Humble Humour

 So much has happened since last I posted! Some of it has been good if you count good things that happen in bad times as good. If you're an "at least" person and don't even try any more for "at most." I still haven't resigned myself to that despite circumstances dictating it just might be the best I can hope for. Let me splain - no there is too much - let me sum up.

I just checked on my work visa status and it remains "being processed." I just checked on my university webpage and I have missed registration. I tried to register even though I was pretty sure I'd drop the course because of the trip to Korea and start of my new job being too complicated and unpredictable to allow for concurrent study. I turned out to be humongously correct, but registration was closed at the time due to a rise in course prices. Now I'll have to wait till late July or August to register for my final course. This will be the 4th time I've taken a semester off. Something happens after 5. You get booted or something. I don't want to find out. 

I am currently at my nephew Dylan and his girlfriend Danielle's place in Victoria. I've basically couch surfed my way through the last 2 1/2 years trying to get this master's degree and a job back in Korea and in the process I've spent all of my money and used up all of my favours.

Here come the "at leasts:" 1. The average Canadian is $26,600 in debt after completing a master's degree. In the US where my degree is from it's over 80 grand! At least I've avoided THAT. 2. I won't be teaching the English, or even the form of ESL that I like, but at least I have a job offer in Korea. 3. I've borrowed some money and will need to borrow some more, but at least I'll be able to pay it back in a couple months. 4. I haven't been able to find a good job in Canada (or the US) even though I've been looking for the whole time, but at least I have a job in Korea. 5. I'm 7 years from retirement age and don't have much of a retirement plan, but at least I'm told that these next years in Korea will be enough for me to retire comfortably in Asia.

What it boils down to is I have all my eggs in the Korea basket and that basket is falling apart. I've been rethreading wicker and wrapping rattan around this basket since March 17 - my original starting date, but, I think because the school is new at this, we've been doing things the least efficient, most time consuming, and most expensive way possible. What I'm doing now can easily be done while in Korea. I have rounded up all the documents needed, submitted them to the supervisor at my future workplace, and he has given them to immigration in Korea. That's what we've been stumbling and bumbling our ways through since March. But we finally got the visa issuance number! Normally with this I get a ticket to Japan (or I've done it in the Philippines and Guam before. You just need to be outside of Korea) and do a visa run. Fukuoka is the most popular spot for the visa run and we used to do it in a day. I mean get an early flight outta Korea and a late flight outta Japan, run through airports and Japanese subways and barely make all your connections, and then get up early next day and go back to work in Korea. Those days are gone. Now you MUST stay in Fukuoka or wherever for at least a night. A NIGHT!

I've had my visa issuance number already for 22 days! 22 expensive, unnecessary days. I got it May 28th. At that time I said, "Great! Now let's get me to Korea and I'll do a visa run." My supervisor replied, "That is not an option. You will need to go to a consulate in Canada and bring a whole bunch MORE forms + the visa issuance number, and they will process your work visa. I replied, "But it could take up to 2 weeks." He replied, "Sorry, no other way to do it." Because, as you might expect, there is no Korean consulate or embassy in Calgary (although I think there used to be) this required the minor added expense of a flight to Vancouver and the MASSIVE extra expense of hanging around there while the visa is processed.

Now you may be thinking, "Why didn't you go there, do all your shit, then fly back to Calgary?" Well because they give you hope that it can be done in less than 14 days. I had talked to a lady at the embassy in Ottawa who told me it would be simple for me and wouldn't take long. But as soon as I got to the consulate in Vancouver the security guard told me it takes 14 business days. I am pretty sure I have done this in Vancouver at least once and it took hardly any time at all, but I may be mistaken. Anyway, my documents weren't good enough and my pictures weren't good enough so they made me go to Staples and get everything REdone and, like everything, it cost more than I had planned. In the end AT LEAST I got the visa applied for and the expected date of completion will be July 2. My SECOND contract has a June 1st starting date. So I'll probably need a third contract now. Worse still, I am going to need to stay in Vancouver, the most expensive city in Canada to just stay in a hotel and hang around for 14 business days AND some NON-business days too. So I called my brother Andy and my nephews Tyler and Dylan. I had told them there might be a situation like this. I've been couch surfing ever since. At least I have a place to stay. At least I get to visit my family some more. Right, right. 

But there's the money factor. First there was the extra bag. The Calgary airport was on high alert probably due to the G-7 summit in mid June in Kananaskis near Calgary. They were practicing heightened security so it was a hassle and I had to pay the max - almost 100 bucks - for my extra bag. Then I got to Vancouver and immediately checked my 2 heavy bags into storage. I read online it would be 10 bucks a day for each bag and you could store them endlessly. It wasn't. Either. And they needed to know my flight date. I explained that I didn't have a ticket to Korea (still don't) but I'd get an idea tomorrow morning at my appointment with the Korean consular. The price was triple what I expected and they could only keep them one day. Then I took my backpack and tried to find a cheap place to stay. They don't exist! I ended up staying at a hostel in a 4-bed (2 bunkbed) room for $120. There was a pub attached to the Camby Hostel and it was party night so it was noisy till 3 AM. I couldn't move or I'd wake up the Swiss guy in the bunk below me. AND the room was hot. I got a couple hours of sleep maybe and left at 6 AM. I just walked around Vancouver for hours and hours then went to the consulate way too early. That's when they sent me to Staples and added sweat and expense, then finally gave me this:

You can see the July2 expected visa issue date. 

