Banks Screw You Again

Ellen Roseman reports today; Savings rate lags interest rate on loans

The Bank of Canada has raised its overnight lending rate six times since last September. So, you might expect that high-interest savings rates have gone up as well.Think again. Banks seem to be tightening their spreads — at the expense of savers.

Oh the banks screwing us again. That's news?! Yep as I have said before the Peoples Bank, credit unions, once again beat the banks. As does the Alberta Treasury Branch the other Peoples Bank in Canada.

The best savings rate I found was 3.85 per cent, offered by two online banks owned by credit unions in Manitoba, Achieva Financial and Outlook Financial.

Hey that's a better rate than ING the online bank. But they offer a GIC without a minimum and NO Service Charges unlike Achieva and Outlook.
See GIC Rates


Also see:

Proudhon

Tory Bankers

Bank Charges

Service Charges

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No Need For Sheriff Dodge

Canada April inflation lags
In the U.S., core inflation was 3.6%, whereas the Canadian number was reported at 1.6% . This morning's tame inflation numbers belie the other stats and may result in the Bank of Canada being forced to the sidelines, for if inflation numbers continue a trend that showed today, there will be little need for the Bank to be in the market.

So when will David Dodge retire, there's nothing for him to do. The economy takes care of itself.

``The Canadian dollar is keeping inflation relatively tame,'' Kwan said. That ``may be reflected in the statement.''Canadian Prices, Excluding Gas, Unexpectedly Decline in April

Only the Globe and Mail could turn this good news story on its head.
Canadian inflation edges up


Also See

Loonie

Petro Dollar

Monopoly

Monopolies


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Harpocrite Redux

Meet the New Boss Same as the Old Boss.

Harper says he's not bound by results of Kyoto vote

Paul Martin, Ethics and Democracy

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Manning Made Right Decision

He said he wants to continue his work on his Calgary think-tank, the Manning Centre for the Building of Democracy, rather than enter the leadership race.”

Because if you go to the Manning Centre For Building Democracy web page it doesn't open up to anything. Its disfunctional. Just like Mannings ideas for privatizing public institutions like healthcare. It is modeled on American Right Wing Leadership Institute.He needs to spend some time fixing his website, rather than running for the leadership of the Alberta Party of Calgary.


More on Manning

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Cops and Tasers

Bullies in uniform who are above the law because they enforce the law. There is something wrong with this picture. And then they are allowed to use a deadly weapon like the Taser. Bad enough they are armed and dangerous with guns and pepper spray. Here is another case just like the other case of Edmonton Cops outta control.

City policeman charged with tasering motorist

Florence Loyie, Edmonton Journal

Published: Wednesday, May 17, 2006

An Edmonton police officer, who was reprimanded in 2003 by the Law Enforcement Review Board for using excessive force, has been charged with assault with a weapon in connection with a traffic stop where a struggle ensued and a motorist was tasered.

Const. Aubrey Zalaski is to appear in court June 16 to answer to the charge.

Zalaski was one of three city police officers reprimanded by the province’s police service watchdog in 2003 for using excessive force during a struggle with a man and his daughter outside a Whyte Avenue bar in June, 1998.

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Criminal Capitalism: Xstrata

Here is another criminal capitalist enterprize that makes Enron look legitimate, and reminds me of the Mutual Fund Criminals around Bernie Cornfeld.

The primitive accumulation of capital has always been a criminal enterprize.

And of course these criminal capitalists are always opposed to unions. Just like regular capitalists.

The irony is that Xstrata is in a bidding war over Falconbridge, which includes Inco and Teck Cominco, all four are vying to create monopoly in the resource industry that is heating up. Timidity keeps corporate Canada off world stage


Oh yes thats the other problem with capitalism its inherent need to create monopolies and oligopolies.

Dark talk dogs CEO of Xstrata

Still, when Xstrata starts making big deals abroad, people start mentioning words far removed from mining, or from anything having to do with Mick Davis: Saddam Hussein, CIA, international fugitives, presidential pardons.

This has nothing to do with Xstrata, a public company traded on the London Stock Exchange, and everything to do with the private company that created Xstrata in 1990 and that is still its largest shareholder. Glencore International AG, one of the most secretive and most profitable private companies in the world, is both the source of Mr. Davis's success and the albatross around his neck.

