Paying for Public Services

"Liberal and Conservative governments had increased the federal debt over 3,000% ($18 billion to $588 billion) between 1974 and 1997, during which time the government did not use the Bank to carry public debt as it had prior to 1974, and that we were paying over $63 billion a year on interest as a result."

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/borrowing-trouble

I wonder how much we'd save now if we used the Bank of Canada to carry public debt.

I have some thoughts on public services and taxation.

so you want someone to ask you what those thoughts are?

I'll bite!  : )    (Love your accounting for the period, thanks.  See Chicago School entry along with Ronnie Raygun for explanation.  We need to know WHY these things happen...connecting with the point in history).

What was the question, you "guys"?

Thanks, I've got a request in to my favourite library for Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing:Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Thnk.  I may not wait for the book to come round but I don't really want to part with $26.99 with the municipal TAX bill coming up March 1. ( I'm all ears for your thoughts on taxation, GM) . But It's one I want on the shelf at home, finally.

Patel, too, sees it all coming apart in the early 70s, the "mortgaging of our future", but as Gordon Laird says in a review in the Globe this weekend (they had to break down and review it, finally): "...his real contribution is something bigger than another attack on neo-liberalism and the Chicago School of Economics. This is someone who has done field work around the world, listened prolifically to non-experts, and come away with a political modality that isn't just ideology, but speaks to human flourishing itself. 'The opposite of consumption isn't thrift,' says Patel. 'It's generosity'. "  That book I will want for a reference.

I suspect that Patel the economist would not lean toward even more central bank funding of services and infrastructure than it is committed to now, but I can't wait to find out how he would use the banking system (which was set up by a panicking Conservative government, along with a public radio network and airline in the depth of Depression .  Jeez, wonder if we can panick Steve into somethin' similar?  :)

Panic is unhelpful.

Generosity is use of limited public funds for maximum good. 

That means proper use of the Bank of Canada, and limitations on the destructive behaviour of private bankers, financiers and insurers.

thanks:

"Generosity is use of limited public funds for maximum good. "

I'm hoping that Patel explains how it will require fuller use of nigh-unlimited private funds for public good, everywhere. But, of course, you are right about the Bank of Canada. When it uses the CMHC last year to buy up $65billion of mortgages held by the banks to give them liquidity for the explosive takeup of mortgages at fireslae riates today, of course, it was still a game of "there's no tomorrow", eh?

Thanks, thanks.

Panic kills.

Maximum good is the utilitarians' answer to everything.

We could start by dismantling the Vancouver Island Health Authority. VIHA makes all your nightmares come true.

15 times I've been turned down for psychiatric help, despite the fact that I'm a 2X suicide survivor (meaning I survived my own very nearly fatal attempts, not that I lost someone to suicide).  

And don't even fucking get me started on Archie Courtnall and smoking regulations.  Morans.

I took an overdose in the Emergency Department and was sent home for "being silly."  So I spent the rest of the morning jumping in front of traffic at Richmond & Fort.  It was just a bunch of Seroquel but it still wasn't good for me.  When I actually attempt suicide, people make no mistake about it.  I might just as well have put a gun to my head.

The Acute Home Treatment Program is awesome but they're only available 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.  Most disasters strike in the middle of the night. That leaves 911 or a chair and an extension cord.  

So far, it's been 911 but that could change at any time so don't push your luck, Herr Campbell. Enjoy your little party. Some of us work for a living and we won't be able to catch The Games Live.

Starson v. Swayze - The SCC agrees with me.  

Mullins v. Levy - So does the BCSC.

But Gordon Campbell knows better. "Deinstitutionalization was never implemented. Gordon Campbell's BC Liberal Party is a failed experiment." (Francesca Allan, February 2010)

"If they fired all the professionals, the people 'paid to care,' there'd be a run on the Archie Courtnall Centre.  Same with Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam."

Want to get the homeless off the streets of Victoria?

Hey, homeless bums! You can get free drugs @ The Archie Courtnall Centre. Plus 3 hots & a flop. Plus free hot water, leccy, phone & internet access.

Just call 911 & threaten suicide. Your ride will be along shortly. Watch those handcuffs. If one's too tight and one's too loose, you've got a weapon. Try not to scare the police.

And try not to get Tazed. Keep your hands out of your pockets and move predictably & slowly.

G. Muffin, I am very sorry to hear that you aren't getting good care in Vancouver.  There is definitely a need for more public dollars for good multi-faceted supports for people with mental health issues.  I believe there are professional obligations as well for caregivers to help those who may do harm to themselves or others, if not legal obligations.  The Canada Health Act also calls for universality of public health care.  That includes people suffering from mental health issues.  Health Authorities in Vancouver and across Canada are obligated to uphold the Canada Health Act and universality.  The federal government is similarly obligated. 

The provinces should be demanding reinstated transfer funds for public health care from the federal government.

But the provinces should NOT be signing any WTO deals on sub-federal procurement, as i heard recently via www.canadians.org .

Then, in the context of NAFTA and proposed EU and other deals, our public dollars would just be heading to private, unaudited pockets.

___

Regarding generous use of public funds, that generosity is best reflected in measures of suffering people helped, of decreases in rates of suicide, illness, and poverty, of decreases in greenhouse gases, increases in members of previously-endangered species, increases in preserved wilderness areas, increases in measures of ecological and human health.

Use of public funds is 'maximized' when definitions are shifted from consumptive measures like GDP to measures of national wealth defined in ecological and human terms.

Use of public funds is maximized when policy and vision take account, not in dollars, but in counts of natural processes which have their own order and respective boundaries.

Nature has limits. 

Generosity acknowledges and respects Nature's limits and holds any dollarized transactions to account within those limits.

I'm in Vic but I appreciate your post, thanks.

i'm hearing you prefer care over being left in the street.

Well, you've got quite a set of ears on you.

The Eric Martin Pavilion is being "phased out." In February 2011, there'll be 57 psych beds in this town of 325,000. You might as well send the cattle cars. I know I'll have my yellow star ready.

ETA: About to be deleted.

not an accurate comparison at all. 

and i'm tired of people making issues into an affront against Jews, through association or rhetoric.

it's also unfair to equate discrimination against people with disabilities to discrimination based on race. 

the practice is entirely unfair to clear analysis of the dynamics of systematic defunding of public services, which BY THE WAY is what this thread is about, and how to pay for them.

It's an affront against Nazis, thanks.

We're both protected classes so what the hell is the difference? Why is it "unfair" to point out that the Gay Pride movement won their Revolution? They're queer, they're here, get bored with it (Bill Maher).

