Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich thrown out of office
Print By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writer Christopher Wills, Associated Press Writer – 36 mins ago, January 30th, 2009
AP – Impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrives at his home, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009 in Chicago. (AP … SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Gov. Rod Blagojevich was thrown out of office Thursday without a single lawmaker coming to his defense, brought down by a government-for-sale scandal that stretched from Chicago to Capitol Hill and turned the foul-mouthed politician into a national punchline.
Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.
After a four-day trial, the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict him of abuse of power, automatically ousting the second-term Democrat. In a second, identical vote, lawmakers further barred Blagojevich from ever holding public office in the state again.
"He failed the test of character. He is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor," said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.
Blagojevich's troubles are not over. Federal prosecutors are drawing up an indictment against him on corruption charges.
Outside his Chicago home Thursday night, Blagojevich vowed to "keep fighting to clear my name," and added: "Give me a chance to show you that I haven't let you down."
"I love the people of Illinois today more than I ever have before," he said. And in a joking reference to Chicago's history of crooked politics, he reached down to a boy in the crowd of well-wishers and said: "I love you, man. You know, this is Chicago. You can vote for me. You're old enough."
Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, one of Blagojevich's critics, was promptly sworn in as governor and said he would work to "restore the faith of the people of Illinois in the integrity of their government."
Blagojevich's name and picture were promptly stripped from the state's official Web site, and his photo was removed from a display at the Capitol entrance. Quinn also canceled Blagojevich's security detail.
Blagojevich, 52, had boycotted the first three days of the impeachment trial, calling the proceedings a kangaroo court. But on Thursday, he went before the Senate to beg for his job, delivering a 47-minute plea that was, by turns, defiant, humble and sentimental.
He argued, again, that he did nothing wrong, and warned that his impeachment would set a "dangerous and chilling precedent."
"You haven't proved a crime, and you can't because it didn't happen," Blagojevich (pronounced blah-GOY-uh-vich) told the lawmakers. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?"
The verdict brought to an end what one lawmaker branded "the freak show" in Illinois. Over the past few weeks, Blagojevich found himself isolated, with almost the entire political establishment lined up against him. The crisis paralyzed state government and made Blagojevich and his helmet of lush, dark hair a punchline from coast to coast.
Many ordinary Illinoisans were glad to see him go.
"It's very embarrassing. I think it's a shame that with our city and Illinois, everybody thinks we're all corrupt," Gene Ciepierski, 54, said after watching the trial's conclusion on a TV at Chicago's beloved Billy Goat Tavern. "To think he would do something like that, it hurts more than anything."
President Barack Obama pledged to give Quinn his full cooperation.
"Today ends a painful episode for Illinois," Obama said Thursday night in a statement. "For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted."
In a solemn scene, more than 30 lawmakers rose one by one on the Senate floor to accuse Blagojevich of abusing his office and embarrassing the state. They denounced him as a hypocrite, saying he cynically tried to enrich himself and then posed as the brave protector of the poor and "wrapped himself in the constitution."
They sprinkled their remarks with historical references, including Pearl Harbor's "day of infamy" and "The whole world is watching" chant from the riots that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They cited Abraham Lincoln, the Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus as they called for the governor's removal.
"We have this thing called impeachment and it's bleeping golden and we've used it the right way," Democratic Sen. James Meeks of Chicago said during the debate, mocking Blagojevich's expletive-laden words as captured by the FBI on a wiretap.
Blagojevich did not stick around to hear the vote. He took a state plane back to Chicago.
The verdict capped a head-spinning string of developments that began with his arrest by the FBI on Dec. 9. Fderal prosecutors had been investigating Blagojevich's administration for years, and some of his closest cronies have already been convicted.
The most spectacular allegation was that Blagojevich had been caught on wiretaps scheming to sell an appointment to Obama's Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself or his wife.
"I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden, and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it," he was quoted as saying on a government wiretap.
Prosecutors also said he illegally pressured people to make campaign contributions and tried to get editorial writers fired from the Chicago Tribune for badmouthing him in print.
Obama himself, fresh from his historic election victory, was forced to look into the matter and issued a report concluding that no one in his inner circle had done anything wrong.
In the brash and often theatrical style that has infuriated fellow politicians for years, Blagojevich repeatedly refused to resign, reciting the poetry of Kipling and Tennyson and declaring at one point last month: "I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong."
Even as lawmakers were deciding whether to launch an impeachment, Blagojevich defied the political establishment and stunned everyone by appointing a former Illinois attorney general, Roland Burris, to the very Senate seat he had been accused of trying to sell. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill eventually backed down and seated Burris.
As his trial got under way, Blagojevich launched a media blitz, rushing from one TV studio to another in New York to proclaim his innocence. He likened himself to the hero of a Frank Capra movie and to a cowboy in the hands of a Wild West lynch mob.
The impeachment case included not only the criminal charges against Blagojevich, but allegations he broke the law when it came to hiring state workers, expanded a health care program without legislative approval and spent $2.6 million on flu vaccine that went to waste. The 118-member House twice voted to impeach him, both times with only one "no" vote.
Seven other U.S. governors have been removed by impeachment, the most recent being Arizona's Evan Mecham, who was driven from office in 1988 for trying to thwart an investigation into a death threat allegedly made by an aide. Illinois never before impeached a governor, despite its long and rich history of graft.
Blagojevich grew up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, the son of a Serbian immigrant steelworker. He married the daughter of a powerful city alderman and was schooled in the bare-knuckle, backroom politics of the infamous Chicago Machine, winning election to the Illinois House in 1992 and Congress in 1996.
In 2002, he was elected governor on a promise to clean up state government after former GOP Gov. George Ryan, who is serving six years in prison for graft. But he battled openly with lawmakers from his party, and scandal soon touched his administration.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a former top fundraiser for Blagojevich, was convicted of shaking down businesses seeking state contracts for campaign contributions. Witnesses testified that Blagojevich was aware of some of the strong-arm tactics. Rezko is said to be cooperating with prosecutors.
Quinn, the new governor, is a 60-year-old former state treasurer who has a reputation as a political gadfly and once led a successful effort to cut the size of the Illinois House.
"I want to say to the people of Illinois, the ordeal is over," Quinn said.
___
Thursday, January 29, 2009
(Most Profound Statement of The Day -- dgb) Senate GOP leader says party must change
Senate GOP leader says party must change
Print By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago, Jan. 29th, 2009
AP – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, center, speaks at the Republican National Committee (RNC) … WASHINGTON – After crushing defeats in back-to-back elections, the top Senate Republican warned Thursday that the GOP risks remaining out of power in the White House and Congress unless it better explains its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists.
"Unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the Republican National Committee on Thursday. "The situation is challenging, but it's far from irreversible."
McConnell gave a stark assessment of where the Republican Party went wrong and provided a road map for how it can right itself as he spoke party activists gathered in Washington to choose the next national chairman.
With voting slated for Friday, four candidates are trying to unseat former President George W. Bush's hand-picked RNC chairman, Mike Duncan of Kentucky. They are: former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson and Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis.
A fifth — former Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman — dropped out of the race on Thursday with little explanation, saying only in a letter to RNC members: "I have decided to withdraw my candidacy."
Saltsman, who ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's failed presidential campaign last year, was considered a long-shot candidate who several Republican officials said likely wouldn't have had enough support even to be formally nominated had he continued his bid.
It faltered in December after he drew controversy for mailing a 41-track CD to committee members that included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro," by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin and sung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon." Despite criticism, Saltsman didn't apologize and defended the tune as one of several "lighthearted political parodies" that have aired on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
All of Duncan's challengers have spent the past few months arguing that he simply represents a continuation of Bush; Duncan has argued he has the experience to make necessary changes.
Republicans say it's all but certain no one will get a majority on the first ballot when the 168-member RNC votes. Republicans say Duncan leads in endorsements for a second two-year term, with Steele, Dawson and Anuzis in competitive positions, while Blackwell trails. Still, with at least two rounds of balloting expected, it's possible anyone could end up with a majority.
Just eight years after Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, the GOP finds itself out of power and trying to figure out how to rebound while its foe has grown much stronger. The Democratic Party is empowered by a broadened coalition of voters — including Hispanics and young voters — who swung behind President Barack Obama's call for change.
Meanwhile, Bush left the White House with low job approval ratings, Republicans saw their ranks in Congress grow even smaller and the party finds itself without a standard-bearer. Perhaps even more damaging to the GOP, the slice of the country that calls itself Republican has shrunk over the past few years as Obama and his Democrats attracted voters of all political stripes.
Implicit in McConnell's message was the concern that the Republican Party under Bush strayed from its beliefs, resulting in drubbings in two straight elections.
While McConnell praised Bush as a man of principle, he said: "We can all agree, sad as it is, that he wasn't winning any popularity contests. And history shows that unpopular presidents are usually a drag on everybody else who wears their political label."
McConnell called for the GOP to embrace its conservative principles — and resist diluting its message — to bring people back and attract new rank and file. Still, he added: "It's clear our message isn't getting out to nearly as many people as it should. ... Too often we've let others define us. And the image they've painted isn't very pretty."
He acknowledged GOP fears that certain demographics from certain regions have shunned the party. And, he warned: "In politics, there's a name for a regional party: it's called a minority party."
Print By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago, Jan. 29th, 2009
AP – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, center, speaks at the Republican National Committee (RNC) … WASHINGTON – After crushing defeats in back-to-back elections, the top Senate Republican warned Thursday that the GOP risks remaining out of power in the White House and Congress unless it better explains its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists.
"Unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the Republican National Committee on Thursday. "The situation is challenging, but it's far from irreversible."
McConnell gave a stark assessment of where the Republican Party went wrong and provided a road map for how it can right itself as he spoke party activists gathered in Washington to choose the next national chairman.
With voting slated for Friday, four candidates are trying to unseat former President George W. Bush's hand-picked RNC chairman, Mike Duncan of Kentucky. They are: former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson and Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis.
A fifth — former Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman — dropped out of the race on Thursday with little explanation, saying only in a letter to RNC members: "I have decided to withdraw my candidacy."
Saltsman, who ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's failed presidential campaign last year, was considered a long-shot candidate who several Republican officials said likely wouldn't have had enough support even to be formally nominated had he continued his bid.
It faltered in December after he drew controversy for mailing a 41-track CD to committee members that included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro," by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin and sung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon." Despite criticism, Saltsman didn't apologize and defended the tune as one of several "lighthearted political parodies" that have aired on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
All of Duncan's challengers have spent the past few months arguing that he simply represents a continuation of Bush; Duncan has argued he has the experience to make necessary changes.
Republicans say it's all but certain no one will get a majority on the first ballot when the 168-member RNC votes. Republicans say Duncan leads in endorsements for a second two-year term, with Steele, Dawson and Anuzis in competitive positions, while Blackwell trails. Still, with at least two rounds of balloting expected, it's possible anyone could end up with a majority.
Just eight years after Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, the GOP finds itself out of power and trying to figure out how to rebound while its foe has grown much stronger. The Democratic Party is empowered by a broadened coalition of voters — including Hispanics and young voters — who swung behind President Barack Obama's call for change.
Meanwhile, Bush left the White House with low job approval ratings, Republicans saw their ranks in Congress grow even smaller and the party finds itself without a standard-bearer. Perhaps even more damaging to the GOP, the slice of the country that calls itself Republican has shrunk over the past few years as Obama and his Democrats attracted voters of all political stripes.
Implicit in McConnell's message was the concern that the Republican Party under Bush strayed from its beliefs, resulting in drubbings in two straight elections.
While McConnell praised Bush as a man of principle, he said: "We can all agree, sad as it is, that he wasn't winning any popularity contests. And history shows that unpopular presidents are usually a drag on everybody else who wears their political label."
McConnell called for the GOP to embrace its conservative principles — and resist diluting its message — to bring people back and attract new rank and file. Still, he added: "It's clear our message isn't getting out to nearly as many people as it should. ... Too often we've let others define us. And the image they've painted isn't very pretty."
He acknowledged GOP fears that certain demographics from certain regions have shunned the party. And, he warned: "In politics, there's a name for a regional party: it's called a minority party."
Obama calls $18B in Wall St. bonuses 'shameful'
Obama calls $18B in Wall St. bonuses 'shameful'
Print By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 19 mins ago, Jan. 29th, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers. "It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."
The president's comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a report that employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage.
Yet Obama's stand also came just one day after he surrounded himself with well-paid chief executives at the White House. He had pulled in those business leaders and hailed them for being on the "front lines in seeing the enormous problems in our economy right now."
The executives who appeared with Obama are not leaders of the Wall Street financial companies that the president targeted, but rather heads of such well-known manufacturing and technology giants as IBM, Motorola, Xerox and Corning. Still, they get paid handsomely.
Most of those who stood with Obama earned a total 2007 compensation package of between $8 million and $21 million, according to a review by The Associated Press. Those calculations include the executives' salary, bonus pay, incentives, perks, the estimated value of stock holdings and other compensation.
Lashing out at Wall Street bonuses, Obama said the public dislikes the idea of helping the financial sector dig out of a hole, only to see it get bigger because of lavish spending. The comptroller's report found such bonuses were down 44 percent, but at about the same level they were during the boom time of 2004.
Vice President Joe Biden also chimed in, saying the level of bonuses "offends the sensibilities."
"I mean, I'd like to throw these guys in the brig," Biden said in an interview with CNBC.
Obama said he and Geithner will speak directly to Wall Street leaders about the bonuses, which threaten to undermine public support for more government intervention as the economy keeps reeling.
The House just approved an economic stimulus plan that would cost taxpayers more than $800 billion; the Senate is considering its own version.
Separately, Congress passed a $700 billion plan last year to shore up the financial sector, one that drew howls of criticism about a lack of transparency.
Said Obama about Wall Street leaders: "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time."
Obama said Geithner has already had to step in to stop one company from taking delivery of a new corporate jet it planned to buy even after receiving billions of dollars of support from the government. That bank, Citigroup, canceled the deal earlier this week.
Obama's strong words overshadowed the other part of his message, that he wants to roll out, in the coming weeks, new plans to regulate Wall Street and get more credit flowing to consumers again. The president considers such steps to work in tandem with the economic stimulus measures unfolding in Congress.
One idea under consideration by the Obama administration is the creation of a "bad bank" that could take over soured debt, like defaulting mortgages, that have corroded the balance sheets of banks and helped choke off lending. The president did not discuss that proposal or any others.
The administration may seek approval from Congress for another round of money, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars, to help banks get out of trouble and get credit flowing again. But in his CNBC interview, Biden said any moves depend first on how the remaining $350 billion in financial-sector bailout money is spent.
"It's got to be transparent, it's got to be accountable," Biden said. "Once we do that and see whether or not we can get this system kick-started, the credit system flowing more, that's when we'll make the judgment whether or not anything else is necessary."
Print By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 19 mins ago, Jan. 29th, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers. "It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."
The president's comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a report that employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage.
Yet Obama's stand also came just one day after he surrounded himself with well-paid chief executives at the White House. He had pulled in those business leaders and hailed them for being on the "front lines in seeing the enormous problems in our economy right now."
The executives who appeared with Obama are not leaders of the Wall Street financial companies that the president targeted, but rather heads of such well-known manufacturing and technology giants as IBM, Motorola, Xerox and Corning. Still, they get paid handsomely.
Most of those who stood with Obama earned a total 2007 compensation package of between $8 million and $21 million, according to a review by The Associated Press. Those calculations include the executives' salary, bonus pay, incentives, perks, the estimated value of stock holdings and other compensation.
Lashing out at Wall Street bonuses, Obama said the public dislikes the idea of helping the financial sector dig out of a hole, only to see it get bigger because of lavish spending. The comptroller's report found such bonuses were down 44 percent, but at about the same level they were during the boom time of 2004.
Vice President Joe Biden also chimed in, saying the level of bonuses "offends the sensibilities."
