Should Canada unhitch its American wagon?

[MikeyDB]

Mr. Zzarchov

Put your money where your mouth is....

Have you purchased a computer lately? Why has the cost of computers fallen so dramatically? Could it be that automated assembly costs have reduced production costs dramatically....could it be that so many more people can purchase computers that the R&D costs have dropped and the digital revolution has reached its zenith?

Now why is it that it costs as much today to buy a decent car as a house cost twenty five years ago?

 

[MikeyDB]

Eaglesmack

Canadians don't think for themselves..and haven't for a very long time.... It's been far easier to mooch off the "security" offered by your nations gargantuan military spending...to "feed" off the American penchant for "consumption as progress"....why would anyone "think" for a moment about so altruistic a notion as "national identity" when it's far easier and cheaper! to bum off the United States?

I don't think (I could be wrong...) that Dancing_Loon is looking for an alternate master, but Canadians have been content to be the people who fell the trees and haul the water to appease American appetites for so long...it may be impossible for a Canadian to actually see themselve's as anything other than a proxy American.

I've felt for a very long while that this "identification" wasn't such a bad thing per se but the behavior of your government and your nations people's preparedness to accept the lies and corruption of your government as the status-quo...if not just "business as usual", has soured me on this perspective. One time long long ago the United States held great promise...but the factions of unlimited greed and careless self-indulgence has changed all that.

 

[Northboy]

I'm not sure that we have much choice, since we are effectively under economic seige.

Sure we have ports, but if other nations boats (and its a short list) are the only ones that make Canadian ports their port of call, you know who we have to trade with.

Without logistics (shipping) that flies our own nation's flag, talking about new trade partners is moot.

 

[MikeyDB]

Northboy

Have you checked out a map of Europe lately?

We're "under siege" because we like it that way! We like pretending we're a nation while playing second fiddle to the United States. We have for generations! Japan, Spain, Portugal a great many nations fish the Grand Banks.....our fishing industry somehow can't compete...why is that..?

 

[Northboy]

Northboy

Have you checked out a map of Europe lately?

We're "under siege" because we like it that way! We like pretending we're a nation while playing second fiddle to the United States. We have for generations! Japan, Spain, Portugal a great many nations fish the Grand Banks.....our fishing industry somehow can't compete...why is that..?

I'm not doubting what you say.

Its like we treat this country like our piggy bank rather than our home.

 

[EagleSmack]

Eaglesmack

Canadians don't think for themselves..and haven't for a very long time.... It's been far easier to mooch off the "security" offered by your nations gargantuan military spending...to "feed" off the American penchant for "consumption as progress"....why would anyone "think" for a moment about so altruistic a notion as "national identity" when it's far easier and cheaper! to bum off the United States?

Plus you get to complain all the time. It was just like we always complained about the Yankees (New York type)

I don't think (I could be wrong...) that Dancing_Loon is looking for an alternate master, but Canadians have been content to be the people who fell the trees and haul the water to appease American appetites for so long...it may be impossible for a Canadian to actually see themselve's as anything other than a proxy American.

It sure sounds that way. She is expecting China to welcome Canada with loving arms so Canada can thumb there noses at the US. When in fact China will make Canada so dependent on China as the Chinese have with the US. She wants to cut her nose off to spite her face. China will gladly suck you dry of your natural resources in exchange for cheap goods.

I've felt for a very long while that this "identification" wasn't such a bad thing per se but the behavior of your government and your nations people's preparedness to accept the lies and corruption of your government as the status-quo...if not just "business as usual", has soured me on this perspective. One time long long ago the United States held great promise...but the factions of unlimited greed and careless self-indulgence has changed all that.

And Canada's self-righteous attitude has soured Americans. That is the Americans who pay attention to Canada. What makes Canadians any less greedy or self indulgent? Do you think that each and every Canadian is the pillar of virtue and self sacrifice? Spare me. CanCon has shown every American who gives a hoot about Canada on this virus SOME Canadians have. It is a level of insecurity that is astounding.

