Friday Food For Thought

[boestar]

Uh Yup. Ah saved 50 bucks on a TV but had to post $1000 in bail Uh Huh....

[deicer]

This sums it all up....

http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/

[Mizar]

A study on the effects of a low wage regime.....

The reality of de-icers public union regime...

Chuck Reed: A Liberal Mugged by Pension Reality: Mayor Chuck Reed knows the way to San Jose's solvency. Now he wants to take his approach statewide. Public unions aren't happy.

Some quotes:

"Mr. Reed points to a bar graph showing how the city's pension obligations soared to $245 million from $71 million in 2001. The average San Jose police officer last year earned $203,211 in total compensation—more than many software engineers in Silicon Valley. The city is spending $45,263 each year per worker on pensions. Mr. Reed notes that San Jose has boosted retirement benefits several times over the past decade. Police officers can retire at age 50 with up to 90% of their final pay"

"How does the straight-shooting mayor plan to counter the spin? Simply by educating voters, he says, pointing to a chart showing that taxpayer contributions to state and local retirement systems increased to $17.4 billion in 2010 from $3.4 billion in 2000. Meantime, the average annuity for a newly retired California highway-patrol officer is $89,000, up from $44,000 in 1999, thanks to retroactive boosts to pension benefits."

"In the Bay Area suburb of Vallejo, which filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2008, Calpers threatened to "litigate forever if they took on pension reform," Mr. Reed notes. Calpers has done the same in Stockton and San Bernardino. Vallejo chose not to modify existing workers' pensions, Mr. Reed says, and as a result "they're in trouble again because of rising pension costs.""

"...retirement costs were draining the San Jose budget, threatening public safety and forestalling important public works. Driving a Tesla over pot-holed roads is no fun."

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579169961375114206

The reality is, the public sector unions will have no qualms about bankrupting your city, province, country for their share of the pie. This is de-icers world and as the first post in the thread showed, he advocates illegal action to achieve all this.

[deicer]

Where in the first post did I advocate anything?

[Mizar]

Where in the first post did I advocate anything?

De-Icer, please tell us why you would start a thread called Food for thought with a link advocating mass civil disobedience. A common definition of "food for thought" is "something to be seriously considered". Then in your next post you talk about pushback happening and associate it with an pro-union article. Next post has a criticism about our present federal government and you say

So when a government shows so much disdain for it own citizens, it doesn't take much to realise that a pushback will be coming.

Only difference between us and what has been happening in southern Europe and the Middle East is that we still have too many big screen tv's and iphones.

/quote]

What is happening in southern Europe De-Icer? Are you talking about the riots. What about the Middle East that you now associate this thread with. Are you talking about the violent uprisings over there?

Yes, I know. In all those posts you never directly advocated this. You only give round-about hints in such a way that you can later innocently deny them. While I don't suspect that you actually advocate violence, it sure looks like you might be happy with mass protests a la Occupy whatever street to get your way regardless of who it affects.

People don't usually start threads about a random subject without a particular reason.

[deicer]

Just because I drew a comparison between what is happening in parts of the world to what is here in North America does not mean I advocate for anything. It is an attempt to foster dialogue over world events on this board that affect us all.

Obviously, you do not accept any other views other than your own, so therefore I will withdraw from this conversation.

[Mizar]

Just because I drew a comparison between what is happening in parts of the world to what is here in North America does not mean I advocate for anything. It is an attempt to foster dialogue over world events on this board that affect us all.

Obviously, you do not accept any other views other than your own, so therefore I will withdraw from this conversation.

Just trying to figure out why you posted a video advocating mass civil disobedience in a thread that you created which is about something to be seriously considered. Now I know,

"an attempt to foster dialogue over world events".

Thanks for clarifying that.

[Specs]

It's a discussion that has been revisited on this board many times over the years and has at times provided some interesting viewpoints. I for one and I expect many others saw Deicers original post as nothing more than a well intentioned follow up to bring something new to past discussions or present a different perspective.

[DEFCON]

The banks have us blaming each other for the currently poor state of economic affairs, which is pretty sad considering, their agenda and related activities are 100% responsible for all that ails us.

[Mizar]

Hard work goes without saying Rich. What I mean is even with hard work and dedication one has to have the means to fund whatever it is or the means to find someone to fund it. Think Dragons Den or Shark Tank. you can invest all the time you want but in order to make money on a large scale you need money first. I have been working hard my whole life, still not making 1% type of cash.

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/01/04/15-billionaires-who-were-once-dirt-poor/

15 billionaires who were once dirt poor

a rich background is not the only way to the top. Some of the world’s wealthiest people started out dirt poor.

