Congressman Clifford Stearns said the following in the United States House of Representatives on April 28, 2009:

Many economists look to the past to predict economic futures; it is a tested way to learn from past mistakes and avoid making them in the future. Looking to the past, we discover that Henry Morganthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary, gave this very important quote in May of 1939 during the Great Depression. He said, ``We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong, somebody else can have my job.
I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and enormous debt to boot.''

This current economic policy of bailout after bailout and colossal government spending is just plain wrong, Madam Speaker, and the American people know it.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=8958063

I think we should all pay a tribute to the historical propagandist Thomas Paine this week for inspiring people to build free democracies of the people. Mr Paine died 200 years ago this week. In his time he wrote an opinion called 'Common Sense' that inspired the American Revolution at a key turning point from monarchy to republic.


Common Sense
http://books.google.ca/books?id=-hfx-Lw2csUC&dq=Thomas+Paine&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=N6WbYmEWZS&sig=1_ph5aACE7wCupfoVsTI5vxm2x8&hl=en&ei=pScySpWuCpm6sgOogL3MBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA32,M1

Thomas Paine, 1737-1809
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/paine.html

I think we should all pay a tribute to the historical propagandist Thomas Paine this week for inspiring people to build free democracies of the people. Mr Paine died 200 years ago this week. In his time he wrote an opinion called 'Common Sense' that inspired the American Revolution at a key turning point from monarchy to republic.


Common Sense
http://books.google.ca/books?id=-hfx-Lw2csUC&dq=Thomas+Paine&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=N6WbYmEWZS&sig=1_ph5aACE7wCupfoVsTI5vxm2x8&hl=en&ei=pScySpWuCpm6sgOogL3MBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA32,M1

Thomas Paine, 1737-1809
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/paine.html

opps I guess going back after reading a link does that too....

Charles that was a good read, thanks.

Friday! Let's be careful today and go home healthy. Now, how about those roads, are they not the living pits? I mean the city roads, the side roads off the highway, hell even the highways around here are not too great.
Enjoy the week end!
metalman.

"Many economists look to the past to predict economic futures;"

I am wondering if someone here could name a few of those economists.

"it is a tested way to learn from past mistakes and avoid making them in the future"

Is it? Can someone name me the some of the occasions when it was tested what the change in approach was based on historic information and how successful it was?

I mean, really!!!!! economists are still arguing with each other about whether supply side or demand side stimulus is the best approach to improve the economy. That argument has really become one of positioning on one side or the other by politicians. Economists still can't make up their mind.

I think what Congressman Clifford Stearns said sounds like a truism when it actually is not at all. One should certainly learn from history. BUT, in order to learn from it, one first has to make sure that the past condition is the same as the present.

Plastic Recycling Diminished

In case some of you have not heard, as of June 15th London Drugs will no longer be recycling plastics from products that are NOT purchased at their store. The understandable reasoning being they can only handle so much.

I'm quite sure that a great number of the plastics they received came from products purchased across the way at Save On Foods. I know I was one of many who practiced this.

Even though Save-On does a good job of providing recycling for certain things like bags, glass, and large plastic bottles, I think it's time they stepped up to the plate and started to provide plastic recycling for every recyclable product container (codes 1 - 7) they sell. Save On should get into the same practice as London Drugs, of filling their empty cargo trucks with recyclable material on their return trip down south, where proper recycling facilities exist.

Also, I think it's high time the City of PG and the Regional District of Fraser Fort George got off their heavy haunches and provided some recycling of plastics in this city. It's an embarrassment how far behind this city is on this front.

We have been in the G&M twice in the last year. Pretty good.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/building-diversity-city-pins-big-hopes-on-mosque/article1175881/

Pylot, unless it has a deposit on it, like pop bottles, it all goes in my garbage. If it could be picked it up at my curb, like in most other cities, then I might consider it, but I will not save it & haul it down to a recycle bin. Not a chance.

We need to move away from plastics. End of story.

