As a taxpayer, I’m not at all concerned about a Core Review. I’m tired of constant tax increases while my income remains level or is declining due to a poor economic climate. A review of public spending and public spending priorities does not seem out of the question.

It seems to me that the most vocal group of dissenters are those in the “labour’ movement. It seems to me that our Public Sector Unions have one thing and only one thing in mind and that is keeping union members workings so that the union can keep collecting union dues! After all, Unions have long ago stopped representing their members and instead have become a business in their own light.

Our municipal workers are one of the largest, if not the largest budgetary cost to the citizens of our city. It seems reasonably to me to look at the wages and benefits provided to these workers in order to determine if they are out of line with the wages and benefits of the average tax payer. Are we over-paying for some of the services that we have? I’m sure that we are! So, a review of all costs is appropriate.

As far as council refusing to participate in some little meeting that is being driven by the labour movement, I have to ask why they would attend, when we all know that the meeting will be nothing more than a bunch of municipal workers and their unions demanding that their jobs, wages and benefits be left untouched. I have to ask why these people think that they should be sheltered and protected from the economic reality that many of us in the private sector are forced to deal with every day!

The largest cost to our municipality is the cost of salaries and benefits of our bloated public service, from the top down and the bottom up! Seems like a core review would be appropriate!

“It seems to me that our Public Sector Unions have one thing and only one thing in mind and that is keeping union members workings so that the union can keep collecting union dues! After all, Unions have long ago stopped representing their members and instead have become a business in their own light.”

Absolutely ridiculous!

Bang on Hart.

My experience with unions is they are usually the ones who champion issues for the masses. Why do you think you have 40 hour or less work week, paid vacations, sick leave and so on. Not because the employers would just give it to the average worker. So same in this case , the unions are championing the issue as the average citizen either doesn’t realize what this means or just doesn’t mind paying more for less.

This is refreshing….normally I hear how unions are in bed with the companies.

“unions … are usually the ones who champion issues for the masses”

That is sort of like having the opinion that that the Costcos of the world are championing the issues for the masses.

I could just as easily, in fact more easily, say that exempt management (bourgeoisie) is championing the issues for the unions (proletariat).

If the value of people’s time is not reasonably well recognized with adequate compensation, modern society will eventually no longer tolerate the conditions.

Unions do not champion anything other than what is good for the union. Stores like Costco will not keep low prices other than what is good for Costco. If others follow, so be it. It is the nature of competition in both cases.

So unions had an impact on currant labour codes. Thats accomplished. Now dues go toward “occupy ” movements, the quebec separatist party and Israeli boycotts. The need for unions has diminished substancially, so now they take their fight into pet leftard causes.

hart Guy complains that his income may be “declining due to a poor economic climate”. That may be true. It may be more true if he is living on returns from investment, less true if employed by a viable business.

The point I want to make is that the poor economic conditions he complains of are due to the application of right of centre policies, particularly by the banks in the United States. Quite possible, a more mixed economy with more government controls would have ameliorated the economic decline he complains about.

It is worth noting that Canada survived the Banking fiasco better than most places specifically because of the interference of government in the banks’ affairs. Surely, that alone is justification for it. After all, isn’t the proof of the pudding in the eating? Success in an endeavor surely shows that it was the right course to take, doesn’t it?

Rather than complain about trade unions and the policies they recommend, perhaps he should be praising them for the protection of the Canadian economy that the application of those policies has brought about.

“The need for unions has diminished substancially, so now they take their fight into pet leftard causes.”

I can see a need for unions still; someone has to look out for the little guy.

The issue as I see it is that we cannot sustain our government backed workforce at it’s current level. Something has to give and the sad reality is, someone has to be let go. A whole lot of someones in my opinion.

Come on ammonra. If more government and central planning was the answer, we would never have a recession. The world is littered with the wreckage of centrally planned big government.(see most of europe) Talk about proof in the pudding. That dosen’t mean “no” government, But to think some beurcrate can guide a country more efficiently than market forces is seriously flawed.

“The world is littered with the wreckage of centrally planned big government.(see most of europe)”

You’ve got to be joking!!!!!

Poor planning, or no planning is the culprit. Or maybe just the luck of the draw. Or maybe it is human greed.

So tell me, why is it that the USA is in trouble? Who plans their wars? Who plans their foreign policy that gets them into those wars?

Never mind recession.

Tell me dow 7500 … was the depression of 1929 the result of central planning in the USA?

Don’t we just love people who blame the boogey man for everythng that goes wrong in the world.

WTF do my comments have to do with wars?

The cause of the depression were many.

Asset bubbles, leverage and a stock market house of cards. Not unlike 2008.

Have a closer look at history gus and take off your Liberal blinders. Big government spending more than they make on unproductive entitlements is Europes problem and will be the USA soon. If Chretien was around you could add Canada as well.

