69 responses so far ↓

• Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  Feb 7, 2010 at 5:29 pm

  

  EXCELLENT discussion on the Nuclear Renaissance with David Miller, CEO of Strathmore Minerals (V.STM on the TSX Venture) c/o Financial Sense News…
  his interview starts at about the 30min mark…

  http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2010-0206-5.mp3
• Marc Authier

  Feb 7, 2010 at 6:16 pm

  

  Caveat emptor. If USA and Israel start bombing Iran nuclear installations, I am not sure nuclear power will stay sexy for long. It’s a warning like that. Wait after the nuking of Teheran by Lord Peace and Love Obanana and the crazies in Israel. Soo funny when you know that Israel has enough H bombs to wipe out ALL the Middle East. Israelis hypocrits and mega war mongers. A lot like the USA when you think of it.
• Max Power

  Feb 7, 2010 at 7:02 pm

  

  Here is some Canadian economics news you need to pay attention to or make a headline:

  Ontario to partially guarantee Nortel pensions

  Only those who worked in the province stand to benefit

  The Ontario government is reassuring former Nortel employees who worked in the province that the first $1,000 of their monthly pension payments will be guaranteed under an emergency pension insurance fund.

  The government will pay into Ontario’s Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund to cover any future claims, said Finance Minister Dwight Duncan on Sunday. The fund insures the first $1,000 of an employee’s monthly pension in case the employer goes bankrupt.

  Nortel’s pension deficit was estimated to be between $2.5 billion and $2.8 billion when it filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009.

  [...]

  Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/02/07/ontario-nortel-pensions943.html

  //////////////////////

  RBC knew of Jones account oddity, memo shows

  The Royal Bank of Canada knew disgraced Montreal financial adviser Earl Jones was using his personal account for business and passing it off as an in-trust account, The Fifth Estate has learned.

  But the bank denies there were any indications that Jones was using his account inappropriately.

  According to a confidential internal memo obtained by The Fifth Estate, Jones was warned “he could get himself in trouble because this is just a personal account in his name alone, the in trust does not mean anything …”

  The memo was dated Nov. 7, 2001. But the matter was dropped and Canada’s largest bank allowed Jones to keep doing business as usual.

  Jones had a personal account with the Royal Bank but told his clients it was an “in-trust” account. The only problem the bank had was that Jones was operating his business through the account, and it asked him to open a commercial account in 2008.

  Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/02/04/earl-jones-bank-memo769.html
• Max Power

  Feb 7, 2010 at 7:34 pm

  

  ==========
  Thank goodness neither Australia, nor NZ has required such a being to come into existence.

  I don’t know about Canada, but I assume it has mostly been spared of this, in spite of getting more than its full dose of American Imperialism.

  The American political prisoner
  http://www.martinarmstrong.org/economic_projections.htm
  talks about the breakdown of the rule of law, and maybe this is an outcome of that
  ==========

  Emergency Services Billing Corporation (ESBC) was incorporated in 2006 for the purpose of billing for paid and volunteer fire departments to recoup the expense caused by fire department dispatches to vehicular accidents.

  http://esbc.biz/index.php/about

  ESBC’s mission is to provide relief to local tax paying citizen’s of your district by returning money from parties involved in vehicular accidents, which are burdening your entire tax base when your tax base is not responsible for their negligence.

  Our People

  ESBC has a staff of experts that can deal with all of your needs. We have on our staff billing specialists, experts in the insurance industry, lawyers to draft ordinances and cover any possible collection problems, and accounting/financial specialists to keep your systems for billing in line and running efficiently. We provide a full range of services from the beginning through the full running of your billing program. Our goal as a company is to keep the money in the fire department and expedite the time periods to return this money.

  From the beginning we will help you by getting the foundation in place to bill and if necessary in your state even helping you draft an ordinance to authorize the billing levels that truly are representative of your costs.

  Experience

  ESBC’s founders have the following collective relative experience:

  - Over 75 years of insurance claims adjusting
  - Over 25 years in collections
  - Over 10 years as trial lawyers
  - Over 2 years as insurance defense attorneys
• Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  Feb 7, 2010 at 7:35 pm

  

  If RBC knew Earl Jones was misappropriating funds, then that makes them COMPLICIT in his crimes…

  tsk tsk RBC…
• Max Power

  Feb 7, 2010 at 7:42 pm

  

  ============
  When it comes to the Canadian border, American Imperialists can be such fools.

