WTF? I thought democracy was for the people - not artificial bodies like companies or industrial land owners who in effect would have more than one vote.
Oh Sorrrrrry! I forgot Gordo was king.

Seems to me that this was how things were done in the past, and that at some point we took away the right for property/business owners to have more than one vote.

What goes around comes around. Hopefully in the not to distant future, Mr Campbell, and some of his associates will get their butts kicked the hell out of Government.

If I own a business, can I vote twice? Sounds fair to me. Vote once in my little hometown and once where my business is located? If I own a few franchises around this province, can I vote in all or some of those franchise locations?

How many votes would Jimmy get?

Maybe we should get a definition of a **business**. Before you know it we will all have little business's all over the place and we will spend most of our time in the voting booth.

Is our Provincial Government on crack?

How could they honestly advocate a system where one person has more political influence than another? I can't imagine that this would hold up to a legal challenge. It's highly discriminatory. It's even more disturbing that they think it's a reasonable proposition.

Maybe the Premier needs to just tell these companies to pay the taxes they are legally required to pay. Afterall, do you think he'd be okay with them not submitting their PST, hotel tax, provincial income taxes, etc? Yeah, probably not . . .

Gordon made more sense when he was drinking.

This article is written in the United States, but I think it is a good read for all of the politicians {as well as the average person) in this country, also.

“But California’s problems, while somewhat unique and self-inflicted, are really America’s problems, and not just because the California economy is 15% of national GDP. While California’s $26 billion deficit is not directly comparable to the federal gap of $1 trillion-plus, they both reflect a lack of discipline and indeed vision to perceive that the strong growth in revenues was driven by the same excess leverage and same delusionary asset appreciation that was bound to approach cliff’s edge.”

It’s contagious. Both at the state and local level and in Washington, policymakers “lack discipline and indeed vision…” It is said that “bull markets create genius.” I'll suggest that the downside of the Credit cycle fashions lousy policymaking. I feel for the “Governator” and the California legislature, and I feel for our new President and members of Congress. They confront the harsh post-Bubble reality of no win circumstances – wearing big bullseyes on their backs in an age of slings and arrows.

It is a basic tenet of Credit Bubble theory that if the system inflates the quantity of Credit it will be spent. Credit Bubbles are fundamentally about a lack of discipline – one could say a confluence of undisciplined behavior. Credit Bubbles evolve specifically because of undisciplined monetary system management, undisciplined lending, undisciplined borrowing, undisciplined investment, undisciplined speculation and, at the end of the day, undisciplined spending throughout. And there are some absolutes: Inflated mortgage Credit, home price gains, and elevated incomes will absolutely inflate the propensity for undisciplined consumption. Inflated tax receipts will absolutely inflate government expenditures – in California, Washington D.C., and all across the country. The discipline problem goes way back but commenced within the bowels of the Credit system.

Mr. McCulley, in particular, was a vocal proponent for post-technology Bubble reflation. This reflation doubled total mortgage Credit in about six years and unleashed Monetary Disorder all over the world. In the process, this historic Credit inflation inflated asset prices, incomes, corporate profits, and government receipts. The state of California was at the epicenter of this massive inflation. Going back to fiscal year 2002-2003, California general fund revenues were about $71 billion. By the beginning of the 2007-2008 year, the state was budgeting for general revenues of $101 billion.

In percentage terms, state revenues inflated about 40% during the five-year boom. And with receipts rising each year, of course legislators were going to extrapolate and increasingly inflate state spending. There’s no mystery here. Keep in mind that in typical Bubble economy form, much of the rising expenditure was the result of rising costs all along the chain of state services. Those campaigning earlier this decade for aggressive monetary ease to fight deflation got, not surprisingly, more than they bargained for.

In hindsight, it is amazing to contemplate the complete and utter lack of vision that afflicted policymakers throughout the golden state and all across the country. How could they not perceive that sophisticated Wall Street financial leveraging and resulting asset Bubbles were only temporarily inflating their coffers? When seemingly everyone bought into the notion of endless prosperity, why couldn’t they have kept their heads? Just because everyone believed the enlightened Federal Reserve had forever mastered the business cycle, why couldn’t they have been more skeptical? And that the economic community, the regulator community, the Federal Reserve and the marketplace all missed this Credit Bubble dynamic is, apparently, no excuse. As I have often written, I sympathize with post-Bubble policymakers.