 

[karrie]

And Canada's self-righteous attitude has soured Americans. That is the Americans who pay attention to Canada. What makes Canadians any less greedy or self indulgent? Do you think that each and every Canadian is the pillar of virtue and self sacrifice? Spare me. CanCon has shown every American who gives a hoot about Canada on this virus SOME Canadians have. It is a level of insecurity that is astounding.

Born of the same building blocks, the same parents, close to the same history, Canada and the US are more like siblings than any other nations on this planet can claim. Fraternal twins, damned and blessed at the same time, to be ever compared to one another. It breeds a certain amount of bitterness and spite in either twin. A desire to try to set yourself apart. Especially for the quiet twin that no one notices (as you so kindly point out so often). It's not a virus, it's basic psych. And it's not that astounding if you stop and think about it. It's pretty natural actually.

 

[MikeyDB]

Eaglesmack

No I've never suggested that Canadians are the divine keeper of human morality or fairness or justice...that's what Americans do.

If we're insecure it's because we live next door to a beligerant greedy monster who clings to the notion of Manifest Destiny while thumbing it's nose at the world. While accusing Soviet Russia of nefarious placement of missiles in Cuba...America now does the very same thing throughout Europe...while accusing other nations of behavior that warrants disdain and contempt....America gives us Abu Ghraib and an illegal invaision...at least an invaision based on lies and corruption.... while China is welcomed and soothed at the back door of American commerce...at the front door its all shouts and anger at "human rights" issues....

You live in a nation that's demonstrated its corruption and its hypocrisy so often that only the fool would live next door to you and expect anything other than lies and corruption from your nation so yes perphaps were insecure...with good reason.

 

[darkbeaver]

It's not easy to pull the parasitic upperclass of the national teat. Disengagement from Uncle Sam and the banking horde will require war, changeing Canadian politics will require war, finding food and shelter will require war, the time for gradual proactive change has past and past definitively when we adopted neo-liberal economic globalization wholesale. It's been a done deal for that long and the writing has been on the wall all these years. Here's the future, war, destruction, conquest and death measured in the billions. Ten thousand people own eighty-five percent of the planets assets unless that's fixed nothing else will matter.
Food riots and shortages are already spreading arround the globe, even here in North America it's beginning, this coming six months will educate and instruct like no time before. So wallowing in our Canadian identity problem is counterproductive and obsolete in my opinion.

 

[MikeyDB]

Hey Beve how's it goin...

Got that alternate energy program up and running..?

Anyone who clings to the affectation of "nationalism" is in for a huge culture shock. As the metrics of greed and environmental destruction grow and expand, people will move...because they have to...

The "Tower of Babel" is a lovely story, but it's perhaps a glimpse into the future. I don't care if you're a Moslem or a Jew or a Catholic or a Baptist....it's your preparedness to force me to conform to your "beliefs" that raise my hackles. It's inevitable that the reality of human existence on a rock tumbling through space will become more profoundly apparent than it ever has before as humankind is forced through nature and yes to a significant degree his own past behaviors to deal with a mixing of the cultures and blood of every human being.

Too bad we don't have the skills or the temperament to work past our prejudices and greed.

 

[Zzarchov]

Mr. Zzarchov

Put your money where your mouth is....

Have you purchased a computer lately? Why has the cost of computers fallen so dramatically? Could it be that automated assembly costs have reduced production costs dramatically....could it be that so many more people can purchase computers that the R&D costs have dropped and the digital revolution has reached its zenith?

Now why is it that it costs as much today to buy a decent car as a house cost twenty five years ago?

1.) Houses cost more because land costs more for starters. There are alot more people in the world now than 25 years ago. In Canada, building code requirements are also more expensive. Supply and Demand. Economies of scale (as dropped computer prices) don't come into play because economies of scale already took hold millenia ago. There is no sudden need for shelter that didn't exist 25 or even 250 years ago.

