The public

Not really the toughest thing in the world to do judging by past history.

As Der dicke Hermann said:"

As Der dicke Hermann said:" Kanonen bevor Butter!" and all good fascists still follow his advice.

Has anybody ever seen, or heard of any generals satisfied with the amounts on military spending ?

Now, the only country in position to attack and occupy Canada is the USA and Harper just signed another secret treaty permitting US troops to cross the border.

High ranking Canadian officers are now serving in Iraq as deputy commanders of major US units.

How is the spending on brassbands so the generals can welcome the occupiers in style?

Ed Deak.

Well said Grumpy

There's plenty of our tax dollars being tossed around by the various levels of government. Too much of it is spent stupidly.....

Of course, corporate profits

Of course, corporate profits are also a form of taxation.

Profits are definitely needed for the survival of businesses, but how much is permissible, as they all come out of our pockets, exactly the same way as any other taxes, therefore the amounts should also be accountable to the public.

Ed Deak.

The mind boggles

Right on, Ed, you got me thinking with:

"How is the spending on brassbands so the generals can welcome the occupiers in style?"

Never looked at it that way, Ed. Come to think of it, I'd sure feel damn right proud to see President Harper on the reviewing stand too, having all them troops salute him all dressed up with his uniform on and medals shining and all.

Hey, isn't he Commander-in-Chief of our Army too? Howcum we never see him in his uniform? Maybe when we set up them bands, we can buy him a uniform and some medals too?

ME2

I believe Michaelle Jean our Governor General is in fact the Commander in Chief.

Fiat Lux

That agreement to allow US Military to operate on Canadian soil makes Heir Harper guilty of treason under Section 46 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Luke

Luke Skywalker:

In no way does the article imply this.

This is a straw man fallacy.

It's a puzzlement.

Hmmm, it seems you're right Dimotto. Michelle Jean is indeed Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.

Let's hope she's more successful with advising Harper to not give over control of them to the Yanks than she's been with helping Haiti, the land of her birth, in getting out from under their thumb.

So we've got Michelle Jean as figurehead, and Harper as figurehead - I wonder who REALLY commands our Armed Forces?

Do We Go Here... Or Do We Go There?

From the article:

OTOH:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/can-m06.shtml

Give me a break R/Man

You're spouting utter nonsense - anyone with small means (80% of Canadian families) would be hard pressed to put anything into an RRSP - for which they get some positive tax savings - and, with a little luck - some small contribution some day to a retirement income.

For the up to five thousand after tax dollars they can put in pee wee's piggy bank they'll save the tax on the 'interest' and get no tax advantages at all.

Any of my clients who come to me with money at the end of the year will be advised to ignore pee wee and put their cash into an RRSP - I'd be ashamed to suggest they should do anything else - especially because most of them are struggling to pay off their mortgages and not succumb to consumer debt now. Do you know what kind of interest charges that sort of debt involves?

I hope to hell you're not advising anyone of modest means - the people who'll use this dodge don't need that help - as usual neither Liberal or Conservatives have a clue about how real working people actually live.

Just like YOU don't.

Flaherty is well on the way to turning out to be as big a disaster as he was in Mike Harris' government.

Some people just never learn do they? Canada’s current account is already in deficit – if you hadn’t noticed – and pee’s wee’s stupidity is rapidly leading us into a full-blown recession.

Oh and by the way, R/Man

We USED to have a program like that in this country - it was called the RHOP and was repealed under one of your heroes...Brian 'the chin' Mulroney in 1985.

It worked just like an RRSP in that the funds were not taxable and generated a tax refund in proportion to the marginal rate of tax paid by the taxpayer while the income from each plan was also not taxable. An individual, or a couple, was entitled to one plan - and therefore one house...now most Canadians have none of house, plan or hope - sadly.

Its demise apparently was before your time but it is something that can't be blamed on the Liberals.

West

Yes. With Bank Rate at 3.5, variable rate mortgages are available at 4.25%. As you know Line of Credit rates can be at Prime. Consolidating and paying off debt has never been cheaper.

I'd support the reinstatement of the RHOSP.

Get Real

After paying 70% of your pre-tax (that's pretax remember) income for a freakin' mortgage people with families are lucky if they have enough left over to heat the damn place and put beans and franks on the table.

