Yup, just got to vote different

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Goldman Sachs analyst predicts that oil prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years, but said that how far prices could climb still "remains a major uncertainty."

Meaning, they could go even higher and they may never really come down again.

No, it does not matter who we vote for.

I agree diplomat!
I don't believe that gas will ever come back down to where it was before the insanity set in.
Which I believe is all the more reason to put the pressure on the Liberals to drop the very bad carbon tax/money grab idea!
We need to start pushing back!
We are all far too complacent.
I think we gave up to quickly when we should have just gone whacko on the Campbell government!
If enough people stand together and fight back,they just might remember there is an election coming next year!
I think it your probably right that it doesn't really matter who we vote for, but it is important not to be afraid of that.
In this case,the Campbell gang thinks they are bulletproof and that's not good for us here in the north or anywhere else in B.C.
We really don't have a choice.
Campbell and his arrogant government are out of control with power because they believe they cannot be stopped.
That is a scary form of government!

Supply and demand. The oil companies are just figuring out how much you're willing to pay for gas. And the answer is, "A lot". Considering that the price of gas is skyrocketing, I still see the same number of cars on the road.

Just read an article about the state owned Brazilian oil company that just passed Microsoft as one of the largest companies in the world. But we're constantly told by Banksters and the right wing media about how the corporate world can do it better. Like hydro and railways right Gordo?
Wonder what they pay for gas in Brazil?

"Wonder what they pay for gas in Brazil?" The Brazilians are totally self-sufficient as far as fuel for vehicles goes. They have a huge industry making ethanol from sugar cane and they have been doing since the first crude oil scare in the early 1970s.

I don't know how much they pay, but they can thumb their noses at OPEC since they don't need OPEC.

Why can't we do the same and make fuel from wood waste? We have plenty of wood waste - slash burning is still polluting the air we breathe and what about all the dead pine trees?

Andyfreeze, I don't adore the Liberals but I would never vote for the NDP, never ever.

So, guess what I will have to do if I decide to exercise my right to vote? Either that, or stay home on election day!

And neither would I vote NDP diplomat, and therein lies the sticky part!
The Liberals seen to think that as well,and that makes for arrogant and insensitve goverment.
The NDP is to damn busy shooting themselves in the foot to be a contender anytime soon!
I would suggest a severe Liberal tune-up and a new leader is called for, if they want to continue to govern here in B.C.
They need to learn and remeber just who elected them and who they really work for!
So goes B.C.politics!
I think they will get severe thumping in the next election, whether you and I vote NDP or not!

I suppose everyone's now forgotten the "one-man crusade" that former Socred MLA for Omineca Cyril Shelford once mounted against the inanities of gasoline pricing in northern BC. He finally managed to get his case before a Commision charged to investigate the whole issue after endlessly badgering the government he was a member of to set one up.

But even the Premier, WAC Bennett then, and undoubtedly our best one yet, wouldn't advance Shelford the necessary funding he needed to properly pursue the matter. He didn't want to take on "Big Oil".

Leaving Shelford to face 21 well-paid, top-notch, big-city lawyers paid to represent the interests of "Big Oil" with only whatever resources he could personally muster.

(Bennett later had the Legislature compensate Shelford for what he'd paid out of his own pocket trying to bring the whole pricing practices issue to light. But that was only AFTER the hearings had ended, and issues that might have been raised were still left unaddressed.)

During the hearings TIME magazine sent out a reporter to interview Shelford, and listen to all the evidence he had gathered on the way gasoline prices were being rigged.

The reporter wrote his story, and showed a draft of it to Shelford before he sent it in. It was never printed. And when he was asked by others who'd also apparently heard that TIME was doing a story on him just when it would be appearing, all Shelford could say was, "Only TIME will tell!"

Vote strategiclly. Vote to have offical opposition. A majority government is not good. We do not have and the NDP are not offical opposition. They did not win enough. Just like federal.

You're right fish!
I think a strong opposition is the key to good government!
It keeps everyone honest and we don't have that here in B.C.
Did we ever?
Seems our politics have been a mess for years under the present system!

There is a strong opposition in Victoria, strong in numbers, anyways. That wasn't the case when the NDP had reduced itself to only two (2) opposition members.

When the NDP ruled for a decade there was a strong (in numbers) opposition - the NDP did whatever it wanted, regardless of a strong opposition.

How did the strong opposition keep everyone honest?

I remember all the different *gates* like Bingo Gate, Casino Gate, Fudgit Budgets, etc.

Very little honesty then - and now.

That's the great failing of the "party" system, diplomat. It forces the MLA to try to serve two masters ~ his constituents, and his "party" Leader. Too often now, he, or she, makes the wrong choice.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", as the old saying goes. And any political Party is an automatic institution for corruption, since by its very name it can only exist to serve that "part" of the electorate who are best able to share the sweets of office with it.

That was the beauty of the old, original BC Social Credit "League", back before it, too, morphed into a "Party", and became just another 'label-of-convenience' for the unprincipled to try get closer to the trough under.

Originally, it was very much anti-Party, and held that its MLA's, while all supposedly subscribing to its overall philosophy,were there to look after the interests of their constituents first.

If you check the voting record, several of the original WAC Bennett Socreds did just that, and voted against their own government when they felt its actions were not serving those they were elected to represent.