"I mean, I'd like to throw these guys in the brig," Biden said in an interview with CNBC.
Obama said he and Geithner will speak directly to Wall Street leaders about the bonuses, which threaten to undermine public support for more government intervention as the economy keeps reeling.
The House just approved an economic stimulus plan that would cost taxpayers more than $800 billion; the Senate is considering its own version.
Separately, Congress passed a $700 billion plan last year to shore up the financial sector, one that drew howls of criticism about a lack of transparency.
Said Obama about Wall Street leaders: "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time."
Obama said Geithner has already had to step in to stop one company from taking delivery of a new corporate jet it planned to buy even after receiving billions of dollars of support from the government. That bank, Citigroup, canceled the deal earlier this week.
Obama's strong words overshadowed the other part of his message, that he wants to roll out, in the coming weeks, new plans to regulate Wall Street and get more credit flowing to consumers again. The president considers such steps to work in tandem with the economic stimulus measures unfolding in Congress.
One idea under consideration by the Obama administration is the creation of a "bad bank" that could take over soured debt, like defaulting mortgages, that have corroded the balance sheets of banks and helped choke off lending. The president did not discuss that proposal or any others.
The administration may seek approval from Congress for another round of money, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars, to help banks get out of trouble and get credit flowing again. But in his CNBC interview, Biden said any moves depend first on how the remaining $350 billion in financial-sector bailout money is spent.
"It's got to be transparent, it's got to be accountable," Biden said. "Once we do that and see whether or not we can get this system kick-started, the credit system flowing more, that's when we'll make the judgment whether or not anything else is necessary."
How Many Zeros In A Billion? (From The Internet)
How many zeros
in a billion???
The next time you hear a politician use the
word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it's releases.
A..
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.
D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ....
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans .. Interesting number...
what does it mean?
A.
Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.
B.
Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.
C..
Or... if you are a family of four...
your family gets $2,066,012.
Imagine, now $700 billion bailing out banks in the US . That's enough to fund complete medical care for every man, woman and child currently alive in the US for 11 years!!
50 billion to bail out the auto industry???
Washington , D.C.
&
Ottawa ON.
< HELLO!!! >
Are all your calculators broken??
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax , Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Propert y Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax upon Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Income Tax
Everything Tax
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world..
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened?
Can you spell 'politicians!'
....................................................
And still I have to
Keep pressing numbers on my telephone...
Never to get to an operator...
Never to get to a live person...
Who I can actually talk to...
In the private sector I might actually get a live person...
In another part of the world...
'Globalization' so I am told...
'Cheaper labor' on foreign shores...
This is what my tax dollars get me?
-- dgb modification/extension, Jan. 29th, 2009.
.................................................
I hope this goes around the
US & CANADA
at least 1 billion times
What the heck happened???
in a billion???
The next time you hear a politician use the
word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it's releases.
A..
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.
D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ....
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans .. Interesting number...
what does it mean?
A.
Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.
B.
Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.
C..
Or... if you are a family of four...
your family gets $2,066,012.
Imagine, now $700 billion bailing out banks in the US . That's enough to fund complete medical care for every man, woman and child currently alive in the US for 11 years!!
50 billion to bail out the auto industry???
Washington , D.C.
&
Ottawa ON.
< HELLO!!! >
Are all your calculators broken??
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax , Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Propert y Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax upon Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Income Tax
Everything Tax
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world..
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened?
Can you spell 'politicians!'
....................................................
And still I have to
Keep pressing numbers on my telephone...
Never to get to an operator...
Never to get to a live person...
Who I can actually talk to...
In the private sector I might actually get a live person...
In another part of the world...
'Globalization' so I am told...
'Cheaper labor' on foreign shores...
This is what my tax dollars get me?
-- dgb modification/extension, Jan. 29th, 2009.
.................................................
I hope this goes around the
US & CANADA
at least 1 billion times
What the heck happened???
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Finding Truth
We will take Nietzsche as our starting point, and then see where we can evolve to from there -- in our goal of finding truth.
'All facts are interpretations.' -- Nietzsche
We have a world both outside of us and inside of us that is impossible to know fully and completely because our senses are imperfect, our logical faculties are imperfect -- and our 'will to truth' is imperfect. In fact, our will to truth is often the biggest problem of all. We simply don't want to know the truth. As Jack Nicholson said in his famous speech (forgive me but I have forgotten the name of the movie with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson in it, just looked it up -- 'A Few Good Men') -- 'You can't handle the truth!'
When it comes to truth, personal and/or collective narcissism (greed, selfishness, egotism, ambition, anxiety, fear...) often rears its ugly head to hide, suppress, distort, embellish, and/or push people away from the truth.
So the first thing that is absolutely necessary in finding the truth -- is a 'will to truth'. I do not say this lightly. The truth is not always attractive to the squeemish or the faint-harded...indeed, the truth often requires courage and bravery to seriously look for it in the first place.
My definition of truth: 'A strong structural similarity between things and processes as we believe them to be, and things and processes as they really are -- or were.
Unfortunately, that raises the huge Kantian problem -- the 'subject-object split' and the fact that we can't step outside of our own skin, our own senses, our own logical faculties, and our own narcissistic biases -- to 'know for sure how things and processes really are'.
Thus, we are, and man is, stuck in a paradoxical, epistemological 'Catch 22' -- one that man has been 'epistemologically cursed' with since the beginning of man's existence -- and probably to the end.
There is no such thing as 'perfect truth' unless we are talking about 2 plus 2 equals 4, and/or maybe 'The sun rose up this morning' although that for me is an assumption because I never saw it rise this morning. And of course, the sun didn't really 'rise' -- that is all human relativity at work and play.
So we just have to keep pursuing the 'best approximations of truth' that we can possibly get to, on our own, and/or with the help of our fellow human beings who are similarly interested in 'pursuing truth'.
And of course, truth means nothing without 'context'. If we want to talk about truth -- at least in any practical, pragmatic, functional sense -- we have to talk about something happening in some place and time. And then describing the way it happened. How it happened. Why it happened becomes even more interpretive, more problematic, more complicated, and more controversial. What caused her death? What caused the accident? Who was responsible? Who was to blame? What was to blame?
The danger is -- or at least one of the main dangers -- is that we 'box the truth', call it 'the truth' and forget that we are only giving a 'theory of the truth' that may be right, may be wrong, may be partly right and partly wrong, or it may be the 'truth at first' but then 'life changes' and our 'box of truth' does not change with the evolution of a changing life process.
Five 'Truth Dangers' I call respectively:
1. Idols of Theoretical Boxes and Labels (that don't fit the real world and how it works);
2. Idols of Reification (hanging on to an idea or theory that becomes 'dead' as life changes);
3. Idols of Reductionism (Dividing life into 5, 10, or a hundred pieces -- and not putting it back together again);
4. Idols of Abstraction, Association, and Generalization (One or two instances of a life process do not necessarily imply an 'iron clad rule of nature that will never change'; likewise, just because something looks like a duck and swims like a duck does not necessarily mean that it is a duck -- it could be a swan.)
5. Idols of Narcissistic Bias (Too much unethical, narcissistic bias at work and play -- selfishness, jealousy, envy, greed, anxiety, egotism, pride, money... -- to truly want to know the truth, and/or want it to be known.
Four Rules of Thumb For Pursuing The Truth...
1. Observations first, inferences/interpretations second, value judgments third...Don't jump to premature and/or unwarrented conclusions because then the value judgments -- even before any discussion or debate of 'values and ethics' -- are going to be wrong.
2. Skepticism is a good thing -- people are often jumping to fast and wrong interpretations, assumptions, conclusions...Check you assumptions, check society's assumptions, observe, observe, observe, check different sources, check different biases, check, check, check...
3. Life changes -- make sure your 'conceptual representations of life' change too in order to keep up with all of life's changing processes...evolution, mutation, compensation, etc...
4. Make sure your information comes from credible, reliable sources, and know what their line of bias and potential 'conflict of interest' might be relative to 'steering you away from the truth'.
Avoid these epistemological traps and follow these epistemological rules and you will be putting yourself in a good position towards steering yourself towards the epistemological truth.
A strong 'will to truth' -- and the strength, courage, and perseverence to chase it down like a bull terrier, even a pit-bull -- remains your greatest asset.
-- dgbn, Jan. 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
'All facts are interpretations.' -- Nietzsche
We have a world both outside of us and inside of us that is impossible to know fully and completely because our senses are imperfect, our logical faculties are imperfect -- and our 'will to truth' is imperfect. In fact, our will to truth is often the biggest problem of all. We simply don't want to know the truth. As Jack Nicholson said in his famous speech (forgive me but I have forgotten the name of the movie with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson in it, just looked it up -- 'A Few Good Men') -- 'You can't handle the truth!'
When it comes to truth, personal and/or collective narcissism (greed, selfishness, egotism, ambition, anxiety, fear...) often rears its ugly head to hide, suppress, distort, embellish, and/or push people away from the truth.
So the first thing that is absolutely necessary in finding the truth -- is a 'will to truth'. I do not say this lightly. The truth is not always attractive to the squeemish or the faint-harded...indeed, the truth often requires courage and bravery to seriously look for it in the first place.
My definition of truth: 'A strong structural similarity between things and processes as we believe them to be, and things and processes as they really are -- or were.
Unfortunately, that raises the huge Kantian problem -- the 'subject-object split' and the fact that we can't step outside of our own skin, our own senses, our own logical faculties, and our own narcissistic biases -- to 'know for sure how things and processes really are'.
Thus, we are, and man is, stuck in a paradoxical, epistemological 'Catch 22' -- one that man has been 'epistemologically cursed' with since the beginning of man's existence -- and probably to the end.
There is no such thing as 'perfect truth' unless we are talking about 2 plus 2 equals 4, and/or maybe 'The sun rose up this morning' although that for me is an assumption because I never saw it rise this morning. And of course, the sun didn't really 'rise' -- that is all human relativity at work and play.
So we just have to keep pursuing the 'best approximations of truth' that we can possibly get to, on our own, and/or with the help of our fellow human beings who are similarly interested in 'pursuing truth'.
And of course, truth means nothing without 'context'. If we want to talk about truth -- at least in any practical, pragmatic, functional sense -- we have to talk about something happening in some place and time. And then describing the way it happened. How it happened. Why it happened becomes even more interpretive, more problematic, more complicated, and more controversial. What caused her death? What caused the accident? Who was responsible? Who was to blame? What was to blame?
The danger is -- or at least one of the main dangers -- is that we 'box the truth', call it 'the truth' and forget that we are only giving a 'theory of the truth' that may be right, may be wrong, may be partly right and partly wrong, or it may be the 'truth at first' but then 'life changes' and our 'box of truth' does not change with the evolution of a changing life process.
Five 'Truth Dangers' I call respectively:
1. Idols of Theoretical Boxes and Labels (that don't fit the real world and how it works);
2. Idols of Reification (hanging on to an idea or theory that becomes 'dead' as life changes);
3. Idols of Reductionism (Dividing life into 5, 10, or a hundred pieces -- and not putting it back together again);
4. Idols of Abstraction, Association, and Generalization (One or two instances of a life process do not necessarily imply an 'iron clad rule of nature that will never change'; likewise, just because something looks like a duck and swims like a duck does not necessarily mean that it is a duck -- it could be a swan.)
5. Idols of Narcissistic Bias (Too much unethical, narcissistic bias at work and play -- selfishness, jealousy, envy, greed, anxiety, egotism, pride, money... -- to truly want to know the truth, and/or want it to be known.
Four Rules of Thumb For Pursuing The Truth...
1. Observations first, inferences/interpretations second, value judgments third...Don't jump to premature and/or unwarrented conclusions because then the value judgments -- even before any discussion or debate of 'values and ethics' -- are going to be wrong.
2. Skepticism is a good thing -- people are often jumping to fast and wrong interpretations, assumptions, conclusions...Check you assumptions, check society's assumptions, observe, observe, observe, check different sources, check different biases, check, check, check...
3. Life changes -- make sure your 'conceptual representations of life' change too in order to keep up with all of life's changing processes...evolution, mutation, compensation, etc...
4. Make sure your information comes from credible, reliable sources, and know what their line of bias and potential 'conflict of interest' might be relative to 'steering you away from the truth'.
Avoid these epistemological traps and follow these epistemological rules and you will be putting yourself in a good position towards steering yourself towards the epistemological truth.
A strong 'will to truth' -- and the strength, courage, and perseverence to chase it down like a bull terrier, even a pit-bull -- remains your greatest asset.
-- dgbn, Jan. 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
Regarding Those Bad -- 'Trojan Virus' -- Mortgage Contracts
B. Smith,
Sorry if both my previous responses to you have been a little long-winded (and expanded for public consumption).
Regarding one of your points, if you know for sure that the idea for all of those 'low interest on the front end; high (hidden, trojan virus) interest rates on the back end' mortgages' for people who couldn't afford the houses they were buying, especially when the interest rates went skyrocketing up -- if the idea for these toxic mortgages came from either the White House and/or the Senate -- then, yes, that would take a good piece, if not all, of the responsibility and accountability for this decision off of Wall Street, and put it right into the laps of an 'over-regulating' Government. A manipulation of the 'free market' if you will. But the question also has to be asked: 'Who put those trojan virus interest rates into those bad mortgage contracts?' This clearly, was not an act of 'altruism' or 'benevolence' -- of trying to get more 'riskier credit' people into a situation of being able to own their own homes to make their lives better -- but rather an act of unbridled narcissistic manipulation and malice in terms of 'interest gouging' these people after they had settled into their homes for a few years -- and making their lives 'sheer hell'.
.............................................................................
malice
One entry found.
Main Entry: mal·ice
Pronunciation: \ˈma-ləs\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin malitia, from malus bad
Date: 14th century
1 : desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another
2 : intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse
................................................................................
So the second part of the question here becomes:
Who was responsible and who is accountable for those 'gouging, hidden trojan virus, high interest mortgage contracts'? Did the idea of this type of toxic, gouging contract come from Washington? I highly doubt it. That smells of rotten Wall Street Bankers...
To sum up...
1. Government manipulation to get more 'higher risk' people into their own homes: Call this 'government over-regulation';
2. Wall Street Toxic, Low Front End, High Back End, Gouging Hidden Trojan Virus Mortgage Contracts: Call this 'government under-regulation' of Wall Street Bankers.
-- dgbn, Jan. 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Sorry if both my previous responses to you have been a little long-winded (and expanded for public consumption).
Regarding one of your points, if you know for sure that the idea for all of those 'low interest on the front end; high (hidden, trojan virus) interest rates on the back end' mortgages' for people who couldn't afford the houses they were buying, especially when the interest rates went skyrocketing up -- if the idea for these toxic mortgages came from either the White House and/or the Senate -- then, yes, that would take a good piece, if not all, of the responsibility and accountability for this decision off of Wall Street, and put it right into the laps of an 'over-regulating' Government. A manipulation of the 'free market' if you will. But the question also has to be asked: 'Who put those trojan virus interest rates into those bad mortgage contracts?' This clearly, was not an act of 'altruism' or 'benevolence' -- of trying to get more 'riskier credit' people into a situation of being able to own their own homes to make their lives better -- but rather an act of unbridled narcissistic manipulation and malice in terms of 'interest gouging' these people after they had settled into their homes for a few years -- and making their lives 'sheer hell'.
.............................................................................
malice
One entry found.
Main Entry: mal·ice
Pronunciation: \ˈma-ləs\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin malitia, from malus bad
Date: 14th century
1 : desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another
2 : intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse
................................................................................
So the second part of the question here becomes:
Who was responsible and who is accountable for those 'gouging, hidden trojan virus, high interest mortgage contracts'? Did the idea of this type of toxic, gouging contract come from Washington? I highly doubt it. That smells of rotten Wall Street Bankers...
To sum up...
1. Government manipulation to get more 'higher risk' people into their own homes: Call this 'government over-regulation';
2. Wall Street Toxic, Low Front End, High Back End, Gouging Hidden Trojan Virus Mortgage Contracts: Call this 'government under-regulation' of Wall Street Bankers.