You obviously know sweet bugger all about what it's like to try to raise a FAMILY in this economy R/Man.

Either that or you are, as Frank and everyone else around here has concluded, little more than a google happy troll.

I hope you also noticed what the 2006 census shows is the largest occupational category in this pathetic country now -- retail sales clerk.

If pee wee had resurrected the RHOP then I’d have to give him some credit.. he didn’t – and the conclusion is obvious.

BTW – kindly check what the savings interest rate on deposits of less than 5G is – you’ll find it’s a lot less than 4.75%

Sheesh!

Up to your old habits

Of selective and dishonest quotation again.

I'd just point out that comment about interest charges was in a paragraph with this sentence as well:

..especially because most of them are struggling to pay off their mortgages and not succumb to consumer debt now.

Most families I know about - you clearly don't know any of them - have 'consumer debt' financed with their credit cards. Most of them live paycheck to paycheck and they don't have a line of credit - the interest on that kind of debt is much closer to 20%.

If Flaherty and pee wanted to help people who need help they'd do something about the usury of the banks behind that kind of criminality.

I suppose you noticed their latest yearly profit figures.

We/t

The whole point in my post above is that cessation of use and consolidation of credit-card debt is what you should be recommending, and if there is equity then a line-of-credit can be obtained at prime - 3.5 instead of 20%.

That's just baloney

The whole point is that you haven't got a clue about how people really live and the financial challenges they encounter every day.

It's revealed every time you make another ill-advised post like the one you did above about this latest nonsense from pee wee being any kind of assistance to working people who are constantly falling more and more behind with each passing month.

Only someone who lives in an ivory tower and flies to Asia for a lark would make such a ridiculous statement.

You think a renter with no assets can get an unsecured line of credit? Why do you think the banks target people who can't get any other kind of credit to purchase the things they have to have to live - have a look at your junk mail some day and start pushing YOUR government to actually do something for someone outside your own very narrow and selfish demographic?

Then you might actually be contributing to a solution instead of just compounding the problem.

Dream on R/Man - maybe you should pick up a copy of Soylent Green at the video store - you need a dose of reality.

On & On

West, or is it Energizer?

You talked about;

'tis those that can obtain secured lines of credit at prime. If you don't want to talk about them then don't mention them in your ramblings.

Luke Skywalker: Albania has

Luke Skywalker:

Albania has soldiers in Iraq. So does El Salvador. Does that make them "world military powers"?

It's both...

I guess you just can't deal with facts - we already know that most working people in Vancouver can't afford to have a mortgage anyway because ordinary people can't live on less than 30% of their after tax income. The few that can have little or no equity in their home if they've bought in the last handful of years anyway - I take it you haven't heard about the new maple leaf high ration mortgages have you?

I couldn't care less about people with paid off mortgages and lines of credit - they've been robbing the rest of us through the tax system for the last 3 decades.

You clearly have no family and not the slightest inkling of what the problems of the average family has to contend with.

I'm not the one who's living in la la land, you are...much like the one Flanagan and his puppet pee wee want to create here in Canada - you know where someone who leaks lies to the press is a criminal unless it turns out to be your chief of staff - then or now (Flanagan or Brodie - take your pick).

It's hard to imagine how bad a government would have to be to make Dion look good - your neo con friends are somehow managing though.

Now, tell me again how saving the tax on the interest income on $5000 that working families don't have is going to help them buy a house in Vancouver?

I'm all ears.

West

Let's hope they're rationed. Wouldn't want too many of them, eh?

That's a bit outrageous since those paid-off mortgages are paid with after-tax money! Lines of credit are available without the need for a mortgage to have been retired.

Did I ever say a mortgage had to be paid off?

Just another example of your bad habits of selective and out of context quotation.

Frank is right. You're not worth the trouble.

And anyway, that's not the point - there are very few property rich cash poor working people r/man and you know it.

The point is not outrageous - anyone who's old enough or lucky enough to have paid off a mortgage they got in the last 5 - 10 years is either a lottery winner or into organized crime (property values in Vancouver have risen, on average, 100 percent in the last 10 years)...this little neocon 'savings' boondoggle is what we're talking about...that and the fact that the tax system is horrendously unfair, that working people are losing ground and have been losing ground for the past 30 years and that the investor class does little or nothing but leach off the hard work of the majority.

