BendGovernment

One Percent Make Errors


One percent of us hoards 99 percent of our national wealth. The one percent always declare that 'Greed is Good' . However, that can only be true in moderation, otherwise they choke the golden goose who provides that wealth ....We, who are the sheeple.

Unions raise our standards of living and living costs to some degree to be sure. Professional associations, on the other hand, raise our costs of living dramatically because, unlike unions, associations have no downward pressure against their alarming upward march to runaway levels of income greed.

Dental associations set rates that seem fit for only the highest income earners. Our national health costs have become impossible, because all health professionals belong to associations who set rates at ever higher levels. When we can not keep our teeth healthy the health care system is swamped with huge demand consequences. A government dental care subsidy would help preserve our health care system saving more than it costs.

Vets who care for your dog and cat have their association set rates surprisingly high. I was shocked to find that the cost to inject a final mercy needle for a very old cat was One Hundred and Thirty Dollars.

Clever CEOs make million dollar bonuses because they trick us common folk into paying much more for goods and services without us noticing how it is done and thus they avoid public backlash. No wonder they make the big bucks.

The crafty CEOs at BC Hydro adopted a two tier rate of billing for our electricity. The concept was to encourage us to use less and stay in the lower tier for the sake of the environment.  No  protest  and no recognition of  the  trick  in  the  media.


In reality though, this was a big rate increase, since no one can keep within the lower tier as the bar is set too low. If I , as a lone resident, and a frugal, [ Jack Benny Cheapo], type can not stay out of the upper tier of consumption, then it follows that no family household can avoid the upper tier and thus the higher electrical consumption rate hike.

The slick CEOs at BC Ferries managed to raise ferry fares Eighty Percent [80%] since 2003. According to an expert interviewed on the CBC. There was no massive revolt, however. Only recently has there been threats of boycotts Cleverness continues, and the BC Ferry execs promised that fares would not be raised again for a while. So boycott threats subside and we the sheeple are appeased.

Environment fees are another golden income goose for the government. Recently I paid a $6.50 enviro fee on a $89 printer. That’s a massive percentage rate for the fee. The government is raking in a golden windfall on these exorbitant fees. Good for provincial debt reduction and better odds for re-election. The BC HST was one sneaky venture that didn’t get by us. Goodbye premier Gordon Campbell. No bonus for you, only a giant sized pension.

Everywhere we turn, rates are going up while our incomes and jobs in general are going south. You would think the smart money hoarding one percent could see how this threatens the very value of their monopoly wealth.

On the CBC program 'The Dragons', where the phrase 'Greed is Good' is often spoken, they ask a contestant if he has an efficient plant where he can produce his new widgets.

The reflex answer is always, “Yes, we have a factory workforce lined up in China, ready and willing to begin production.”

No one raises an eyebrow. It seems that automatically everyone agrees cheap labour in China is the only logical choice.

So with costs rising and jobs going to Mexico, China, South Korea and Malaysia, one has to wonder how our quality of life in Canada can possibly continue.

The sillyness continues with our shipping out raw logs and now the intent of shipping Tar Sands crude to China.

A new refinery in Western Canada seems a wiser investment. The costs of the two proposed pipelines, [Kitimat  and Texas], and their risks to all water reserves seems like lunacy to me. Refined products dissipate if spilled at sea. Far better than the damage of crude tanker spills that sooner or later kill the BC and or China coastal fishing, seafood industries.

 
Would there be a backlash from millions of Chinese who depend on seafoods if our toxic Tar Sands crude were spilled over their shores, choking out all sea life?

Shipping Tar Sands crude to China seems crassly reckless. Aside from the certain toxic spill, there is the question of careful control of the toxic wastes from refining. China has contractors who dump wastes into the sea. Very profitable but not wise unless you have a clean planet to move to.

So the clever One percent, [Chevron, Exxon, Shell, Cinepec, etc], may consider keeping jobs in Canada, shipping cleaner value-added products and calming the rush to quick dirty profits via ill advised pipelines. One can only hope. They control Harper. We influence very few.

PS.  Remember  the  BP  Gulf Oil Spill?
 BP was shown to be negligent for the huge Texas refinery explosion,2005, [ killing fifteen men]. A few years ago, Bp was made to pay the biggest corporate financial penalty in history. Is there a pattern?  60 Minutes TV...see previous post.


