kicks in or any Social networks.
Harper, Campbell and Klein are all Bush wanna-be NWO traitors

This might be old but it says a lot about MADD gordo
http://www.creativeresistance.ca/awareness02/2003-aug28-our-premier-makes-global-capital-a-whopper-of-an-officer-bill-tieleman-georgia-straight.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

from Capitalism 2 hours

from Capitalism 2 hours ago;
QUOTE:"You don't see the Cubans or the former USSR inventing televisions, personal computers or the internet. You can thank the Americans for all of that!"

Did you ever wonder how the Cubans developed their health care system, in spite of U.S. embargoes, and export their doctors, nurses, medical systems to countries aound the world and offers medical aid in emergencies to any and all nations (remember Katrina and the Tsunami)? From a country that still drives '51 Chevies, if they can afford one at all? Don't visit Cuba, my friend if you are ill, because it won't cost you a dime to get health care, something very alien to your outlook on life.

More nonsense

Like one of Bush's cohorts was quoted: "We want to reduce the size of government so we can dump it into a bathtub and drown it".
His name is Grover Norquist.
Capitalism mentions computers in his gushing over free markets in the US, however he conveniently fails to mention where the R&D money came from to develop that industry. It came from the military, which is financed by the government. Go figure eh, public subsidies for private profit. Who builds the roads that provides massive profits to the oil and auto industries? You guessed it the government, again public subsidies for private profit. I could go on all night, but think up your own examples, it's fun and empowering as it soon makes you realize how many brainwashed people, gushing over our so called free market system, are actually really really uneducated.

good article, good discussion

another thoughtful article from Will McMartin.

And really thoughtful discussion by Tyee commentators, very enjoyable to read.

I'm very surprised by Cappy's comments. It's not capitalism vs government, that's an outmoded either-or approach. It's about getting both. The OECD has embraced the virtues of a healthy public sector as essential to a healthy society. The northern European countries provide very good examples of having both.

Otherwise you end up like the U.S, unbridled corporate capitalism and the country about to slide into the abyss of social and economic collapse. Not to mention the environmental degradation.

Heading back to an earlier

Heading back to an earlier commnet. news flash The finance minister will be wearing a pair of recycled shoes for the budget tomorrow. Rah de da. The surplus will be more than expected, surprise surprise. But the cuts have to continue so we can cover the overruns on construction and neck scarves for the big show. Throw the poor a couple of bucks and let the good times roll.

Hey Cappy

You got kids? If so, do you chasrge them for their room-and-board, for their education, for the clothes they wear? If no, why not? Or is this somehow the exception to your rules? If so, why?

Gosh, but wouldn't it be nice if "capitalists" were consistent, instead of cherry-picking what suits them........

Numbers on meds

There are 4.2 million BC citizens.
885 million was added to the healthcare budget last year.
The current budget is 18 billion dollars per year.
This represents 43% of the BC budget.
That is way too much.
Smart math tells you that we don't have room in our budget for this amount, if we also expect to cripple our economy to satisfy enviromush initiatives.
We can't do it all. It's all about choices. And I seen those protestors in Kelowna, that resented that we were discussing this matter.
No discusions are allowed, when dealing with socialized medicare or enviromush
Y2Kyoto

.to pay for it, where do you think the budget should spend less"

And to pay for it, where do you think the budget should spend less?"

Well, how about reining in a bit on the Wealth Subsidy? (i.e. the Socred tax cuts)

Just the facts Maam

IAMC did you actually read the article above? It sure does not sound like it. The oint is that the reductions in all other portions of the budget skew the percentages when you are calculating them for healthcare. You also forgot about all those surpluses resulting from windfall federal transfers and higher commodity prices.

"We can't do it all". Maybe not but we can do a hell of a lot more for people other than the above average income bracket.

Must we spend less?

The important point for sustainability is NOT the percentage of the budget, but health expenditures as a percent of provincial income. This has hardly budged over the last decade or two.

What has changed is government expenditure -- downwards.

Given the heavy dependence of health care on skilled labour, whose costs have been rising over time, the failure of health costs to rise as a proportion of total product indicates major improvements in productivity. Romanow indicated several areas where that could be further improved.

One wishes that the Government would stop the scare-mongering, and start taking a more constructive approach to informing the public on the issue -- and to adopting policies designed to improve health, rather than fatten the wallets of corporations.

