Smoking to Dresses: We are Twisted

June 24th, 2009 Thomasso

The Langley driver who was smoking a fag with his thirteen year old daughter inside the car got a fine yesterday, under the recently created law in British Columbia that prohibits smoking around minors while inside a vehicle. I have heard a lot of arguments on this “tough on crime” approach that people see as an infringement of their personal space and general rights. However, I think that the spirit of the law is primarily targeting the cost and health effects of the child, and that the vehicle is not the same as the home where various rights are under the Charter of Rights and freedoms.

The weakest argument I have heard is how the government can step inside our personal space and prohibit what it is we can do, or not do, inside our vehicles. The argument that we should have full unquestioned autonomy of our vehicles is a baseless one. The vehicle is not entirely our personal space, and we are required to adhere to standards that are required by law, such as a licence to operate it, which is a very good method of controlling its uses and operation.

Because of this requirement to obtain a licence, this means that in general, laws, rules and policies can be establish to ensure that everyone who is in control of the vehicle does so with the best interests of the public and their personal safety in mind. A licence controls the use of the vehicle, and those who cause harm, or violate the operational requirements of driving, will have their privileges taken away and be asked to pay fines or face suspensions and then need to re-qualify.

Stronger yet, laws are starting to recognize that our actions cause harms to innocent bystanders and therefore those bystanders should be protected from the harms that we inflict upon ourselves. Second-hand cigarette smoke is by far one of the most recognized forms of harms to the public, and over the last decade numerous laws have being enacted to eliminate it from the workplace and public areas. It would only make sense that this push would creep into the private sphere, so prohibiting smoking inside a motor vehicle with children present, while on the roads, seems like the next logical evolution of public health and safety.

For adults, we must ensure that our children must be given every opportunity of protection from these unnecessary harms that we may inflict do to our personal and long-term bad habits. Overall, the health benefits to our children for the future makes perfect sense, even if it means we as adults must give up our bad habits, or at the very least comply with the prohibition of driving while smoking with minors present. I would argue that our children must come first, over and beyond our foolish indulgences because it is them who will have to pay for us as we start to use the health care system to repair the damage we caused on ourselves. Personally, I am in full favour of this law and fully support it.

Fashion blogs or just a heavy dose of female narcissism?

While I was listening to SPARK, a program from CBC Radio One, of which they looked at one of the latest blog trends that allows the author to post what it is that they are wearing and then giving you the opportunity to comment on their daily garb ensembles. This is just weird that someone is asking people to comment on what it is they are wearing from day to day, or that they are even taking the time to photograph themselves and then posting them on-line so that you can give them your opinion. The two examples from Episode 83 of SPARK from June 24: Jessica Schroeder’s What I Wore, and What I Wore Today.

Of course, all of the blogs that are listed on the radio program are by women, and they are, in essence, just fashion blogs. However, there was one exception, the journalist Dan Misener whose web site, called What Dan Wore, who reported the story created his own daily personal fashion blog, and clearly it did not have the same impact. Talk about how stereotypical I am—but that was the lesson and point that he was making.

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How Difficult it is to Change Things without Changing them into Things you don’t Want

June 13th, 2009 Thomasso

Yesterday a co-worker had some thoughts on what he would like changed in terms of improvements to many of the social and political problems that he sees in Canada today.

The first area of change he wanted was a massive reform of the government, literally reducing the bureaucratic/administration portion of government down to a skeleton, and only allowing them a wage of one dollar per year as their paid salary from the tax payer. Politicians, the elected officials would also received the same pay structure of one dollar per annum. Also on the “to go” list would be offices such as the Privy Counsel, the Senate, most advisory offices; areas where only a handful of people are needed. Research and advisory offices would be hired on a need-be bases.