2.) Canadian made cars are more expensive because the low Canadian dollar meants it was viable to have labour heavy industry, rather than capital item heavy automated industry. As such no real investment was made (add to that the bad amortization deal Canada offers in comparison to other industrialized nations) and our prices haven't dropped to the same degree. Too much high paid labour, not enough automation. Economies of scale (again) haven't changed anything, because everyone was already buying cars 25 years ago.

And of course, lastly, a "Descent car" these days has a thousand more (expensive) Gizmo's than 25 years ago. Descent cars 25 years ago didn't have ABS, Airbags, GPS, etc etc.

In summation, Cars costs as much as houses did because cars are better now, and houses were worse then.

Things also cost more now, because of over population. People keep having babies, even when they can't afford them.

 

[MikeyDB]

Zzarchov

How long does it take for the R&D, tooling costs, ...production costs in general to come down? Well it doesn't come down very quickly when you fiddle with the axiom of "supply and demand".....a fraud by the way. Change the tail-fins and your production costs go up...get rid of the tail fins...and your production costs stay the same....

Just don't see it do you?

Automobiles like computers were initially expensive to produce but as the quantity produced soared...the costs came down. Automobile on the other hand..."status" and "presitge" and all manner of entirely artificial gobbledegook was conditioned into the heads of "consumers"...who accepted that for their "unique" and "individual" expression it was perfectly OK to pay through the teeth for nonsense!

Karrie drew the line at making mortgage companies responsible for ripping-off wannabe home-buyers....that very same attitude has created a climate of consumption predicated on entirely artificial and bogus guff gulped down by "consumers" sitting in front of their televisions being conditioned to consume between episodes of pointless crap like American Idol ...Survior...and Hockey Night in Canada!

If we dared hold the corporations and marketing people responsible for their fraud and lies over the years we'd have to reach that mental plateau that brings clarity to mind.... We WANT to FOLLOW we WANT to be the SAME as everyone else and we WANT the myth of "individual EXPRESSION" all at the same time. And all the forces of comerce in the world have tweeked that dichotomy to create a being without the facility to differentiate between one cereal and another...between one auto-maker and another between one running shoe and another....UNLESS THEY'RE TOLD WHAT TO FEEL AND THINK BY THEIR TV!

Sheep....willing and obedient sheep but sheep nonetheless.

 

[mabudon]

Just to point out, if houses are getting better how come they're built with stapleguns and chiefly made of crappy materials??
I have a friend who is an accomplished engineer and when he bought his house he purposely looked at houses older than 30 years. We often laugh at some of the crappy developments springing up all over the place on our now useless farm land.

Did you know that your typical Wal Mart store is designed to have a 20 year structure life and be basically irreparable shortly after that point??

Just HAD to comment on the "houses were worse then".. my house is 150 years old and has been moved twice and could probably stand to be moved a few more times, the main beams are gigantic and in perfect condition, in 100 years it'll be pretty much exactly like it is now with only minor maintenance

Once one of them cardboard condos fails it'll pretty much have to be thrown out and replaced- disposable buildings are totally stupid and a real good example of how stupid and shorsighted we as a collective have become- who does it benefit how exactly to make structures out of flimsy cheap garbage??

It ain't the general public to be sure

 

[MikeyDB]

Mabudon

Greetings!

I live in a building that's fifty years old. It was built when labor was cheap and there was an attitude that you were building for extended occupancy and longevity.... Those concepts are long gone. We have to support the myth that centralizing production and hence cramming as many people (labor force) into as small an area as possible will "lower" our production costs.... We've built towering high-rise buildings that require special investments by municipalities to re-route services and traffic patterns ...and some might suggest leaving areable land available for agriculture....

There's no going back.

The age of "disposability-as-progress" has filled our landiflls and poluted our drinking supplies...."Contractors" aren't "trained" and anyone who can swing a hammer or run a screwdriver is offered huge money to join the gravy-train....so what we have are poorly built hard to heat, inefficient dwellings that have a very limited life expectancy.

Progress dontcha know!

 

[Praxius]

Tell me something Loon... Do you want the United States to be an enemy of Canada? Is that the goal? Would that make some Canadians feel good about themselves?

