First on the board !

Remember: Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

This is an excellent site to express opinions. However, there are 6 individuals who always log on and always have, in their mind, the right idea about anything.
I doubt it'll, happen, but it would be nice if they took a 'day-off' and did not post. Hmmm, I doubt they have the brains to see themselves in a mirror.!!

The Bank Of Canada announces that the recession is over.

I'm gobsmacked. Proceed with caution folks.

The following is taken from a post Garth Turner (former M.P.) made on his blog greaterfool.ca. The post was made on July 21, 2009.

In case you missed the memo, the recession’s over. Buy a house. Buy a car. Go to Paris. Get a mortgage. Get a line. And stop that damn saving.

Central bankers in Canada and the US are at it again this week, saying the worst has passed, the economy will maybe (probably) likely grow (a little) next year and just to make sure, interest rates will stay low for a long time. In Canada, according to BoC’s head guy, that means 11 more months.

This should tell you something. The best and last hope governments in Canada and the US have of avoiding a deflationary mess is you. Massive stimulus programs may have papered over the banks’ problems, but they’ve failed to staunch the tide of unemployment, to create corporate profits, to open shuttered factories, to increase trade or lure private investment. And the economic diddling is massive – over $23 trillion (all of it borrowed) could be Obama’s tab, according to an estimate this week.

The wad’s blown. Deficits have exploded. We have just borrowed obscene amounts of money from people not born yet. We’ve ensured a few decades of tax increases and inflation along with crappy economic growth. Now it’s up to you, soldier. Just take that hill.

That’s Plan B. Maintain the cost of money so low the suckers can’t keep their hands off it. They’ll borrow and spend enough to create demand for goods, ratchet up prices and rescue us from deflation with inflation. Then, of course, interest rates will fly higher to corral unfettered prices, in a cruel blow to those who borrowed to save the nation, as personal and sales tax rates swell. But, hey, that’s the next prime minister and president’s problem.

Seriously, the US Fed and the Bank of Canada are now in the business of creating consumer spending. They are doing this with absurdly low interest rates, along with shovelling money to financial institutions so they will open the lending spigots. The best solution to the problems caused by a massive run-up in credit, a speculative frenzy in commodity prices and cowboy capitalism by investment bankers is this: More credit, more liquidity to grease prices, more debt and the mother of all bank bailouts.

The dilemma this poses for young couples and growing families is extreme. I hope in two or three decades they look back and at least know who to blame – the generation in power in 2008-9 that went for the easy one.

http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/07/21/plan-b/

Garth Turner posted the following on his web site on July 23, 2009.

Here’s a memo that mortgage lenders hope you never read:

Our 1 and 2 year rates are very competitive, and it appears as though rates will remain fairly low for more than another year. With us paying 50bps on a 1 year and 65bps on a 2 year, you can give your client an excellent rate right now, you get paid quite well for such a short term, they won’t be tied to a 5 year product, rates will likely still be good at the end of 1 or 2 years, and you can then get paid again by placing them in a new product! Over the long term, you will earn more money…

This is the actual pitch one mortgage company is making to mortgage brokers.

Here’s the translation: Hey, these low mortgage rates are a drag for making money and Mark Carney says he’ll keep them in the dirt for another year. Sure, this is a sweet deal for borrowers who lock up the cheapest rates they’ll ever see, but if you talk them into a short loan we’ll pay you a nice fat fee. And the best part is, you’ll get another fat one in a year or two when the suckers come back for a renewal! You get paid twice for selling them two mortgages. Isn’t this great? And when they renew they’ll be so freaked out that rates are shooting higher you can sell them a five-year loan at way higher interest and r-e-a-l-l-y score…

Welcome to Mark’s World. Here the dream lives. Every citizen can, with the right policy and a press release, be made into an indebted, frenzied little consumer on whose straining back the economy will be lifted.