Next to get changed is a judiciary, where, not only would the structure and principles of law are revamped, but so to are the courts in terms of localities and functions they would serve. The rule of law would have some additional points added to it, and so to would the type of legal system to, in other words, what I think he is after is a change from the common law and a move towards the Civil Code style of law we see in France today. Courts essentially would mainly reside at a municipal level, and there would only be one court of appeal, or super court, the supreme court which would be located probably in Ottawa.

Taxation would take on a new changes, for example, anyone who wishes to donate money to their organization of choice would no longer receive a tax right-off, e.g., churches, NGOs, and taxes would remain localized, so only your tax money would stay in your community, and only a portion of it would go federally.

What is interesting is that most people feel that improvements are needed in government, however, to make changes and then try to formulate how those changes will affect the country as a whole, we then start to see how problematic it is. There is no way that we can please everyone who sees imperfections in our governmental system, but we all have special interests that we would like to see. We get into problems of conflict when what I would like to see as the ideal government in Canada varies extremely from yours.

But there is a deeper problem that I see now after talking to my co-worker which I never really gave that much thought about before, and that is one should really try and fully understand what the political processes are, and how the structure of our three main levels of government work before we can fully qualify serious changes to it. Then once we are armed with the knowledge of all these things, then we should hopefully see the dynamics and shifts of each idea proposed on a theoretical bases, in other words, seeing the causes and effects in an abstract view.

In  my understanding of Canadian politics and jurisprudence, among all of its processes and structure, I feel it needs to stay the way it is now. But take in mind that we are contently in a state of flux, and changes, although small and minute, are always talking place. Each time we elect an government, and new markets open and old ones close, change is inevitable on a whole. However, without going through these exercises of playing around with these ideas we would never learn and understand what it is that we have now to and hopefully appreciate the rights and freedoms we enjoy.

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A Short talk on Transnational Organized Crime

June 10th, 2009 Thomasso

For the last six weeks during my summer classes one particular class has stood out so far form the others for me. This class is a special topics course on Transnational Organized Crime that focuses on many of the different facets of organized crime groups and their activities on a global scale. Our topic of discussion for the next couple of weeks, including our last class, is on human trafficking.

We have several readings that cover a wide verity of points on human trafficking, including human smuggling and various types and forms of illegal immigration. It was not until I started into the readings that I soon realized just how vast this topic really is. The reading only give a glimpse of what is actually happening because of the underground nature of these illegal activities so only cases that are met with some form of police or governmental intervention are capture into statistical data that can be documented. The rest is based on field research data that is qualitatively gathered and documented through peer review articles.

In the last class we were given some printed readings to be taken home and studied, one of which is called, “Human Trafficking: The Facts,” Written for United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, through the “Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking.” This article is written a story format where three stories are told about some individuals and a group of people, taken from three different countries where they are exploited in various ways. Although each story ends with the rescue of some of the victims, justice for the exploiters is somewhat ambiguous or extremely lacking. I urge you to take the time to read this document if you can because it says a lot about global conditions that do not get printed on the headlines of our daily media sources. In fact, this sort of crime seems to me to be rarely talked about in Canadian media unless it involves a dramatic investigation by police or some huge sting operation from multiple international police forces that touch our border.

Some of the types of human trafficking are: sex slaves, prostitution, forced labour, child trafficking, domestic trafficking, and so on.

To read the PDF version of the article, please go here: http://www.unodc.org/blueheart/en/campaign-tools.html, and click on the English version of the “Testimonials” for the stats and the three stories that I’ve  read.

Posted in Criminology, General, Law, Law and Order, Photographs, Social Justice | 1 Comment »

Reading Writing and Wondering: all at the same time!

May 27th, 2009 Thomasso

I have a few minutes before I call it a night. My homework quota just got increased because of an oversight—a small chapter just got turning into a big chapter resulting in four more hours of extra reading. What happened was the prof started to give us the homework assignment last week, and we ran over our allotted three hour time period for that class, so everyone started leaving the class she was telling us what was needed for next weeks class. She forgot to mention that we needed some extra reading that she was posting on the class website too. Some force, perhaps my subconscious, or academic intuition told me to check the web site one more time. Sure enough there was a new file sitting in the page titled with next weeks topic on it.