-- dgbn, Jan. 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
DGBN Philosophy vs. Ayn Rand -- and The Fountainhead
(From the internet: From Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
........................................................................
By B. Smith
Barack wants to what?
Capitalism or Socialism which do you prefer?
Please allow me to define the terms before we go any further. According to www.dictionary.com, capitalism and socialism are defined as follows:
Capitalism noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now compare that to socialism:
Socialism noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
4. An economic system based on state ownership of capital.
If someone were to come to you and ask you for 15% of your 401k or 15% of your pension fund, what would you say? If you are like me you would probably tell them to go take a long walk off of a short plank. If someone were to tell you that the government wants to take ALL of your retirement funds and convert them to social security so as to ensure your future retirement, what would you say? I would tell them that it is my money and that they need to keep their noses out of my business.
But what is happening?
1. We have democrats in the world of academia and in the halls of elected office calling for major changes in the 401k and pension retirement plans. The ideas range from the government taking a "one-time" (anyone believe it will be just once?) confiscation of 15% of your funds all the way to the entire take-over of your retirement plans. You know what these are, right? These are the plans where you invested your money into your future. It is the money that you earned and set aside for your future. It is the money for your kids and grandkids. It is YOUR money. The people that are coming to power want to take it. They have done nothing to earn it but they want to take it. Here is one article for your perusal:
http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894
2. Are you so naive that you think it won't happen? You honestly think that your retirement money is safe, right? Look at Argentina. It has just happened! According to Time Almanac, 2008, both America and Argentina have a Federal Republic with two legislative houses. Argentina is not, nor are we, a socialist country. But we are both headed that way. Look at definition number three for socialism. When over fifty percent of the electorate believes it is okay to plunder the so called rich to meet their own desires, we have major problems.
Look here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article /WRAPUP-2-Argentinas-pension-takeover-plan-scares- g-KNTA7?OpenDocument
3. We have a Presidential elect that has openly called for bankrupting the coal industry. The use of coal provides OVER 50% of our electricity. What would happen if it becomes bankrupt as Barack has suggested? Would this be good? I would suggest that if it goes bankrupt then the government would step in and take over. Compare this to the definition and one might easily see where the government might be "taking over" the coal industry and this can be viewed as socialism. Watch it for yourself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
If their country is doing it then what is to say that ours won't be next. Their government has just taken everything that their citizens have been working for and confiscated it. Can it happen here? Sure it can! Look around you. We have citizens that believe it is okay to take from those who go out and work their rear ends off and give their earnings to people that don't.
Please consider the definition number four for socialism. Simply put, capital, in the business world, equals money. Are we not seeing this today? We have the government giving bailouts to the banking world. Now what? The auto industry wants one; the student loan organizations are pondering the question along with the credit card companies. Couple this with the ideas of the government taking over your retirement funds and bankrupting the coal industry, et al. it is clear that we have taken the beginning steps towards socialism.
Does anyone believe we can tax our way to prosperity? How is that possible? The government takes our monies and gives it to those who don't have and this is the road to prosperity? Has it ever worked anywhere? No, it has not and it never will.
Too often the argument comes down to wealth envy. Socialism is supposed to even the field while capitalism allows people to become rich, or so some may say. This may all be true. But when push comes to shove, who are you more concerned for: You and your family? Or your fellow citizen? Me? I guess I can be accused of being selfish because I will take care of "me and mine" first, then everyone else.
I finish with this quote by the great capitalist, Adam Smith, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I prefer Capitalism! (From the internet: from Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
.........................................................................
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:10 AM, wrote:
From: David Bain,
Capitalism still needs to be ethically regulated. Otherwise, you have people who have much more money and power exploiting and manipulating many people who don't have the same power and money. I will feed you back your own Adam Smith quote in an entirely different light.
'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.'
If the butcher can sell you 'dog liver' even though you think it is 'cow liver or 'cow steak' that you don't know is full of hormones and steroids, if the brewer can sell you 'domestic beer' that you think is 'premium beer', and if the baker can sell you 'fresh, baked' bread that is a day or more old, if corporate America can 'outsource' all its 'labor force' to places like China and Mexico and India for half the cost, if New Mexico farmers can get 'dirt cheap' labor by 'importing illegal Mexican immigrants', if companies can 'import' scientists from around the world on 'work visas' at half the cost while American scientists with Phds can't find jobs or half to accept jobs for half the amount of money that they should be getting because of 'foreign competition', when full-time workers become a thing of the past because you don't have to pay part-ime workers 'benefits', when employees stop getting raises -- or lose their jobs to other workers who will accept less -- while the!
ir bosses continue to rake in more and more, when Wall Street Bankers take their 'bailout money' from Washington -- and use it for personal executive dividends amongst those who bankrupted the company by exploiting middle class Americans with 'Trojan Virus' mortgages...
After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?
Here is what I say: You still need benevolence, you still need ethics, you still need altruism and caring about other people. You still need regulations, you still need good Government, you still need law and order -- and not only to protect the rich from the poor, but also to protect the poor and the middle class from the rich.
In short, you need homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance between the best principles of both Capitalism and Socialism, allowing people to work hard and to gain from this, while at the same time protecting people from their own greed and the greed of others.
Unethical self-interest -- that is the curse of America right now and the curse of unregulated Capitalism -- Capitalism with no reigns attached to it.
I like Adam Smith but even he didn't trust many of the business men he was dealing with and knew that they needed to be regulated. A totally 'free market' doesn't work or if you want to play the 'free market' to the max, to the extreme, then you don't bail out the 'robbers' on Wall Street. And you let the American Automobiles fend for themselves -- and go bankrupt if necessary. This is a totally 'free market' and it is so comically ironically when the ultimate Adam Smith Capitalists come crying to Washington for 'bailout money' when the 'free market' is no longer fun for them, no longer in their 'self-interest'.
This is the height of irony -- and the height of human hypocrisy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: B Smith
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 11:15:50 PM
Subject: Re: Message from David Bain at Helium.com
Wow! What a response. I want to thank you for setting the record for the longest and most intense response I have ever had to one of my articles. Obviously I hit a nerve.
I would like you to know that I will respond to most of your points. First though, I would like to ask you if you are aware that you had a sentence of 219 words. 219! That sets a record. To the best of my knowledge I have never read a 219 word sentence and for that, I would like to thank you.
Again, wow! You sound like you are a little upset. You made some points and accusations and I would like you to answer the following:
1. How do you define "good government"? And, who defines it?
2. Who are the "robbers" on Wall Street? Or are you just using a cliché?
3. What "protection" does the poor and middle class need from the rich? Who provides jobs for the poor and middle class?
I really am trying to figure out just what you are saying. Are you saying that socialism is better than capitalism? If so, I would ask you to provide an example of where socialism has ever provided better opportunities for its citizens than what we have here in America under what used to be capitalism.
Or, are you saying that capitalism works best when regulated by the government? If so, then I would counter that the very problems we have right now is that we have too much government interference. Specifically, government is too involved in taxes, regulations such as requiring lenders to loan to otherwise unqualified loan applicants so then can buy into the American dream of home ownership and so on. Things look bleaker as Obama is sworn in tomorrow.
And to answer your question of, "After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?" My answer is that the self interest of corporate America is good for America. After all, if the corporations do not survive then where will we work? How will we earn a living?
Finally, I believe there should never have been a bailout. I also believe that it might just be good if one or two of the auto makers declared bankruptcy. One benefit of that would be that the union contracts would be null and void and they would have to start over. I believe that would be good.
Smith
.................................................................................
Well, Mr. or Ms. B. Smith....
You are officially invited to offer your many intelligent ideas to 'Hegel's Hotel': DGBN Philosophy: Dialectic Debates on American Politics/Economics.
It has been a pleasure to hear what you have had to say so far.
Firstly, I would like to get your first name so I can stop calling you B. Smith. And so that I can know whether I am dealing with a man or a woman -- not that that matters relative to your ideas which speak for themselves...My assumption -- maybe a presumptuous sexist assumption -- is that you are a man.
Secondly, I like the way you write and present your ideas. Just as I think you are aiming for full clarity and exposition in what you believe, as well as searching out for the same in my writing, again unless I am being presumptuous on your side, I wish the same. Then we can decide how much we agree and/or disagree with each other.
For me, this is a full-time hobby and project -- at least as 'full-time' as can be conducted outside of a 52 hour work week that doesn't involve writing.
I invite you to check out my interconnected network of blogsites called: 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Thirdly, I strongly hope that you will give me your full permission to not only use your essay in my particular blogsite called: Dialectic Debates in American Politics/Economics...but also to contribute further essays if you so desire...There is no money involved in this enterprise now-- just the potential meeting of intelligent, passionate writers and philosophers on a common blogsite writing about the same or similar issues.
My assumption here is that two or more intelligent, passionate writers can accomplish more in conjunction with each other than one writer working alone. I just finished watching 'The Fountainhead' this morning -- which I read about 30 to 35 years ago and this is where I want to build 'Hegel's Hotel' -- metaphorically speaking of course -- higher than 'The Wyland Building' in 'The Fountainhead'. I am equally willing to take on Adam Smith, Ayn Rand -- and you -- in the philosophical and pragmatic areas where I think you are respectively wrong. Which is not to say that we don't have -- or can't easily or with more rhetorical struggle -- find a common ground where we 'essentially' believe in the same or similar thing(s).
'The greater the contrast, the greater the energy.' -- Carl Jung
'The contrasts of form are too great.' -- one of the actors in The Fountainhead.
They don't have to be.
Ayn Rand argued that society -- and its greatest creations -- was/were/is/are built on the integrity of the individual self.
I counter-argue that the greatest creations of society and culture are often if not usually the product of 'the dialectic engagement different individuals in society with similar and different ideas and philosophical perspectives sharing some common dream, some common vision, or eventually arriving at one, and bringing their differences together in differential unity.
Ayn Rand's self-contradiction, Howard Rourke's self-contradiction, and Capitalism's self-contradiction is that the self -- and the individual -- cannot live in a void. People need each other. The society needs the individual and the individual needs society. The individual is dialectically engaged with the evolution of both him or herself -- and the evolution of society. And visa versa. Society without the individual -- and the individual self -- is devoid of life, passion, and creativity. But the individual needs some viable combination of family, friends, a lover, community, society, and nature in which to function and to flourish without 'individualism' and 'self-interest' being the sole ethical principle on which these combination of relationships exist. Even the Enlightenment principle of 'conquering nature' was turned into the Romantic principle of 'living in harmony with nature'.
This is where eventually -- if not already -- Hegel's Hotel will rise higher than The Wyland Building in The Fountainhead.
As for 'socialism' -- Ayn Rand and Karl Marx had a much greater similarity in ethical principles regarding 'the nature and essence of work and the self' than either of them or many other Capitalist and/or Socialist partisans would ever care to admit.
'The contrasts of form are too great.'
Maybe in The Fountainhead -- between the self and the 'self-sacrifices' in society.
But not even in The Fountainhead where 'great contrasts in form' produced great architecture, great buildings.
And a great love affair. Where Mrs. Wyland finally became Mrs. Rourke at the end of the movie.
And the contrast of the narcissistic, mercenary, power-motivated, opinion-poll motivated Mr. Wyland actually found his 'principles' and his 'self-integrity' -- if only briefly -- and hooked up with Howard Rourke on 'the building of the greatest building -- The Wyland Building'. (That was before he shot himself for living the life of a 'fraud', a 'mercenary' -- and in so doing, 'freed' Mrs. Wyland to become Mrs. Rourke.)
What is overstated in The Fountainhead -- and in Ayn Rand's individualistic, Capitalist philosophy -- is the trumpeting of 'individual unilateralism' -- with no 'dialectic engagement and dialogue.'
What is missing in The Fountainhead -- is the dialectic engagement of 'self-interest' and 'self-sacrifice', self and society, I and Thou, not in a way that makes both the individual and society worse off, not in a way that makes you and I worse off, but rather in a way where each of us 'gains from this dialectic engagement and dialogue'. Where Ayn Rand trumpets the 'integrity of the self and the individual', I do this and more. I trumpet the Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, Buber and Gestalt Godliness of...'I and Thou, Here and Now'....Individuals -- similar and different from each other -- working together the pursue a common cause, a common vision, a common dream, a Multi-Dialectical Harmony and Holiness...
My dad was/is a great Capitalist. My dad is my Capitalist Torch. My dad is my own Ayn Rand and Howard Rourke personified and idolized by me for his great vision and his great willingness to take risks.
But I have seen the dangers and the tragedies of 'Capitalist and Republican Uunilateralism'.
With Bush, America was about 'unilaterally shoving' America onto the rest of the world -- even if it was said to be in the interest of 'democracy'. You cannot force or coerce democracy. Otherwise, it a fraud, a token democracy, a puppet democracy.
Who can forget Bush's 'coalition of the willing' -- as he in effect raised his middle finger at The United Nations -- and the rest of the world?
Bush was about 'dividing and conquering' -- even if it was deemed to be in the interest of both democracy and American self-defense.
Bush divided the world but he did not conquer it. Bush divided Afghanastan and Iraq into two separate war fronts and in doing so he divided the world, divided America, and brought America economically down to its knees. America's enemies have found America's greatest weakness. It can't economically handle a sustained war -- with fading world and ally support -- on different warfronts. Bin Laden said it himself -- if that last tape can be trusted to be his voice still alive and coming from a mind-brain obviously cognitively functioning very well. Just keep dividing the Middle East War up into different warfronts and be patient as, over time, America is economically brought down to its knees.
Bush's vision of Imperialist Capitalism -- the person and the party who helped orchestrate the 'exportation of much of America's manufacturing jobs'; the person and the party who turned a blind eye to illegal Mexican immigrants coming over the American border because large American farmers wanted 'cheaper farm labor'; the person and the party who 'supported the import of scientists from different countries on work visas' so that large corporations in America didn't/doesn't have to pay 'American prices and wages' for American scientists -- is one of 'divide and conquer'.
But in the end Bush's vision of America divided -- and self-destructed.
And Obama is left 'holding the bag'. Trying to pick up all the broken pieces.
Trying to rescuscitate the idea of 'dialectic-democracy'. And 'multi-dialectic democracy'.
Dialectic-Democratic Creative Engagement, Negotiation, and Integration.
Differential unity.
That is how my vision of Hegel's Hotel is bigger and better than Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' -- or 'The Wyland Building'.
The Wyland Building was built by one very talented, creative, passionate man -- Howard Rourke.
The Fountainhead was created by one very talented, creative passionate woman -- Ayn Rand.
Hegel's Hotel is being created and built by me...but at the same time by more than me...
Hegel's Hotel is being built multi-dialectically by all the philosophers, psychologists, friends and family...
Who have influenced me.
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no contrasts in form too great to integrate.
In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, and Erich Fromm can all come together on the same page -- and speak to each other.
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish to hear from Capitalists and Socialists alike, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In Hegel's Hotel, I not only trumpet the creative genius of philosophers like Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand...
But also the creative dialectic or multi-dialectic working genius built around and through the similarities and contrasts between Hegel and Marx, Hegel and Nietzsche, Hegel and Engels, in the music field -- Lennon and McCartney (and George Harrison and Ringo), Dylan, Bloomfield, and Kooper, or Dylan and The Band, in the sphere of old fashioned literary romance -- Romeo and Juliet, in the movies, Pretty Woman, Richard Gere and Julia Roberts...
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no 'contrasts in form that are too great to integrate -- and to inspire new hope for a better future'. Isn't this was Obama's rise to the presidency is all about?
No contrast is too great as long as people want to unite.
Not Hegel and Nietzsche. Not Freud and Jung. Not Freud and Adler. Not Freud and Perls.
Not Capitalism and Socialism.
Not employers and employees.
Not corporate ownership and union.
