The day will come, when we will regret turning our best farmland into, subdivisions, shopping centers, factories and parking lots.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it a fruit salad.
Doug Casey
Doug Casey
"Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." – Hermann Goering
It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.
But in practice such a society could not remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.
In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
–George Orwell, 1984
But in practice such a society could not remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.
In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
–George Orwell, 1984
Ontario's hydro pricing.
I wrote the following letter to the Gravenhurst Banner and What's Up Muskoka. Let's see if they publish it. I am going to do a shorter version with more Bala Falls background for the Toronto Star. And a version for MPP Norm Miller.
The Auditor General is not someone to be easily dismissed - although that is what the Energy Minister tried to do - and her conclusions are extremely strong.
Please feel free to distribute this and to use my arguments. All the facts are in her report, and I can supply references.
Cheers, Allan
Dear Editor
Here is a great trivia question to ask your friends: How much has the price of electricity fallen in Ontario in the past seven years? No, that is not a misprint. How much has the price of electricity fallen in Ontario in the past seven years? The answer, contained in the Ontario Auditor General's 2014 Annual Report, is 46%.
So why do you not see that reflected in your hydro bill? Why does your hydro bill just keep going up and up? The answer is due to something called the Global Adjustment, but which would be more accurately called the Ontario Subsidy of Hydro Producers. The price of electricity that shows up on your hydro bill (and here I am not talking about the delivery charge, or the debt retirement charge, but simply the charge for the electricity that you use) is made up of two components: 1) the price that Ontario's electricity sells for on the open market; and 2) this Global Adjustment. And while the price of electricity has fallen by 46%, the Global Adjustment has gone up by almost 1,200%, from $654 million in 2006 to $7.7 billion in 2013! That's why your electricity bill has kept going up while the price of electricity has kept coming down.
So just what is this Global Adjustment? Basically it is a subsidy that is added to our electricity bills, in the Auditor General's words, “to cover the gap between the guaranteed prices paid to contracted power generators and the electricity market price. It exists because most power generators in Ontario have contracts with the province that pay them considerably more than the market price” which is actually only about 3¢/kWh.
By 2015, the 10 year cumulative Global Adjustment cost is expected to reach a staggering $50 billion! To put this in perspective, $50 billion is sufficient to cover the 2014 provincial deficit of $10.5 billion almost five times; it is enough to pay the annual salary of about 2.3 million Ontarians working full time at the provincial minimum wage; and it is about 7.5 times more than the $6.6-billion spent in the 2012/13 fiscal year on social-assistance programs.
And things are going to get worse. As more new hydro plants come online, we will all pay even more in Global Adjustment charges.
The root of this problem is that Ontario is paying huge subsidies to generate electricity that is not needed. Since 2005 demand for electricity in Ontario has been falling. However, instead of adjusting to this fall in demand by reducing supply, the province actually increased capacity. As a result, the supply of available power has steadily increased, and has been consistently higher than peak demand, and consistently much higher than the reserve that Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator is required to maintain above peak demand. And what happens to this surplus? It ends up being exported to our neighbours, who also happen to be our business competitors. Between 2006 and 2013 net exports have grown by 158%, from 5.2TWh in 2006 to 13.4TWh in 2013. Unfortunately, as the export price has been well below cost, those exports are being sold at a loss.
It is economically unsound to keep adding capacity to an over-saturated market. The fall in the market price of electricity would normally result in a decrease in supply, but because of the subsidy, there is no check on the subsidized producers, who keep producing and producing (or even being paid not to produce) whether there is a demand for their production or not. It's as if GM kept increasing production as their dealers were unable to sell their inventory. GM would not normally do that; they would cut their prices, they would cut back production, shut down plants, and definitely cancel any plans for new facilities. But if they were guaranteed that they would get the same price for every car that they produced whether or not any of them could be sold, then of course they would just keep right on producing, and would even add new plants to increase production. And that is exactly what is happening in the Ontario electricity market.
Unbelievably, the province is planning on even more over-capacity - as the people of Bala know only too well. In the light of the Auditor General's report, it just makes no sense at all to build the proposed Bala Falls hydro plant. It would simply increase the oversupply of electricity in the Province, and add to the Global Adjustment, and therefore add even more to your hydro bill.
The Bala Falls hydro plant is not just a disaster for Bala, destroying the park beside the Falls where people have come for generations to visit one of the most beautiful spots in Muskoka, and endangering the water based recreation on the Moon River. It is part of a larger disaster for all the people of Ontario, who are being gouged through their hydro bills to subsidize a few wealthy developers to produce something that is not needed.
It is not just the people of Bala who should feel aggrieved, as their concerns and questions have been ignored by the government and the proponent for the past ten years. Nor it is just the Wahta Mohawks, whose historic portage would be destroyed while the government ignores their Duty to Consult with them. Every hydro user in Ontario, including everyone in Muskoka and everybody reading this newspaper, should feel angry at a government policy which makes no sense and which is costing them dearly.
It is not only the people of Bala who will suffer if this proposal goes ahead – it is everybody in Ontario.
Allan Turnbull, Bala
I wrote the following letter to the Gravenhurst Banner and What's Up Muskoka. Let's see if they publish it. I am going to do a shorter version with more Bala Falls background for the Toronto Star. And a version for MPP Norm Miller.
The Auditor General is not someone to be easily dismissed - although that is what the Energy Minister tried to do - and her conclusions are extremely strong.
Please feel free to distribute this and to use my arguments. All the facts are in her report, and I can supply references.
Cheers, Allan
Dear Editor
Here is a great trivia question to ask your friends: How much has the price of electricity fallen in Ontario in the past seven years? No, that is not a misprint. How much has the price of electricity fallen in Ontario in the past seven years? The answer, contained in the Ontario Auditor General's 2014 Annual Report, is 46%.
So why do you not see that reflected in your hydro bill? Why does your hydro bill just keep going up and up? The answer is due to something called the Global Adjustment, but which would be more accurately called the Ontario Subsidy of Hydro Producers. The price of electricity that shows up on your hydro bill (and here I am not talking about the delivery charge, or the debt retirement charge, but simply the charge for the electricity that you use) is made up of two components: 1) the price that Ontario's electricity sells for on the open market; and 2) this Global Adjustment. And while the price of electricity has fallen by 46%, the Global Adjustment has gone up by almost 1,200%, from $654 million in 2006 to $7.7 billion in 2013! That's why your electricity bill has kept going up while the price of electricity has kept coming down.
So just what is this Global Adjustment? Basically it is a subsidy that is added to our electricity bills, in the Auditor General's words, “to cover the gap between the guaranteed prices paid to contracted power generators and the electricity market price. It exists because most power generators in Ontario have contracts with the province that pay them considerably more than the market price” which is actually only about 3¢/kWh.
By 2015, the 10 year cumulative Global Adjustment cost is expected to reach a staggering $50 billion! To put this in perspective, $50 billion is sufficient to cover the 2014 provincial deficit of $10.5 billion almost five times; it is enough to pay the annual salary of about 2.3 million Ontarians working full time at the provincial minimum wage; and it is about 7.5 times more than the $6.6-billion spent in the 2012/13 fiscal year on social-assistance programs.
And things are going to get worse. As more new hydro plants come online, we will all pay even more in Global Adjustment charges.
The root of this problem is that Ontario is paying huge subsidies to generate electricity that is not needed. Since 2005 demand for electricity in Ontario has been falling. However, instead of adjusting to this fall in demand by reducing supply, the province actually increased capacity. As a result, the supply of available power has steadily increased, and has been consistently higher than peak demand, and consistently much higher than the reserve that Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator is required to maintain above peak demand. And what happens to this surplus? It ends up being exported to our neighbours, who also happen to be our business competitors. Between 2006 and 2013 net exports have grown by 158%, from 5.2TWh in 2006 to 13.4TWh in 2013. Unfortunately, as the export price has been well below cost, those exports are being sold at a loss.
It is economically unsound to keep adding capacity to an over-saturated market. The fall in the market price of electricity would normally result in a decrease in supply, but because of the subsidy, there is no check on the subsidized producers, who keep producing and producing (or even being paid not to produce) whether there is a demand for their production or not. It's as if GM kept increasing production as their dealers were unable to sell their inventory. GM would not normally do that; they would cut their prices, they would cut back production, shut down plants, and definitely cancel any plans for new facilities. But if they were guaranteed that they would get the same price for every car that they produced whether or not any of them could be sold, then of course they would just keep right on producing, and would even add new plants to increase production. And that is exactly what is happening in the Ontario electricity market.
Unbelievably, the province is planning on even more over-capacity - as the people of Bala know only too well. In the light of the Auditor General's report, it just makes no sense at all to build the proposed Bala Falls hydro plant. It would simply increase the oversupply of electricity in the Province, and add to the Global Adjustment, and therefore add even more to your hydro bill.
The Bala Falls hydro plant is not just a disaster for Bala, destroying the park beside the Falls where people have come for generations to visit one of the most beautiful spots in Muskoka, and endangering the water based recreation on the Moon River. It is part of a larger disaster for all the people of Ontario, who are being gouged through their hydro bills to subsidize a few wealthy developers to produce something that is not needed.
It is not just the people of Bala who should feel aggrieved, as their concerns and questions have been ignored by the government and the proponent for the past ten years. Nor it is just the Wahta Mohawks, whose historic portage would be destroyed while the government ignores their Duty to Consult with them. Every hydro user in Ontario, including everyone in Muskoka and everybody reading this newspaper, should feel angry at a government policy which makes no sense and which is costing them dearly.
It is not only the people of Bala who will suffer if this proposal goes ahead – it is everybody in Ontario.
Allan Turnbull, Bala
The Real Meaning of the 1914 Christmas Truce Written by Ron Paul Sunday December 28, 2014
One hundred years ago last week, on Christmas Eve, 1914, German and British soldiers emerged from the horrors of World War One trench warfare to greet each other, exchange food and gifts, and to wish each other a Merry Christmas. What we remember now as the “Christmas Truce” began with soldiers singing Christmas carols together from in the trenches. Eventually the two sides climbed out of the trenches and met in person. In the course of this two day truce, which lasted until December 26, 1914, the two sides also exchanged prisoners, buried their dead, and even played soccer with each other.
How amazing to think that the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace could bring a brief pause in one of the most destructive wars in history. How sad that it was not to last.
The Christmas Truce showed that given the choice, people do not want to be out fighting and killing each other. It is incredibly damaging to most participants in war to face the task of killing their fellow man. That is one reason we see today an epidemic of PTSD and suicides among US soldiers sent overseas on multiple deployments.
The Christmas Truce in 1914 was joyous for the soldiers, but it was dangerous for the political leadership on both sides. Such fraternization with the “enemy” could not be tolerated by the war-makers. Never again was the Christmas Truce repeated on such a scale, as the governments of both sides explicitly prohibited any repeat of such a meeting. Those who had been greeting each other had to go back to killing each other on orders from those well out of harm’s way.
As much as governments would like to stamp out such humanization of the “enemy,” it is still the case today that soldiers on the ground will meet and share thoughts with those they are meant to be killing. Earlier this month, soldiers from opposing sides of the Ukraine civil war met in eastern Ukraine to facilitate the transfer of supplies and the rotation of troops. They shook hands and wished that the war would be over. One army battalion commander was quoted as saying at the meeting, “I think it's a war between brothers that nobody wants. The top brass should sort things out. And us? We are soldiers, we do what we're told.”
I am sure these same sentiments exist in many of the ongoing conflicts that are pushed by the governments involved -- and in many cases by third party governments seeking to benefit from the conflict.
The encouraging message we should take from the Christmas Truce of 100 years ago is that given the opportunity, most humans do not wish to kill each other. As Nazi leader Hermann Goring said during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, “naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.” But, as he added, “the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
This is where our efforts must be focused. To oppose all war propaganda perpetrated by governments against the will of the people. Copyright © 2014 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
One hundred years ago last week, on Christmas Eve, 1914, German and British soldiers emerged from the horrors of World War One trench warfare to greet each other, exchange food and gifts, and to wish each other a Merry Christmas. What we remember now as the “Christmas Truce” began with soldiers singing Christmas carols together from in the trenches. Eventually the two sides climbed out of the trenches and met in person. In the course of this two day truce, which lasted until December 26, 1914, the two sides also exchanged prisoners, buried their dead, and even played soccer with each other.
How amazing to think that the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace could bring a brief pause in one of the most destructive wars in history. How sad that it was not to last.
The Christmas Truce showed that given the choice, people do not want to be out fighting and killing each other. It is incredibly damaging to most participants in war to face the task of killing their fellow man. That is one reason we see today an epidemic of PTSD and suicides among US soldiers sent overseas on multiple deployments.
The Christmas Truce in 1914 was joyous for the soldiers, but it was dangerous for the political leadership on both sides. Such fraternization with the “enemy” could not be tolerated by the war-makers. Never again was the Christmas Truce repeated on such a scale, as the governments of both sides explicitly prohibited any repeat of such a meeting. Those who had been greeting each other had to go back to killing each other on orders from those well out of harm’s way.
As much as governments would like to stamp out such humanization of the “enemy,” it is still the case today that soldiers on the ground will meet and share thoughts with those they are meant to be killing. Earlier this month, soldiers from opposing sides of the Ukraine civil war met in eastern Ukraine to facilitate the transfer of supplies and the rotation of troops. They shook hands and wished that the war would be over. One army battalion commander was quoted as saying at the meeting, “I think it's a war between brothers that nobody wants. The top brass should sort things out. And us? We are soldiers, we do what we're told.”
I am sure these same sentiments exist in many of the ongoing conflicts that are pushed by the governments involved -- and in many cases by third party governments seeking to benefit from the conflict.