Homebuilders will build new McMansions. Realtors will sell at rising prices. Home Depot will be stuffed with renovators. Mortgage companies will loan without end. Car dealers and auto workers will be rescued. Banks will be made whole. And the entire country will feel better because the central bank says the recession thingy is paws-up.

Well, you have to admit. It’s a plan.

Governments in Canada and the United States have spent more money than God has to stimulate the economy, and it hasn’t worked. After trillions of dollars, the number of jobless people is a lot higher, the number of functioning factories is a lot lower and the economy is still contracting. Any number of things could happen to send us into the second dip – the swine flu pandemic, another Katrina, a run on the greenback, a spike or dive in oil prices, chaos in Pakistan, whatever.

The political elite have ushered in an unprecedented amount of fiscal stimulus which, in the US, is more than was used after the Great Depression. This has shot public budgets to hell, created record deficits, is driving up the national debt and will ensure higher taxes and less opportunity down the road. At the same time, interest rates have been artificially reduced to lure consumers into new debt and fatter mortgages as they become horny for big-ticket items.

Tax incentives for more spending have been created (like the home reno tax credit); banks have been allowed to offer long amortizations and zero-down payment deals; and soon people will be paid money to trade in their cars. Against this background, the Bank of Canada has been having nonstop pressers to tell people everything is looking peachy. And this week, Mr. Carney showed he has stones rivaling those on Parliament Hill as he declared the recession over.

The message could not be more clear: Borrow. Spend. Sha-na-na, baby. Live for today.

As I said, it’s a plan. It may work. I’m sure the headline writers will oblige, just as we all wish prosperity would return so easily. But it’s hard to be convinced when you’re out of work, under-employed, trying to keep your business afloat or selling to the world with a 92-cent dollar.

But the fact remains it was a credit bubble which got us all into this mess. It wasn’t that we borrowed and spent too little – just the opposite, we blew up. Fact is, we also coming off decades of over-spending and over-consumption by Baby Boomers which created the worst case of asset inflation in history. And the fact is negligent governments allowed and abetted excesses leading to a housing bubble, dodgy financial practices, toxic loans and a savings rate of zero with a consumption rate of 100%.

So, maybe in Mark Carney’s economy this will all work out. Perhaps we’ll see GDP growth, leading to substantial stock market gains (another 240 points on Bay Street Thursday), enhanced productivity and a return to normalcy.

But, for how long?

The wise among us will know not to take on new debt at low levels to buy assets at inflated ones, because while the price of a house may fall, the borrowing does not. They’ll know if you do borrow, don’t gamble. Smart people will realize cash is once again king. Geniuses will scramble to pay down debt just as neighbours are desperate to get more of it. Survivors will prepare for the unexpected shock, as well as the inevitable consequences of today’s actions.

In the real world, you cannot borrow your way to wealth.

In Mark’s World, you just party.

http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/07/23/for-a-good-time-call-mark/

Thanks for the huge tax increase Liberals !

By Tom Fletcher - BC Local News

Published: July 23, 2009 4:00 PM
Updated: July 23, 2009 5:41 PM

The following goods and services are not subject to the seven per cent provincial sales tax (PST) and will be subject to the new 12 per cent harmonized sales tax (HST) as of July 1, 2010:

The B.C. finance ministry says businesses providing these goods and services currently pay PST on their purchases and that PST cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Following the implementation of the B.C. HST, businesses will recover the tax paid on their purchases. The finance ministry says prices of goods and services should fall by the amount of the tax they no longer pay on their purchases.

