Lazy Loitering Louts

In light of the Occupy movements, younger people will find this vintage video from Vancouver, very vivid. You have to wait until the very end too for a killer video joke. The mayor, pictured in 1968, passed away yesterday at age 85. His vision lives on in the 1%.

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TD Bank made record profits again recently (they almost always do manage that), and here’s a part of why/how. I didn’t use my line of credit very much, always paying it off entirely very quickly when I did use it. Last year though I decided to borrow a little from it, to pay for my wedding. Expecting to pay it off sometime next year, I had a rather reasonable ~7% interest rate. I got a letter in the mail the other day from TD, however, stating that I was having my interest variance rate reviewed, and it was being upped by 1.25%! I phoned today to complain, and the call taker said that many people are calling, unhappy with up to 4% interest rate changes! Yet another reason to consider quickly switching more completely to credit unions instead, eh?

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Here’s where I saw the Vancouver mayor clip. It was on the Big Oily Questions for MPs page. Our lazy, loitering, louts in the House of Commons for the most part won’t give you a straight answer to these tough questions. I can answer them though. The answer is beneath the questions, as it’s the same answer for all of them.

1. Why aren’t some oil sands revenues being set aside for future Canadians?

2. Are we harming our democracy?

3. Are you aware of ‘Dutch Disease,’ and if so, how do we prevent it from eroding vital parts of Canada’s economy?

4. Have you examined the geopolitical risks of tying our fate to China as superpower?

5. Are we boarding an economic roller-coaster that could crash?

6. Why aren’t we taking a strategy that would directly shore up our own energy security?

7. Why raise fears about charities whose foreign funding is a tiny percentage of what China invests in Canada’s economy and politics?

8. Does becoming more oil rich mean we also will become more militarized?

9. Have we abandoned commitments to lower carbon emissions to help prevent catastrophic climate change?

10. Why not refine it here, creating jobs and lowering risks?

11. Were you elected to hasten pollution and increase cancer risks for Canadians?

Answer (in my best Harper voice):
In these challenging economic times, we have to remember that Iran frightens me. Therefore we must diversify our markets, and focus on the economy. I don’t see a recession coming, but these foreign special interests are trying to stop our ethical oil production and exports which must now be allowed to falter. The most dangerous thing in the world is Iran, not cancer. Don’t let the hippies turn Canada into a giant National Park for our American friends.