It is a tenet of Credit Bubble theory that politicians – given the opportunity – will inflate. There is ample history illuminating the dangerous propensity to run the government printing press. Contemporary analysis gets more complex because of the nature of private-sector Credit and the penchant for government (explicit and implicit) guarantees. During the boom, “money” was burning a hole in policymakers’ pockets, but it was Wall Street and the GSEs commanding the electronic printing press 24/7. By far the most precarious absence of discipline and vision belonged to those Operating in and accommodating this historic private-sector Credit Bubble.

I disagree with the policy of massive deficits. Yet the California and U.S. budget quagmires are the direct consequences of the bursting of the Wall Street/mortgage finance Bubble. And as much as greed and leverage have provided easy scapegoats, responsibility lies first and foremost with the nature of contemporary unchecked finance and flawed “activist” monetary management (trumpeted, not coincidently, by our era’s preeminent market Operators). And as much as the consensus view believes that previous financial maladies have been largely rectified, I see a continuation of the same malignant Credit system dynamics. In short, massive government intrusion into the market pricing of Credit continues to fuel economic maladjustment and Bubble dynamics.

Why did Wall Street issue Trillions of ABS, auction-rates securities, CDOs, and private-label MBS? Because they could. Why did the hedge funds and others leverage so egregiously? Because they were making a bloody fortune and the marketplace was more than ok with it. Why did the GSEs increase their MBS guarantees by $400 billion over the past year, and why did the Treasury issue $1.9 Trillion of Treasuries the past twelve months - and will likely do only somewhat less over the next year? And why are cash-strapped state and local governments borrowing so aggressively these days? It’s because the marketplace continues to readily accommodate Credit excess. Who is demonstrating a lack of discipline and vision – the borrower or the lender? The “Governator” or the market Operator? Is this the way the market pricing system is supposed to function?

Why is the marketplace inherently incapable of disciplining the egregious borrower - whether mortgage debt during that Bubble or government debt today? First, there are no inherent system restraints on Credit creation. Recalling the mortgage finance Bubble, recent massive increases in the supply of government debt have been met with a collapse in borrowing costs. Second, the marketplace perceived that fiscal and monetary policymakers were backstopping mortgage Credit during the boom. Today, the market is confident that policymakers are firmly behind the Treasury and agency securities markets. Borrowers are undisciplined for one reason: the distorted market mechanism not only fails to discipline them – it accomplishes the exact opposite.

I could ramble on for pages on the myriad costs associated with unchecked, undisciplined and mispriced finance. Mr. Gross touched upon a key cost, noting today’s uncompetitive California and U.S. economies. This is a key aspect of Bubble economy distortions. The dangerous flaw in inflationism dogma is that the Federal Reserve and policymakers can manipulate the cost and quantity of Credit with positive systemic results. In reality, the consequence of increasingly bold policy activism over time include a more distorted and unbalanced economic structure, as witnessed today. And it is my view that a flawed Credit apparatus, ill-advised government intervention, and dysfunctional market dynamics ensure economic maladjustment gets worse before it gets better.

http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/creditbubblebulletinview?art_id=10283

So unions would get an extra vote when the official opposition is elected to government?

If a "company" owns real property on which it pays taxes in any Municipality or Regional District why shouldn't that "company" have the right to nominate one of it's members to vote in that area?

It used to have, before the NDP removed that right. Effectively imposing "taxation without representation", which we should ALL be against.

It's no different than a "company" being a Member of a Credit Union, where EACH Member has the right to ONE vote, and EACH "company" is a Member in its own right. Even if several companies are owned by the person nominated to vote on their behalf, who might additionally have a vote personally as a Member himself.

The way it works now effectively dis-enfranchises many of the organizations that provide the largest portion of property tax revenues. For if the owner of a company that owns property in an area other than where that individual lives and holds that property through his company, he has NO SAY electorally how his tax money will be spent. Yet if he holds the same property in his own name, in a different City or RD Area than where he resides, he gets to vote in both, or as many different areas as he has property in.

I don't often find anything good to say about Gordon Campbell or his government, but if they re-establish a right that should never have been removed in the first place, I'd have no problem giving them full credit for (finally!) doing something right.