SERVICES:

• Personal Services (i.e., hair care)

• Dry‐cleaning services

• Repair and maintenance services to household appliances

• Household repair and maintenance (i.e., renovations, painting)

• Real estate fees

• Membership fees (i.e., health and fitness clubs)

• Admission (i.e., movies, live theatre)

• Tourism services (i.e., booking fees, tours)

• Funeral services

• Professional services (i.e., accounting, architectural, photography, graphic design, home

care services)

• Airline fares (within Canada)

GOODS:

• Residential Fuels (i.e., electricity, natural gas) and heat (i.e., steam heat)

• Basic cable TV and residential telephone

• All food products (under B.C. HST only basic groceries will continue to be exempt)

• Non‐prescription medications

• Vitamins and dietary supplements

• Bicycles

• School supplies (under B.C. HST, books will continue to be exempt)

• Magazines and newspapers

• Work‐related safety equipment

• Safety helmets, life jackets, first aid kits

• Smoke detectors and fire extinguishers

• Energy conservation equipment (e.g., insulation, solar power equipment)

Sounds like another tax grag to me.

Sorry, grab

No... you're right the first time acrider54... "GRAG" is the correct term.... means "Government Rape And Giggle"....

:-)

V.

I just got back from the Okanagan and was quite pleased that they never get any air quality warnings (not counting the fires, they're not caused by industry).

As soon as I got back to PG and started to read the papers that piled up while I was gone I read that there was an air quality issued here.

YUCK!

Then I went downtown to shop at one particular store and WOW... there are a ton of scary people walking around down there. I parked my car and almost immediately I was approached by 3 people who all wanted money. Then when I was walking around I had to wait on a streeet corner for the traffic to go by and 1 guy (with 3 others) said out loud so I could hear him plain as day... "Oh I guess were not good enough to stand beside because we're Natives". I turned and looked at him and in a firm voice I stated... "Where the hell did are you getting that idea from"?

WOW... It's quite the shock coming back to PG after a holiday in another city. I know the Okanagan is known for it's sunshine and longer summers but I'm starting to think that it has more to offer than just that. I didn't see any of this while I was there and there were a ton of older (senior) people walking around downtown Vernon.

Just my opinion the way I saw it. I love PG but WOW... we need a bit of work still.

It is not often that I will defend the air quality in Prince George. There is no doubt that it is poor.

That being said, here is the current air quality situation in Vernon.

http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/aqiis/air.summary?date_of=&time_zone=PST&station_id=E249492

In the last 24 hours, the highest AQI was 93 and the lowest 64. The criteria pollutant has bee PM 2.5

In addition, the Air Quality Health Index for the province is as shown here:

http://www.airhealthbc.ca/forecastall.htm
North Okanagan - 5 to 6 out of 10
Central Okanagan - 5
South Okanagan - 3 to 5
Kamloops - 4 to 5
Victoria - 3 to 2
Central Fraser Valley - 4 to 3
Eastern fraser Valley - 3 to 4
Metro Vancouver - 4 to 5
Prince George - 2

Some other observations about street people in Kelowna:

http://www.canadianchristianity.com/bc/bccn/0108/o01homeless.html

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-47239-1-.htm#47239

I agree newtechie. I used to shop downtown regularly. I loved browsing thru the stores on George Street, 3rd Ave, 4th Ave and would quite often purchase something. Not any more though. It's too scary. I won't shop downtown anymore. It was constant, being approached by someone asking for money or cigaretes.

I think Prince George city moguls should get serious about the pollution of our drinking water by the intentional addition of fluoride! It is mass medication and a city should not be in that kind of business!

Fluoridated water must be treated as a medicine, and cannot be used to prepare foods! That is the decision of the European Court of Justice, in a landmark case dealing with the classification and regulation of 'functional drinks' in member states of the European Community.

Implications for international trade in food products...

But the ruling also has an equally profound implication for export trade in processed foods and drinks. The Court stated that even if a functional food product (or a food containing it) is legally marketed as a food in one member state, it cannot be exported to any other member state unless it has a medicinal licence. So any company making a consumable product using fluoridated water in its preparation or as an ingredient cannot now export that product to any other state in the EC, even if their product is permitted in their home state.

The economic implications are enormous. Not only does the ruling ban the use of fluoridated water for all retail catering and wholesale food processing in the UK and Ireland, it also prohibits such trade from these states to other member states of the EC.