  1. Cross over at a land crossing nearer to where you live. There are some really deserted crossings in Manitoba.

  2. In his case, the excuse one should use is wildlife photography in the national parks.

  3. Take the train to Calgary, and a bus to Kamloops or Kewlona.
  ============

  Anti-Olympic reporter denied entry into Canada

  http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100207/bc_protestor_detained_100207/20100207?hub=BritishColumbia

  A Chicago-based independent journalist says he was detained and questioned at the Vancouver airport on Saturday afternoon, denied a phone call or legal counsel and sent unceremoniously back to the U.S.

  Martin Macias Jr. arrived at YVR at around 11:30 a.m. with his travelling partner Bob Quellos. Both are outspoken Olympic critics associated with No Games Chicago, a group that opposed the city’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

  The two were planning to meet up with local anti-Olympic crusader Chris Shaw and attend a number of Vancouver rallies and protests this week leading up to the start of the Games.

  Macias never made it out of the airport.

  Instead, the 20-year-old part-time reporter says he spent two and a half hours being interviewed by customs about his fellow protesters.

  “They wanted to know more about the people who are organizing the conference, about who I was staying with, if I could contact them, if I knew what they were wearing,” Macias said. “It was very, very strange.”

  Macias said his phone book was confiscated and inspected. One local Vancouver number, listed under “Support,” was of particular interest.

  “It is a number to the conference in case you’re in the city, you need food, or you get questioned by police,” Macias said. “They took that as a sign that I was coming here with the intention of getting into some kind of violent rally or protest.”

  Macias said he was accused of withholding information and given a choice: leave Canada voluntarily or be detained until he faced trial.

  “It would be a week and a half,” Macias said. “I have work, school, my family. I can’t be here that long.”

  Authorities refused to pay for his ticket back to Chicago, Macias said, so he boarded a flight to Seattle instead.

  [...]
• Aspadistra at Ahsdown Forest

  Feb 7, 2010 at 7:53 pm

  

  =========
  “In America You Can Say Anything You Want — As Long As It Doesn’t Have Any Effect.”
  – Paul Goodman
  =========

  Again, the fella has it all wrong.

  In the USA you are limited to saying absolutely nothing, and what you do say cannot have any effect…
• ES

  Feb 7, 2010 at 8:52 pm

  

  Cmon Max and Stacy The Musical! Or else turn it into a reality Internet show where we all do these discussions via webcam! Then it wont be banned!
• Chenjeshu

  Feb 7, 2010 at 9:00 pm

  

  If safety personel charge money for services, they probably can be sued much easier for disastisfactory service. Afterall, if some free do gooder fire dept can’t save Fido and your house, you focus on your grief, but when some corporate fire for profit company sends you the bill, you put your grief into anger and lawyers and sue them for shoddy work and not doing enough or doing it wrong.

  Although, arsonists would be able to hurt someone twice, first the burn, then the bill, maybe thats the plan afterall.
• Casper Studly

  Feb 7, 2010 at 10:10 pm

  

  @LA..

  Leave our Stacy alone, shithead. You don’t like it around here then piss off mate. Go do Freeper shit at some Freeper site. You don’t like us .. go to hell. Take your feelings and go. Don’t go away mad. Just go away.
• The Underfundedmentalist

  Feb 7, 2010 at 10:28 pm

  

  @casper
  well put
  LA is a typical commercial fed spear-carrier, all about freedom,
  as long as it promotes their belief system.
• Giuseppe Bagodonutti

  Feb 7, 2010 at 11:21 pm

  

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

  McDick’s has made a McITALY BURGER!!!!
  This is fucking STUPID!!!!
  Considering wherever I went, I’d see billboards spray painted “McMerda”…
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8503430.stm
• California Doctor

  Feb 7, 2010 at 11:33 pm

  

  @Phil / Germany – Third party in the USA.

  Third party efforts in the USA have not been successful in the past due to the role that 3rd parties can play in the Presidential campaigns.

  For one thing, the corporate infrastructure and organization necessary to hold a 3rd party campaign is extremely difficult to build. The two major parties have essentially limited the other small parties from holding offices by their regulatory rules.

  Secondly, the third party candidate usually ends up taking a fraction of votes from the two major parties. In the election of 2000, the presence of the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader likely changed America’s history by taking sufficient votes from Al Gore to cost him the clear victory. Many conservative Republicans threw money at Ralph Nader in order to have him stay in the race. The GOP knew that running Nader and keeping him in the campaign would take more votes from Gore than Bush. A similar thing occurred when Ross Perot ran against George Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992. This opened the door for Clinton to win in 1992.

