Welcome To The Depression...

[Lawrence Day]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

Lawrence, are you telling me that you think the average person is too stupid to know the difference between nutritional information and advertising? That they don't know that smoking is bad for them? That they don't know that not exercising shortens their lives?

This reminds me of the (NDP?) commercial about how Harper's government sees one in eight child living in poverty. Sure the government has some responsibility to its citizens, especially children, but what about the responsibility of the parents? Canada is becoming a nation of people who flat out refuse to take responsibility for their own actions!

Tom, Ben's example wasn't an average person but a McDonald's addict.
On television commercials in the 50s I recall that lab-coated doctors discussed the benefits of smoking. After all, political and military decisions came out of the famous "smoke-filled rooms", sharp thinking fuelled by nicotine and caffeine as surely as Simpson's Divan provided cigars and strong coffee to chess players.

With education the norms changed. Governments forced cigarette companies to stop the advertising which was making the addiction rate worse. If commercials didn't work they wouldn't be around. The average kid was already brainwashed before developing the critical faculties to separate the advertising from the nutritional information.

I agree with the libertarian/marijuana/rhinoceros party line that the adult citizen owns his body and has final choice (and obviously responsibility) regarding what they put into it. But the government also has a responsibility to provide unspun objective non-commercial information, the real science, so that the citizen can make an educated decision.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

We lack democracy in Canada. For a protest vote, Whatever happened to the:
Rhinoceros party
Natural Law Party
Marijuana Party
Marxist-Leinist Party

Our system makes one choose between Tories, Liberals and NDP (I can't even vote for the Bloc). Yet, whoever gets in power gives contracts and appointments to their friends.

The Tories give lip-service to freedom, yet destroy parliamentrian committees with partisan politics, and support supression of freedoms such as marihuana, prostitution, sexual choices, judical and democratic protest. The Tories give lip service to reduce government spending yet their governments always seem to increase spending (on the miltary/prison industries, just not on arts and social services). Reducing taxes while increasing debt is irresponsible. Tories always pander to their "special interest groups" such as Upper Management Bureaucrats, those with an irrational fears of crime and immigrants, and religious fundamentalists. They say they are pro-children yet will spend millions to find single mothers criminally collecting too much to raise their kids, yet none on getting the fathers to pay, and turn a blind eye to the billions in deferred taxes and other immoral tax scams by wealthy corporations. Working people and small businesses are paying high taxes to subsidize big corporations. We don't live in a free enterprise system but a mixed economy where government contracts and favourable laws propel imcompetent businesses to great wealth. Tories like having bakesales, getting rid of Canada's assets like federal property, mineral resources, water. It landed the Sasaketwan Tories in prison.

Are there still hippies around? My impression is that many left to the countryside and become entrepreneurs developing food coops making stuff like fruit leather or hemp oil. Others opened up clothing and antique shops. Others realized that their kids should get the best, and got well-paying careers/inherited money from their parents and would screw the man by developing their own RRSPs while still smoking dope after work.

The Tories will win a majority not because they have any clarity of policy or have govern well but partly because the Liberals are not a united group making the best use of their resources and are scaring people with their Green tax. But mainly because the right only has one choice, and the left vote will be split, allowing the Conservatives to win. This is how the Liberals last got in, when the right split between Reform and Progressive Conservative. It is too bad that we don't a democratic system where conservative voters could have a choice such as right on economics/ left on social policy (Red Tories) or right on economics/right on social policy, or variations such as Libertarian or the Christian Hertitage Party.

Me I'm voting for the NDP as the best opposition party, none are worthy to govern.

[Jason Lohner]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

We lack democracy in Canada. For a protest vote, Whatever happened to the:
Rhinoceros party
Natural Law Party
Marijuana Party
Marxist-Leinist Party


Me I'm voting for the NDP as the best opposition party, none are worthy to govern.

I think proportional representation would solve alot of our election woes. Right now, I feel I have to vote for the lesser of the evils.

Natural law party was just 'decertified' as a political party this last month
Didn't even know we had a Marxist - Leninist party... but Im sure all their supportes are voting NDP or Green.
Ahh the Rhino's now that was a REAL party :)
I still believe that the Marijuana party exists.

NDP would make a Great opposition. I believe that many of them actually care, but DAMN would they destroy this country if they ever got any real power...

