“She say we need an inventory analysis of what we have, and have to figure out how to keep the resource and the jobs here.”

Another political speech that says nothing. We need this, we need that …. nothing however that gives us a solution.

The key is how the candidate proposes to make change. THAT is the failure of our political wannabees. That is the case at the municipal level, the provincial level and the federal level.

“Elect me and I will fix the roads” ….. yeah right!!!! How?

THAT is always the question and we never ask it. How stupid can we, the electors, be over and over again?

“Ogasawara says the Liberal government has done nothing about poverty for 10 years” … and she has not said what she would do. So how is she any different?

Just another body in a seat collecting $100,000 or so of our money.

A chicken in every pot….
A big screen in every living room….
Free beer on Sundays for northern British Columbians……

after reading this article only one word came to mind.

Cliche.

Really, is that the best mind the NDP could come up with for this riding? I want to end poverty? I want to help seniors? Was she reading a speech for a beauty pageant?

As Gus said, not a single unique idea to solve any perceived problems, just a bunch of hyperbole.

A registered dietitian, that is what we can look forward to? I know the Liberals have dug a deep hole, but my god does this bring back flashbacks from 20 years ago!

They always said they were working hard for the working class, yet they’re the only party that ever put me on a picket line. They’ll never get my vote.
Nothing in this little article that says anything, oh well, NEXT!

Not a lot of substance in the NDP candidate speech. The Lieberals on the other hand certainly provide substance.
HST not on the radar.
Read my lips deficit at 500 million that turned out to be 2.5 billion.
BC rail 6 million dollar payout.
Hydro rate increases.
Medicare increases.

Resident,

Thats just it, if the NDP are voted in it will not be on their substance, it will be on the perceived lesser of two evils. But really, is it the lesser of two evils?

Those of us who have lived through 2 periods of NDP power beg to differ.

She is a typical NDP’er.

I want to end poverty! I want to restrict business!

Does anybody else see the irony in her statements?

That’s just it, if the NDP are voted in it will not be on substance, it will be on the percieved lesser of two evils. But really, is it the lesser of two evils?

Those of us who have lived through 2 periods of NDP power beg to differ.

I have lived through 2 periods of NDP….and the answer to your question is YES!

Get ready for higher corporate and personal taxes! Oh and one Sherry is enough for this area!

“Get ready for higher corporate and personal taxes! Oh and one Sherry is enough for this area!”

Higher corporate taxes, higher personal taxes, and higher unemployment. Which leads to ……………. more poverty. Which is where my “ironic” statement comes from.

So Albus which BC Provincial party is not going to raise taxes?

Social Credit. If they only had brains enough to research their own history, it would be readily apparent how government could be funded without raising taxes.

It’s all in the ‘accounting’, Taxed Out!

If government is going to be run like a business, it should have an accounting system comparable to those used in EVERY business ~ double-entry accrual accounting based on the Balance Sheet principle showing changes in Assets, Liabilities and Capital. The way the government does its accounting now is completely inadequate to accurately reflect modern realities. We are indeed “taxed out”, and it will only get worse until the fundamentals change.

If government is to be run like a business socredible, how is the product measured?

In Education for example is the product measured in how cheap it can be done, or is the product measured in producing a marketable product?

Unlike business socredible the product may not be measured in dollars and cents.

Afterall if government only cares about the bottom line, why would the government fund anything that doesn’t have a dollar value for a return, like roads, education, healthcare?

Military and Police are expenses as well, under your government business plan socredible would only ministry’s that actually sell something like resourse ministy’s be viable in a business approach that only functioned with a bottom line measured in dollars ans cents?

To say that government should be run like a business has to be a conditional statement.

One of the conditions is that much of the assets which government accumulates over time is not worth a thing because most of it is not saleable.

Who is going to buy the hospital, for instance? Worse still, who is going to buy the roads? and the water distributon .. and the street lights?

If someone will buy such items, their value will be very dependent on the aamount of “rent” one can receive. Where will they get the rent from?