The encouraging message we should take from the Christmas Truce of 100 years ago is that given the opportunity, most humans do not wish to kill each other. As Nazi leader Hermann Goring said during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, “naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.” But, as he added, “the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
This is where our efforts must be focused. To oppose all war propaganda perpetrated by governments against the will of the people. Copyright © 2014 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Is your name on this list for 2013
Town of Halton Hills ALYMAN TERRY Director of Recreation and Parks $152,484.00 $1,107.07 Town of Halton Hills BURKE STEVEN Manager of Planning Policy $110,785.00 $805.85 Town of Halton Hills CABRAL ARMANDO Fire Captain $108,089.55 $779.52 Town of Halton Hills CANNON GEOFFREY Deputy Director of Library Services $120,419.02 $875.10 Town of Halton Hills COLQUHOUN R. MURRAY Manager of Information Services $120,419.02 $875.10 Town of Halton Hills DESOUSA EDWARD Director of Corporate Services and Town Treasurer $152,484.00 $1,107.07 Town of Halton Hills DIAMANTI JANE Director of Library Services $146,869.01 $1,066.51 Town of Halton Hills FARR ADAM Manager of Development Review $120,419.02 $875.10 Town of Halton Hills GOURLAY SIMONE Manager of Purchasing $107,502.95 $780.30 Town of Halton Hills GRACE STEVEN Manager of Development and Traffic $110,785.00 $805.85 Town of Halton Hills HAMILTON JAMES STEPHEN Manager of Facilities $108,376.95 $787.70 Town of Halton Hills HANCOCK CHARLES Fire Captain $107,820.45 $767.58 Town of Halton Hills HARRIS WARREN Manager of Parks and Open Space $120,419.02 $875.10 Town of Halton Hills JONES SUZANNE Town Clerk $128,474.24 $936.31 Town of Halton Hills JOSIPOVIC SLAVICA Chief Building Official $128,848.04 $936.31 Town of Halton Hills KLEINSCHMIDT SAMANTHA Manager of Recreation Services $110,785.00 $805.85 Town of Halton Hills KWAST JOHN Town Engineer $122,018.67 $888.00 Town of Halton Hills LEIGHTON MOYA Manager of Accounting $111,983.00 $813.21 Town of Halton Hills LINHARDT JOHN Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability $140,994.83 $1,023.59 Town of Halton Hills MARSHALL A. BRENT Fire Chief $146,869.01 $1,066.51 Town of Halton Hills MARTIN JOHN Deputy Chief $126,831.07 $3,189.19 Town of Halton Hills MCCLEMENTS TODD Fire Captain $104,537.34 $779.52 Town of Halton Hills MCKNIGHT STEVEN Fire Captain $107,438.74 $718.75 Town of Halton Hills MCNALLY TREVOR Firefighter $100,853.64 $672.53 Town of Halton Hills MILLS CHRIS Director of Infrastructure Services $152,484.00 $1,107.07 Town of Halton Hills O'DONNELL WENDY Manager of Finance $111,983.00 $813.21 Town of Halton Hills OLIVIERI HARRY Deputy Chief $126,831.07 $5,410.37 Town of Halton Hills PERES ANDREA Manager of Human Resources $109,742.98 $796.88 Town of Halton Hills QUINTON ROBERT Fire Captain $111,263.05 $779.52 Town of Halton Hills ROBERTSON THOMAS Fire Captain $107,791.37 $767.58 Town of Halton Hills SMITH DAVID Chief Administrative Officer $178,499.91 $1,295.50 Town of Halton Hills SPEAR RICHARD Superintendent of Public Works $111,983.00 $813.21 Town of Halton Hills SZYBALSKI DAMIAN Manager of Sustainability $103,634.65 $724.69 Town of Halton Hills WOODS PAT Acting Fire Captain $102,615.54 $672.53...Second number is taxable benifits
Halton Hills sunshine list for 2012
Town of Halton Hills ALYMAN TERRY Director of Recreation and Parks $141,165.89- $839.58 Town of Halton Hills ANDREWS DOUGLAS Fire Captain $102,098.87- $577.08 Town of Halton Hills DESOUSA EDWARD Director of Corporate Services and Town Treasurer $142,305.60- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills DIAMANTI JANE Director of Library Services $141,165.89- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills DREWLO TED Manager of Engineering Services $115,992.00- $687.56 Town of Halton Hills FARR ADAM Manager of Development Review $111,725.98- $660.89 Town of Halton Hills FORD DAVID Fire Captain $106,689.12- $606.52 Town of Halton Hills GRACE STEVEN Manager of Development Engineering $106,686.17- $632.24 Town of Halton Hills HARRIS WARREN Manager of Parks & Open Space $108,047.20- $626.00 Town of Halton Hills JONES SUZANNE Town Clerk $116,094.47- $688.56 Town of Halton Hills JOSIPOVIC SLAVICA Manager of Building Services and CBO $116,302.75- $687.56 Town of Halton Hills KERR JACQEULINE Manager of Human Resources $100,194.62- $592.92 Town of Halton Hills KWAST JOHN Manager of Design and Construction $111,754.07- $660.89 Town of Halton Hills LINHARDT JOHN Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability $119,210.43- $703.26 Town of Halton Hills MARSHALL A. BRENT Fire Chief/Director $141,420.29- $840.08 Town of Halton Hills MARTIN JOHN Deputy Chief - Operations $115,743.40- $2,956.02 Town of Halton Hills MILLS CHRIS Director of Infrastructure and Town Engineer $141,730.00- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills O'DONNELL WENDY Manager of Finance $100,567.07- $592.92 Town of Halton Hills OLIVIERI HARRY Deputy Chief - Prevention and Education $115,997.80- $5,176.20 Town of Halton Hills PERLIN DENNIS Chief Administrative Officer $178,393.02- $1,066.57 Town of Halton Hills SPEAR RICHARD Superintendent of Public Works $100,408.43- $592.9
Second number is taxable benifits.
Town of Halton Hills ALYMAN TERRY Director of Recreation and Parks $141,165.89- $839.58 Town of Halton Hills ANDREWS DOUGLAS Fire Captain $102,098.87- $577.08 Town of Halton Hills DESOUSA EDWARD Director of Corporate Services and Town Treasurer $142,305.60- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills DIAMANTI JANE Director of Library Services $141,165.89- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills DREWLO TED Manager of Engineering Services $115,992.00- $687.56 Town of Halton Hills FARR ADAM Manager of Development Review $111,725.98- $660.89 Town of Halton Hills FORD DAVID Fire Captain $106,689.12- $606.52 Town of Halton Hills GRACE STEVEN Manager of Development Engineering $106,686.17- $632.24 Town of Halton Hills HARRIS WARREN Manager of Parks & Open Space $108,047.20- $626.00 Town of Halton Hills JONES SUZANNE Town Clerk $116,094.47- $688.56 Town of Halton Hills JOSIPOVIC SLAVICA Manager of Building Services and CBO $116,302.75- $687.56 Town of Halton Hills KERR JACQEULINE Manager of Human Resources $100,194.62- $592.92 Town of Halton Hills KWAST JOHN Manager of Design and Construction $111,754.07- $660.89 Town of Halton Hills LINHARDT JOHN Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability $119,210.43- $703.26 Town of Halton Hills MARSHALL A. BRENT Fire Chief/Director $141,420.29- $840.08 Town of Halton Hills MARTIN JOHN Deputy Chief - Operations $115,743.40- $2,956.02 Town of Halton Hills MILLS CHRIS Director of Infrastructure and Town Engineer $141,730.00- $839.08 Town of Halton Hills O'DONNELL WENDY Manager of Finance $100,567.07- $592.92 Town of Halton Hills OLIVIERI HARRY Deputy Chief - Prevention and Education $115,997.80- $5,176.20 Town of Halton Hills PERLIN DENNIS Chief Administrative Officer $178,393.02- $1,066.57 Town of Halton Hills SPEAR RICHARD Superintendent of Public Works $100,408.43- $592.9
Second number is taxable benifits.
Wisdom From Steve Jobs On The Coming System Reset Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/30/2014 18:12 -0400
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
Steve Jobs used to tell a very inspiring story about an article he read in Scientific American when he was a boy:
He said that the article measured the ‘efficiency of locomotion’ of various species– essentially how many calories different animals spend getting from Point A to Point B.
The most efficient of all? Not human beings. Not by a long shot. It was the condor. The condor expended the least amount of energy per meter or kilometer traveled. Human beings were pretty far down the list.
But as Jobs recounts, the authors had the foresight to also test the efficiency of a human being on a bicycle. And this absolutely blew all the other species away.
Jobs later said that this was incredibly influential on his thinking because he realized that human beings were fundamentally tool creators. We take our situation, however grim or rudimentary, and we make it better.
There’s undoubtedly a lot of bad news in the world these days. Some people realize it. Others refuse to believe it and stick their heads in the sand.
Our century-old monetary system is unraveling before our very eyes.
This absurd structure in which we award a tiny central banking elite with the dictatorial power to control the money supply in their sole discretion is now drowning the world in paper currency.
ALL financial markets are manipulated by central banks, predominantly the Federal Reserve. One woman– Janet Yellen– has the power to affect the prices of nearly everything on the planet, from the wholesale price of coffee in Colombia to the cost of a luxury flat in Hong Kong.
Moreover, politicians in some of the most ‘advanced’ economies in the world (Japan, the US, France, the UK, etc.) have accumulated so much debt that they have to borrow money just to pay interest on the money they have already borrowed.
They have indebted generations who will not even be born for decades.
They wage endless, costly wars. They spy on their citizens. They tell people what they can and cannot put in their bodies. They confiscate private property and wages at the point of a gun.
They abuse the population with legions of heavily armed government agents. They conjure so many codes, rules, regulations, laws, and executive orders that it becomes nearly impossible for an individual to exist without being guilty of some innocuous, victimless crime.
And they arrogantly masquerade the entire ruse as a free society.
This system is on the way out. It will reset.
Like feudalism before, our system will go the way of the historical dust bin. And future historians will look back (just as we view feudalism) and say “why did they put up with that nonsense…?
This reset is nothing to fear. Human beings are incredible creatures who have a long-term track record of growth. We rise. We progress.
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
Steve Jobs used to tell a very inspiring story about an article he read in Scientific American when he was a boy:
He said that the article measured the ‘efficiency of locomotion’ of various species– essentially how many calories different animals spend getting from Point A to Point B.
The most efficient of all? Not human beings. Not by a long shot. It was the condor. The condor expended the least amount of energy per meter or kilometer traveled. Human beings were pretty far down the list.
But as Jobs recounts, the authors had the foresight to also test the efficiency of a human being on a bicycle. And this absolutely blew all the other species away.
Jobs later said that this was incredibly influential on his thinking because he realized that human beings were fundamentally tool creators. We take our situation, however grim or rudimentary, and we make it better.
There’s undoubtedly a lot of bad news in the world these days. Some people realize it. Others refuse to believe it and stick their heads in the sand.
Our century-old monetary system is unraveling before our very eyes.
This absurd structure in which we award a tiny central banking elite with the dictatorial power to control the money supply in their sole discretion is now drowning the world in paper currency.
ALL financial markets are manipulated by central banks, predominantly the Federal Reserve. One woman– Janet Yellen– has the power to affect the prices of nearly everything on the planet, from the wholesale price of coffee in Colombia to the cost of a luxury flat in Hong Kong.
Moreover, politicians in some of the most ‘advanced’ economies in the world (Japan, the US, France, the UK, etc.) have accumulated so much debt that they have to borrow money just to pay interest on the money they have already borrowed.
They have indebted generations who will not even be born for decades.
They wage endless, costly wars. They spy on their citizens. They tell people what they can and cannot put in their bodies. They confiscate private property and wages at the point of a gun.
They abuse the population with legions of heavily armed government agents. They conjure so many codes, rules, regulations, laws, and executive orders that it becomes nearly impossible for an individual to exist without being guilty of some innocuous, victimless crime.
And they arrogantly masquerade the entire ruse as a free society.
This system is on the way out. It will reset.
Like feudalism before, our system will go the way of the historical dust bin. And future historians will look back (just as we view feudalism) and say “why did they put up with that nonsense…?
This reset is nothing to fear. Human beings are incredible creatures who have a long-term track record of growth. We rise. We progress.
Paul Craig Roberts: Pushing Toward The Final War Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/29/2014 15:58 -0400
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts via his blog,
Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people. Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.
In The genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. Three stand out: Raymond Poincare`, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war.
A Franco-Russian Alliance was formed. This alliance became the vehicle for orchestrating the war. The British government, thanks to the incompetence, stupidity, or whatever of its Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was pulled into the Franco-Russian Alliance. The war was started by Russia’s mobilization. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was blamed for the war despite the fact that he did everything possible to avoid it.
Barnes’ book was published in 1926. His reward for confronting the corrupt court historians with the truth was to be accused of being paid by Germany to write his history. Eighty-six years later historian Christopher Clark in his book, The Sleepwalkers, comes to essentially the same conclusion as Barnes.
In the history I was taught the war was blamed on Germany for challenging British naval supremacy by building too many battleships. The court historians who gave us this tale helped to set up World War 2.
We are again on the road to World War. One hundred years ago the creation of a world war by a few had to be done under the cover of deception. Germany had to be caught off guard. The British had to be manipulated and, of course, people in all the countries involved had to be propagandized and brainwashed.
Today the drive to war is blatantly obvious. The lies are obvious, and the entire West is participating, both media and governments.
The American puppet, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, openly lied on Canadian TV that Russian President Putin had invaded Crimea, threatened Ukraine, and was restarting the Cold War. The host of the TV program sat and nodded his head in agreement with these bald-faced lies. http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Stephen+Harper+accuses+Vladimir+Putin+being+stuck+back+USSR/9663692/story.html
The script that Washington handed to its Canadian puppet has been handed to all of Washington’s puppets, and everywhere in the West the message is the same. “Putin invaded and annexed Crimea, Putin is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire, Putin must be stopped.”
I hear from many Canadians who are outraged that their elected government represents Washington and not Canadians, but as bad as Harper is, Obama and Fox “News” are worse.
On March 26 I managed to catch a bit of Fox “news.” Murdoch’s propaganda organ was reporting that Putin was restoring the Soviet era practice of exercise. Fox “news” made this report into a threatening and dangerous gesture toward the West. Fox produced an “expert,” whose name I caught as Eric Steckelbeck or something like that. The “expert” declared that Putin was creating “the Hitler youth,” with a view toward rebuilding the Soviet empire.
The extraordinary transparent lie that Russia sent an army into Ukraine and annexed Crimea is now accepted as fact everywhere in the West, even among critics of US policy toward Russia.
Obama, whose government overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine and appointed a stooge government that has threatened the Russian provinces of Ukraine, falsely accuses Putin of “invading and annexing” Crimea.
Obama, or his handlers and programers, are relying on the total historical ignorance of Western peoples. The ignorance and gullibility of Western peoples allows the American neoconservatives to fashion “news” that controls their minds.
Obama recently declared that Washington’s destruction of Iraq–up to one million killed, four million displaced, infrastructure in ruins, sectarian violence exploding, a country in total ruins–is nowhere near as bad as Russia’s acceptance of Crimean self-determination. US Secretary of State John Kerry actually ordered Putin to prevent the referendum and stop Crimeans from exercising self-determination.
Obama’s speech on March 26 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels is surreal. It is beyond hypocrisy. Obama says that Western ideals are challenged by self-determination in Crimea. Russia, Obama says, must be punished by the West for permitting Crimeans to exercise self-determination. The return of a Russian province on its own volition to its mother country where it existed for 200 years is presented by Obama as a dictatorial, anti-democratic act of tyranny. http://on.rt.com/sbzj4o
Here was Obama, whose government has just overthrown the elected, democratic government of Ukraine and substituted stooges chosen by Washington in the place of the elected government, speaking of the hallowed ideal that “people in nations can make their own decisions about their future.” That is exactly what Crimea did, and that is exactly what the US coup in Kiev contravened. In the twisted mind of Obama, self-determination consists of governments imposed by Washington.
Here was Obama, who has shredded the US Constitution, speaking of “individual rights and rule of law.” Where is this rule of law? It is certainly not in Kiev where an elected government was overthrown with force. It is certainly not in the United States where the executive branch has spent the entirety of the new 21st century establishing government above the law. Habeas corpus, due process, the right to open trials and determination of guilt by independent jurors prior to imprisonment and execution, the right to privacy have all been overturned by the Bush/Obama regimes. Torture is against US and international law; yet Washington set up torture prisons all over the globe.
