That's kind of what I was talking about with social housing that is also mixed, much like CityHome, the co-op system, or what you have in Holland. If you expect that to be accomplished through the private, for-profit sector you're dreaming.
NDP: Slithering to Slitherman
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:06
#102
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:12
#103
Everyone is rich?
Sure, everyone is rich...everyone is a whole human being. What the Castro clan has done...is just create an equality where everyone is equally poor (ok maybe not the Castro's or the pawns around him). I would advocate a system that makes everyone rich or at least have a lifestyle undreamt of. We have the resources and industry to make it happen. Instead, we talk about levelling but never elevating.
Ok, aka Mycroft, you did address some of it... But, you say, Holland is quasi-co-op...that's my whole point, nothing will change until you change the ownership and give it to the people who live in it. One does not need co-ops, for as nice as they are...it merely spreads the do-nothing further...although some co-ops are better than others. Only through the tennants actually owning their real estate can they make the right decisions. And, if the residents want a co-op...so be it...let it be THEIR choice.
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:17
#104
Cueball
Sara Thomson was quite adamant about using Jane Jacobs formula of 10% poor in social housing in each neighborhood, as the standard to prevent ghettoization, or devaluation. She dropped out of the race before I got to ask her what she would do if it turned out that more that 10% of the population of city were poor?
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:23
#105
Only through the tennants actually owning their real estate can they make the right decisions. And, if the residents want a co-op...so be it...let it be THEIR choice.
And how are they to afford to buy their own real estate under our current economic system? "Buy your council flat" is a great slogan except when you realize that very few are actually going to be able to afford to do so and what will actually happen is that formerly public housing will be bought up not by the tenants but by private investors who will turn around and rent it back to the former social housing occupants at a premium.
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:41
#106
So, I would argue that the models that you need to use are in the Americas..
You mean the US. Well since you are advocating home ownership let's look at the US model. A few years ago the American government and banks decided it would be a good idea if, instead of building social housing, it was possible for everyone to buy a house. So the mortgage system was deregulated in order to make it much easier for everyone, poor people included, to borrow enough money to buy a house. Heck, they made it even easier by allowing mortgages to be offered at sub-prime. And it worked! There was a huge housing boom and millions of people who otherwise would not have been able to own their own home were able to get mortgages and own their own home - at least for a few years until the payments became due, resulting in people not being able to pay, millions of them losing their homes through foreclosure causing the banking system to collapse and almost bringing down the world ecnomic system.
So how is that a model we should follow, Bob?
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:42
#107
Cueball
Everyone is rich?
Sure, everyone is rich...everyone is a whole human being. What the Castro clan has done...is just create an equality where everyone is equally poor (ok maybe not the Castro's or the pawns around him). I would advocate a system that makes everyone rich or at least have a lifestyle undreamt of. We have the resources and industry to make it happen. Instead, we talk about levelling but never elevating.
The neo-liberals have done exactly that, but with the whole world. They intend is to reduce all people world wide to the same level of impoverishment. Or at least that is their target. In the mean time they are getting insanely rich, far beyond the dreams of anything at achievable by any of Castro's people. All this talk of the glories of the unfettered free market, privatization, and low tax rates for coporation to increase jobs and productivity was a lie.
Indeed, it was 30 years ago that free trade was introduced, since then all governments have continuously lowered the tax rates for corporations, defunded social programs on the premise that this would encourage investment and build wealth, We were told, indeed that we could save the Ontario manufacturing economy by bending over backwards to appease corporate interests, and nothing of the sort resulted. Free of the autopact the auto industry bribed us over and over again by threatening to leave our dergulated market and ply their trade elsewhere until they had siphoned million upon millions of dollars from Canadian taxpayers -- they string us along, and string us along, and continue to bilk again and again and again, but there will always be someone around to promote the idea that we are all going to be rich beyond our wildest dreams as long as we comply with the privatization scheme, sell public assets to private interests and above all lower corporate tax rates.
Did the Ontario manufacturing sector grow and expand? No. Indeed it was destroyed. Ironically enough our economy today is actually entirely dependent on the economic power of the union pension funds, the last remaining fumes of Keynsian capitalist welfare state, without which the economy would collapse. Those evil unions, doncha know.
You have been duped by a lot of smooth talk. Whatever else might be said about Castro, he never promised to make his people wealthy, while making them poor.
