Friday Free-for-all!
Hey guess what!? It’s FRIDAY and that means we do our weekly news round up and open topic post. Here are a few links to kick off the weekend discussion:
-BCREA predicts market on upward climb for rest of ’09
-IOC pledges to make up for advertising shortfall
-Provincial revenue forecasts keep dropping
-Number of BC E.I. recipients double since October
-BC Place P3 Roofing?
-Real Estate Council of BC disciplinary decisions
-Renting with Red Robinson
-US Unemployment at 16%
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
September 1st, 2009 at 10:44 am
oneangryslav2:
#115 OAS, I was a very active particapant in the school system. I know exactly whats going on in the public school system. The warts in the private sytem is that they actually insist on your participation and they really push your child to succeed. The public system is just a paycheque factory for union members who's agenda is to push political concepts through the filter of the school system.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
#114 realpaul
Quote:
The school principal from the high school in my home districts cachement also had his boy at my sons private school, go figure.
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You would be surprised how much of this goes on…ie public system educators enrolling their children in private schools.
PS lilypad and oneangryslav2
….. just out of curiousity do you have/had children in the public system?
August 31st, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Lilypad: I agree. I appreciate your contributions to this site, realpaul, but you're way out of your depth (and wrong) when it comes to talking about education.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:02 am
realpaul: For Pete's sake, RP, take a breather.
Tons of kids go from public school to university and are highly successful. The ones who are most successful are those whose parents are involved in the education process with their children and teachers all together in a constructive way.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
GM:
#`111 GM, No one forces a person to get into debt for one thing. When a person has racked up a huge student loan debt they shouldn't expect to turn from poor student to homeowner and vacation taker overnight. You shouldn't think that you can solve the problems you created for yourself by joining a union and holding the public hostage and using the children as human shields.
The scum that walk around the perimeter of public buildings for weeks at a time while parents fret that their childrens education is being negatively effected ( and rightly so) are no better than child abusers who go to prison for lesser slights.
So why do the teachers take there financial frustrations out on the public when the real enemy hides behind the silk wallpaper of union offices and government palaces?
The teachers who graduate with huge student debt can't afford to fill their lives with consumer goods and larger homes after the long struggle they experianced going through University to get a BA and teaching certificate. So you're frustrated, get in line. But don't expect to suck blood out of the public…thats parasitic. We didn't create your problem for you. The government has over taxed the entire population so that nobody can afford to live in this country without huge debt. The government is the real enemy, so attack the government with your union, leave the public alone!!!!!!! Is it just that the kids are an easy target?
C'mon people , the teachers certificate is the lowest rung on the ladder a University has to offer. It's like basket weaving. You didn't exactly try engineering or astro-physics did you?
Why do you guys ( the teachers) expect a big house and a holiday when all you've done is cost through school on student loans? One of the reasons the teachers union is so radical is not becaue it supports the teachers plight, it is because the TROTSKYITES WHO RUN THE SHOW have a larger political power agenda and the teachees are convieniant willing pawns in the game.
These people should be happy to have a job, but no…… they want to live like "professionals". The average lawyer works 90 ++ hours a week as does the average engineer. Thats why they make the money. The teachers want the big money and the free ride on 8 hrs a day and only 8 months on the job. Don't get me started on the diamond studded platinum card pensions the teachers get after retiring early from a job that they can't get fired from, for incompetance to child molestation, the unions got a way to hold the public ransom and keep the worst scum in the public trough.
There is tremendous pressure from the system to get our children successfully into University. It is difficult enough without the teachers and their union running interferance. In order to ensure that my own children gained University entrance I transferred them both to private schools ( Vancouvers best according to the Fraser Institute) and did achieve success. It cost me a small fortune.
