Occupy Toronto Protestors Win Stay

[JayHawk]

There's plenty to bitch about, from the Canadian corporate tax rate better described as corporate welfare, transferring the burden to the population, including increases to the provincial and federal sales taxes among others, to the ever-increasing joblessness (latest figure is 7.5 percent, allegedly a horrible surprise to our Bible Belt Tory overseers).

There's plenty to bitch about.

I hope this meets the topic guidelines as it is directly related to Occupy Toronto.

So with what you mention with healthcare provided and education for free? (Is the education thingy correct?) It would be reasonable to say that Canada by comparison runs a rather progressive system. SO in essence the problem isn't necessarily capitalism but possibly something else? What will taxing the corporations do to improve jobs?

Actually since we are an ever expanding world and seeing as we need to increase our economies by XX amount just to keep those being born and growing up employed then does anyone here labor under the misconception that economies can expand and human beings can grow out of control forever?

I know I was shit on in another thread but I sincerely want to know what the solution is for these issues. Taxing corporation may be very vindictive and feel good deep down to those who don't share that wealth BUT it does not solve a fucking thing.

As to the Occupy vs. courts concerning decisions about establishing residency in public places?? I suspect you are correct RB. How would it be possible to allow that precedent to be set in any society?

 

[Kulindahr]

There's plenty to bitch about, from the Canadian corporate tax rate better described as corporate welfare, transferring the burden to the population, including increases to the provincial and federal sales taxes among others, to the ever-increasing joblessness (latest figure is 7.5 percent, allegedly a horrible surprise to our Bible Belt Tory overseers).

There's plenty to bitch about.

Were I in Canada I'd bitch that small businesses have to pay the same tax rate as international giants. Totally domestic businesses should pay no more than 5% income tax, and preferably less.

 

[rareboy]

What will taxing the corporations do to improve jobs?

It is all about fairness.

Corporations are not actually the job creators in North America that people have been led to believe. Most jobs are actually started by small business.

There is no sense of taxpayers subsidizing the corporations in their community unless those corporations also are paying a fair share to support the services of that community. The bottom line for shareholders is coming at the expense of building a solid middle consumer class. And the capital being stripped out of companies by the shareholders is just accumulating at the top and effectively doing nothing.

This is what happened at the beginning of the 20th century and is happening again.

Education and health are being starved because the multi-nationals can keep moving the profits around the globe to avoid taxes in any jurisdiction, if necessary. When the middle class in the US, for instance, aren't being raped by banks and insurance companies, they will actually start consuming actual goods and services again in their communities...and that is what will create new industries and employment.

And it doesn't have to be done in a culture of waste either.

Can it go on forever? No. Humans are parasitic and destructive. At some point, the world actually does break and will have to reset. It has happened to civilizations for tens of thousands of years and will happen again.

But there is no reason for 90% of the misery and want in the world today, or for the next few generations.

 

[Centexfarmer]

^ Word!

This thread is not about anyone's personal opinions on the Occupy movement or protests or insulting anyone who happens to support the idea of OWS and the right of protesters to protest.

It is about using the lawcourts to determine the right of the Toronto protestors to occupy this park.

I suspect that the outcome will be that protestors may not 'live' in the park, since this would have profound implications for the right to inhabit public lands with temporary shelter and inadequate sanitation.

I'd appreciate it if we could avoid having yet another thread turned into a trainwreck.

Which is the point that I wanted to make in post #9 of your thread here.

So talk has been made in the other "Occupy" thread within this forum about the next step or evolution of this "Global Movement."

There comes a time when they need to pack in the tents, and literally "take it to the streets," and I think that we're beginning to see that.

There's a lot of social media involved, there's face to face communication taking place not only within the movement itself, but also with municipalities that want to protect the rights of it's citizens to protest, while at the same time maintaining some degree of law and order.

The "rule of law" should always prevail, so long as that law is administered fairly, and equally.

The best analogy that I can come up with...it's like squeezing a balloon.

Left alone that balloon has a shape.

Squeeze one end of it, or squeeze it in the middle, and other sides of it emerge more pronounced than others.

Squeeze it too tightly anywhere, and it bursts.

I honestly don't think that anyone wants to see what happens when it just bursts.

Right now I see a global movement, and not some American Tea Party type of thing going on here.

From what I've read and seen from it's core, there is an effort to do the right thing while maintaining their message and "remaining on point."

The perepherial opinions are subject to change, manipulation, and those are directed toward public opinion; and ultimately one against the other.

Right now I think that the core of both "the establishment" and the OWS movement (either local or globally), are currently trying to strike a balance.

To those who complain that either or both are an incumbrance to their daily commute, or view of the world I say that this is what Democracy look likes.

Find a way to deal with it or go back to paying attention to something a little more self-serving. .|

 

[rareboy]

^ I would agree. And I'm excited that there is a world wide movement.

I actually am hoping that the Toronto group is allowed to stay, because I think that it is an excellent learning opportunity for so many of the participants.

It is a seedbed of social creativity and I can guarantee that left to its own timetable, it would morph...as so many of the protest movements have....into a real social justice network. It would also inevitably result in a lot of people learning first hand how to forge consensus, how to build movement s and also the realities of how small societies work.