When I went to print it off, it was 33 pages of legalese in point 9 font. I thought to myself, “There goes the night…. Damn!”

I have not finished reading all of my texts yet. I guess this will be a case of reading right up until class. The only good that become of this is that the readings will be very fresh in my mind and my recall will be at its best. Other then that, sleep deprivation and sore eyes follow close behind.

At least I get to focus on one of my favourite topics which is tort law.  As a criminologist, tort law takes on a different light when dealing with normative laws. I actually found a good argument in the textbook that talks about the argument of no-fault liability versus tort law. I automatically jumped to the conclusion of labour law and the WCB (In British Columbia) where in a growing frequency of cases where insurance that is given out for negligence is far to low in proportion to the damages that was caused. When I compare these two, I can see why keeping tort law is beneficial rather than having no-fault insurance. Perhaps Canada needs a further Right leaning government to achieve this? I think that is a great discussion topic.

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It was so close!

May 26th, 2009 Thomasso

First of all I have to say that the electoral vote count over in Delta South was a nail-biter. When you have two candidates who had to wait two extra weeks to know who was the winner because of a difference of 3 votes, then to finally declare the victor by only 32 votes, all I can say is “Wow.” I am thankful that British Columbia is not Florida under the George Bush leadership, so I’m wondering what the BC Liberals are going to do anyway, but nonetheless the vote count will go to a judicial hearing to do another recount. See CBC News.

So for now British Columbia now has an independent member, Vicki Huntington, of the provincial legislature, and the leading party has lost its member, Wally Oppal, who was the attorney general, or top lawyer/judge from the last cabinet. If you know anything about Delta South, you will know that it has seen its share of controversy being in the media spotlight on several occasions. The overhead power lines dispute was the biggest news story that involved the installation of a set of huge power-lines that now run through a residential area so that Vancouver Island can get more electrical power from the mainland.

Remember that British Columbia has had its worst voter turnout in history, and it is a good possibility that some of the voters who made time to cast their ballot may have took this opportunity to cast a protest vote. Regardless, this ridding will cause some difficulties for the leading Liberals, and the people of South Delta who will have to deal with a member of the government that will purely represent them, but as an independent with no ties to the other two major parties.

Has anyone seen how fast the price of goods suddenly shot up in the last couple of weeks? I have being keeping track of a few items that I normally buy from the local store, and I calculated that everything that I have kept track of has increased by 13 percent. Oh, I’m sot surprised, but knowing that this is going to be the trend for the foreseeable future my wallet is going to have tighter purse strings around it. The economic hard times that are upon us is going to force me to either buy less, or start being more of a frugal shopper. I have already started buying more at these larger stores, but I can see that I may be forced to shop at these businesses more regularly as inflation starts to ramp upwards.

I’m also waiting for both the federal and provincial governments to start increasing their taxes to “band-aid” the growing deficits. Apparently we broke (or will be breaking) another record this year with the countries largest federal deficit in our history. No one seems to be flinching about the number: 50 billion. I guess after watching the U.S. deficit of what-ever trillions of dollars, ours is only a drop in the bucket—too bad we are only a fraction of the their population with an ever shrinking work force? This is our legacy to the next generation; we maybe patting ourselves on our back, but they might be kicking us in the butt as we are locked up in rubberised old-folks rooms to save money for this. Remember, what comes around, goes around. See CBC News.