Glencore was created by Marc Rich, the billionaire commodities trader who became the world's most-wanted white-collar fugitive in the 1990s, when he was sought by U.S. authorities for tax evasion and tax fraud, and for breaking UN embargoes by trading with countries such as Iran and apartheid-era South Africa. In 2000, in the final weeks of his presidency, Bill Clinton granted Mr. Rich, a Democratic Party donor, a controversial pardon.

Both Xstrata and Glencore are headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, a tiny canton that claims to have the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe. It also has extremely lax disclosure rules, and can serve as a haven for white-collar fugitives — as it did throughout the 1990s, when Mr. Rich made it his refuge.

“Glencore was created as a shadow company to divert attention from Marc Rich & Co. in New York when the feds were going after Rich for fraud,” said Craig Copetas, the Bloomberg News reporter whose book Metal Men investigated the history of Mr. Rich and Glencore. “They were trying to hide all the bad stuff from Rich, but the judge didn't have anything to do with it.”

A few years earlier, in 1990, Mr. Rich had created Xstrata as a mineral exploitation subsidiary of his metal trading firm. They are separate now, although Glencore controls 38 per cent of Xstrata's shares either directly or through its wholly owned subsidiaries. The two firms share a chairman, Willy Strothotte, a long-time colleague of Mr. Rich's.

Mr. Davis and other Xstrata executives argue that the taint of Mr. Rich is unfair. According to U.S. media reports, Mr. Rich sold his major stake in Glencore for $500-million more than a decade ago, and while it is widely believed among metal traders that Mr. Rich still has his hands in the operation, there has never been any evidence of such control.

Glencore continues to be a controversial company: In 2004, the CIA charged that the company had received millions from the Iraqi oil-for-food program after paying millions in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime (Glencore denied these charges)

Who is Xstrata, anyway?

Is bid for Falconbridge a tad Rich?

Swiss offer puts PM to test

Xstrata's Falconbridge Bid Opposed by Canada Lawmakers, Unions

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Gwyn Morgan Union Buster

Here are exerpts from Gwyn Morgans speech to the Fraser Institute. He says more, on immigration, crime, coloured folks, etc. But this is his anti-union rant.Oh and in being anti-monopoly he is of course not speaking of corporate monopolies, but of the public sector.

Which reminds me of when Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute at a Labour Arbitration Conference in Calgary referred to unions as parasites on the back of workers. Really I thought the parasites were the bosses and the ruling class. But then as I told Mr. Walker he really was a wannabe Ayn Rand in drag.

Oh and Gwyn Morgan is from Calgary. Why is that no surprize.

Tonight, I will follow the Fraser Institute's example of calling a spade a shovel by looking at facts. Now that I've got the shovel out, let's dig down to the root cause of some key issues.The first one is the relationship between unionization and economic competitiveness. It has been demonstrated time and again that private sector unionization eventually leads to an uncompetitive business. One only has to look at the union vs. non-union auto plants in North America and the rest of the world for proof of this ... The highly unionized auto sector in Germany is in deep trouble, while auto plants in eastern European countries are thriving. The former industrial heartlands of the United States in upstate New York and Michigan are in deep trouble, while non-union plants in the Carolinas thrive. The "big three" unionized auto manufacturers in Ontario are in trouble, burdened by uncompetitive cost structures and rigid work rules. The downward drift into the abyss continues, while union leaders and politicians focus only on the symptoms. It's sad to see people who have put in decades of dedicated service put out of a job, when their own unions have made their employers uncompetitive. How can an organization that is fighting with itself compete with organizations where everyone is aligned to outperform the competition?The reason that the private sector has become less and less unionized is because a lot of unionized businesses fail ... Unions thrive on monopolies. Monopolies rarely go out of business — they simply pass on their increasing costs and inefficiencies. And the public sector is, by definition, brimming with monopolies. So we see the phenomena of spiralling public sector costs combined with inefficient and low-quality public sector services. Now let's get our shovel out again and dig into another issue that is crucial to both Canadians' social stability and productivity — the immigration system.

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Northern Sovereignty

An interesting column in Todays Globe and Mail by Lawrence Martin;

'The future of this country is going north," Brian Mulroney said recently in Ottawa with Stephen Harper listening in. "It is time for a new northern vision." He stressed the need for leadership on global warming (was Rona Ambrose listening?), but the heart of his speech was the need to realize Canada's northern ambition. From someone viewed as one of our foremost American integrationists, it was a striking declaration.