Long before the Final Solution, schizophrenics were singled out and crucified. Yet the rate of mental illness in Germany is congruent with ours. What does that say about the genetic theory of schizophrenia?

Gordon Campbell is going to kill me.

Support gun control.

G. Muffin your comments twist meaning and are offensive.

I don't mean them to be, thanks. I really don't. I just don't have time any more to prettify my speech. Clock's ticking, you know?

I do hope you're writing all this down somewhere other than here, G Muff. You obviously have a lot of insights about mental health care and often a very amusing and colourful way to say it. Often it doesn't relate to the threads you're posting in, though. I would hate to think you are losing some of these gems in various unrelated Babble threads where you may not be able to find them in the future.

If you want people to hear you, start writing for publication. Keep it all together.

Sorry for the drift, thanks.

I agree jas, G. Muffin is brilliant, if not tenacious.  I also think thanks and you are correct in pointing out the troubles.  Hopefully, there will be some congruence.

- items are 'kept together' via the name index.

- what's babble if not a publication?  rabble promotional material often highlights babble. it's read.

- back to the subject, our Conservative MP is in the habit of sending out these slippery flyers, like the one in the mail this week:

"Following through on our commitment to restore fiscal balance to the provinces and territories to ensure they have the ability to provide health care, education and other essential services that are important to Canadian families...Defending consumers against unfair financial practices by introducing a new Code of Conduct for the Canadian Credit and Debit Card Industry."

another flyer sent to other constituents said, "Providing record-high support ($54 billion) to provinces and territories for 2010-2011. Since we took office, support payments to the provinces for vital health, education and social services have increased by 30 percent ($12.7 billion)."

I don't have numbers to counter his statements regarding 'support', but seeing as past governments, including Conservative governments federally and provincially have cut mercilessly, i doubt their 'support' even comes close to meeting equivalent service levels in the '80's, let alone comparative levels of support in earlier decades.

And how much of Conservative 'support' is going to be tied to public-private partnerships and directed to their crony banking and insurance profiteers? 

Harper announced he signed a deal with the US last week, forcing our provinces and municipalities to procure critical infrastructure/services from foreign suppliers.  So all that Conservative 'support' is going to go south.  And east if Harper gets his way and we sign an EU deal too.

As for the 'Code of Conduct' for the Credit and Debit Card Industry, i hope it doesn't give them more self-regulating room to trick household debtors, by, say, 'forcing' industry players to follow counter-productive rules in trade deals as determined by the G20.

Besides, the financial fog extends far beyond the household credit house of cards.  Conservatives in Harper's camp don't have what it takes to clear up the larger mess.

Finally, 'restoring fiscal balance to the provinces and territories' means they're going to cut some more, directly or indirectly.  It's wrong.  First government needs to publicly audit the financiers it already gave 200 billion to, via the Bank of Canada.  Then it needs to publicly audit the other corporations it has subsidized over its tenure, and tell us where all that money has gone, exactly.

Then Harper and Flaherty can tell us where all future handouts to private corporations and their bankers will end up, exactly.

Talk of 'fiscal balance' is complete hypocrisy when Harperites don't keep track of where our money goes once its handed out.

When I am unwell, my posting gets erratic.  Sometimes, Oldgoat or somebody comes along and mercifully shuts me down for a few days. Other times, I get away with my crap for too long. That's what happened here. Sorry, everyone.

Don't be.   It's okay.

Speaking out of thin air I would guess that' thanks' exspouses Ayn  Rand. If there ever was someone to lead the rich to megalomania with a clean conscience, it was her. It was her job description.

I live on disability. I wasted my lungs making a public museum. In my years on disability I helped my ex-wife raise three through g12 as I was the only one to love education or had the time. Now it seems we have wars on every front and the economic one is very important. The theft of the public purse and the shackles of debt loom large. There was an ambiguity in your first statement that makes me think I may have miss judged you. You do recognize the unfairness of a flat tax(sales) when expences to propaganda are tax free.My apology, please.

I returned to this thread to say that I'm thinking all parties should let bygones be bygones.  This reflection was based on some finger pointing I did this morning, then realized that no major political parties in Canada have been completely clear on the FTA, NAFTA, or other deals since square one.  All have made bad decisions at different times, granted some more than others.

In the present though, we all need to oppose the immediate spectre of US-banker run healthcare, education, daycare, water, energy, construction, and all the other provincial and municipal infrastructure services under Harper's prorogue procurement plan.

Letting US finance, with its sorry recent history, invest in and garner WTO rights to our domestic core public infrastructure and services at the local and regional levels will not only drain our coffers but will take away any of our residual economic and ecological control.

I hope there is strong uprising against this latest and most outrageous move by Harper, and any provinces that are thinking of signing on.  We simply won't have any public services left.

From the DFAIT site: "The agreement includes permanent and reciprocal commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) with respect to provincial, territorial and state procurement."

http://www.international.gc.ca/commerce/buyamerican-2010.aspx

This can include procurement of financing, insurance, management as well as construction and other services, as we have had some (disastrous) experience with in a few experimental public-private 'partnerships' to date.  CUPE's website has a link to more info on those horrors.

Harper is trying to ram this through on a permanent basis !!!  While he's shut down parliament !!!

US finance will also be able to acquire rights under current terms in Ontario's 'green energy' contracts, including rights to environmental attributes defined as 'the nature of a source' in the Feed-In Tariff program.

Comments at http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/irtn/2009/09/new-ontario-energy-feed... [37] .

And have you noticed, thanks, Canada's banks are now asking the feds to put more controls on mortgage purchasing, requiring a 10 per cent down payment and a limit of 30 years?   OUr finance industry is afraid of a U.S. mortgage balloon...while Steve and Flaherty  the mad Irishman can only think in terms of votes. Surprised,I'm not. Mustn't interfere with the holy of holies, our market, eh?

Strangely I find a interlocking theme to the posts in this thread.  VIHA and the other health authorities have been designed on the HMO model and are ready for "management" contracts  with America's health care vultures.  This new deal will have significant repercussions in the BC health care system as procurement of services basically means everything and everything. The Health Authorities have already entered into management contracts for things like managing their warehouses.  BC will sign on immediately and the Howe street cabal will start making a fortune on drafting and brokering the deals with US hedge fund vultures.

I enjoyed Hugh Mackenzie's article since he articulated a view of the NDP's anti-tax stands that is similar to my own.  And he is an excellent writer.

thanks for comments, it's helpful for me to hear that others are concerned. i have to think more about ramifications.

while i'm here  though, might as well type up some of the questions i had the other day:

Why do many progressives avoid discussion of debt and use of the Bank of Canada? I understand that debt is a construct, dependent equally on inputs as outputs, and that one part of the equation can be changed as much as the other.  Is it that progressives think its easier to convince people to support taxes and jobs than fully public finance? Or that they just don't want their political representatives to get assassinated as some US presidents were over the latter?  Or what?