Contrast that to today, where the Liberal Party seems to have NO independent thinkers who would dare go against Gordo's nutty ideology.

While the NDP, whose whole idea of 'democracy' seems to me to be akin to mob rule, instills such a terror in its MLAs that even those like Corky Evans, who often have some very good ideas, are unwilling to stray from the "party" line.

Good analysis, socredible! I certainly agree that a change in leadership would do the Liberals (and the NDP!) a lot of good!

During the NDP decade I heard a lot of people asking if there will ever be a NDP MLA with enough b*lls to stand up and say enough is enough! No. Of course not. There wasn't.

If a way could be found to bring another two or three parties into the Legislature with just a sufficient number of MLAs to become the tipping point on the scale - that would make a difference.

The present two party stratification is just so tiring and predictable. Half the time in Question Period for instance is wasted with this idiotic beating of their desks and the other half with mudslinging, yelling of insults and sarcastic laughter.
Answers are usually totally evasive and way off the topic and the questions often plain stupid and ludicrous.

We need something a lot better than that.

Proportional representation? Write in ballots?

Any ideas?

I'm a little leery of the usefulness of expanding the number of "Parties" in the Legislature, Diplomat, like is often visualized happening if we had proportional representation ( ala STV, or some other method of voting than FPP).

To my way of thinking that's liable to be MORE likely to increase the opportunity for 'corruption, rather than decrease it.

Ideally, I suppose I'd like to see no "Parties" at all. Just elect whoever runs who seems best able to represent you, on the basis of his or her individual merits and abilities, character, ideas, etc.

Then let those elected decide amongst themselves when they get to the Legilature who is best able to fill the job of Premier, and maybe even the Cabinet Ministers, too.

In reality though, while it's certainly something that could be done within our Parliamentary system as it is, that's unlikely to to ever come about.

The largest part of the problem ,in my opinion, is exactly the thing that the old BC Social Credit League was originally formed to address. Namely, that without having "economic democracy" first, "political democracy" is an utter sham. No matter how we choose our MLAs.

Right now, we choose them thinking that THEY, or their Party and its Leader, are going to "do something for us." In reality, this only leads to the continual removal of our OWN ability to "do things for ourselves."

It's only WE, as individuals, who can free ourselves of the things which prevent us from "making our own policy effective unto ourselves." The role of the Government, as I see it, is to make sure that we always have the "means" to do just that.

"Just elect whoever runs who seems best able to represent you, on the basis of his or her individual merits and abilities, character, ideas, etc."

A highly idealistic concept, to be sure! It would require voters to seriously examine a candidate's personal merits etc rather than just grab the slogans of the day and cast a vote!

It will not come about any time soon!

Politics are in a rut and will stay there as long as voters don't demand a complete reform - and they won't.

The very word *reform* turns them right off - as witnessed by the treatment the Reform Party and Manning got from the general public.

Scorn, ridicule and abuse.

I am wondering whether having a senate would help in addressing regional needs a bit better.

one method - 26 regional districts @ 2 reps per district = 52 seat Senate .....

one existing one which is based a bit more on geography is the tourism region division. 6 regions @ 6 per region = 36 seat senate .... that would give 24 reps for the interior versus 12 for the lower mainland and island.

The senate gets elected ... no rubber stamping body ....

We (the public) in BC own nothing. Gordon Campbell and his cabinet have taken evrything we BC'ers used to own and sold it out from under us. He is just filling his and his rich buddies pockets with our tax dollars. Our local elected Liberal MLA's should be ashamed and resign. But then again I think they have had the Campbell labotamy. "Do as I say or out you go"

I think you've hit on something there, Owl.

Many of the US States have State Senates, which tend to even out the one chamber representation imbalance of 'rural' vs. 'urban' we seem to be experiencing here in BC.

They also seem to have avoided making both their State Senators and Representatives to their State Legislatures into full-time, "professional" politicians. They don't "over-pay" them, in other words. Most still need to have another job, or source of income, besides what they earn for their public service.

I don't think that really addresses the problems of corruption though. Seems a lot who seek office down there aren't entirely motivated in seeking the greatest good for all, but rather in 'greasing the skids' for themselves and/or their backers.

As to Preston Manning and the "Reform Party", well, Manning's line sure sounded good until they got elected. They were going to 'reform' Ottawa, but once they got down there who really got reformed?

Preston Manning, and his dad, long-time so-called "Social Credit" Premier of Alberta Ernest C Manning, (later an APPOINTED Senator, and a director of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce), both betrayed the principles that would've enabled a genuine 'economic democracy' to be established in Canada. And from that a 'political democracy' that would've made our representatives just that. OUR 'represntatives'.

If you remember back, Preston Manning got great mileage out of attacking the size Canada's National Debt had ballooned to under Mulroney. Though a succession of PM's ever since John Diefenbaker (and before) had each aided and abetted the process.

Preston was going shrink it down and pay it off. To 'free us' from the rapacious grasp of the Bankers of international finance. Before they, in effect, co-erced us into a form of self- imposed 'receivership', like they did to New Zealand.

But Preston left a few things out. There is no way such a National Debt can be shrunken down and paid off since the only 'money' that can repay it has to come into being as ANOTHER DEBT.

And he wasn't about to try to change THAT. Though I'm quite certain both he and his dad were well aware of HOW that could be done.