Fearless in Toronto

Class Warfare

2012-01-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how certain topics become fashionable. Maybe the siren song of lip service is too great to resist.

The most recent example is to show your supreme goodness by declaring your concern over the gap between the rich and the poor. Personally, I could care less about the rich. My concern is for the poor. If alleviating poverty and raising the standard of living of our most financially vulnerable citizens is the goal, then the continued focus on the gap between the rich and the poor is breathtakingly misguided.

Let's be clear. We can close that gap right now by forcing every citizen earning over $80,000 out of the country. The gap would be significantly reduced but it would also increase poverty. Yeah, I know, the big solution is to tax the rich out of existence. Simply tax all income over, let's say, $1 million.

Now answering a simple question can expose just one aspect of the superficiality of that approach. How many top players do you think the Canucks could sign if there was a million dollar ceiling? The answer is NONE. Well, the same thing happens in other businesses. People with talent have choices.

My real problem is that the politically motivated focus on the gap between the rich and the poor in Canada is that it not only suggests superficial, and at times, downright destructive solutions, it obscures the far more pressing problems of things such as homelessness, poverty in native reserves, drug addiction and a host of other issues concerning the most vulnerable citizens.

That's just so typical. It's much easier to build a political career talking about the gap between the rich and the poor instead of actually offering meaningful solutions to help the most needy.

Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

2012-01-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

To me the term 'mushy middle' is hardly flattering and indicates someone who has neither backbone nor ingenuity. They're just blobs of jello who sit around and wait for others to take initiative. There's no such thing as 'mushy middle' in private enterprise. Such a useless creature would be laughed out of the boardroom.

Obama's State of the Union address should have been at least 50% in Cantonese. That would be in deference to their future overlords.

Apparently Google Plus has 90, 000 members who never use it. Julian Assange could plant some information on there and on-one would find it. They should just re-name it MySpace.

Ron Jeremy said porn stars shouldn't have to wear condoms. So how about wearing a mask, Ron?

American Idol's ratings have fallen in 2012. Almost as much as Stephen Tyler's face.

A 16 year old Dutch girl is the youngest to sail around the world. Maybe Carnival cruises should hire her.

A school in Utah won't be allowed to call it's football team 'Cougars' because of an apparent 'negative double entendre'. Yeah, 'Fat Slutty Divorcees' would be much better.

If a ball player bets on his own team, he gets banned. If a bank bets in mortgage rates failing, they get bailed out.

Jerry Seinfeld said he never felt comfortable with his shows popularity. Then he lit a Cuban cigar with a $500 bill and drove off in his Rolls Royce. Oh, I hate making so much money… that's why I when
I'm a billionaire, I come to your town and charge $200 per ticket in a bad economy.

Speaking of show biz, Pat Sajak said that he and Vanna sometimes taped Wheel of Fortune drunk. I think I was drunk the couple of times I watched it, but I was only 5 so I don't quite remember.

They say smile and the whole world smiles with you. Keep on smiling and you'll end up in the psyche ward… or more likely in the subway sitting next to me.

Newt Gingrich said he doesn't want to participate in another debate unless there's cheering allowed. If you want to go to an event where's there's never any cheering, go to a Raptors game.

Everyone will be forced into Timeline Feb 1. Better spend the weekend deleting your embarrassing pics and posts.

Last Night's State of the Union

2012-01-25T16:19:00.000-08:00

Or should we call it State of the Campaign? You can be sure that the global elite were smiling as they sipped their $5000 cognac flanked by their original Picassos. (They'd be equally delighted if 'Grey Poupon' candidate Mitt Romney became their puppet.) Republican or Democrat are just different flavours of the status quo.

The message last night is that we have to step up and increase our subsidies, our pound of flesh, to the kleptocracy. We're going to feed you to each other and have you finish each other off. We're going to feed the dying we ran over in previous years to those left living with any money they might be able to spend or invest to save your ass. The cornerstone of this plan will be economic cannibalism and you're going to like it. The real crooks will never see any jail time - you know the ones who created the housing collapse devastation, the ones who handed out the bailouts, and the ones who received it. That's just the way it's going to be. Nothing to see here. Now move along.

If Obama knew economics, he would know that all of the "income inequality" he cries about is caused by the central bank and their buddies creating a continuous supply of new money. New money creation causes a wealth shift from the poor and middle to the top. But, do you think he will abolish the Fed. Not a chance. Remember, statism is a bankers best friend. So, if Obama is a statist, who do you think are his best friends?

Mr.Goldman Sachs is a man of the people. If he wants to solve the income inequality gap he should end the Federal Reserve because new money creation causes income redistribution to benefit the already rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. I know that because I read the history from the 1920s (on how new money creation made the armaments companies better off). But apparently statistical studies have been done and show this causal relationship too. So, we have a liar who will not abolish the fed and a poser who pretends to be for the people.

