I have noticed that many comments are totally off topic -- so readers comment on the Mensah case (and I agree that Dangerous Offender Status seems appropriate) in a Reform Party post. For a moment I thought of pulling the comments, but then I thought again because I never pull comments unless violent, sexually explicit or bigoted. Even if you think I am totally wrong -- and many comments suggest that -- I am happy for the response.
So, I will try to post once in a while calling for comments on anything. Perhaps that will spark posts but, if not, it will still allow for an exchange.
SO, COMMENT AWAY!!!
5 comments:
If you get more comment volume maybe be more conservative.
Some platform ideas for any Party.
1) An econoblog mentioned workers are having trouble (prolly USA) get hired for their first position. An employer tax subsidy for one's first job after a given HS degree, or any other novel career training/education, would help. The logic (says my lost econoblog reference) is employers look highly upon having work experience when hiring. Employees with seniority might be hurt but if they are benefitting as a result of disproportionate newbie penalty....if the subsidy causes employers to look less favourably on a subsidized 1st job, it is undoes such an idea.
2) There is a paper that notes teacher performance does not scale with competance. I forget the specifics but something like you learn most of yout teaching skill improvements in your first 9 years of teaching and seniority pay continues to rise well after that (should rise more earlier and not as much later unless one increases training). Might want to look at adjusting all public sector employee lifetime compensation benefits with skill (important esp in public sector given lack of market force ROI feedback). Yes of course seniority pay is a motivating desire, but skill needs more weighting. Be most pertinent for hiring nurses in the developed world assuming such similiar too much anti-1st-job bias exists in health hiring.
3) I like Harper's commitment to a strong Arctic, but I think it needs to accompany economic development first. To me the biggest obstacle is price of energy. Looked at a wind turbine up north in an IR as a small business plan. With diesel costing $1(?)/kwh electricity in Hudson Bay communities, even a crappy turbine can be a cost savings. But it is the maintainance and repair that costs much; you may need the employees to live there, after being denied welfare in Wpg I'm not going to move to Ranken Inlet to operate a $100000 wind turbine in an expensive community with a deadly winter because I don't want to freeze to death. Locally one turbine was tipped over I think in a James Bay town (a regional construction community college would help, a small turbine isn't too hard to erect and maintain foundation). One worked I think in Ranken Inlet. Even a tiny diesel savings makes this model work. I suggest a bank of small turbines. Household or a bit larger. This way when a turbine breaks you don't fly in technicians and spare parts, you just have an low-skilled employee replace the broken turbine with spares that had already been shipped during the cheap transport month-long summer ferry window. Doesn't solve EE and novel two-power-supply-sources generator problems, but if you get the price of power down in the north, I think everything else follows.
Wave power is natural given their coastline and there is a MB company that makes thawed permafrost foundations. Permafrost melted raises costs (and GHGs), and might be enough to make Arctic economy a dream (unknown yet but CPC enviro-platform doesn't help).
I don't view EI as a social prograame, I view it as income smoothing. Empirically, when I've been eligible I've worked because felt able bodied and motivated. The last times I wanted welfare for a few months (to find *any* non-casual-labour job in TO, and to plan a small business later in Wpg), they looked at my history of temping and manual labouring and told me no.
Iggy and Harper it is flawed. Harper you know this. I bet you don't know the homeless population in Cgy shot up from 600 to 3500 in Cgy 2002-2006. This isn't good for Cgy ER rooms, hospitals or prisons. If EI for those over $50000 were cancelled (since it doesn't function as a social anti-poverty programme to me), and instead a tiny GAI were set up in Harper's tax-free saings accounts (I can't afford $100/yr service fees at present why not make accounts free? That way I can buy stocks)...the GAI could be demonstrated for the first time to the world. Maybe $500 year or something. At the very least, 1/2 the temp agencies in the land don't file employment history to CRA and don't respond to out of city past workers asking for work history record. To the BQ, NDP, Libs, fix this. You think I want to go back to working for the only employers that will hire me after being defrauded? Cons think I don't have a choice. Wrong, fuckheads. I don't have a choice at present from within this Social Contract.
I wanted welfare for one month in T.O. in 2004 to find a way out of casual labour. Instead I found myslef in shelter and with a supervisor who wouldn't give a job for two mostly bedbug (plastic and steel bedframes are cheap, replace all wood frames in all shelters if you want residents to pass a job interview) sleepless weeks. Later she told me it is because I would read in the office from 6am till noon or whenever, instead of sitting attentively(?!). In Wpg later I wanted $900-$1300 welfare to dream a frigging small business. Nope. there went my motivation. I wanted $1300-$1700 those incidents and would recoup in income for myslef in a month and to feds tax revenue in a year. Prohibition from a quality control problem led me to be arrested, not charged, yet probably cost MB $10000 in pointless costs, to the salaries of lawyers, prison guards, police (whining about being short staffed)...this sort of thing is why Doer can't build field hosptials and schools and tech colleges, community centres up north.
The shelter bed costs were $35 night, I was stuck there two months until casual labour realized I was the hardest working employee they'd ever hired. 4x the damn welfare I wanted to get any TO job before I became bedbuggy. Ever try to date without income? Get ID? Get hired? Transportation? Rent?
EI is cannabalizing the opportunity for real safety nets.
Thanks Phillip! Others?
People earning over $50000 or wherever one income can support two children and home, car, should save for rainy day. Of course people are consumers and if we thought more about how to spend money than how to make it, we'd all live to 115 in the careers of our choosing....
I suggest diminishing federal subsidies in the savings account. Add 50% to first $1000 one deposits, that (the federal portion) is lost if one taps it before receiving one's last paycheck.
To preserve mobility I suggest free bank accounts like the $185M/yr plan opposed by a Canadian bank CEO on the grounds of interfering with market forces (so do the $800B in federal loans and guarantees that porky little faggot accepted). Also banks should give a grace period for one to attain local ID. My 2nd time in Cgy I found exactly one landlord to rent from. The deposit was in my account and the bank demanded local ID to access my own account. I had to take the closing account fees to pay my damage deposit (or to pay for ID and wait living on an industrial park hill in SE) and I lost my account. Good thing had a friend to lend.
Also there is a need for federal drivers licensing regulations. I lost the only trade (centra-vac installation) I had when MB decided not permit you to just allow plates to expire instead of turning them in, and didn't see fit to publicize the rule change. Leaving MB I didn't know they tacked on $16 to my License bill and subsequently cancelled my License over non-payment. Fine. Still listed as active in Cgy database yet listed cancelled or whatever in MB. To take a CGY driver's test you can't have an active license in another province and MB takes six weeks, assuming you have busfare, to deal with a $16 fine. Some federal database management is in store.
Yet so many wealthy powerful Canadians blame the poor. About 1/4 the police forces of TO and dozens of officers in Wpg have committed conspiracy; obstructing investigations to save one's buddies is fine, is why Guy sacrificed for his son, but where are the mass firings and house arrests (Lafleur the non-cop paid his debt)?
shouldn't have told me you don't delete posts now
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