The labor laws in Québec are, how to put it "gently", more obvious & less restrictive on BOTH the employers and any potential workforces. UFCW gave me & plenty of others excellent work conditions & a reasonably good salary in a Renovation center as salesman between 87/92 (long time ago, i know, the dynamics have changed since and yet, recession helping i STILL had a family of four to sustain)... that didn't stop the ownership from selling & demolishing the "old" stores and starting big-box style alternatives to compete with Home-Depot (sounds familiar?), Rona and the likes. We delt with contractors as often as with the one-time walk-ins for

The staff turnover rate in such commerceS has a serious impact on quality of services since customers have lower chances to meet the same staff year after year. Experience matters when you need clear advice on such important purchases -- you don't want to renovate your precious houses the wrong ways, for that you need reliable solutions at optimal costs, etc.

Wally Marty did exactly as when Hyundai failed in Bromont, they built the huge places. And once personel had *legally* signed for syndication - they simply closed the stores. And that's not counting the part-timer scams by scheduling people on restricted "hours" at minimal salaries to maintain Payroll expenses at INCREDIBLY lowest possible costs. Respect your co-workers, give them a real smile worth reasonable & earned money or CLOSE them all, one by one never to return in Québec -- or Canada, btw.

But they won't do that, do they -- too profitable for investors rather than the daily punch_clockers of a group of employees which must face the very same economic conditions as anyone else outside these walls. For every dollars they don't see on their payckecks, consumers get and buy a quick flood of items. Invaluable savings for their family budgets? Sure?

Raising taxes doesn't actually work if you want to increase revenue. Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Bush lowered taxes, and tax revenues went up. At some point, economic activity is stifled, and revenues go down. There's no point engaging in some activity if the government is going to take most of your money. The rich already pay the vast majority of taxes, and if you took all their money, you couldn't possibly pay for all the schemes.

Money is an issue when you can't afford something, and no country can afford to pay for an unlimited amount of treatment. The Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare scheme is going to collapse as it is, and adding another insanely expensive scheme to that will merely hasten the collapse, and then what happens to health care?

Read my first post about one of the provisions in the Senate  bill, and consider the implications. Health Police, with the authority to monitor your life, and instruct you as to your eating, exercise and smoking habits. Consider how many employees would be required to carry out such a scheme, and how much that would cost.

Claiming that the opposition to the bills is financed by the insurance industry is ludicrous. The supporters, on the other hand, are financed by Acorn, the SEIU, and the Democrat Party and it's supporters. Now the Democrat party is organizing what they call "grassroots" demonstrations. That support is artificial; the opposition is real.

I am still wondering whether the (however many) real grassroots supporters of the healthcare reform are shouting "We care and want to give our own money to help other people!" or "We care and want other people to give their money to help us!".

In other words, how many of the caring supporters of Obama's plans are in it for the chance to give money to other people (and why didn't they already organise such a system a long time ago) and how many are in it for the free lunch?

The reasoning behind sustainable growth is that you need productivity & infra-structures; artificial influx by dropping values of both cannot be "compensated" by any coincidental market conditions (be it offered or enforced, btw). That's where some estimated Trading pacts were to be the temporary solution for a quick balance out of money flows not printed but applied to solid but stable mechanics of transactions between pooled countries (EU, NAFTA, etc).

You've got meat & TeeVees, here's wheat or rice -- sort of.

And since currency "evaluations" are just a transitional factor, anyone still is dependant on Offer/Demands activities.

The housing market collapse was brought about by Democrat policies of providing mortgages to people who couldn't afford them through Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae.

Should we call off the war against terror? You know, just let them have a free hand? What the heck, it costs too much, anyway, right?

A lot of rich people are rich because they are productive, and provide employment for the rest of the populace. Socialists don't produce wealth, they steal it; they run out of other peoples money sooner or later.

New Orleans was a Democrat disaster; the governor (a Democrat) didn't allow the federal government in in time, the mayor (a Democrat), didn't bus people out when he could have, and the funds allocated for levee repair weren't used for the repairs.

Such as; India, Japan, Russia or Taiwan?

Four of which have better interests to (i dunno, somehow) keep watch rather than interfere when called for. Diplomatically yours or implicitly theirs makes central Asia as much of a bottleneck as Tibet staring up at the Himalayas.

No wonder Indonesia and the Phillipines are located in the Pacific ocean. Call it a coincidence of distance from foot steps or triggered missiles.

Duh -- since when socialism doesn't employ people to generate wealth also.

I read on Wikipedia:

In 1977, the Carter Administration and the United States Congress passed and signed the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or CRA , designed to boost lending in inner cities with areas of extreme blight by forcing area banks to open new branches in these areas and to have a certain percentage of their lending portfolio of small business loans and home mortgages located in these areas. Failure to maintain this ratio would result in the banks being prevented from opening branches in other areas that were not distressed.

In 1999, Fannie Mae came under pressure from the Clinton administration to expand mortgage loans to low and moderate income borrowers by increasing the ratios of their loan portfolios in distressed inner city areas designated in the CRA of 1977. Due to the increased ratio requirements, institutions in the primary mortgage market pressed Fannie Mae to ease credit requirements on the mortgages it was willing to purchase, enabling them to make loans to subprime borrowers at interest rates higher than conventional loans. Shareholders also pressured Fannie Mae to maintain its record profits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_mae#Contributing_factors_and_early_warnings

It goes on to say how the Bush administration added to this, but apparently that was done with government grants to help people pay mortgages.

You seem to be right.

The war against terror is something we have to fight regardless of the economy goes. Nobody is safe unless the terror regimes are stopped. And the later we fight the war, the more expensive will it be, both economically, and in human terms.

Well... socialists do produce wealth and do not necessarily steal. There are two types of socialists. The first type believe that everybody should contribute according to their means. You can find those on kibbutzim in Israel and among the early Zionists. The second type believe that everybody should receive according to their needs (as defined by who-knows-who). You can find those among the unemployed and lazy.

Anyone who believes in solidarity should ask himself what he can contribute and not what he can gain from it. But I don't see protesters on the street demanding that government accept their labour or money to help provide healthcare to other people.

That's what I heard. But apparently the Bush administration should have known that the Democratic administration of Lousisiana was incompetent and should have taken over funding of the levee repairs when the state government decided not to repair them any more.

So does slavery. But slavery itself is not productive without using other people's labour without their consent.

Excellent summary of the "situations".

Lemme add that private insurers have already cashed in the process and wouldn't possibly stand for any restrictions that would limit the juicy pipeline of steady profits. So don't worry, citizens, you're still covered and pending to receive treatments when you must. How efficient and reasonably priced those will be is a whole different issue.

I have the most excellent book with short stories about socialism; the auto-biography of an Israeli author who grew up in Hungary and escaped the Nazis and the Stalinists and then fled to Israel after working as a newspaper editor in Soviet-occupied Hungary for a few years.

It's not available in English, I have checked. Apparently it exists only in Hebrew and German, the two languages in which the author wrote his books. I have a copy.

I will translate and post a few excerpts on my blog here and link to them. I think it will give an interesting perspective.

I can't do it immediately as it is 5 PM now and I am expected in shul. But tomorrow evening I'll be back with that.

Yup, Egypt built the Pyramids and splendidly luxurious castles popped up like mushrooms in Europe during the Dark & Middle Ages. What time is it on your wrist watch?

What does it have to do with time?

Reagan/Mulroney(88) & Bush/Mulroney/Salinas(92)... Effects, you meant.

The world, you, me has changed radically since.