The soviet union collapsed under beurocratic central planning. China is beggining to join the first world by adopting more market driven policy. It ain’t perfect and governments play a role. The big issue is how much, and when. When do functioning economies become Greece?

The fact of the matter is, Prince George has some serious issue’s. What happens on the world stage has little to do with our immediate problems.

We are for all intents and purposes BROKE.

We can no longer maintain the type of Municipal Government we have had in the past.

People need to deal with what is actually happening in Prince George as opposed to what they think is happening. There is a huge difference.

As an example. The average wage in Prince George is $40,000.00 per year. Now in order to have that average you would need a substantial number of people making around $35000.00 per year. These people would pay the same (for the most part) taxes and services that those on higher incomes would pay. That in itself is bad enough, however a large number of the lower income workers do not have the ability to negotiate the wages and benefits that the high paid Government, and Union workers can. So they have no protection against inflation, etc; In addition the people on the lower income scale have to pay additional taxes, to pay for the increases to wages and benefits of Government workers on the higher wage level.

This is insanity, and it has to come to an end. Add to that the absolute inability of City managers and Council to deal with any of these problems and you are in for a rough ride.

I strongly suggeSt that people start to think of the ramifications of the situation we are in, and try and come up with some realistic solutions, or at the end of the day, we will all lose.

Time for small time bickering to end. This an adult problem and it will require mature, adults to solve it.

PS. We are facing a 1% increase in the road levy, plus a 5/6% increase in taxes, plus some increases in service fee’s on an annual basis for a number of years into the future. The savings from the Core Review will not be enough to offset these additional taxes.

Go to the meeting and at least get some information, that may or may not help you to understand whats going on.

Soooooooo. WE HAVE A PROBLEM HOUSTON. HOUSTON???? HOUSTON????

May I ask what the World Taekwondo Federation has to do with my comments?

HaHaHaHa………..

So tell me, oh wise dow7500 how come the centrally planned USSR managed to avoid the Great Depression? I mean, by your view of the uselessness of centrally planned economioes, Russia should have been the instigator of the Great Depression.

BTW, you obviously have a different definition of what a centrally planned economy is. The USSR certainly was one.

I know of no western and even eastern European country which has a centrally planned economy.

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“If Chretien was around you could add Canada as well.”

I do not know what today’s version is of who was responsible for cutting the deficit as well as paying down debt, Chretien or Martin. Chretien claims it was his idea and Matin calims it was Martin who was the brainchild of that.

One thing I know for sure. Harper and none of the right of centre governments before him managed to accomplish anywhere near that.

Norway does not have a centrally planned economy. They do have a centrally planned oil industry, however. So, as some have been pointing out, why have they been able to salt away $500 or so billion in retirement funds when Alberta, with more oil, has once depleted a fund (the very one that the Norwegian one is built on) and have had to start it over again and are going at a snails pace?

As I said, there is good planning and bad planning. Just because one plan is very loosely generated by private enterprise and another by the state does not automatically give one a buy into a sustainable plan.

I mean, look at how these jokers at City Hall are lousy central planners …… then look at how the forestry licensees can’t even plan for natural disturbances like the pine beetle and how the USA housing and real estates industry can’t even plan to ensure that their products are not used primarily as investments rather than housing people.

“So tell me, oh wise dow7500 how come the centrally planned USSR managed to avoid the Great Depression?”

Stalin killed off anyone who couldn’t be fed.

Gus, gus….. Centally planned economies are the like NEP. In the intent of providing low cost oil for Canada, the oil industry collapsed due to the obviuos disinsentive to invest.I speak from expierence, the o&g industry was crushed. Now the idea of cheap Canadian oil seemed like a smart move for the Liberals, reality was much different. There are more world examples of this but I think thats a waste of time on you.

I am dissapointed that a cut and paste Liberal needed this tutorial.

Norway? That is the posterchild of central planning. Take oil revenue, and turn your country into a welfare state. (i’m norwegian, I can say that). I have cousins that have not ever had a job in norway. They are 23. They get paid enough to do dick. There are a generations like them.

Cental plan out of that world.

I have never had a job in Norway either …. your cousins are not the only ones.

In fact, there are far more countries that I have never had a job in than countries in which I have had jobs. ;-)

I am disappointed that you do not understand what central planning means in the jargon of economics, dow7500. And, I think you would not understand it if it was explained to you by the best economist in the world.

I might agree that Norway is a market economy leaning towards a mixed economy.

As far as countries with a centrally planned economy, I would include such countries as North Korea, Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, etc. No European country fits the pattern of anything but a market economy.

The Soviet Union was certainly a planned economy which, unlike the Chinese economy, did not start to change until it collapsed.

My cousins live in Norway….you don’t.

I think you are correct in that we have 2 different ideas on the definition of a centrally planned economy.