But it goes much further than even this, because if British and Irish processed foods from fluoridated areas cannot be exported to the EC, this prohibition must also apply to the importing of such products into EC member states from any other country that practices water fluoridation. The decision effectively bans all processed food products from countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, unless they can be positively proven to have been prepared using only water that was not fluoridated.

At present we don't pay PST on our BC Hydro bills. It sounds like we will pay HST on them. Anyone know anything different?

To add to Diplomat - it is also a waste of time. Flouride is proven to not be systemic. In other words, it does nothing for your teeth once you swallow it. The only tiny time it does anything is that brief moment when it passes over your teeth while you swallow it.
Im glad Im on a nice deep cold well...

Have a great weekend in the heat everyone!

Hey quesnel! did it ever occur to you that Opinion 250 is a forum for expressing..............opinions?
Sure, you too are just doing same, but really, to complain about others opinions, nah, it's not kosher.
metalman.

If we have HST and the GST portion drops, does HST drop accordingly or does the PST portion increase? You know what would be easier, why don't they just take all my income and give me what they think I should have.

I think that quesnel might want people to limit their opinions. Only one new opinion per day? No more than one response to each category of opinion expressed by someone else? Perhaps even to not respond to opinions of others - in other words, not not discuss anything?

Maybe we should just do opinion polls.
Those who agree with quesnel write "yes".
Those who agree with metalman write "yes".

LOL

As I understand it, all those goods and services which are now taxed through GST will have a combined HST made up of PST+GST or 12% applied.

All those goods and services which did not have PST applied to them, will be reimbursed to the provider of the goods and services upon application.

The thinking is that those providers who will receive the 7% back from the government will pass on those savings.

Thus, a $100 item which is taxed 5% GST and no PST costs the consumer $105.

With the HST, it will cost $112.

The provider will get $7 back on application since the province did not charge PST.

If the provider does not reduce the price, then the provider will have an additional gross revenue of 7%.

That is the way I understand it. There might be others out there who have a better understanding of it and it would be helpful to get your knowledge about this.

quesnel, perhaps?

Re: In addition, the Air Quality Health Index for the province is as shown here:

Thanks for the numbers but I'm not buying it. That's a farce. Those numbers are not correct.

I've been going to the Okanagan for over 20 years and have never seen the air be anywhere near as bad as here.

I disagree.

Good topic diplomat. I was also wondering about flouride in the water. It seems like more and more places are not putting it in their water supply. I wonder how much dough the city spends on this particular "service"? Might that be an easy expenditure to cut if folks in the City don't want it anyway?

Oh and I'm glad to hear that the recession is over per the Bank of Canada. Yippee, time to run out and max those credit cards up . . . LOL. Good posts on that subject charles, especially the second one.

yes

NMG, Europe is 97% fluoride free and has been so for about 35 years. Vancouver never added fluoride, but Toronto has been using fluoride for decades.

Children have better teeth in Vancouver than in Toronto.

Kitimat recently discontinued adding fluoride (after referendum...imagine that!) and Fort St.John is about to eliminate it as well.

According to the mayor it will save about one dollar per person per year plus the cost of maintenance.

Prince George could save (using the same numbers) at least one hundred thousand dollars per year, not mentioning the added costs incurred in the healthcare system due to illnesses traced back to fluoride poisoning of human beings due to long term exposure to it. It accumulates in the human body as it is not excreted.

Petitions in Prince George have been ignored in the past - why?

Even the dental profession has been having second thoughts but it will take a long time before the myth of benefits of fluoride is finally debunked and laid to rest.

Render unto Caesar that which is his...I seemed to have read that eons ago. Bunch of spoiled weenies we have here in the West. IMO I think with enough to eat and a nice warm bed, we should thank our lucky stars. Half the world doesn't have that. Why not humble yerself and see what you can really live without. Screw the government by not buying lottery tickets, alcohol, cigarettes and buy the least amount of gas you can get away with. What are they gonna do then? Raise yer taxes? We in Canada overpay for everything to begin with. Look around.

