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OT: American Politics

An adder on Banana Republic called Greece....and what big brother will resort too........

I don't know if it's throughout Greece but where I live, the tax department decreed that it owned every inch of land unless you provided physical proof within a certain time limit that you own the land . So if you live in Canada like Lou does and not aware of this, or if there is any paperwork irregularities, they will confiscate the land and any assets on it. On top of that, given that Greek paperwork was born and raised in irregularity, there will be a boom in legal fees and document costs and given that people are barely making ends meet, it will force people to give up on lesser value property. Which is exactly what this was designed to do.

There is a lesson here about big government and what lengths/means it will go too given some desperation.
 
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johnunit said:
...what are you on about? You're implying that without going to a Tea Party rally in person one cannot have an accurate or valid impression of Tea Party values/thoughts/philosophy. How is going to a Tea Party website any less valid? Is perusing this website a less valid way of learning the opinions of hockey fans than going to a sportsbar and asking around? If anything it's MORE valid because you have a larger sample size to draw on (every post ever on the website as opposed to whoever you can get talking at the sportsbar/rally) and people have time to elaborate on and clarify their opinions, as opposed to just saying things in the heat of a game/protest.

The googling thing may, in some cases, kinda sorta, be valid if you're talking about living conditions or cultural norms or what have you, but when you're talking about learning the idealogy of a group, no more powerful tool has ever been invented than the internet.
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Given that people will read what they are biased too, if you don't attend a rally to get first hand impressions then an opinion is questionable. This is not a case of clear cut politics or the radicalism of far left or far right rally. This is a case where one side of the political spectrum has done everything possible in a very deliberate manner to discredit the legitimacy of the other side protest. Including sending in people to create the impression of radicalism.

Nor does volume and vociferousness of any side in any media or means make it more valid or true. It should be self evident that the media is biased and the internet multiplies bias by 100.

You want to know what the OWS stand for? Attend their rally and ignore the rights wants you to believe. You want to know what the Tea Party stand for? Attend their rallies and ignore what the left wants you to believe. You may come out with the same opinion you went in with, but at least you validated it first hand.

Last year, when I went to Greece, I "attended" one of their protest. I had the media impression that the protesters where mostly hood wearing anarchist, I saw more old people then black hood wearers. When it comes to movements and POLITICAL protests, first hand can be an eye opener.

(As an aside, talking about rallies, I wish I attended the Million Man March.)
 
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Re: OT: Canadian Politics

The federal govt is bilingual across the country and rightfully so, but the provinces are not except for New Brunswick which is official bilingual.
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Ottawa is less than 1% Francophone. Which means literally 99% of Ottawans can speak English.

Yet all of our signs are in both languages, and we have a language czar going around last summer checking to see if Ottawa businesses are doing enough to offer bilingual services.
 
your chronicles of the greece fiasco are very interesting to read, HA. i agree entirely that they should serve as a warning to anyone who feels that more gov't is the answer. rampant statism on the european model is NOT the way to go, and greece shows that beyond a doubt. spain, italy, and maybe even france could reinforce that in the next few years.

the upcoming election in the US is about which direction you want to go in. i hope americans see that going the way of greece, italy, spain, france, etc. is NOT the way to go.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

lecoqsportif said:
1%? Yeah, check the census. You guys are way off on the facts , hence my comments about "reality checks".

In 2006 the were 120,000 francophones in Ottawa, Ontario. That's like the total population of Kingston, Guelph or Peterborough.

http://www12.statcan.ca/census-rece...&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&Custom=
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Self identified Franophones doesn't mean they can't speak English. It means they choose not to.

I've lived in this city for almost 30 years and not ONCE have I ever encountered someone who can't speak English. Not a single time.