The school principal from the high school in my home districts cachement also had his boy at my sons private school, go figure.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
NO -LYMPICS:
#103 NO, well , I remember posting the 'dumbing down' of the primary and secondary schools and how differant standards were being applied district by district. That real brought the bats out of the belfry's. The public knowledge of this is apparently a hot button issue with the BCTF and their thralls in the various unions concerned. Apparently they don't want the public to understand how social engineering will benefit the greater socialist movement according to the Trotksyites who infest the Unions and the executive of the BCTF. Shhhhhhhhhhh !!!!! It's a secret. I also responded to some of the flamers with information based on my own personal experiance of having children in two distinctly diffeant school districts and how the teachers in both districts responded to my kids educational needs when I insisted that they learn to read and write. One school district insisted it wasn't neccesary ( Surrey) and the other ( Richmond) sent in a special squad to respond to my childrens needs when they transferred into the district. The quality of education is distinctly differant in the two districts. One is very ( or at least was at the time as I no longer have kids in the secondary/primary) systems) University Entrance oriented the other ….. not at all. According to the Fraser Insitute, the Surrey district only has 1.7% of graduates able to apply for University Entrance.
But don't you love the way the government has responded to public pressure that little Janie and Johnny can't go the post secondary schools. They have created new 'University- Colleges' which have lesser carreer opps in police work and prison guarding. What a joke. The reality is that if your kid didn't graduate with University entrance equivalency, they don't get to particapate in the post secondary experiance. The renamed vocational colleges are just a politcal sham.
And you're right. The eduacation system is an industry that is sucking the pockets of desperate parents dry in the form of ever increasing tuition fees and ancilliary costs. If kids aren't as fortuneate as to have parents who aren't financial fuck ups they have to go the student loan route and end up with a massive debt to pay. personally I think the tuition hikes are in fact an insidious class war by the Trotskyites but thats another conversation.
The private colleges are the biggest. The Sprott-Shaws etc that suck up huge numbers of welfare recipients who are forced by the case workers into student loans to get them off the government books are simply a revolving door for these people who never get an education that will qualify them for anything except menial labour. The EI counsellours play the same game sending recipients to college onto student loans to get them off the books.
The EI ghouls also play ball with the employment counsellours who job search for EI recipients and get a split from whatever EI is left over after they push the people who are stupid enough to get involved with these parasites into menial part time jobs. These guys are real scum, they work like debt collectors, calling their 'clients' day and night starting at 6 am with 'job openings' in rick shaw pulling and escort services.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
RealPaul said: Specifically, with the teachers, I believe that they are victims of their own greed and political stupidity which has them in a vortex of evil consequence. The unions support perpetual strikes for more money and when they get it the government has to raise taxes to pay for the increase. When the increase is clawed back by higher taxes they ( the teachers etc) go on strike again for more more more. The devil would call this a virtuous circle.
Teachers who are carrying 60 to 80 thousand dollars of student debt when they graduate only have themselves to blame, but when they get into the union they take it out on the general public through the children to pay for their own stupidity. Go figure.
Does anyone notice that before the strikes the union always hides behind the children and screams about special need kids, class sizes and text books, but after a cash bonus to settle they shut about about all that and just take the money? What freakin bunch of abusers and losers. The same goes to all the civil service parasites who think the working public owes them a living for providing them with a cushy job and security with wages and benefits far and above what anyone in the private sector gets or expects. Nothing but pigs in the trough. Viva la Revolucion!
Geez, man, why don't you just start your own teacher bashing blog and be done with it! Such venom and vitriol, and I'm sure you'd tell us every bit of it is deserved. I hope you know that with this load of hatefulness you discredit everything else you say.
Current score: 4
August 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
rp: rp, good point. But a kid with a credit card will blow hundreds of dollars on a new microwave rather than locate a good used one for a fraction of the cost.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
No Longer Looking: A microwave for a student in university may not be a frivolous expense. $50 microwave + $2 cup o' noodle = breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I realize there is usually a microwave somewhere nearby, but it is likely to be dirty or in use. It is easily worth $12.50/year to be able to eat something or make coffee or tea without going anywhere and interrupting your studies. You might even recover the cost just by avoiding the temptation of vending machines.
