From: an030@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Broward Horne)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Death of America
Date: 13 Dec 1992 20:04:28 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: an030@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Broward Horne)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) says:

>an030@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Broward Horne) writes:
>>
>>        Their property tax was raised 5% last year.  They felt they
>>     were "lucky" since they knew others had been raised up to 14%
>>     more.
>
>That's a local city tax, just like in the United States.  Nothing to
>do with the federal government.  Even my German in-laws in New Jersey
>had their property taxes raised big in (Republican) Bergen County ...
>

      Except that it affects 25% of Canada's population.
      There's no STATE in the U.S. that could create that effect.

>> Their income tax was raised almost $20 / WEEK!.  That's a $1000/year!
>
>I get UPI Clarinet's Canadian news on our feed; where in the last
>couple of federal budgets has such a tax hike come through?  Hey,
>I'm a tax-hating son of entrepreneurs ... but I can see where your
>friends were exaggerating in their bellyaching.  Do you know of any
>sources to contradict them?  Do your local papers ever print anything
>about Canada? (Except for explosions and Quebec nationalist eruptions?)

        No.  But I *did* see the Ontario Art Museum being closed.
        The Toronto Symphony filing for bankrutpcy.
        I paid $2.00 / gallon for gas.
        I saw house prices that make L.A. look cheap.
        I saw the penalty for not wearing a seatbelt.  $200 bucks.
        I saw an $11 Billion deficit being run, for 10 million people.

>
>>   They receive no interest deduction for house payments.

>That's an aberration of the U.S. tax system.  Everything's relative.
       It still amounts to less taxes in the U.S. 

>Does the U.S. give you a deduction for expenses in running a power
>saw?  Order a federal tax form from a Canadian consulate or embassy.
>It's in there.  It has it's own little outlined section ...
>
>>      I think NOT!  Not from what *I* saw in Toronto.  About the
>>      only difference I could find between it and L.A. was that 
>>      the gangs weren't spraying graffiti or littering.
>
>Could you please explain the "gangs" in a realistic manner that is
>consistent with what someone living in Toronto could confirm?  Where
>are the shootings?  Where is the crack?

        Heh.  I lived in L.A. for 29 years.  I know gangs when
     I see them.          

>
>We do not have toll booths up north.  
>
       Neither does Idaho.   So what?  

>>      I've seen the future.  It's highly bumming to think that the 
>Canada hasn't been like that, as you've exaggerated; I'm not denying
>the warts (check the companion article to this one; I'm a free trader)
>but we are reconfiguring.  It's not necessarily a matter of socialism,
>as I realize that Canada and Western Europe are now a favourite target
>of McCarthyists in the new world order, but note that we suffered the
>scourge of Victorianism, which has not had very good effects on our
>efforts in commerce.

      I wish I were exaggerating.  I was totally appalled.  
      My girlfriend is Canadian.  She's confirmed a lot of what I 
      saw.  She was mugged in Toronto.  There's your gangs. :)

      It was clean.  But it wasn't a place to live.  All kinds of 
      government double-think posters on the wall.  Sad.  The people
      seemed raggedy and poor.  
>
>As much as I can sympathize with your friends' complaints, I'm afraid
>that you should be a little more critical before accepting every word


      Believe me, chum.  I'm HIGHLY critical.  Of just about 
    anything that promises something for nothing.

>at face value rather than taking caution for any exaggerations and/or
>artistic licence ... I realize that goes along with your general frame
>of mind at the moment (I don't mean that as a flame; I've enjoyed

    
      Well, I hate to disappoint you, but my frame of mind has been
      building up since the 1987 market crash.  Try looking up 
      real estate values from 1986 until now.  We're in a depression
      and government redistribution is a stop-gap measure.      


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