Essentially, the question is, is it cheaper to lease a car or to buy a car. Is it cheaper to pay $40,000 and count the car as an asset and then sell it 5 years later and buy a new one, or is it cheaper to save the $40,000 and pay $400/month or roughly $5,000 a year to lease it, plus all those operating costs.

Your answer is?

BTW, every time the government spins off a crown corporation and moves the payables for the assets over to the crown corporation someone will put the brakes on and say the government is cooking the books since the money is really owed by the governmen.

One can’t win either way.

This is opinion 250, there are no answers, only criticism.

I heard Sherri on Meisner’s show last week and it was pretty much like the article. “I’m all about poverty and seniors!”. Um… ok.

Lots of good socialist cliches and patitudes, but no indication of how to solve anything or more importantly, pay for it.

“On the question of resources, Ogasawara says we need to keep our timber instead of shipping it offshore because we have a limited supply. She say we need an inventory analysis of what we have, and have to figure out how to keep the resource and the jobs here.”

Lol. Good luck with that. Let us know when you come up with something. As Ben Meisner pointed out, the Nisga’a are responsible for a huge amount of raw timber leaving BC and there’s not a thing anyone can do about it, because we gave them the power to do so.

JohnnyBelt,

your point is what worries me about the next election, the power of taking advantage of the unknow.

You are right, the export of raw logs in BC is dominated by the Natives, the same people who are crying that we are raping the lands. But does this stop the NDP know nothings from using that as their starting platform?

In the region, the Central Interior we dont export raw logs, well atleast it is a very very small fraction of the harvested logs. We export lumber, which is a secondary product having gone through a processing facility (sawmills) and creates many spin off jobs.

The NDP speak out of both sided of their mouths, we will help the poor and the seniors, but we will restrict business. I need somebody to tell me where the jobs are coming from to help the poor. If we restrict and tax the heck out of business, there will be no jobs.

I find it puzzling that one day we read stories in the newspapers telling us there is a shortage of laborers in our market, then the next day we get the NDP telling us we have a poverty problem. I personally do not know 1 person who is out of work, not one. Even the kids who are in school in our networking group all have jobs. I wanted to give a kid a part time job helping me on the weekends, not one to be found.

If you don’t know one person who is out of work Albus including kids, that sounds to me like a booming economy.

Can you tell me then Albus, why we then have a deficit problem in Victoria?

Taxed Out,

many reasons, but one is to many people who dont want to work and rely on government support to sustain themselves. A second reason is to much government.

You just said everyone you know is working, Albus? In one thread you talk out of both sides of your mouth.

The BC economy has never been better Albus, there is no sector that is not thriving. Yet this useless government cannot balance the books. And Albus, we are still paying the HST!

As far as a segment of the population that relys on government support, that is not unique to the Province of BC. That Albus is a reality of any juridiction worldwide, this government simply cannot manage the reality.

Why don’t you enlighten us Albus,and tell us what in government needs to be eliminated?

Gus, to the extent that the government provides us with many services, and even a few goods, which we have deemed best be provided by government, it is like any other business.

Granted, its overall objective is not primarily to make a profit, (which it really can’t help but do, if it is efficient in the provision of those goods and services).

But regardless, in business accounting ‘profit’ is not analogous to an excess of ‘cash’ revenues over expenditures anyways, (currently the situation we see when the government has a budgetary surplus), but rather an increase in Assets over Liabilities.

Each year’s working of government, barring wars or natural disasters, would normally show an increase in the value of Provincial Assets (which we currently don’t see represented ‘financially’) over Provincial Liabilities ~ an increase in overall Provincial Debt ~ which we DO see, and over which such a great fuss is always made.

It was asked above how would something like “education” be measured financially? It would be measured that way as an ‘intangible’ called in accounting terms “goodwill”. And prevalent in the accounts of most businesses. It would be like the estimated value of an established clientele, if one professional were purchasing the practice of another, for instance.