The actions of the BC and of

The actions of the BC and of the federal goverment are typical of ruling systems set up, designed and promoted to serve the benefit of special interest sectors. In this case, the interests of major, multinational corporations, as the "wealth creators" that will bring Nirvana to everbody.

I repeat it for the umpteenth time: Wealth can not be created, only taken.

We have about 7,000 years of written history proving this under every religion, or aristoctratic system, yet people still believe that they can overrule the elementary laws of physics.

The first thing to establish is that the role of business is NOT to increase the wealth of investors, but to provide necessary services, constructive and well paid employment and income for the principals, taxes for the benefit of the public, plus certain amounts of limited profits necessary for the survival and limited growth of the business.

What we see today are monster corporations in control of governments, dictating treaties, policies and demanding obscene profits for investors and payments to management.

Profits are not taxation privileges, but voluntary benefits given to businesses by the public for jobs well done. This is something forgotten by government and business, so it is time to wake them up and put them into their places.

The main cause of today's problems is the neoclassical market economy theory forced on the world, and the stock and money markets demanding fraudulent accounting systems to provide constant "growth", which
ruins the lives of humanity and the survival of ecological systems.

These policies, like the incredible and unaccounted growth of manmade illnesses, i.e.cancers, stress and environmental destruction can only be stopped if the garbage that's being taught in our universities as economics, is questioned and, if necessary eliminated, and business is made responsible for its actions.

If corporations are legally considered "persons" they must accept the same responsibilities as living persons have to and be publicly accountable for their actions.

Bring back the anti trust and cartel laws to begin with.

Ed Deak.

McMartin's playing a mug's

McMartin's playing a mug's game. Because it's a zero sum calculation, there will always be areas where spending declines in relative terms. A more honest approach would be to also discuss the areas where spending has increased......in either case real spending on Health Care is increasing at an alarming rate.

real health spending increases

NoLeftNutter (NLN)writes
".in either case real spending on Health Care is increasing at an alarming rate."

Not really. It has remained a relatively constant percentage of Gross Provincial Product over the last couple of decades.

Of course, if we wish to characterise overall growth rates as alarming (as they are, from an environmental point of view), NLN may have a point.

rate of increase

Well Frank, we are spending about $5B more per year than we did in 2001. That rate of increase alarms me.......

cappy's capitalism

Take a look at the historical "capitalism";what the West has won has been on the backs of poor nations, then, now and apparently into the future. It is called theft, theft of resources, labor and many times, too many time, theft of lives.
Cappy lives in the world of the mythological American Dream while much of the world lives in a nightmare because of it.

Juggling figures - don't get cut!

I love reading Ron. He's my morning comedy spot - a regular Larry & Willy.

The health care budget is $12 billion in 2006-7. It is sustainable. It's certain other government spending that isn't.

In the 2006 budget, Carole Taylor noted that provincial debt was set to increase from $28 billion in 2006 to 29 billion in 2007-8 and nearly $30 billion in 2008-9. However, she calls this good money management and a drop in spending because the ratio of debt-to-GDP is falling from 15.8% to 15.4%.

http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2006/highlights/

So if the debt-to-GDP ratio is good enough for Carole Taylor, why isn't it good enough for the health care system? Why can't we focus on the fact that the debt-to-GDP ratio in BC has dropped significantly in the past ten years?

Cappy

I'd buy that if it weren't for the fact that since Bretton Woods (going on 40 years ago now) governments managed the economy by trading interest rates and inflation against unemployment. A certain amount of unemployment was deemed necessary to control the other two to make nations productive. Luckily most governments recognized their responsibilities to those they forced to be un- or under-employed by dint of economic policy.

That notion has largely fallen by the wayside with new theories of interest-rate control of the money supply, but that doesn't mean that alterations in economic policy do not cause unemployment - they still do. They're just not reported as such any more. Go ahead - find it in the Governor of the Bank of Canada's report. It's there - wayyyy back on one of the back pages.

Yes, people need to work. But I firmly believe that more than 90% of my fellow citizens want to work and better themselves. Most of us are lucky enough to do so. Say all you want about hard work, it's people like IAMC that convince me that luck plays a very large part in whether we fit into the economic pattern of our society, or whether it fits us - for an SRO on the DTES.