As an aside, You can guess I don't own a business. Three levels of government and the banks doing everything to make life as difficult as can be. Why bother?

does anyone have a link to this new hst as to what it applys to and what it doesn't?

Though Liberals said no new taxes...I suppose if you say the taxes are the same but different name he was telling the truth..just that they will apply to a who lot more items so in fact it is an increase? or have I read this wrong?

In light of recent fire bans and the recent high temperatures I still see people flicking cigarette butts out of their car windows. People will never learn.

And there's still too many people driving around jabbering on cell phones not paying attention. 9 times out of 10 when I see bad driving, the driver is talking on a cell phone. To those people, I say, "hang up and drive!!"

A friend of mine was actually bragging the other day about how he had never used the ashtray in his truck! We were like "wtf? You're proud of this?"
Some people are truly too stupid to live.

The government never said a word about this tax increase during the election only months ago. Elections must be popularity contests for legitimacy, because they sure aren't about the issues of the day in BC.

I heard the liberal spokesperson say this new tax will save the people of BC $1.9 billion. That is utter hog wash and an after the fact lie to sell a new tax.

$1.9 Billion.

$1.9 Billion.

$1.9 Billion would probably cover all the accounting costs for all the businesses in the entire province for everything related to accounting. Impossible that this tax shift makes that kind of savings in PST reporting. Doing the paper work for the PST takes maybe 10-minutes if a proper accounting system is maintained. I've done it for years and its not that hard to do. No bloody way a harmonization has $1.9 billion in savings for the people and businesses of BC, and its an outright lie for the governemnt to make that claim.

$1.9 Billion. That is the new taxes the Gordon Campbell regime will collect, and not the savings people will see. From the governments perspective $1.9 billion in new taxes they didn't collect before is a savings, because it means new revenues for them in a perverted fiscal type of gangster accounting that confuses new government revenue with a savings to the public... presumably because government doesn't have to cut costs elsewhere to make up for the $1.9 billion needed to balance the fudget election budget.

HST is a tax increase for a number of things we didn't pay taxes on before, because British Columbia in the past didn't think it was progressive to tax those things. This increase in tax collections I believe will be the $1.9 Billion the government is talking about in the publics 'savings'.

First they lied to us as the voters through omission, and now they lie to us directly through the real meaning of the tax shift. The BC liberals and their ndp cohorts obviously have no respect for the citizens of BC in the running of this province.

To balance the fudget election budget Gordon sold out the sovereignty of BC to decide what should and should not be subject to sales taxes... and thus ties the hands of all future generations to make these determinations on our own through local democratically accountable methods.

Diplomat, I'm glad you brought that up. Its been something that has bothered me for a long time. I have no understanding of why they put that in our water considering some of the very real health side effects that are well documented. Who is it that makes the decision to medicate our water in this city anyways, because I've yet to ever meet a person that supports this.

It should definitely become an election issue next election for sure.

"A friend of mine was actually bragging the other day about how he had never used the ashtray in his truck! We were like "wtf? You're proud of this?"

I use the ashtray for small trash items. No one is allowed to smoke in the car. I know very few people who smoke.

Oh no, he's an AVID smoker.

Too bad the NDP isn't still in power, we could bitch about the 14% HST.

Eagleone, Prince George never had a required (by B.C. law) referendum approving the addition of fluoride. When the old fluoride addition system (which was put in before the fluoride referendum law became a must) was replaced together with a new water system Prince George had to have a referendum as required by law.

This referendum at the time would have cost the city about 50,000 dollars. Kinsley (who was adamantly in favour of fluoride) managed to get an exemption from Victoria with the assistance of Paul Ramsey and Lois Boone who were the MLAs at the time when it happened.

They were very proud to have saved the city 50,000 dollars by eliminating the need for a democratic referendum, forgetting the fact that the new fluoride injection system actually cost 500,000 dollars!

