Ideas & Questions

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Ideas & Questions; Published: 12 October 2016; Hits: 2270

One of Trump's lines that attracted a lot of attention in the restaurant was when Hillary accused him of paying not tax for 20 years, to which he replied "That Makes Me Smart!". Well, sorry to disagree, it means that you have smart accountants and investors working for you. But I was struck by how many of our customers - those in business, especially, but quite a few who aren't as well - agreed with him. I beg to differ. It's called "Gaming the System" - moving your offices to Ireland - think Apple and Facebook - to take advantage of greatly reduced taxes - is shit. Companies do it all the time. Good business is not good citizenry.

If people demonstrated the same integrity that business do no taxes would ever be paid. We'd have a nation of people on EI, getting welfare, Subsidized housing, child support, free dentistry and be using the food banks and subsidized school and luncheon programs for our children. People who do this we realize intuitively are shitbags. We all collectively pay for so that they don't have to. Businesses that use similar loopholes, only many orders of magnitude greater - are shitbags as well. Trump, by his own admission, is that shitbag.

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Ideas & Questions; Published: 05 August 2016; Hits: 2244

(This started as a conversation with the owner over lunch, discussing Brexit, he didn't understand, "But Rich People Create Jobs" he argued...I couldn't respond in person. He wouldn't understand.)

True, Wealth creates jobs, but not wealth in a person. Distributed Wealth creates jobs. Wealth in a single individual is wasted. One man or woman can only consume so much - and while the very principle of wealth favors superfluous and excessive consumption, even that generally has limits...

Allow me to explain. Wealth - given the scale - the orders of magnitude - that separate the rich from the poor - has it's limits. A poor person (not homeless) - has an apartment, a poor car, eats, well, basic food. This person makes maybe $15 or $20 an hour. He/She pays $1000 a month for an apartment, $200 a month for the car, another $300 for miscellaneous expenses, leaving a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars, left over for "luxuries" like liquor, cigarettes, restaurants, pubs, etc. There is very little left over for saving. Usually nothing, but if you're a Temporary Foreign Worker you'll find a way, live 6 people in a single bedroom, eat 3 pounds of rice a day, whatever it takes. If you've been poor you know.

If your wealthy, and let me set an imaginary limit here: Ten Million Dollars a year.

Link: The top five executives at Shaw received a total of about $49 million.

Shaw Cable is a publicly traded company and so must disclose it's earnings. Privately traded companies don't have to. Imagine.

In any event you earn $10,000,000 VS 40,000 per year. The upper end of poverty in Calgary. You are earning 250 times what the well-to-do poor people of Calgary earn.

No matter how refined your tastes are you can't consume that much fine wine. Or cigarettes. Or food. Or housing. They (the rich) try, but it always fails. And so the remainder they throw in the bank, investment portfolios, the what-have-yous. Take expensive vacations abroad (but the income earned locally is now dispersed to other countries and disappears.).

At 250 times the earnings of the (relatively wealthy) poorest earners, they perhaps save or invest 8 million out of 10. Factor in Taxes, we'll pretend they pay the same rates as us, (they don't, they have opportunities to use loopholes and tax laws we'll never know of) maybe 4 million. This money disappears, "in reserve", perhaps invested locally (although usually not) - and it's presence is largely recorded on paper, not in the real world.

The poor, meanwhile, 250 people (minimum, some will have dependents, wives, children, others) will continue to pump almost the entirety of their earnings into the economy. The majority of their earnings are required for food, lodging, living, etc. There is rarely anything left over. Everything they earn is tangibly invested in the world around them. They pay more rent (250 times a thousand is easily greater than than the largest mortgage payment any rich person makes in Calgary), they spend more on food, they spend more on dining out and luxuries, more on maintaining their 250 beater cars, I could continue. You get the idea.

The investment in the economy - local and otherwise - is far, far greater by the poor than it is by the rich. The rich generally do harm to the economy - investments that speculate on housing drive up rents, that speculate on commodities drive up the cost of food, fuel and the necessities. This is straightforward and intuitive, it should require no explaining, but talk to a rich person and see how well they understand.

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Ideas & Questions; Published: 04 August 2016; Hits: 2167

Something that has gone missing from society in general is "Accountability". That is the premise that people and corporations be held liable for their actions.