There are 5 major generic types of arranging society: statism, liberal-left, conservative-right, centrism, and libertarianism (anarchism). I guess those other 4 are the alternatives to statism. Statism is being defined here as no personal freedom and no economic freedom. This attitude is slowly creeping into Canada, in case some of you feel left out.

Ron Paul is not a statist. He is the opposite of a statist; he is a libertarian because he favors both personal and economic freedom. Statism is something we would use to describe the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Get the picture?

Kudos to Tim Thomas

2012-01-24T16:59:00.000-08:00

I can hardly get over Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas refusing to go the White House for a photo op with President Obama. It's not that Thomas is a raging Republican and can't stand to be in the same room with the number one Democrat. It does, however, have everything to do about how Thomas views the goings on in his home country.

This was Thomas's message on his Facebook page: 'I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties and properties of the people. This is being done at the executive legislative and judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution of the founding fathers vision for the federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a free citizen and did not visit the White House. This is not about politics or party, as in my opinion, both parties are responsible for the situation we're in as country. This is about a choice I had to make as an individual and is the only public statement I will be making on the topic'.

Now you really can't argue with that and it doesn't make him a selfish player as a lot of sports talk pinheads and writers have tried to peddle through the mouth breathers who get all riled up over things like this. They think that Tim Thomas put himself above the team and is therefore not a team player. That's load of you-know-what.

As long as Tim Thomas keeps the puck out of the net on a nightly basis, his team will embrace him. and thomas, last years Conn Smythe Trophy winner, sure does that. A great team is a group of individuals who come together to realize a common goal. In the case of the boston Bruins, that goal was and is the Stanley Cup.

Tim Thomas can believe anything he wants away from the rink. It's what he does on the ice that counts.

Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

2012-01-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

Good films - why do they take so long to torrent? Oh wait, am I allowed to say that? I live in Canada... no SOPA here, right?

With regard to allegations that the Captain and crew abandoned the Italian owned ship and their duties prematurely after hitting the rocks, it appears that Winston Churchill may have been correct in his description of Italian cruise lines. Upon losing the election after WWII, Churchill did what every other defeated politician does, he went on a paid speaking tour. He was nervous about flying, and as a result, he always took cruise ships to speaking engagements abroad. Curiously, he always sailed on an Italian owned cruise ships rather than the British run Cunard Lines. When asked about this by the British media, he replied: Well, there are two reasons for this. One, the food, wine and entertainment are much, much better, and two, in the event of sinking there is none of this women and children first nonsense.

Police arrested a woman outside a McDonald's in Burbank, Calif. after she allegedly offered sex to a customer in exchange for his chicken McNuggets. A happy ending to a happy meal. Lucky it wasn't Red Lobster where she would have to offer crabs for sex.

Iran insists that America was behind the assassination of their nuclear scientist. The recovered parts of the bomb must have said "Made in China." Solid evidence it was from the U.S.

A guy is fighting with his girlfriend in Buenos Aries. The guy throws a cat at the girlfriend, the girlfriend ducks and the cat goes sailing through a fourth floor window. The outcome: the cat lands on an 86 year old woman, the cat dies and the woman is in critical condition. A true CATastrophe.

New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert halted a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony because a derp in the audience didn't know how to operate his new iPhone and it kept ringing and sounding the alarm. The disrupter says he's humiliated and hasn't slept for days. Simple solution: leave the fucking thing at home.

A Seattle man has been ordered by the FDA to stop selling his sperm online. Apparently, he's fathered 14 children. And he's working on his new book 'Money Balls'.

Saw a cop give a pedestrian a jaywalking ticket the other day. I guess that means all the police work is done. Like finding who killed Sonia Varaschin.

The other day a judge told Lindsey Lohan to keep doing what she's doing. So she took off her clothes.

A woman in New Zealand has offered to auction off her buttocks for any tattoo the bidder wants. So far she's up to $13, 000. I think she should tattoo a map of Canada to her derriere and when she sits down, Quebec will separate.

Media personality, Wendy Williams, has launched a campaign to save the Twinkie because parent company Hostess has gone Bankrupt. Yep, pick your battles and fight to the bitter end.

What did Wikipedia learn on Tuesday? Once you go Black you can never go back.

Our Rapidly Deteriorating Healthcare System

2012-01-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

In 1993, when the Liberals under Jean Chretien took office, the federal government was transferring about $10 billion dollars to the province for healthcare. Wait times for specialized procedures were, on average, about 9.3 weeks. Now fast forward to today.

Eighteen years later, the federal government is now forking over $35 billion plus with more promise of two and a half times the economic growth in the next 5 years. And now our wait times have gone down. Right? I mean, after a 250% increase in funding at the federal level alone - an extra $25 billion - plus billions more at the provincial level, plus rises in medical premiums, wait lists have gone down. Right?