R.I.P.

There are two whistleblowers who did work for BP giving eveidence to CBS 60 Minutes. These two men show clearly that BP was in a rush and ignored the safety of everyone on the platform.

The first man, [Mike Willams] worked on the rig and noticed broken rubber sealing parts in the drilling mud flow. The BP supervisor ignored his warnings and pressed on with production.

The second person [ Ken Abbott ], is an engineer who reviewed hundreds of blueprint drawings for another BP platform [ Atlantis ], with a far bigger oil flow capacity. He is very worried because in typical BP high pressure fashion, 89 to 95 percent of the blueprints were never properly reviewed and approved.

http://tinyurl.com/2fp7xpu

This Link is to CBS 60 minutes excellent account with inside information from Mike Williams.

Whitleblowers, those who have the courage to come forth with the truth, are essential if justice is ever to be fair and accurate.

This is the most dramatic and gripping occount of events I have ever seen. Not to be missed.

BP was shown to be negligent for the huge Texas refinery explosion,2005, [ killing fifteen men]. A few years ago, Bp was made to pay the biggest corporate financial penalty in history. Is there a pattern?

Labels: 60 minutes, BP, BP Oil Spill, CBS, drilling, oil, platform, spill, whistleblower, whistleblowers

Harper and the Conservatives are doing a generally good job, yet there are loose ends that must be cleared up.

Pressed for time? Not really interested? Well here in short form, I ask, is this OK with you?

Freedom quietly ebbs away in Canada via [amateur paralegal] Human Rights Commissions.

In a nutshell then, here is why the Human Rights Commission related trials in Vancouver are so important.

Some Provincial Human Rights *police* have been abusing their powers.

In the beginning they protected rights of the minority from unfair discrimination. A good thing.

Recently they have been unfairly leveling charges and penalties upon authors who express opinions about things like the influence of immigrant groups. Not the same as malicious slander at all.

Authors have made observations about fund raising for terrorist groups, risk prone religious practice, and dress that conceals a person*s identity.

A free society should be able to talk about things that affect our security and freedom even if it does relate to one religious or ethnic group, so long as the debate contains no slur or disrespect.

The discussion of policy and security is not * hate speech*, yet the HRC can charge an author who writes about *sensitive* issues with a crime.

The government backed HRC [appointees], can lay charges and prosecute the author while attending their own employment five days a week without any cost or penalty, except for some overtime if desired.

The author must be absent from employment and pay for lawyers, assuming debt from day one and then certainly pay financial penalties as the HRC has never lost a case so far. [ Fishy?] a Kangaroo Court that is not a real court yet operates in Canada? Impossible, you say? Wanna* bet?

The freedom to express opinions or report on the dangers of some religious customs and deceptive fund raising is squashed by the HRC. Clearly un-Canadian , deceptive and dangerous. [ No appeal ].

Keep Canada free. Do not allow the HRC to stifle opinion and debate in magazines like Macleans, the National Post or the bogosphere.

Learn about this under-reported fiasco in the Steyn - Levant - Macleans Magazine VS Human Rights Commission series on Canadian Blogsite @ -

http://www.SmallDeadAnimals.com
= TG

Labels: Canada, Commission, freedom, Human Rights, Levant, Macleans, Steyn

The Radio1 issue is from 1942






These early issues of S/9 are from 1935



The Hytron Tube ad is a magazine back cover.

The real romance of radio & shipping. . . eh?


Remember to click on the image for a closer view. Images may have been better if I had removed the plastic covers.

Labels: Antique, antiques, communications, Ham, History, Radio

Avoid US dollar value shares?

Stick to Canada, Netherlands, German, India and more reliable currency values?

Addison Wiggins thinks so, because . . .