Not 'fair trade' and 'free trade'. (Where 'free trade' has become a means of exploiting American workers by sending manufacturing companies to foreign -- 'cheaper' -- countries.
Not 'full-time' and 'part-time' workers. (Where 'part-time' workers have become a cheaper work force who don't have to be paid full-time benefits, and thus, are likely to remain 'part-time' practically forever.)
Not The American People and The American Government.
Not self and society.
Not self and self-alienation.
Not self and self-actualization.
Not self and self-sacrifice.
Dialectic-democratic evolution can always find a way,
If there is a sufficiently motivated, passionate person -- and/or people,
To break through all personality, social, political, religious...barriers...
-- dgbn, January 20th, 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
........................................................................
By B. Smith
Barack wants to what?
Capitalism or Socialism which do you prefer?
Please allow me to define the terms before we go any further. According to www.dictionary.com, capitalism and socialism are defined as follows:
Capitalism noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now compare that to socialism:
Socialism noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
4. An economic system based on state ownership of capital.
If someone were to come to you and ask you for 15% of your 401k or 15% of your pension fund, what would you say? If you are like me you would probably tell them to go take a long walk off of a short plank. If someone were to tell you that the government wants to take ALL of your retirement funds and convert them to social security so as to ensure your future retirement, what would you say? I would tell them that it is my money and that they need to keep their noses out of my business.
But what is happening?
1. We have democrats in the world of academia and in the halls of elected office calling for major changes in the 401k and pension retirement plans. The ideas range from the government taking a "one-time" (anyone believe it will be just once?) confiscation of 15% of your funds all the way to the entire take-over of your retirement plans. You know what these are, right? These are the plans where you invested your money into your future. It is the money that you earned and set aside for your future. It is the money for your kids and grandkids. It is YOUR money. The people that are coming to power want to take it. They have done nothing to earn it but they want to take it. Here is one article for your perusal:
http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894
2. Are you so naive that you think it won't happen? You honestly think that your retirement money is safe, right? Look at Argentina. It has just happened! According to Time Almanac, 2008, both America and Argentina have a Federal Republic with two legislative houses. Argentina is not, nor are we, a socialist country. But we are both headed that way. Look at definition number three for socialism. When over fifty percent of the electorate believes it is okay to plunder the so called rich to meet their own desires, we have major problems.
Look here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article /WRAPUP-2-Argentinas-pension-takeover-plan-scares- g-KNTA7?OpenDocument
3. We have a Presidential elect that has openly called for bankrupting the coal industry. The use of coal provides OVER 50% of our electricity. What would happen if it becomes bankrupt as Barack has suggested? Would this be good? I would suggest that if it goes bankrupt then the government would step in and take over. Compare this to the definition and one might easily see where the government might be "taking over" the coal industry and this can be viewed as socialism. Watch it for yourself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
If their country is doing it then what is to say that ours won't be next. Their government has just taken everything that their citizens have been working for and confiscated it. Can it happen here? Sure it can! Look around you. We have citizens that believe it is okay to take from those who go out and work their rear ends off and give their earnings to people that don't.
Please consider the definition number four for socialism. Simply put, capital, in the business world, equals money. Are we not seeing this today? We have the government giving bailouts to the banking world. Now what? The auto industry wants one; the student loan organizations are pondering the question along with the credit card companies. Couple this with the ideas of the government taking over your retirement funds and bankrupting the coal industry, et al. it is clear that we have taken the beginning steps towards socialism.
Does anyone believe we can tax our way to prosperity? How is that possible? The government takes our monies and gives it to those who don't have and this is the road to prosperity? Has it ever worked anywhere? No, it has not and it never will.
Too often the argument comes down to wealth envy. Socialism is supposed to even the field while capitalism allows people to become rich, or so some may say. This may all be true. But when push comes to shove, who are you more concerned for: You and your family? Or your fellow citizen? Me? I guess I can be accused of being selfish because I will take care of "me and mine" first, then everyone else.
I finish with this quote by the great capitalist, Adam Smith, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I prefer Capitalism! (From the internet: from Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
.........................................................................
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:10 AM,
From: David Bain,
Capitalism still needs to be ethically regulated. Otherwise, you have people who have much more money and power exploiting and manipulating many people who don't have the same power and money. I will feed you back your own Adam Smith quote in an entirely different light.
'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.'
If the butcher can sell you 'dog liver' even though you think it is 'cow liver or 'cow steak' that you don't know is full of hormones and steroids, if the brewer can sell you 'domestic beer' that you think is 'premium beer', and if the baker can sell you 'fresh, baked' bread that is a day or more old, if corporate America can 'outsource' all its 'labor force' to places like China and Mexico and India for half the cost, if New Mexico farmers can get 'dirt cheap' labor by 'importing illegal Mexican immigrants', if companies can 'import' scientists from around the world on 'work visas' at half the cost while American scientists with Phds can't find jobs or half to accept jobs for half the amount of money that they should be getting because of 'foreign competition', when full-time workers become a thing of the past because you don't have to pay part-ime workers 'benefits', when employees stop getting raises -- or lose their jobs to other workers who will accept less -- while the!
ir bosses continue to rake in more and more, when Wall Street Bankers take their 'bailout money' from Washington -- and use it for personal executive dividends amongst those who bankrupted the company by exploiting middle class Americans with 'Trojan Virus' mortgages...
After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?
Here is what I say: You still need benevolence, you still need ethics, you still need altruism and caring about other people. You still need regulations, you still need good Government, you still need law and order -- and not only to protect the rich from the poor, but also to protect the poor and the middle class from the rich.
In short, you need homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance between the best principles of both Capitalism and Socialism, allowing people to work hard and to gain from this, while at the same time protecting people from their own greed and the greed of others.
Unethical self-interest -- that is the curse of America right now and the curse of unregulated Capitalism -- Capitalism with no reigns attached to it.
I like Adam Smith but even he didn't trust many of the business men he was dealing with and knew that they needed to be regulated. A totally 'free market' doesn't work or if you want to play the 'free market' to the max, to the extreme, then you don't bail out the 'robbers' on Wall Street. And you let the American Automobiles fend for themselves -- and go bankrupt if necessary. This is a totally 'free market' and it is so comically ironically when the ultimate Adam Smith Capitalists come crying to Washington for 'bailout money' when the 'free market' is no longer fun for them, no longer in their 'self-interest'.
This is the height of irony -- and the height of human hypocrisy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: B Smith
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 11:15:50 PM
Subject: Re: Message from David Bain at Helium.com
Wow! What a response. I want to thank you for setting the record for the longest and most intense response I have ever had to one of my articles. Obviously I hit a nerve.
I would like you to know that I will respond to most of your points. First though, I would like to ask you if you are aware that you had a sentence of 219 words. 219! That sets a record. To the best of my knowledge I have never read a 219 word sentence and for that, I would like to thank you.
Again, wow! You sound like you are a little upset. You made some points and accusations and I would like you to answer the following:
1. How do you define "good government"? And, who defines it?
2. Who are the "robbers" on Wall Street? Or are you just using a cliché?
3. What "protection" does the poor and middle class need from the rich? Who provides jobs for the poor and middle class?
I really am trying to figure out just what you are saying. Are you saying that socialism is better than capitalism? If so, I would ask you to provide an example of where socialism has ever provided better opportunities for its citizens than what we have here in America under what used to be capitalism.
Or, are you saying that capitalism works best when regulated by the government? If so, then I would counter that the very problems we have right now is that we have too much government interference. Specifically, government is too involved in taxes, regulations such as requiring lenders to loan to otherwise unqualified loan applicants so then can buy into the American dream of home ownership and so on. Things look bleaker as Obama is sworn in tomorrow.
And to answer your question of, "After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?" My answer is that the self interest of corporate America is good for America. After all, if the corporations do not survive then where will we work? How will we earn a living?
Finally, I believe there should never have been a bailout. I also believe that it might just be good if one or two of the auto makers declared bankruptcy. One benefit of that would be that the union contracts would be null and void and they would have to start over. I believe that would be good.
Smith
.................................................................................
Well, Mr. or Ms. B. Smith....
You are officially invited to offer your many intelligent ideas to 'Hegel's Hotel': DGBN Philosophy: Dialectic Debates on American Politics/Economics.
It has been a pleasure to hear what you have had to say so far.
Firstly, I would like to get your first name so I can stop calling you B. Smith. And so that I can know whether I am dealing with a man or a woman -- not that that matters relative to your ideas which speak for themselves...My assumption -- maybe a presumptuous sexist assumption -- is that you are a man.
Secondly, I like the way you write and present your ideas. Just as I think you are aiming for full clarity and exposition in what you believe, as well as searching out for the same in my writing, again unless I am being presumptuous on your side, I wish the same. Then we can decide how much we agree and/or disagree with each other.
For me, this is a full-time hobby and project -- at least as 'full-time' as can be conducted outside of a 52 hour work week that doesn't involve writing.
I invite you to check out my interconnected network of blogsites called: 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Thirdly, I strongly hope that you will give me your full permission to not only use your essay in my particular blogsite called: Dialectic Debates in American Politics/Economics...but also to contribute further essays if you so desire...There is no money involved in this enterprise now-- just the potential meeting of intelligent, passionate writers and philosophers on a common blogsite writing about the same or similar issues.
My assumption here is that two or more intelligent, passionate writers can accomplish more in conjunction with each other than one writer working alone. I just finished watching 'The Fountainhead' this morning -- which I read about 30 to 35 years ago and this is where I want to build 'Hegel's Hotel' -- metaphorically speaking of course -- higher than 'The Wyland Building' in 'The Fountainhead'. I am equally willing to take on Adam Smith, Ayn Rand -- and you -- in the philosophical and pragmatic areas where I think you are respectively wrong. Which is not to say that we don't have -- or can't easily or with more rhetorical struggle -- find a common ground where we 'essentially' believe in the same or similar thing(s).
'The greater the contrast, the greater the energy.' -- Carl Jung
'The contrasts of form are too great.' -- one of the actors in The Fountainhead.
They don't have to be.
Ayn Rand argued that society -- and its greatest creations -- was/were/is/are built on the integrity of the individual self.
I counter-argue that the greatest creations of society and culture are often if not usually the product of 'the dialectic engagement different individuals in society with similar and different ideas and philosophical perspectives sharing some common dream, some common vision, or eventually arriving at one, and bringing their differences together in differential unity.
Ayn Rand's self-contradiction, Howard Rourke's self-contradiction, and Capitalism's self-contradiction is that the self -- and the individual -- cannot live in a void. People need each other. The society needs the individual and the individual needs society. The individual is dialectically engaged with the evolution of both him or herself -- and the evolution of society. And visa versa. Society without the individual -- and the individual self -- is devoid of life, passion, and creativity. But the individual needs some viable combination of family, friends, a lover, community, society, and nature in which to function and to flourish without 'individualism' and 'self-interest' being the sole ethical principle on which these combination of relationships exist. Even the Enlightenment principle of 'conquering nature' was turned into the Romantic principle of 'living in harmony with nature'.
This is where eventually -- if not already -- Hegel's Hotel will rise higher than The Wyland Building in The Fountainhead.
As for 'socialism' -- Ayn Rand and Karl Marx had a much greater similarity in ethical principles regarding 'the nature and essence of work and the self' than either of them or many other Capitalist and/or Socialist partisans would ever care to admit.
'The contrasts of form are too great.'
Maybe in The Fountainhead -- between the self and the 'self-sacrifices' in society.
But not even in The Fountainhead where 'great contrasts in form' produced great architecture, great buildings.
And a great love affair. Where Mrs. Wyland finally became Mrs. Rourke at the end of the movie.
And the contrast of the narcissistic, mercenary, power-motivated, opinion-poll motivated Mr. Wyland actually found his 'principles' and his 'self-integrity' -- if only briefly -- and hooked up with Howard Rourke on 'the building of the greatest building -- The Wyland Building'. (That was before he shot himself for living the life of a 'fraud', a 'mercenary' -- and in so doing, 'freed' Mrs. Wyland to become Mrs. Rourke.)
What is overstated in The Fountainhead -- and in Ayn Rand's individualistic, Capitalist philosophy -- is the trumpeting of 'individual unilateralism' -- with no 'dialectic engagement and dialogue.'
What is missing in The Fountainhead -- is the dialectic engagement of 'self-interest' and 'self-sacrifice', self and society, I and Thou, not in a way that makes both the individual and society worse off, not in a way that makes you and I worse off, but rather in a way where each of us 'gains from this dialectic engagement and dialogue'. Where Ayn Rand trumpets the 'integrity of the self and the individual', I do this and more. I trumpet the Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, Buber and Gestalt Godliness of...'I and Thou, Here and Now'....Individuals -- similar and different from each other -- working together the pursue a common cause, a common vision, a common dream, a Multi-Dialectical Harmony and Holiness...
My dad was/is a great Capitalist. My dad is my Capitalist Torch. My dad is my own Ayn Rand and Howard Rourke personified and idolized by me for his great vision and his great willingness to take risks.
But I have seen the dangers and the tragedies of 'Capitalist and Republican Uunilateralism'.
With Bush, America was about 'unilaterally shoving' America onto the rest of the world -- even if it was said to be in the interest of 'democracy'. You cannot force or coerce democracy. Otherwise, it a fraud, a token democracy, a puppet democracy.
Who can forget Bush's 'coalition of the willing' -- as he in effect raised his middle finger at The United Nations -- and the rest of the world?
Bush was about 'dividing and conquering' -- even if it was deemed to be in the interest of both democracy and American self-defense.
Bush divided the world but he did not conquer it. Bush divided Afghanastan and Iraq into two separate war fronts and in doing so he divided the world, divided America, and brought America economically down to its knees. America's enemies have found America's greatest weakness. It can't economically handle a sustained war -- with fading world and ally support -- on different warfronts. Bin Laden said it himself -- if that last tape can be trusted to be his voice still alive and coming from a mind-brain obviously cognitively functioning very well. Just keep dividing the Middle East War up into different warfronts and be patient as, over time, America is economically brought down to its knees.
Bush's vision of Imperialist Capitalism -- the person and the party who helped orchestrate the 'exportation of much of America's manufacturing jobs'; the person and the party who turned a blind eye to illegal Mexican immigrants coming over the American border because large American farmers wanted 'cheaper farm labor'; the person and the party who 'supported the import of scientists from different countries on work visas' so that large corporations in America didn't/doesn't have to pay 'American prices and wages' for American scientists -- is one of 'divide and conquer'.
But in the end Bush's vision of America divided -- and self-destructed.
And Obama is left 'holding the bag'. Trying to pick up all the broken pieces.
Trying to rescuscitate the idea of 'dialectic-democracy'. And 'multi-dialectic democracy'.
Dialectic-Democratic Creative Engagement, Negotiation, and Integration.
Differential unity.
That is how my vision of Hegel's Hotel is bigger and better than Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' -- or 'The Wyland Building'.
The Wyland Building was built by one very talented, creative, passionate man -- Howard Rourke.
The Fountainhead was created by one very talented, creative passionate woman -- Ayn Rand.
Hegel's Hotel is being created and built by me...but at the same time by more than me...
Hegel's Hotel is being built multi-dialectically by all the philosophers, psychologists, friends and family...
Who have influenced me.
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no contrasts in form too great to integrate.
In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, and Erich Fromm can all come together on the same page -- and speak to each other.
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish to hear from Capitalists and Socialists alike, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In Hegel's Hotel, I not only trumpet the creative genius of philosophers like Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand...
But also the creative dialectic or multi-dialectic working genius built around and through the similarities and contrasts between Hegel and Marx, Hegel and Nietzsche, Hegel and Engels, in the music field -- Lennon and McCartney (and George Harrison and Ringo), Dylan, Bloomfield, and Kooper, or Dylan and The Band, in the sphere of old fashioned literary romance -- Romeo and Juliet, in the movies, Pretty Woman, Richard Gere and Julia Roberts...
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no 'contrasts in form that are too great to integrate -- and to inspire new hope for a better future'. Isn't this was Obama's rise to the presidency is all about?
