So after seeing Grapeheads thread about the American election I thought I would make a similar thread for Canadians since we are having a federal election in October. who will you be voting for? Liberal? Conservative? NDP? Green?!!? Personally I'm leaning towards the NDP though I could endup changing my mind, I haven't had much time to look into all the party's yet.
The US economy goes to shit every 4 years. It just happens to coincide with when the presidential elections run. then again, already being in a recession only compounds the problem. (technically it's not a recession, but it's so damn close there isn't much point in arguing the point.)
NOW you touched my field of expertise , let me give you my personal opinion on the USA economics and forgive my bad english because i still studied it in dutch and never had any English lessons US economy "goes to shit every 4 years" because the US taxation, monetary, and banking system is designed to make the few wealthy, and the many poor basically, its a "dept flow increase system" that keeps itself intact as long as enough united states citizens get in dept each year, so the wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer and the combination of this drives the US economy, if not enough people get in dept and inflation starts to roam wild, mostly a war or 2 is imminent, and will get the job done (think vietnam, Multinational Force in Lebanon, Gulf war, Operation Enduring Freedom and other small conflicts) the coincidence with every 4 years is that the president that leaves the office wants to make one final cash withdrawal (figuratively speaking) before his term ends, and even if he does not, market economists are calculating for it, selling everything and buying gold to safeguard there money since the dollar will drop and gold is pretty much a constant (notice gold prices going up due to scarcity) ever noticed that USA dollars are issued without the backing of precious metals (gold)? in other words, no gold can be exchanged against it in the national bank... to make a long story short gold backing is anti inflation, yet the act that removed the dollars gold backing was supposed to be because inflation together with poverty would be a thing of the past in the globalist world we live in... kinda backfired... intentionally that is that backing was the primary wall that kept the poor from getting poorer, and the rich from getting richer due to inflation I'll keep it short not to bother you guys with statistics and proof, if you want that, go watch the documentary zeitgeist or something, it gets some points on this topic correct (and has some bullshit in it too, but hey...) Top 3 of organizations/groups who i would personally never entrust my money to: 1: USA banks 2: USA monetary elite 3: Idiots (anyone who i deem to be unfit, pretty much "the rest") protip for the americans: wanna get some decent money from stocks easy and dependable? buy gold 2 years before presidential elections, then sell it when a president is elected, don't put money in the bank, invest it (in land or something... anything that seems profitable, but don't trust bankers to do it for you, and don't invest in private companies) or your money will lose its worth quicker then any interests could cover inflation...
I'm a Liberal supporter (yes, I have a card) Few Reasons I support good governance which I don't feel the Conservatives have provided (I could list a bunch of reasons, but you need to read a newspaper if you're not aware of at least some) The Green Shift is the best viable environmental plan. I don't buy that it isn't feasable at this time, that's an issue that's been framed by the Conservatives. Retooling the economy during a downturn is a very effective way to provide growth. If the economy was booming, Harper would ask 'why mess with a good thing?'. Considering the tax cuts which would mostly benefit lower-income Canadians, those hardest hit by a recession, one could argue that the Green Shift would be the right thing to implement right now. There are some aspects which could be improved, such as implimenting a Carbon-Added Tax and Tariff as a part of the GST. This was suggested by Courchene and Allan, Policy Options march 2008 http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/mar08/courchene.pdf My current MP is Peter Milliken. Can you name a better possible Speaker of the House? Except for the Greens (whom I am very supportive of) I've voted for all the major parties. I try to find an issue and go for that, last time it was electoral reform, this time it's governance. The Conservatives have done a fantastic job at framing Dion as a weak, distanced leader, but after a few years of Conservative rule I'd be fine with that - not that I'm accepting he's those allegations, or that one should value those qualities out of our national leaders, but Harper is a control freak and really has scaled back many of the good qualities of Canadian government that I was lead to believe in. If I had the choice in the 70s I wouldn't have voted for Nixon, even if he was a strong leader.
In response to blizzerd: The US economy isn't what keeps rich richer and poor poorer. It's the people themselves. People in the US live beyond their means, and for that they are always in debt. Poverty in the US is really a choice, or a consequence of those choices. School up to around age 18 is more or less free, and with hard work, you can get a scholarship to help pay for college. Anyone could really get a good job if they worked hard for it. But who wants to do that? anyhow. I think that blaming things purely on the government is a bad habbit, as the government is a reflection of the people, and if they don't reflect the people, that's also a reflection on how much the people care about who is in government making the decisions.