Hmmm.... sounds like a good idea. The trend these days seems to be about security more then money, so if we cut all ties with the US, that would also reduce the threats that come with the US, and are currently affecting our country today, both economically and security-wise.

An enemy of Canada? Meh..... doesn't really matter.

Do you feel so irrelevant that you just want to cut trade and trade exclusivly with China?

Well there are many other countries we can trade with besides China, but for filling in that big marketing gap left by the US, technically China could do.

Would you feel better being owned by China as China pretty much owns us economically.

Well we do have your country's example to learn from to avoid that happening as badly as it occured with your country.... but either way, no matter who we choose to deal with, there's always going to be some screwing over to be done by one side or another.... the lesser of two or three evils if you will.

They will be happy to exploit you if you will let them. So why don't you crawl across the Pacific (metaphorically speaking) and offer China your leash. They will gladly take it with a smile and make you another dependant.

So just because we're sick and tired of the US screwing us over and taking our resources and we're aware of the fact that the US is doing this, hince the reason why there is talk about cutting trade, you think we're that stupid to actually just switch to another country blindly and just let them do the same thing?

Come on now, stop being so silly.

 

[Zzarchov]

MikeyDB,

Do you really think status and prestige are some new thing dreamed up in the last little while? Do you think that art is really worth whats paid? Is the expensive silks of the Roman emporers really needed? Couldn't they have made do with local garments rather than getting silk from China?

Its not your job to decide if others want to waste their money on "Prestige". I applaud any marketing department that can (without lying) make people want to pay more than they have to for their product.

Because in the end that means more wealth for them and their families, for the effort they put into their work, money taken from someone who put no effort into thinking about their purchases.

While I can understand stopping lies or unsafe products, the Idea that status, prestige , branding and other business activities are evil? Its lunacy against the human condition.

When you go to a Job interview do you tell the employer that you zone out from time to time and there are probbably better workers than you available..or do you market yourself to the best of your ability?

Telling people to want what your selling (be it art, a product or just your labour) is not some evil act, its human interaction.

Edit: PS, if you don't like the shoddy dwelling, don't buy it. Its not their fault for making it, its your fault for buying it. If people didn't buy crap, no one would make it.

 

[Praxius]

Eaglesmack

Canadians don't think for themselves..and haven't for a very long time....

Speak for yourself... but then again, if you're Canadian, then apparently you don't speak for yourself either, nor think for yourself by the above explination. So since what you just claimed above claims that we don't think for ourselves, and you have that Canadian flag by your name, you also didn't think of that comment to say we don't think for ourselves, and somebody else thought it up for you, therefore should we even be listening or paying attention to this above comment in the first place since you're not thinking for yourself?

I mean seriously, either what you state is true and none of us think for ourselves, therefore reading your comments now are pointless...... or you're wrong in your assumption, Canadians do think for themselves, therefore reading your comments are now pointless..... which is it?

It's been far easier to mooch off the "security" offered by your nations gargantuan military spending...to "feed" off the American penchant for "consumption as progress"....why would anyone "think" for a moment about so altruistic a notion as "national identity" when it's far easier and cheaper! to bum off the United States?

Bumming? Who's going to be bumming for a large amount of fresh water very soon? How about all dem other resources they take from us, because it's cheaper and comes from a shorter distance then some other country?

Uranium?

I don't really need to go further on this.

I don't think (I could be wrong...) that Dancing_Loon is looking for an alternate master, but Canadians have been content to be the people who fell the trees and haul the water to appease American appetites for so long...it may be impossible for a Canadian to actually see themselve's as anything other than a proxy American.

Nope... I'd love to see a complete 180 in our society in many aspects. Let the dice roll and see what the future holds.

I've felt for a very long while that this "identification" wasn't such a bad thing per se but the behavior of your government and your nations people's preparedness to accept the lies and corruption of your government as the status-quo...if not just "business as usual", has soured me on this perspective. One time long long ago the United States held great promise...but the factions of unlimited greed and careless self-indulgence has changed all that.