Some clarity would really help.

I had the opportunity to speak with the late Joan Robinson, a British economist highly valued by the late John Kenneth Galbraith (note all the "lates").  Ms Robinson knew that unless we could retain control of our exchange rates (for reasons of sovereignty) the wonderful social welfare construction of the postwar advanced world was going to suffer. This was just when the Chicago School was coming to the fore. I'm afraid we let slide her warnings - Canada had been among the first to float its dollar - and our central bank long ago gave up attempts to modiry the exchange rate, seriously (last year's "warnings" were pure bluff.

Why do progressives avoid discussion of debt and use of the Bank of Canada?  I think because the central bank, which allowed us to carry far more debt in the last war (per capita/per gdp) is not seen as a means toward an end, but only a capitalist institution? I personally think that we have to think of mobilizing to fight environmental catastrophe, just as though we were going to war, our financial institutions and our lifestyles on the line.

- Harper's bunch is just waiting for Obama to put mortgage limits on first. and if CMHC is guaranteeing all the banker mortgage loans anyway, why not have it or the federal treasury collect the interest too?

- the whole mess of setting prices for money- exchange rates can be done by us, not a few privacy-protected bankers.

- no clarity yet on the assassination question

- just calling something 'a capitalist institution' is silly- more useful is to know how it works and can it be made democratic.

- i don't like war language for environment, some have used it with good intention, but already that's being misused as energy is considered a security issue.

- regarding Harper's procurement pact, I hope people are demanding to know specifically what Harper thinks the provinces are willing to hand over to the US.  Scott Sinclair wrote last fall on the negotiations (www.policyalternatives.ca - publications) that some in the US were pushing to have health care and university education up for takeover by private US corporations/ investors.  Water, sewage, and electricity were possibly 'on the table'.  Are we going to get written documents from Harper or more detained info?  Media are saying Harper wants it all sewn up by Feb. 15.

Honestly it's like a living nightmare with this prime minister.

Myself, I dislike Harper but I see Iggy as a larger threat to people organizing. It's the 'merican model, two crappy choices.

Really? I thought she was a deadbeat philosopher.

What happened to me couldn't have happened in the USA. VIHA should be put out to pasture. We don't need anybody in between the public and the Ministry of Health.

In the US you would be uninsurable so you are right nothing would happen in their system.

I agree that the Health Authorities are another bad idea first implemented by the Clark government and then worsened by the BC Liberals. 

That's why I tried to emigrate in 1994. But they didn't want me. Guess I don't have "the right stuff."

My mother was born in Montana but left there @ 7 years of age.

My father was born in Munich.

They were British subjects. Now they're Canadian citizens.

I wish I had been born in Kenya. (j/k)

I wish I had been born in Hawaii. And was 1/2 Black. And politically inclined. And been born male. And could write like B. Hussein Obama does.

"Canada and the United States hope to conclude this process by February 16."

-from the DFAIT press release feb.5

Today is Friday.  Feb. 16 is Tuesday. 

Monday in Ontario is a civic holiday.

This cannot be concluded by Tues. obviously.

Harperites haven't even given details of the deal, as they said they were going to this week.

the week's over.

Uh, is he going by his middle name now?

Because the only people I've ever seen take pains to emphasize his middle name are right wing nutjobs who hope their friends will hear the dog whistle of "He might be a MUSLIM!!"

For everyone else, his name is actually "Barack".

And you are SO sensitive to others' situations, Snert. So unlike those on the right.

Did you really click on "Post comment" for a feeble little swipe like that?  Is Sven not around?

I'm talking about your effect on others in this thread, Snert. I'm not lying in ambush for either you or Sven.  :D

I think I know what you're getting at, and I'm not unsympathetic.  But c'mon... Hussein Obama?  Isn't that what Glenn Beck calls him?

it seems i missed the Feb 11 Council of Canadians and CUPE 'release' of the draft procurement text (apparently media can see the text?  WHAT ABOUT THE PUBLIC !!!!????)

AND ABSOLUTELY ZERO ABOUT THIS ON CBC's main page !!!??? MAYbe it's buried somewhere in cyber back pages!!??

Let me add a few more exclamation marks and q's ...

[breathe]

*

ok, so according to the Council we can congratulate McGuinty on a retaining some minor manufacturing of green energy for Ontario- i did see that in the regs but it was superceded by the voluminous giveaway in finance and management.

Management.  I'm glad it was mentioned here: http://www.canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=2883 .

And why is management important?  Because Management Makes Decisions.  It has control.  And Management involving cross-border Finance has complete control under existing trade deals and other legislation, including the Green Energy Act and FIT program.  Even over governments; remember the clauses which state laws and regs can have no "Adverse Material Affect" upon suppliers and lenders.

That includes suppliers which do management.  and finance.

So we cannot contract out management. nor finance. yet it's already being done in some public-private-partnerships.  this cannot be expanded: every expansion gives away more of our capability to determine our own energy future and benefit from it.

Similarly in the health sector in Ontario, we have allowed the Local Health Integration Networks to become established as a separate level of administration which is perfectly suited in its regional configurations to takeover by US Health Management Organizations.  All that's missing is the transfer of power.  Ducks are lined up; -the intentional starving of services through historic cuts to federal and provincial funding which haven't been reinstated for decades, intentionally increased fees for service, de-listed coverages, trade law permanently protecting private managers and financiers and insurers once they're allowed in, and regional structures ripe for the picking.

Incremental privatization has moved forward.  It needs to stopped and reversed.

We need public services.  We can provide health care and green energy far more inexpensively and with more coverage than the private sector, which simply takes our dollars for its own profit margins and speculation.

It's like the oligarchs are dafting their own privatization decrees. I think it might have been more transparent in 1990's Russia. At least Russians were given a few share certificates in the various public enterprises while the economy was being Yelstsinized with help from the best academic and criminal minds in Europe and America. They want to own our public services and throw us into massive indebtdedness to private financiers and banking cabal. Instead of play now and pay later, it will be pay now and pay later.

thanks:

"Similarly in the health sector in Ontario, we have allowed the Local Health Integration Networks to become established as a separate level of administration which is perfectly suited in its regional configurations to takeover by US Health Management Organizations.  All that's missing is the transfer of power.  Ducks are lined up; -the intentional starving of services through historic cuts to federal and provincial funding which haven't been reinstated for decades, intentionally increased fees for service, de-listed coverages, trade law permanently protecting private managers and financiers and insurers once they're allowed in, and regional structures ripe for the picking.