Hell no!

Our wait list for specialized procedures has gone from 9 weeks to 19 weeks. In fact, Canadian patients wait longer for elective surgery than citizens in any other country. And I invite you to memorize this fact: A study of 30 Western nations that the Euro-Canadian health index studied ranked us DEAD LAST in terms of value for money. But still, our major healthcare unions, the politicians they donate to and the interest groups they support - like the self-proclaimed 'Friends of Medicare' - fight innovation and fight change at every step of the way.

They say NO to learning from the best practices from other Western medical systems who get far better results than ours. Instead, they only demand more money - billions upon billions, no amount is enough - while our results continue to decline. This is their legacy. But do you know what your legacy and mine is? Our collective willingness to pass along a financially unsustainable healthcare system to our children. And our persistence in making sure that we are totally unprepared to deal with an aging population is our healthcare legacy.

Recent related articles:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/gary_mason/the-provinces-got-what-they-asked-for-on-health-funding/article2306965/
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/news/display.aspx?id=2147484108

Finally A Worthwhile Protst

2012-01-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

I'm not interested in contrived protests over the closure of a few swimming pools or the elimination of a couple of libraries. But when it comes to the monopolistic stranglehold that the telecommunication industry has on Canadians, I'm on board to crush this.

Finally, something may be done about the woeful lack of competition among Canada's mobile phone providers. B.C. based internet advocacy group, Open Media.ca, is organizing what it hopes will be the biggest online petition in Canadian history to give independent mobile providers a fair chance in the ultra high frequency spectrum. So far, it has garnered 40, 000 signatures in only one week.

It may be a mystery to some why governments don't abide by their own rules. But to others it's a logical outcome of illogical political thinking. For example, it has always been amazing how governments who are so opposed to monopolies that fix prices or control services insist on being a monopoly and fix agendas in areas that involve peoples' lives and freedoms

But it's not just politicians alone who have a firm grip on our balls, but also big corporations in collusion with government and banks. Specifically, the big three wireless companies - Bell, Rogers and Telus - who control 95% of the Canadian cellphone market and conspire to keep our mobile bills among the highest in the world.

Not only do Canadians pay outrageous cell phone costs, we also pay high roaming charges, and text message fees in Canada are insanely marked up by as much as 4000%. The main reason that Canadians are the most screwed-over wireless users on the planet is that year after year, the feds refuse to allow foreign capital into the wireless industry.

Budget providers such as Wind, Public and Mobilicity find it difficult to absorb the the massive costs involved in launching their brands onto the market. Frequency licences alone are auctioned off by Ottawa for billions creating an instant debt load for new entrants, before they spend a penny on infrastructure or marketing. Previous homegrown or independent companies, such as Fido and Clearnet, ran out of money and were quickly gobbled up by the cartel.

Then there's the Canadian banks who do quite well by Bell, Rogers and Telus and see little upside in backing new competitors. The 'Big Three' make more money than any other wireless providers in the world, so of course, the banks wouldn't want to encourage a price war and mess with a good thing. Are you starting to get the gist of the power dynamic here?

The original reasoning behind foreign ownership restriction goes back to the 1980s when Ottawa adopted a policy that any company that wanted to provide cellular service on our radio spectrum had to be 80% Canadian controlled. At that time, Canada's sole wireline network - Bell - was considered critical industrial infrastructure. But that rationale doesn't apply to today's wireless world. It's outdated, but the 'Big Three' still argue for it.

Harper's majority could easily modernize Canada's Telecommunications Act, but it hasn't. Ironically, the Conservatives were more effective in this respect as a minority when they auctioned off new spectrum specifically to new companies. But since gaining a majority, they've backed away from pro-consumer bullishness. I guess they think Canadians are happy reaching deep into our pockets. Why shouldn't they? We're not complaining or protesting.

I would have joined the Occupy movement if they had focused on this issue. Instead we natter and niggle about trivial or partisan issues such as reducing the number of day care centres. We get what we ask for and deserve. So go to the site, sign the petition and you might find more money in your jeans next year.
http://openmedia.ca/

My Email To George Friedman - Owner Of Stratfor.

2012-01-15T18:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Friedman,

Congratulations for denying Anonymous the prize they wanted. In fact, the attempted demolition of Stratfor was intended as a 'Lulz Xmas' coup that backfired embarrassingly for these fractious hackers. This attack caused more dissension in the ranks of Anonymous than any of the other dumb stunts they have launched. You clearly showed them that they were little more than stale gum on the bottom of your shoe - slightly annoying but easy to rid.

Anonymous and Occupy are separate but mutually supportive protest entities. Neither have a hierarchy, but the meme was created by people who were obviously masterful in the art of marketing and promotion. I watched the birth pangs and admired the cleverness of how "unorganized" they made themselves appear. They played a major role in the instigation of the "Arab Spring", and immediately following, announced in cyberland that it was time to bring 'change' to America.

