You may be eating three meals a day, but many Canadians are not. Our “favourable economy” has not offered a solution to the continuously widening gap in pay equity, or provided relief from skyrocketing food, energy, and housing costs. Our public healthcare is under threat of stratification; our “unbiased education” is exorbitantly priced at the higher levels, resulting in lower-income students accumulating crippling debt; Canadians enjoy “freedom of speech” but the only ones listened to are those able to fund a lobby group.
The Canadian economy will collapse completely if something doesn’t change. Our generation is so crippled by debt that we have no financial base. Most people’s savings have been exhausted (like mine when I was laid off and job hunting for months). The internal support structures that have made Canada the envy of the world are crumbling. What will happen when our parents retire? How will we, who are barely able to support ourselves, support them and any children? Not with any of the low-wage jobs that this “favourable” economy is creating for us.
This rally is about solidarity, showing compassion for the situation of our neighbours. More than that, it’s about addressing the problems that can be seen COMING. Don’t be the grasshopper who sang all summer. Step up. —Look Past the End of Your Nose
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.
Support our parents? Geezuz, our parents are the ones who have accumulated great wealth and have unprecedented retirement plans and investments ~ they are well cared for in their senior years unlike the generation coming along.
Over and over I have sung the tune on this bitch board about not relying on ones employer to earn/save for retirement…..each of us is responsible to ourselves to ensure we are able to sustain our standard of living for the 25 – 30 years after we finish working. I know my sweet azz is going to do fine regardless of the market infrastructure or lack thereof as I have been planning/saving/investing from the day I started in the workforce……..cheers for me! Hope this wakes at least one person up this morning to do the same.
“You may be eating three meals a day, but many Canadians are not.”
But guess what? Most are.
I 110% agree with this Bitch. Nice to see one that is actually addressing the bigger issues then bus bo and bad hair cuts. Bigger issues that need attention if people would only focus there energy there.
HA NSGEU just went picketing by my office…..Good on em!!
What you say may or may not be true, OB. But do you honestly think that a sit in of a few dozen people in a public space is going to change anything of what you said? And according to any of the news stories I read regarding this and other Occupy sites, they seem to be very poorly organized with no direction or focus. It’s almost as if everybody and their dog is just using it as a way to protest their cause of the week. It’s precisely because of this that the majority of the population aren’t taking you seriously. I realize you’re trying to raise awareness and I commend you for that and for exercising your rights, but there has to be a better way than an impromptu tent village on Grand Parade. Not to mention, you just rattled off about 6 – 7 issues facing our nation, all at once in your post that, quite frankly, I remember my parents discussing the exact same issues back in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The problem as I see it is that you (I don’t mean you specifically. I am referring to the Occupy protestors), are trying to seek answers to all these complex problems at the same bloody time. It’s not going to work.
It’s always fun to see Public Sector Trade Unions condemning untrammelled greed and power without accountability. It proves yet again that The Left have been mercifully spared the ravages of irony.
Uhh save up money for the things you want (including education) instead of racking up debt won’t be able to pay off for 50 something years, or at all if something like an “unplanned” spawn or illness were to come your way. Stop asking the government to pay for your own choices. I’m glad my parents didn’t ruin me.
LOL
I didn’t go for the mortgage I ‘qualified for’, I went for the one I could afford. Get your heads out of your asses. I’m not looking forward to what Generation X+3 or 4 thinks we should do to run this place.
The unfortunmate thing is that many students have a mortgage coming out of school called a student loan.
Years ago school didn’t cost you a what a house should. Now everyone has degrees and there are so many people that can’t get a job.
So high priced education worth it?
Should the education system/powers that be be allowing people to go into HUGH debt for a career that chance are won’t be able to get that job in their field?
yeah, we do have it good, don’t we? you know why o.p., because most of us work our asses off, and those who don’t, well they eat better than some of us hard working fucks. welfare is a great source of income, if female, and have 10 kids by different dads. and of course, joe blow sucker worker, has to foot most of the bill for them. then after they turn old enough to fend for themselves, they rob, or steal, get caught, go to jail(maybe) and we have to pay for them again. ain’t life fucking wonderful. seems we are the teets of this forever ongoing fucking thing, and will be, til rules are drastically changed. i’m all for helping people out, but let’s not make it a career,or a life long, pass along to the kids thing either.
um, generation X^3…
as in generation XXX….
as in fuck like rabbits and live off gubment cheques and let the kids grow up and deal with it.
the move’s already started….