August 30th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
" The study of money, above all other fields in economics,is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth , and not reveal it ."
John Kenneth Galbraith
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" Of all the contrivances for cheating the labouring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
Daniel Webster
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Old Vancouver Mayor Gerry McGeer .. interesting connection to the B of C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB7GbM1OgzA&fe…
August 30th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
No Longer Looking:
When I was a university student 10 years ago, I lived at home. My parents wouldn't LET me get student loans, so I felt like the poor kid when all my friends with student loans seemed to have money to burn. They all lived the high life, going to the bar, Mexico at spring break, lots of dinner, lunches out and the whole dorm life. Now I am ever so thankful that I don't have student loan debt. I now have friends who are drowning in debt, it makes me feel sick when I wonder how on earth they will ever pay back a loan of $35k when they're only making $15 per hour (because of course, student loans don't discriminate and you can master in basket weaving if your heart desires). There's got to be a tipping point in all this debt we have awash in society.
August 30th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
THE CRIME OF THE CANADIAN BANKING SYSTEM: Bill Abram (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&…
Over the past 4 years, the Canadian people have paid $137.4 billion in interest on money borrowed from private banks whereas the Bank of Canada could legally print the public's money into existence…
Over the past 4 years, the Canadian people have paid $137.4 billion in interest on money borrowed from private banks whereas the Bank of Canada could legally print the public's money into existence rather than borrowing it at interest. "They've paid out this huge sum because our government has failed to abide by the law." Abram, a retired high school teacher and activist on Vancouver Island, B.C., explicates the trick of fractional reserve banking (part 1 of a series);
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This is quite good video.
It made me recall valuable collectibles that exist out there. Banks decades ago did print their OWN money,ie there is one collectible from a Vancouver bank, and other banks in Canada did the same. Kinda reminds you Canadian Tire money
August 30th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
For those of you with children (or planning to have)and looking towards their post secondary education funding
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca
Canada Student Loans and Grants
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/learning/canada_studen…
August 30th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
From Garth's blog
QUOTE:
Lets look at this list and give it the old reality check.
1) Canada is extremely resource-rich
Yes, this is true, BUT! our costs to extract are some of the highest in the world. The President of Vale / INCO said last year the company was unsustainable at present costs. We are now competing with the third world in the resource area. Must I remind you how our manufacturing sector fared against those same countries? Mines and forestry operations are closing all over Canada. So, if you plan to hitch your cart to this horse .. think again….. it’s gone lame.
2) best banks in the world
Sure, if you ignore all the bad debt that’s about to swamp them. Rising credit card defaults and personal bankruptcies. Commercial RE has tanked. And the value of residential RE will be heading downwards soon enough. Only the direct efforts of Bank of Canada have delayed our correction in the housing markets.
3) low crime, high morality/values/ethics
Push people to the wall and we’ll see how this situation changes. Desperate people do desperate things. Our mortality rate is lower than the USA because we pump huge amounts of money into our National health care system. As the economy falters, where will this money come from? Talk to the finance Minister in Alberta. He needs a new revenue stream. Maybe a sales tax is coming. Billions in deficits spending this year ….. and it’s not really that bad in Alberta. Try Ontario.
Ethics? forgotten about Nortel’s book keeping fiasco? Didn’t a guy get arrested in Quebec for a major Ponzi scheme recently? Values? Spend some time on Bay Street. Greed has a very ugly side.
4) wealthy boomers (just look at you GT!)
HUH? Those wealthy boomer all had a collective bath when the stock market imploded last fall. A lot of pension plans are still at risk and the Government of Canada can’t bail them all out as they did at Air Canada. I guess you think all these companies saddled with underfunded pension plans will magically grow a money tree. Yes, the markets have come back ….but, it could happen again. The fundamentals have changed very little.