To me, this movement is the Hegelian Dialectic in full court press. You pit one side against the other which means you own BOTH sides of the conflict. Then, you create the chaos, watch the reaction and finally, implement the solutions. Anonymous purports to be champions of liberty and adversaries of crony capitalism. But their actions show otherwise. They are the 21st century's version of Stalin's 'useful idiots'.

The genuine protestors (and a lot of them mean well) must know how the game works, and to what end, so that they are not manipulated to demand what the game wants anyway - and to be constantly alert to those forces that are seeking to hijack the anger of the people for their own ends.

Instead of going after the central bankers and the people at the TOP of the Control System, Anonymous attacks those at the bottom - the police. It doesn't occur to these loogans that the police do have a hierarchy, do have leadership, do take orders and are part of the so-called 99% which the Occupy/Anonymous franchise purports to champion.

Today's youth are intrigued with the hacktivist subculture and can't wait for the next cyber attack. In fact, hackers do not have to be experts on computer systems or process control networks. Many of the software programs needed to conduct a cyber attack can be downloaded from the Internet. You can point and click with a $60 smart phone app and shut down a network from anywhere in the world .

Thus, Anonymous engages in petty distractions which do nothing to address the sovereign debt problems or the corruption on Wall Street. They try to come across as knights in shining armor by exposing a couple of porn sites or disrupting a drug cartel or releasing useless DOX. They never address the creation of cash out of thin air. They never address the problem of capital adequacy vs cash reserves. They never address the plan to implement a global carbon tax. They never address the reinstatement of the Glass Steagall Act. They do not go after the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the IMF or the Federal Reserve. Their stance against SOPA or NDAA is suspiciously weak and tardy.

All I see in these Occupy protests are the predictable anti-business rants and superficial sloganeering. If only the world of credit swaps, derivatives, taxation, productivity variables and the huge variety of other factors that contribute to economic growth were that simple. Or to put it another way, if only the collective interaction of literally billions of people on the planet was so straight forward as to be solved by wishful thinking.

It's ironic to note that the presidential candidate of choice for the majority of supporters of Occupy/Anonymous is Ron Paul - who would never stoop to or approve of such levels of depravity. It's also sad that, because they are so self-involved with their disparate interests, they are not rallying in solidarity to give Ron Paul the boost he truly needs.

When I first heard the term 'Occupy', I was reminded of my high school history classes. Similar to Italy in the 1920s, the "Occupy/Anonymous" movement is actually a staged fascist ploy using a bunch of "useful idiots" running around chanting Marxist slogans. The plotters know that "occupations" fail to achieve Marxism but can achieve fascism. Therefore, when the "occupations" scare enough people, the scared masses will flock to the waiting fascist dictator to save them. The Marxist "useful idiots" in the streets right now will then be purged because they are no longer needed.

The terms '99%' and '1%' are right out of the Kabbalah which seeks to explain the relationship between the eternal and the temporal. Isn't that a strange coincidence, lol? The 99%, according to the Kabbalah, is a frequently referenced term in their teachings that refer to the division of true reality.

The five senses that we possess only provide access to 1% of reality. The remaining 99% is reality that cannot be obtained by our mere 5 senses - smell, taste, feel, hear, see. Since the circumstances of the unperceiveable 99% of reality dictate those of the 1% normally perceived, a person must use Kabbalistic wisdom to access the 99%. Thus the esoteric teachings of the Kabbalah provide context to the 1% that we understand.

We perceive 1% of what is going on around us, according to the Kabbalah, and 99% of reality is beyond our natural ability. Deja vu or having a feeling that you've been somewhere or experienced something before is part of that 99% the Kabbalah says you can get in touch with through mysticism. No occurrence in life that falls under the 1% category is accidental or random, but is completely the calculated result of the 99%. When you learn and experience Enochian magic in the Kabbalah, according to the Kabbalists, all confusion and appearance of chaos is an illusion created by the absence of such context.

The 99% is characteristic of pure joy, understanding and truth. In other words, what they're saying is all the confusion and appearance of chaos in this world, if you are a Kabbalist, is happening for a reason. It all makes sense. Whenever a major event occurs in the world which appears to have been orchestrated by a globalist cabal, you can be sure that those elite planners believe that a better world will be created as a result.

'Anonymous' uses the mantra "we are anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget". This is exactly what the demons who possessed the pigs said to Jesus in the Bible before they ran over the cliff to kill the pigs they possessed. Luke, chapter 8, line 30 "and he answered saying, 'my name is legion for we are many' ".

