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Why does the government hate disabled people?

Posted on 13 October 2009 | Comments Off

You know, I think the fact that disabled Canadians are treated like free loaders on society is the biggest issue for them.

People on welfare, or what ever they call it these days, but able to work, are rightfully paid theoretically subsistence benefits to entice them to find a job and get off the system. Paying low benefits should force people to get to work and take care of themselves.

The question is, why are disabled people who are unable to work a job which will pull them out of the system treated the same way? And, if a ODSP recipient does work a few hours a week to eat something other than Kraft dinner, why does the government deduct a portion of this measly bit of money from their benefits?

If a person lives in Ontario and is certified as disabled they should have social benefits available to them they can live on. If they are able to work 10 or 15 hours a week the earnings should be theirs and not penalized fro trying to improve their lot.

I’m on CPP-D and they pay me less a month than I used to make in a week. When I wrote to the leaders of the political parties that a disabled person should at least be treated as well as a senior citizen the Prime Minister’s Office said basically “deal with it”, the Liberals did not reply, Jack Layton said it was a sad state of affairs and agreed with me and Elizabeth May said her party supported a minimum income for all Canadian adults of something like $20,000 a year regardless of their situation.

Disabled Canadians who cannot change their lot in life, should not be treated as third class citizens who are a drain on the country. They should be given an allowance, regardless of the wages of the rest of the family, so they don’t have to live at the mercy of others who control their lives by regulating their income.

My rant for the day,

Dave

Are stock traders stupid people?

Posted on 17 August 2009 | Comments Off

There was an article posted today on the Toronto Star’s website (http://www.thestar.com/business/article/682152) about how the Toronto stock exchanges took a dive today based on a “sharp falloff in the Reuters-University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, which followed a surprisingly weak July retail sales report”.

Apparently, the brilliant insight that “the American consumer won’t be much help in building a strong economic recovery” has caused many other stock indexes around the world to also take a hit.

Where have the stock traders been for the last 6 months? They seem to have missed a few crucial facts which would have forecast this radical realization.

Let’s see;

1. American banks in an effort to gain greater profits begin lending mortgage money to people who can’t afford to repay it based on the premise the property values will never decline.
2. They then roll these “sub prime” mortgages into mutual funds and other investment vehicles and sell them to investors who have always believed mortgage backed investments are very safe. Like Insurance companies and retirement plan managers.
3. Then the real estate market crashes, property values start dropping like a stone, mortgages holders can’t make their payments or sell their properties to repay the mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place and all of a sudden the investments held by insurance companies, retirement plans and other investors are worth a fraction of what they paid for them.
4. So now the insurance companies are under-capitalized, the retirement plans have a huge loss of capital and other investors see large portions of their investments crash and burn.
5. AIG Insurance, apparently the largest insurer in the world and underwriter of many other insurance company’s policies, is so badly affected that they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
6. The US government now steps in with many hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent the imminent demise of AIG and many of the other companies who are dependent on them.
7. Now the banks have stopped lending money and are worried about their own solvency due to bad loans and loss of capital in the investment vehicles they own which were backed by their bad mortgages.
8. The US government now steps up with many hundreds of billions of dollars to purchase these bad mortgages and take the pressure off the banks. The theory being that the banks will stay, or become, solvent if they don’t have all these bad mortgages hanging over their heads.
9. It really doesn’t work. The banks make it harder to get loans, they raise interest rates, they lower credit limits on credit cards and they increase service fees. The tax payers are paying for the banks’ mistakes with bailouts and their customers are paying with higher interest rates and fees.
10. So now American consumers are not buying things because they can’t get credit, or it is too expensive, or they are worried about their financial future and their investments for a future rainy day, or retirement, are a fraction of what they were before.
11. Two of the big three auto makers realize that people don’t want to, or can’t, buy their their products and end up laying off thousands of workers, causing their suppliers to lay off thousands of workers and declaring bankruptcy.
12. The US government now gives hundreds of billions to GM and Chrysler to enable them to get back on their feet following their bankruptcy.
13. So the US government has now realized that saving the butts of the insurance industry, the banks and the auto manufacturers the economy still sucks, is getting worse and no one is going to spend a cent on anything further worsening the effects of this recession.
14. So they put together a stimulus package worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of a TRILLION dollars to stimulate the economy. This stimulus package seems to have slowed the downward trend of the recession but not really improved the economy much.

