Does anyone listen to these liars anymore? From a $435 million deficit announce during the election, to a $2.8 billion deficit announce in September, what good is a 5 year forecast? Just more taxpayer dollars to fund government propaganda. Anyone who voted these jerks into power should hang their heads in shame.

10-4

blah blah blah bling bling blah blah.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

herbster.... ah, between the election promise and now, we have witness the worst economic downturn since the depression of the thirties. All in all, I do not think we have too much to complain about!

Time for Cambell to resign

Campbell won’t resign! He really thinks he is doing an awesome job. He will leave this province in ruins and not before. And they call him Honourable! That word and this man should not be in any sentence together.

Do some of you REALLY believe that Campbell singlehandedly caused a global recession, or is it just a good excuse for teachers and nurses to complain?
ps - forestry is on its way up and thats where the money in this town really comes from...

Good question herbster..."Does anyone listen to these liars anymore?"
Answer....No.
Anther good question by "interceptor"...
"Do some of you really believe Campbell singlehandedly caused a global recession"...?
Answer....pretty much.

Teachers' Pension Plan is undergoing a critical review.

The basic pension is secure, but the plan cannot sustain indexing (which guarantees cost-of-living increases) and extended health benefits at no cost, the B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) says. To continue with those benefits would require an increase in contributions of about four per cent from members and employers - over and above the small increase that has already been approved for July 1, 2010.

The BCTF has been conducting meetings around the province to hear what its members want to do. The union will then make a submission to the Teachers' Pension Plan trustees, who are expected to make a decision about the future of the plan in the spring.

Although it's called the Teachers' Pension Plan, its members are not just teachers. They also include principals, vice-principals, superintendents,directors of instruction, BCTF administration staff and B.C. College of Teachers staff (who hold teaching certificates).

One of the difficulties for the pension plan is demographics. While the number of retired teachers has been increasing, the number of working teachers has not. In 2001, there were 2.85 active teachers for every retiree but that's now fallen to 1.7. As well, teachers are living longe - on average, to 88 years.

The importance of this issue extends beyond members of the plan since employer contributions come from taxes.

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/11/26/problems-facing-the-teachers-pension-plan.aspx

No basic pension plan is 'secure' so long as overall business profitability continues to slide.

That really has nothing to do with the ratio of employed teachers to retired teachers, or how long they're living, or anything like that.

The contributions made to a pension plan are 'invested'. They form a base of 'capital' which should generate 'income'. It is not sound business practice to live off your 'capital'. That you want to protect, while you live off the 'income'.

If the investments made are in Firms with declining profitability in general, and this trend continues, (and it will, unless we make some changes in our overall financial system), it won't be long indeed before the pension funds are "living off their capital", (just as many formerly profitable forest products firms in the US and Canada who own private timberland now being marketed as 'real estate' are doing.)

I wish the politicians stopped trying to solve a financial crisis which was caused by too much debt by going even further into debt. It is time for some tough decisions instead of our present policy of "kicking the can down the road". It is time to start living within our means.

"The entire system is debt saturated; all future income has been pulled forward into the here and now."

"Because our money is backed by debt, debt should play a self-correcting monetary role. That is that politicians should limit their spending as the debts grow larger and larger making interest payments larger and thus making overall debt service a larger part of their budget. Theoretically, this means that they must raise taxes to keep it up. Of course they have reached a limit on the amount of taxes that can be raised without choking off the consumers and businesses who already can’t service the taxes and debt they are burdened with. Thus, we are at the end of the line of our debt backed fractional reserve money system."

http://wallstreetpit.com/12172-growth-of-real-money-is-completely-meaningless-and-nonexistent

The global economy challenges have affected governments at every level, and every level of gevernment is doing what they believe is right to withstand the challenges. While its so easy to cast aspersions inside a recession, its equally easy to heap praise when a government is out of the recession.

I wonder if the Campbell naysayers will still be able to find a negative when our province emerges out of this recession in good shape and then enters a 10 year "boom" period.