Social anthropologists and political science majors have had an amazing setting for study over the last month.

One of the best things to come out of it here is the challenge in the courts in order to establish the rights of the community to protest versus the rights of the City as Corporation.

I am delighted that the judge has decided to wait until Monday to deliver his opinion. It gives the protesters another weekend to develop strategy, including considering how to continue to present the message if the court rules against them.

 

[JayHawk]

Corporations are not actually the job creators in North America that people have been led to believe. Most jobs are actually started by small business. Absolutely

There is no sense of taxpayers subsidizing the corporations in their community unless those corporations also are paying a fair share to support the services of that community. The bottom line for shareholders is coming at the expense of building a solid middle consumer class. And the capital being stripped out of companies by the shareholders is just accumulating at the top and effectively doing nothing.

This is what happened at the beginning of the 20th century and is happening again.

Education and health are being starved because the multi-nationals can keep moving the profits around the globe to avoid taxes in any jurisdiction, if necessary. When the middle class in the US, for instance, aren't being raped by banks and insurance companies, they will actually start consuming actual goods and services again in their communities...and that is what will create new industries and employment.

And it doesn't have to be done in a culture of waste either.

Can it go on forever? No. Humans are parasitic and destructive. At some point, the world actually does break and will have to reset. It has happened to civilizations for tens of thousands of years and will happen again.

But there is no reason for 90% of the misery and want in the world today, or for the next few generations.

So essentially removing of the multiple incentives countries and states have developed to entice these corporation to there garden spots in the world. Along with a flat or broadened tax code that includes these rich fucks paying their due.

I agree with both. I think part of these tax give aways come from a system that continues to build upon itself.

Take WalMart for instance. Everybody knows that they will kill small business when they set up shop near a town. the smaller stores simply can not compete with their bulk lowered prices. Yet the increased tax revenue gained from having one in your backyard is immense for that city, county or municipality. So they continue to agree to not only build a WalMart but to incentivize it so that the hulking superstore ends up in clay county instead of hamilton county just next door. So perhaps the only way to see change is to demonstrate and force the hand of both corporations and the state.

 

[Centexfarmer]

^ OMG JayHawk!

It's a "bait and switch" on Corporate America's part.

My Mom served on the local city council of my home town.

Walmart came in and promised all types of jobs (which turned out to be minimum wage +), and Walmart asked for tax-incentives, and abatements from the city for ten years if they opened up a "SuperCenter" within my home town.

Well it turned out that two things happened.

1. Walmart brought in more tax revenue than all of the "small businesses" selling similar products combined.
2. After the ten year contract/agreement was met Walmart closed up shop/shuttered the SuperCenter that the city still technically owned, and made the same deal the next town over.

Meanwhile "main street" was out of business, and now the city had NO tax revenue to sustain the quality of life that the city had built their "business model" around, and would have been much more dependable if Walmart was never allowed within the city limits.


Moral of the Story?


GREED fucks everyone except the one doing the fucking.

 

[JayHawk]

Yeah CF I have seen the same activity across the nation and while I despise WalMart i have also been to places where if i was going to buy groceries i was gonna pay WalMart. Either that or just don't eat.

Such a disgusting corporate model. They should be regulated into the distribution of cheap goods only... leaving the Mom and Pop stores to do the selling...

 

[Centexfarmer]

Yeah CF I have seen the same activity across the nation and while I despise WalMart i have also been to places where if i was going to buy groceries i was gonna pay WalMart. Either that or just don't eat.

Such a disgusting corporate model. They should be regulated into the distribution of cheap goods only... leaving the Mom and Pop stores to do the selling...

To late.

I can honestly say, and this is from first hand experience, everything that's wrong with America can be laid on Sam Walton's grave.

The "free market" types (read American Republicans) will argue that Sam Walton was the most American "free enterprise" American who ever lived.

Walmart is the "Company Store" for Corporate America in retail now.

16 TONS!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTCen9-RELM[/ame]

And that's part of what the "Occupy" movement is protesting against.

Save More, LIVE BETTER!

 

[Kulindahr]

It is all about fairness.

Corporations are not actually the job creators in North America that people have been led to believe. Most jobs are actually started by small business.

Now that I'm done laughing....

What you just said is that corporations aren't really job creators, it's corporations that are job creators.

I had a small business. Guess what? To have a regular employee, I would have had to make it a corporation.

That's how you start a business -- you incorporate. The lawn care company four blocks from here, with twelve employees, is a corporation. The movie theater four blocks in a different direction is a corporation. The stationery store diagonally across the street from it, with four employees, is a corporation. The local newspaper, circulation maybe 20,000, eleven employees, is a corporation. The independent grocery out by the highway, with eight employees, is another corporation. The logging outfit whose trucks used to wake me up in the morning, with seven employees, is a corporation.

For that matter, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, and almost all organization like them -- like Citizens United -- are corporations.

If I were to start a not-for-profit for my conservation project, it would be a corporation.

 

[rareboy]

Well Kuli.