It's time we had some real democracy in this country and people like Flanagan and Stephen Harper (among others) got a real job and stopped sucking the blood of the rest of the population.

West

That's precious! I know some unionized employees that are doing exactly that and they're not criminals, they live within their budgets, they've paid their taxes, lost ground in terms of salary over the years and live frugally.

If you and the left maintain that tack you'll lose more and more from your crusade. Go ahead.

In Vancouver when

the average price of a home is $917,000.00 I don't believe you. Read what I wrote - if they make an average salary, say 50 - 70 G per year, have a young family and they bought and paid for a house starting with no more than the minimum down in the last 5 years they were either rich or crooked.

Period. You can continue to live in your pretend world all you like - personally, I'd like to bring you to meet some of the people I see at the soup kitchen every week - it might open your eyes a little.

Once again you choose to read only what you want to and ignore the rest.

You're right West

We're all sinners.

ME2

Watch the video Empire of the City on google video. Kinda lets us know where us slaves stand in the scheme of things

And thanks again for the apology

It's getting to be a habit for you.

Please explain that one to me

"I couldn't care less about people with paid off mortgages and lines of credit - they've been robbing the rest of us through the tax system for the last 3 decades."

Was there a tax exemption loop there, which I overlooked all those grinding 27 years of delivering my life blood through that slot in the bank every two weeks, until I was on my own turf, truly? Bugger that. Otherwise, tell me what it is I'm not understanding, and why what you say is not slander.

dorothy

Please look back at the earlier comments - I was talking about people who'd bought their houses in the last decade - paid the current inflated prices and begun with a high ratio mortgage.

And I was specifically responding to realisticman's contention that the Harper government's decision to let Canadians make a tiny amount of tax free interest income each year would be of much benefit to young people and families in this real estate market.

I said that such people (in this specific Vancouver market), earning family incomes of 50 - 70 thousand dollars per annum, were not able to have paid off their mortgages in that period unless they were into larceny or had been lottery winners.

That's all - no attempt to slander anyone who has struggled for scores of years to eventually pay off their mortgages.

Sadly, what people of your generation may have been able to struggle to do is not even a pipe dream for today's young person starting out.

If you read back over the whole exchange I think you'll understand.

If you don't, I'm sorry, the remark was meant in a particular context and needs to be understood in that sense.

cheers.

I should add

The two or three decades reference could have been clearer - for that I do apologize - that's the period that data show over which working people and the middle class in this country have been steadily losing out to corporate capitalism and tax breaks for the rich - that's all.

GWest

The entire post must have not appeared on my computer because, according to what I read, you said no such thing.

It's getting to be a habit for you.

Backpeddaling

Oh, I see. You wrote that later so it applies to the earlier post as justification for slandering those that bought before and paid taxes and their mortgages by working hard and being careful with their money.

By the way. The quote was $971,000 not the $917,000 that you wrote GWest. It only applied to Vancouver West-Side too. East Side is mid 700s.

You can't read apparently

But thanks at least for pointing out the inverted numbers.

If you are so dull as to not understand 'exactly' what I was talking about from the start there's no point in my wasting any more time on you.

You know my views about what's going on in the market we're talking about - sadly, many other parts of Canada - with the exception of Quebec - are suffering from the same disease.

My remarks of clarification were for dorothy's information anyway. You know exacly what I think of you and your attitudes toward working people.

I'm surprised you actually know any union memebers. Your usual jaundiced view of them would have, I'd have thought, put them off your list of high-quality people and international patrons of the arts.

And, furthermore

If you'd actually read what I wrote, the clarification was already available - remember this:
The point is not outrageous - anyone who's old enough or lucky enough to have paid off a mortgage they got in the last 5 - 10 years is either a lottery winner or into organized crime (property values in Vancouver have risen, on average, 100 percent in the last 10 years)...this little neocon 'savings' boondoggle is what we're talking about...that and the fact that the tax system is horrendously unfair, that working people are losing ground and have been losing ground for the past 30 years and that the investor class does little or nothing but leach off the hard work of the majority.

written 14 hours ago.

GWest

This is right up your alley:

The smell of carrion is getting pretty obvious to everyone R/man

International experts foresee collapse of U.S. economy

Posted By Hielema, Bert - Belleville Intelligencer

Posted 8 days ago

And you thought that I had a gloomy outlook on the economy. Now the bad news pops up everywhere.