Wah wah wah. Cry me a fucking river OB. Not everyone is in your sinking ship. Some of us have excellent jobs, invest wisely, and know we’re doing just fine. Go back to your panhandling and get off the internet.
I posted this in another rant
They aren’t bums, they’re looking for directions to Grand Parade to swell the ranks of the other 300 wankers in the Wall Street protest fuckapalooza.
Imagine 300 deadbeats out of a city of 300,000, that works out to.1% I guess the other 99.9% of us realized how good we have it.
Some of us oldies are nicely off because we WORKED and didn’t piss it all away, there’s always going to be a rainy day and the Government (taxpayers) shouldn’t be your umbrella.
And now that some of us are retired and comfortable is why we invented gated communities to keep dross out.
Nice to see you back Ivanovitch
Yeah, Pork Pie…that may be true for yourself, & i’m doing OK.
But young people working to get ahead can’t save a dime .
Plus the way inflation is escalating, our Retirement savings ain’t gonna cut it at the levels recommended over the last 30+ years.
Then there’s the problem of The US & Euro currencies, the financial sector is a fucking mess & deficits are at all time stratospheric highs !
While Canada isn’t in as near as bad shape in our Banking Sector, those other nations (the USA & Europe) are major purchasers of our raw materials & Agricultural products, stop buying (being able to pay for our stuff) that stuff for a day , will send us in a fucking tailspin !
The World economy is in a very bad way & if a string of Bank failures happens in Europe or the USA, its all gonna come apart like a house of cards !
Hope you’ve got a couple of months worth of food & or the ability to pay for it with something besides paper money !
If someone told me I would have to spend the price of a house for a fucking B.A. I would go to trade school and be a carpenter or something. I got a BA when they were cheap and still should have done that.
You know why there weren’t many at Grand Parade? It was because they were working for the big bad corporations earning *gasp* a paycheque. Just wondering who these big bad corporations. You know Apple (where you use your iphone to tell your friends to protest), Rogers (so your calls can go through), Nike (so your tootsies don’t get sore), Staryucks (for your snobby coffee), Clavin Klein (for your undies), Toyota (for your Prius). Just exactly what do you think your life would be like without them.
And if you’re stupid enough to waste your time in school, then you deserve what you get. As for secondary education there are plently of scholarships and bursaries out there but you will have to look for them. I know it’s work. The military will pay for your education. There are plenty of ways, you just have to seek them out.
Spassibo Vasily. Is good to be back from Gulag. In Sowiet Russia, the 99% oppress you.
But Ivan the vodka makes you not careovitch
Is true Comrade Vasily.
http://www.motivationals.org/demotivationa…
OB, guess what? If you have a computer with internet access, that puts you into the upper echelon of the world’s elite. Most of the world’s population is not as lucky as you to be able to post on a website such as the coast.
m kegg – When they say “Make the Rich Pay” they mean “the richer than them”. Sure, you have the true fanatics who seem to think that shitting in the bushes and wiping your ass with your left hand is a template for where society should be heading, but when most call for an “equitable” division of the wealth, they sure as hell aren’t talking about THEIR ipods, macbooks, smartcars, homegrown, first edition Chomskys, etc.
m_kegg – I think your missing the point. CIt’s corporate greed! Chances are this person paid for the use of that computer through a student loan, visa etc not their money!! Or maybe they went to the library (free)
Anyone who claims to be rich or well off but has credit card debt should think again about their opinions on being rich or well off.
SOME INTERESTING NUMBERS
Many of the reactionary commenters on this thread – those who slam the unions, blame economic conditions on the character defects of the poor in Canada, and generally have the attitude, “I’m alright Jack!” – do not seem to realize that they are complicit in perpetuating Canada’s plutocracy. A recent Statistics Canada “Survey of Family Security” looked at some numbers between 1999 and 2010. Here’s a sampling:
: Median National Income Increase – 23%
: Median National Debt Increase – 38%
: Median Income Increase for the top 20% – 43%
: Median Income Decrease for the bottom 20% – 70%
: Percentage of Canada’s total net worth owned by top 20% – 69.2%
: Percentage of total net worth owned by bottom 20% – 2.4%
: Percentage of total net worth owned by the bottom 60% – 10.8%
: 61 Canadian billionaires own 6% of Canada’s net worth
: 61 Canadian billionaires make up .0002% of Canada’s population
: Bottom 5% of Canadians own 3% of Canada’s net worth
: 61 billionaires own 2X as much as the bottom 17 million Canadians
: Average growth of billionaire wealth – 8.4% (three times as fast as the increase in average earnings for Canadians in 2010)
: Average increase in billionaire wealth – $100 million each
: Average increase of the average Canadian household – $524
: Amount of time it would take, working at current minimum wage ($10.25 in Ontario) to produce the same value ($162 billion) held by the 61 billionaires – 8.7 million person-years
And I bet some commenters are going to rush to the defence of the billionaires.