Mon, 2010-10-04 20:48
#108
If you want a proper transit system constructed that can service people adequately now, and for the forseeable future, the Transit City plan is the correct choice. It can be constructed faster, and cheaper than a subway line,
Penny-pinching is not the path to building a respectable transit system.
By your logic, there should never have been a Yonge streetcar line 100 years ago because an underground railroad would've been faster.
Actually, I never said that, but I am sure glad that it was replaced with a subway system.
If you want to build a rapid transit system on the scale you are describing without funding from other levels of government, it will be done in a P3 style arrangement, all of which have been failures. It would make the eHealth scandal look like purse-snatching.
Simply not true. Personally, my preferred approach is to make car-drivers pay for it through tolls and gas taxes. But the fact is there are other ways of funding it too and I am just sick of people with this "It's can't be done" attitude. Take a look at these websites to see what other cities in the world have already done:
http://www.urbanrail.net/index.html
http://fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/
Vancouver which is subject to similar funding problems as Toronto has 58 km of SkyTrain with another 18 km being planned, compared to Toronto's 70 km of subways. Vancouver has only about half the population and started building 30 years later. Boston built a subway system over a hundred years ago with a population of only 500,000. Cities all over Europe with smaller populations than Toronto have more impressive subway systems: Barcelona, Stockholm, Milan etc. I am not even comparing Toronto to the Alpha cities: London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, ... because it would just be too sad.
Mon, 2010-10-04 21:33
#109
Cueball
The Moscow Subway system was not built by a P3 arrangement, just so you know.
Mon, 2010-10-04 22:38
#110
Vancouver which is subject to similar funding problems as Toronto has 58 km of SkyTrain with another 18 km being planned, compared to Toronto's 70 km of subways. Vancouver has only about half the population and started building 30 years later. Boston built a subway system over a hundred years ago with a population of only 500,000. Cities all over Europe with smaller populations than Toronto have more impressive subway systems: Barcelona, Stockholm, Milan etc. I am not even comparing Toronto to the Alpha cities: London, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, ... because it would just be too sad.
Sorry this_guy, but you really need to read up more on this issue. Vancouver does not have the same funding problems as Toronto. Toronto is, in fact, the most under-funded public transit system in North America. All successful urban mass-transit systems operate with public subsidy. Cueball has some good info in the other thread. I think you really ought to familiarize yourself with the details around the politics of public transit so you will be better qualified in your arguments.
Tue, 2010-10-05 06:50
#111
The neo-liberals have done exactly that, but with the whole world. They intend is to reduce all people world wide to the same level of impoverishment. Or at least that is their target. In the mean time they are getting insanely rich, far beyond the dreams of anything at achievable by any of Castro's people. All this talk of the glories of the unfettered free market, privatization, and low tax rates for coporation to increase jobs and productivity was a lie.
Indeed, it was 30 years ago that free trade was introduced, since then all governments have continuously lowered the tax rates for corporations, defunded social programs on the premise that this would encourage investment and build wealth, We were told, indeed that we could save the Ontario manufacturing economy by bending over backwards to appease corporate interests, and nothing of the sort resulted. Free of the autopact the auto industry bribed us over and over again by threatening to leave our dergulated market and ply their trade elsewhere until they had siphoned million upon millions of dollars from Canadian taxpayers -- they string us along, and string us along, and continue to bilk again and again and again, but there will always be someone around to promote the idea that we are all going to be rich beyond our wildest dreams as long as we comply with the privatization scheme, sell public assets to private interests and above all lower corporate tax rates.
Did the Ontario manufacturing sector grow and expand? No. Indeed it was destroyed. Ironically enough our economy today is actually entirely dependent on the economic power of the union pension funds, the last remaining fumes of Keynsian capitalist welfare state, without which the economy would collapse. Those evil unions, doncha know.
You have been duped by a lot of smooth talk. Whatever else might be said about Castro, he never promised to make his people wealthy, while making them poor.
So, my model would not be based upon the United States but what of my own Costa Rica, Bahamas, certain states in Brazil, Chile After Pinochet, one could go on. There is a wealth of models to follow whereby poverty allevation is directly tied to ownership. Not just the United States and Europe. Anyhow, I am spent...I have just come off the night shift.
So, sorry folks neither the NDP or Rob Ford offers the correct answer.
Been lurking here a long time and finally got a chance to reply. First time in Canada, anyone has called me Bob...guess I am becoming Canadian...12yrs after citizenship...about time...
Tue, 2010-10-05 07:41
#112
Maysie
Welcome to babble Roberteh.
Closing for length.
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3