How is it possible that the representative of the war criminal US government can stand before an European audience and speak of “rule of law,” “individual rights,” “human dignity,” “self-determination,” “freedom,” without the audience breaking out in laughter?
Washington is the government that invaded and destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies. Washington is the government that financed and organized the overthrow of the Libyan and Honduran governments and that is currently attempting to do the same thing to Syria and Venezuela. Washington is the government that attacks with drones and bombs populations in the sovereign countries of Pakistan and Yemen. Washington is the government that has troops all over Africa. Washington is the government that has surrounded Russia, China, and Iran with military bases. It is this warmongering collection of Washington war criminals that now asserts that it is standing up for international ideals against Russia.
No one applauded Obama’s nonsensical speech. But for Europe to accept such blatant lies from a liar without protest empowers the momentum toward war that Washington is pushing.
Obama demands more NATO troops to be stationed in Eastern Europe to “contain Russia.” http://news.antiwar.com/2014/03/26/obama-wants-more-nato-troops-in-eastern-europe/ Obama said that a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders would reassure Poland and the Baltic states that, as NATO members, they will be protected from Russian aggression. This nonsense is voiced by Obama despite the fact that no one expects Russia to invade Poland or the Baltic countries.
Obama doesn’t say what effect the US/NATO military buildup and numerous war games on Russia’s border will have on Russia. Will the Russian government conclude that Russia is about to be attacked and strike first? The reckless carelessness of Obama is the way wars start.
Declaring that “freedom isn’t free,” Obama is putting pressure on Western Europe to pony up more money for a military buildup to confront Russia. http://news.antiwar.com/2014/03/26/us-presses-eu-nations-to-hike-military-spending-to-confront-russia/
The position of the government in Washington and its puppet states (Eastern and Western Europe, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Japan) and other allies purchased with bagfuls of money is that Washington’s violation of international law by torturing people, by invading sovereign countries on totally false pretenses, by routinely overthrowing democratically elected governments that do not toe the Washington line is nothing but the “indispensable and exceptional country” bringing “freedom and democracy to the world.” But Russia’s acceptance of the self-determination of Crimean people to return to their home country is “a violation of international law.”
Just what international law has Washington and its puppets not violated?
Obama, whose government in the past few years has bullied Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela and is now trying to bully Russia, actually declared that “bigger nations can not simply bully smaller ones.” What does Obama and his speech writers think Washington has been doing for the entirety of the 21st century?
Who can possibly believe that Obama, whose government is responsible for the deaths of people every day in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, cares a whit about democracy in Ukraine. Obama overthrew the Ukrainian government in order to be able to stuff the country into NATO, throw Russia out of its Black Sea naval base, and put US missile bases in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Obama is angry that his plan didn’t pan out as intended, and he is taking his anger and frustration out on Russia.
As the delusion takes hold in Washington that the US represents idealism standing firmly against Russian aggression, delusion enabled by the presstitute media, the UN General Assembly vote, and Washington’s string of puppet states, self-righteousness rises in Washington’s breast.
With rising self-righteousness will come more demands for punishing Russia, more demonization of Russia and Putin, more lies echoed by the presstitutes and puppets. Ukrainian violence against Russian residents is likely to intensify with the anti-Russian propaganda. Putin could be forced to send in Russian troops to defend Russians.
Why are people so blind that they do not see Obama driving the world to its final war?
Just as Obama dresses up his aggression toward Russia as idealism resisting selfish territorial ambitions, the English, French, and Americans presented their World War 1 “victory” as the triumph of idealism over German and Austrian imperialism and territorial ambitions. But at the Versailles Conference the Bolsheviks (the Tsar’s government failed to gain the Straits and instead lost the country to Lenin) “revealed the existence of the notorious Secret Treaties embodying as sordid a program of territorial pilfering as can be found in the history of diplomacy. It appears that the chief actual motives of the Entente in the World War were the seizure of Constantinople and the Straits for Russia; not only the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but the securing of the west bank of the Rhine, which would have involved the seizure of territory historically far longer connected with Germany than Alsace-Lorraine had ever been with France; the rewarding of Italian entry into the War by extensive territory grabbed away from Austria and the Jugo-Slavs; and the sequestering of the German imperial possessions, the acquisition of the German merchant marine and the destruction of the German navy in the interest of increasing the strength of the British Empire” (Barnes, pp. 691-692). The American share of the loot was seized German and Austrian investments in the US.
The secret British, Russian, and French aims of the war were hidden from the public, which was whipped up with fabricated propaganda to support a war whose outcomes were far different from the intentions of those who caused the war. People seem unable to learn from history. We are now witnessing the world again being led down the garden path by lies and propaganda, this time in behalf of American world hegemony.
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts via his blog,
Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people. Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.
In The genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. Three stand out: Raymond Poincare`, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war.
A Franco-Russian Alliance was formed. This alliance became the vehicle for orchestrating the war. The British government, thanks to the incompetence, stupidity, or whatever of its Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was pulled into the Franco-Russian Alliance. The war was started by Russia’s mobilization. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was blamed for the war despite the fact that he did everything possible to avoid it.
Barnes’ book was published in 1926. His reward for confronting the corrupt court historians with the truth was to be accused of being paid by Germany to write his history. Eighty-six years later historian Christopher Clark in his book, The Sleepwalkers, comes to essentially the same conclusion as Barnes.
In the history I was taught the war was blamed on Germany for challenging British naval supremacy by building too many battleships. The court historians who gave us this tale helped to set up World War 2.
We are again on the road to World War. One hundred years ago the creation of a world war by a few had to be done under the cover of deception. Germany had to be caught off guard. The British had to be manipulated and, of course, people in all the countries involved had to be propagandized and brainwashed.
Today the drive to war is blatantly obvious. The lies are obvious, and the entire West is participating, both media and governments.
The American puppet, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, openly lied on Canadian TV that Russian President Putin had invaded Crimea, threatened Ukraine, and was restarting the Cold War. The host of the TV program sat and nodded his head in agreement with these bald-faced lies. http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Stephen+Harper+accuses+Vladimir+Putin+being+stuck+back+USSR/9663692/story.html
The script that Washington handed to its Canadian puppet has been handed to all of Washington’s puppets, and everywhere in the West the message is the same. “Putin invaded and annexed Crimea, Putin is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire, Putin must be stopped.”
I hear from many Canadians who are outraged that their elected government represents Washington and not Canadians, but as bad as Harper is, Obama and Fox “News” are worse.
On March 26 I managed to catch a bit of Fox “news.” Murdoch’s propaganda organ was reporting that Putin was restoring the Soviet era practice of exercise. Fox “news” made this report into a threatening and dangerous gesture toward the West. Fox produced an “expert,” whose name I caught as Eric Steckelbeck or something like that. The “expert” declared that Putin was creating “the Hitler youth,” with a view toward rebuilding the Soviet empire.
The extraordinary transparent lie that Russia sent an army into Ukraine and annexed Crimea is now accepted as fact everywhere in the West, even among critics of US policy toward Russia.
Obama, whose government overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine and appointed a stooge government that has threatened the Russian provinces of Ukraine, falsely accuses Putin of “invading and annexing” Crimea.
Obama, or his handlers and programers, are relying on the total historical ignorance of Western peoples. The ignorance and gullibility of Western peoples allows the American neoconservatives to fashion “news” that controls their minds.
Obama recently declared that Washington’s destruction of Iraq–up to one million killed, four million displaced, infrastructure in ruins, sectarian violence exploding, a country in total ruins–is nowhere near as bad as Russia’s acceptance of Crimean self-determination. US Secretary of State John Kerry actually ordered Putin to prevent the referendum and stop Crimeans from exercising self-determination.
Obama’s speech on March 26 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels is surreal. It is beyond hypocrisy. Obama says that Western ideals are challenged by self-determination in Crimea. Russia, Obama says, must be punished by the West for permitting Crimeans to exercise self-determination. The return of a Russian province on its own volition to its mother country where it existed for 200 years is presented by Obama as a dictatorial, anti-democratic act of tyranny. http://on.rt.com/sbzj4o
Here was Obama, whose government has just overthrown the elected, democratic government of Ukraine and substituted stooges chosen by Washington in the place of the elected government, speaking of the hallowed ideal that “people in nations can make their own decisions about their future.” That is exactly what Crimea did, and that is exactly what the US coup in Kiev contravened. In the twisted mind of Obama, self-determination consists of governments imposed by Washington.
Here was Obama, who has shredded the US Constitution, speaking of “individual rights and rule of law.” Where is this rule of law? It is certainly not in Kiev where an elected government was overthrown with force. It is certainly not in the United States where the executive branch has spent the entirety of the new 21st century establishing government above the law. Habeas corpus, due process, the right to open trials and determination of guilt by independent jurors prior to imprisonment and execution, the right to privacy have all been overturned by the Bush/Obama regimes. Torture is against US and international law; yet Washington set up torture prisons all over the globe.
How is it possible that the representative of the war criminal US government can stand before an European audience and speak of “rule of law,” “individual rights,” “human dignity,” “self-determination,” “freedom,” without the audience breaking out in laughter?
Washington is the government that invaded and destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies. Washington is the government that financed and organized the overthrow of the Libyan and Honduran governments and that is currently attempting to do the same thing to Syria and Venezuela. Washington is the government that attacks with drones and bombs populations in the sovereign countries of Pakistan and Yemen. Washington is the government that has troops all over Africa. Washington is the government that has surrounded Russia, China, and Iran with military bases. It is this warmongering collection of Washington war criminals that now asserts that it is standing up for international ideals against Russia.
No one applauded Obama’s nonsensical speech. But for Europe to accept such blatant lies from a liar without protest empowers the momentum toward war that Washington is pushing.
Obama demands more NATO troops to be stationed in Eastern Europe to “contain Russia.” http://news.antiwar.com/2014/03/26/obama-wants-more-nato-troops-in-eastern-europe/ Obama said that a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders would reassure Poland and the Baltic states that, as NATO members, they will be protected from Russian aggression. This nonsense is voiced by Obama despite the fact that no one expects Russia to invade Poland or the Baltic countries.
Obama doesn’t say what effect the US/NATO military buildup and numerous war games on Russia’s border will have on Russia. Will the Russian government conclude that Russia is about to be attacked and strike first? The reckless carelessness of Obama is the way wars start.
Declaring that “freedom isn’t free,” Obama is putting pressure on Western Europe to pony up more money for a military buildup to confront Russia. http://news.antiwar.com/2014/03/26/us-presses-eu-nations-to-hike-military-spending-to-confront-russia/
The position of the government in Washington and its puppet states (Eastern and Western Europe, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Japan) and other allies purchased with bagfuls of money is that Washington’s violation of international law by torturing people, by invading sovereign countries on totally false pretenses, by routinely overthrowing democratically elected governments that do not toe the Washington line is nothing but the “indispensable and exceptional country” bringing “freedom and democracy to the world.” But Russia’s acceptance of the self-determination of Crimean people to return to their home country is “a violation of international law.”
Just what international law has Washington and its puppets not violated?
Obama, whose government in the past few years has bullied Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela and is now trying to bully Russia, actually declared that “bigger nations can not simply bully smaller ones.” What does Obama and his speech writers think Washington has been doing for the entirety of the 21st century?
Who can possibly believe that Obama, whose government is responsible for the deaths of people every day in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, cares a whit about democracy in Ukraine. Obama overthrew the Ukrainian government in order to be able to stuff the country into NATO, throw Russia out of its Black Sea naval base, and put US missile bases in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Obama is angry that his plan didn’t pan out as intended, and he is taking his anger and frustration out on Russia.
As the delusion takes hold in Washington that the US represents idealism standing firmly against Russian aggression, delusion enabled by the presstitute media, the UN General Assembly vote, and Washington’s string of puppet states, self-righteousness rises in Washington’s breast.
With rising self-righteousness will come more demands for punishing Russia, more demonization of Russia and Putin, more lies echoed by the presstitutes and puppets. Ukrainian violence against Russian residents is likely to intensify with the anti-Russian propaganda. Putin could be forced to send in Russian troops to defend Russians.
Why are people so blind that they do not see Obama driving the world to its final war?
Just as Obama dresses up his aggression toward Russia as idealism resisting selfish territorial ambitions, the English, French, and Americans presented their World War 1 “victory” as the triumph of idealism over German and Austrian imperialism and territorial ambitions. But at the Versailles Conference the Bolsheviks (the Tsar’s government failed to gain the Straits and instead lost the country to Lenin) “revealed the existence of the notorious Secret Treaties embodying as sordid a program of territorial pilfering as can be found in the history of diplomacy. It appears that the chief actual motives of the Entente in the World War were the seizure of Constantinople and the Straits for Russia; not only the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but the securing of the west bank of the Rhine, which would have involved the seizure of territory historically far longer connected with Germany than Alsace-Lorraine had ever been with France; the rewarding of Italian entry into the War by extensive territory grabbed away from Austria and the Jugo-Slavs; and the sequestering of the German imperial possessions, the acquisition of the German merchant marine and the destruction of the German navy in the interest of increasing the strength of the British Empire” (Barnes, pp. 691-692). The American share of the loot was seized German and Austrian investments in the US.
The secret British, Russian, and French aims of the war were hidden from the public, which was whipped up with fabricated propaganda to support a war whose outcomes were far different from the intentions of those who caused the war. People seem unable to learn from history. We are now witnessing the world again being led down the garden path by lies and propaganda, this time in behalf of American world hegemony.
Older Drivers
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The Ontario Ministry of Transportation introduced discriminatory restrictions and special testing for older drivers in Ontario, under the false pretension that older drivers constitute a significantly higher risk in traffic. In November of 2012, I conducted research, obtaining every valid statistic in Canada and a major Australian Study, that used Canadian statistics. These studies, including statistics from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, revealed that consistently, year after year, the older drivers have had fewer accidents than any other drive group, and as they age, have fewer still. A charge was laid against the Ministry of Transportation , in November of 2012, under the Ontario Human Rights Act. After six months of intense correspondence, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal dismissed my complaint, on the grounds that the Ministry, and all it’s Agencies are exempt. I continued my pursuit, by going directly to the Minister of Transportation. After hounding him for a number of weeks, received an email, admitting that the Ministry did not have the statistical justification to enact the discriminatory legislation against the elderly drivers, but proceeded anyway. I presume on preconceived views about the elderly. This does not only make this law illegal, but it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, The Human Rights Act, The Criminal Code on Elder Abuse, and the persons right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. If you are still feeling comfortable, consider what is coming . The Toronto Star recently featured an article called “Driving With Dementia, The New Impaired Driver”. In this article, it states that 28% of drivers over 65 years of age and older, have dementia, and suggests that these people should be given a test, presently being used in. Alberta, called the Simard MD Protocal. This test has no credibility with the Academics and Professional Organizations, who have come out, stating that they are surprised that a Government would use a test which is not scientific, unreliable, and sets the seniors up for failure. 20% fail, 20% cannot be determined. This test is paid for by the elderly $250.00 each time tested, and paid to a private firm. Rumour has it, that the Ontario Ministry of Transportation will be introducing the Simard test in April of 2014. Please give this as much distribution as possible, in order to make the people of Ontario aware of what their Government is doing. The only way to exercise our rights is to seek remedy through the Courts, however, only wealthy citizens can afford their rights. Perhaps, with wide distribution, we may find some legal firm, willing to something as a public service. Yours Concerned, Ed. Rockburne, RCMP, Retired.