Have a nice day.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhatt…
As Dennis Moore would say: “Blimey, this whole redistribution of the wealth thing is more complicated than I thought.
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/dennis.gif
PG – your link sums it all up nicely.
“I had my Mac stolen — that was like $5,500.”
Sort of ironic, isn’t it? You can afford to pay $5500 for a computer and by doing so, you’re supporting one of these Big Corporations that you’re there protesting against.
Ooooh the irony hurts.
HERE COME THE REACTIONARIES!
: Paingirl (Oct. 18, 11:48AM) – PG, you’ve got to watch what you read. The New York Post is a rag. It’s owned by Rupert Murdoch and guess where he stands on the Occupy Wall Street issue? That’s right, PG, he’s against it and is ready to smear the entire movement for isolated incidents of theft. The Post has been cited as the least credible major press outlet in New York. It has also been charged with being anti-black and anti-Asian. Try reading a “quality” instead, PG.
: Ivan (11:53AM) – Where did you dig Dennis Moore up? Guess where he’s coming from? The National Taxpayers’ Union gave him a rating of F, their lowest grade. Ivan, maybe in addition to your father’s military cap he left you his jackboots and blackjack as well. Time to suit up, buddy, and start banging heads!
: Pork Pie (11:56AM) – Yes, Porky, PG’s link “sums it all up nicely” … for right-wing zealots like you!
: Avasto (12:02PM) – Someone’s computer was stolen, therefore the entire Occupy Wall Street movement should be scrapped. Good logical thinking there, Avasto! Very good logical thinking!
But, of course, one doesn’t expect logical thinking from the reactionaries, those members of the lower middle class – that “petit bourgeois” made up of lower-level clerks, small shopkeepers, low-end service trade employees and so on who, unbelievably, ape the mind-set of the upper classes little realizing that they are undercutting their own position. I have previously called them “The Halifax Underclass.” They are not working class which is left wing, not liberal-minded middle class, and certainly not members of the reactionary owner classes, but rather are similar to those right-wing elements that provided that fertile soil for Nazism in the 1930’s. But, sadly, their newspaper, the “Volkischer Beobachter” is, um, no
longer being published so you’ll have to content yourself with The New York Post.
Down on your knees and pucker up for the billionaires, gang! There’s only 61 of them! Shouldn’t take long!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
By Odin’s Beard! – this is the second time in a week that Annie’s given me a compliment. What devious form of maskirovka is he playing at. I should read some Sunta Zoo, the Chinese Prince Machabelli. Or maybe just order some Moo Shu pork. Yeah, that’s it.
i also read this http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/the-o…
How about the big load of shit from CUPE. The more money we get the more we can spend in your business campaign. Are they fucking nuts. I guess they forgot the Canadian Union of PUBLIC EMPLOYEES get paid with tax dollars. So more they get paid, the higher the taxes we pay. I have no problems with a person making what they’re worth but this union has no concept of economics.
RSVPs
: Ivan (Oct. 18, 5:04PM) – Don’t forget your brown shirt and arm-band as you wade in breaking those heads, Ivan. Were they some more of your dad’s hand-me downs?
: Paingirl (5:29PM) – That’s good, PG. But tell me, did you happen to see any reference to the stolen computer in The Times? Any idea why not?
: Bro Tim (Oct. 19, 1:40AM) – Keep slammin’ them unions, Dim Bro. The owner classes in Canada love people like you. You do their dirty work for them. But the fact is that you’re the one who doesn’t have “any concept of economics” or, for that matter, any concept of basic sociology. You don’t attack your friends, Dim Bro. CUPE is your friend, whether you realize it or not.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Nope Annie, I bought them in a curio shop after dodging prozzies in Piccadilly.
“CUPE is your friend, whether you realize it or not.”
Awwww, isn’t that cute. The Whippets bought Annie a copy of “Orwell for Dummies” for his birthday, but he didn’t get the joke.
QUESTION: there is a meter I park at sometimes if I’m running a little late. Today I drove by and there was no meter so I said hmmmm and parked there. All the other signs are the same and from what I can tell they haven’t restricted parking there but, can I get a ticket for this? There physically is no meter there any more, just a hole in the ground where it used to be.