No contrast is too great as long as people want to unite.
Not Hegel and Nietzsche. Not Freud and Jung. Not Freud and Adler. Not Freud and Perls.
Not Capitalism and Socialism.
Not employers and employees.
Not corporate ownership and union.
Not 'fair trade' and 'free trade'. (Where 'free trade' has become a means of exploiting American workers by sending manufacturing companies to foreign -- 'cheaper' -- countries.
Not 'full-time' and 'part-time' workers. (Where 'part-time' workers have become a cheaper work force who don't have to be paid full-time benefits, and thus, are likely to remain 'part-time' practically forever.)
Not The American People and The American Government.
Not self and society.
Not self and self-alienation.
Not self and self-actualization.
Not self and self-sacrifice.
Dialectic-democratic evolution can always find a way,
If there is a sufficiently motivated, passionate person -- and/or people,
To break through all personality, social, political, religious...barriers...
-- dgbn, January 20th, 21st, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Capitalism or Socialism? Which Do You Prefer?: DGBN Philosophy vs. B. Smith -- and Non-Transparent, Government Pension Funds
(From the internet: From Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
........................................................................
By B. Smith
Barack wants to what?
Capitalism or Socialism which do you prefer?
Please allow me to define the terms before we go any further. According to www.dictionary.com, capitalism and socialism are defined as follows:
Capitalism noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now compare that to socialism:
Socialism noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
4. An economic system based on state ownership of capital.
If someone were to come to you and ask you for 15% of your 401k or 15% of your pension fund, what would you say? If you are like me you would probably tell them to go take a long walk off of a short plank. If someone were to tell you that the government wants to take ALL of your retirement funds and convert them to social security so as to ensure your future retirement, what would you say? I would tell them that it is my money and that they need to keep their noses out of my business.
But what is happening?
1. We have democrats in the world of academia and in the halls of elected office calling for major changes in the 401k and pension retirement plans. The ideas range from the government taking a "one-time" (anyone believe it will be just once?) confiscation of 15% of your funds all the way to the entire take-over of your retirement plans. You know what these are, right? These are the plans where you invested your money into your future. It is the money that you earned and set aside for your future. It is the money for your kids and grandkids. It is YOUR money. The people that are coming to power want to take it. They have done nothing to earn it but they want to take it. Here is one article for your perusal:
http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894
2. Are you so naive that you think it won't happen? You honestly think that your retirement money is safe, right? Look at Argentina. It has just happened! According to Time Almanac, 2008, both America and Argentina have a Federal Republic with two legislative houses. Argentina is not, nor are we, a socialist country. But we are both headed that way. Look at definition number three for socialism. When over fifty percent of the electorate believes it is okay to plunder the so called rich to meet their own desires, we have major problems.
Look here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article /WRAPUP-2-Argentinas-pension-takeover-plan-scares- g-KNTA7?OpenDocument
3. We have a Presidential elect that has openly called for bankrupting the coal industry. The use of coal provides OVER 50% of our electricity. What would happen if it becomes bankrupt as Barack has suggested? Would this be good? I would suggest that if it goes bankrupt then the government would step in and take over. Compare this to the definition and one might easily see where the government might be "taking over" the coal industry and this can be viewed as socialism. Watch it for yourself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
If their country is doing it then what is to say that ours won't be next. Their government has just taken everything that their citizens have been working for and confiscated it. Can it happen here? Sure it can! Look around you. We have citizens that believe it is okay to take from those who go out and work their rear ends off and give their earnings to people that don't.
Please consider the definition number four for socialism. Simply put, capital, in the business world, equals money. Are we not seeing this today? We have the government giving bailouts to the banking world. Now what? The auto industry wants one; the student loan organizations are pondering the question along with the credit card companies. Couple this with the ideas of the government taking over your retirement funds and bankrupting the coal industry, et al. it is clear that we have taken the beginning steps towards socialism.
Does anyone believe we can tax our way to prosperity? How is that possible? The government takes our monies and gives it to those who don't have and this is the road to prosperity? Has it ever worked anywhere? No, it has not and it never will.
Too often the argument comes down to wealth envy. Socialism is supposed to even the field while capitalism allows people to become rich, or so some may say. This may all be true. But when push comes to shove, who are you more concerned for: You and your family? Or your fellow citizen? Me? I guess I can be accused of being selfish because I will take care of "me and mine" first, then everyone else.
I finish with this quote by the great capitalist, Adam Smith, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I prefer Capitalism! (From the internet: from Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
...................................................................................
Mr. or Ms. B. Smith,
Look, I like Adam Smith probably just about as much as you do. And I like Capitalism probably just about as much as you do. But Capitalism needs some serious ethical and legal regulations -- otherwise it will take us all to 'Hell in a handbag'.
Any concept, theory, or philosophy -- if extended to the outer limits of its principles and assumptions -- will collapse under the weight of these same principles and assumptions. This Hegelian principle of 'self-contradiction' applies equally well to all of Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Communism...Each extreme philosophy -- when unbalanced by the principles of its opposite -- will create a pathological, destructive, self-destructive 'Pandora's Box'. The homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance lies in 'creatively working and/or playing both opposing philosphical extremes towards a much healthier and harmonious middle.
In this respect, Capitalism will crash, destruct, and self-destruct under the weight of Adam Smith's famous concept of 'self-interest' -- which when unbridled can and will easily turn to 'Narcissistic Greed Gone Wild': 'survival of the fittest', 'Lord of The Flies' -- 'Everybody, just feel totally free to cheat, gouge, manipulate, exploit your employee, your employer, your customer, your contractor, your retailer, your manufacturer, your husband, your wife, your friends...Just call it 'self-interest'.
Government -- as well as privately controlled -- pension funds are a huge, national concern both in America and here in Canada.
I don't want to lose my hard-earned pension money -- not that I have much, if I will have any, other than what the government is going to give me when I retire -- anymore than anyone else likely does.
Here in Canada, the Canadian Pension Plan has been the subject of much alleged government abuse. When there is no transparency in this plan and no accountability for 'missing money' -- it becomes a 'money paradise' for any government official who has the power to 'move this money to wherever he or she wants to send it'. And whether the money ever comes back again to the people of Canada -- or not -- is again a huge potential and/or real problem for suspecting or unsuspecting Canadians who have no way of telling what is happening with their crucial source of government pension money that has come off their own work cheques.
If a private pension fund holder were to do what the Government of Canada has done or not done in terms of being accountable for the people's pension money -- specifically, taking it out of the CPP and either investing it and/or using it for 'loans' and/or for other areas of goverment spending (if not worse) -- the private sector people owning and/or managing a private pension fund in this manner would be all in jail. Look at what happened to Alan Eagleson through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s when he used hockey players pension money for his own personal gain. His bad ethical and legal choices came back to ruin his honour, his career, and finally land him in jail.
One of the biggest legal questions remains: Who is legally entitled to the 'profits' of good investments. If you have a situation where managers of a pension fund feel entitled to the profits on pension investments on the one hand -- but will gladly give back the 'investment and/or loan losses' to the people whose pension money they are overseeing -- then obviously, this is not right.
...............................................................................
Alan Eagleson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Alan Eagleson (born April 24, 1933 in St. Catharines, Ontario) is a disbarred Canadian lawyer, convicted felon in two countries, former politician, hockey agent and promoter. He is known for his role in promoting the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, the Canada Cup (now the World Cup of Hockey), and his representation of famous hockey players such as Bobby Orr. He was also the first executive director of the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). Although initially lauded for improving the lot of NHL players, his reputation was destroyed after it was revealed that he had abused his position for many years by defrauding his clients.
Contents
1 The Blue and White Group
2 A hockey power
3 Political career
4 Disgrace
4.1 Conway investigates
4.2 Charged by RCMP, extradited to U.S.
4.3 Surrenders honours
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
The Blue and White Group
Eagleson graduated in law from the University of Toronto and soon became a prominent lawyer in Toronto. He first became involved with hockey as an advisor to Bob Pulford, a player with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was quickly realized that any attempt to create a union would be easier to achieve with Leafs' players as his base of power. [1] That led to other members of the Leafs becoming clients, most notably defenceman Carl Brewer, who hired Eagleson as his agent.
Eagleson would form the Blue and White Group, a group of friends he had known from the Maple Leafs, including Brewer, Pulford, Bobby Baun and Billy Harris, along with a car dealer, a jeweller, and three other lawyers. [2] Eagleson's motive was to educate these players about investments, and use their funds more intelligently. Pulford, Brewer and Harris would earn university degrees after their playing careers. Two members of the Blue and White Group, Pulford and Baun, would be the first two presidents of the NHLPA.
The Leafs' acquisition of Andy Bathgate would prove advantageous to Eagleson. A friendship was forged into Toronto which would follow Bathgate to Detroit, where Eagleson would start to talk to Red Wings players about the concept of a union.
A hockey power
Three events would occur that would help Eagleson form the NHLPA. The first event would be the insistence that Eagleson would negotiate Bobby Orr's first pro contract with the Boston Bruins. This would lead to the beginnings of "agents" in hockey. Secondly, Carl Brewer fought to have his amateur status reinstated. Lastly, Eagleson would be involved in representing the Springfield Indians during their negotiations with owner Eddie Shore over players rights. [3] These events would solidify Eagleson's reputation, and he would become the catalyst for the NHLPA.
When the NHLPA was formed in 1967, Eagleson was appointed its first executive director, a position he held for 25 years. He was also active in promoting the sport, helping to organize the historic 1972 Summit Series—the first time Canadian and Soviet pros had ever competed against each other on the ice. Notably, Eagleson was responsible for the decision to exclude many WHA stars from the Summit Series, including Bobby Hull, Gerry Cheevers and Derek Sanderson. Four years later, he organized the first Canada Cup.
During one of the Summit Series games in Moscow, Eagleson garnered international attention by attempting to confront off-ice officials after the goal judge had failed to light the goal lamp when a Canadian player scored, at which point he was seized by soldiers of the Red Army. The Canadian players and the few Canadian fans rallied to his defence to prevent him from being arrested, providing one of the most memorable off-ice moments of the series. As they walked back across the ice Eagleson shook his fist at the crowd, but never used his middle finger as was widely reported.
Within a decade, he was one of the most powerful men in hockey, and by some accounts, the most powerful man in the sport. He was even elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989 as a builder--the only known instance where a union official has been elected to the hall of fame in a major team sport. The same year, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work in promoting the sport.
Over the years, Eagleson developed a very close relationship with league president John Ziegler. For all intents and purposes, the NHL of the 1980s was ruled by a triumvirate of Ziegler, Eagleson and Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz.
Political career
Eagleson was also active in politics for many years. In the 1963 federal election, he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons for the Progressive Conservatives in the Toronto riding of York West. He was defeated by hockey player Red Kelly who ran for the Liberals. Later that year, he was elected to the Ontario Legislative Assembly as the Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for the Toronto riding of Lakeshore, serving there until 1967. He was a major PC fundraiser and, in the late 1960s, president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. He was a member of the Big Blue Machine that dominated Ontario politics for much of the 1970s and 1980s. At one point, his name was considered as a potential candidate for prime minister.
Disgrace
As Eagleson's power grew, concern was raised about his multiple roles as union chief, player agent and hockey promoter. Suspicions also rose that he was reaping a substantial windfall from the Canada Cup and other arrangements unknown to the players. However, until 1989 he was considered a national hero in Canada and an icon in the NHL. In addition, many local Canadian journalists owed favours or access to Eagleson.
In 1989, however, player agents Ritch Winter and Ron Salcer teamed up with former National Football League union official Ed Garvey to author a devastating review of the NHLPA's operations. Winter and Salcer had been critical of Eagleson's stewardship for many years, and felt he wasn't giving them the support they needed to adequately represent their clients. The report, presented at a union meeting in West Palm Beach, revealed that Eagleson's travel expenses were not subject to any form of review by the union. Winter and Salcer also charged that Eagleson was skimming off money from advertising on the dasher boards, and had lent pension money to friends. Eagleson was able to weather this storm because the union's executive committee was stacked with longtime cronies. However, he was forced to announce that he would be stepping down as executive director in 1992.
Conway investigates
In 1990, Russ Conway, sports editor of The Eagle-Tribune, began an investigation of Eagleson's performance in office. Conway had heard rumours for some time that something was seriously amiss about the inner workings of the NHL -- specifically serious discrepancies in pension payments. Despite the devastating 1989 report by Winter and Salcer, most Canadian journalists refused to look into the rumours. Over the course of a year, Conway interviewed more than 200 NHL personalities, including former and active players and NHL officials.
In September 1991, he published the first of many installments in a series called Cracking the Ice: Intrigue and Conflict in the World of Big-Time Hockey. The series revealed evidence that Eagleson had engaged in a staggering litany of unethical and criminal conduct over many years.
The series alleged that Eagleson had embezzled player pension funds for many years, principally from the 1972 Summit Series. He was also accused of colluding with teams whose management he favoured, such as the Chicago Blackhawks, to hold down salaries, even if it meant working contrary to the interests of his clients. For example, after Orr's contract with Boston ran out, Eagleson told Bobby Orr that the Blackhawks had a deal on the table that Orr couldn't refuse. It later emerged that the Bruins offered Orr one of the most lucrative contracts in sports history, including an 18 percent stake in the team; however, Eagleson falsely claimed the Blackhawks had a better offer. Wirtz was never charged with wrongdoing, largely because the Bruins' offer was widely known in league circles, and even reported in the Toronto Star. No other NHL owner was ever charged in the affair. Orr was once one of Eagleson's strongest supporters, but later denounced him after suspecting that he was being cheated. Orr, whose career ended in 1978 because of serious knee injuries, learned he was almost bankrupt, despite having earned high salaries while being represented by Eagleson.
However, the series' most shocking revelation concerned Eagleson's actions regarding disability claims by former players. Eagleson was accused of taking large payments from insurance claims before the players filing them received their share, telling the players that he earned the "fee" while fighting against the insurance companies to get the claims paid. In fact, many players later learned that the insurance companies had already agreed to pay the claims and there was no "fight". In other cases where a "fight" with the insurance companies truly was required, several players ran into bureaucratic dead ends and no support from Eagleson while they tried to move forward on insurance and pension claims to support their families. Conway later turned his series into the basis of a book, Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey.
Conway published several other stories over the next nine years about Eagleson's crimes. For instance, he'd been reimbursed more than $62,000 for personal expenses from 1987 to 1989. He also revealed that the NHLPA had unknowingly footed the bill for expensive clothing, theater tickets and a luxury apartment in London. Many players had been led to believe that they were playing in the Canada Cup for free because all the money was going to their pensions. Eagleson had also refused to visit the family of a second-line defenceman, Ed Kea, whose career was ended by a devastating head injury that required major brain surgery.
Conway worked very closely with Carl Brewer, one of Eagleson's early clients. Brewer had by this time had become the leader of a group of former players who felt Eagleson had lied to them. Brewer's longtime companion, Susan Foster, provided a large amount of material to Conway.
Although Eagleson had been based in Toronto, most Canadian media organizations had avoided detailed investigation of his dealings until Conway's material was published. That changed when The Globe and Mail began its own examination of Eagleson's career in early 1993, and published a series of stories with further revelations. Two Globe sports writers, William Houston and David Shoalts, expanded that material, Conway's work, and the latest developments into their own book, entitled Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar, which was published later in 1993.
Charged by RCMP, extradited to U.S.
In 1996, after a politically delayed three-year investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police finally was forced, by Conway's publications, to charge Eagleson with eight counts of fraud and theft. He'd already been charged with 34 counts of racketeering, obstruction of justice, embezzlement and fraud in the United States in 1994. However, he still had enough political clout from his days as an MPP and a power broker with the Tories that he was able to fight off extradition to the United States until 1997.