History of the 407 You can drive the 400 mile length of the New York Thruway (I-90), from Buffalo to New York City , a toll road with fully staffed toll booths, for peanuts. Actually 2.1 cents per km. No accounting fee and no video fees. Then there is the cost of driving across the top of Toronto on Hwy 407........everything is electronic and automated, drivers pay for the camera operations and the billing costs in addition to the exorbitant toll rates... and the Ontario Gov. acts as 'enforcer' in collecting the unpaid tolls!!
Even Al Capone and his crew never had it as good as this during the bootleg liquor days of the 1920’s and 1930’s!!.....It is very expensive to travel this road! I thought you might like to read this, it’s a real eye opener, what a rip-off!! ETR 407 In the early 1990’s Ontario was almost bankrupt under Bob Rae’s NDP government. But it desperately needed new roads, as it still does today. So the Rae government built a toll road around Toronto and it was a great success. It was a cash cow called the 407 ETR. The Conservative government of Mike Harris then later foolishly leased this road for 99 years to a Quebec-based company for a substantial amount of money. This was in May 1999, and was done to reduce the deficit and look good. Before the Harris government could lease the road, however, they had to pass new legislation to allow this, because never before had a ‘public road’ been sold to a private company. This very flawed legislation was passed in November 1998. The new Quebec owners then closed the deal and Ontario had ‘sold’ it’s first highway. This Quebec company then sold the road at a profit to Spanish owners, thus assuring that profits from the road would never be taxed in Canada. As part of this deal, the Ontario government agreed that individual license plate renewal would be denied if there were any outstanding tolls against that plate and it’s owner. So this arrangement, in practice, made our government a collection agency for a privately held, for-profit foreign consortium. In addition, the terms of the deal stated that there would be no statute of limitations on these bills and that they would never go away even if the citizen went bankrupt. Even your income tax has a statute of limitations. The 407 ETR refuses now, as then, to produce any photographic or other evidence, that what they bill is an accurate reflection of the offending vehicles presence on their roadway. So there is no accountability and OUR Government still collects the SPANISH bills for them. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Spanish company decides on the interest rate on these forever bills and currently it is 26.82 per cent compounded monthly but it varies based on the whims of the Spanish owners. And there is a definite problem with who gets billed. In very short order after the sale of the highway, according to the media of that time, 100,000 citizens who had never been on the road had been incorrectly billed. The MPP’s were deluged with complaints and so the Conservatives under then transportation minister David Turnbull told the private Spanish company to clean up their act. Until there was evidence of that happening their collection deal was cancelled. This was in 2000. But in 2005 the 407 ETR went to court to reinstate its original sweetheart deal. The judge ruled in it’s favour even though this company still showed no accountability and still did not produce evidence of the legitimacy of it’s charges. The government of Premier Dalton McGuinty should have appealed this decision but did not. Now the government is the collection agency for the Spanish consortium. Now the agreement covers any vehicle that is owned by the person who has an offending licence plate. So if you own six vehicles and one of them is alleged to have been on their road, your government will not issue any licence plates for any of your vehicles until you pay the ‘alleged bill’ at your government licence office, whether it is correct or not.
I believe the current toll in Mexico is 13 cents per kilometer, but that includes automatic medical coverage for everyone in the vehicle. With all the road tax that we Ontarian'spay, the last thing we ever expected was a toll road. We need to buy back this road and break the deal with this consortium. I find this whole arrangement both offensive and intimidating.. If any Canadian government is going to collect for any privately held company, change the rules on the statute of limitations, etc.. then it had better collect for all private companies on the same terms. This current arrangement discriminates against all other private companies. STAY OFF THE 407 AND STARVE THEM OUT OF EXISTENCE Spread this info. Jose Mujica: 'I earn more than I need'
The man described as the world's 'poorest president' discusses Uruguay's move to legalize marijuana. Talk to Al Jazeera Last Modified: 26 Oct 2013 15:00 President Jose Mujica, the world's 'poorest' president, has surprised the world by making Uruguay the first country to entirely legalise marijuana. A law already passed in the lower house of Congress and expected to pass in the Senate later this year would make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers. Uruguay is hoping to act as a potential test case for an idea slowly gaining steam across Latin America - that the legalisation and regulation of some drugs could combat the cartel violence devastating much of the region. The thing is I have a way of life that I don't change just because I am a president. I earn more than I need, even if it's not enough for others. Mujica's recent speech to the UN General Assembly denouncing excess and frivolity, also received global attention: "We have sacrificed the old immaterial Gods, and now we are occupying the temple of the Market-God. He organises our economy, our politics, our habits, our lives and even provides us with rates and credit cards and gives us the appearance of happiness," he said. "It seems that we have been born only to consume, and to consume, and when we can no longer consume, we have a feeling of frustration and we suffer from poverty, and we are auto marginalised." He may look like a working class grandfather, but 78-year-old Mujica is a man with a powerful message, a leader who is a one of a kind. Also known as Pepe Mujica, he refused to move to the luxurious house the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders, and chose instead to stay in the modest home he shares with his senator wife in the capital. His lifestyle and the fact that he donates 90 percent of his salary to charity has earned him the label 'the poorest president in the world'. "Those who describe me so are the poor ones," he says. "My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied." Mujica is a man who practices the simplicity he preaches and never minces words, a style some of his countrymen criticise as unpresidential, but which makes him a hero to others. On this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, President Jose Mujica discusses his peculiar approach towards marijuana and drug trafficking, his particular way of living and understanding life, and the repercussions the country's new policies, if approved, might have in the region. reprint: Al Jazeera Published on Tuesday, December 10, 2013 by The Guardian/UK Let's Get This Straight: AIG Execs Got Bailout Bonuses, but Pensioners Get Cuts No one has accused city workers in Chicago or Detroit of bringing down the economy, but they could face pension cuts by Dean Baker As we passed the fifth anniversary of the peak of the financial crisis this fall, the giant insurance company AIG was prominently featured in the retrospectives. AIG had issued hundreds of billions of dollars of credit default swaps (CDS) on subprime mortgage backed securities. When these mortgage-backed securities failed en masse, AIG didn't have the money to back them up.
City of Detroit pensioner Donald Smith sits across the street from the Federal Court House, to protest cuts in city workers' pensions. (Photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters)This would have forced AIG into bankruptcy. However Lehman had declared bankruptcy the day before and the world was still engulfed in the aftershocks. The Bush administration and the Federal Reserve board decided that they would stop the cascade of failing financial institutions and bail out AIG. As a result, the government agreed to honor all the CDS issued by AIG and effectively became the owner of the company. Chicago has been in the news recently because its mayor, Rahm Emanuel, seems intent on cutting the pensions that its current and retired employees have earned. Emanuel insists that the city can't afford these pensions and therefore workers and retirees will simply have to accept reduced benefits. If the connection with AIG isn't immediately apparent, then you have to look a bit deeper. Folks may recall that AIG paid out $170m in bonuses to its employees in March 2009 with its top executives receiving bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. These were people who not only shared responsibility for driving the company into bankruptcy; they also had been at the center of the financial web that propelled the housing bubble into ever more dangerous territory. In other words, the bonus beneficiaries were among the leading villains in the economic disaster that is still inflicting pain across the country. The prospect of executives of a bailed out company drawing huge bonuses at a time when the economy was shedding 600,000 jobs a month provoked outrage across the country. President Obama spoke on the issue and said that unfortunately no one in his administration was smart enough to find a way that could keep the bonuses from being paid. The problem according to Larry Summers, then the head of President Obama's National Economic Council, was that the bonuses were contractual obligations and they had to be honored. This provides a striking contrast to what might happen to current and former city employees in Chicago and may happen to current and former employers of the state of Illinois and Detroit. In these cases, it seems that the contracts workers had with their employers may not be honored. Employees who worked decades for these governments, with part of their pay taking the form of pensions in retirement, are now being told that these governments will not follow through on their end of the contract. The differing treatment of contracts in these situations is striking for several reasons. First, the AIG executives stood to gain much more money with their bonuses on a per person basis. In contrast to the six-figure bonuses going to top executives, pensions for Detroit's workers average just $18,500 a year. Pensions for Chicago's workers average over $33,000 a year, but almost none of these workers will get Social Security, so this will be their whole retirement income. In contrast to the top AIG executives, who played a role in bankrupting their company and sinking the economy, no one has accused workers in Chicago or Detroit of doing anything wrong. These were people who taught our kids, put out fires, and picked up garbage. They did their jobs. They also might be excused for thinking that they could count on the governments involved to fulfill their end of the contract. After all, both Michigan and Illinois have provisions in their constitution stating that pensions earned by public sector workers cannot be cut. Since cities like Detroit and Chicago are creations of the state governments, workers for these cities, like workers for the state government, might have thought the state constitution protected their pensions. Apparently they should have hired lawyers who could have explained to them why this is not the case. There is yet another connection between the plans to cut pensions and AIG. The bond rating agencies played a prominent role in both cases. In the case of AIG meltdown, the bond rating agencies gave investment grade ratings to trillions of dollars of mortgage backed securities (MBS). They often gave these ratings to dubious issues for the simple reason that they were being paid. As one analyst from S&P said in an e-mail, they would rate a new MBS if it "was structured by cows". The bond rating agencies played a similarly disastrous role in the pension problems facing state and local governments. In the stock run-up in the 1990s, they green-lighted accounting that essentially assumed that the stock bubble would continue in perpetuity, effectively growing without limit. This meant that state and local governments didn't have to contribute to their pensions since the stock bubble was doing it for them. States like Illinois and cities like Chicago clung to this habit even after the bubble burst. There is one final noteworthy connection between AIG and the Chicago pension situation. Chicago's Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, was President Obama's chief of staff at the time that no one could figure out how to avoid paying the AIG bonuses. Apparently Emanuel has learned more about voiding contractual obligations now that it is ordinary workers at other end of the commitment. Toronto Star WEDNESDAY, November 6, 2013 Business / Real Estate Provincial intensification efforts now a "patchwork" Some municipalities still not meeting Ontario goals for building up instead of out, report finds Share via EmailPri RICK MADONIK / RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR
Do we really need more subdivisions By: Susan Pigg Business Reporter, Published on Tue Nov 05 2013 Provincial growth policies aimed at curbing urban sprawl and boosting intensification have been so compromised, much of the 1,000 square kilometres of land that was at risk of low-density development almost a decade ago remains just as endangered today, says a report by the non-profit Neptis Foundation. The province’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe has become an inconsistent “patchwork,” largely because the government has granted so many exemptions and didn’t set penalties for municipalities failing to meet intensification targets, says the 128-page report by the non-profit think-tank on urban planning issues. The result is that only two cities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe — the City of Toronto and Waterloo — are exceeding what were meant to be minimum standards for building up, instead of out, and easing demand for costly new roads, sewers, transit and other infrastructure, says the report. In fact, most municipalities are treating the requirements — that 40 per cent of all new residential development per year be located in built-up areas, and every hectare of new “greenfield” development accommodate 50 people and jobs — as if they are maximum targets, it notes. That, on top of a lack of clear direction from the province, has resulted in crippling intensification battles before the Ontario Municipal Board and left the plan, implemented in 2006, “under pressure and behind schedule,” says Neptis researcher Rian Allen. He, along with fellow researcher Philippa Campsie, spent 1½ years studying the planned rate of intensification in some 110 cities, towns and villages from roughly Waterloo and Brantford, to the GTA and east to Peterborough on behalf of Neptis. “Little has changed as far as land consumption goes since the government carried out its original studies for the Growth Plan,” and there is no evidence that developers are running out of land to build, it says. In fact, while the plan was also aimed at preserving agricultural and rural land, more than half the municipalities surveyed in the Outer Ring around the GTA greenbelt have actually lowered their targets below those set by the growth plan. Back in 2004, the province warned that it no longer made economic, social or environmental sense to continue the unbridled, low-rise suburban sprawl that had characterized growth in the GTA in the 1980s and 1990s. Under Places to Grow, 25 urban growth nodes were created to concentrate higher density building around transportation corridors and new subway lines and some, in fast-growing suburban communities such as Vaughan and Markham, are coming along nicely, notes Allen. But in other areas, such as Halton region where the cities of Oakville and Burlington already have transportation and other infrastructure that could accommodate denser growth, some intensification targets aren’t being met, he found. Instead, the bulk of new land the region has approved for development is around Milton where new roads, transit and other costly services have to be built, which appears to be contrary to the plan, says Allen. Last month Ontario municipal affairs and housing minister Linda Jeffrey announced a series of consultations aimed at improving the land use and development approval process in the province. The umbrella group for the province’s development industry has also raised concerns about how Places to Grow is being implemented, but its concerns — spelled out in a recent full-page ad in the Star — focus mainly on delays in approvals and outdated municipal official plans that, in too many cases, don’t reflect the objectives of the plan and are adding to delays and complications in getting developments approved. Officials with the Building Industry and Land Development association had yet to read the Neptis report or were unavailable for comment Tuesday. Marcy Burchfield, director of research for Neptis, said the report has been sent to the province. She’s hoping its findings will encourage a discussion about the progress so far, in advance of the 10-year review of Places to Grow, due in 2016. “There needs to be systemic change. It’s not enough to just set policies,” stresses Allen. “The plan was intended to create consistency across the region. We haven’t got that. We’ve got a patchwork instead.” Allen was surprised to discover that even the boom town, oil-rich city of Calgary now has more ambitious intensification standards for easing costly sprawl — and dependence on the car — than here in southern Ontario. That city now requires that all new development accommodate 60 people and jobs per hectare. Reprint: Toronto Star 
FINDING YOU HAVE LESS CHANGE IN YOUR POCKET ???