Shortly thereafter, another former Tory prime minister, Joe Clark, followed with an article on these pages that said it's time for Ottawa policy-makers to look beyond the United States. The debate in this country, he said, is too narrow.

The New York Times' Thomas Friedman said last week that the years of America as the megapower -- the "belle époque," as he called it -- were drawing to a close. "The post-post-Cold War is a multipolar world," he wrote, "where U.S. power is being checked from every corner." From China, from Russia, from producers of black gold that form "the axis of oil."

In Ottawa, it's hard to get a sense that many see things the way the aforementioned observers do. If the future is north, as Mr. Mulroney says, you'd never know it by listening to the Liberal leadership candidates or -- though it has made some promises on Arctic sovereignty -- the Conservative government. China is paid little heed. And rather than go international, as Mr. Clark recommends, the Harperites were being accused by the opposition parties this week of being more inclined to bed down with a besieged America.

Also See:

Petrocan's Arctic Sovereignty

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Conservative Anti-Kyoto Alliance

It is interesting that the same alliance in Iraq is also the Alliance Against Kyoto. That is the Conservative Government of Australia, the US and now the Conservative Government in Ottawa.

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell says Australia should be talking to Canada about joining the Asia-Pacific climate change partnership. Prime Minister John Howard is flying to Canada from the US later today to meet the new Canadian Prime Minister.It is expected they will discuss the Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership, which was set up in January.Campbell talks up Canadian climate change deal membership

The Tories seem fixated on "voluntary" compliance, which may explain their interest in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. It includes such non-Kyoto signatories as China and the U.S. Like Kyoto, it favours research on clean technology. Unlike Kyoto, it doesn't require members to live by greenhouse gas reduction targets. If Harper thinks "voluntary" works, just try it with income tax. Diluting Kyoto recipe for crisis

Oh by the way ask yourself this; why is our Environment Minister Rona Ambrose who heads the UN Kyoto Conference not in Bonn. The conference is two weeks long. It's a question that Canadian delegates are asking.

She came, she spoke, she hastily departed. What an embarassment.

I am not an environmentalist but I play one

More on Kyoto



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social ecology

Confined Space Kills

One of the most common and deadly killers of workers is confined space. As this shows. It is a classic case of a confined space tragedy. The killer in the space was H2SO4, hydrogen sulphide. The failure to treat this mine as confined space, complete with atmospheric testing led to the unecassary deaths of four men.

RENO--(Mineweb.com) As of deadline Wednesday evening, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Government of British Columbia were trying to determine if hydrogen sulfide gas had killed four people at the old Sullivan lead, zinc and silver mine near Kimberley, British Columbia.

Teck Cominco said it learned early Wednesday morning that one of its environmental consultants was missing. The RCMP contract employee, who was testing water at a pumping station as part of reclamation of the Sullivan mine, may have died two days ago.

Teck Cominco then began the search for the individual who was found floating in the well of the above-ground pump house by another contract employee. Unfortunately, the employee, who was attempting to rescue the consultant, entered the shed with two paramedics, and was also overcome. Two paramedics, who were not wearing protective gear when they tried to rescue the victims, also were overcome, according to the RCMP.

The question here is why the RCMP were once again involved, not as police but as contract workers. If this was the case and not a misprint. If it is the case then it is not unlike the case in Mayerthorpe Alberta last year when four RCMP were killed acting as repo-men on contract.

And why were these 'contract' employees entering a confined space with no protective equipment, and no air samplers in violation of confined space legislation? After all a MINE is a CONFINED SPACE. And Hydrogen Sulfide gas occurs in Zinc and Copper mines. Especially abandoned ones.

The fact the mine is leaching acid is itself a testament to Teck Comincos bad environment practices. Bad environmental practices, bad health and safety practices. Anything for a buck gete folks killed.

Ogilvie said while the lead zinc mine was closed in 2001, Teck Cominco continued to do reclamation work on the site. He said the pumping station where the four died was being used to treat acid which leaks from the mine site.

But it could have been far worse if the Kimberly fire fighters had not treated this as a confined space operation.

The victims were found by Kimberley firefighters who had followed up the initial emergency call. "When they got to the site of the emergency ... they found there were four people down at the time," said Ogilvie. "They donned their gear to go into hazardous atmospheres and confined spaces .... They removed three people and one was left. The other three were transferred to hospital but I understand now that all four have been pronounced dead." Toxic gas kills 4 in mine `horror'

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