Posted in General, Law and Order, Photographs, Social economics | 2 Comments »

The Inexperienced Power Point User

April 12th, 2009 Thomasso

I just got back from a seminar on Crime and Community in Langley City where some of the locals and academic experts discussed their ideas on our “somewhat miss interpretative crime rates.” I say I’m sceptical because no one could answer my questions on what these rates are, or give me their sources, and what measurements they used when making their arguments. I’m a “show me your data” kind of guy, and when someone makes a claim, you better back it up with some research facts. Anyway, it was not what I would consider a great seminar for many reasons. I left having felt like I gave up a whole night for nothing. People are mad about crime, but no one has any constructive ideas other than turning into vigilantes.

Religion and crime arguments don’t mix. As one speaker pointed out, and shot herself in the foot when she made her arguments, if we lived by the rules of whatever scripture/beliefs you follow, then we would be all either be cutting off the hands of every child, stoning every man for impure thoughts and killing every woman who looks beautiful, to live in her perfect society. Yes, I’m not joking, there were some pretty bizarre theories from this group. It is one thing to evoke crime controls based on your social ideals, but are you willing to impose them on yourself within your community? Those who answer yes then must suffer the consequences of living in gated communities that will segregate themselves from one another, and base crime on rules so riged that the cost will limit the usefulness of how effective that community is. And by usefulness, I mean, to maintain a crime free environment. It is a utopia that is unattainable for many reasons… .

The power Point  infraction goes to the speakers who talked about Langley’s ever growing problem of homelessness. It was a very good topic, and they had some very good ideas and critiques, however, their presentation went by so fast that I could not get any good solid notes written down from it. Rules on Power Points should be basic.  Never use any font that is smaller than size 24. Never put more than 100 words into a slide. Keep the contrast of colour as “black and white” as possible. And leave the slide up long enough so everyone can at least read it while you talk about it. Also, cheesy graphics may look great and pleasing to the eye, but at least keep them within the theme of the presentation. When talking about gang violence, keep butterflies off the screen—they look cute, but are inappropriate for this topic.

Posted in Criminology, General, Law and Order, Social economics | 3 Comments »

Yes, Week Fourteen: The Last Class for the Winter Term.

April 8th, 2009 Thomasso

A bunch of stuff to talk about today. I have so much news about myself and everything around me that I can only get just a bit in this post because of time restraints. So, here I go….

At the top of my list are all the drivers who have bad habits, especially those who who like to cut people off by ignoring stop signs; swerve into other lanes without signalling; those who tailgate and follow way to close; smokers who throw their cigarettes butts out of their windows so that they land on the vehicle behind them; and last but not least, drivers who do not let pedestrians cross along the cross walk because they are in so much of a hurry to catch up to the car in front of them.  This brings me to what I think is stellar news: The Albion Ferry will close on July 31, 2009! What does this have to do with drivers with poor driving skills? Well, Fort Langley will once again be a place of peace and quiet, and have roads without ignorant drivers who swarm us every 15 minutes. This means that pedestrians, i.e., ME, will no longer have to deal with drivers hitting, cutting, or running into me because they see a “meat-bag” cutting them off on “their” so called road. For those of you happy motorists who travel through Fort Langley and enjoy running into people along cross-walks, you obviously did not pass your driver’s exam because you have to yield the right of way along cross-walks—yes it is right there in the law books. Oh, you are shocked that there is such a Law on the books? Then you should have your licences taken away! Obey the Law!

I am looking forward to when the Ferry closes on July 31. I think this is good. I have thought about the pros and cons on this subject for a long time, but have come to the conclusion that the pros out weigh it all. Once the bridge is finished then there is just no point in having the ferry running any more. Sure, the ferry people are going loose their jobs, and yes, drivers will have to pay a toll, but hey, just think how fast your commute will be. Any self respecting conservative thinking person will appreciate the benefits that privatisation is brining to the lower mainland.

My last official class of the semester ended today. I can’t believe that I spent 12 hours at the University. So far my marks are 93%, 89,2% & 88.9%. In my CRIM3100 class I was told that I tied in highest marks for that class; however, remember that I still have a final to do for that class. Last night I stayed up until 11:00pm writing my last draft from my other criminology class, and I had to work on my psychology paper which was dealing with the topic of moral values and violent criminal behaviour. Both papers were due today.