So, the US dollar is losing value, the banks are raising interest rates and fees, millions of people have lost their jobs, the values of investments are terrible, the American government has had to throw so much money at the problems that the US taxpayers’ great grandchildren will still be paying off 2008/9 spending deficit, people have lost confidence in their futures and job security and their property values are at their lowest level in a decade.

And just today, the stock traders became aware that “the American consumer won’t be much help in building a strong economic recovery”.

MP Expense Spending

Posted on 7 July 2009 | Comments Off

The Toronto Star has been running a few articles recently about their efforts to get detailed information on the expenses the elected MPs in Ottawa have been charging the taxpayers. Apparently, the government only releases the total amount the MPs spend without the details of what the MPs spent the money on. The expense totals The Star posted for 33 of the MPs who refused to divulge their details ranged from $2 to more than $300,000. (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/654005)

The year ended March 31, 2008 showed a total expense claim of $127,850,218 by all the MPs combined which is 42% higher than the year ended march 31, 2001.

Of the thirty-seven MPs contacted in the past several weeks, just four agreed to disclose the detailed information on specific expenses requested by the Toronto Star.

Today the Star is running an article on Michelle Simson, the Liberal MP for Scarborough Southwest who has posted a detailed report on her website of the expenses she has charged the taxpayers for the period from the October election to the fiscal year end on March 31, 2009. (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/661862) To date, she is the only MP who has provided the public with a detailed report on expenses, and as far as I’m concerned the only one who deserves a vote in the next election.

The vast majority of MPs who are supposed to be running our country, and we are paying to do so, don’t feel it’s necessary to explain to the public what expenses they are charging us for nor how much they are charging us for them! I was a sales rep for 20 years and was able to charge my employer for my expenses but I had to provide a detailed report on what, where, who, where and how much my expenses were in order to get reimbursed. Since we employ these MPs, we should be able to find out what they are spending our money on.

They argue that the expenses are approved by the Board of Internal Economy which is a committee of 8 MPs who oversee these expenses and because of this safeguard public disclosure isn’t needed. So, MPs who are collecting these expenses are overseeing themselves and their colleagues. Kind of sounds like the foxes guarding the chicken coop, doesn’t it?

These MPs are paid to represent us and are entitled to be reimbursed for legitimate expenses while performing their duties for us but shouldn’t be allowed to claim these expenses without public access to the details. In the old days (pre 1950?) when our MPs were honourable the current system may have been okay, but based on the behaviour of our MPs these days, I wouldn’t let them out of my sight if I had to pay them from my pocket.

Ironically, the party who got elected on the promise of transparency and openness has told their MPs not to divulge their expenses. I guess Sleazy Steve and the Conservatives must have skeletons in its expenses they don’t want to share. No surprise there.

Canada’s Deficit Projections

Posted on 7 July 2009 | Comments Off

Surprise, surprise! Steve Harper and Jimbo (almost rhymes with dumbo, eh?) Flaherty’s deficit projections seem to be at odds with the House of Commons finance committee.

As usual it seems the government has decided to tell us that things aren’t as bad as they seem so as to not look totally incompetent. In November of 2008 they were projecting a small surplus. In February of 2009 they admitted they were wrong about the surplus amd projected a $33.7 billion dollar deficit. Now they are projecting a $50.2 billion dollar deficit for this year alone with more deficits to come. Last fall they didn’t even see this recession (depression?), coming or they flat out lied to us about it so why would we believe their figures now.

All that aside, what about the debt? Using the government’s figures they are going to be borrowing almost 100 billion dollars over the next 5 years to cover these deficits. If we can believe the government and the it is back to bringing in more than it puts out in 2014, when is the 100 billion going to be paid back?

It’s like saying, I borrowed $100 billion for gambling but I can pay for it so it’s not a problem while ignoring the fact that I still owe the money.

And what about the interest on all this money they are borrowing? If they are borrowing the money then there must be some interest payable somewhere. Interest payments are quantifiable and relatively fixed.

If they are not borrowing the money and simply printing it, then they are devaluing our dollar. Devaluing the dollar makes imported items more expensive and erodes its buying power which could cost more in the end than the interest would cost. Devaluation of the dollar leads to inflation which not only affects government spending but all spending by everyone using Canadian dollars.

Normally one would expect the government to take all this into account but remember these guys didn’t even see these deficits coming 6 months ago!

Our Political Parties

Posted on 25 June 2009 | Comments Off

Political parties are the source of more harm done to this country than good.

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