The New Testament gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew describe an incident in which Jesus meets a man or men possessed by demons who when asked what their name is respond 'my name is legion, for we are many'. Their father is the devil and he was a murder from the beginning. In effect, Jesus was speaking to the evil natures of both Satan and Cain to be within these religious and gnostic Pharisees. Anonymous takes the very same lines used in the Bible that the demons spoke out to Jesus: 'We are legion'. That's who Anonymous claims to be. They are a product of the bloodline of Cain.

The CNN two-part interview was basically a talking airhead naively giving credence to a revolutionary derp. If I was an investigative journalist, I would want to dig deep. I would endeavour to discover the person or team who came up with the idea, the name, the slogans, the masks, the symbols etc. Yes, I hear the loud proclamations that the movement is leaderless, but there was an incubation period. Something this organized does not appear through osmosis or a big bang. There was major genius and slickness behind it. I would love to meet the creators and take them to dinner, but their tastes in wine would likely bankrupt me.

So instead, I have to settle for some self-proclaimed victim who has arrested emotional development and who is TOO OLD to be doing this hacking nonsense, boast and bellyache on CNN. This person should be using his resources and his gumption and his initiative to carve out a life for himself. It's too facile and lazy to be blaming the system for your lack of success. If you take the time to watch the feature on the links I have provided, I know you will laugh and cry at the same time.

Thank you, Mr Friedman, for the best geopolitical research and commentary in the world. Perhaps we can admit that Anonymous did you a service by forcing you to tighten up your security. It's what they are doing to the rest of the world that scares me.

http://www.edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2012/01/15/lyon-anonymous-pt1.cnn?iref=allsearch
http://www.edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2012/01/15/lyon-anonymous-pt2.cnn?iref=allsearch

Sincerely for truth, justice and liberty,

Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

2012-01-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

Everyone is talking about how Doug Ford dramatically cut up the free parking pass he receives as a member of city council. The truly big story, however, was that Rob Ford cut up his Subway sandwich card.

What could be more absurd than listening to Newt Gingrich preach about the sanctity of marriage? It's like Paula Fletcher extolling the virtues of Reaganomics.

The absurd proposal to license bikes has surfaced again at City Hall. This is the kind of stuff that gives Mike Layton wet dreams.

There is new information which claims that weed isn't dangerous to you in the same way alcohol could be detrimental to your health. Another reason weed is better than booze is that you never stone dial an ex. Unless your ex happens to work at Pizza Pizza

Beyonce named her baby Ivy Blue... or was it Blue Ivy? Even Jermajesty Jackson thinks that's a stupid name. Since she'll never have to work a day in her life, they should have called her Lay-Z

Dennis Rodman will coach a nude women's basketball team. There haven't been so many boobs on the court since Charles Barkley.

Did you know that you could take a dry turd, stamp the word artisan on it and get around $50 at a kiosk in a tourist area anywhere in North America.

Last Sunday was the 5th annual 'No Pants Day' on the subway. I hope they cleaned the seats before and after. Don't you just love events that are totally contrived and neither funny nor spontaneous nor avante garde?

Apple seems to own the latest innovations in cyber technology. But in a effort to catch up, Microsoft has invented a safety feature on their GPS maps which warn people to stay away from potentially unsafe areas. Critics ahem dubbed it the "avoid ghetto" feature. Why not just indicate where the Starbucks are located and people can avoid the areas where there are none.

I love finding money in my clothes. Sometimes you put on a pair of pants or a jacket that you haven't worn for a while and voila, there's a $20 bill in the pocket. It's like getting a gift.

I may have to admit there is no God. If He existed, Madonna would not be playing half-time at the Superbowl.

The pope said that same-sex marriage threatens the future of humanity. Sounds like a challenge that the Kardashians might want to pick up.

University medical labs are turning down cadavers because they are too big. Haha! You couldn't get into university when you were alive and now not even when you're dead. I'm guessing that the cause of death is too obvious.

For the first time in 45 years, homicide dropped out of the top 15 causes of death in the United States, according to a new government analysis of mortality trends. I guess a lot of people can't afford a gun anymore.

Hollywood royalty, Brad and Angelina, were invited to the White House a couple of days ago. Everything went well, but apparently the Obama's hid the kids because they didn't want any adoptions to occur.

Do Canadians REALLY know where our tax dollars are going?

2012-01-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

To all you tax and spend zombies, here's an important question: If individuals have the obligation to pay various forms of tax, does the government have the obligation to spend those tax dollars efficiently?

Obviously, groups like organized labour and sympathizers of the Occupy movement don't think this is a very important question. But I do and so should you. Before government confiscates someone's hard-earned money, I say it has the obligation to spend that money wisely and efficiently.

I refuse to be part of the majority on the Left who constantly demand that certain people and companies pay more so that our government can, as reported in Maclean's Magazine, put $190, 000 into New Brunswick donut maker 'Mrs Dunsters', famous for making donuts out of pure lard. Or invest $700, 000 in a pair of start-up cheese makers in Quebec. Or spend $1.6 million to design a pedestrian bridge over a busy highway, even though no decision has been made on whether the bridge is actually needed or is going to go ahead.