In classes today, the grand topic or theme, was the economy and gang shootings. These are two very big topics that everyone has an opinion on.  I had ask my economics professor, of whom I had over a year ago, what he thinks is going to happen here in the Metro Vancouver area over the next couple of years. His answer shocked me as he pointed me to a website talking about a me named “Dr. Doom.” OK, if this guy is the Nostradomus of our era, then we are all in big trouble. If the US keeps printing money like crazy, then it devalues, and we get the great depression of the 1930s all over again. And will Canada be OK? We are tied so closely to the US that we are just a toothpick beside the sponge of death on lake kitchen sink. Anyway, this is a bad time to graduate into…. Can we say, PhD. in particle physics working at a greasy-spoon for low wages! Oh, and there is a connection to the gang Shootings and money: people owe people money–and if they can’t pay, well, gangs have their own methods of collections. Plus fighting over turf is an issue too.  I think we are at shooting number 50 now….since the spike in stats started?

Damn, it was a great day!

Posted in Criminology, General, Homework and deadlines, Law and Order, Social Justice, University classes | 1 Comment »

Get-A-Way Bus: The Surrey Express.

March 4th, 2009 Thomasso

Crime is a five letter word that everyone has an opinion on, and that few could fully understand.  For the last while I have being able to observe some of these people who are part of this marginal group in this subculture, the ones who seem to be from all walks of life and claim to fill many facets of the criminal world.  Actually it is easy here in the Lower Mainland because all you need to do is ride the transit system to meet some of them. I never engage directly with them, but I sit and listen. The best place to be on the bus is in the mid section, and I usually read a book while the passengers talk amongst themselves so not to interact. It’s safer that way.

Girl crimes have always fascinated me because the female crime rate is one of the fastest growing demographics in certain offences today; so taking a keen interest means that any opportunity in hearing what these people say is a golden opportunity.  The transit system is the perfect environment because you are stationary, seated, yet mobile at the same time, and presumably everyone around you is a stranger. So people tend to speak more freely then they would while standing at the bus stop. Another added bonus is the cell phone because this usually seems to be the triger to stir up these sorts of conversations and express raw attitude.

A group of four young women got onto the bus. They all marched towards the back seats where they could sit facing each other with their backs against the windows. This particular bus had a raised rear section and the seats were parallel to the windows as opposed to being in rows like up in the front section. They started talking once the bus started to move.

As they were talking, one of them answered her cell phone. This young woman started yelling into it saying, “you creep—you F—ing creep, you are dead. I will mess your name so bad….” then she flicked the phone and put it into her purse.

The conversation and tone changed instantly between them and one of them said, “I am seriously going to mess her up! She is going to pay tonight when I go over there.”

So, listening to them for a few minutes I figured out that one them had been told in that phone call that she was “ratted out” to the police for shoplifting, and this confession came from one of her co-offenders who had being apprehended by the police moments before. Obviously the interrogation worked if the police allowed it to be known. It had also being made clear that the bus was the get-a-way vehicle, and that the crime was only minutes old.

Sadly, shoplifting is one of those crimes that goes unpunished unless the retail outlet can either apprehend, or successfully identify who the offender is. Most shoplifters get away and will probably reoffend several times until they are caught again, and even then the punishment is very minor. For these young women, punishment was the least of their worries, it appeared to be the honour that was at stake.

They were loud and seemed not to have any worries about their situation among the other passengers. And as good people, the passengers reciprocated the gesture by looking the other way and ignoring this performance in turn.

One of the women decided that they should get off at a particular stop and double back to Surrey so that they could find their “friend” and make good on their promise.

