Saturday, November 06, 2010

 

Earth to Toronto Star: Campbell was No Great Economic Steward

.       
By Erik Andersen
Oct. 5, 2010
       
Campbell a "Fine Economic Steward?!"

Re: article  by Jon Kesselman

It is with profound dismay I am reading a story in your paper about Premier Campbell that is so divorced from reality that you and your journalist need to think about how insulting it is to people in British Columbia.

"Good steward" Campbell recognized for Run of River privatization by "environmentalist" Tzeporah Berman in Copenhagen, 2009

Do you really think 90% of the people in BC are that wrong about their opinion of his fitness to be our Premier? Please get a grip on reality. You are insulting the citizens of BC by suggesting we are so stupid as to not be able to figure out what our Premier has been doing.

Premier Campbell has a very long list of broken public promises and contracts. He has an impressive list of outright lies. Holding him up as a good economic steward is the most egregious insult of them all.

 
During his period in office our province has seen an explosion in publicly guaranteed debt. This debt has been for the most part secretly contracted for and is only now coming to light.

Besides the $53 billion the Auditor General is asking for details about, our Highways Ministry is actively resisting the disclosure of about another $10 plus billion. BC Hydro is also refusing to disclose the financial obligations it has taken on and is shielded from having to do so by an Order in Council.

A conservative estimate of what this debt amounts to is about $40 billion.

In every case of the P3 and IPP contracts there is a public guarantee that has a present value greater than the cost to build and if you can't understand why just ask me. That means the public has unknowingly been putting up billions of dollars of "equity" for zero ownership (again if you can't figure this out just ask me). This equity is then partially stolen from the citizens of BC when a portion of it is monetized when the long-term financing shows up (also, if you can't figure this out for yourselves just ask me).

It has been conventional wisdom for the mainstream press to blame the HST for all the anger in BC. You and your press associates are so incredibly wrong.

People in BC have only just begun to understand the scale of the deceit of our government starting with the sale of BC Rail. Premier Campbell did not getting invited to the latest Bilderberger conference because he is enormously wealthy or a pretty face. He was invited because he delivered the province of BC on a platter to the "greed is good " gang.

Shame on you folks for writing such dishonesty.


Erik Andersen; Economist
Gabriola Island, BC

Source is HERE:

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/7303-earth-to-toronto-star-campbell-was-no-great-economic-steward-.html 

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Another view of Gordo's legacy:

Click HERE.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/terms-of-campbell-departure-threaten-party-unity-former-adviser-says/article1788330/

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
And here's the answer to everything:

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism


Click HERE for the amazing lecture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

and if you figure out the answer, please tell me. OK?  - BC Mary. 

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""


Comments:
The Globe and Mail's editorial on Campbell's resignation was equally mind-boggling.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/the-transformative-leadership-of-gordon-campbell/article1784895/

One comment I read on another blog warned that Campbell will be the next PM of Canada. I fear we are seeing evidence of that intention in these editorials.

I cannot recall, anywhere in Canada, such fawning tributes to any premier who resigned in shame and scandal, and at the lowest ranking of any politician in the polls. The media seems to be not just at odds with public opinion, but at war with public opinion.

Here are some snippets from the Globe Editorial ...


THE TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP OF GORDON CAMPBELL

From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Nov. 03, 2010 7:50PM EDT

Gordon Campbell leaves with his popularity at its nadir, but he will be judged as one of the great premiers of British Columbia. Almost his entire professional life was spent as a political staffer or politician, but as a provincial leader, Mr. Campbell never settled for incremental transactionalism – he has consistently pushed the boundaries of the possible, in terms of both politics and policy...


and it continues ad nauseum, ending with...

His government was harmed by some of the legacies of B.C. political life, such as political corruption and personal difficulties experienced by its premiers. But Mr. Campbell’s record of public service and his transformation of public policy in British Columbia will benefit its residents for many years to come.

HIS government was harmed???? Let me get this straight – Campbell was an innocent victim of HIS OWN government!?!

And what exactly does the Globe and Mail mean by "his government was harmed by ... legacies... of personal difficulties experienced by its premiers."??? Literally, what does that mean?