I looked up tuition at Dal and SMU, what the fuck are people complaining about? Tuition for 3 years would be the equivalent of a Hyandai Accent, not a fucking house. I used to have a smidgen of sympathy for students and their skyrocketing tuition fees…grab a glove and get in the game.
uh, it’s not that it costs a house… it costs about a lexus by the time you factor in living costs, tuition, books, etc…
it’s that with the debt they accumulate, they won’t be able to get in the position to try to buy a house until they’re in there 40’s.
IE. I’ll likely be paying off student loans for another 7 years… and I got out of school over 7 years ago.
my monthly student loan payments total the same as my fucking rent so upping the payments would leave me with little left for … well anything else.
Is it any wonder I love Giant Tiger so much???
“living costs” right…. living at home and working FT during the summer should whittle that Lexus down to a Kio Rio… but no, you have to have a Macbook and Uggs to learn, right?
Cranky, many friends of mine have parents that … um, I don’t want to say kicked them out … but I guess were not too fond of having a 22 yr old at home. It’s definitely a little easier to convince the parents to let you live at home rent free when you’re an only child, and I can see how the debt would pile up for some people … although, I agree with you somewhat. Using all the money on booze, or MAC makeup etc etc all the time … It’s hard to “fit in” sometimes. Especially when you see rich babies roll out of their parent’s Jag. in the morning, but I can’t hate on the, they are but a product of circumstance. I guess … eye on the prize (as cliche as that sounds) is all that matters.
the boy will remain debt free for a while, mind you, we live a minimalist lifestyle. except for comfy shoes…i gotta have comfy shoes
ORWELL OR DUMMIES
: Ivan (Oct. 19, 9:13AM) – Some questions on “Orwell For Dummies.”
1. “The P.O.U.M. was one of those dissident Communist parties which have appeared in many countries in the last few years as a result of the opposition to Stalinism.” (Homage to Catalonia, 1938)
What do the initials P.O.U.M. stand for?
Answer: _________________________
2. “What is suprising, on the other hand, is the immense horizontal distances that have to be travelled underground. Before I had been down a mine I had vaguely imagined the miner stepping out of the cage and getting to work on a ledge of coal a few yards away. I had not realized that before he even gets to his work he may have to creep through passages as long as from London Bridge to Oxford Circus.”
Name the title of Orwell’s book in which this passage is found.
Answer: _________________________
3. “It is a story of the American in Paris, but not along quite the usual lines, because the Americans who figure in it happen to be people without money.”
Name the titles of Orwell’s essay as well as the author and title of the book to which he refers.
Answer: _________________________
4. “It is a very narrow street – a ravine of tall, leprous houses, lurching towards one another in queer attitudes, as though they had all been frozen in the act of collapse. All the houses were hotels and packed to the tiles with lodgers, mostly Poles, Arabs and Italians. At the foot of the hotels were tiny ‘bistros,’ where you could be drunk for the equivalent of a shilling. On Saturday nights about a third of the male population was drunk.”
Name the title of the book and Orwell’s occupation at the time.
Answer: _________________________
5. “There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously at us. We went round to the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.”
Name the title of Orwell’s essay, the country in which it occurred and Orwell’s official position in that country.
Answer _________________________
Five correct answers: Excellent
Four correct answers: Good
Three correct answers: Fair
One or two correct answers: Fail
Good luck!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Here goes Annie, you’ll have to take me at face value that I haven’t googled it, my pitiful googling talents limited to finding websites featuring mostly naked ladies in articles of Waffen S.S. dress and/or combat uniforms.:
1)In English – Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification – since you have spent time in Spain, I’ll let you translate it into either Spanish or Catalan. You can even take a stab at Basque if you wish.
2) Road to Wigan Pier
3)Blind guess because I honestly don’t know but I’ll say it’s about The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham
4)Down & Out in Paris and London
5)Burmese Days
ORWELL FOR DUMMIES
Here are the answers Ivan. You didn’t do badly.
1. Correct! – “Il Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista.” (i.e., “The Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification.”)
2. Correct! – “The Road to Wigan Pier.”
3. Oh, oh, Incorrect! – The correct answer is, “Inside the Whale” which refers to Henry Miller’s “The Tropic of Cancer.”
4. Partially Correct: The Book is “Down and Out in Paris and London” but you forgot Orwell’s occupation: Dishwasher. Partial marks only.
5. Partially Correct: The essay is called “A Hanging” (not “Burmese Days”) but you were right about the country, Burma. Orwell was a member of the Imperial Burmese Police. He went right out after Eton.
I’m scoring you 3.5 which puts you between good and very good. Congratulations!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!