On January 6, 1998, Eagleson pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud in Boston, and was fined $700,000. Later that year, he pleaded guilty in Toronto to three more counts of fraud and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars of Canada Cup proceeds in 1984, 1987 and 1991. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which he served six months at the Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto. The conviction resulted in his automatic disbarment from the practice of law by the Law Society of Upper Canada, which regulates the profession in Ontario.
Since being released, he has largely remained out of the limelight, although he was interviewed on television after Canada's loss to Russia in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.
Surrenders honours
Soon after his guilty plea, Eagleson was removed from the Order of Canada (though he continued to wear his lapel pin during the court proceedings prior to his sentence). He also resigned from the Hockey Hall of Fame after the Hall's board informally voted to expel him (a formal vote, which was almost certain to pass, was due within a few weeks). The Hall had tried to stay out of the controversy, but was forced to act after 19 Hall of Fame players -- including Bobby Orr, Andy Bathgate, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, Mike Bossy, Johnny Bucyk, Ted Lindsay, Henri Richard, Brad Park, Johnny Bower and Dickie Moore -- threatened to resign from the Hall if Eagleson was allowed to remain.
Defenders of Eagleson pointed out that during his tenure as executive director of the NHLPA, both salaries and pension benefits increased exponentially, offering real security to players that had not existed prior to that time. During the criminal proceedings against him, several players whom he had defrauded were amongst his biggest supporters. Moreover, prior to Eagleson's involvement, Canadian professionals had never participated in international hockey, an involvement that later grew into involvement in the World Hockey Championship, the World Cup of Hockey, and the Winter Olympic Games. Furthermore, his maximum salary as director of NHLPA was one-tenth of that of his successor, Bob Goodenow. Many of his most ardent supporters during and after his trial were famous and prominent clients who had benefited from his activities, including high profile hockey personalities such as Bobby Clarke and Marcel Dionne.
[edit] Notes
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 143, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 148, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 151, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
References
The New York Times N.H.L.; Eagleson Pleads Guilty January 7, 1998
The New York Times PLUS: SPORTS BUSINESS; Eagleson Is Out Of Canadian Hall February 18, 1998
Lawrence Eagle-Tribune Embattled hockey czar quits Hall of Fame March 26, 1998
Further reading
Net Worth, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths.
Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey, by Russ Conway.
Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar, by William Houston and David Shoalts.
67: The Maple Leafs, their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, by Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, John Wiley and Sons publishers.
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When you have no transparency and no legal and/or ethical accountability imposed upon a public and/or private official who has the power to withdraw and deposit money out of, and into, a public or private pension fund, this is the recipe for a disaster waiting to happen -- and, indeed, one that probably has happened many, many times, over many, many years, in many different pension funds. Because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, inevitably more money will be taken out of the fund than will be put back into it -- unless its on the backs of the people who keep putting more and more money into this pension fund. Why? Because there is no serious policing being done -- until a Class Action Lawsuit is initiated -- to let individual pension fund holders know how much money is in their pension accounts, whether it is really there or not, and how much, if any, goes missing...
In the past -- say the 70s, 80s, 90s -- the 'problem' if you want to call it that was 'huge pension surpluses' in which Canadians to this day have no real idea of how much money disappeared from these government accounts. Reports in the newspapers in the 90s if i remember correctly pointed to at least 'millions of dollars' gone missing without anyone in government being accountable for this missing money. 'I don't know what happened to it' is the government statement I remember hearing at the time.
Then there was the RCMP pension fund scandal. I don't know what happened in that case -- and/or whether it is still going.
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Commons committee shocked by details of RCMP pension plan allegations
Kathryn May, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, March 29, 2007
OTTAWA - Five RCMP officers and a whistleblower who lost her job accused the force's senior management, led by former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, of corruption, coverup, cronyism and deliberately derailing an investigation into the misappropriation of funds from the Mounties pension plan.
MPs on the Commons public accounts committee sat stunned as witnesses played a recording of telephone calls and described investigations that were delayed, meddled into and eventually stopped as allegations got too close to the force's own senior management. They heard allegations of executives using their power to override rules to tap into the pension fund, delays, obstruction, investigators who were punished, whistleblowers sidelined, evidence buried and wrongdoers rewarded with fraudulent payouts.
"Let me say how shocked I am to hear the statements by senior members of the RCMP who have come forward and condemned their own organization for corruption, fraud, mismanagement, incompetence and the list goes on," said Conservative MP John Williams.
Fraser MacAuley appears at the Public accounts committee meeting regarding the Chapter 9, Pension and Insurance Administration - Royal Canadian Mounted Police of the November 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
Ottawa Citizen
The hearing emerged out of an auditor general report, released last November, that concluded the administration of the pension fund was wracked with spending abuses, nepotism and money was improperly diverted from the find to pay for costs that should have been covered by the force's budget.
"This is an icon of Canadian culture, a beacon around the world and there looks to be something seriously wrong at the core of the organization that shocks me, I'm sure shocks Parliament and if we don't get to the bottom of this, we have to be part of the process that does," Williams said.
Five Mounties were called as witnesses following disturbing allegations that management wanted to derail investigations that could throw a spotlight on mishandling pension and insurance funds. Opposition on the committee led the charge for Wednesday's hearings, which was strongly opposed by Conservative MPs who argued the committee shouldn't be sticking its nose into a closed criminal investigation.
All committee members, however, agreed the allegations raiseworrisome questions about the integrity of the national force's senior ranks.
Several alleged anyone who stuck their neck out with complaints or raised concerns about abuseswas quietly shuffled aside or moved. Denise Revine, the original whistleblowerwho first stumbled on irregularities in the pension plan's books, took her concerns to her boss, Chief Supt. Fraser Macaulay. Revine lost her job, and Macaulay was reassigned to National Defence.
"I came out from working the streets and... people look into headquarters for us to be pillars and protectors of their issues and that is the stuff that hurt, when we realized the people who were answering the calls in the middle of the nights weren't getting the defence here they needed," Macaulay said.
The affair has caused a rift within RCMP ranks, with some officers lobbying MPs behind thescenes for months to step in and ensure such an alleged foul-up doesn't happen again. They alleged the investigation was dogged by deliberate foot-dragging and obstruction at the most senior levels -including Zaccardelli. They argue the case is a textbook example of why the RCMP's top brass shouldn't investigate themselves and need an outside body to handle investigations into complaints of wrongdoing against senior management.
"It is painfully clear the RCMP could have nipped this in the bud back in 2001, however, management override of our processes had led us to your door and has tarnished the reputation of the RCMP," said retired Staff-Sgt. Ron Lewis, who initiated several of the complaints.
Deputy Commissioner of Human Resources Barbara George resigned from her position Wednesday. As well, it appeared likely that the committee will likely call Zaccardelli to testify, and may also call for a judicial inquiry to probe the allegations that emerged Wednesday.
Lewis made several allegations, saying "a culture was created by several senior executives where it became very dangerous for employees to report wrongdoings. The risk to their career and financial well-being was high. On the other hand, wrongdoers were protected by these senior executives and supported by commissioner Zaccardelli.
This culture exists to this day since some of these senior executives are still in place. I wish to emphasize, the RCMP is not rotten to the core. The rot exists only within a small group of senior executives. Some are gone, while some remain. The good employees are still suffering emotionally, financially and career-wise, while the wrongdoers are back on the job reaping benefits."
The complaints about the mismanagement of the pension fund go back to May 2003, when the RCMP first launched its own investigations. Zaccardelli cancelled that investigation a couple days later and an internal audit. The internal audit led to the Ottawa police investigation and the resignations of the chief human resource officer and a director of the National Compensation Policy Centre.
Fraser and her audit team picked up the case on the heels of an internal audit and the 15-month Ottawa police investigation, which uncovered spending abuses, nepotism, waste, inflated bills and management overriding controls in the running of the force's pension and insurance plans. Her report questioned the independence of the Ottawa police investigation, which was stacked with RCMP officers and led by an investigator who reported to an assistant RCMP commissioner. Charges weren't laid because Crown attorneys concluded in June 2005 there was no "reasonable prospect of conviction."
Several Mounties were targeted for internal discipline, but the force had to abandon that course because the one-year time limit for action had lapsed.
Her audit found sweeping management abuses when the RCMP's human resources branch tried to modernize the $12.3-billion pension plan and turn over the administration of the $30-million insurance fund to a private contractor. She found the RCMP responded "adequately" to findings of the audit and criminal investigation, but concluded the Mounties needed a new policy for external investigation into allegations involving the force to ensure they are independent and unbiased.
Ottawa Citizen
© CanWest News Service 2007
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As easy it is for all of us to point fingers this way or that way relative to this financial disaster or that one, in the end, we are all responsible for being more aware of what is going on around us, and if necessary, doing something about it either privately and/or publicly.
This is well stated in the article below...
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Kelly McParland: Us fools and our money are soon parted
Posted: December 27, 2008, 1:45 PM by Kelly McParland
Full Comment, Kelly McParland
Like almost everyone else who had any money in any kind of investment this year, I'm down a lot. I can't tell you how much, because I haven't looked at a statement in months. It does no good to know how much poorer you are -- it's too late to change the situation, and the knowledge just adds to the gloom of a gloomy time of year.
While I share the general condition, unlike most people I read about in the papers, I don't blame it on anyone else. Maybe I should; maybe I'm just out of step, which wouldn't be the first time. The papers for most of the past two months have been one general exercise in fault-finding: The investment industry for being stupid, greedy and careless about the fact it wasn't their money they were risking. Regulators for failing to regulate a damn thing. Governments for paying little or no attention to the signs that a crisis was building, and for being clueless about how to deal with it when it broke. Everyone who should have known, for either not knowing, or not sharing their knowledge. And somebody -- exactly who isn't clear -- for not warning us. The fact that it's always someone else's fault has become a given of our culture. The airline industry has been told it has to provide two seats to overweight passengers, because it's not their fault that they're fat. An Ottawa cop is demanding his job back after stealing crack cocaine; his lawyer says it's "the duty of a police force to accommodate officers who suffer from the 'disability of drug addiction.'" The entire basis of the divorce industry rests on the assumption that neither party can ever be blamed, no matter how egregious their actions (though one party still generally suffers far more than the other).
So it's natural that people who hand over their money for investing purposes would presume they're transferring responsibility at the same time. You give your money to an "investment advisor" who is supposed to be an expert, and you naturally assume expertise -- and the money you are paying them -- confers a degree of security in the handling of your savings.
It doesn't. The advisor is expected to do the best they can, but it's your money and the final decisions are yours. If you're sloppy about them, too bad. What's always amazing is how many people make little or no effort to figure out where their money is going or what the risks are, or put minimal time into understanding their finances. Elsewhere on this site Robert Fulford writes about Stephen Greenspan, an author and psychologist who wrote a book on "Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It" -- and then lost his money by putting it into funds managed by Bernard Madoff, the epic swindler. To salvage a bit of his credibility, Greenspan issued an explanation, relating that he was visiting his sister and met someone who was putting money into Madoff funds; he trusted the guy and discovered others had made good money out of the funds, so he dumped his cash in as well, even after another knowledgeable friend warned him against it. A fool and his money, as they say. But Greenspan is more the rule than the exception. People act like fools with their money -- they treat it as an infinite resource, take minimal actions to protect it, then get upset when it's gone. That's a disaster in waiting in a society like ours, where endless consumption is not only a right but a duty, and in which most vehicles for safe, sensible saving have either been eliminated or taxed to the point of pointlessness. You can't get a decent pension any more unless you work for the government in one form or another, so anyone trying to build a nest egg has little choice but to take a risk on the markets. So few of them know what they're doing, and are willing to blindly put their faith in others, that calamity is pretty much inevitable at some point in the cycle.
The truth is that there were lots of warnings of what was to come. Markets collapse on a regular basis -- there was a collapse after 9/11; a collapse when the tech bubble burst in 2000; a long downturn in the early 1990s; a collapse in 1987; another one in 1973-74. It's untrue that there was not enough warning of this one -- there were lots of signs, and lots of people pointing to them, although few foresaw the extent of the disaster. The real problem is that people with little knowledge are pressed by circumstances into entering a game they are ill suited for. The solution would be for governments to remove the penalties from safer alternatives. If people had greater leeway to invest in low-risk products without having the gains taxed away, there would be less pressure to take a gamble on higher-risk adventures. Some small moves have been made in this direction with the government's new tax-free savings accounts, but the accounts are still very limited in the amounts they can contain. It's not enough. Eventually the markets will recover and people will jump back in, without checking how deep the water is or what lies beneath the surface.
National Post
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In the end, you can read as much Adam Smith and/or Ayn Rand as you want to, but Capitalism -- particularly unregulated Capitalism -- does not wear a halo around its head. 'Self-interest' -- of the 'unbridled' type -- can be a big problem.
It is worth reading Marx's and Fromm's criticisms of Capitalism. I like some of Marx's early work on humanism and alienation. I like all of Fromm's work that I have read.
But when Marx started/starts to talk about 'armed worker rebellion' -- I quickly leave Marx -- that is certainly not what DGBN Philosophy is about. In contrast, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung didn't leave Marx when it came to talk about 'armed rebellion' and 'violence' -- and you can see where it took them. We will talk about each and everyone of these famous/infamous persons at a different time.
DGBN Philosophy is always looking for that 'homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance somewhere in the middle' that is most likely to create the greatest union and harmony between people of different philosophical viewpoints. Where both -- or all -- polar philosophical viewpoints have their partial influence on the final integrative philosophical and/or political product and process.
And DGBN Philosophy does not like to be 'duped'.
'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'
-- DGBN, January 18th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
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By B. Smith
Barack wants to what?
Capitalism or Socialism which do you prefer?
Please allow me to define the terms before we go any further. According to www.dictionary.com, capitalism and socialism are defined as follows:
Capitalism noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now compare that to socialism:
Socialism noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
4. An economic system based on state ownership of capital.
If someone were to come to you and ask you for 15% of your 401k or 15% of your pension fund, what would you say? If you are like me you would probably tell them to go take a long walk off of a short plank. If someone were to tell you that the government wants to take ALL of your retirement funds and convert them to social security so as to ensure your future retirement, what would you say? I would tell them that it is my money and that they need to keep their noses out of my business.
But what is happening?
1. We have democrats in the world of academia and in the halls of elected office calling for major changes in the 401k and pension retirement plans. The ideas range from the government taking a "one-time" (anyone believe it will be just once?) confiscation of 15% of your funds all the way to the entire take-over of your retirement plans. You know what these are, right? These are the plans where you invested your money into your future. It is the money that you earned and set aside for your future. It is the money for your kids and grandkids. It is YOUR money. The people that are coming to power want to take it. They have done nothing to earn it but they want to take it. Here is one article for your perusal:
http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894
2. Are you so naive that you think it won't happen? You honestly think that your retirement money is safe, right? Look at Argentina. It has just happened! According to Time Almanac, 2008, both America and Argentina have a Federal Republic with two legislative houses. Argentina is not, nor are we, a socialist country. But we are both headed that way. Look at definition number three for socialism. When over fifty percent of the electorate believes it is okay to plunder the so called rich to meet their own desires, we have major problems.
Look here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article /WRAPUP-2-Argentinas-pension-takeover-plan-scares- g-KNTA7?OpenDocument
3. We have a Presidential elect that has openly called for bankrupting the coal industry. The use of coal provides OVER 50% of our electricity. What would happen if it becomes bankrupt as Barack has suggested? Would this be good? I would suggest that if it goes bankrupt then the government would step in and take over. Compare this to the definition and one might easily see where the government might be "taking over" the coal industry and this can be viewed as socialism. Watch it for yourself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
If their country is doing it then what is to say that ours won't be next. Their government has just taken everything that their citizens have been working for and confiscated it. Can it happen here? Sure it can! Look around you. We have citizens that believe it is okay to take from those who go out and work their rear ends off and give their earnings to people that don't.