I am confused Will McMartin

In this article, you seem to be arguing that health care spending is modest given the amount of provincial tax money we have to spend. But in a previous article, you wrote that all the extra money the province is making is due to an upswing in commodity prices (http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/11/15/Boom/). If we extract the current commodities windfall, is health care spending still sustainable?

errata

Zalm's

Just rereading my work of a few hours ago...my last sentence was in error. It should read
"Why can't we focus on the fact that the spending-to-GDP ratio in BC has dropped significantly in the past ten years?"

screw cuba

cuba sucks. people flee on makeshift racks to dare the crossing to Florida. That's right: the good 'ol USA.

If any of you lefties were told that canada was being moved and would now be on, oh say, the north of china -you'd soil your trousers.

shut up and be grateful, morons.

hyeena gets the last laugh...

oh and by the way,

what makes millions of people continue to emigrate to the states is pluralism, curiosity, liberalism, rationality, freedom, prosperity, creativity, and hope.

save that crap about cuban healthcare for the university/bolshevik/horn-rimmed glasses fashionistas with a latte crowd.

not too heavy on the rationality of late, eh?

I was reading in the National Review the other day that there are a good number of right wing fashionistas down south who are pretty anxious to keep a few Mexican illegals around to look after their kids, weed their gardens, and clean up their garbage too.

Nice system. Maybe after a generation or two they'll be 'American' enough to actually be allowed to call them selves immigrants...as long as they start talking 'white' and give up that Spanish lingo.

And you might want to check with a few Haitians about that vaunted welcome mat too.

Maybe you should have stayed in Thailand.

God Bless America

ah, you reveal your true colors, Goof West. Is anyone holding a gun to these Mexicans' heads to come to america?

Did it occur to you that the money they make in america is a fortune in mexico, and it is a dream of theirs to have nice things, as it is most people's?

Do you know that they send millions of dollars home in remittances to care for aged parents and home maintenance?

If you feel they are oppressed then send a letter to the mexican government, not the american government. Furthermore, if you told any of the chambermaids working in the hotels of san diego or seattle that you feel they have a raw deal, they would laugh you out the door. Perhaps the reverse is true, they would think. They've adapted. They share accomodations, they have community and spanish mass.

By the way, the reference to chambermaids in san diego and seattle is just an example. My argument applies to all mexicans toiling in various industries throughout the usa.

What would you do, turn them away at the border and tell them to go home?

I notice you aren't so volluble

I notice you aren't so voluble in your support for Haitian refugees.

I'm all for immigration of all kinds; I just think that having a whole social class of underpaid and under the table illegals upon which much of the US builds its leisure and its standard of living is just a trifle hypocritical. But then America has a, what, 300-odd year history of that kind of thing, doesn’t it?

It's not the immigrants, illegal or otherwise, I blame for the situation. You obviously can't read very well.

Nice things!?

Yup, that's the motivating factor for why we carry on our economic activity. Why we work and form trading partnerships and form governments and laws to rule human society. Because, as pointed out it's most everyone's dream to have nice things!

I know you're talking about a specific group, but it just sounds so elementary school!! Nice Things!! Whooooo, my sides are hurting....

By all means, let's have

By all means, let's have nice things, but we don't have to steal them from others, as all past and present idologies have been and are advocating and legalizing it.

How about making nice things for ourselves?

But that would be against the wishes of our dear globalizers, anxious to act as middlemen exploiting everybody on all sides.

Even the idea of self sufficiency throws our economists into foaming convulsions.

Ed Deak.

Like homes and community's!

Where people interact and share things including information. Where we can dispell the false reasoning of the economists the media and corporate governments. All in a nice safe environment free of fear and stress to promote truth and well being. Start in you own home and then include your neighbours. The people living close to you should not be viewed as rivals and competitors, but fellow travellers. This is the type of community that is envisioned when you say it takes a community to raise a child. Not gangs, thugs, bully's and consummerism. Why does what appears to be so obvious, escape our society in such huge proportion? Oh yeah, marketing. Doh!

clubofrome is correct

I agree, clubofrome, Sharing is good.

The lie of out of control spending

Health care spending is not exploding at all. Anyone who thinks it is is probably worried about the outrageous increases in children's allowances compared to a hundred years ago too. Take a deep breath and look at the overall economy and then go look up the meaning of the word "context".

That bad huh?

Its more like you got a government out of control and what is it doing with your money? Well one thing for sure it is not spending it on you. Remember budget cuts, budget cuts, budget cuts,and remember we are a first class city hosting the Olympics with no class services thats what makes us unique. Just check out your response time say for your local police. That bad huh? Check out your ambulance service. There for everyone? Are kids going hungry and malnourished? First Class? No Class.