American statistics, do they apply here ..you decide are we in the same boat. Are American workers paid enough? That is a topic that is endlessly debated all across this great land of ours. Unfortunately, what pretty much everyone can agree on is that American workers are not making as much as they used to after you account for inflation. Back in 1968, the minimum wage in the United States was $1.60 an hour. That sounds very small, but after you account for inflation a very different picture emerges. Using the inflation calculator that the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides, $1.60 in 1968 is equivalent to $10.74 today. And of course the official government inflation numbers have been heavily manipulated to make inflation look much lower than it actually is, so the number for today should actually be substantially higher than $10.74, but for purposes of this article we will use $10.74. If you were to work a full-time job at $10.74 an hour for a full year (with two weeks off for vacation), you would make about $21,480 for the year. That isn't a lot of money, but according to the Social Security Administration, 40.28% of all workers make less than $20,000 a year in America today. So that means that more than 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968. That is how far we have fallen. The other day I wrote an article which discussed the transition that we are witnessing in our economy right now. Good paying full-time jobs are disappearing, and they are being replaced by low paying part-time jobs. So far this year, 76.7 percent of the jobs that have been "created" in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs. That would be depressing enough, but what makes it worse is that wages for many of these low paying jobs have actually been declining over the past decade even as the cost of living keeps going up. The following is from a recent USA Today article... In the years between 2002 and 2012, real median wages dropped by at least 5% in five of the top 10 low-wage jobs, including food preparers and housekeepers. So where have the good jobs gone? Well, there are three long-term trends that are absolutely crushing American workers right now. First of all, thanks to our very foolish politicians American workers have been merged into a global labor pool where they must directly compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the planet that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. This has resulted in millions upon millions of good jobs leaving this country. Big corporations can pad their profits by taking a job from an American worker making $15 an hour with benefits and giving it to a worker on the other side of the globe that is willing to work for less than a dollar an hour with no benefits. Our politicians could do something about this, but they refuse to do so. Most of them are absolutely married to the idea of a one world economic system that will unite the globe. Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is going to continue to lose tens of thousands of businesses and millions upon millions of jobs to this one world economic system. Secondly, big corporations are replacing as many expensive workers with machines, computers and robots as they possibly can. As technology continues to advance at a blistering pace, the need for workers (especially low-skilled workers) will continue to decrease. Unfortunately, the jobs that are being lost to technology are not coming back any time soon. Thirdly, the overall U.S. economy has been steadily declining for more than a decade. If you doubt this, just read this article. As our economy continues to get weaker, the lack of jobs is going to become a bigger and bigger problem. And as our economy systematically loses good jobs, more Americans are forced to become dependent on the government. Back in 1979, there was about one American on food stamps for every manufacturing job. Today, there are about four Americans on food stamps for every manufacturing job. When I first found that statistic I was absolutely stunned. How in the world can anyone out there deny that the U.S. economy is collapsing? But as I mentioned above, it isn't just that the number of jobs is not what it should be. The quality of our jobs is declining as well. For example, one study found that between 1969 and 2009 the wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 declined by 27 percent after you account for inflation. That is a pretty stunning decline. And it has only accelerated in recent years. Median household income (adjusted for inflation) has fallen by 7.8 percent since the year 2000, and the ratio of wages and salaries to GDP in the United States is near an all-time record low. Most Americans are finding that their bills just keep going up but their paychecks are not. This is causing the middle class to wither away, and most families are just trying to survive from month to month at this point. In fact, according to one recent survey 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. So where do we go from here? To some people the answer is simple. They say that we should substantially raise the minimum wage. And yes, that would definitely make life a bit better for lots of low paid workers out there, but it would also have some very negative side effects. A substantially higher minimum wage would mean higher prices at retail stores and restaurants, and it would also greatly increase the incentive that corporations have to replace American workers with foreign workers or with technology. We already have rampant unemployment in this country, and right now there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not have a job. We certainly don't want to make that worse. So raising the minimum wage would not solve our problems. It would just redistribute our problems. What we really need to do is to return to the principles that once made this country great. In early America, we protected our markets with high tariffs. Access to the U.S. market was a privilege. Foreign domination was kept out, and our economy thrived. It is definitely not "conservative" and it should not be "liberal" to stand by and watch millions upon millions of our good jobs get shipped over to communist China. We need more "economic patriots" in America today, but unfortunately they appear to be a minority at this point. And once upon a time the U.S. economy was actually a free market system where rules, regulations and red tape were kept to a minimum. Our nation blossomed under such a system. Sadly, today we have become a nation that literally has millions of laws, rules and regulations. The control freaks seem to run everything. In fact, the Obama administration recently forced one small-time magician out in Missouri to submit a 32 page disaster plan for the little rabbit that he uses in his magic shows for kids. That is a very humorous example, but it is a perfect illustration of how absurd our system has become. Another thing we could do to turn this around would be to get rid of the IRS and the income tax. Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was during a time when there was absolutely no income tax? If you doubt this, just read this article. And of course probably the most important thing that we could do for our economy would be to get rid of the Federal Reserve. The Fed is a massive Ponzi scheme and it has played a primary role in creating almost every single financial bubble in the post-World War II era. Right now we are living in the greatest bond bubble in the history of the planet, and when that Fed-created bubble bursts the pain is going to be absolutely excruciating. In addition, the value of our currency has declined by over 96 percent and the size of the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger since the Fed was created. The Federal Reserve is at the very heart of our economic problems, and we desperately need to shut it down. Unfortunately, our politicians are not even willing to consider these solutions, and most Americans are way too busy watching Toddlers & Tiaras, Honey Boo Boo and other mindless television programs to be bothered with the real problems that our country is facing. So needless to say, the great economic storm that is coming is not going to be averted. Most of the country is still asleep, and most people are going to get absolutely blindsided by the economic nightmare that is rapidly approaching. Michael Snyder.....the Economic Collapse Blog A Halton Hills resident question. Today I questioned my 2 month hydro bill.
Same period last year,I used 163 Kw less . I questioned why my Global Adjustment charge was almost $ 6.00 more,at $ 50.05. I was directed to a newspaper article in the Toronto Star. So now we know why wind and solar power is costing us a fortune. At the present it stands at 0.08 per Kwh.in Global Adjustment charges. So the next time we are asked to have a "Lights OffNight"action,as we have once a year and are told afterwords how much we all cut down on hydro use, just remember that it may have created a surplus we may have to send to the U.S.and have to pay them to take it. No problem,it will just be added to your Global Adjustment portion of you hydro bill. From: webmaster@thestar.ca <webmaster@thestar.ca> Date: Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 2:05 PM Subject: Story from the thestar.com: Surplus wind power could cost Ontario ratepayers up to $200 million: IESO A reader has shared a story with you from thestar.com: "I thought you might be interested in this story. Surplus wind power could cost Ontario ratepayers up to $200 million: IESO Surplus wind power could cost Ontario ratepayers millions and compromise power system, says electricity system operator. It says renewable energy market rules must change Why are we so apethetic about municipal taxes
Kevin Libin: Why a backward approach makes city taxes go higher Municipal tax hikes happen all the time but why do we accept them so apathetically?
Kevin Libin December 13, 2010 – 6:00 am reprinted from the National Post Come next year, Edmontonians will see their municipal taxes increase 4%. In Regina, home owners will get dinged an additional 4%, too. Vancouverites will pay 2% higher taxes next year. Calgarians can brace for a 4.5% increase. In Saskatoon, there’s a 3.86% tax hike on the horizon. And in Montreal, the total municipal tax bill is up 4% this year over last. Yawn. Big deal. Municipal tax hikes happen all the time. In most cities, denizens have come to accept them as an annual tradition, as arduous and inevitable as Lent or Yom Kippur. Still the question is: why do we accept them so apathetically? Canadians give no other level of government such easy licence. Federal and provincial politicians would be mad to think taxpayers would shrug at a raise in income or corporate taxes by several percentage points year after year after year. Only, it seems, in our cities — where the average family drops roughly 10% of its tax dollars — do we take a bigger yearly grab for granted. Actually, we take the entire upside-down approach that municipalities use for taxes for granted. At the federal and provincial level, the system generally works like this: economists project incoming government revenue, and legislators decide how to spend it, where they can afford to increase funds, and where they must make cuts. In the city, it’s done the other way around, says Jack Mintz, chairman of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. “They first determine their revenue need … they divide by the market value [of city properties], and that gives you the mill rate,” he says. “So the whole thing is based on spending in the first place.” Generally, Mr. Mintz says, municipal politicians take it as given that because they are limited in the tools they have to raise revenue, primarily by taxing property, they are a special case. Income taxes and corporate tax revenues grow with the economy even without tax hikes. Then again, income and corporate tax revenues also fall, as do royalties and gambling and liquor revenues, leaving higher levels of government to make difficult cuts or fall into deficit, something cities don’t have the ability to do either. This, says Mr. Mintz, is an argument for why municipal taxes might — might — have to grow at the rate of inflation and population growth. But it doesn’t explain why, for example, Edmontonians face a 4% tax hike in a year when inflation in Alberta has hovered at barely 1% and 2010’s population growth estimates are even less than 1% this year. It’s happening across the country. Between 2000 and 2009, total property tax soaked up by Canadian municipalities soared by 50%. Astonishingly, this was happening even as transfers to municipal governments from the provinces and Ottawa spiked by 63% over the same period, according to Statistics Canada data. Even as the cities were being showered with cash from their bigger brothers and sisters, they squeezed taxpayers even tighter. Of course, property taxes hikes are a lot harder to pay if your family’s income hasn’t changed; a 2005 Stats Can study found property taxes in Canada to be particularly regressive — with low-income earners spending as much as five times the proportion of their income on them than high-income earners. But this seemingly growing and unquenchable thirst for ever greater revenues is no great mystery if you have any vague sense of how governments operate. At a level of government where services most directly impact voters — whether it’s filled potholes or traffic calming measures for posh neighbourhoods — most councilors just can’t resist indulging their constituents, says Ric McIver, a former Calgary alderman and recent mayoralty candidate. “When you’re elected and you’re talking to the local media every week or every day, you’re always trying to leave the impression that you’re, and I quote, ‘doing something,’” he says. “Well, doing something always costs money.” It also frequently means getting unionized workers to do it: Calgary’s City Hall, for instance, recently created a city-wide, city-run, union staffed recycling program, despite the fact that numerous private contractors had already been providing the service more cheaply (it drove the entrepreneurs out of business). And the more services a city promises its ratepayers, the more card-carrying labourers it takes to provide it, and the more vulnerable the city becomes to wage demands: Generally speaking, transit workers, snow ploughers, garbagemen, firefighters and police officers can create bigger difficulties in citizens’ daily lives through disruptive job action than workers at the federal or provincial level. Some municipal jobs are simply without comparative benchmarks in the private sector — there are no private police forces or fire brigades — leaving few checks on climbing public wages. And the fact that unions are among the most active donors in city elections helps keeps their political bosses in a generous mood. Little wonder that a 2008 study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that the average municipal public worker earned more than 14% higher wages and benefits than the average private sector employee. “Our system is set up for the providers, not the taxpayers,” says Peter Holle, president of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which recently launched an online database allowing users to compare the finances of Canadian municipalities. Cities, it would seem, are just stuck with eternally bloated spending demands. Except, they’re not. Ronald Jensen, ran the public works department in Phoenix, Arizona for 25 years. Not once during his time there, he says, did the city need to raise property taxes. That’s because he made sure Phoenix measured the cost of every service it provides — the cost per mile of street sweeping, the cost of depreciating and maintaining a fleet of vehicles — and allows private contractors to offer cheaper bids on every service. Most of the time, surprisingly, the city union is the low bidder on the contract, but only because public workers have internalized the culture of competitiveness and began offering incentives to workers to cut costs and improve delivery. “We operate like a business, and a lot of cities don’t operate like business,” says Mr. Jensen, a former president of the American Public Works Association. If city councils did operate, truly, like a business, they might emulate the model used in New Zealand, where some councils simply hire a CEO to be accountable for finding the most efficient way to run the city, with councilors acting strictly as a board of directors, uninvolved in the resource-intensive and politically charged minutiae of operations. It might make for an interesting experiment in Canada, too. But if Mr. Jensen learned anything from the Phoenix model, it’s that good ideas that challenge the vested interests at City Hall — where bureaucrats gain power and prestige by expanding their departments and councilors get it by pandering to voters and unions — don’t spread easily. “It becomes about ‘what’s in it for me,’” he says. What’s best for taxpayers? That’s just not a priority. National Post DON'T WASTE WATER NESTLE NEEDS IT
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has given Nestle the License to remove 1.1 Million litres of artisan springs water a day from a well in Hillsburgh in the Wellington Region of Ontario. In exchange for this water they have donated $30,000.00 for the year 2012. Even when there is a drought Nestle has demanded and received the right to maintain that rate of extraction. According to Maude Barlow, Nestles pays $3.71 per million litres it pumps from the local watershed. Nestle then packages the water in single use plastic bottles, and then sells back to the public for as much as $2 million dollars. What a great deal for Nestle. If there is such an abundance of water in Welllington County, maybe the County should consider going into the bottle water business themselves, just think how that would work to lower municipal taxes. Consider buying a re-fillable water bottle, keeping the money in your packet rather than a CEO of Nestle. Keystone pipeline and tarsands oil
There’s a lot of misinformation surrounding the Keystone Pipeline. In fact, the ongoing debate doesn’t even concern the pipeline. The first phase of the pipeline has been operational since 2010, running more than 2,000 miles through two Canadian provinces and six U.S. states. The debate is actually about the Keystone XL, an appropriately named addition that would add 700 miles to the original pipeline.
“By diverting Canadian oil that would otherwise go to the Midwest, TransCanada has admitted the pipeline would increase the price Americans pay for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion. ………Keystone XL would result in 2,500 to 4,650 temporary construction jobs, this impact will be reduced by higher oil prices in the Midwest TransCanada’s job claims are complete fabrications, and the Cornell report concludes that “KXL will not be a major source of US jobs, nor will it play any substantial role at all in putting Americans back to work. The Keystone XL pipeline is designed for one thing—to send oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf coast and from there to overseas markets. According to its own secret documents submitted to the Canadian government, TransCanada expects the pipeline to increase gas prices in the Midwest by up to 15 cents per gallon. Currently, a surplus of gas in the region means that our prices stay stable. If the pipeline is built oil companies will be able to send their product to the Gulf coast for export, which will reduce this surplus and drive up costs for Midwestern consumers The real out-of-state special interests are TransCanada (a foreign oil company) and its lobbyists in Washington, who stand to make billions from this project…… Based upon the construction of the previous phases of the pipeline by TransCanada, it is very likely that half if not more of the steel pipes to be used in the Keystone XL will be imported from India, South Korea and Canada……… “What pipeline advocates . . . fail to mention is that much of the tar sands oil that would be refined on the Gulf Coast is destined for export. Six companies have already contracted for three-quarters of the oil. Five are foreign, and the business model of the one American company – Valero – is geared toward export.. Rewards, risks not shared evenly
This is a submission to the TORONTO STAR ON May 28 2013 by Robert Bertuzzi
In an alleged free enterprise system,rewards go to the risk takers, predicated on what markets will bear. But with potential rewards comes the equal possibility of failure. But two articles from the Saturday business section show that imbalances in power mean that these risks and rewards are not distributed equally in our society. In an article on Canada's skills mismatch, a spokesperson from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said that a lack of supply in the labour market could not lead to higher wages for fast- food workers because of an unspoken right to profit for the pizza-chain owner. Bur where is the right to profit enshrined in a capitalist market economy? An article on surplus electricity supply illustrates exactly where such a right is codified. Ontario's "global adjustment", an Orwellian obfuscation if there ever was one, ensures guaranteed revenues regardless of market supply and demand for power generators contracting with Ontario Power Authority. In these examples the axiom of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is affirmed once again. As workers and consumers, we more often bear the full brunt of market mechanisms, but in a class society this burden is not equally shared. Swiss corporation in hillsburgh
Nestlé's Chairman and former CEO once infamously declared that "access to water should not be a public right." And now his company is putting into practice its belief that every resource should be commodified and sold off. Nestlé is sucking up water from a Canadian watershed during drought conditions -- to bottle and sell it off.