When the bus stopped along 56 Avenue, the four women got out. I looked back as the bus pulled away, and to my surprise I noticed a police car pulling up towards them and then stopped. One of them turned and started walking in the opposite direction while the other three stood still. Two female mounties got out of the car, and one of them quickly ran over towards the women who was walking away. Without incident all six women walked back to the police car, and that was when I lost sight of them as the bus continued on its route.

Perhaps what is interesting was that I would have never pegged the four young women as criminals on the lamb. Their clothes, demeanour and accessories would have fooled me because they dressed, acted and mimiced the way college students would. This is probably the stereotype that I form, the bias that I have when fitting a face to a crime. This is just one example of just how complex society is today.

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Gangs

February 25th, 2009 Thomasso

Well, well, well, the media is on a blitz with criminal gangs here in the Lower Mainland, as we now have hit the 12th killing in 24 days. The news papers are a buzz with people’s opinions, and law enforcement officials talking the talk and spewing out all sorts of social, judicial and administrative problems as the public screams for answers and results. No one is immune from it, the criticisms I mean: judges, lawyers, politicians, police, academics. It is like everyone is fodder for the moral panic that is flooding the airwaves.

This morning in one of my classes, we talked about the escalating gang violence problem. The prof said very bluntly, “we are giving the gangs what they want…” He was refering to “fear.” The media is pumping everyone up with the fear from the spike in gang violence. The public, who only a fraction of it knows just how the justice system functions, has been very quick to criticize and lay blame to it. There was a community rally a couple of days ago in Surrey, BC where members of the public wanted tougher sentences and swifter responses from law enforcement officials to keep gang members off the streets, and change the justice system. One sign read, “Elect Judges!,” while another said “Longer Sentences.”

The problem that I see right off the bat is that people maybe angry and fearful of gang violence, but do they really understand the problem when they ask for legislative change? For the media, they know that printing a dead body on its cover of the newspaper, or running it as the lead story on TV is going to sell better than talking about a snow storm in Newfoundland the night before. As sick as this sounds, people like to see this type of news, so it is easy to “amp up” the stories and sell those papers. Crime is one of the best topics to capture people’s opinions with: that is partly why I became a criminologists, I wanted to study this phenomena.  A reporter says, “gang violence is growing out of control in our community,” well, everyone goes into fear mode, and then asks for “swift” justice. Shootings are no doubt one of the biggest criminal events that can shake any community down to its core, so naturally and rightfully so, people are going to react to it. People are going to think that there is a break-down in the justice model, so quick fixes are needed to deal with this serge in criminal violence, meaning change, “like right now.”

I ask, are you willing and ready to give up your way of life just to stamp out organized crime? How far should we all go to stop all gang members from becoming gang members?  Do we need to elect judges, hire more police, spend more money, create stiffer penalties?

For the public these are issues that are answered without any forethought to the problem because no one really knows how to address them. Take for example, a police officer, a politician, a criminologist, and ask them, “What is the definition of a Gang”?  It is very difficult to find a good bases point to address what is, or isn’t, a gang. Then add the problem of defining what is organized crime. Even the so called “self experts” from the right wing spectrum of the political map have a problem with this one too. Then ask, why are gangs always affiliated with ethic stereotypes? The only “White” gang that I know of are the Hells Angels. So gangs are big mysteries, and with great mysteries the media scare waves can broil the public into panic.

Then we have the political “Band-Wagon” of crime, and everyone will want to jump on it as passes by. With crime waves comes politicians begging for attention, “look at me—I’m going to GET THOUGH WITH CRIME! Watch me—Vote for me—I have the answer.” The danger with the band wagon of reform is, the public will pay a price and that price will be more than just cost because we will see drastic changes in the way the justice system will serve the public. All political parties, regardless of their stripes will boast about their stance on crime, and pulling the crime-card will make voters wary about who to choose, or believe. The back-fire from all of this will be those who are innocent, whether they are the bystanders or the wrongfully convicted, public opinion will always be split on the effectiveness of any crime control scheme imposed by any government.