[Gary Ruben]

Re: US Election>Canadian Election

I think what they should do is turn OFF all the computers and just let the results trickle in and damn the projections. Let us ENJOY and SAVOR (SAVOUR? Canadian spelling?) the election night excitement!

That sounds like a good idea. People seem to want to know and it's not new. I can recall a friend who used to call in the days when there was a news blackout in time zones where the polls were not closed. He called from B.C. I don't know if people used this knowledge to decide their own vote when it became clear the election was over before the voting in Western Canada finished. I guess now they stagger the hours so the voting finishes the same time everywhere.

Still, I wonder if the polling they keep publishing doesn't turn into a self fullfilling prophesy.

I notice the finance minister has assured Canadians our banks are solid.

"rest assured our banks are solid." My web news says it was on CTV's question period. I can't recall another government which has had to make such an assurance.

I find the Listeria jokes the Conservative minister is making really offensive. People are dying, he's making jokes and the Prime Minister won't even fire him.

I'm of mixed emotions. On the one hand I wouldn't mind seeing the Liberals win. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind the Conseratives getting a majority so the rest of the country can have 4 years of putting up with what Ontario got from the Harris government, some of whose ministers and now in the federal cabinet.

I'm not planning on voting. It only encourages them.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

"I don't understand why people trust Steven Harper. He ... violated his own fixed election dates law. "

That law was never passed by the Liberal dominated Senate and thus is not yet a law.

The U.S. then fooled us into thinking Afghanistan-dwellers were somehow responsible for 9/11. Bluntly, we were tricked.

I somehow missed that take on it. Osama bin laden was a resident of Afghanistan at the time.

I see the green shift as a forced variation. Professor Dion will do it carefully and logically while Mr. Harper will wait for manifest disasters for him to react to.

What happens if there are no disasters and the continued alarmism is shown for what it has always been, patent nonsense. Remember the Club of Rome and its regular pronouncements on the hands of the doomsday clock? Whatever happened to all their predictions? Are man's "greenhouse" gases responsible for the rise of temperatures on Mars or is it solar radiation levels and solar activity? Give it twenty years and they will be saying that man is responsible for the coming ice age and we have to hand over billions to the Russians so they can build nukes to target us.

The worst thing about our system is mathematical: 40% "majorities". These lead to the absolute popular rejections of Mulroney or Harris regimes. 60% already didn't like these guys when they were elected and as they governed the other 40% learned why.

Harris was a great man.

Nobody whined when the NDP got a majority with 38%.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

I don't trust Steven Harper.

#2 The income trust LIE was a disaster. He didn't just 'flip flop' he down right lied as soon as he got into office. My parents had about $40,000 in income trusts which practically disappeared in value when he screwed with them. Then again what he did was no different than every other party was going to do.

I notice the Liberals have promised to reverse the taxation on Income Trusts if they win. Income Trusts will remain, the way I understand it. I haven't heard enough of that to know if they intend to grandfather the current trusts, which is what I always thougth they should have done, or allow new ones to form as well.

In any case, it should be quite positive for the existing trusts. Even after the beating they have already taken, every time one announces it is converting back to a company it seems it takes another 35% hair cut.

The real joke is that the Conservatives decided to tax the trusts after BCE decided they wanted to convert to one, as I recall. They didn't want to lose the tax money. So a pension plan is buying them out and they still won't be taxable because they will be held within the registered pension plan.

It's _almost_ enough to make me want to go out and vote for a promise I like. Something that will be good for our economy.

A U.S. $700,000,000,000.00 bailout by the U.S. government and I'm still not going to ring the bell to tell myself the depression is over. That amount of money has an impressive number of zeros. The only question is if the American government will borrow the money somewhere or if they will simply print it.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

A U.S. $700,000,000,000.00 bailout by the U.S. government and I'm still not going to ring the bell to tell myself the depression is over. That amount of money has an impressive number of zeros. The only question is if the American government will borrow the money somewhere or if they will simply print it.

I haven't studied economics much, which do you think would be worse? Of course neither option is good, nor is standing pat, so really it's just a question of the lesser of three evils.

Personally, borrowing looks best - it delays the negative effects while printing it causes them immediately. The best chance they have is to spread the trouble out thinly rather than a "big bang" that would shatter confidence completely (not to mention many people's 401K plans!)...