For the big government cheerleaders who salute every infrastructure spending announcement. Well, you might want to consider that, in its rush to qualify for federal stimulus dollars, the city of Ottawa spent $1.8 million to buy land it would have eventually gotten for free in a right away arrangement with the land owner.

This kind of waste is not unusual as a read of any auditor general's report will confirm. Yet, we have the political Left lobbying hard for more tax dollars to be collected so that the government has even more to waste. Why do you think anybody should support higher taxes when so much of that money gets spent in a fashion that would NEVER happen if our politicians and our bureaucrats were spending their own money, is beyond me.

Consider some more examples courtesy Macleans. Ottawa's National Capital Commission installed 7 new ice shacks along the Rideau Canal for skaters. Each shack cost $750, 000. But the average house price in Ottawa is only $360, 000. Trust me, there's absolutely no way that expenditure happens if the politicians and bureaucrats were spending their own money.

And you want to give them more money? The federal finance department and the privy council both paid Ipsos Reid separately a total of $200, 000 for two focus group surveys that concluded: "generally speaking, participants were not looking for a quick fix to Canada's budgetary deficit".

To continue the thoughtless expenditures, Ottawa awarded $87, 000 to a Montreal company named 'Pure Genesis Technology' to commercialize its line of anti-aging products based on certified organically grown baby spinach leaves. Remember, the government had already put in $280, 000. Is that what you thought your tax dollars were going to?

Defenders of big government like to tell you that every dollar is needed. Think of the politicians and members of the media who treat any reduction in government spending as a disaster and the beginning of destroying Canada as we know it. But expenditures like these are everywhere, administered by civil servants whose benefits and salaries are significantly higher than their private sector counterparts.

All of which bring me back to the question: If individuals have the obligation to pay various forms of tax, does the government have the obligation to spend those tax dollars efficiently?

I Haven't Changed My Mind About The U.S. Election

2012-01-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

Even though I always post in support of Ron Paul, I'm still sticking to my reluctant prediction that Obama will be re-elected to a second term. And some of the events that I said would help make this second term a reality are already happening. The markets have begun the first trading week of 2012 in positive territory and what is referred to as the 'January effect' usually augers well for the rest of the year. Unemployment numbers have miraculously receded - not by much, but even a slight improvement gives great optics. Then there's the financial crisis in Europe which seems to have been temporarily put on the back burner.

In other words, the Control System is going to prop up the US economy with glue and popsicle sticks in order to ensure their most valuable puppet stays in power. Then in 2013… head for the hills!

Young people apparently like Ron Paul, but sadly, the youth of 2012 have no apparent skills or imagination in the execution of a rip-roaring, bad-ass protest. Occupy was little more than an intense form of planking. Anonymous is adolescent hacktivists playing Mafia Wars. If this were the 1960s, not only would Ron Paul be the next president, but Obama would decline to run as did LBJ.

The Vietnam protest movement started small but grew until they became mainstream and eventually affected a veritable policy change - the U.S. military pullout of Vietnam. Washington feared and hated the anti-Vietnam protesters in contrast to Obama who embraces Occupy and claims to share their frustrations.

The youth of the sixties were solidly on the same page and not split into various ideological factions. The Vietnam protest movement had a clear goal: it wanted to end the war. It had a clear enemy: the politicians and bureaucrats who wanted the war to last forever. It had a clear message: this war is wrong. It had an intense motivation: the protesters were terrified of being drafted to kill and be killed. This is what standing up to power is all about.

In the sixties, the mantra among the young crowd was to trust no-one over 30. The music of all the great rock and folk artists of the time was infused with the sound of the street riots and napalm bombs. If we had the equivalent sixties movement as it relates to economics today, it would be calling for an end to the Fed, privatization of education, privatization of health care, the right to global free trade, an end to state robbery of persons and their businesses, and a right to keep what you own. In short, a truly radical protest movement would be calling for a consistent and authentic capitalism as a corollary to the peace agenda in international politics.

Ron Paul is really just a Republican in name only. The Republican and Democratic parties both represent the status quo and are merely different flavours of state imposed authority. Voting and elections only change the temporary managers, but do not touch the core of the problem. What makes Ron Paul amazing is that he represents REAL change. As the New York Post once wrote, Ron Paul "cannot be bought by special interests."

The elites are not so concerned that Ron Paul could be elected, but are threatened by the fundamental intellectual challenge he offers. His book 'Liberty Defined' contains enough radicalism and intellectual power to destabilize the entire system. The ideas in such books are far more powerful than any ballot box. They expose the illusion of choice and unmask the violence, propaganda and chicanery embedded in the state-dominated society.