Up here, a lot of businesses aren't corporations, but I get what you mean.

what I meant to say was that the largest corporations are not always the job creators.

 

[Kulindahr]

To late.

I can honestly say, and this is from first hand experience, everything that's wrong with America can be laid on Sam Walton's grave.

The "free market" types (read American Republicans) will argue that Sam Walton was the most American "free enterprise" American who ever lived.

Walmart is the "Company Store" for Corporate America in retail now.

16 TONS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTCen9-RELM

And that's part of what the "Occupy" movement is protesting against.

Save More, LIVE BETTER!

Two extremes on the Walmart spectrum --

On the one end, a community set the condition for one Walmart that where it would be competing with local businesses, it give those locals the option of relocating their enterprises to within the Walmart; only once the owners decided to end their businesses would Walmart have its own department doing that.

. . . .

Blast it, I can't remember the other item now!!

 

[Kulindahr]

Well Kuli.

Up here, a lot of businesses aren't corporations, but I get what you mean.

what I meant to say was that the largest corporations are not always the job creators.

Yeah.

And you've got a better system. This is just one element of the mess that brought us the Citizens United insanity, where the Court, in order to uphold free speech, had to unleash megacorporation money. Why a chain of 'nondenominational' churches, an environmentalist group, a chain of three barber shops, a fishing boat, an interstate trucking company, and a multinational oil corporation should all have the same legal status is just mind-boggling.

I seriously think the web has shown the way to go -- the law should be rewritten to have "." designators instead of "inc": .rel, .org, .loc, .int, for religious, organization, local, and interstate, for starters.


At any rate, this is why I say totally domestic businesses should have a low tax rate -- and businesses solely within a single state or province should pay none or nearly so.

The Occupy people ought to work on ways to get small businesses on their side.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well Kuli.

Up here, a lot of businesses aren't corporations, but I get what you mean.

what I meant to say was that the largest corporations are not always the job creators.

Another thought:

I'd be willing to bet that if you draw the line between businesses with enough resources they can relocate if they want, and businesses that are effectively tied to the community, it's the latter which are the real job creators.

 

[Centexfarmer]

Two extremes on the Walmart spectrum --

On the one end, a community set the condition for one Walmart that where it would be competing with local businesses, it give those locals the option of relocating their enterprises to within the Walmart; only once the owners decided to end their businesses would Walmart have its own department doing that.

One could argue that the elected council members set those community "conditions."

Those council members were democratically elected without party affiliation, but rather "personal connections."

Check the local business members of he "Chamber of Commerce" and see how they felt about Walmart moving into the local community, as opposed to protecting the business interests of those who were already members, and may have been for years, in comparison to how much corporate ass that they sucked to get a local "Walmart Super Center."

Then compare that to what those communities and local "Chambers of Commerce" are left with 10 YEARS LATER.

The "community" didn't set those parameters, their elected representatives did.

The local "Chamber of Commerce" did.

As for the protestors in Toronto?

Most of them should still go out and get a college education.

And they should go out and get kicked in their teeth.

If History is the teacher, most of the will grow up and figure out a better way to placate while still making their own millions for their own.

They're learning.









. . . .

Blast it, I can't remember the other item now!! [/quote]

 

[rareboy]

Another thought:

I'd be willing to bet that if you draw the line between businesses with enough resources they can relocate if they want, and businesses that are effectively tied to the community, it's the latter which are the real job creators.

Absolutely.

 

[Kulindahr]

Absolutely.

I'm happy to say that I've never worked for a company that wasn't tied to the community.


@Centex --
I know of two communities where Walmarts were kept out, and it was the local Chamber of Commerce leading the fight.

And in both cases, the state Chamber of Commerce was fighting for Walmart...



Are there Walmarts in Canada?

If we could buy our politicians at Walmart, could we get more acceptable ones?

 

[rareboy]

^ Oh God.

Are there Walmarts in Canuckistan? The answer....too many.

Canada has been flooded with Walmart and it has led to the dumbing down of everything in retail and food shopping. Canada is also a Walmart Nation.

Most of us that don't have an addiction to buying cheap plastic shit made by virtual slave labourers in China and other third world sweatshops are appalled that Walmart has swept away and idea of quality.

I'm pretty sure though, that Walmart will begin to collapse in on themselves....finally becoming the lowest of all lowest common denominators.....no longer able to sustain their market share as other, smaller, nimbler retailers re-emerge.

Full disclosure.

I have never purchased anything in a Walmart and have only ever walked through one to get to the other part of a mall once.

 

[rareboy]

Update:

On Monday, the court upheld the City By-laws restricting camping in the parks and ordered the protesters to de-camp.

The group is being removed from the park today; in fact, as of this moment.

One hopes that the police have been instructed not to be impolite dickwads.

They did make an announcement that any of the homeless could go to the local women's shelter to get assistance.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...emove-occupy-protesters-tents/article2245800/

 

[JayHawk]

The end of democracy and Canada is a fascist police state as well where you may not camp your way to victory. Such Bullshit.

Squatters rights NOW....Squatters RIGHTS now. SQUATTERS rights now!!!