Harry Koza in the Globe and Mail quotes Bernard Connelly, the global strategist at Banque AIG in London, who claims that the likelihood of a Great Depression is growing by the day.

Martin Wolf, celebrated columnist of the U.K.-based Financial Times, cites Dr. Nouriel Roubini of the New York University's Stern School of Business, who, in 12 steps, outlines how the losses of the American financial system will grow to more than $1 trillion - that's one million times $1 million. That amount is equal to all the assets of all American banks.

Every day now, thousands of people all over the U.S. and Great Britain are walking away from their homes - simply mailing their house keys to the banks - as housing bailout plans fail.

With unemployment growing, the next phase will hit commercial real estate making the financial institutions the unwilling owners not only of quickly depreciating houses, but also of empty strip malls and even larger shopping centres.

The next domino to fall will be credit card defaults, and after that... who knows? There are so many exotic funds out there, with trillions of dollars in paper - or rather computer-screen money - all carrying assorted acronyms, and all about to disintegrate into nothingness. Over the next couple of years, scores of banks that have thrived on these devices, based on quickly disappearing equities, will fail.

The most frightening forecast so far comes from the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB), available for 200 euros - about $300 - for 16 issues annually. Its prediction is quite specific.

And here's some more.....

Where my warnings never spelled out an exact date, this think tank has it pegged precisely. Here are its very words:

"The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere seven months from now) will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis.

"At that time indeed, the cumulated impact of the various sequences of the crisis will reach its maximum strength and affect decisively the very heart of the systems concerned, on the front line of which (is) the United States, epicentre of the current crisis.

"In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into - get this - a collapse of the real economy, (the) final socio-economic stage of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles and of the pursuance of the U.S. dollar fall. The collapse of U.S. real economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery: private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services closing down."

The report goes on to say that we are entering a period for which there is no historic precedent. Any comparisons with previous situations in our modern economy are invalid.

We are not experiencing a "remake" of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises or 1987 stock market crisis.

What we will have, instead, is truly a global momentous threat - a true turning point affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which the world was organized in the last decades.

The report emphasizes that it is, first and foremost, in the United States where this historic happening is taking an unprecedented shape (the authors call it "Very Great U.S. Depression").

It continues to predict that, although this crucial event is global, it will be the beginning of an economic 'decoupling' between the U.S. and the rest of the world. However, non 'decoupled' economies will be dragged down the U.S. negative spiral.

Concerning stock markets, the GEAB anticipates that international stocks would plummet by 40 to 80 per cent depending where in the world they are located, all affected in the course of the year 2008 by the collapse of the real economy in the U.S. by the end of summer.

The European authors of this report - it appears simultaneously in French, German and English - state that they simply and without prejudice try to describe in advance the consequences of the ominous trends at play in this 21st-century world, and to share these with their readers, so that they can take the proper means to protect themselves from the most negative effects.

So there you have it. Three reports from three different sources, all well regarded, and all pointing to a disastrous fall-out from our monetary moves.

This and earlier columns can be seen at hielema.ca. Comments to

.

Article ID# 918803

And pee wee and little tommy flanagan

aren't going to be able to do a single thing about it.

They don't even have the sense to support an opposition bill for the creation of registered education savings plans....sad really.

Social programs don't mean a thing to people like this.

Behaving like crazy people long enough and pretending that up is down and black is white eventually leads to this kind of thing...and if it happens, remember where you heard it first.

Jim says back to the caves

http://www.jsmineset.com/

Google's passé

http://www.ethicle.com/

Thank you

for the clarification, G.

About the 50 to 70 K, I can say that in my bailiwick nowadays, the norm is that two such get together and hitch their team to a very heavy wagon, only to be interrupted by whatever leave is required to effect the - is it 1.2 offspring. They are brittle and have more sick days than I do, and my heart bleeds for them. They don't know what's hitting them. In the 60's, we got through the entire rotten sequence and causal links. We knew where we were going and how to stay sane. They haven't even heard the beginning, but take their pains to Disneyland and Porta Vallarta. Yech!

More dismal news from down south

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/business/08recession.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

And this

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/worldbusiness/09crop.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Please note the small graph which further illustrates what I was pointing out months ago...that consumption of wheat has exceeded production for 7 out of the last 8 years.