That is a pile of money that could have been saved if the referendum would have resulted in a ban of fluoride!

Not only that, but to deny the people the opportunity to have a democratic say in the whole matter was in my opinion a very undemocratic and autocratic thing to do!

You will find that after having spent half a million bucks on a highly controversial method of mass medicating the citizens the city will be very reluctant to admit that perhaps a mistake was made after all.

Check out the internet and see how many jurisdictions there are left in North America and Europe which still inject fluoride into the water which we drink, cook with, shower with (it penetrates the skin!) and water our garden with!

It accumulates in your body, the longer you live the greater the potential for illnesses such as back pains and kidney problems.

Since parents have an option to buy either fluoridated or non-fluoridated tooth paste for their children there is absolutely not a single reason left anymore to add it to our drinking water.

After all, it is the dental profession which always claimed that fluoride is good for the teeth of children when they are growing up and that the teeth of adults do not require it at all.

In fact, there is evidence that it actually damages the teeth of children, affecting the enamel by a process called mottling.

Knowing the inertia of bureaucracy I doubt that the facts that already exist will have the slightest impact on those who are in control of contaminating our drinking water supply.

I have a water distiller for my drinking water, but that eliminates only part of the problem.

I think we need to remove chlorine as well.

Other than for cleaning, I think tap water water is highly overrated.

"Too bad the NDP isn't still in power, we could bitch about the 14% HST."

Best comment all day! Thanks for the chuckle :D

I say put it in the water. I spent my childhood in Windsor and I have perfect teeth. No fillings and all my wisdoms.

I saw a small grass fire starting by the Connaught Inn the other day. A lady was running around asking people to phone 911 which I did.

Cause of the fire? A cigarette butt.

I don't really give a rats behind if you smoke. That's your business. However, the world is not your ashtray.

Small grass? Was it rolled up in paper?

For most of Wall Street’s history, stock trading was fairly straightforward: buyers and sellers gathered on exchange floors and dickered until they struck a deal. Then, in 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission authorized electronic exchanges to compete with marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange. The intent was to open markets to anyone with a desktop computer and a fresh idea.

But as new marketplaces have emerged, PCs have been unable to compete with Wall Street’s computers. Powerful algorithms — “algos,” in industry parlance — execute millions of orders a second and scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously. They can spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies within milliseconds.

High-frequency traders often confound other investors by issuing and then canceling orders almost simultaneously. Loopholes in market rules give high-speed investors an early glance at how others are trading. And their computers can essentially bully slower investors into giving up profits — and then disappear before anyone even knows they were there.

High-frequency traders also benefit from competition among the various exchanges, which pay small fees that are often collected by the biggest and most active traders — typically a quarter of a cent per share to whoever arrives first. Those small payments, spread over millions of shares, help high-speed investors profit simply by trading enormous numbers of shares, even if they buy or sell at a modest loss.

“It’s become a technological arms race, and what separates winners and losers is how fast they can move,” said Joseph M. Mecane of NYSE Euronext, which operates the New York Stock Exchange. “Markets need liquidity, and high-frequency traders provide opportunities for other investors to buy and sell.”

The rise of high-frequency trading helps explain why activity on the nation’s stock exchanges has exploded. Average daily volume has soared by 164 percent since 2005, according to data from NYSE. Although precise figures are elusive, stock exchanges say that a handful of high-frequency traders now account for a more than half of all trades. To understand this high-speed world, consider what happened when slow-moving traders went up against high-frequency robots earlier this month, and ended up handing spoils to lightning-fast computers.

It was July 15, and Intel, the computer chip giant, had reporting robust earnings the night before. Some investors, smelling opportunity, set out to buy shares in the semiconductor company Broadcom. (Their activities were described by an investor at a major Wall Street firm who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job.) The slower traders faced a quandary: If they sought to buy a large number of shares at once, they would tip their hand and risk driving up Broadcom’s price. So, as is often the case on Wall Street, they divided their orders into dozens of small batches, hoping to cover their tracks. One second after the market opened, shares of Broadcom started changing hands at $26.20.