Taxes must go up to cover all this deficit spending. The 2 point drop in the GST will be back soon enough. As Governments suck money out of the economy to pay down these deficits expect to see:
1. Higher taxes and service charges.
2. Massive reductions in the Public Service
3. Significant reductions in all areas of health care and social services.
4. The gutting of Canadian foreign aid.
5. Slashing of military spending.
6. Interest rates not seen in a generation
Basically, were going to revisit the 1980’s.
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Couldn't have said it better
August 30th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
realpaul:
That's a whole other discussion.
aka the education system is as bad ad the RE buuble.
WTF happened that the cost of post secondary education has put graduates behind the 8 ball before they are gainfully employed, in debt by the tens of thousands. Remember when the BC NDP put all those unemployed forestry workers into computer classes for 10 months so they could get jobs…lol
When I went to both university and college I can't recall any discussions re: student debt IF you stayed at home and drove to school(or took the bus).
I think the system is geared to create students in order to keep them off the UNemployment roles as opposed to a real education. When I graduated from high school, the stats were 10% went onto university….I assume the rest went to trades school etc.
Now, I am sure the ratio is much higher.
However, I keep hearing how dumbed down the post secondary system is. I think that common sense has been displaced by such an attitude, this grooms these graduates to be sheep that buy into the bizarro/Alice in Wonderland warp of modern day world and its unsustainable expectations..they are on a lifetime of credit once they graduate from Grade 12, if not sooner.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
No Longer Looking:
#95 NLL, generally I find that people who have kids in finacal trouble are thenselves pretty stupid with money. Financial stupidity is a learned experiance, as is good finacial management. As a parent it is your 'job' to teach your kid about money and ride herd on them while they learn the ropes. You do not give a seventeen or eighteen year old 'carte blanche' with anything. Kids don't make good decsions, thats just a fact. the current idiocy promoted by the teachers and couinsellors in the high school system is that kids will learn from one another and that parents should butt out. What effing lunacy. KIDS DON'T MAKE GOOD DECISIONS !!!! The current idea that 'kids need to learn from their mistakes' is another bi-line of the systems ignorance. This is exactly wht the average teacher leaves University with 60 – 80 K in student debt.
The 'pimps' ( read advertisers) on MTV etc have really fu*ked with the minds of this current generation in particular. The peer pressure to surround your self with crap is huge. The entire concept of self image and self esteem is wrapped up in a display of popular items. Christ it reminds of Bower Birds in Borneo !! This generation ( and I have been through the parent trap with 'em) is the most shallow and vacous I have ver witnessed. It is a generation entirely without a personality to call their own.
Putting your kids through UNI is/should not be that difficult if you've got half a brain in your head. That will exclude 90% of the population right away though because of the lack of personal financial responsibility of the current baby boomer generation. You would have had to plan ahead, this is not a trait that most people possess. I strated RESP accounts when the kids were born and put $150 each into speculative mutual funds ( primarily gold& precious metals) for approx 18 years and this has more than produced adequate funds to put the kids through school comfortably and stay for a masters.
The bank will issue student credit cards with $500 Maximums. The bills should be sent to the parents not the kids. They should not have a overdraft in any of their accounts. The personal accounts of the kids should be joint and the statements sent home not to the kids. They should get a standard allowance, never more never less, this gives them the savings mentality that they shouldn't think that they can over spend. There are plenty of jobs on campus providing students with convieniant safe working opps. If the kids want extra spending money they can work a few hours a week.
There are lease accomadations on every campus to get your 2nd 3rd and 4th year students out of res and into an apartment like one bedroom or studio. You get a better deal than res rates and you get a guarantee of several years standard rates including cable and utilities. This way they can cook for themselves and they are a lot better off than in the social blender of res with all the 'newbies'.
These people refered to in the article as having kids with finacial problems are just idiots who haven't taken the time to figure things out.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
crabman:
#96 C, 7 x's income in Canada yes, but 10 x's income in BC !!