As Jeffrey Tucker of Whiskey and Gunpowder recently wrote: 'If there were a way to re-channel all the human energy that people put into politics into reading and thinking, the state would have finally met its match'.

WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM 2011?

2012-01-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

I say nothing or next to nothing. We're still in denial. We still talk in the anachronistic rhetoric of Left vs. Right which are simply different flavours of state imposed authority. We still don't think that we need to protect ourselves from the incredible uncertainty created by the gross mismanagement of government finances in Europe and in the US. We're not paying attention to the urgent message that DEBT is the most dangerous 4 letter word in the English language.

My wish is not just to limit that question to you and me, but to ask the same question to our leaders. What did they learn in the past year? I see no indication that the demographic shift or the pension shortfall or the healthcare funding challenges or the debt implosion in Greece, Italy and Spain or the credit downgrade in the US or the economic slowdown China have had ANY impact on our leaders' approaches or thinking. And I'm including in that, organized labour and other lobby groups that want to dominate the political discussion.

I wish I was wrong, but if the federal election last May was any indication, it was as if the rhetoric was lifted from a song sheet of 20 years ago. It's astounding, but as Julian Simon once famously observed: 'it's as if they're inoculated from the force of fact' or in this case, the force of financial reality.

One of the things we do with uncomfortable questions is to ignore them and hope they go away. That's certainly what we've done with what I think is the most important question of the next generation which is: how are we going to increase government revenues in order to meet our obligations, especially when it comes to health care, old age security and public sector pensions, if we don't grow the economy in the private sector?

I ask this because we have a ton of people running around saying that economic growth is not important. This is more than just the old argument about focusing on wealth redistribution without first concentrating on creating the wealth needed to distribute. We've already promised the redistribution part. We've promised that in our pensions, in our healthcare, in our seniors programs and much more. The problem is WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY.

We're already in deficit with much bigger expenditures on the way. So where are we going to get all this extra cash from… all the money that government is going to need to enable it to pay for the programs we promised? Keep in mind we have a $30 billion deficit on the federal level and a $3 billion on the provincial level. Seriously, this is a grown-up question that seems to be beyond the grasp of most in politics or their supporters.

And I sure can't figure out why the media doesn't demand an answer, because without first answering this pivotal question, all other political discussion and debate is tragically superficial. So if you care about our health system, finding jobs for the unemployed or how about jobs for your children's financial future, then you'd better start asking how are we going to pay for all of that kind of stuff without significant growth in the economy.

Pray For A Ron Paul Win Tonight

2012-01-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul was looking good for a victory in the Iowa Caucus, but in the last 48 hours, Rick Santorum has gained momentum and has surged ahead in the polls. Iowa is not the most important caucus, but it is the FIRST one and so the optics of a victory are important for Ron Paul. He did win the New Hampshire straw poll today and so it would be great for him to win tonight and then on January 10 in NH.

The U.S. election is not simply an American issue. For Canadians, we need to remember that Canada is pretty much a puppet regime that does whatever the Americans want, and that means bigger military budgets (I think it was 30 more Navy ships) to send off to support all of these American Imperialist wars. A Ron Paul presidency means not only ending the American wars but also means ending Canada's military support role to the American wars.

The youth of America seem to understand this and are giving him rock star receptions at various high schools. Young people have studied the issues and have looked at both Austrian economics and the Federal Reserve. They understand that college tuition rates have “skyrocketed” not because the actual price of higher education has increased, but because the value of the money has gone down.

The middle class in America has been withering for decades and the country as a whole is getting poorer at a staggering pace. Millions of jobs have been shipped overseas, the rate of inflation outpaces wages, and personal debt is choking the life out of millions of families. But they have a Marxist in Washington.

There are numerous problems with the Marxian imperialism model: first of all capitalism does not lead to falling profits. This is based on their erroneous idea that profits come from exploitation of workers. If that were true then every capitalist would take a blow torch to all of his factories, computers, tools and just hire workers. Capitalists are all fools in the Marxist model; they buy machines in order to get rid of workers and hence to lower their own profits. It is such an insane model that I can't believe people take Marxism seriously.

The Marxian "exploitation" theory is erroneous. Unfortunately, given the impending global depression we will get a lot of Marxist propaganda. The funny thing is that Marxism is really just the New World Order: one big global government is what the Marxists have always wanted. The better, more logical explanation of "exploitation" is the French classical liberal pre-Marxian theory... which, not surprisingly, is much closer to the Ron Paul world view.

In a well-timed moment of delicious irony, the Ron Paul campaign announced this afternoon that a nephew of Rick Santorum was supporting Paul in the presidential race. John Garver, a student at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, endorsed Paul in a column published today in The Daily Caller.

Go, Paul, go!

2012-01-03T16:19:00.000-08:00

WHAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT STATISTIC OF 2011?