** Today, there are simply too many dollars in circulation for the currency’s own good. Why? Americans have been living beyond their means for more than two decades. The U.S. dollar’s problems stem from a single cause. **If there’s a bubble,** wrote David Rosenberg, chief economist at Merrill Lynch, ** it’s in this four–letter word: debt. The U.S. economy is just awash in it. **

You’ve seen it firsthand: John Q. Public now holds more credit cards and outstanding loans – with a higher and higher total debt load – than ever before. Outstanding consumer credit, including mortgage and other debt, reached $ 9.3 trillion in April 2003 – a significant increase from its $ 7 trillion total in January 2000 – but by the third quarter of 2007, debt had nearly doubled since 2000, to $ 13.7 trillion. With consumer spending alone responsible for approximately 70 percent of U.S. GDP, that’s quite a hefty personal debt load.

The corporate debt picture is no better. American companies have never depended so much on sales of their corporate bonds. Between 2002–2007, investment – grade corporate bond sales increased nearly 60 percent, growing from $598 billion to $951 billion. But junk bond sales for that same period broke the bank, surging from $57 billion to $133 billion.

The third leg of the debt problem, following consumer and business debt, is Uncle Sam. Government debt as of November 7, 2007, officially passed $ 9,000,000,000,000. That’s about $ 30,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. This total includes debt owned by many types of investors, from individuals to corporations to Federal Reserve banks and especially to foreign interests. (By 2004, foreign central banks had stockpiled more than $ 1.3 trillion worth of dollar – denominated Treasury bonds and agency bonds at the Federal Reserve. By 2007, foreign debt had nearly doubled, to $ 2.033 trillion.)

What the $ 7.8 trillion figure does not account for are items like the gap between the government’s Social Security and Medicare commitments and the money put aside to pay for them. If these items are factored in, the government debt burden for every American rises to well over $ 175,000. In 2005, the Methuselah of investment mavens, Sir John Templeton, then 93, said you should get out of U.S. stocks, the U.S. dollar, and excess residential real estate. Templeton believed the dollar would fall 40 percent against other major currencies, and that this would lead the nation’s major creditors – notably Japan and China – to dump their U.S. bonds, which would cause interest rates to run up, thus beginning a long period of stagflation. He was right.

Don’t let his age fool you – Templeton was still sharp in 1999 when the financial industry hacks in Florida were urging their customers to buy more tech stocks. Templeton warned that the bubble would soon burst. He was right; they were wrong. Of course, he was only 87 back then. He is almost certainly right again. Other great investors, too, are getting out of the dollar. For the first time in his life, Warren Buffett is investing in foreign currencies.

George Soros, who made a fortune selling sterling in the 1992 ERM crisis, warns that the U.S. system could “ blow up ” at any time. Richard Russell, the influential editor of the Dow Theory letters, speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference, warned: “If ever there was a crisis that could shake the global economy – this is it.” Jim Rogers is teaching his daughter to speak Chinese. When old – timers nod their heads in agreement – especially when they happen to be the most successful investors in the world – their advice may be worth listening to.

American consumers, companies, the U.S. government, and the country as a whole owe more dollars to more people than ever before. But perhaps the greatest threat to the U.S. economy is its foreign creditors. There is – or should be – a limit to the number of dollars foreigners are willing to buy and hold and thus a limit to their willingness to service our credit habit. Why? Because the United States, while still the world’s number – one economic power, is showing itself to be an unreliable steward of its own currency.

Regards,
Addison Wiggins
The DailyRekoning.com
=============================
= TG

Labels: currency, dollar, dollar inflation, Euro, Euros, India, inflation, US, US Dollar, Value

Wonderful woman who has been there and seen that.



Excellent focus.

Total clarity without a flood of detail.

Communicating principle to us in her second language.

This is the atrocity Saudi religious police enacted against girls caught in a school fire because their faces were not covered.

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_archive.html

North America should see this video from time to time but alas, Britney Spears stands in the way. = TG

Labels: honor, Honour, Muslim, Muslim women, religious police, Respect, Saudi, women

Things are looking up for us ** Poor Boys**

To go along with the new modern Asustek laptop bargain at $299,

http://tinyurl.com/2zt7et

you will soon be able to buy a car that uses no gas or diesel for 2,500 Euros.

There is a BBC video waiting for you at:
AutoBlogGreen.com

French designed, India made at Tata Motors and a new plant going up in Melbourn Au.

Soon, a car and a great laptop for 9K. = TG

Labels: $299, Asus, Asustek, Bargain, Bargain laptop, Euros, no gas, Tata motors, Van