This is a discussion about Canada, there's a thread on American politics happening right now. I'm so confused why you're here.
long story short unskilled american workers can't compete with unskilled foreign workers who are willing to work much harder for much less is the reason for the widening income inequality in the United States. That being said the poor aren't getting poorer but their real incomes are growing much slower.
no, it is my opinion that this is the least likely cause, (yet popular with the masses, for it gives the blaim to a person they can touch) it would mean that the economy and export would do well, private businesses would be unaffected (less being purchased in the country, but way more cheap export) together with the laborers getting poorer but the export is slacking as well and not by a little... look at Brittan, they completely opened the borders for some time, and its economy boosted like hell due to all the increased export for the replies, most of it is personal interpretation of what i see when i do my job, take it or leave it... call me a fool and i will try to improve my statements... i honestly admit that i never studied (its called master in Europe and the standards for education in Europe are way higher) for a master in marketing... but i never claimed i did ether... (i don't know where you got that, if i said that somewhere along the line i can be called a liar) i studied it as in "observing what i see, taking notes, getting advice from others and adapting my own strategy" to make more money in stocks and i do quite well, even if it is a "crisis" my personal education ends at a bachelor in IT, the whole shablam from cisco "netacademy" and everything in between and additionally as a small part time job i educate at a university reemployment center (like a university, but the size of a grade school, and not for children or adolescents) and zeitgeist is one of the best in its genre (not so hard, since its a genre famous for proclaiming bull feces, but it still is one of the best and most accurate... especially about the dollar) thank you for taking so much time to read my reply! i really appreciate it
http://www.conspiracyscience.com/articles/zeitgeist/ There seems to be a fairly reputable rebutle of zeitgeist. I don't have time to through it all and check every source but I looked at a couple and the guy seems to know his shit. There is a reason we have professionals and peer reviewed academic journals. Zeitgeist is entertainment not academic.
he starts off unscientific in my eyes, he is trying to "debunk" the movie, while in fact he should not debunk it but rather filter the true from the false statements, debunking is what you do when you already made up in your mind that its false even before looking at the evidence he is clearly a Christian defending his religion, his new sources mostly go to Christian inspired/sponsored websites (mostly in the first chapter, talking about history, and yes i excluded most of the sites that require talking about a Christian bible quote) he goes on to discredit sources (half of the times just in my eyes, some zeitgeist sources are just bull feces, and he knows it) but then uses just as dodgy sources to prove his own points, i would not be surprised if he had the site of the ICR, CCnR or the IDEA center as source... or sites set up by the Christian church Also his extreme use of wikipedia as source is shameful, wikipedia only contains the truth of the masses, this is ok if its about something basic but as soon as something gets a bit complex or with an open ending or opinion different interpretations become possible, and the attention of experts are required, he clearly has filtered out most of the garbage of zeitgeist, but also filters out additional stuff according his own interpretations and according to the Christian beliefs, this is why he especially dedicated most of his time to the first chapter, and all the other chapters are just used to discredit the plausibility of the first chapter i have nothing against Christians, or followers of the Christian church but i do not think hey are the best sources for this kind of material, there lack of factual evidence is sometimes so severe that they unintentionally created a network of Christian inspired societies that keep just plain wrong "facts" as genuine throughout the scientific world, just because they are accepted as fact by major science sponsors and associations, this is also the main reason why scientifically inspired people still try to validate the concept of intelligent design, proclaim evolution to be "outdated and massively proved to be false" and all sorts of related stuff i will conduct a search for a better factual validation site about zeitgeist
"I decided to sit down and watch the film, I honestly began watching it thinking it may have some interesting information. When it was all over, I realized that many things were completely wrong, misquoted, or had already been disproven by many other people long ago." He didn't set out to debunk the movie he watched it and noticed factual errors and decided to look into it. Around 5% of his sources are from wikipedia and most of them have to do with technical stuff like how RFIDs work. He uses many "christian sponsored websites" to get biblical qoutes. I just skimmed through part one because religion isn't really my thing but he does have quite a few academic sources as well. In fact I doubt he is even Christian as you claim. He says in his conclusion: "Christians shouldn't be the only ones offended by Part I, as a human, I'm offended they think I am so stupid as to believe any of the claims made there in" Implying he is not offended because he is Christian but because of how stupid the claims are. This is somewhat ambiguous. Anyway I have class.
Here is what he says about his "extreme use of wikipedia": I also have wikipedia listed in the sources, though I do realize you are not supposed to use it as a source. Well, most studies have shown it to be as accurate if not more accurate than an encyclopedia. However, due to people complaining that I could have changed all these wikipedia articles and magically have no one notice, I used other sources instead. The wikipedia links you see here are not necessarily sources, they really serve two purposes, the first is to prove something exists and second is just to provide the reader with a more broad reading of the topic.
The Debate I watched it. Harper got demolished. Green party is now respected. Liberals seemed kind of scared. NDP yelled at everyone. Bloc kicked ass. And had a great explanation of intensity-based targets.