Incremental privatization has moved forward.  It needs to stopped and reversed.

We need public services.  We can provide health care and green energy far more inexpensively and with more coverage than the private sector, which simply takes our dollars for its own profit margins and speculation."

Right on, thanks. All that I can think to do (and continue to) is write letters to the editor pointing to the continuing tendency of the great unwashed to vote for lower taxes. A mug's game, eh?

Here's the latest (in response to a tri-weekly editorial/column filled with toilet humour, about sewage systems in dire need of upgrading:

"While the citizenry of all the Cambridges wait for the latest word on sustainability - the guide to consumption by which we are supposed to leave something for generations to follow - there is only talk of growth.

We learn that some on Cambridge council are challenging the Region of Waterloo to explain how growth of population in Hespeler and Preston can be accommodated at the sewage treatment plants (Council deals with poopy situation, Feb. 11). But the Region is apparently only required these days to attempt to assure the citizenry's representatives that all will be well after 2016. Without mentioning how those plans are in any way a sign of responsibility for our long-term environmental future on a finite spaceship. Growth in the Region is "good", apparently, as long as aquatic life in the Speed and Grand can live in the waste.

Watching the strain of economic downturn reflected in the budgets of city departments is also "something to ponder next time (one is) sitting down and thinking," as the erstwhile J. Hurst puts it in describing the sewage dilemma. Right now, the only concerns expressed have to do with the length of time before more growth provides the additional taxes that will return all budgets to a black-ink state.

It is not likely that talk of sustainability would be met with approval in budget circles at this time, given that it is shunned in times of growth (when it's denied credence and even treated as a Jeremiad).

But perhaps the elected should understand that at least some are beginning to wonder at Regional priorities, an apparent fixation with road design and construction, when it's long been known that if you build it, they will come. The overall needs for folks who will in future inhabit the Valley of the Grand (sewage system) demands more serious attention."

It will probably produce some squirming and private venting, but no public response. Public acts in this free-spirited democracy are left for old farts who can tweak administrations and the hoi polloi alike with impunity.

I know, Snert. I just like to throw the MorAns a bone every now and then.

I think the world of Obama and I consider his presidency one of the most exciting things that's happened in my lifetime.

Probably.

It's just basic horse sense 101. You have to demonstrate to people what they're doing wrong and then correct them by mocking and jeering. Pity Glenn Beck. He's an idiot and he has to walk around with that brain. How would you like to be that diminished?

I think Snert's pretty bright and aware. You'd have to be to make me laugh like he does.

Back to the thread, though, I think about public services a lot and I'm concerned about how much money we waste.

I have a semi-interesting story in that regard that I'll post elsewhere but the short version is that I get arrested all the time and taken to the Archie Courtnall Centre which is a hellhole. Last time I was there, I was provoked and unfortunately lost my cool and:

- threw a plastic cup

- kicked a door

Yes, I did, God help me.

Then I was arrested for assault by Officer 409 (isn't that a song by the Beach Boys?) and taken to Victoria City cells and released on my own recognizance. I have to see a Bail Supervisor on Monday, get fingerprinted on the 3rd and appear in Court later in the month.

Is this is a good expenditure of precious public resources?

I threw a cup and kicked a door.

I should be sent to my room without supper.

Fuck on.

ETA: If Crown proceeds, I'm launching a retaliatory human rights complaint (Allan v. Vancouver Island Health Authority). This shit has got to stop.

It'll be good practice in case I ever improve on my 62% LSAT and actually take on UVic Law School.

If you didn't win in that struggle, GM, you'd at least win them over.   :)

Please, George. Don't flatter me.

But do tell me if you're referring to the Human Rights Commission or Law School.

Either way, it's all okay.

Work on gaining access to UVic...then I'll look forward to your action with the Human Rights Commission, GM.  I'm afraid that "winning ways" depend more and more on the law and not personal qualities, eh? (he says, working at an unflattering post).

I find this very disturbing: http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/mp/mpList.txt

It's a list from the Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario, of all the corporations involved in energy markets.

You'll notice many private cross-border corporations, including banks and financiers like Morgan Stanley, which means they have investor rights under NAFTA, and under Ontario's FIT program.  

American Water Canada Corp. is included as an Ontario energy market participant.  AW is one of the largest investor-owned water services companies in the US, according to its own site, linked from Industry Canada at http://www.ic.gc.ca/app/ccc/srch/nvgt.do?lang=eng&prtl=1&sbPrtl=&estblmn... [67] . 

AW is involved in many municipal water systems in Ontario.  I'm wondering how, exactly, they're involved in the electricity market.

Equally disturbing is the Ministry of Energy-appointed Board of the IESO: 

http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/governance/board_of_directors.asp [68] .

Theoretically board members aren't to have any personal financial interest in decisions, but the board is stacked with current and former private corporate and banking execs. 

Particularly disturbing is one Director who helped deregulate electricity markets in the US, as heralded at the IESO site.

A few others on that IESO list of energy market participants include various divisions of Great Lakes Power and Brookfield:

From its website, http://www.glpt.ca/index.aspx?l=0,1,6 :

"Great Lakes Power Transmission is an integral component of Ontario's transmission system that connects northern Ontario to southern Ontario. Great Lakes Power Transmission is wholly owned by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, which was established by Brookfield Asset Management, a global asset management company focused on property, power and other infrastructure assets with approximately $95 billion of assets under management.

What assets does Great Lakes Power Transmission manage?

• 550 km of 44kV to 230 kV transmission lines
• steel towers
• wood poles
• substations  "

I'm trying to recuperate from my family weekend, and also piece together implications here for privatization of Ontario's grid, management, and alternative energy...

need another gallon of coffee...

large wind suppliers are on that IESO list too.

i'm wondering, with all the major private players and banks already integrated to some degree into the system, whether OPA needs to make any overt shift or transfer of duties or source rights.  The ducks are already lined up in the regs, the players are in place, the transfers of obligations and liabilities can occur at any time under the Green Energy Act, and transfer of source rights can occur at any time under the FIT rules.

There won't be any trumpets sounding.

__

By the way, some local friends had wondered how 'nature of a source' was further defined.  It's not clarified well in the FIT definitions, but the Green Energy Act definitions section has,

" 'renewable energy source' means an energy source that is renewed by natural processes and includes wind, water, biomass, biogas, biofuel, solar energy, geothermal energy, tidal forces and such other energy sources as may be prescribed by the regulations, but only if the energy source satisfies such criteria as may be prescribed by the regulations for that energy source"

Thus, micro-FIT suppliers give up their rights to Environmental Attributes defined as 'the nature of a source' where a source includes wind, water, biomass, biogas, biofuel, solar energy, geothermal energy, tidal forces and such other energy sources.