I have heard of the interest in building a mosque here when they first made application ot have the land rezoned. I noticed some equipment on site a few days ago and was wondering what was going on. It took a while.

Did I miss the story locally? Quite an informed article. Never read anything of the background reaosoning in the local papers.

I am wondering whether the same would be true for those of Jewish faith. Having moved here from Toronto some time ago, I remember wondering why there was no synagogue.

Are the mosquitoes bad this year? Someone said that it was because the Town didn't spray. Any one know?

MYTHOUGHTS, There is curbside recycling in our city. Its private and costs less than we pay for municipal garbage collection.

I recently found out that Northern Health is cutting 50 million dollars from their budget, and many nurses are being laid off. I find this outrageous with the shortages of healthcare staff we are already facing.

Buy American! Buy Canadian! I'd sure like to buy American milk, cheese and butter. $4.31 for four litres of milk here in Canada. Twice the world price, I might add. But the government in Ottawa, no matter who it is/was will not throw our marketing board system to the wolves. There is a 365% duty on imported milk and dairy products that come into Canada. Cheese on heat 'em up pizzas are exempt. I want cheaper milk. Where is NAFTA and the WTO?

re;nurses laidoff,Wow what did you expect when you put that BOB"s yer drunkel[campbell] back in charge,funny thing is he ain't finished.We still gotta pay for these Olympics,what was the cost over runs again BOB??500mil good guess,whats a few hundered more when your talkin mils.

Pylot, I totally agree with your comments, 100%.

Do you what is really sad, I live in Calgary (pop. over 1,000,000) and the city has just started recycling a couple of months ago.

We have people complaining that the blue bins used for recycling (like PG's grey garbage bins) bring down the value of their house because it's an eye sore?? People will complain about everything.

ShannanigansB, you're right. It costs. Why would I want to pay more fees than I already do. I pay enough taxes for garbage collection. I'm not going to pay an additional fee to have someone pick up my recycle garbage.

Well, Mythoughts, I agree with you there, however if/when the city starts a municipal recycling pick up, we can fully expect they'll charge us for it anyways!

Cancer conference in town,B & B[libtards] are selling PG as a beautiful place to live and work.Lets see now we have the highest rate of children with respiratory illnesses in Canada,wonder why??this place stinks,dirty,almost number 1 for crime[just missed]the needle exchange keep feeding the crackheads and junkies!!
How are they going to attract the specialists??wait till they get a taste of those stagnant days in the TOILET BOWL a.k.a PG.Opps they do not have to live in the bowl,they have to work there.

Thanks for that link Born in BC.

Anything that helps attract new people and increases the diversity of the population is good IMHO. It makes for a more progressive and overall, a more liveable city. Things like that can go a long ways towards growing the population, which is in our best interest.

zybixteu - stay in school.

zyblxteu, trees can't move, but people can.
(That's a hint, free of charge).

Anyone been to the courthouse lately. The people organizing that couldn't organize a monkey dung fight at the zoo. What a waste of taxpayer dollars especially in these troubled economic times!!

One month after the election the BCNDP does a great demonstration of political acrobatics: A complete flip-flop on the opposition to the controversial carbon tax!

Wasn't it one of the mainplanks in the NDP election campaign platform?

Yes, just a short time ago it was...then, poof! it was no more...it's o.k. now!

Cheers!

I can't fathom how anyone could be stupid enough to support those incompetent idiots (BCNDP).

yep ..thank god the stupid people stuck with the liberals.

FDR's Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau:-"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong, somebody else can have my job.
I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and enormous debt to boot."

The country finally did 'prosper', and everyone 'got a job', and people 'got enough to eat'. And all it took was a WAR! Wonder if we'll be any smarter this time around?

War = even more spending .... so ... they were not spending enough, obviously.