If a "Union" holds real property through the name of that Union in an area, why shouldn't it be allowed to nominate one of its members to vote on its behalf? It pays taxes on that land and any improvements to it, same as anyone else holding title to similar property as an individual does.

We're not talking about giving "organizations" the right to vote in Federal or Provincial elections here, where ALL the "members" of those organizations already have a vote in their own names if they are citizens and meet the other electoral requirements.

This is something quite different than the situation which exists at the Municipal or Regional level, where by denying a vote to those of us who "corporately" hold real property in ANY jurisdiction on which taxes will be assessed, while others who hold such property "individually" are entitled to a vote in EACH jurisdiction is certainly not very democratic.

We could say, "What does it matter, a few votes here or there aren't going to make any difference to anything anyways." And maybe that's true, but once we abolish one PRINCIPLE that is supposed to be the cornerstone of democracy, how long will it be before the others are abolished, too?

An interesting topic, even though, unless property owning corporations were given more than one vote - (based on number of employees? value of property owned?) - a single vote as a corporation would hardly make a dent in the vote outcome I believe.

So let us make the assumption then, property owning corporations get one vote.

1. those corporations who own more than one property - will they get a vote per property?

2. those corporations who have a 30 year lease on a property, will they get a vote if the lease has a clause which reduces or increases the tax component directly to the leaseholder?

3. will those individuals who who own more than one property get a vote per property?

4. what about property ownership - will there be more than one person that can vote since their property has joint ownership with 2 or more people?

5. should those people who own no property be allowed to vote?

6. should those people who pay no taxes, therefore no school taxes, be denied a vote as a method of input of how their children are educated?

7. should a corporation that has no children (unless the own little or new corporations *s*) be allowed to vote for school board reps?

8. finally, should those corporations that do the most harm to the environment in the city such as road damage due to heavy use of trucking, toxic air and water emissions, etc. and bring less benefit to a community than the harm they do (you know the equivalent of the smoker and those who have poor nutrition habits who make more use of the health system) have any say at all until they clean up their own house.

Just think, if we carry this to other areas of voting in the country, only those who actually pay taxes would have a vote. And, of course, since taxpaying corporations who also pay provincial as well as federal taxes, do not have a vote in provincial and federal elections, the question would surely have to be posed whether they ought not have those votes. Or the reverse question, if they cannot vote provincially or federally, what is so different about municipal elections.

Boy, this would open up a huge can of worms.

Why are the people we elect so stupid?

Could someone please give me some hypothesis on that?

BTW, I think that those military people who are sent to battlefields such as Afghanistan should get 10 votes each.

Charles, can you sum up your copied dissertation in two short sentences please and relate them to the topic at hand.

BTW, it is time we got over the big brother next door routine. We are trying to carve out our own way of life.

I went back to Bill Gross' original writings on the section copied by Charles.

In it he states in the first sentence of the second paragraph:

"A similar metaphor could be applied to the 45 million citizens of the State of California"

I assume that this fellow is a US citizen. I have not the faintest clue which state he lives in. I sure hope it is not California since that would make him look even more clueless than he looks by making such a stupid statement in the first place.

http://japan.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2009/Bill+Gross+Doo+Doo+Economics+ENG.htm

The population of California is in the range of 37 million. That is a 20% error.

For an individual that is supposed to deal with such mathematical and statistically information, what other glaring errors does he make?

Why believe anything he says without first exploring whether he is passing on erroneous information?

Gus wrote:-"So let us make the assumption then, property owning corporations get one vote.

1. those corporations who own more than one property - will they get a vote per property?"
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No, they did not previously, and would not now if the right removed from them were restored. You or I as individuals only get one vote in EACH jurisdiction, regardless of how many properties we hold under separate title in that jurisdiction. But if we hold property, or properties, in ANOTHER jurisdiction, we also have the right to exercise one vote there as well. And this is only fair.
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2. "those corporations who have a 30 year lease on a property, will they get a vote if the lease has a clause which reduces or increases the tax component directly to the leaseholder?"
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The owners of the corporation that holds title to the property should have the right to nominate who will exercise that corporation's right to vote in that jurisdiction. They may well agree to assign this right to the leaseholder under the situation described above for the term of the lease.