What does all this have to do with Paying for Public Services?

We can pay for actual public services- owned, operated and managed by public employees, using public finance like the Bank of Canada. 

We need to reverse paying for private services called 'public' in name only and paid for many times over.  We have already paid through initial construction of grid assets with public taxes (given away to new private owners).  We need to reclaim public assets, and ditch NAFTA and other trade deals that give away our rights.

We don't need to further pay through interest on loans from private financiers, through additional user fees that have covered private corporate profit margins and financiers' private debts acquired in speculative markets, nor through transfer of rights to wind, waves, sun, earth's warmth...

That's somewhat misleading of GLPT to state that they connect Northern and Southern Ontario. The grid in Ontario is not setup for transmission of power over long distances as implied. Power supplies in the North are essentially separated from the south by long distances, which kind of nullified the the Harris neoliberalorama for spot market selling of power in Ontario. Power deregulation in Ontario has been a disaster, and we have our thundering neoliberal nitwits to thank for what is turning out to be a wild ride with our light bills, job losses in the north due to a one size fits-all pricing scheme for electricity etc. The colossal screwups just never end with these rightwing ideologues.

What is happening, thanks (to use farming imagery) is the preparing of ground for yet more investment opportunities.  Investors worldwide are scouring the surface of the lanet for utilities, water and power are perfect, that are excellent providers of income, even in market downturns.  We continue to need water and power and heat etc., no matter what!

Unfortunately, with the Great Outthere all in thrall to their investment managers, and since the managers single responsibility is the provision of the best investment opportunities, we have a bit of selling to do on the subject of sovereignty and social welfare.  Paying for public services has to be seen n the context of this prioritization for capital, public and private.

So in other words, to hell with high stakes venture capitalism - capitalists want to takeover utilities and services traditionally provided by our democratically elected governments and should still be providing to the public. Apparently capitalists see little future in actual capitalism. It's all broken down and wheels falling off and hubcaps flying into the gutter. Capitalism is one big gutterball.

http://cupe.on.ca/aux_file.php?aux_file_id=2604

"facilities management services" are included in Harper's offers for sub-federal government procurement.

"Forest management"

"data base services"

"data processing (including transaction processing)"

"Sewage and refuse disposal, sanitation and similar services"

"Technical testing and analysis services including quality control and inspection"

Yet the notes in this section go on to say,

"The Canadian offer does not include the following;...public utilities...".

Which data base, facilities management, sewage, and health/safety testing are NOT public utilities? 

Which of these services would any sane Canadian want run by foreign corporations for their profit??

_______________________

Who wants federal "Taxation services" and "Accounting, auditing and book-keeping services" done by Wall Street? bizarre.

http://cupe.on.ca/aux_file.php?aux_file_id=2599

"Ontario
All Ministries of the Province
The following Agencies are covered:
AgriCorp
Centennial Centre of Science and Technology (Ontario Science Centre)
Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario
Metropolitan Convention Centre Corporation
Niagara Parks Commission
Ontario Clean Water Agency
Ontario Financial Services Commission
Ontario Immigrant Investor Corporation
Ontario Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Ontario Mortgage Corporation
Ontario Northland Transportation Commission
Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation
Ottawa Congress Centre
Science North
This Agreement does not apply to the procurement of:
(a) urban rail and urban transportation equipment, systems, components and materials
incorporated therein, as well as all project-related materials of iron or steel; and
(b) highway construction."

nb. from last post, "Real estate services involving own or leased property" are up for US grabs.  Then connect that with the mortgage and housing agencies in Ontario which US mortgage co's can take over.. didn't they just crash the economy ?

and connect  "data base services"  with listing of the Ontario Clean Water Agency.

It will be so convenient for US corporations to hold proprietary rights to our water data.

The Ontario Clean Water Agency runs almost 200 water and sewage operations.  Its facilities management and engineering services could be contracted to foreign corporations and bankers for their profit. http://www.ocwa.com/en/services_overview [76]

Why on earth did McGuinty sign off on the Ontario Clean Water Agency if public utilities were to be exempted?

smells bad.

other public services in bold are also of particular concern, i'd think.

___

inclusions for other provinces are at the same link above.

Unfortunately, we are all playing the game with our savings, Fidel...investment capital is happy to play with it in unethical and unsound manner, as long as we free up things in the regulations and ethics departments be electing the wrong crowd.   Start refining "capital" a bit to focus the old outrage...

You have dug up some very interesting data, thanks...fortunately, thanks to Maude Barlow and others, we have not sold out fundamental utilities yet, along with a lot of cultural property that has gone by the board.   But, to repeat, "the ground is being prepared..."

http://www.ocwa.com/en/facility_management

Here is a nice summary of what the OCWA does.  All the water data collection for municipal water and waste systems, asset management, inspections, even projections for capital expansion and fees.

The OCWA may not itself be technically a 'utility', but it is responsible for managing utilities, and in the Harper/McGuinty sell-off is up for grabs by US infrastructure/ data management/ finance corporations.

I think the insertion of 'public utility' in the note to the Annex was a sleight of hand.

The Harper/McGuinty privatizers can get around it by procuring-out the higher tier agency's duties.

Further, the references to the Ontario Financial Services Commission reminds me of the phrase in the Green Energy Act: "OPA and the Financial Corporation", and the "Lender's Rights" in the FIT contract.

They can get around a lot of public utility 'exclusions' by allowing finance in through the side door.

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/

"The Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) regulates [80]:

• Auto Insurance [81]
• Co-operatives [82]
• Credit Unions [83]
• Caisses Populaires [84]
• Insurance [85]
• Loan & Trust Companies [86]
• Mortgage Brokers [87]
• Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund [88]
• Pensions " [89]

Nice big list here of all the Banks and Financiers under 'Loan and Trust Companies' who can procure their own regulatory body:

http://www2.fsco.gov.on.ca/Misc/loantrus.htm [90]

Interesting, along with all the other big banks, CIBC Mellon is on that list.  There's an exec of CIBC Mellon on the Board of Directors of  Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator. http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/governance/board_of_directors.asp [68]

yup, lots of ways to privatize public utilities, send our tax dollars into banker's pockets, and give away our rights to public services and energy.

in fact, there is nothing to prevent cross-border financiers from procuring "transactions services", "accounting, auditing and book-keeping services" and "Software implementation services, including systems and software consulting services, systems analysis, design, programming and maintenance services" - controlling and holding proprietary rights in many sectors.

http://cupe.on.ca/aux_file.php?aux_file_id=2604

And the faster they can pour in through the front gates, the more our stupidest free trade deal in the world will protect foreign interests from the Canadian public's interests in Bananaduh. And I'll be voting against all of the the bastards as usual whenever Bay Street gives Iggy the high sign for an electoral stooge-off with herr Harper. 

the Harperite press release announcing the actual conclusion of this deal as of yesterday, says "Canadian provinces and territories also collaborated to develop the agreement".

http://www.international.gc.ca/media_commerce/comm/news-communiques/2010...