I just see it as the US is swirling down the crapper due to many of their own actions and perhaps we should cut the cord before we go with them.

But that'd be good for the US as well.... if we all just went back to a more internal / border fueled society, the US could focus more interests into what their country needs right now, and so too could Canada/Mexico. Right now we're trying to fix countless messes in our own countries, all the while we're trying to please the other countries for their own needs..... pretty well all the same thing, just much more confusing, more red tape and slower to see results.

Pump our military back up to what it used to be, bring back more jobs into our countries, revamp the government and revamp our trading policies.

But then again the 2 Amigos are currently planning out their little schemes for our countries as we speak.

 

[MikeyDB]

Oh Zzarchov

What a twisted world you accpept as "wonderful".... It's perfectly OK with you that several million people are lied to...there's no other word for it..when it comes to marketting?

If you charged the amount of money a Canadian or an American would accept as wage for producing that garment do you think there'd be sweatshops in Bangladesh and China and Sri Lanka and and and....
You think it's some noble thing apparently to prey on the intentionally lobotomized consumer through supporting slave-wage industries all over the world...?

You think it's amusing perhaps that a person havesting a crop in some far away country is paid dirt while some dense Canadian or American believes that there's a plot-afoot to "take jobs away from us"...when it's American and Canadian corporations buying and selling people into slavery in foreign nations?

It's despicable to consider that the enormous salaries of ad executives is worthy of acclaim at their ability to hide the truth....

Ever considered politics ...you have the perveristy requirement down pat!

 

[Praxius]

Eaglesmack

No I've never suggested that Canadians are the divine keeper of human morality or fairness or justice...that's what Americans do.

If we're insecure it's because we live next door to a beligerant greedy monster who clings to the notion of Manifest Destiny while thumbing it's nose at the world. While accusing Soviet Russia of nefarious placement of missiles in Cuba...America now does the very same thing throughout Europe...while accusing other nations of behavior that warrants disdain and contempt....America gives us Abu Ghraib and an illegal invaision...at least an invaision based on lies and corruption.... while China is welcomed and soothed at the back door of American commerce...at the front door its all shouts and anger at "human rights" issues....

You live in a nation that's demonstrated its corruption and its hypocrisy so often that only the fool would live next door to you and expect anything other than lies and corruption from your nation so yes perphaps were insecure...with good reason.

In a nut shell, yeah... what he said.

Eagle your response was more of a "You'll miss us when we're gone.... you don't know what you had!" ~ And like any low self-esteme beaten girl, we're expected to believe "Oh, well maybe they're right, maybe they changed.... maybe this is love..... maybe this is as good as I can get." Only to come back to it all again and get the whiskey bottle to the head again, not learning our lesson.

Plenty of other Fish in the Sea. Perhaps we're just tired of dating the football jock of the world and are now getting into the nerdy computer guys from Asia.... now that's where the bling is.

 

[MikeyDB]

Praxius

I didn't put that little Canadian flag there. And I'm sorry you're uncomfortable with the reality that CAnadians don't think and havent for a very long time. How do you think successive corrupt governments have been elected in this country? Why do you think that Canadians aren't buying Candian produced goods but flocking to buy junk at Home Depot and Walmart that's produced in third world nations? Why do you suppose there are line-ups around Timmy's to gulp down a coffee that's been provided by slave-wages in fields far from you cozy community? Why do you suppose it's accepted by Canadians that twenty-two years later the monkey-farts that call themselves CSIS and the RCMP fall all over each other avoiding the issues of their entrenched incompetence and failures...from Air India to Mayerthorpe to pension fund fraud etc. etc. etc....

How do you accept that year after year Canadians are content to live with escalating costs for everything while Americans hold us to "agreements" they're willing to break in a heart-beat and gouge us all at the gas pumps buying gasoline made from oil they purchased from Alberta?

Canadians are stupid Paxius because they're unwilling to take a stand on anything. They're sheep who embrace their ignorance.