Charles:-"I wish the politicians stopped trying to solve a financial crisis which was caused by too much debt by going even further into debt."
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Well, under the present rules and conventions of financial cost-accountancy the alternative to "going further into debt" NOW would mean a deeper financial crisis NOW, as more and more businesses are unable to repay their existing loans and are forced to the wall. With a further rise in unemployment, more loss of income for consumers mired in personal debt and unable to meet the payments, etc., etc.

When the dust all settles from that, assuming we instituted a program of rigid "austerity", regardless of the consequences, we'd still be right back to doing the "same old, same old" all over again.

Because the CAUSE of the REAL problem hasn't been touched. That 'cause' is how do you distribute "incomes" to those who need to 'consume', and whose consumption is vital to continued production, when fewer and fewer Consumers need to be Producers?

Under such a scenario it's small wonder our politicians opt to 'defer' the problem by trying to "borrow" us back into 'prosperity'. Or at least some semblence of it, even if it is really only inflation in disguise. They are caught between a "moral" question and an "economic" one.

The "moral" question posits that we should, "Let no man eat who has not first worked." A holdover from the days when every man's shoulder WAS "needed against the wheel", when everyone DID have to "pick up their shovel", or actual overall material destitution and deprivation would be the result.

Contrast that with the modern machine age, with its power driven, technologically automated economy. Where the problem today isn't a shortage of most goods and services, but an unsaleable glut of them. Yet we continue to believe the only way to clear the present glut is to make a bigger one!

The problem isn't now, nor has it been for most of the 20th century, a "production" problem. It's a "distribution" one. How do we get what has been made, or is more than capable of being made ~ the various 'things' that all of us need and desire to enjoy a better standard of living ~ from the 'producer' to the 'consumer'?

The agency of distribution is "money". And the way we distribute that itself, in an age when it can no longer be solely from "employment", is the issue that we should be examining.

I agree with charles...we cannot borrow our way out of debt.
Never going to happen....it only compounds the problem.
Socredible also has a good point...What it comes down to is those who can work...should.
We have developed a free-loader system.
Even if you don't work,you will still have money in your pocket and food in your belly.
That in itself is not all of the problem...the biggest part of the problem is we now allow a free ride from the cradle to the grave with no question asked, and no accountability.
This attitude only results in an unsustainable debt load on goverments and indeed,on society and taxpayers in general.

Andyfreeze:-"What it comes down to is those who can work...should.
We have developed a free-loader system."
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That's the 'moral' side of the equation, Andy. Now I don't know about you, but if you're like me, and I suspect most reading this, we've all worked in some job at some time or another with someone who just did not want to work. And didn't. Or to the minimum extent possible.

The able-bodied guy who wouldn't pull his weight, and, as a result, the rest of those who worked with him ended up having to 'carry him'. Until someone gets frustrated at continually doing part of his share as well as all of their own, and the 'fireworks' start.

Sometimes the appropriate word, or maybe even some stronger action, can bring that type of guy around.

But if it doesn't, and I think with such people that's the case more often than not, then if management doesn't dump him his co-workers will find a way to get rid of him.

Most people, I find, and I've been on both sides of the management/labour table, DO want to work. They don't want to be continually over worked, or feel they're being exploited, but they will do an "honest day's labour for an honest day's pay." And they've little use for someone who won't.

Now we can try to "make" the type who won't work into the type who will. But it's pretty much like trying to reform a confirmed alcoholic who swills it in until he gets the DTs. He'll do anything to avoid getting the DTs again, except stop drinking! Until he "wants" to conquer the 'cause' of his problem his problem is going to continue.

And so it is with the terminally lazy. They are a detriment to efficiency, and if they're unwilling to change their ways, they really shouldn't be in the productive system at all. But is there a need for us to "punish" them further for their laziness?

And it's here we come to the 'economic' side of the issue. And we have to start by asking ourselves a rather simple question. Is the lazy man's 'production' really needed?


For if, with modern processes which we are constantly improving and with which we're continually "displacing" labour, we are already producing MORE of those things we all need and desire than we can sell WITHOUT his contribution to further 'production', then how can his continued 'consumption' really be of detriment to anyone?