2012-01-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

What's the one number that will have the greatest impact on Canada in the years to come? The one that you should definitely know. Which one is going to come back to haunt us the most?

Is it the federal debt at $575 billion plus that we have to pay back?
Maybe it's Ontario's $240 billion provincial debt that's escalating by double digits every year. Are you people from the Left or the Right proud that we are now a have-not province?

Or perhaps it's the record debt levels accumulated by Canadians where the average now is $1.53 in debt for every dollar of disposable income.
Maybe it's the healthcare costs, escalating every year by about 2 and a half faster than the overall economy, which is why every report in the last 5 years has concluded it's not sustainable. Are you people from the Left or the Right proud that the last two rankings by the Euro-Canadian Health Index puts Canada DEAD LAST in value for money.

Or perhaps the fact that nearly 1200 Canadians turn 65 every day for the next 20 years. Maybe that's the key stat that we need to focus on.
Maybe it's the shocking number we got last week detailing the exploding costs of old age security, rising 32% between 2010 and 2015 to $48 billion, and then jumps within 15 years to an astronomical $108 billion per year. The political ignorance and denial of this fact is breathtaking.

Of course, ALL these numbers are going to have a huge impact on us, and whichever one you pick as number one is subjective. But my nomination for the number that is going to change Canada the most is $227 billion. That's the size of the shortfall the taxpayers are going to have to come up with to fun federal government employee public sector pensions. And for the 60% of Canadians who don't even have a formal pension plan, they're going to be asking not only to fund their own retirements, but the scarce dollars are going to go to public sector pensions to make up that shortfall. And that number is threatening to get a lot higher in this very difficult investment environment.

So there you have it. That's the one number I think is going to come back to bite us the hardest. This is my bet, which has nothing to do with my opinion on this particular subject, but I'm betting that the huge disparity between public sector pensions and the average Canadian who is left on his or her own is going to be the catalyst for major societal change. Just like in Europe, finances are going to drive societal change. And right now the financial numbers don't add up.

TIME TO GET SERIOUS IN 2012

2012-01-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

You 'Anonymous/Occupy' kids had lots of fun in 2011 but now it's time to grow some pubic hair and get serious. It's time stop playing silly hacker games and to learn what the important issues really are or get the hell out of the way of those who want to effect REAL change. And when I say 'kids' I'm not speaking of calender age, because some 15-year-olds are capable of adult thinking while some 50-year-olds act like children.

No more useless DOX, no more credit card numbers, no more faux military leaks, forget about sex shops, porn sites, drug dealers, police, Stratfor, Bradley Manning etc. We don't need emergency survival guides, because those have been available prolifically for years on the net. While you are dicking around with the small fish, the "gods" of the Control System are getting stronger, more powerful and making huge gains every minute of every day.

Or maybe that's exactly what you want. Maybe some of you are being deliberately distractful so that the NWO can be implemented with little real opposition. This is an election year and if 100% of your time and efforts are not being directed to supporting Ron Paul, then I'm both disappointed and suspicious.

Ron Paul might win the Iowa Caucus on January 3 but it will be no thanks to you slackers in Anonymous or Occupy. If he wins then the vultures are going to circle him day and night. He needs to be protected. He needs to have his enemies annihilated. But do you even known who his chief antagonists are?

Enemy #1 for Ron Paul is the Newt Gingrich/James Kirchick team.
http://www.chrisinmaryville.net/so-who-is-behind-the-ron-paul-attacks.html
It is so easy to destroy Newt Gingrich because he has countless skeletons in his closet - way more than Cain, for example. But it's even easier and more worthwhile exposing the war-mongering, gay-bashing, corporate propagandist, fascist, neo-con hypocrite JAMES KIRCHICK. He is the leader of the attack on Ron Paul and he needs to be decimated out of existence.

So are you with liberty or against liberty? Do you love freedom or fascism? Actions speak louder than words and so far your actions have been deplorable. The combined antics of 'Anonymous/Occupy' have been like a flea biting an elephant's ass. I have a very strong feeling that you guys want Obama back for a second term. And based on your track record so far, that's exactly what will happen.

If President Obama dumps Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate as Robert Reich suggests, Obama will win re-election unless the Republican candidate is specifically Ron Paul. Clearly this is not an endorsement of Obama, it is a prediction. If Ron Paul is the Republican nominee I think Paul would draw enough crossover votes from independents and Democrats who are sick of war and big government to win. If it's Obama-Biden vs. Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney then it's too close to call.

So what's going to be? More useless nonsense in 2012? More giving the game what the game wants? Or are you finally going to get a clue? If not, then I consider you an enemy of freedom and thus enemy of mine. The EPIC FAIL of 2011 was the 'Arab Spring' which you guys backed and which is turning into the 'Arab Winter'. And you guys are trying to bring that shit over here? Over my dead body!