All from humble beginnings, these 15 people not only climbed to the top of their industries but also became some of the richest people in the world.

Although the rich do get richer, these rags-to-riches stories remind us that through determination, grit, and a bit of luck anyone can overcome their circumstances and achieve extraordinary success

[Mizar]

And these are mostly Canadian startups taking on the world.

http://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/canada/13-awesome-things-you-didnt-know-were-made-canada?id=2

[Mizar]

Here is an example in Canada of civil disobedience which seems to have been considered as "Food for Thought" by the original poster. Protesters trying to destroy a legitimate business in Vancouver. By the way, as a responsible citizen I have every intention of eating at this restaurant on each occasional layover that I get in YVR as my support for blocking these disgusting civil disobedience people. I urge others on this forum to do the same.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/01/11/rex-murphy-the-callousness-of-protest-on-display-in-vancouver-with-a-happy-ending/

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/18/vancouver-police-to-arrest-at-least-one-anti-gentrification-protester/

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/21/pidgin/

The callousness of protest on display in Vancouver (with a happy ending)

After this frigid and bleak December, with its ice-storms and power failures, perils in the Antarctic and gloom in Newfoundland, it was refreshing to receive a newspaper clipping from The Province in Vancouver about a story that, for me anyway, provided a second Christmas of warmth and uplift.

Over the past year, readers of the National Post may have caught fragments of a bizarre B.C. tale that centred on a young(ish) man’s dream of starting a restaurant, and his courage and social-mindedness in opening it not on any one of Cinderella City’s glittering strips, but rather in Vancouver’s most squalid and threatening area, the Downtown East Side (DTES).

Starting a restaurant is said to be the quickest way to financial ruin and personal breakdown known to humankind. It takes great courage and a sense of hope to imagine that your restaurant will be one of the few that survives its first year in business.

Brandon Grossutti, for such is the name of the heroic restauranteur in question, knew all that. He also knew that picking the Vancouver DTES as his location was unlikely to do much to propitiate Pomona, the goddess of fruitful abundance (as well as appetizers, five-star reviews and large tips). However, against all odds and the lesser gods, he charged ahead. His restaurant is called PiDGiN, and has been serving Asian fusion cuisine since 2012.

His decision can very correctly be seen as a real and daring vote of confidence in a neighbourhood that has long been infamously troubled by drug addicts, homelessness and violence. Whole crime-themed televisions series have been set in DTES. (“Top Chef”? Not so much.) He was acting primarily as a businessman (rent in the DTES is low), but he also was acting as a citizen.

What he was not aware of (and which no sane person could have anticipated) was that from the very beginning of his project, he’d became the chosen dartboard for a knot of social activists who saw his fancy restaurant as a cancer in their neighbourhood. They picketed, they bellowed, they intimidated.

I quote from a CBC Vancouver story of last February: “Co-owner Brandon Grossutti says protesters have vandalized the building and antagonized customers, videotaping and photographing patrons, sometimes yelling ‘shame’ or other insults.” This was major harassment. According to the “activists,” his restaurant was “destroying the neighbourhood.” He was — Gasp! — committing the sin of “gentrification.”

I guess most Vancouverites would agree that it would take more than a couple of cinnamon streusel mascarpones and vadouvan spiced lamb bellies to shake the down-and-out character of the DTES. They’d also agree that “gentrification” — a term that connotes throwing long-term residents out of bedroom communities to make room for Starbucks and Pottery Barn — is not really an applicable term to cover one man’s honest effort to place a new restaurant (and the jobs that go with it) in a bad area.

One of the main protestors quoted in the clipping that was sent to me this week, Wendy Petersen, had this to say: “We could have picked any high-end restaurant … He [Mr. Grossutti] is just a symbol — it’s really not about him.”

There’s a streak of callousness on display here. Try to ruin a man’s business, have him lose his time, energy and money, hope for his restaurant to fail, the staff to be laid off … and then have the nerve or ignorance to say “It’s not about him.”

Who the hell is it about then?

I truly believe that the act of protest has, in many contexts, become something of a moral disease. Not all contexts, of course. But when angry activists with placards target a single citizen trying to do good in a bad area, using his own money, something is seriously wrong.

And yet this story has a happy ending. At year’s end, my clipping informed me, Vancouver’s PiDGiN restaurant went from “pickets to top-5 pick.” It not only endured the ludicrous protests, it drew customers of good taste and some fortitude who defied the social activist bullies and got a good meal to boot.

It’s a Christmas tale for our time.