Or the estimated value of a ‘trademark’, like Coca-Cola, say. These things have ‘value’ because they are a basis for credit. And so is something like education.

One of the big problems we face is that the NDP has never changed its faulty perception that, “The poor are poor because the rich are rich.” Instead of those on the center right side of the political spectrum showing why this is a complete fallacy in any country that has the capacity to Produce more than it has the ability or propensity to Consume, they seem intent on proving the NDP’s assumption is correct. And create the impression all they really want to do is “get while the getting’s good” for themselves, and the Hell with anyone or anything that gets in their way. Those of the center right persuasion are hide bound to be the architects of the greater misfortune of all of us if they persist on their present course.

Taxed out!:- “If you don’t know one person who is out of work Albus including kids, that sounds to me like a booming economy.

Can you tell me then Albus, why we then have a deficit problem in Victoria?”
——————————————–

We have a deficit problem in governments everywhere because the current economic system is not fully financially ‘self-liquidating’.

And becomes less and less able to be so with each advancement of technology.

To put it shortly, even if we had 100% full employment, it is currently financially impossible for ALL
Costs to be fully recovered in Prices.

This comes about because an increasing number of business costs are “allocated” costs in respect of Capital items, rather than “distributed” costs, i.e., wages, salaries and dividends.

The system can only be kept going by an exponential increase in overall indebtedness. This has the effect of increasing our cost of living at a faster rate than our standard of living is able to be increased.

Even though our actual ability to increase that latter, for everyone, is already in existence. But ‘financially’ can not currently be utilised to do what it is already more than capable of doing.

It forces an increasing number of us, and eventually a majority of us, if it continues long enough, to endure a financial poverty in the midst of a physical plenty.

Left as it is it’ll lead to further attempts to “rob Peter to pay Paul”, until both have been reduced to a condition of abject poverty. It need not be this way, but the current governments, and those who’d replace them, have the financial blinders on. They view anything to do with money as bound by rules set in stone. They elevate mere numbers, a REFLECTION, when used as intended, of physical realities, to something more important than the reality itself.

Or in other words socredible, Government has a revenue problem. Something the BC Liberals admitted to when they submitted the last budget. Which brings us back to what Albus is dreaming of, which was a BC Government that was not going to raise taxes. The BC Liberals have said they are going to raise taxes in the next budget to address their revenue problem. Seems against their ideology of a reduction of taxes is offset by the resulting rise in the economy. Looks like the BC Liberals do not believe their own ideology. In fact Mr Campbell showed he did not believe in this ideology when in desperation he gave the people of BC a 15% tax break. Which he quickly rescinded when his poll numbers didn’t go up.

Of course if taxes increase big business will whine and complain, but as Danny Williams proved big business will come back and pay. Having a more balanced tax structure relieves the tax burden from the real economic drivers of the economy in the people who are the customers of small business. When the people (customers) have more money small business will prosper with having customers with more money, even tho their taxes may be a little higher. With a healthy small business economy and a more balanced tax structure leaves more revenue for government which then can fund social programs which relieves financial burdens from people who least can afford to pay. This in turn leaves more money in the hands of citizens (customers) which then supports small business and the cycle continues. So instead of a race to the bottom which seems to be the Conservative model, it could be a race beneficial to all.

If government has a revenue problem it’s because governments move in ways which INCREASE costs, not only to us, but to government itself.

Think about it this way. We have numerous ‘social programs’ because increasing numbers of people are unable to fully fund their costs of living from incomes that are inadequate to do the job.

There can be two reasons why this is so.

Either it’s because incomes are mal-distributed, i.e., “the poor are poor because the rich are rich”, (as the NDP continually asserts); OR, because incomes in their totality are INADEQUATE when compared to the ‘price values’ attached to goods and services available to us that those incomes, in their totality, are SUPPOSED TO BE ADEQUATE in THEIR totality, to FULLY liquidate.