I was alerted to this from www.canadians.org [94] reporting that Van Loan made his announcement in BC.  As if we're supposed to cheer it along with the Olympics. !!??

To be honest, I'm kinda in shock about it.  didn't really think all the provinces would be such a sell-out, that it would happen so quickly.  Then I read at PEF that even some progressive economists have taken the deal lightly.   It's a sad day when the people we rely on to read the fine print and connect the dots, don't.

Meanwhile we have this circus marching on ...

PROVINCES DIDN'T EVEN DISCUSS THE DEAL WITH RESIDENTS !!! 

THE PUBLIC DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE DOCUMENTS TILL A FEW DAYS AGO, AND ITS ALREADY A DONE DEAL  !!!

PARLIAMENT ISN'T SITTING, THERE'S NO DEBATE, AND THIS THING IS ANNOUNCED AT GAMES !!!

guess all those homelessness protesters at the Olympics will have more added to their ranks with US mortgage giants taking over Canadian real estate...

Right on, thanks.  The country dweller has it made in the shade.  Believe it.

Country dwellers and farmers are in debt too, ripe for the picking.  no salvation there.

__

This Harper procurement and WTO sign-on fiasco feels like a coup. 

Someone tell me how it happened, please.

There was no debate in federal or provincial legislatures.  Almost all our mainstream media are sold out now- even in our local paper, immediately after Harper made his announcement of the near-deal two weeks ago, an editorial centre page heralded the glory of US procurement.  Counter-letters were left to online backpages.  Of course Sun-Media/Quebecor has now majority American owners, what do i expect.

Still the pace of this give-away is astounding.  It's like awakening to tanks rolling up the drive.

___

I was reading the other day in an early copy of the Directory of Intentional Communities about the process for Land Trusts, and community decision-making.  When the sustenance of life is held in common, people get together weekly or monthly and make  decisions.  It's participatory democracy, such a far cry from what passes as 'democracy' in Canada today.

The broader global anti-democracy is gobbling up more of the planet at present, perhaps because so many in the eco-village movement made themselves apolitical.  Many intentional communities began with political activists and direct action advocates, now many function simply as tourist destinations or rental units.

and i'm not sure how to help reverse the process

We could forgive our own debts.

thanks:

"There was no debate in federal or provincial legislatures.  Almost all our mainstream media are sold out now- even in our local paper, immediately after Harper made his announcement of the near-deal two weeks ago, an editorial centre page heralded the glory of US procurement.  Counter-letters were left to online backpages.  Of course Sun-Media/Quebecor has now majority American owners, what do i expect."

The Globe and Torstar are pointedly still Canadian. And let's see where the newspapers of the old Canwest/Black chain are sold to...next week I believe.

As for "reversing the process"... you are doing much here. Work to unseat our neo-cons. Embarass the bastards at every turn. But let's also talk about creating economically viable alternative models.

Oh thanks for the info.

If you can't do a head on assault with NAFTA exchanges then why not come in through the back door and use municipal governments to make changes on a federal scale?

I am not sure I put this right above as I am trying to gather my thoughts as I am remembering Council of Canadians Stuart Trew's exchange recently. Anyone up on this..sorry for being vague.

I think a lot of us have been down this road Thanks in terms of the underlying "subculture of capitalism" as it seeks to gain control not only of the financial markets, but to usurp governments  federally and provincially as well.

So after doing a bit of reading the trend to seeking to dismantle public services, it begins and happens at local levels. Newspapers, as has been noted, and this quickly takes me to yesterdays paper of the Citizen as they report of Brock Carlton, Federation of Canadian Municipalities visit here to Prince George.

If the strategy is to dismantle funding to municipalities then what garb would be significant to cloak the deficit of that money then to create bilateral deals on lets say companies to local contracts then to support the the local infrastructure by opening it up to American bidding processes? Again it's a question in my mind to prepare for the recognition of things working a a local level that apply to a federal scale?

What's happening in your community?

Just to reiterate the tax question by companies who operate in our communities as to being overtaxed? How about a front row seat to the tactics of a change of heart [100] over a decision by the mayor and counsel to have it overturn to help alleviate a bad situation?

If one did not already recognize the strategy by the company to divest itself while playing it's games to assault the integrity of the good people of these communities, then how is it one could not see the manipulation by big business to have their way one way or another? Tear down the infrastructure. Put the tax burden again onto the people of those communities?

Here's the full text of the procurement/WTO deal from DFAIT:

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/asse...

It's disturbing that exemptions carved out in Appendix C are included, directly or indirectly via finance/insurance and the federal tier, in Appendix A.

It's disturbing that allowances for public policy-making are annulled in the same paragraph- pre-empted by clauses prioritizing 'non-discrimination' for corporations, and threatening claims of 'disguised restrictions on international trade".

It's disturbing that many municipalities are covered.

It's disturbing that Ontario education services, social services, hospital services, the Clean Water Agency, and the functions of the health insurance and financial regulator can be picked up by US (globally operating) corporations.

Once allowed in to some provinces, or federally, under NAFTA and interprovincial deals those corporations have broader rights.

Functional control of finance, insurance, software, auditing, book-keeping, data, accounting, and "General Management" (App. A at the  federal or sub-federal levels) by private corporations themselves allows them to a) set their own prices and b) enjoy prioritized corporate rights through existing and proposed trade deals.

___

I've been listening to media and politicians whining about deficit.

Yet no one talks about the ballooning of prices for goods and services created by out-of-control financiers.

Once bankers and insurers get their hands on a government bond, or a procurement contract, they bundle that debt or credit and sell it again in the financial markets as an 'innovative product'.  See the last box on the wikipedia Credit Default Swap entry for a few examples of these nonsensical 'products'.

These 'products' aren't benign.  They are re-packaged and sold again, and again, and again, each time including profit margins.  That's leveraging.  Trillions of dollars are traded each day on electronic financial markets.  That's inflation.  The cost of money inflates.  Prices inflate.  Prices for goods and services inflate.  People can't afford their bills.  Governments can't afford to pay for infrastructure or procurement for public services.  Assets and Public Services get cut.  Private corporations pick up assets and services in their entirety.  Prices and fees go up further.