This Globe and Mail editorial is revisionist history writ large, and the ink isn't even dry yet, nor are Campbell's tears.

This past weekend - for the first time ever – I did not buy a Globe and Mail. That's a first for me, a person who has had a lifelong love of newspapers, and was reduced to only one in the last few years, the Globe and Mail. NO MORE.
 
CC, it wouldn't surprise me the least to see Campbell installed as the next PM...and that is the operative word: Installed.

That's how Bilderbergers work, behind the scenes manipulation with puppets willing to do their bidding. Remember the journalist who was also a part of the last meeting? It shouldn't be surprising to us, to see the lapdogs writing this kind of drivel - it's what they've been ordered to do.

Canada is no longer a democracy, it hasn't been for a long time. They allow us to believe that because it serves their purpose...when they're tired of it...it will come to a crashing end. It will be interesting to hear what those who deride the rest of us as being alarmist conspirators have to say, when the curtain is finally, and fully, torn down exposing the truth.
 
Leah,

You must read/watch this:


RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism


For the amazing answer to everything lecture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

and when you figure out the answer, please tell me. OK?

OK: My hope rests with the "Post-Partisan Party" which, unfortunately, lends itself to the acronym "P3". But we can work on that, too.
.
 
Canadian Canary and others,

It's important that you send your objections to The Globe and Mail.

Never mind that they can't publish EVERY letter they receive ...

the fact is: they DO read the letters people send in; they read them and they pay attention by means of a tally: true, it's small comfort ... but also true that it's far, far better than if we imply (with silence) our agreement with the trash they've written.

Personal gripe: I blame Campbell for the damage done to the media, where such evil manipulation becomes "facts" for future history.

Catherine Ford, writing today about Campbell's term of office, said that at least he'd had no sex scandals to bother about. Ha! Catherine: meet Lara. Or try to meet Lara ... except that Gordo cleverly arranged for what media could say (Bad, Bad, Awful and Bad NDP) but what media must not say (Hi Lara!).
.
 
Yes, there is a lot that we don't know about Pinocchio Campbell - just as well, as what we do know is not good.

I am sure some will surface as time goes by, but at what cost!

Thanks
 
Need I say more?

Campbell inherited surplus of $1.2 billion, leaves similar shortfall

This is Gordon Campbell's fiscal record. An objective observer might describe it as so-so: not egregiously awful (as was that of John Herbert Turner in the 1890s), but hardly stellar (as was John Hart's in the 1940s).

And yet the mainstream media elite gush and fawn and celebrate Campbell as one of the "greats."

They do so, of course, because they have dedicated years to denigrating the fiscal record of Campbell's predecessors; that is, the two New Democratic Party governments of the 1990s. Good gave away the game with his claim that Campbell inherited a "have-not" province in 2001.

What, exactly, is B.C.'s record as a recipient of equalization payments from Ottawa, the hallmark of "have-not" status?

In the 1980s, Social Credit governments led by Bill Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm received three special equalization payments from Ottawa. Bennett got the first such payment, for $139 million, in 1983/84, and a second for $35 million in 1984/85. Vander Zalm obtained $360,000 in 1986/87.

The NDP garnered a single equalization transfer, of $125 million, in 1999/2000.

Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals, in contrast, received five such payments: $158 million in 2001/02; $543 million in 2002/03; $979 million in 2004/05; $590 million in 2005/06; and $459 million in 2006/07. (So huge were these transfers, that B.C. actually had to re-pay an overpayment of $330 million in 2003/04.)

The New Democrats got a total of $125 million in equalization; Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals, a total of $2.4 billion. Which one did Good say made B.C. a "have-not" province?

In the end, there's one easy way to review Gordon Campbell's fiscal record. In 2001, when he became premier, Campbell "inherited" a $1.2 billion surplus from the defeated New Democrats. In 2011, when he bequeaths his office to his successor, he'll leave a shortfall of exactly the same size: $1.2 billion.

One of the giants? Did Gordon Campbell truly "transform" B.C.'s finances? Only if one lives in the fairly-tale, fantasy world of the mainstream media elites.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home