Please consider the definition number four for socialism. Simply put, capital, in the business world, equals money. Are we not seeing this today? We have the government giving bailouts to the banking world. Now what? The auto industry wants one; the student loan organizations are pondering the question along with the credit card companies. Couple this with the ideas of the government taking over your retirement funds and bankrupting the coal industry, et al. it is clear that we have taken the beginning steps towards socialism.
Does anyone believe we can tax our way to prosperity? How is that possible? The government takes our monies and gives it to those who don't have and this is the road to prosperity? Has it ever worked anywhere? No, it has not and it never will.
Too often the argument comes down to wealth envy. Socialism is supposed to even the field while capitalism allows people to become rich, or so some may say. This may all be true. But when push comes to shove, who are you more concerned for: You and your family? Or your fellow citizen? Me? I guess I can be accused of being selfish because I will take care of "me and mine" first, then everyone else.
I finish with this quote by the great capitalist, Adam Smith, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I prefer Capitalism! (From the internet: from Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
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Mr. or Ms. B. Smith,
Look, I like Adam Smith probably just about as much as you do. And I like Capitalism probably just about as much as you do. But Capitalism needs some serious ethical and legal regulations -- otherwise it will take us all to 'Hell in a handbag'.
Any concept, theory, or philosophy -- if extended to the outer limits of its principles and assumptions -- will collapse under the weight of these same principles and assumptions. This Hegelian principle of 'self-contradiction' applies equally well to all of Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Communism...Each extreme philosophy -- when unbalanced by the principles of its opposite -- will create a pathological, destructive, self-destructive 'Pandora's Box'. The homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance lies in 'creatively working and/or playing both opposing philosphical extremes towards a much healthier and harmonious middle.
In this respect, Capitalism will crash, destruct, and self-destruct under the weight of Adam Smith's famous concept of 'self-interest' -- which when unbridled can and will easily turn to 'Narcissistic Greed Gone Wild': 'survival of the fittest', 'Lord of The Flies' -- 'Everybody, just feel totally free to cheat, gouge, manipulate, exploit your employee, your employer, your customer, your contractor, your retailer, your manufacturer, your husband, your wife, your friends...Just call it 'self-interest'.
Government -- as well as privately controlled -- pension funds are a huge, national concern both in America and here in Canada.
I don't want to lose my hard-earned pension money -- not that I have much, if I will have any, other than what the government is going to give me when I retire -- anymore than anyone else likely does.
Here in Canada, the Canadian Pension Plan has been the subject of much alleged government abuse. When there is no transparency in this plan and no accountability for 'missing money' -- it becomes a 'money paradise' for any government official who has the power to 'move this money to wherever he or she wants to send it'. And whether the money ever comes back again to the people of Canada -- or not -- is again a huge potential and/or real problem for suspecting or unsuspecting Canadians who have no way of telling what is happening with their crucial source of government pension money that has come off their own work cheques.
If a private pension fund holder were to do what the Government of Canada has done or not done in terms of being accountable for the people's pension money -- specifically, taking it out of the CPP and either investing it and/or using it for 'loans' and/or for other areas of goverment spending (if not worse) -- the private sector people owning and/or managing a private pension fund in this manner would be all in jail. Look at what happened to Alan Eagleson through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s when he used hockey players pension money for his own personal gain. His bad ethical and legal choices came back to ruin his honour, his career, and finally land him in jail.
One of the biggest legal questions remains: Who is legally entitled to the 'profits' of good investments. If you have a situation where managers of a pension fund feel entitled to the profits on pension investments on the one hand -- but will gladly give back the 'investment and/or loan losses' to the people whose pension money they are overseeing -- then obviously, this is not right.
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Alan Eagleson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Alan Eagleson (born April 24, 1933 in St. Catharines, Ontario) is a disbarred Canadian lawyer, convicted felon in two countries, former politician, hockey agent and promoter. He is known for his role in promoting the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, the Canada Cup (now the World Cup of Hockey), and his representation of famous hockey players such as Bobby Orr. He was also the first executive director of the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). Although initially lauded for improving the lot of NHL players, his reputation was destroyed after it was revealed that he had abused his position for many years by defrauding his clients.
Contents
1 The Blue and White Group
2 A hockey power
3 Political career
4 Disgrace
4.1 Conway investigates
4.2 Charged by RCMP, extradited to U.S.
4.3 Surrenders honours
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
The Blue and White Group
Eagleson graduated in law from the University of Toronto and soon became a prominent lawyer in Toronto. He first became involved with hockey as an advisor to Bob Pulford, a player with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was quickly realized that any attempt to create a union would be easier to achieve with Leafs' players as his base of power. [1] That led to other members of the Leafs becoming clients, most notably defenceman Carl Brewer, who hired Eagleson as his agent.
Eagleson would form the Blue and White Group, a group of friends he had known from the Maple Leafs, including Brewer, Pulford, Bobby Baun and Billy Harris, along with a car dealer, a jeweller, and three other lawyers. [2] Eagleson's motive was to educate these players about investments, and use their funds more intelligently. Pulford, Brewer and Harris would earn university degrees after their playing careers. Two members of the Blue and White Group, Pulford and Baun, would be the first two presidents of the NHLPA.
The Leafs' acquisition of Andy Bathgate would prove advantageous to Eagleson. A friendship was forged into Toronto which would follow Bathgate to Detroit, where Eagleson would start to talk to Red Wings players about the concept of a union.
A hockey power
Three events would occur that would help Eagleson form the NHLPA. The first event would be the insistence that Eagleson would negotiate Bobby Orr's first pro contract with the Boston Bruins. This would lead to the beginnings of "agents" in hockey. Secondly, Carl Brewer fought to have his amateur status reinstated. Lastly, Eagleson would be involved in representing the Springfield Indians during their negotiations with owner Eddie Shore over players rights. [3] These events would solidify Eagleson's reputation, and he would become the catalyst for the NHLPA.
When the NHLPA was formed in 1967, Eagleson was appointed its first executive director, a position he held for 25 years. He was also active in promoting the sport, helping to organize the historic 1972 Summit Series—the first time Canadian and Soviet pros had ever competed against each other on the ice. Notably, Eagleson was responsible for the decision to exclude many WHA stars from the Summit Series, including Bobby Hull, Gerry Cheevers and Derek Sanderson. Four years later, he organized the first Canada Cup.
During one of the Summit Series games in Moscow, Eagleson garnered international attention by attempting to confront off-ice officials after the goal judge had failed to light the goal lamp when a Canadian player scored, at which point he was seized by soldiers of the Red Army. The Canadian players and the few Canadian fans rallied to his defence to prevent him from being arrested, providing one of the most memorable off-ice moments of the series. As they walked back across the ice Eagleson shook his fist at the crowd, but never used his middle finger as was widely reported.
Within a decade, he was one of the most powerful men in hockey, and by some accounts, the most powerful man in the sport. He was even elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989 as a builder--the only known instance where a union official has been elected to the hall of fame in a major team sport. The same year, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work in promoting the sport.
Over the years, Eagleson developed a very close relationship with league president John Ziegler. For all intents and purposes, the NHL of the 1980s was ruled by a triumvirate of Ziegler, Eagleson and Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz.
Political career
Eagleson was also active in politics for many years. In the 1963 federal election, he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons for the Progressive Conservatives in the Toronto riding of York West. He was defeated by hockey player Red Kelly who ran for the Liberals. Later that year, he was elected to the Ontario Legislative Assembly as the Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for the Toronto riding of Lakeshore, serving there until 1967. He was a major PC fundraiser and, in the late 1960s, president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. He was a member of the Big Blue Machine that dominated Ontario politics for much of the 1970s and 1980s. At one point, his name was considered as a potential candidate for prime minister.
Disgrace
As Eagleson's power grew, concern was raised about his multiple roles as union chief, player agent and hockey promoter. Suspicions also rose that he was reaping a substantial windfall from the Canada Cup and other arrangements unknown to the players. However, until 1989 he was considered a national hero in Canada and an icon in the NHL. In addition, many local Canadian journalists owed favours or access to Eagleson.
In 1989, however, player agents Ritch Winter and Ron Salcer teamed up with former National Football League union official Ed Garvey to author a devastating review of the NHLPA's operations. Winter and Salcer had been critical of Eagleson's stewardship for many years, and felt he wasn't giving them the support they needed to adequately represent their clients. The report, presented at a union meeting in West Palm Beach, revealed that Eagleson's travel expenses were not subject to any form of review by the union. Winter and Salcer also charged that Eagleson was skimming off money from advertising on the dasher boards, and had lent pension money to friends. Eagleson was able to weather this storm because the union's executive committee was stacked with longtime cronies. However, he was forced to announce that he would be stepping down as executive director in 1992.
Conway investigates
In 1990, Russ Conway, sports editor of The Eagle-Tribune, began an investigation of Eagleson's performance in office. Conway had heard rumours for some time that something was seriously amiss about the inner workings of the NHL -- specifically serious discrepancies in pension payments. Despite the devastating 1989 report by Winter and Salcer, most Canadian journalists refused to look into the rumours. Over the course of a year, Conway interviewed more than 200 NHL personalities, including former and active players and NHL officials.
In September 1991, he published the first of many installments in a series called Cracking the Ice: Intrigue and Conflict in the World of Big-Time Hockey. The series revealed evidence that Eagleson had engaged in a staggering litany of unethical and criminal conduct over many years.
The series alleged that Eagleson had embezzled player pension funds for many years, principally from the 1972 Summit Series. He was also accused of colluding with teams whose management he favoured, such as the Chicago Blackhawks, to hold down salaries, even if it meant working contrary to the interests of his clients. For example, after Orr's contract with Boston ran out, Eagleson told Bobby Orr that the Blackhawks had a deal on the table that Orr couldn't refuse. It later emerged that the Bruins offered Orr one of the most lucrative contracts in sports history, including an 18 percent stake in the team; however, Eagleson falsely claimed the Blackhawks had a better offer. Wirtz was never charged with wrongdoing, largely because the Bruins' offer was widely known in league circles, and even reported in the Toronto Star. No other NHL owner was ever charged in the affair. Orr was once one of Eagleson's strongest supporters, but later denounced him after suspecting that he was being cheated. Orr, whose career ended in 1978 because of serious knee injuries, learned he was almost bankrupt, despite having earned high salaries while being represented by Eagleson.
However, the series' most shocking revelation concerned Eagleson's actions regarding disability claims by former players. Eagleson was accused of taking large payments from insurance claims before the players filing them received their share, telling the players that he earned the "fee" while fighting against the insurance companies to get the claims paid. In fact, many players later learned that the insurance companies had already agreed to pay the claims and there was no "fight". In other cases where a "fight" with the insurance companies truly was required, several players ran into bureaucratic dead ends and no support from Eagleson while they tried to move forward on insurance and pension claims to support their families. Conway later turned his series into the basis of a book, Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey.
Conway published several other stories over the next nine years about Eagleson's crimes. For instance, he'd been reimbursed more than $62,000 for personal expenses from 1987 to 1989. He also revealed that the NHLPA had unknowingly footed the bill for expensive clothing, theater tickets and a luxury apartment in London. Many players had been led to believe that they were playing in the Canada Cup for free because all the money was going to their pensions. Eagleson had also refused to visit the family of a second-line defenceman, Ed Kea, whose career was ended by a devastating head injury that required major brain surgery.
Conway worked very closely with Carl Brewer, one of Eagleson's early clients. Brewer had by this time had become the leader of a group of former players who felt Eagleson had lied to them. Brewer's longtime companion, Susan Foster, provided a large amount of material to Conway.
Although Eagleson had been based in Toronto, most Canadian media organizations had avoided detailed investigation of his dealings until Conway's material was published. That changed when The Globe and Mail began its own examination of Eagleson's career in early 1993, and published a series of stories with further revelations. Two Globe sports writers, William Houston and David Shoalts, expanded that material, Conway's work, and the latest developments into their own book, entitled Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar, which was published later in 1993.
Charged by RCMP, extradited to U.S.
In 1996, after a politically delayed three-year investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police finally was forced, by Conway's publications, to charge Eagleson with eight counts of fraud and theft. He'd already been charged with 34 counts of racketeering, obstruction of justice, embezzlement and fraud in the United States in 1994. However, he still had enough political clout from his days as an MPP and a power broker with the Tories that he was able to fight off extradition to the United States until 1997.
On January 6, 1998, Eagleson pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud in Boston, and was fined $700,000. Later that year, he pleaded guilty in Toronto to three more counts of fraud and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars of Canada Cup proceeds in 1984, 1987 and 1991. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which he served six months at the Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto. The conviction resulted in his automatic disbarment from the practice of law by the Law Society of Upper Canada, which regulates the profession in Ontario.
Since being released, he has largely remained out of the limelight, although he was interviewed on television after Canada's loss to Russia in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.
Surrenders honours
Soon after his guilty plea, Eagleson was removed from the Order of Canada (though he continued to wear his lapel pin during the court proceedings prior to his sentence). He also resigned from the Hockey Hall of Fame after the Hall's board informally voted to expel him (a formal vote, which was almost certain to pass, was due within a few weeks). The Hall had tried to stay out of the controversy, but was forced to act after 19 Hall of Fame players -- including Bobby Orr, Andy Bathgate, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, Mike Bossy, Johnny Bucyk, Ted Lindsay, Henri Richard, Brad Park, Johnny Bower and Dickie Moore -- threatened to resign from the Hall if Eagleson was allowed to remain.
Defenders of Eagleson pointed out that during his tenure as executive director of the NHLPA, both salaries and pension benefits increased exponentially, offering real security to players that had not existed prior to that time. During the criminal proceedings against him, several players whom he had defrauded were amongst his biggest supporters. Moreover, prior to Eagleson's involvement, Canadian professionals had never participated in international hockey, an involvement that later grew into involvement in the World Hockey Championship, the World Cup of Hockey, and the Winter Olympic Games. Furthermore, his maximum salary as director of NHLPA was one-tenth of that of his successor, Bob Goodenow. Many of his most ardent supporters during and after his trial were famous and prominent clients who had benefited from his activities, including high profile hockey personalities such as Bobby Clarke and Marcel Dionne.
[edit] Notes
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 143, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 148, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
^ 67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, p. 151, Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, ISBN number: 0-470-83400-5, Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
References
The New York Times N.H.L.; Eagleson Pleads Guilty January 7, 1998
The New York Times PLUS: SPORTS BUSINESS; Eagleson Is Out Of Canadian Hall February 18, 1998
Lawrence Eagle-Tribune Embattled hockey czar quits Hall of Fame March 26, 1998
Further reading
Net Worth, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths.
Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey, by Russ Conway.
Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar, by William Houston and David Shoalts.
67: The Maple Leafs, their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, by Damien Cox and Gord Stellick, John Wiley and Sons publishers.
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When you have no transparency and no legal and/or ethical accountability imposed upon a public and/or private official who has the power to withdraw and deposit money out of, and into, a public or private pension fund, this is the recipe for a disaster waiting to happen -- and, indeed, one that probably has happened many, many times, over many, many years, in many different pension funds. Because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, inevitably more money will be taken out of the fund than will be put back into it -- unless its on the backs of the people who keep putting more and more money into this pension fund. Why? Because there is no serious policing being done -- until a Class Action Lawsuit is initiated -- to let individual pension fund holders know how much money is in their pension accounts, whether it is really there or not, and how much, if any, goes missing...
In the past -- say the 70s, 80s, 90s -- the 'problem' if you want to call it that was 'huge pension surpluses' in which Canadians to this day have no real idea of how much money disappeared from these government accounts. Reports in the newspapers in the 90s if i remember correctly pointed to at least 'millions of dollars' gone missing without anyone in government being accountable for this missing money. 'I don't know what happened to it' is the government statement I remember hearing at the time.
Then there was the RCMP pension fund scandal. I don't know what happened in that case -- and/or whether it is still going.
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Commons committee shocked by details of RCMP pension plan allegations
Kathryn May, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, March 29, 2007
OTTAWA - Five RCMP officers and a whistleblower who lost her job accused the force's senior management, led by former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, of corruption, coverup, cronyism and deliberately derailing an investigation into the misappropriation of funds from the Mounties pension plan.