This is of course, to be expected - no one wants to be held accountable for their actions unless the consensus is favorable, and as people and corporations assume power they generally manipulate and adapt the "system" to remove accountability from their person or office. A classic example is the extrajudicial killings by President Obama of a variety of imagined terrorist threats:

Links:

Now, given the abuses of position held by the President, it should come as little wonder that these same or similar abuses are perpetuated by police and security administrations. And the abundance of abuses by minor officials constitutes the single greatest threat to American Civil Liberties in the 21 Century.

We can fix this.

Link: Wiki on Accountability

Bring back Accountability. Citizens, ordinary (and by "Ordinary" I mean the democratic ideal of average, regardless of color/wealth/social status) are accountable. (OK. This is a fiction, but if you fit the arresting officer's definition of "ordinary" you will be accountable. Depending on how far above/below ordinary the officer ranks you will determine your accountability).

For officials holding Public Office - Police Officers, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Judges, etc. - Classical Tradition holds that they are more Accountable. Hence the beheading of Kings and Queens, the extreme punishment of bribed public officials, the summary execution of police officers and other officials viewed to be corrupt throughout the world. These positions - in civil service and otherwise - are positions of public trust, and breaches of that trust demand severe and expedited justice.

***

Accountability - to be properly implemented - demands a higher bar for any officials of public trust - whether they be police officers, bankers, politicians or priests. Justice for these individuals is imperative. It should be expedited, swift, and exemplary (breaches of that trust are subject to public scrutiny. The public's attention span is short, and the warning is served to all possible offenders. Public Morality is determined largely by the behavior of it's most visible figureheads.). Presidents and Heads of States should be subject to an extra-judicial review board (upon leaving office) with members comprised of elected and informed citizenry. Police should be held to the same bar. And nowhere should we see the phrase "Internal Review" - this is as much to say "Nigga-Killing-Cops-Judge-Nigga-Killing-Cops". Every like-minded thief or murderer will judge a fellow murderer or thief kindly, sadly, the citizenry is not comprised of like-minded thieves and murderers, and so "Internal Review" is an oxymoron. Any review - good or bad - has to be external. They exist to serve the public, not themselves. Policies need to be decided not by the people enforcing them but by the people they are intended to serve. Extra-Judicial means, in this instance - the expedited summary of public opinion and wrath visited upon the person perceived as having violated their trust.

***

Accountability. The first step in the right direction.

Details: Written by: Rod Boyle; Category: Ideas & Questions; Published: 04 August 2016; Hits: 1992

There are places in society where money has no currency, or to attempt to use money is acknowledged to be wrong.

One example of this is Sex. While a woman's body is her own to do with as she chooses, we have any number of pejorative terms to describe any woman who exploits this for money (and most civilized people will have a similar prejudices against the men purchasing affections.). A slightly less obvious example of this is the Trophy wife, wherein the woman is disproportionately younger or more beautiful than her partner - an alliance of comfort or convenience, and while outwardly we tolerate it privately we observe and condemn it.

Religion and spirituality is an arena where most people realize that money has no influence. Disregarding the obvious hypocrisies of the Christian and Catholic traditions, most of it's most venerated leaders and saints have been poor, and no one of any credibility or sense would equate wealth with enlightenment.

Politics and Justice. This will be less obvious because both Canada and the US have entrenched systems of bribery, but in the purest, most abstract sense ideal government should reflect the will of the people and be uninfluenced both by individuals and companies with vested interests. Governance is both for and by the people. Allowing lobby groups and corporate interests to "donate", "fund" or otherwise "support" political parties that will further their interests is Bribery by another name, and obfuscates the value and purpose of politics. Voting and Politics are currently done on a "Per Dollar" basis, where every unit of currency has measurable influence, whereas Democracy was founded upon the principles that every individual had a measurable level of influence. While most parties currently rely on funding from the private sector to further their agenda, to have a true democracy we would need to remove this funding and create a system whereby the people allot a discreet ration of government funding to each party, providing a level playing field. Comparatively it would cost us very little and provide enormous benefits, however stopping the corporate juggernauts is not so easy.

In Justice, the corrupting influence of money is entrenched and transparent. We hear reference to the cost of lawyers, generally prohibitive, the implication that the more one spends on one's mouthpiece the "better" or "more favorable" the quality of justice one can expect. While on the one hand this is clearly true we should remove the word Justice from it, you might be buying laws or outcomes (the same laws that corporations have had created and revised ad-nauseum to protect their interests), but you are not buying Justice. The topic of corporations is the subject of a different post.

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