A couple things...
Withdrawing from a group like this is an idiotic idea. The UN is bound up in dealing with the egos of every little pissant collection of huts under the sun. The G8 and G20 deal with matters that impact our nations directly: like it or not, groups will get together and try and decide on what is best for everyone, and its far better to have a seat at the table, than to have someone else decide for you with no input.
Really? It just so happens that what happens in the "little pissant collection of huts under the sun" has a hell of a lot to do with the economies of the countries associated with these organizations. See a connection perhaps?
Having a seat at the table is, in this case, precisely what limits a government's options with regard to the planning of its own economy. This is not a problem for cooperative governments like successive Canadian governments; ours have, for quite a long time now, had absolutely no interest in forging an independent path for this country (nor inviting all the hostility that such a move would entail from our friendly neighbours to the South).
Yes, they are deciding on what is best for everyone...and basing those decisions on interests which are not those of the vast majority of their populations (hence the legitimate protests on the part of the politically active population--the vandals are a minority of a minority despite their lion's share of media attention).
Yeah, I've sure been wracking my brain trying to make sense of this whole charade. During my years in the work force by the time I retired I came to the conclusion that about 90% of meetings are totally useless & I think with these "Einsteins" it's probably closer to 99%. With speaker phones these days this nonsense is unnecessary. That "lake" they built just put the "icing" on it.
Yes it is quite over-the-top, much like the bs that predominates in these summits (I do recognize that same ridiculous tendency in both the private sector and, embarrassingly, the public sector as well). These little shows of elitism add insult to the injury of how off limits it all is to the populations they are affecting.
Yes, it's going into your local economy. But when you consider that that money is coming from the rest of Canada, it means that money is being taken out of other local economies via taxes to bolster your local economy, thus taking jobs away from other parts of Canada to create them in Toronto. Add to that that these jobs are not even an investment,but a sheer waste.
The positive or negative effects on a metropolis like Toronto seem to be beside the point no? (The argument in favour of these events often sites economic gain as a motive, but is hardly a justification for the organization's existence.)
That said, a city depends mainly on property taxes, provincial payments and the like, meaning it mainly depends on the larger, lower income population base. The disruption caused by something like this seems mainly to be a benefit for the security/law enforcement sector--something the city of Toronto is known to have way to much of compared to other North American metropolises with much higher crime rates--and some high-end areas of the service sector. The costs to the now-disrupted base economy seem to outweigh the end benefits to the city's general population. And yes, as you said, much of that is indirectly coming out of our own pockets anyway so that is a cost that at best can be counted as an re-investment of capital (the legitimacy of which is certainly questionable).
I don't get the cash layout......I really don't.......For that you could give every bloody personal assistant a pope Mobile to ride around in....
lol Nice.
Yes, I think I remember a Toronto city councillor on the news saying that when added up, the public cash put into the summit could've solved all of that city's low-income housing problems into the foreseeable future, with plenty to spare (and having seen how the the average Torontonian barely scrapes by, as opposed to it's latest highly-paid "guests", they need it).
Also, the city has evicted all the hot dog vendors in the area for a week leading up to and a couple days after the end of the event.
…Thus extending the lifespan of some downtown Torontonians and American tourists by a few years at least.
I'll make a prediction right now:
They'll either try and fight to not release the final numbers, or they'll only release a fraction of the overall costs and gains...... then a request for informations will be made and it'll be found out that things were far worse then told..... then an election will be made, the Cons will be voted out, the Liberals will be voted back in, an inquiry will be held and it'll be found that the Cons pulled off their own Sponsorship-like Scandal..... and once again the political cycle will continue.
Then a couple of years down the road, the Liberals will pull the same stunt yet again, an election will be held, they'll be voted out, the Cons will take back over, and Inquiry will be made, yet another Sponsorship-like scandal will be found out..... and by the time everybody forgets about that, the Cons will pull the same stunt again...... an election will be pulled, everybody will forget what the Liberals did, vote them back in..... Inquiry, Scandal...... etc. etc. etc. etc.
It's so predictable it's sad.
…All while the NDP sits on the sidelines and complains, showing absolutely no will to do anything about it. Welcome to Canadian politics.
And no, I'm not some huge fan of the UN..... an organization that's supposed to deal with the issues of all nations, allow all to have a say, yet allow a select few nations to hold more powers like vetoes over others, thus not treating everybody equally..... is a big problem in my books.
In the UN's defence, the two are not the same thing: the SC sidelines the UN, it does not usually represent the UN. The UN itself has evolved far beyond its original post-war role to become a true international body, backed up by well-entrenched international law, especially when it comes to human rights. The SC can't be gotten rid of mainly because of who its members are.
The New World Order is so new it's still going though puberty. OK, maybe just getting out of puberty but not much more than that.
That might explain some of the problems in the world today.
The NWO is really a misnomer: this is the old world order just trying to maintain the status quo. Increased symbiosis of elite power interests and sophistication of resource (wealth) control mechanisms is a natural progression of the way things have been going since the days of Babylon.
The post-war world has seen a rapid progression of extremely complex schemes to keep capital in the hands of the same people by manipulating the economies of their respective countries and negating state (i.e. general population) interference in that process. The elitist nature of these democracies means that governments that aren’t heavily populist, are easily corrupted in favour of those interests--assuming they don’t directly represent them--and act accordingly. Nothing new about it. These summits just rub the "masses'" nose in it.