[Ken Craft]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

So are elections just an allegory for chess? I thought this was chesstalk. I get my elections fix on elections sites.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

I haven't studied economics much, which do you think would be worse? Of course neither option is good, nor is standing pat, so really it's just a question of the lesser of three evils.

Personally, borrowing looks best - it delays the negative effects while printing it causes them immediately. The best chance they have is to spread the trouble out thinly rather than a "big bang" that would shatter confidence completely (not to mention many people's 401K plans!)...

I think it will turn into borrowing. The Middle East and Asia will likely come up with the money. The taxpayer will be on the hook for loses, and in the long run there might not be much loss. I think a lot of the problem is in the short term and also the mark to market accounting.

I'm not an economist and some of the people around this chess site will tell you I'm not much of a chess player either and that's never stopped me from commenting. :)

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

So are elections just an allegory for chess? I thought this was chesstalk. I get my elections fix on elections sites.

That's the absolute beauty of a setup like this one. A discussion like this can be done in a small section and those who aren't interested don't have to open the thread.

Chess funding for the parents who send their kids to chess camps and don't get the tax deduction is chess and has been discussed in this thread. It's legitimate politics as it related to chess.

You might also recall that when the Harris government was in power the cost of renting space in schools became prohibitive. Many of the clubs had to move and close and that might be part of the reason for the current smaller and fewer chess clubs we see now.

Politics and who wins elections is very important to chess. A depression, while a tragedy, would be positive for chess because the unemployed would have to find something to do with their time.

You have to look at the big picture. ;)

[Alan Baljeu]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

Chess funding for the parents who send their kids to chess camps and don't get the tax deduction is chess and has been discussed in this thread. It's legitimate politics as it related to chess.

To my understanding, sports are funded because they contribute to physical fitness, and that contributes to fewer health problems like Type II diabetes, and that improves quality of life and decreases future health care costs.

If you want chess to get in on the sports ticket, you need a health-benefit study or it's not getting off the ground. If you want to tout other benefits of chess, look for a different program.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

To my understanding, sports are funded because they contribute to physical fitness, and that contributes to fewer health problems like Type II diabetes, and that improves quality of life and decreases future health care costs.

If you want chess to get in on the sports ticket, you need a health-benefit study or it's not getting off the ground. If you want to tout other benefits of chess, look for a different program.

What the parents need is a government which will allow chess to be treated as a sport.

People should vote for the political party which is in their best interest and not one which is popular or the polls tell them will win the election.

In the meantime, they can pay for someone elses kids while they don't get a tax break because the government won't recognize chess as a sport.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

I haven't studied economics much, which do you think would be worse? Of course neither option is good, nor is standing pat, so really it's just a question of the lesser of three evils.

Personally, borrowing looks best - it delays the negative effects while printing it causes them immediately. The best chance they have is to spread the trouble out thinly rather than a "big bang" that would shatter confidence completely (not to mention many people's 401K plans!)...

Chris, as CFC treasurer will you be asking Finance Minister Flaherty for a $700,000,000,000.00 bailout? I saw him on TV assuring us the Canadian financial system is "solid" which will leave a lot of money remaining.

It's interesting that today they injected $4,000,000,000.00 of liquidity into the system. So soon after the assurance.

There was a time I would have jumped up and down and complained that they are spending $4,000,000,000.00 of my money. As I got older I realized I never had that much to start with. Probably it's your money he's using. :)

[Ben Daswani]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

What the parents need is a government which will allow chess to be treated as a sport.

People should vote for the political party which is in their best interest and not one which is popular or the polls tell them will win the election.

Only a slim-shouldered idiot would vote for a federal party based on the issue of chess.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Welcome To The Depression...

Only a slim-shouldered idiot would vote for a federal party based on the issue of chess.

The issue isn't simply chess. The issue is the fairness of funding what amounts to discretionary, or extra-curricular, activities.

The Conservatives haven't been good to the Westerners and it's a laugh to watch them line up to vote for Conservative again. The Conservatives decimated the wealth of so many in Alberta and B.C. who beleived their lies regarding the income trusts. These days you can pick them up at so low a price they yield 10 per cent or better. Those companies have so much cash flow and are so low priced as a result of the ill conceived legislation that pension plans and foreigners are picking the entire companies up for a song.