Nestlé has won a permit to drain an Ontario aquifer whenever it likes. Meanwhile, the surrounding communities which rely on the aquifer have by-laws to restrict their access to their own water during dry conditions in the summer. This just isn’t right, and Maude Barlow, the Council of Canadians, and Ecojustice are fighting back against Nestlé and the Ontario government office that handed out its permit. It shouldn’t take a legal proceeding to force Nestlé to do the right thing. Let’s tell Nestlé that a community’s access to its own water supply is more important than any company's profits. Tell Nestlé: Stop bottling Ontario’s water source during drought conditions. Currently, Nestlé has a permit through 2017 to take about 1.1 million litres of water per day from Hillsburgh, Ontario for its bottling operations in nearby Aberfoyle -- even during drought conditions while there are by-laws on water use for households. A number of groups are fighting back. “Ontario must prioritize communities’ right to water above a private company’s thirst for profit,” says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson for the Council of Canadians. Nestlé has been in the news a lot lately for attempting to profit from our natural resources. Last month, over 220,000 SumOfUs.org supporters signed our petition against Nestlé's greedy effort to patent the fennel flower, a cure-all medicinal remedy for millions of people in impoverished communities across the Middle East and Asia. Several days after we sent out our petition, a video emerged showing Nestlé’s Chairman claiming that the idea that water is a human right comes from “extremist” NGOs and that water should have a market value. Nestlé has dealt with NGOs and lost before -- the years-long boycott over Nestlé's dirty tactics to get mothers to stop breastfeeding and use baby formula -- which resulted in thousands of infant deaths from water-born illnesses -- was a historic success in corporate campaigning. Nestlé’s appetite to commodify water and natural remedies is a recurring strategy by a corporation with a pattern of seeking to privatize and profit from traditional knowledge and our natural resources. By speaking out against the draining of our watersheds, you will be taking a stand against Nestlé’s strategy to profit off everything in nature. Demand that Nestlé stop commodifying everything in nature. Stop draining Ontario's watershed to bottle water. Thanks for all you do The future of transportation
This prediction sounds bold primarily for the fact that most of us don't think about technology – or the history of technology – in century-long increments: “We’re probably closer to the end of the automobility era than we are to its beginning,” says Maurie Cohen, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “If we’re 100 years into the automobile era, it seems pretty inconceivable that the car as we know it is going to be around for another 100 years.”
Cohen figures that we’re unlikely to maintain the deteriorating Interstate Highway System for the next century, or to perpetuate for generations to come the public policies and subsidies that have supported the car up until now. Sitting in the present, automobiles are so embedded in society that it’s hard to envision any future without them. But no technology – no matter how essential it seems in its own era – is ever permanent. Consider, just to borrow some examples from transportation history, the sailboat, the steamship, the canal system, the carriage, and the streetcar. All of those technologies rose, became ubiquitous, and were eventually replaced. And that process followed a pattern that can tell us much about the future of the automobile – that is, if we’re willing to think about it not in the language of today's "war on cars," but in the broad arc of time. The replacement of the car is probably out there. We just don’t fully recognize it yet. “There’s not going to be a cataclysmic moment,” Cohen says of what’s coming for the car. “Like any other technology that outlives its usefulness, it just sort of disappears into the background and we slowly forget about it.” The landline telephone is undergoing that process right now. Your grandmother probably still has one. But did you even bother to call the phone company the last time you moved into a new home? “It’s not as if we all wake up one morning and decide we’re going to get rid of our landlines,” Cohen says, “but they just kind of decay away. “I think cars will kind of disappear in much the same way.” They may still exist at the periphery (there are still canal boats out there). But, for the most part, in all likelihood we’ll move on. History is full of these "socio-technical transitions," as academics like Cohen call them. The history of the steamship has particularly influenced this line of thinking. Society spent a good hundred years transitioning from the sailing ship to the steamship. “It wasn’t as if steamships instantly demonstrated their superiority,” Cohen says. There were problems with the technology. Kinks had to be worked out. Sometimes they blew up. We often think of the car as having arrived with a flourish from Henry Ford around the turn of the last century. But the history of the automobile actually dates back more than a hundred years earlier to steam-powered vehicles and the first internal combustion engine. Early prototypes of the car used to blow up, too. People were afraid of them. You had to acquire a special skill set just to operate them. And then there were all the networks we needed to develop – roads, gas stations, repair shops – to make cars feasible. “We tend to focus on the car itself as the central element,” Cohen says, “and we fail to recognize that it’s not just the car.” Like any ubiquitous technology, the car is embedded in a whole social system. In this case, that system includes fuel supply lines, mechanisms for educating and licensing new drivers, companies to insure them, laws to govern how cars are used on common roads and police officers to enforce them. In the academic language of socio-technical transitions theory, all of that stuff is the regime around the car. “People who are part of that regime get up in the morning, put their shoes on and reproduce that system on a daily basis,” Cohen says. “So that system also has a profound ability to beat back any challenges to it.” But we can already start to see cracks in the regime. New automobile registrations have plateaued in the U.S, even as the population has continued to grow. Rising gas prices have made some housing patterns predicated on the car unsustainable. Twentysomethings are now less likely to own cars and say they’re less enamored of them. The 1973 classic car flick American Graffiti, Cohen points out, would never be made today. Within any social system, there also exist what Cohen calls “insurgent niches” challenging the regime. Niches are fragile, they’re underfunded, they’re stigmatized. The car was once an insurgent niche in the age of streetcars. Now in the age of the automobile, we might think of those niches as car-sharing companies or bike advocacy groups. Until World War I, we viewed the car as just a carriage without a horse. Some niches eventually grow to replace the prevailing regime, as cars themselves once did. But that process is equally dependent on so much more than technological invention. Look at how the cell phone has evolved to replace the landline. Our need for cell phones didn’t arise in a vacuum. Work practices changed. Commuting times got longer, creating the need for communication inside cars. Batteries got smaller. Cell phone towers proliferated. These are the unnoticed events that happen in the slow course of technological transition. We didn’t even recognize that the car was a fundamentally new thing until around World War I, Cohen says. Until then, many people viewed the car as just a carriage without a horse. “The replacement of the car is probably out there,” Cohen adds. “We just don’t fully recognize it yet.” In fact, he predicts, it will probably come from China, which would make for an ironic comeuppance by history. The car was largely developed in America to fit the American landscape, with our wide-open spaces and brand-new communities. And then the car was awkwardly grafted onto other places, like dense, old European cities and developing countries. If the car’s replacement comes out of China, it will be designed to fit the particular needs and conditions of China, and then it will spread from there. The result probably won’t work as well in the U.S., Cohen says, in the same way that the car never worked as well in Florence as it did in Detroit. We’re not terribly well positioned right now to think about what this future will look like. Part of the challenge is that, culturally, we’re much more accustomed to celebrating new gadgets than thinking about how old technology decays. “And people don’t have the perspective that extends beyond their own lives,” Cohen says. “They were born into a society and culture where cars were everywhere, and they can’t envision – with good reason – living their lives without a car.” He worries that in the U.S., we’ve lost our “cultural capacity to envision alternative futures,” to envision the Futurama of the next century. More often, when we do picture the future, it looks either like a reproduced version of the present or like some apocalyptic landscape. But this exercise requires a lot more imagination: What will be the next carriage without a horse? The next car without an engine? Emily Badger is a staff writer at The Atlantic Cities. www.theatlanticcities.com Margaret thatcher hero or not
By: Thomas Walkom National Affairs, Published on Wed Apr 10 2013 Toronto Star Republish Margaret Thatcher is dead. Views differ on how to mark her passing. But the more important story is that Thatcherism — the hard-nosed approach to economic policy that still carries the former British prime minister’s name — is also dead. It started to ail years ago, as countries like Brazil and Argentina broke away from dictators and from the nostrums of neo-liberal, market capitalism that these dictators supported. To all intents and purposes, Thatcherism breathed its last in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown. That’s when, in a desperate effort to keep the global economy alive, countries around the world abandoned the Thatcherite wisdom of balanced budgets and tough monetary policy. In Europe, Thatcherism remains on life support — but only because the austerity buffs of Britain and the eurozone refuse to admit its passing. In Canada, it is still worshipped by a generation of conservative politicians who see themselves as Thatcher’s children — people such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, federal Treasury Board President Tony Clement and Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. But with the possible exception of Hudak, they, too, know that Thatcherism is dead. It is dead because it no longer works. When Thatcherism was loosed on the world, it did work. The world that Thatcher faced when she became Britain’s prime minister in 1979 was still coming to terms with the events of the post-1945 era. World War II had produced a great compromise between labour and capital. Under the terms of that compromise, capitalism was allowed to do its magic. In return, through both labour unions and the welfare state, working people were awarded a piece of the action. It was a remarkably productive period. But it also contained the seeds of its own undoing. By ensuring that employment stayed at high levels, the great compromise eliminated the most potent weapon bosses had over their workers — fear of joblessness. As a result, workers were able to win higher wages. But with rising wages came inflation. As inflation rose, the engine of capitalism itself was undermined. If the market economy were to be kept alive, desperate measures were needed. Thatcher provided them. Her remedy, soon copied by nations like Canada, relied on the deliberate creation of unemployment. This was accomplished in part by letting central banks boost interest rates to levels that drove weaker businesses bankrupt. It was accomplished in part by gutting social programs like welfare and employment insurance that provided aid to the jobless. Where unions were strong, as in Britain, labour rights were severely restricted. For a while, Thatcherism succeeded. In Canada and elsewhere, unemployment soared, wages stalled and income inequality increased. But the economy, as measured by output, soared. To the Thatcherites, this was all that mattered. The new orthodoxy was lauded. Yet nothing lasts for ever. Neo-liberalism, too, contained its own contradictions. One was economic. When most people lack money, fewer buy. That is the problem Canadian businesses face now. That is why they sit on their profits rather than follow Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s advice to reinvest them. Why invest in productive capacity when no one can afford what you make? The second was political. As a political philosophy, Thatcherism was doomed. People will put up with only so much abuse before they rebel. In South America the reaction against neo-liberalism produced left-leaning governments across the continent. In Europe today, the fight against austerity is, at one level, a delayed reaction to Thatcherite orthodoxies. In Canada even an enthusiastic Thatcherite like Harper has been forced to keep federal spending high. As the public furor over temporary foreign workers demonstrates, Harper’s wage reduction strategies are also meeting fierce popular resistance. So Margaret Thatcher is dead. He acolytes would like to keep her legacy alive. But the needs of the system she so vigorously championed have changed. Capitalism today requires something different. Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Toronto Star Are we paying HST on hydro's debt
Peter R. Scott's guest editorial addressed to the Hon. Brad Duguid, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure regarding the Ontario Energy Debt Retirement charge that appears on his monthly Hydro One invoice last week sparked some comment from at least one reader, along with some additional interesting information.
Scott questioned the fact the Liberal party of Ontario was often referred to as the party of the people, especially in light of the fact that his monthly energy invoice - especially the debt retirement portion - was so obtuse as to be almost indecipherable. In fact, Scott said he was unable to determine the total debt retirement debt or the the date the debt would be satisfied. Scott made it clear he felt no Ontarian should be required to pay a debt until they know the full amount of that debt and the exact time it would be paid off. In trying to discover these two items, Scott indicated he had more than a little difficulty getting uptodate numbers. "I contacted the Ministry of Revenue Aug. 13 regarding my concerns over the DRC. I was informed that the most recent calculation available to the public is from March 2009. The total debts and liabilities at that time equalled $30.5 billion. Mr. Duguid, even I'm smart enough to figure out why your government does not want the total DRC amount to be included in monthly energy bills - it makes for bad government public relations. non-governing parties in Ontario should be demanding this of your party. All this leaves me feeling like hard working Ontarians are being hoodwinked on this issue. This is simply not fair. It would seem that your government is covering the real cost of energy production - past and present - in Ontario through the DRC. Having said that Mr. Duguid, can you promise me and other hard working Ontarians that you will make every effort to address my concerns herein and work with your government colleagues in the legislature to ensure that energy users in Ontario who are expected to ante up see the following information on their monthly energy invoices: the balance of the DRC debt - month over month and a clear end date? Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that a provincial election is on the horizon and I fully expect that all members of the Ontario Legislature, including incumbent Liberals, will be heavily questioned on all issues to do with energy supply, cost and security. I, for one, can promise you that I will be present on the campaign trail asking for clarification on the issues mentioned above. I also plan to mention the DRC at every opportunity." "In closing, please remember that Ontarians look to our government for various types of protection; health, legal and consumer - to name a few. Unfortunately, at this time, I feel Ontario consumers and hard working families are not being protected and properly informed on this issue," Scott stated. Our caller had uncovered an even more alarming fact. "We're actually paying the Harmonized Sales Tax on the debt reduction," he said. "On my bill, I paid just under seven dollars in HST," he said. "that's just outrageous." The irate reader said everybody has to really start to get on this government's case. "We can't keep letting them gouge us," he said. Then he came up with even more startling information. "Did you know that their allowed to keep borrowing while we keep paying the debt," he asked. "I'd like to know how anybody can justify a tax on a debt," he said. And we'd like to know how anybody can pay off a $30.5 billion debt while the debt is still building? We suspect it can't be done and - even if it did happen - how would we know for sure? Farmers losing Fight Against Urban Sprawl
Farmers losing fight against urban sprawl From the deck of Foxhill Farm, Richard Rand can look out over Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley and see the green fields rolling off like a crumbled blanket toward Cape Blomidon. By CanWest News Service October 7, 2007 From the deck of Foxhill Farm, Richard Rand can look out over Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley and see the green fields rolling off like a crumbled blanket toward Cape Blomidon.