For years, here and elsewhere, we’ve followed the NDP assertion. Those on the right never try to prove them wrong. Only to fight a rear guard action, a continual retreat, against what they seem to believe is the inevitable ascent of the NDP’s re-distributist philosophy. Even though such a philosophy has spawned a policy that hasn’t ever really worked well here, or anywhere. But those on the right seem to have nothing they can counter it with, and so are reduced to what we’ve witnessed from the BC Liberals. They self-destruct.

But lets ask ourselves this. If the government provided us with everything that it now provides us, plus everything that is now provided for us privately, in return for us submitting ALL our incomes to it in the form of taxes, could the government do that without going into DEBT? And if it did go into debt, then just HOW would that debt be repaid, since the government already was taking ALL our incomes in taxes?

I think the answer is obvious. There is an inadequacy of incomes in their totality. They are out of sync with the flow of ‘price values’ as modern accountancy determines them. The whole financial system is NOT fully ‘self-liquidating’ in each and every successive cycle of production/consumption. And if we don’t move to correct this, soon, it will indeed make mere numerical ‘figures’ the sole determinant of ‘facts’, instead of being an accurate reflection of them.

Ok then socredible, there is no way we are going to change very far from where we are now. Clearly this NDP candidate has no solutions and guys like Albus have no alternatives other than make the same useless statements like “get the lazy people off government” and “government is too big”, but have no idea how or where.
I threw out what I think is a doable solution, what do you think we could realisticly do to fix the problem?

Well, Taxed Out!, as a Province we have a number of constraints on us in what we can do in terms of anything ‘monetary’, because we are not fully sovereign in that area. And any moves in that direction would be vigorously opposed by the Federal government, as was witnessed many years ago when WAC Bennett sought to have a Bank of BC incorporated with a minority stake held in it by the BC government. And that was NOT to change the fundamental rules surrounding banking, but simply to have a full service financial institution with its headquarters in BC, and attuned to BC’s ordinary banking needs.

Constitutionally we don’t have Ottawa’s power to actually create money, or regulate banking, etc. But we are not completely without powers in those areas either, only the general public is not presently conscious of where the real problems with finance lie, or how they could be corrected.

So anyone coming into office in BC is going to have to use the powers available to them that the general public CAN understand, and would, in large measure, support.

That brings us closer to what you suggested above, actions similar to those taken by Danny Williams in Newfoundland. Though the perception of what he was doing may well be greatly overblown relative to the reality of benefits accruing to Newfoundlanders.

Regardless, any increases in taxation have to be made in a way where the costs of that taxation is NOT coming out of the pockets of British Columbians via increases in prices.

It has to be exacted from goods leaving BC, and, equally importantly, used here in BC in a manner that DOESN’T lead to a rise in the general price level.

There has been a lot of discussion about the Enbridge pipeline. I believe when all the flak dies down we’ll see it being built. It may not be what the majority of us want, but just like continued log exports it’s what those who currently control our money have dictated to the politicos that’s what we’ll have.

We can’t effectively buck that, because to most people the case for things like those are made in a way that won’t permit any viable alternatives.

But we certainly could tax both logs leaving our shores, and any crude going through that pipeline. Only instead of using the funds collected for government spending, much of which will only inflate consumer prices further, we should use most of the funds collected to effectively rebate consumer purchases here in BC. This would put more money into the hands of BC consumers, (and we’re ALL consumers), without the negative effects of inflation filching the purchasing power of every dollar, as it does now.

The contributors on Opinion 250 are not complainers. They just are able to share their views by their observations. Some people view things differently. Makes life more interesting. Point of view taken by individuals deciding “whose ox is being gored” when it comes to analyzing any story. Adding a dash of cynicism, irony, a tablespoon of humour, one cup of resentment, a bit of sarcasm (if it can be interpreted) can be a spice and on and on. A public forum to be kept for sure including the lid in case of serious unpolitically correct views.
Count yer blessings. It will not always be like this.