That's the game Harper and McGuinty and others are playing.

Their refusal to move away from private finance, their refusal to tax it, and their refusal to control it, instead expanding its reach, puts us deeper and deeper into the hole.

Harper is actually feeding debt and deficit by cutting public services in the short term, while privatizing at exponential cost in the medium and long-term.

We need to ensure rather that more public dollars are spent directly on public (not privately procured) services.  We need to buy back any of our outstanding debt using the Bank of Canada.

Then the full recycling of public money between levels of government would in fact function as forgiving our own debts.

Creating Something out of Nothing

The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of Economics [104]

It's easy to see how a science perspective of the microscopic can be extolled in powers of ten, but instead of calling it that, you can refer to Fidel's quote. It's not so easy to see the dynamics at work yet we know that underlying Game theory, Nash [105] was watching the relationships of bargaining very carefully and eventually won a noble prize for it.

So that's the trouble, is to identify in the local issues, once exploded to a larger perspective which may still have it design scenario in relation to this "equatorial measure of wealth and growth" from a purely economic and capitalistic tendency. Who is to know that under a pschological integration and response we were just pawns in those local meetings, while politically we had been prepared and given to circumventing a larger perspective once involved, to play out for a larger audience drafted for a global stage?

um, before i read that, didn't want to forget to highlight that Harper has allowed Taxation Services to be procured by US corporations.

(Appendix A)

[Shall i let that stand or make some remarks?]

The obvious remark is that Harper is a hypocrite if he portrays himself concerned about deficit, but lets the fox run the henhouse.

All the financial services contracts - accounting, auditing, book-keeping, management, etc. that Harper's giving away- come with intellectual property rights.  That means zero real transparency and accountability, however those words are bandied about for media.

_______

re: the links on economic theory: In the context of a thread ending with 'ensuring citizens have their rights respected' the conclusion is not fulfilled when there are limitations to access.

I don't disagree.

Apply the circumstances to real life situations so that people will be able to identy them in their social settings. Then show how we can change the situation. While you have been given kudos for the effort it doesn't stop there. It has to be moved forward to providing the avenues for change? What are the the right ones?

Best,

"We need to ensure rather that more public dollars are spent directly on public (not privately procured) services.  We need to buy back any of our outstanding debt using the Bank of Canada"

in the context of Harper's upcoming budget and critique.

---

Take health care for example.

Here's how the province of Ontario throws money away to the private sector instead of spending directly on public service:

- the Ontario Health Coalition says half a billion per year goes to three private multinational corporate labs while more efficient and less costly community labs are closed.

- OPSEU says the province wasted 1 billion dollars on the private e-health scandal, and continues to spend 1 million dollars A DAY on private consultants.  5 billion dollars is lost in corporate tax reductions.

And the federal government has allowed private clinics to proliferate and allowed the Canada Health Act including universality to be undermined.  Hospital and health system infrastructure is run through Build Canada for private partnerships.

The federal government has refused to implement, with the provinces, a national pharmacare program.  As reported by the Canadian Health Coalition in 2008, drug costs rose by 11% per year over the previous decade.  All that money goes to Big Pharma.  The CHC recommends a national program not only for bulk purchasing at all levels but also in regulating corporate promotion of high cost drugs over equivalents.

And we could go on.

Although Harper's procurement deal says Crown corporations and government-provided services, loans and grants are excluded (App.A), if those services aren't provided (through lack of public funding, cuts, and sell-offs) then those services can be procured from private US corporations, insurers, and infrastructure (hard and software) financiers.

Even if Harper just holds the line on the status quo, costs will rise and force cuts, then more privatization and spiralling costs.  Toss in the leveraged drug trading, delisted insurance coverages, and other casino fodder here for more rising prices. 

The solution is to reclaim privatized elements of the health care system, and expand public insurance coverage including a national pharmacare program.  We need to roll-back trade deals including Harper's procurement deal, and to turn finance into a public utility rather than further privatizing accounting, auditing, and data systems. 

I know this string isn't the prettiest in organization but I would hate to see the work shut off in it's 8th month of pregnacy for extended length. It's like herding 8 cats that hate me although putative ' just public service' and  'debt' it recalls for me the essence of Marx But instead of in a time of chaos, the people shall overcome it's more Naomi's vision how to acheive corporate rule, to continually settle for second best as an expediant because other stuff is happening. During my local 5 ring circus ACTA met in Vancouver, and Gordie is now rewriting the water laws (that's two more cats)(both secret heissenberg cats). energy is being totally regulated by a corporate gov't and there is now an 8'tall chain link fence at my open concept bus station(B'way/Commercial). Farming, even the right to grow food is being left to be self regulated by Monsanto.

I suppose that when Karl was writing his work, he was working with paradyms that had a real shortage of handles. I want to know how we can save the meat of the thought here when we hit the 100 post mark.

Signed, 64 and going to school.  Bye the bye, debts can only be bought back when there is enough profit to pay for them without killing the payee; I think this was one of the fundamentals of the 'mercan revolution, slavery/ indenture, something like that.

The debt can be bought back using as collateral the National Wealth of Canada, as Armine Yalnizian has noted in her speech last Nov. (CCPA) citing CCF founding documents, calculated not as GDP but as the collective substance/assets of Canada. [not necessarily in dollarized currency].

a couple of things come to mind when dealing with companies controlling the market place.

Government  living up to a federal responsibility in terms of that health care and not letting the provinces dictate to a two tier system. Purely a capitalistic approach to "for profit designs."

[114]State of Play: Canada’s Internal Free Trade Agenda [115]The best evidence of what lies in store for governments is provided by claims now proceeding under the NAFTA dispute regime that served as the prototype for TILMA, including claims by:

Centurion Health, a US health service provider, for $160 million because it claims
that Canadian governments prevented it from establishing a chain of private
health clinics;

I don't see how MPs of any stripe can vote confidence in the Harper government when parliament reconvenes.

We know now a fair bit about the destruction of so-called 'free trade' deals.  They're documents handing our rights to private and foreign corporations and their bankers.

Yet Harper has pushed further- for procurement of key/ keel mechanisms in controlling our economy and ecology, right down to privacy-protected auditing, software, data and management in all tiers, by foreign for-profit corporations and finance.

He's done this by shutting parliament down and eliminating debate.  He did it with a ridiculously short deadline- claiming to provide a petty return within a day of the US stimulus funding package, all but useless in any case.  He did it without releasing the documentation to the public until it was a done deal.