I wouldn't find it objectionable in such a situation if both the corporation that "owns" the property, or propertites, and the leaseholder (assuming it's also a 'corporation' and not an individual), EACH had a vote.

Again, an 'individual' leaseholder of a business likely already does, if he holds the lease in his own name, but is disenfranchised if he holds it in the name of a company that he owns. Which I don't think is very fair.
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3. "will those individuals who who own more than one property get a vote per property?"
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No. They would only get one vote regardless of the number of properties they own IN THEIR OWN NAME. It's just like a Credit Union or other co-operative enterprise. You get ONE vote regardless of the number of shares you hold in your name. But if you also have shares that are held in the name of a company, or companies that you own, you get one vote for EACH of those corporate entities too.
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4. "what about property ownership - will there be more than one person that can vote since their property has joint ownership with 2 or more people?"
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If they are "individuals" involved in joint ownership, EACH "individual" that meets the other electoral qualifications (residency, primarilly)is allowed to vote. Just as now. If the property is held in the name of a "corporation", the owners of that corporation would have the right to nominate one of their members to exercise ONE vote for that 'corporation'. Regardless of how many shareholders are members of it that meet the other qualifications.
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5. "should those people who own no property
be allowed to vote?"
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We DO allow them to vote if they "reside" in the jurisdiction long enough to qualify to get on the Voter's List, and meet the other requirements. I don't have any problem with that. My objection is to the dis-enfranchisement of 'corporate' taxpayers when the issues to be decided by those elected are primarilly "property tax" issues, simply because the name on the assessed property's title is that of a corporate organization. It's a matter of "principle" at that level of government.
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6. "should those people who pay no taxes, therefore no school taxes, be denied a vote as a method of input of how their children are educated?"
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No. The Province mandates how children will be educated, (and I won't go further into all the many ramifications of THAT here.)
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7. "should a corporation that has no children (unless the own little or new corporations *s*) be allowed to vote for school board reps?"
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Yes, the "corporation" that owns property in its name will be paying taxes that the School Board decides are necessary, so why should that "corporation" not have a vote on who will be School Board Reps.?
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8. "finally, should those corporations that do the most harm to the environment in the city such as road damage due to heavy use of trucking, toxic air and water emissions, etc. and bring less benefit to a community than the harm they do (you know the equivalent of the smoker and those who have poor nutrition habits who make more use of the health system) have any say at all until they clean up their own house."
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No, because there are already enough rules and regulations in place to deal with those issues, (and if there aren't, I'm sure our legislators at all levels of government will trip over themselves enacting still more), and that doesn't really have anything to do with the issue at hand.
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"Just think, if we carry this to other areas of voting in the country, only those who actually pay taxes would have a vote. And, of course, since taxpaying corporations who also pay provincial as well as federal taxes, do not have a vote in provincial and federal elections, the question would surely have to be posed whether they ought not have those votes. Or the reverse question, if they cannot vote provincially or federally, what is so different about municipal elections."
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At one time, only those who DID pay taxes were qualified to vote, because most tax revenues, aside from customs and exise duties levied Federally, were derived from 'property' taxes. That's all changed now, and voting rights have been extended, and I don't disagree with that. Though the "intelligence" of some of those to whom they've been extended, considering what we get as 'government' nowadays, might be open to question.

I do not personally agree with 'property taxes' ~ I think it is one of the most unfair methods of taxation ever devised by the mind of man. It had a justification in history when the tax was paid in a portion of the PRODUCT derived from the taxpayer's administration of real property. But it has no real justification now, when the tax is levied in "money", something the taxpayer himself does not "produce", but can only get, if he can, from someone else.
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"Boy, this would open up a huge can of worms.

Why are the people we elect so stupid?"
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They're not. WE are the ones that are stupid for continuing to elect them.
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"Could someone please give me some hypothesis on that?"
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We can't have a genuine 'political democracy' until we first have genuine 'economic democracy'. "Physically", the latter is more than possible. "Financially", it currently is not, but could be made to be. But "Morally" it's still virtually impossible. We're mired in economic concepts that have long passed their time. Chief amongst which is , "Let no man eat until he has first worked." And our politicians, even if they've the best of intentions when first elected, (as I think most of them do, regardless of their party), soon realize that "there's nothing we can do" so they might just as well "get while the getting's good."