  The situation today is different and likely more analogous to the Bull Moose candidacy of Teddy Roosevelt. The two parties are more likely to shift their messaging to contain the loss of voters.

  The Tea Party movement which is currently receiving alot of MSM attention in the United States is not an independent movement. The movement is started by strongly Republican organizers, money, and infrastructure. It is an attempt to recapture the people who left the Republican Party over the last 3 years. As the economic crisis worsened and the true colors of the Bush Family became more apparent, the GOP lost millions of supporters.

  Some of these people have gathered under the “Tea Party” tent.
• Aspadistra at Ashdown Forest

  Feb 8, 2010 at 12:31 am

  

  McDs across the Eurozone:

  http://www.mcdonalds.gr/
  http://www.mcdonalds.it/

  == same overall design ==
  http://www.mcdonalds.fr/
  http://www.mcdonalds.es/
  == end ==

  http://www.mcdonalds.de/
  http://www.mcdonalds.ie/

  In the UK I am amazed they have no Curries, like in India.
  http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/

  The row:
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8503430.stm

  Italy has got its teeth stuck into an almighty row over a burger. It’s the new McDonald’s burger called the McItaly.

  Some food critics have described it as a betrayal of Italy’s culinary traditions, as it’s being promoted by the government as the new face of Italian cooking.

  But the agriculture minister, who has endorsed the burger, says they are ‘ignorant Stalinists’ who should be proud of this food made from all-Italian ingredients.
• Aspadistra at Ashdown Forest

  Feb 8, 2010 at 1:26 am

  

  (typo fix)

  =============
  Media Disinformation in America
  You Can Say Anything You Want — As Long As It Doesn’t Have Any Effect

  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17457
  =============
  “In America You Can Say Anything You Want — As Long As It Doesn’t Have Any Effect.”
  - Paul Goodman
  =============

  The fella has it wrong:

  Correction to the quote should be:
  “You can say absolutely nothing of value in American, as long as it has no effect”
• Aspadistra at Ashdown Forest

  Feb 8, 2010 at 1:27 am

  

  (typo fix 2)

  “You can say absolutely nothing of value in America, providing it has no effect whatsoever.”
• Pez

  Feb 8, 2010 at 8:28 pm

  

  Eh Guiseppe? Why you a so sad? Itsa not da first time eh big a corporation wrap it a self in a Italia’s flag, no? Me a wonder why dey not a call it a McMussolini? Dey should da used a big chic-ken nugget shapa lika boot wit dey sauce a pomodoro and thik slica dey american cheese, no?
• Pez

  Feb 8, 2010 at 8:32 pm

  

  Eh me forgetta… on a bun wit dey sesame seeds. now dats Italian corporista style!
• Max Power

  Feb 10, 2010 at 5:08 am

  

  Someone else’s comments from somewhere else — but they fit in nicely :

  @Moor Larkin

  You definetely have a point about the financial implications of the war(s). But I don’t think that the present financial collapse has anything to do with war spending. These collapses have been a long time coming. I got my hands on some interesting stats the other day.

  In 1952 the US financial institutions were valued at approximately 400% of GDP (seems like a lot, but having lots of cash to invest sloshing around is the norm). This stayed pretty stable through the US’s “Golden Era” (1950ish – 1970ish). By 1982 it was approximately 420% of GDP.

  Now fast-forward through the crazy 80s and the loony 90s – in 2007 it was approximately 1100% of GDP!!! That’s a near threefold increase.

  All the while the profit-rate for non-financial companies has been in decline. In 2006 it reached its second lowest point in the post-war years, 5.5% or so (the lowest point was after the dot-com crash when it dropped to just under 4%).

  Capital investment in the non-financial sector has also bombed. It was at about 6% (% of GDP) in 2007 – its lowest point since 1960 (the post-war period of reconstruction was a shaky period for capital investment – the difference being that profits back then were rising).

  Finally consider the fact that real wages in the US have stagnated since around 1979. So non-financial companies are getting cheaper labour than they were in the “Golden Era” but there profits are… down?

  I think that these trends account for the increased investment in finance. There’s less money to be made in non-financial investment. The financial meltdown seems to have been a structural problem.

  Although war-spending is undoubtadly going to speed-up the crash of the US empire, this crash was inevitable. How is this connected to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and the Union’s collapse? Frankly, I think history is just having a bit of a joke with us…