There is no confidence that Harper values the people, the rights, nor the democracy of residents.

You are uncovering what will be tomorrow's MSM news, thanks.  And I have not seen the Rabble pundits anywhere near the investigative mark.  A gold medal and tip of the hat to you.

Control the information you control the people?:) Again as heart felt and idealistic you can become in your efforts, it's not enough to cry out in political verbiage because you'll always end up with another person saying that it is only a political perspective. That it is the progressive conservatives you don't like and their leader? It's not enough.

So what do you do?

Do you succumb to the frustration that what is moving as a sub-culture working from the inside/out, is the idea that you can build a better consensus from what is moving the fabric of society to know that we can change the outcome as to what Canada shall become as well?

They( a conspirator thought) as a force that is undermining the public perception while society did not grasp the full understanding of what has been done to them. Society having been cast to fighting at the "local level to advance a larger agenda?"

Does it not seem that once you occupy the mind in such close quarter conflagrations that mind has been circumvented from the larger picture?

Pain, and emotional turmoil does this.

Historically once the fire has been started, like some phoenix, a new cultural idealism manifests as to what the individual actually wants when they are in full recognition that "as a force" moved forward in a democratic compunction as a government in waiting to advance the principals by which it can stand as the public mind.

Quote:

[119] However, the incommensurability thesis is not Kuhn's only positive philosophical thesis. Kuhn himself tells us that “The paradigm as shared example is the central element of what I now take to be the most novel and least understood aspect of [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]” (1970a, 187). Nonetheless, Kuhn failed to develop the paradigm concept in his later work beyond an early application of its semantic aspects to the explanation of incommensurability. The explanation of scientific development in terms of paradigms was not only novel but radical too, insofar as it gives a naturalistic explanation of belief-change. Naturalism was not in the early 1960s the familiar part of philosophical landscape that it has subsequently become. Kuhn's explanation contrasted with explanations in terms of rules of method (or confirmation, falsification etc.) that most philosophers of science took to be constitutive of rationality. Furthermore, the relevant disciplines (psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence) were either insufficiently progressed to support Kuhn's contentions concerning paradigms, or were antithetical to them (in the case of classical AI). Now that naturalism has become an accepted component of philosophy, there has recently been interest in reassessing Kuhn's work in the light of developments in the relevant sciences, many of which provide corroboration for Kuhn's claim that science is driven by relations of perceived similarity and analogy to existing problems and their solutions (Nickles 2003b, Nersessian 2003). It may yet be that a characteristically Kuhnian thesis will play a prominent part in our understanding of science.

I would advance that the word "science" in quote above, be changed to "economy."

What paradigmatic solution has been advanced that such a thing can turn over the present equatorial function assigned to the pubic mind, that we will be in better control of our destinies as Canadians?

Precursor to such changes are revolutions in the thought patterns established as functionary pundits of money orientated societies. They have become "fixed to a particular agenda." Rote systems assumed and brought up in,  extolled as to the highest moral obligation is  to live well, and on the way, fix ourselves to debt written obligations that shall soon over come the sensibility of what it shall take to live?

Force upon them is the understanding that we had become a slave to our reason and a slave to a master disguised as what is healthy and knows no boundaries? A capitalistic dream.

Best,

talking here is a 'how'- the dialogue with others who perhaps share news sources.

News sources like CBC Radio which just now pronounced that 'the language everyone understands' is 'jobs'.

The reporter was referring to the premiers trade 'mission' to the US.  Apparently it's Canada's job to provide the US with an export market, so that Americans can try to acquire some of the 7 million jobs they've lost.

Forget about Canadian jobs.

Forget that the US is in their job void because they let their FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate players) run wild.

Forget that the premiers/Harper's procurement deal just opened the door for same FIRE to run amok here.

The void in jobs will grow as the FIRE reaches further and consumes all bases for jobs.

Yes, I hear you.

It goes on and on.

rather than philosophically just saying saying 'shift!' 'free yourselves mentally from debt constructs!' the mechanisms need to be deconstructed.  that's what i've been trying to do here. 

one possible summary, stated in 'conservative' language [one could use other language for other views]:

If policy-makers are going to use arguments of "fiscal responsibility" they must audit publicly all elements of the economy including private finance/insurance/real estate players which affect the economy, inflate prices, and cloud measures of the fiscal state.

Once that auditing is done, fully, it may be revealed that in fact 'creditors' of government are its debtors, that reparations are due, that funds are owed to government.  Funds which were diverted from public services, in their inflated entirety, should be returned to public services.

But we won't know realities until players are named and the numbers involved audited.

Auditing tasks cannot be given to the private financial/insurance/real estate players who are being audited, or their associates.

That's conflict of interest.

Yet Harper took the step of allowing private US corporate procurement of federal auditing.

That step allows a serious conflict of interest in a necessary task of fiscal responsibility.  

Harper has been irresponsible in economic governance.

Irresponsible governance = governance in which we have no confidence.

We have no confidence in the current government.

The government gets a vote of non-confidence when parliament resumes.

A guy walks into my smoke shop with a gun and rips me off for the day's till. Well, I just put that on to my visa for 20$/mo but that was my profit, I run a very close service here but I'm alive. The next month the sob hits me again, I'm down 40$ in service charges. At a certain point I stop running my service and start seeing my wage disappear and I don't know if the guy with the gun or visa is killing me. There will be changes made but I don't know what they are.  Right wing gov'ts have been hoofing up the debt, they read the book, we are now indentured servants/slaves. Credit is a two edged friend and must be handled carefully. I have total faith in co-operative effort.

and i was wondering why my Agricorp farm registration went up 25% this year.

the bill said because of "industry requests".

industry i bet.  which industry.  have to see what nfu says.

with Harper's procurement deal and McGuinty's procuring out Agricorp as a contract to US corps, guess the 25% bump is to cover the profit margins of whichever vertically integrated oil/finance corp gets the contract.

i don't think people have even begun to delve the depths of that @!%!!** deal.

just wait

by the way, i did see the to star today post up an editorial saying the procurement deal has to be put under scrutiny. well no @!%! kidding.

Agricorp, Monsanto, Dow, CIA, WB, IMF, forget it. It will be settled in civil court with nondisclosure agreements. The thing about civil court is it's ability to comprimise, it's that that was not a foul play but that we'll give them only three yards on that down; the sure and steady erosion of rights. This must be a planet of lawyers.

this lovely and productive thread must now draw to a close by the math of the regulators. How can we possibly hope to talk deapth within the rule of the hundred line hikou?

Mr. george victor,

One cannot embarass a neo-con.

E

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