You're trying to suggest to me that 10% of Ottawa can speak French and French only? Not a chance.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

That's a completely different issue. The are 10s of millions of people (probably 100s) in the world who speak more than one language for a variety of reasons. But, they only have one mother tongue. It is the language in which they are the most comfortable to deal with life issues (lawyers, banking, health), to educate their kids... it is a fundamental element of culture and identity. And don't tell me those issues don't matter, because they f@cking do (big time, actually).

And you know what, at the end of the day it really doesn't impact your life that much. But it does make a big difference to the (very large) francophone minority in Eastern Ontario. Is that so hard for you to accept?

(Your 10% number is too low, it's more like 16%. It seems like you're using the metro region as the denominator, and I doubt you really want to go there!)
 
theREALkoreaboy said:
your chronicles of the greece fiasco are very interesting to read, HA. i agree entirely that they should serve as a warning to anyone who feels that more gov't is the answer. rampant statism on the european model is NOT the way to go, and greece shows that beyond a doubt. spain, italy, and maybe even france could reinforce that in the next few years.

the upcoming election in the US is about which direction you want to go in. i hope americans see that going the way of greece, italy, spain, france, etc. is NOT the way to go.
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If the bolded holds true, do we get to hold up various banana republics around the world as cautionary tales of not enough government?

The funny thing about the Greek example, is that it's a cautionary tale of not enough government...not too much. If Greek tax collection practice/policy was functional, this problem would have been almost entirely averted. This is a problem created by the absence of functional government.
 
Spain, Ireland and Portugal were all private sector crises.

Spain had better public finances than Germany before the crisis.

And Germany, Holland, and the Nordic countries all have extensive welfare states, yet aren't suffering from the same issues. What is that?

Oh yeah, the welfare state has nothing to do with it.

Geezus.
 
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Re: OT: Canadian Politics

lecoqsportif said:
That's a completely different issue. The are 10s of millions of people (probably 100s) in the world who speak more than one language for a variety of reasons. But, they only have one mother tongue. It is the language in which they are the most comfortable to deal with life issues (lawyers, banking, health), to educate their kids... it is a fundamental element of culture and identity. And don't tell me those issues don't matter, because they f@cking do (big time, actually).

And you know what, at the end of the day it really doesn't impact your life that much. But it does make a big difference to the (very large) francophone minority in Eastern Ontario. Is that so hard for you to accept?

(Your 10% number is too low, it's more like 16%. It seems like you're using the metro region as the denominator, and I doubt you really want to go there!)
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Ah, but when I drive 10 minutes over to Gatineau they can't even be bothered to put East/West on their signs.

See the double standard?
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

My problem isn't with accommodation, it's with over-accommodation and a disproportionate of power and privilege going to one identifiable group.
 
u cant hold up the netherlands and norway as examples. they are swimming in north sea petrodollars.

you look at the european model as a whole, and it is unsustainable. creating massive states that take up 55-60%+ of the economy, where all kinds of byzantine regulations apply, and where economic efficiency and growth is sacrificed to "equality", and over time it collapses. st.maggie said it best. that system works beautifully until you run out of other people's money to spread around.
 
Re: OT: Canadian Politics

Yeah, we'll those numbers in Ottawa are pretty big. You can't get the same services in French in London or Windsor.

So it is very much proportional.
 
It has nothing to with the welfare state. It is a "Euro crisis", brought on by current account flows. Real estate bubbles, exacerbated by an absence of monetary instruments were the cause.

Norway isn't in the Euro, so they could have devalued just like the UK to avoid the crisis.
 
Obama offered to refrain from any criticism of Romney's tax transparency if he agreed to release 5 more year of returns. Romney refused.
 
You know, I really thought the VP pick of Ryan would give at least a short-term boost to the GOP polling numbers but there's been no bump at all.
 
Yeah, they weren't covering government debts incurred by the welfare state. They were covering massive debts of suddenly illiquid banks - only the governments could do that. Except that in the bubble countries, revenues dried up as the bubble burst and there was no monetary flex. So all this austerity, which will likely hurt the middle and working classes quite badly, is due to bank bail outs.
 
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