It's an inspiring, beautiful sight and one that's very much in demand these days - from the Annapolis Valley to Ontario's Niagara Peninsula and British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. Much of Canada's rich farm land is more valuable for housing developments these days than it is for supporting crops. Whereas land for growing vegetables or raising cattle might fetch $2,000 an acre, developers are ready to offer farmers $40,000 an acre, knowing they can flip it for twice that when the property becomes part of a new subdivision. It's that loss of land that's concerning advocates about the long-term viability and supply of locally grown food. "I always considered myself a steward of the land," said Rand, whose family has farmed in the Annapolis Valley for six generations. But that's not necessarily the case with a couple of his neighbours, who are currently considering selling their farms to make room for new developments that could hold anywhere from 300 to 500 new homes. Rand said he's not anti-development, but the idea of prime agricultural land being turned into subdivisions disturbs him. A couple of weeks ago Rand held a meeting to debate the idea. "If I don't say something, I'm guilty for just standing and watching it go by," he said. It's not only the aesthetic beauty that attract development. Farm land is relatively easy and inexpensive to develop. The already cleared land makes it easy to dig foundations and good drainage is available. Another part of the problem is that for many farmers, agriculture isn't very feasible any more. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of farms dropped 7.1 per cent to 229,373 farms across Canada -- a loss of 17,500 farms -- according to the 2006 Statistics Canada census. The census reports that farmers are getting older overall, while fewer, younger individuals are continuing to work in the field. Lacking younger family members willing to take on the burden of managing the operation, many of the retiring farmers -- like Rand's neighbours -- are hoping to cash out. The pattern has become so well-established that Witold Rybczynski -- a well-known author on urban planning -- used the term developers apply to farmers who sell their land as the title to his most recent book on land development: The Last Harvest. The connotations of that phrase cause worries advocates that down the road that will mean an increasing reliance on imported food. Jill Grant, director of the school of planning at Halifax's Dalhousie University, said for now it's fine to buy inexpensive food from other countries, but she worries that as energy costs escalate, local food sources will be increasingly important. "In looking at agricultural land, you can't just think about the immediate need for housing," Grant said. "You have to think about future generations and what they may need to sustain themselves. Food is such a basic element that we can't rob future generations of the opportunity to grow it." Yet that's exactly what's been going on across the country, according to Melissa Watkins, executive director of the Ontario Farmland Trust. "The big failing that's happening here in Ontario, and I imagine elsewhere in Canada, is our land uses a planning system that is supposed to protect the land for agriculture." Some of the initiatives that have been done to protect farmland include British Columbia's agricultural land reserve, established in the 1970s to stop the annual loss of 6,000 hectares of farm land; and the City of Toronto's land-use boundary, meant to prevent urban sprawl. The former is a land reserve of about 4.7 million hectares. But critics say neither work. Areas such as B.C.'s fertile Okanagan Valley continues to face development pressures, while sprawl has just skipped the Toronto land-use boundary to continue further out. The latter boundary also leads to inequities, with farmers within the boundary unable to get the sky-high prices for land farmers outside the boundary can command. Watkins believes the federal government should take some interest in the problem and put legislation in place to stop valuable farm land from vanishing. "It is a national resource. If we want to have the capacity to feed ourselves, we should be concerned about our capacity to produce our food." Back in the valley, Rand proposes a program that might buy farmers out, paying them less than what a developer would, but at a fair enough price that the land would become available for another farmer to purchase it. "I think society should look at paying that. If not, we're going to lose a lot of good farm land here because it's a beautiful place to live. Once it's gone, it's gone." © (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. |
The cure for many minor problems
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Times certainly have changed
Can you believe.. a home hair dryer
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Undercover cab
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The 10 th anniversary of the Iraq War
James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May.
This month marks ten years since the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq. In my view this was the biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps over a much longer period. Vietnam was costlier and more damaging, but also more understandable. As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a "war of choice" whose costs we are still paying.
My reasons for bringing this up:
1) Reckoning. Anyone now age 30 or above should probably reflect on what he or she got right and wrong ten years ago. I feel I was right in arguing, six months before the war in "The Fifty-First State," that invading Iraq would bring on a slew of complications and ramifications that would take at least a decade to unwind.
I feel not "wrong" but regretful for having resigned myself even by that point to the certainty that war was coming. We know, now, that within a few days of the 9/11 attacks many members of the Bush Administration had resolved to "go to the source," in Iraq. Here at the magazine, it was because of our resigned certainty about the war that Cullen Murphy, then serving as editor, encouraged me in early 2002 to begin an examination of what invading and occupying Iraq would mean. The resulting article was in our November, 2002 issue; we put it on line in late August in hopes of influencing the debate.
My article didn't come out and say as bluntly as it could have: we are about to make a terrible mistake we will regret and should avoid. Instead I couched the argument as cautionary advice. We know this is coming, and when it does, the results are going to be costly, damaging, and self-defeating. So we should prepare and try to diminish the worst effects (for Iraq and for us). This form of argument reflected my conclusion that the wheels were turning and that there was no way to stop them. Analytically, that was correct: Tony Blair or Colin Powell might conceivably have slowed the momentum, if either of them had turned anti-war in time, but few other people could have. Still, I'd feel better now if I had pushed the argument even harder at the time.
For the record, Michael Kelly, who had been editor of the magazine and was a passionate advocate of the need for war, allowed us to undertake this project and put it on the cover even though he disagreed. Soon thereafter he was in Iraq, as an embedded reporter with the 3rd Infantry Division; in an incredible tragedy he was killed during the invasion's early phase.
2) Accountability. For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage. Robert McNamara did worthy penance at the World Bank. Rusk, Rostow, Westmoreland were not declaiming on what the U.S. should and should not do.
After Iraq, there has been a weird amnesty and amnesia about people's misjudgment on the most consequential decision of our times. Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 primary race largely because she had been "wrong" on Iraq and Barack Obama had been "right." But Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, McCain, Abrams, and others including the pro-war press claque are still offering their judgments unfazed. In his post-presidential reticence George W. Bush has been an honorable exception.
I don't say these people should never again weigh in. But there should be an asterisk on their views, like the fine print about side effects in pharmaceutical ads.
3) Honor. Say this for Al Gore: He was forthright, he was early, and he was right about Iraq.
4) Liberal hawks. Say this about the "liberal hawk" faction of 2002-2003: unlike, say, Peter Beinart, not enough of them have reckoned with what they got wrong then, and how hard many of them were pushing the "justice" and "duty" to invade, not to mention its feasibility. It would be good to hear from more of them, ten years on.
5) Threat inflation. As I think about this war and others the U.S. has contemplated or entered during my conscious life, I realize how strong is the recurrent pattern of threat inflation. Exactly once in the post-WW II era has the real threat been more ominous than officially portrayed. That was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the world really came within moments of nuclear destruction.
Otherwise: the "missile gap." The Gulf of Tonkin. The overall scale of the Soviet menace. Iraq. In each case, the public soberly received official warnings about the imminent threat. In cold retrospect, those warnings were wrong -- or contrived, or overblown, or misperceived. Official claims about the evils of these systems were many times justified. Claims about imminent threats were most of the times hyped.
Which brings me to:
6) Iran. Most of the people now warning stridently about the threat from Iran warned stridently about Iraq ten years ago. That doesn't prove they are wrong this time too. But it's a factor to be weighed. Most of the technical warnings we are getting about Iran's capabilities are like those we got about Saddam's. That doesn't prove they are wrong again. But it's a factor.
Purportedly authoritative inside reports, replete with technical details about "yellowcake" or aluminum tubes, had an outsized role in convincing people of the threat from Iraq. We wish now that more people had looked harder at those claims. If you'd like to see someone looking hard at similar technical claims about Iran, please check out the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where Youssaf Butt argues that the latest warnings mean less than they seem. Also from the Bulletin, a previous debunking, and a proposal for a negotiated endgame with Iran.
Again: like most of humanity, I can't judge these nuclear-technology arguments myself. But the long history of crying-wolf hyped warnings, in some cases by the same people now most alarmist about Iran, puts a major burden of proof on those claiming imminent peril.
7) Clarity. I said earlier that I regretted not being more direct and blatant in saying: Don't go into Iraq. For more than eight years, I've tried to argue very directly that a preemptive military strike on Iran would be an enormous mistake on all levels for either Israel or the United States. Strategically it could only cement-in Iranian hostility for the long run. Tactically every professional soldier -- Israeli, American, or otherwise -- who has examined the practicalities of such a mission has warned that it would be folly.
Lest the soldiers seem too gloomy, several U.S. Senators are working on a resolution committing the U.S. to lend its military and diplomatic support if PM Netanyahu decides, against the advice of most of his own military establishment, to attack. It would be bad enough if Netanyahu got his own country into this bind; there is no precedent for the U.S. delegating to any ally the decision to commit our troops to an attack. It would be different from NATO-style treaty obligations for mutual defense.
There is more ahead about Israeli, Iranian, and American negotiating strategies, but this is enough for now. It's also as much as I can manage before recovering from the flight from DC to Beijing.
re print from: theatlanticcities.com
This month marks ten years since the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq. In my view this was the biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps over a much longer period. Vietnam was costlier and more damaging, but also more understandable. As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a "war of choice" whose costs we are still paying.
My reasons for bringing this up:
1) Reckoning. Anyone now age 30 or above should probably reflect on what he or she got right and wrong ten years ago. I feel I was right in arguing, six months before the war in "The Fifty-First State," that invading Iraq would bring on a slew of complications and ramifications that would take at least a decade to unwind.
I feel not "wrong" but regretful for having resigned myself even by that point to the certainty that war was coming. We know, now, that within a few days of the 9/11 attacks many members of the Bush Administration had resolved to "go to the source," in Iraq. Here at the magazine, it was because of our resigned certainty about the war that Cullen Murphy, then serving as editor, encouraged me in early 2002 to begin an examination of what invading and occupying Iraq would mean. The resulting article was in our November, 2002 issue; we put it on line in late August in hopes of influencing the debate.
My article didn't come out and say as bluntly as it could have: we are about to make a terrible mistake we will regret and should avoid. Instead I couched the argument as cautionary advice. We know this is coming, and when it does, the results are going to be costly, damaging, and self-defeating. So we should prepare and try to diminish the worst effects (for Iraq and for us). This form of argument reflected my conclusion that the wheels were turning and that there was no way to stop them. Analytically, that was correct: Tony Blair or Colin Powell might conceivably have slowed the momentum, if either of them had turned anti-war in time, but few other people could have. Still, I'd feel better now if I had pushed the argument even harder at the time.
For the record, Michael Kelly, who had been editor of the magazine and was a passionate advocate of the need for war, allowed us to undertake this project and put it on the cover even though he disagreed. Soon thereafter he was in Iraq, as an embedded reporter with the 3rd Infantry Division; in an incredible tragedy he was killed during the invasion's early phase.
2) Accountability. For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage. Robert McNamara did worthy penance at the World Bank. Rusk, Rostow, Westmoreland were not declaiming on what the U.S. should and should not do.
After Iraq, there has been a weird amnesty and amnesia about people's misjudgment on the most consequential decision of our times. Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 primary race largely because she had been "wrong" on Iraq and Barack Obama had been "right." But Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, McCain, Abrams, and others including the pro-war press claque are still offering their judgments unfazed. In his post-presidential reticence George W. Bush has been an honorable exception.
I don't say these people should never again weigh in. But there should be an asterisk on their views, like the fine print about side effects in pharmaceutical ads.
3) Honor. Say this for Al Gore: He was forthright, he was early, and he was right about Iraq.
4) Liberal hawks. Say this about the "liberal hawk" faction of 2002-2003: unlike, say, Peter Beinart, not enough of them have reckoned with what they got wrong then, and how hard many of them were pushing the "justice" and "duty" to invade, not to mention its feasibility. It would be good to hear from more of them, ten years on.
5) Threat inflation. As I think about this war and others the U.S. has contemplated or entered during my conscious life, I realize how strong is the recurrent pattern of threat inflation. Exactly once in the post-WW II era has the real threat been more ominous than officially portrayed. That was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the world really came within moments of nuclear destruction.
Otherwise: the "missile gap." The Gulf of Tonkin. The overall scale of the Soviet menace. Iraq. In each case, the public soberly received official warnings about the imminent threat. In cold retrospect, those warnings were wrong -- or contrived, or overblown, or misperceived. Official claims about the evils of these systems were many times justified. Claims about imminent threats were most of the times hyped.
Which brings me to:
6) Iran. Most of the people now warning stridently about the threat from Iran warned stridently about Iraq ten years ago. That doesn't prove they are wrong this time too. But it's a factor to be weighed. Most of the technical warnings we are getting about Iran's capabilities are like those we got about Saddam's. That doesn't prove they are wrong again. But it's a factor.
Purportedly authoritative inside reports, replete with technical details about "yellowcake" or aluminum tubes, had an outsized role in convincing people of the threat from Iraq. We wish now that more people had looked harder at those claims. If you'd like to see someone looking hard at similar technical claims about Iran, please check out the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where Youssaf Butt argues that the latest warnings mean less than they seem. Also from the Bulletin, a previous debunking, and a proposal for a negotiated endgame with Iran.
Again: like most of humanity, I can't judge these nuclear-technology arguments myself. But the long history of crying-wolf hyped warnings, in some cases by the same people now most alarmist about Iran, puts a major burden of proof on those claiming imminent peril.
7) Clarity. I said earlier that I regretted not being more direct and blatant in saying: Don't go into Iraq. For more than eight years, I've tried to argue very directly that a preemptive military strike on Iran would be an enormous mistake on all levels for either Israel or the United States. Strategically it could only cement-in Iranian hostility for the long run. Tactically every professional soldier -- Israeli, American, or otherwise -- who has examined the practicalities of such a mission has warned that it would be folly.
Lest the soldiers seem too gloomy, several U.S. Senators are working on a resolution committing the U.S. to lend its military and diplomatic support if PM Netanyahu decides, against the advice of most of his own military establishment, to attack. It would be bad enough if Netanyahu got his own country into this bind; there is no precedent for the U.S. delegating to any ally the decision to commit our troops to an attack. It would be different from NATO-style treaty obligations for mutual defense.
There is more ahead about Israeli, Iranian, and American negotiating strategies, but this is enough for now. It's also as much as I can manage before recovering from the flight from DC to Beijing.
re print from: theatlanticcities.com
One of USA's oldest shopping malls converts to micro apartments
Aside from the economic whupping of 2008–2009, a major casualty of the recession was space itself. Homeowners and businesses bled square footage, leaving behind a landscape of empty McMansions, vacated big-box stores, and now-famously abandoned shopping malls. Since then, many municipalities have been grappling with how to repopulate these spaces with more nimble, post-boom uses. Existing mall mashups pretty much stick to the public realm—like Cleveland’s indoor gardens and Vanderbilt’s health clinics—but this spring a shuttered shopping center in downtown Providence will be reborn in micro form, with two stories of micro-apartments above ground-floor micro-retail.
As nightmarish as a total mall existence sounds, this project offers Providence residents the best shot at living in a landmarked piece of architectural history they’ll probably ever have. Built in 1828 by architects James Bucklin and Russell Warren, the Greek Revival structure was the nation’s first enclosed shopping mall. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1976, but by 2010 had made the Providence Preservation Society’s 10 Most Endangered Buildings list.
Working with J. Michael Abbott of Northeast Collaborative Architects, developer Evan Granoff sliced up the Arcade’s two upper floors into 48 apartments. Thirty-eight are micro—between 225 and 450 square feet—a scale that brings the new spaces closer in line with the mall’s 1828 design, according to Granoff. "It’s allowing us basically to put the building back to what it was when it was built," he told Providence Business News. "They were individual rooms that were tiny. We’re actually creating more of the streetscape [feel] that was inside."
The tenants who move into the $550 apartment-lets this spring won’t need to bring much. The units come with built-in beds, full baths, and storage, so anyone fresh from dorm life or a recession-mandated stay with family could breeze in with nothing but a new mall wardrobe, a toothbrush, and some takeout from one of the ground-floor restaurants. With no stove to speak of, micro-dwellers will have to make due with, yes, their micro-waves.
The Arcade is among the projects featured in the Museum of the City of New York’s "Making Room" exhibition. Though mall living is certainly not for everyone, the project seems to address some of the shortcomings of the micro model. Trendiness aside, tiny apartments lack viability as isolated buildings. To make any sense at all—and to keep tenants from descending into a depression we’ll call spatial affective disorder—micro-dwellings must be plugged into a livable urban grid, with decent walkability, transportation access, and nearby shops and services. A mall certainly takes care of that, and it’s car-friendly by nature (unlike some of the more ascetic proposals we’ve seen, like this potential micro-site in Denver). You could do a lot worse than an apartment with parking in downtown Providence for $550, particularly if you’re still working a recession-era McJob.
Lamar Anderson
This post originally appeared on Architizer, an Atlantic partner site.