MPs on the Commons public accounts committee sat stunned as witnesses played a recording of telephone calls and described investigations that were delayed, meddled into and eventually stopped as allegations got too close to the force's own senior management. They heard allegations of executives using their power to override rules to tap into the pension fund, delays, obstruction, investigators who were punished, whistleblowers sidelined, evidence buried and wrongdoers rewarded with fraudulent payouts.
"Let me say how shocked I am to hear the statements by senior members of the RCMP who have come forward and condemned their own organization for corruption, fraud, mismanagement, incompetence and the list goes on," said Conservative MP John Williams.
Fraser MacAuley appears at the Public accounts committee meeting regarding the Chapter 9, Pension and Insurance Administration - Royal Canadian Mounted Police of the November 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
Ottawa Citizen
The hearing emerged out of an auditor general report, released last November, that concluded the administration of the pension fund was wracked with spending abuses, nepotism and money was improperly diverted from the find to pay for costs that should have been covered by the force's budget.
"This is an icon of Canadian culture, a beacon around the world and there looks to be something seriously wrong at the core of the organization that shocks me, I'm sure shocks Parliament and if we don't get to the bottom of this, we have to be part of the process that does," Williams said.
Five Mounties were called as witnesses following disturbing allegations that management wanted to derail investigations that could throw a spotlight on mishandling pension and insurance funds. Opposition on the committee led the charge for Wednesday's hearings, which was strongly opposed by Conservative MPs who argued the committee shouldn't be sticking its nose into a closed criminal investigation.
All committee members, however, agreed the allegations raiseworrisome questions about the integrity of the national force's senior ranks.
Several alleged anyone who stuck their neck out with complaints or raised concerns about abuseswas quietly shuffled aside or moved. Denise Revine, the original whistleblowerwho first stumbled on irregularities in the pension plan's books, took her concerns to her boss, Chief Supt. Fraser Macaulay. Revine lost her job, and Macaulay was reassigned to National Defence.
"I came out from working the streets and... people look into headquarters for us to be pillars and protectors of their issues and that is the stuff that hurt, when we realized the people who were answering the calls in the middle of the nights weren't getting the defence here they needed," Macaulay said.
The affair has caused a rift within RCMP ranks, with some officers lobbying MPs behind thescenes for months to step in and ensure such an alleged foul-up doesn't happen again. They alleged the investigation was dogged by deliberate foot-dragging and obstruction at the most senior levels -including Zaccardelli. They argue the case is a textbook example of why the RCMP's top brass shouldn't investigate themselves and need an outside body to handle investigations into complaints of wrongdoing against senior management.
"It is painfully clear the RCMP could have nipped this in the bud back in 2001, however, management override of our processes had led us to your door and has tarnished the reputation of the RCMP," said retired Staff-Sgt. Ron Lewis, who initiated several of the complaints.
Deputy Commissioner of Human Resources Barbara George resigned from her position Wednesday. As well, it appeared likely that the committee will likely call Zaccardelli to testify, and may also call for a judicial inquiry to probe the allegations that emerged Wednesday.
Lewis made several allegations, saying "a culture was created by several senior executives where it became very dangerous for employees to report wrongdoings. The risk to their career and financial well-being was high. On the other hand, wrongdoers were protected by these senior executives and supported by commissioner Zaccardelli.
This culture exists to this day since some of these senior executives are still in place. I wish to emphasize, the RCMP is not rotten to the core. The rot exists only within a small group of senior executives. Some are gone, while some remain. The good employees are still suffering emotionally, financially and career-wise, while the wrongdoers are back on the job reaping benefits."
The complaints about the mismanagement of the pension fund go back to May 2003, when the RCMP first launched its own investigations. Zaccardelli cancelled that investigation a couple days later and an internal audit. The internal audit led to the Ottawa police investigation and the resignations of the chief human resource officer and a director of the National Compensation Policy Centre.
Fraser and her audit team picked up the case on the heels of an internal audit and the 15-month Ottawa police investigation, which uncovered spending abuses, nepotism, waste, inflated bills and management overriding controls in the running of the force's pension and insurance plans. Her report questioned the independence of the Ottawa police investigation, which was stacked with RCMP officers and led by an investigator who reported to an assistant RCMP commissioner. Charges weren't laid because Crown attorneys concluded in June 2005 there was no "reasonable prospect of conviction."
Several Mounties were targeted for internal discipline, but the force had to abandon that course because the one-year time limit for action had lapsed.
Her audit found sweeping management abuses when the RCMP's human resources branch tried to modernize the $12.3-billion pension plan and turn over the administration of the $30-million insurance fund to a private contractor. She found the RCMP responded "adequately" to findings of the audit and criminal investigation, but concluded the Mounties needed a new policy for external investigation into allegations involving the force to ensure they are independent and unbiased.
Ottawa Citizen
© CanWest News Service 2007
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As easy it is for all of us to point fingers this way or that way relative to this financial disaster or that one, in the end, we are all responsible for being more aware of what is going on around us, and if necessary, doing something about it either privately and/or publicly.
This is well stated in the article below...
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Kelly McParland: Us fools and our money are soon parted
Posted: December 27, 2008, 1:45 PM by Kelly McParland
Full Comment, Kelly McParland
Like almost everyone else who had any money in any kind of investment this year, I'm down a lot. I can't tell you how much, because I haven't looked at a statement in months. It does no good to know how much poorer you are -- it's too late to change the situation, and the knowledge just adds to the gloom of a gloomy time of year.
While I share the general condition, unlike most people I read about in the papers, I don't blame it on anyone else. Maybe I should; maybe I'm just out of step, which wouldn't be the first time. The papers for most of the past two months have been one general exercise in fault-finding: The investment industry for being stupid, greedy and careless about the fact it wasn't their money they were risking. Regulators for failing to regulate a damn thing. Governments for paying little or no attention to the signs that a crisis was building, and for being clueless about how to deal with it when it broke. Everyone who should have known, for either not knowing, or not sharing their knowledge. And somebody -- exactly who isn't clear -- for not warning us. The fact that it's always someone else's fault has become a given of our culture. The airline industry has been told it has to provide two seats to overweight passengers, because it's not their fault that they're fat. An Ottawa cop is demanding his job back after stealing crack cocaine; his lawyer says it's "the duty of a police force to accommodate officers who suffer from the 'disability of drug addiction.'" The entire basis of the divorce industry rests on the assumption that neither party can ever be blamed, no matter how egregious their actions (though one party still generally suffers far more than the other).
So it's natural that people who hand over their money for investing purposes would presume they're transferring responsibility at the same time. You give your money to an "investment advisor" who is supposed to be an expert, and you naturally assume expertise -- and the money you are paying them -- confers a degree of security in the handling of your savings.
It doesn't. The advisor is expected to do the best they can, but it's your money and the final decisions are yours. If you're sloppy about them, too bad. What's always amazing is how many people make little or no effort to figure out where their money is going or what the risks are, or put minimal time into understanding their finances. Elsewhere on this site Robert Fulford writes about Stephen Greenspan, an author and psychologist who wrote a book on "Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It" -- and then lost his money by putting it into funds managed by Bernard Madoff, the epic swindler. To salvage a bit of his credibility, Greenspan issued an explanation, relating that he was visiting his sister and met someone who was putting money into Madoff funds; he trusted the guy and discovered others had made good money out of the funds, so he dumped his cash in as well, even after another knowledgeable friend warned him against it. A fool and his money, as they say. But Greenspan is more the rule than the exception. People act like fools with their money -- they treat it as an infinite resource, take minimal actions to protect it, then get upset when it's gone. That's a disaster in waiting in a society like ours, where endless consumption is not only a right but a duty, and in which most vehicles for safe, sensible saving have either been eliminated or taxed to the point of pointlessness. You can't get a decent pension any more unless you work for the government in one form or another, so anyone trying to build a nest egg has little choice but to take a risk on the markets. So few of them know what they're doing, and are willing to blindly put their faith in others, that calamity is pretty much inevitable at some point in the cycle.
The truth is that there were lots of warnings of what was to come. Markets collapse on a regular basis -- there was a collapse after 9/11; a collapse when the tech bubble burst in 2000; a long downturn in the early 1990s; a collapse in 1987; another one in 1973-74. It's untrue that there was not enough warning of this one -- there were lots of signs, and lots of people pointing to them, although few foresaw the extent of the disaster. The real problem is that people with little knowledge are pressed by circumstances into entering a game they are ill suited for. The solution would be for governments to remove the penalties from safer alternatives. If people had greater leeway to invest in low-risk products without having the gains taxed away, there would be less pressure to take a gamble on higher-risk adventures. Some small moves have been made in this direction with the government's new tax-free savings accounts, but the accounts are still very limited in the amounts they can contain. It's not enough. Eventually the markets will recover and people will jump back in, without checking how deep the water is or what lies beneath the surface.
National Post
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In the end, you can read as much Adam Smith and/or Ayn Rand as you want to, but Capitalism -- particularly unregulated Capitalism -- does not wear a halo around its head. 'Self-interest' -- of the 'unbridled' type -- can be a big problem.
It is worth reading Marx's and Fromm's criticisms of Capitalism. I like some of Marx's early work on humanism and alienation. I like all of Fromm's work that I have read.
But when Marx started/starts to talk about 'armed worker rebellion' -- I quickly leave Marx -- that is certainly not what DGBN Philosophy is about. In contrast, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung didn't leave Marx when it came to talk about 'armed rebellion' and 'violence' -- and you can see where it took them. We will talk about each and everyone of these famous/infamous persons at a different time.
DGBN Philosophy is always looking for that 'homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance somewhere in the middle' that is most likely to create the greatest union and harmony between people of different philosophical viewpoints. Where both -- or all -- polar philosophical viewpoints have their partial influence on the final integrative philosophical and/or political product and process.
And DGBN Philosophy does not like to be 'duped'.
'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'
-- DGBN, January 18th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
Life is a Hegelian Evolutionary Pendulum - Without The Perfect Predictictability of Historical Determinism
Nietzsche once said - and I will paraphrase here, maybe find the exact quote before I publish this essay but basically the idea is this - that the aim of a good writer, correct that, a great writer, is to pack twice the rhetorical punch in half the words that other less advanced writers might flounder around and use...I love reading Niezsche and I could think of no better compliment than to one day before I die, have someone say to me: 'You know what, in some of your writings -- not all of them but some of them -- you did indeed live and breath and bleed the fire and spirit of Nietzsche.'
And I did indeed, find at least one of the quotes that I was looking for, maybe two:
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'Against the censurers of brevity. -- Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novicein this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefy something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.' (Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, pg. 137, 1879; or A Nietzsche Reader, preface, 1977)
Marks of the good writer. -- Good writers have two things in common; they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers. (AOM, pg. 138, 1879; or A Nietzsche Reader, preface, 1977)
Marks of the great writer (DGB modifications): Great writers have two things in common: 1. they prefer first to be understood, then to be admired (I can't believe Nietzsche was trying to tell us that he did not want to be admired, yeah, right!); 2. they write with the brevity, the boldness, the power, the passion, the blood and the spirit of Nietzsche; and 3. they do not write for overly arrogant, overly knowing, overly academic, technical, and anal-retentive readers. Because that will contradict and kill the brevity, the boldness, the power, the passion, the blood and the spirit of Nietzsche in themselves as writers...
Having said this let us move on to the apparent and/or real paradox between 'historical determinism' and 'existential freedom'.
I will focus on the type of 'historical determinism' as espoused by Hegel in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) whereby life, philosophy, psychology, history, politics, culture, and everything else man-made is deemed to basically follow the 1, 2, 3, (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) pattern and start all over again at a 'higher evolutionary level of existence'.
Man always knows how to 'throw a wrench into any type of deterministic assembly-line'.
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Life is a Hegelian Evolutionary Pendulum - Without The Perfect Predictictability of Historical Determinism
Life is a pendulum swing between 'balance' and 'unbalance', between stretching in different degrees towards one particular brand of extremism, before reaching a point of judgment where one decides that one has had enough of that, and then swinging back again towards the middle, if not past the middle point and out towards the opposite polarity. This pendulum process of life never stops.
This is the Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) 'life-cycle' of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis - then start the whole process over again, ideally at a higher state of experience and wisdom but that is certainly not guaranteed because man has a high propensity for narcissism, greed, love, sex, jealousy, envy, hate, unilateralism, power, revenge, imperialism, 'tit for tat', destruction, and self-destruction. These factors inevitably undermine the 'ideal' element in the Hegelian evolutionary life cycle, undermine the 'learning from history' factor - and, indeed, add a very common 'tragic' element to the whole process - life and death, evolution and regression, continually hanging in the balance of man's individual and/or collective, reason and/or stupidity.
There is no way of predicting whether man will learn - and/or not learn - individually and/or collectively - from his or her earlier acts of transgression and/or narcissistic/righteous stupidity.
This adds an 'existential, free-will' component to any Hegelian thought of 'predictable historical determinism'.
Life is a pendulum - without the perfect predictictability of historical determinism.
-- DGBN, Nov. 9th, 2008, updated Jan. 18th, 2009.
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissim
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations....are still in process...
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And I did indeed, find at least one of the quotes that I was looking for, maybe two:
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'Against the censurers of brevity. -- Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novicein this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefy something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.' (Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, pg. 137, 1879; or A Nietzsche Reader, preface, 1977)
Marks of the good writer. -- Good writers have two things in common; they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers. (AOM, pg. 138, 1879; or A Nietzsche Reader, preface, 1977)
Marks of the great writer (DGB modifications): Great writers have two things in common: 1. they prefer first to be understood, then to be admired (I can't believe Nietzsche was trying to tell us that he did not want to be admired, yeah, right!); 2. they write with the brevity, the boldness, the power, the passion, the blood and the spirit of Nietzsche; and 3. they do not write for overly arrogant, overly knowing, overly academic, technical, and anal-retentive readers. Because that will contradict and kill the brevity, the boldness, the power, the passion, the blood and the spirit of Nietzsche in themselves as writers...
Having said this let us move on to the apparent and/or real paradox between 'historical determinism' and 'existential freedom'.
I will focus on the type of 'historical determinism' as espoused by Hegel in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) whereby life, philosophy, psychology, history, politics, culture, and everything else man-made is deemed to basically follow the 1, 2, 3, (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) pattern and start all over again at a 'higher evolutionary level of existence'.
Man always knows how to 'throw a wrench into any type of deterministic assembly-line'.
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Life is a Hegelian Evolutionary Pendulum - Without The Perfect Predictictability of Historical Determinism
Life is a pendulum swing between 'balance' and 'unbalance', between stretching in different degrees towards one particular brand of extremism, before reaching a point of judgment where one decides that one has had enough of that, and then swinging back again towards the middle, if not past the middle point and out towards the opposite polarity. This pendulum process of life never stops.
This is the Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) 'life-cycle' of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis - then start the whole process over again, ideally at a higher state of experience and wisdom but that is certainly not guaranteed because man has a high propensity for narcissism, greed, love, sex, jealousy, envy, hate, unilateralism, power, revenge, imperialism, 'tit for tat', destruction, and self-destruction. These factors inevitably undermine the 'ideal' element in the Hegelian evolutionary life cycle, undermine the 'learning from history' factor - and, indeed, add a very common 'tragic' element to the whole process - life and death, evolution and regression, continually hanging in the balance of man's individual and/or collective, reason and/or stupidity.
There is no way of predicting whether man will learn - and/or not learn - individually and/or collectively - from his or her earlier acts of transgression and/or narcissistic/righteous stupidity.
This adds an 'existential, free-will' component to any Hegelian thought of 'predictable historical determinism'.
Life is a pendulum - without the perfect predictictability of historical determinism.
-- DGBN, Nov. 9th, 2008, updated Jan. 18th, 2009.
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissim
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations....are still in process...
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