So, are we giving the gangs what they want? Probably not, but when the public goes into fear mode then everyone is effected by it and that is where the so called gang wins. Drive-by shootings are selfish acts that effect entire communities, and law enforcement officials need to have the best tools to fight this type of crime with, but also keep in mind too that we should not be willing to sacrifice our freedoms due to fear. We must keep level heads and our ideals when faced with a handful of mindless acts. Hey, if you want to see a bad place with a huge drug and gang problem, go to Mexico, we can learn a lot from their issues.

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A day of Economics: Four Hours of it!

February 1st, 2009 Thomasso

I just got home from a seminar on crime, economy and community that focuses on Metro Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley. Ninety percent of it did not surprise me at all, but there was that ten percent that I either thought it was right off the wall, or made me think very hard. The general consensus that people seemed to talk about are: the immediate problems that everyone is facing such as possible lay-offs from work, loss of business and services, the real estate crunch and shrinking market demands.

There were plenty of people who stated that for most, the economic crunch will have little impact on our general state of economic health, and we should be all right. For those, and I have always stated this, who have debt, you are the ones who are going to feel it the most. If you have little or no debt, then your means of weathering this economic storm are very good. But this is all common knowledge, and old news; it was the ten percent of the speakers who threw some words of warnings onto the fire and made some smoke.

There were a number of market fallacies that took place way back in September of 2008 that the media literally played to death. The number one fallacy was the environment vrs the vehicle manufacture. This was so big because it was right in front of our faces that we could not see it, and was truly the first major sign that the economy had failed. It went like this, buy new because your old car causes more pollution than the new top-of-the-line SUVs. Next was the dirty oil fallacy of using nuclear energy to aid in the extraction of the Alberta Tar-Sands. This fallacy was that nuclear energy is a clean form of energy that would make the whole process of dirty oil reasonably clean again and more environmentally friendly. Spending credit is going to help the whole economy. In other words, we must spend our way out of the economic slump we are in. The word perpetuation kept being repeated over and over by this speaker. Sadly because of our lifestyle of instant gratification and free spending from having credit, we will “sheepishly” continue to have growing debt. And lastly, but not the least, is the fallacy that government should give corporate welfare and create huge deficits in order to maintain the economy. To prop up failing companies sort of throws mud into the face reasoning that like in the natural world of evolution—only the strong survive and weak shall wither away–so why should we even bother? Even in the lens of right-wing thinking, asking government to bolster unprecedented debt, to keep failing businesses afloat, is a contradiction of ideology. From Bay street to Main street to your street—only the debt will certainly go. The next obvious out come from this is income-tax burden.

It was intriguing to hear the speakers talk about these topics, and even more to hear their opinions on how to fix it. I heard some really good ideas, but I heard more about angry people who lost so  much because of their investments into such things like RRSPs and nest-eggs.  It was the Stock Market to stole centre stage tonight!

I was there to hear what people had to say about my favourite topic which is crime. Like the fallacies I talked about earlier, there are just as many on the topic of crime. The perpetual increase in crime is a constant no matter what era we live in. The new fuel on the topic is that more people are now going to commit more crimes in order to feed themselves because of the increases in unemployment. Sadly, and I fall on statistics, the rate of poor people has always increased, especially in the last five years of economic boom. Crime is going down overall, even in terms of property crime, but that all depends on how big of the macro view you use to measure. If you just focus on East Vancouver, then yes, property crime is increasing at an alarming rate. Do you think the media is going to spell that out for you?

I have a lot of information to digest. It was a good seminar, and I wish more people could have gone out to it because it really put things into perspective. I left with a sense of hope and good karma because this is a personal dilemma that each of us faces as opposed to a social one. It depends on how well each of us deals with our own economic health, and in turn will reflect upon how well the overall economic state will become. I took from it that debt is bad, and smart spending trumps all.

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