As nightmarish as a total mall existence sounds, this project offers Providence residents the best shot at living in a landmarked piece of architectural history they’ll probably ever have. Built in 1828 by architects James Bucklin and Russell Warren, the Greek Revival structure was the nation’s first enclosed shopping mall. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1976, but by 2010 had made the Providence Preservation Society’s 10 Most Endangered Buildings list.
Working with J. Michael Abbott of Northeast Collaborative Architects, developer Evan Granoff sliced up the Arcade’s two upper floors into 48 apartments. Thirty-eight are micro—between 225 and 450 square feet—a scale that brings the new spaces closer in line with the mall’s 1828 design, according to Granoff. "It’s allowing us basically to put the building back to what it was when it was built," he told Providence Business News. "They were individual rooms that were tiny. We’re actually creating more of the streetscape [feel] that was inside."
The tenants who move into the $550 apartment-lets this spring won’t need to bring much. The units come with built-in beds, full baths, and storage, so anyone fresh from dorm life or a recession-mandated stay with family could breeze in with nothing but a new mall wardrobe, a toothbrush, and some takeout from one of the ground-floor restaurants. With no stove to speak of, micro-dwellers will have to make due with, yes, their micro-waves.
The Arcade is among the projects featured in the Museum of the City of New York’s "Making Room" exhibition. Though mall living is certainly not for everyone, the project seems to address some of the shortcomings of the micro model. Trendiness aside, tiny apartments lack viability as isolated buildings. To make any sense at all—and to keep tenants from descending into a depression we’ll call spatial affective disorder—micro-dwellings must be plugged into a livable urban grid, with decent walkability, transportation access, and nearby shops and services. A mall certainly takes care of that, and it’s car-friendly by nature (unlike some of the more ascetic proposals we’ve seen, like this potential micro-site in Denver). You could do a lot worse than an apartment with parking in downtown Providence for $550, particularly if you’re still working a recession-era McJob.
Lamar Anderson
This post originally appeared on Architizer, an Atlantic partner site.
SAVE OUR FARMLAND
reprint: todaysfarmer.ca By: Bethanee Jensen
The city of Waterloo has offered the first ray of
hope to what has become a major problem, Appropriate Land Use. It has recently
proposed to develop its downtown core for business and housing in an effort to
curb urban sprawl.
London, in contrast, quoting Randy Richmond of The
London Free Press, "tries to forget those cornfields on its borders. We pave the
ones on the outskirts as quickly as possible." London does not have the monopoly
on this way of thinking. The same can be said of every urban area in the
country. Farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate. As you drive into any
city, town or village in Ontario, from any direction, the first thing you see is
acres, usually hundreds of acres, of new subdivisions and new business areas in
various stages of completion.
Another southwestern Ontario city recently
proposed tearing up a city block including a plaza and parking lot to create a
green space in the centre of the city, yet it continues to expand outward.
The world population continues to increase, and we, as farmers, are charged
with the task of "feeding the world." There is only a given amount of land to go
around. Every acre taken over for urban development is one less acre of our best
land that can be used to produce food.
Southwestern Ontario contains
arguably the best farmland in the country. We are situated in the most ideal
place to withstand climate change, due to its latitude and its proximity to the
Great Lakes. We are in close proximity to a lot of the people we are trying to
feed, and yet these same people are taking the land that we are trying to feed
them with. It's not like any other business that can relocate. How can we feed
them, or the world, without good land? Farmers have increased production on the
land remaining to them, to the point where alarm bells have started to go off as
to whether or not it is sustainable.
The Greenbelt is an attempt to
protect farmland, but it does not go far enough. There are still large tracts of
Class 1 land (i. e. the best land) around cities that isn't protected. The most
appropriate use of Class 1 land is farmland, and it ALL should be protected.
I applaud the City of Waterloo for its attempt to curb urban sprawl. I
hope this is just the first step. We need more cities like Waterloo. Just as
farmers have worked to increase production of the land allotted to them, cities
must be active at developing within their existing boundaries. If the dragon
cannot be contained, it will soon be too big to be fed.
- - -
reprint: todaysfarmer.ca By: Bethanee Jensen
The city of Waterloo has offered the first ray of
hope to what has become a major problem, Appropriate Land Use. It has recently
proposed to develop its downtown core for business and housing in an effort to
curb urban sprawl.
London, in contrast, quoting Randy Richmond of The
London Free Press, "tries to forget those cornfields on its borders. We pave the
ones on the outskirts as quickly as possible." London does not have the monopoly
on this way of thinking. The same can be said of every urban area in the
country. Farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate. As you drive into any
city, town or village in Ontario, from any direction, the first thing you see is
acres, usually hundreds of acres, of new subdivisions and new business areas in
various stages of completion.
Another southwestern Ontario city recently
proposed tearing up a city block including a plaza and parking lot to create a
green space in the centre of the city, yet it continues to expand outward.
The world population continues to increase, and we, as farmers, are charged
with the task of "feeding the world." There is only a given amount of land to go
around. Every acre taken over for urban development is one less acre of our best
land that can be used to produce food.
Southwestern Ontario contains
arguably the best farmland in the country. We are situated in the most ideal
place to withstand climate change, due to its latitude and its proximity to the
Great Lakes. We are in close proximity to a lot of the people we are trying to
feed, and yet these same people are taking the land that we are trying to feed
them with. It's not like any other business that can relocate. How can we feed
them, or the world, without good land? Farmers have increased production on the
land remaining to them, to the point where alarm bells have started to go off as
to whether or not it is sustainable.
The Greenbelt is an attempt to
protect farmland, but it does not go far enough. There are still large tracts of
Class 1 land (i. e. the best land) around cities that isn't protected. The most
appropriate use of Class 1 land is farmland, and it ALL should be protected.
I applaud the City of Waterloo for its attempt to curb urban sprawl. I
hope this is just the first step. We need more cities like Waterloo. Just as
farmers have worked to increase production of the land allotted to them, cities
must be active at developing within their existing boundaries. If the dragon
cannot be contained, it will soon be too big to be fed.
- - -
Genetically Modified Foods
The upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market is getting ahead of the game, becoming the first major retailer in the United States to require that all genetically modified foods in their U.S. and Canadian stores be labeled by 2018. It’s a move that could “radically alter the food industry,” notes the New York Times. In explaining the move in the Whole Foods blog, the retailer says it “stood up for the consumer’s right to know,” pointing out that “our customers care passionately” about the issue. Although there are no mandatory labeling laws in Canada and the United States, more than 60 countries have some form of regulation and several U.S. states are considering the issue.
"This is an issue whose time has come," Whole Foods Co-Chief Executive Walter Robb said. "With cases like horse meat discovered in the U.K., plastic in milk in China, the recalls of almond and peanut butter in the U.S., customers have a fundamental right to know what's in their food."
In November, California voters did not back a ballot measure that would have required GMO labeling after companies dumped millions of dollars to attack the campaign, points out the Los Angeles Times. Yet the latest move by Whole Foods shows how major retailers are starting to use their influence to shift opinions on an issue even if the government doesn’t get involved, such as when Burger King announced it would only use eggs from cage-free hens. Although others are expected to follow the Whole Foods lead, it likely won’t be a quick process simply because the issue of genetically modified foods isn’t easy to understand for the public at large. www.slate.com
The upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market is getting ahead of the game, becoming the first major retailer in the United States to require that all genetically modified foods in their U.S. and Canadian stores be labeled by 2018. It’s a move that could “radically alter the food industry,” notes the New York Times. In explaining the move in the Whole Foods blog, the retailer says it “stood up for the consumer’s right to know,” pointing out that “our customers care passionately” about the issue. Although there are no mandatory labeling laws in Canada and the United States, more than 60 countries have some form of regulation and several U.S. states are considering the issue.
"This is an issue whose time has come," Whole Foods Co-Chief Executive Walter Robb said. "With cases like horse meat discovered in the U.K., plastic in milk in China, the recalls of almond and peanut butter in the U.S., customers have a fundamental right to know what's in their food."
In November, California voters did not back a ballot measure that would have required GMO labeling after companies dumped millions of dollars to attack the campaign, points out the Los Angeles Times. Yet the latest move by Whole Foods shows how major retailers are starting to use their influence to shift opinions on an issue even if the government doesn’t get involved, such as when Burger King announced it would only use eggs from cage-free hens. Although others are expected to follow the Whole Foods lead, it likely won’t be a quick process simply because the issue of genetically modified foods isn’t easy to understand for the public at large. www.slate.com
The solution to gridlock is not more taxes
Package trucks—those familiar parcel delivery vehicles that double-park on your block—have become an international target of commuter ire.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, a significant amount of city gridlock can be attributed to restrictions on freight movement, like a lack of space for trucks in cities. By one estimate, 947,000 hours of vehicle delay annually can be attributed to delivery trucks parked curbside in downtown areas.
And it's only getting worse. Many cities are tightening laws that restrict the operation of large vehicles. At the same time, the rise of internet shopping has made courier services more important to urban commerce than ever. Analysts at IBISWorld Inc., an independent source of industry research, expect internet shopping to be the driving force of growth in the $188.5 billion global courier and delivery sector, which was hit hard by the recession and by high gas prices in 2008.
But cities are taking action. Over the last couple of years, urbanists have dreamed up a handful of new parcel delivery strategies. A number got a field test in Europe last year as part of CITYLOG, a project funded by the European Union to evaluate fresh ideas in urban transport.
One of these new strategies, the BentoBox, works by shifting delivery truck activity away from peak driving hours. If congestion reduction is the goal, the ideal time to deliver packages would be late at night—but customers won’t likely be smiling when they answer the door. Named after a single-serving Japanese takeout tray, the BentoBox is a storage locker that can be loaded with parcels and then dropped off at a local docking station after hours. Customers in the area can access one of six subdivided units with a key the following morning.
Researchers say the BentoBox could be particularly effective in residential districts, shopping malls, and central squares surrounded by offices. During tests in Turin, Italy, last year, one of CITYLOG’s commercial partners, Netherlands-based courier service TNT Express, found that the BentoBox system resulted in:
Fewer heavy weight vehicles in downtown areas during rush hour, less pollution and noise in city centres, and more flexibility for customers—all of which contribute to better logistics for shopping centres and delivery zones.
TNT Express has its own program aimed at piloting urban delivery solutions. In Brussels, where the courier company delivers about 1300 parcels per week, three-quarters of those deliveries are already made using pedal-assisted electric tricycles. These small vehicles are more environmentally sound than large trucks and vans, and much less disruptive to traffic patterns when parked.
TNT is modeling a new distribution model for Brussels that it calls the "mobile depot." In this system, which works similarly to the BentoBox, a trailer containing a large number of parcels is towed to a central location in the city during off hours. Parcels are delivered by last-mile drivers in small electric or human-powered vehicles. If a few of these mobile depots could be dropped in strategic locations around the city, package trucks, which currently use surface streets and highways en route to distribution hubs located outside the city, could be eliminated.
Some of the less visible delivery strategies being tested rely on telematics systems—tools at the nexus of communications and navigation tech. "Route optimization" is a term of art in the transportation logistics sector that describes the use telematics systems to make deliveries as seamless as possible.
CITYLOG researchers conceived of a three-tiered telematics solution to optimize delivery routes. First, a pre-trip planning application maps the most traffic-friendly sequence for drivers to deliver their packages. On the road, a dynamic navigation application keeps the route up-to-date, altering it as necessary to reflect real-time changes in traffic conditions. A last-mile parcel tracking system then automatically sends customers a text message to inform them of imminent delivery. The idea is to have customers meet couriers at the door, minimizing the time that a truck has to be double-parked at the curb.
Whether couriers will soon be looking at stopwatches while you sign for your packages remains to be seen.
:theatlanticcities.com
By: Greg Nichols is a journalist and author living in Oakland, California. His first book, STRIKING GRIDIRON, is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books (an imprint of St. Martin's Press) in fall 2014.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, a significant amount of city gridlock can be attributed to restrictions on freight movement, like a lack of space for trucks in cities. By one estimate, 947,000 hours of vehicle delay annually can be attributed to delivery trucks parked curbside in downtown areas.
And it's only getting worse. Many cities are tightening laws that restrict the operation of large vehicles. At the same time, the rise of internet shopping has made courier services more important to urban commerce than ever. Analysts at IBISWorld Inc., an independent source of industry research, expect internet shopping to be the driving force of growth in the $188.5 billion global courier and delivery sector, which was hit hard by the recession and by high gas prices in 2008.
But cities are taking action. Over the last couple of years, urbanists have dreamed up a handful of new parcel delivery strategies. A number got a field test in Europe last year as part of CITYLOG, a project funded by the European Union to evaluate fresh ideas in urban transport.
One of these new strategies, the BentoBox, works by shifting delivery truck activity away from peak driving hours. If congestion reduction is the goal, the ideal time to deliver packages would be late at night—but customers won’t likely be smiling when they answer the door. Named after a single-serving Japanese takeout tray, the BentoBox is a storage locker that can be loaded with parcels and then dropped off at a local docking station after hours. Customers in the area can access one of six subdivided units with a key the following morning.
Researchers say the BentoBox could be particularly effective in residential districts, shopping malls, and central squares surrounded by offices. During tests in Turin, Italy, last year, one of CITYLOG’s commercial partners, Netherlands-based courier service TNT Express, found that the BentoBox system resulted in:
Fewer heavy weight vehicles in downtown areas during rush hour, less pollution and noise in city centres, and more flexibility for customers—all of which contribute to better logistics for shopping centres and delivery zones.
TNT Express has its own program aimed at piloting urban delivery solutions. In Brussels, where the courier company delivers about 1300 parcels per week, three-quarters of those deliveries are already made using pedal-assisted electric tricycles. These small vehicles are more environmentally sound than large trucks and vans, and much less disruptive to traffic patterns when parked.
TNT is modeling a new distribution model for Brussels that it calls the "mobile depot." In this system, which works similarly to the BentoBox, a trailer containing a large number of parcels is towed to a central location in the city during off hours. Parcels are delivered by last-mile drivers in small electric or human-powered vehicles. If a few of these mobile depots could be dropped in strategic locations around the city, package trucks, which currently use surface streets and highways en route to distribution hubs located outside the city, could be eliminated.
Some of the less visible delivery strategies being tested rely on telematics systems—tools at the nexus of communications and navigation tech. "Route optimization" is a term of art in the transportation logistics sector that describes the use telematics systems to make deliveries as seamless as possible.
CITYLOG researchers conceived of a three-tiered telematics solution to optimize delivery routes. First, a pre-trip planning application maps the most traffic-friendly sequence for drivers to deliver their packages. On the road, a dynamic navigation application keeps the route up-to-date, altering it as necessary to reflect real-time changes in traffic conditions. A last-mile parcel tracking system then automatically sends customers a text message to inform them of imminent delivery. The idea is to have customers meet couriers at the door, minimizing the time that a truck has to be double-parked at the curb.
Whether couriers will soon be looking at stopwatches while you sign for your packages remains to be seen.
:theatlanticcities.com
By: Greg Nichols is a journalist and author living in Oakland, California. His first book, STRIKING GRIDIRON, is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books (an imprint of St. Martin's Press) in fall 2014.
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