It seems to me the United States (along with most of the rest of the world) have done a pretty good job of borrowing and spending since World War II. The following link will take you to a chart of "U.S. Total Credit Market Debt As % of GDP, 1929 - 2008, & Sector Share Breakdown

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/3/24/saupload_debt_trend_breakdown_2.jpg


Here’s one way to look at the politics of our era: We’ve moved from The Age of Leverage to The Great Unwinding.

For about a generation, the U.S. surfed on a growing wave of debt. The ratio of debt-to-personal-disposable income was 55 percent in 1960. Since then, it has more than doubled, reaching 133 percent in 2007. Total credit market debt — throwing in corporate, financial and other borrowing — has risen apace, surging from 143 percent of G.D.P. in 1951 to 350 percent of G.D.P. last year.
Charts that mark these trends are truly horrifying. There is a steady level of debt through most of the 20th century, until the mid-1980s. Then there is a steep accelerating rise to today’s epic levels

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

I think pre-war they were trying to spend to raise prices, gus. In the hopes that would restore their industries to profitability. Allowing the credit markets to more broadly make loans again with some expectation those loans might be repaid.

But being ever conscious of the "progress of the industrial arts", businesses used the resumption of the availablity of credit to invest in new, 'labour-saving' technology.

So while Prices did start to rise, and some Wages followed, the Depression didn't end. Because, on an OVERALL basis, in the whole economy, Wages were still falling in ratio to the Costs of production coming forward into Prices, mainly due to this ongoing overall 'labour displacement' through new technology.


This depressed the level of profit necessary to fully amortize new loans, and the Banks again contracted their lending.

The Roosevelt Administration could not, as Morgenthau tells us, spend enough fast enough on government funded "make work" projects to overcome this.

It took a war, and the granting of the same kind of draconian powers that Roosevelt tried to assume with his National Recovery Administration program (til the US Supreme Court ruled it 'un-Constitutional'), to finally pull out of the Depression.

Introducing new credit as government funded 'stimulus' is a very poor way to try and end an economic downturn. This new credit has to be 'costed' into whatever is being built to provide the stimulus.

It is an addition to overall debt, even though its spending allows previously contracted debts to be more fully amortized for the time being.

Because it appears in the economy BEFORE any of the things it's funding are 'for sale', (through future taxes, or otherwise), to the general public, it raises Prices. Giving the 'illusion' of a return to 'prosperity'. In actuality it is pure 'inflation'.

It keeps taking larger and larger "figures" to do the same thing that used to be able to be done quite reasonably, with much smaller "figures". Those who can't come up with that kind of money fall by the wayside. Adding to the problem

A far better solution would be to introduce enough new credit 'debt-free' to continually properly equate Costs and Prices in the overall community by paying Citizen's Dividends, and a Consumer's discount, or 'rebate', on all retail purchases.

The 'money' to fund this is not "costed" into any further production, nor does it come from 'taxation'. It is created the same way all other 'money' is created. by the Banking system. But rather than further add to already un-repayable debts, it allows what has already been 'costed' into existing production to be fully recovered without adding to overall debt.

It allows business to be driven by 'Consumer demand', because when Costs and Prices are kept in proper nexus, 'Consumer demand' can always be made "Effective demand." The economy can then perform right up to its maximum physical potential to produce, or the satiation of actual demand, whichever comes first.

Rumor has it that the company that is closing a BIG mill in P.G. is buying mills in the U.S. Is this why our logs are being shipped to the U.S?? Something really strange is going on here. I feel for the employees, too bad the Company dosn't care. Their tactics stink.

Hang onto your hat, Charles, when it comes to debt growth figures, "You ain't seen nuthin yet!"

And to think that for a brief period of surpluses during the latter term of office of Bill Clinton, the US was projecting a complete repayament of their National Debt sometime in the 2020's.

Of course, all that really meant was that 'private' debt would replace what's now 'public' debt.

It's called pillage and plunder. What is criminal for you and I is legal for government. They take,take, from people who have earned wages and give, give, to those who have not. Gordon Campbell should be nicknamed "Sheriff of NottingVan"