The slower traders began issuing buy orders. But rather than being shown to all potential sellers at the same time, some of those orders were most likely routed to a collection of high-frequency traders for just 30 milliseconds — 0.03 seconds — in what are known as flash orders. While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee.

In less than half a second, high-frequency traders gained a valuable insight: the hunger for Broadcom was growing. Their computers began buying up Broadcom shares and then reselling them to the slower investors at higher prices. The overall price of Broadcom began to rise.

Soon, thousands of orders began flooding the markets as high-frequency software went into high gear. Automatic programs began issuing and canceling tiny orders within milliseconds to determine how much the slower traders were willing to pay. The high-frequency computers quickly determined that some investors’ upper limit was $26.40. The price shot to $26.39, and high-frequency programs began offering to sell hundreds of thousands of shares.

The result is that the slower-moving investors paid $1.4 million for about 56,000 shares, or $7,800 more than if they had been able to move as quickly as the high-frequency traders.

Multiply such trades across thousands of stocks a day, and the profits are substantial. High-frequency traders generated about $21 billion in profits last year, the Tabb Group, a research firm, estimates.

“You want to encourage innovation, and you want to reward companies that have invested in technology and ideas that make the markets more efficient,” said Andrew M. Brooks, head of United States equity trading at T. Rowe Price, a mutual fund and investment company that often competes with and uses high-frequency techniques. “But we’re moving toward a two-tiered marketplace of the high-frequency arbitrage guys, and everyone else. People want to know they have a legitimate shot at getting a fair deal. Otherwise, the markets lose their integrity.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html?_r=4&hp

Unfortunately the link in my last post doesn't always work. If the link doesn't work properly, you can try the following link to get to the same article:

http://news.cnet.com/Stock-traders-find-speed-pays%2C-in-milliseconds/2100-1014_3-6249912.html

"I say put it in the water. I spent my childhood in Windsor and I have perfect teeth. No fillings and all my wisdoms. "

My wisdom is that YOU can buy a fluoride tablet and put it in your drinking water!
Don't insist that fluoride is put into MY drinking water when I don't want it there!

Hard to argue with ones right to have flouride free water (though on balance i believe it to be a pretty good idea). As far as i know, the dental profession is still officially for it. As well, i am very skeptical of the science behind the so called 'well documented' effects of flouride on human health. Most studies involved are either cotentious or not properly reviewed (or not published in a reputable journal). It is the two edged sword of the internet: unlimited information of questionable quality.

All of Europe is wrong, of course, in eliminating the addition of fluoride from drinking water supplies.

The countries in continental Europe have not done any extensive research, of course.

They don't have any competent scientists and therefore have banned fluoride just because they couldn't think of enything else to do.

It was a slow week, so they did it just for a lark and to keep busy.

We keep using fluoride because we think it is a good idea.

Some science! Some superiority complex!

Fluoridate sugar. Not water.

iodize salt ..... vitamin "D"ize milk ...

BTW, here is the research from Nazi Germany which encourages the use of fluoride to dominate the world.

That is the "scientific" reason why the Europeans are against fluoridating the water.

http://www.gobeyondorganic.com/Weekly-News-Tips/the-history-of-fluoride-that-was-deliberately-hidden-from-you.html

And for those who think the above linked article is written by a nut case .....

http://www.organic-natural-pesticide-free.com/flouride-poison-video-history.html

"Fluorides have been used to modify behavior and mood of human beings. It is a little known fact that fluoride compounds were added to the drinking water of prisoners to keep them docile and inhibit questioning of authority, both in Nazi prison camps in World War II and in the Soviet gulags in Siberia" ...

Pay your taxes .. pay your taxes ... you will like the HST ... you will like the HST .... vote liberal ... vote conservative ... vote ... vote ... vote....