So I went back to the airport and took my bags out of storage. I asked how much it would be to keep them there till the expected visa issue date and it was $700 or thereabouts. I then thought of a good idea! Why not go to the US and get some of the stuff I have there? Bring the things I need most and box up the rest for mailing at a later date. I didn't think it made any difference which country I went to Korea from. And then I'd get to visit my favourite fam for a few days before I go. I know they wouldn't charge me rent and I wouldn't sleep in a hot room on a bunkbed. It didn't matter from whence I entered Korea. I was right about that. But I called the consulate and they told me I am not allowed to leave Canada while my visa is being processed. I feel like Columbo or the Marshall of some wild west town suspects me of wrongdoing and I've been warned not to skip town till I've been cleared. 

So I had to get my two heavy-ass bags and my backpack to the ferry and someone to pick me, and my two heavy-ass bags, and my backpack up. Brother Andy offered so I got a Lyft for 60 bucks. The ferry was 20 but they purposely run from supper time to way too late to eat supper time so they can lure you into the White Spot restaurant where nobody would voluntarily eat supper under any other circumstances. I exaggerate. It's not horrible, but it's not good. I call it the Jizz Spot. So there goes yet another hundred bucks. 

Had a nice visit with Andy and Linda for a few days. Then I went out for Father/Uncles Day at a really good restaurant where I split nachos and wings with Tyler. I spent a night with Dylan, Norman, and for a little bit Danielle who was studying for her vet license or degree or something. Norman was the dog in the house they're watching.

Here's another "at least:" and I don't want to seem ungrateful to the gods for providing this but it's only good news because of this jackpot of a job I've gotten myself into. Dylan and Danielle are housesitting... till July 2! So they said I can stay at their place and watch Crowley their cat and feed the fish and whatnot. There's a burglar in Vancouver breaking into housed even when folks are there. He might find his way out to the island. Never know... 

So... I have bought some groceries for the time I'm crashing at the Double D Hostel and Pet Retreat and am checking www.visa.go.kr every day for my visa status update. When it says I am cleared to go to Korea I will buy my ticket. I just hope I have enough money to buy my ticket then. The cheap tickets have all disappeared and I'll probably be forking over more because I just can't buy my ticket in advance. My future supervisor told me they are going to "expedite" my case and the visa should be ready by the 25th. I'm supposed to call the consulate and confirm this but there is absolutely no way I'm going to buy a ticket until my visa is 100% confirmed. 

This job is for 1 year. It will be a monumental year in my life. I will complete my master's and I will be in Korea with my master's making it easier to get one of those jobs that I've been dreaming about my whole life: a well-paying job. I might stay at this school and upgrade. They have an English Literature program I'd like to find out more about. Or I may have other offers from schools that only hire master's degree holders who are in Korea. Either way this looks like the only chance I have at making my employment, financial, and educational struggles worthwhile. Yet here I sit binge watching comedy shows on D&DTV while blissfully broke and entirely unsure of this job plan ever coming together.

I think life has humbled me to my highest point of humility monetarily speaking, just before entering the point in life where my importance rises to its highest point. Life's hilarious like that. 

If I Wasn't Flagged Before...

 I find this to be quite interesting indeed! Read it carefully. It's all the stuff the Canada Revenue Agency can do to you if you don't pay your taxes. You can take this with a grain or even a few shakes of salt upon considering the source - a former Canadian politician, but I think it's accurate. I will never forget the economics professor from, I think it was Acadia University, doing a TED talk in which he said "If you make half a million a year in Canada you don't have to pay taxes and if you make a million, you don't." Of course I don't have a link to that cuz that sort of thing gets washed off the internet all the time. Suffice to say there are some people in Canada paying NO taxes legally because they have almost nothing. This is a good thing. One good thing about my country. I FOUND IT!!! But there are lots of folks in Canada paying no taxes because they have so much money they can take advantage of loopholes strategically inserted into the stories-high tax code of Canada - a work of art so thick precisely for the purpose of facilitating such penetrable holes. 

There are people in Canada who are walking tax havens simply because of the way in which they make their money. Passively. "Work hard and pay yer taxes" has been a fate relegated to the non-elite and to be honest the not-so-smart of Canada. If I could ever find a job here in Canada that put me into that class, why, I'd be outraged at the amount of tax I pay compared to the old money in Canada who don't rely on wages or salaries but investments and personal wealth that come with far too generous tax deductions. Holes penetrable only to the rich. It's not enough to say the government and the CRA know about this and don't give a flying fuck because they have actively contributed to this draconian system of taxation. 

You may think me delusional but I believe the very reason I have been withheld from financial success in and by my own country has a lot to do with my intelligence. I think there are other poor people like me in Canada who would be rattling cages and shaking things up here if they belonged to what we call the working class of our country. That's why we either end up in the upper class or the lower class. I think those of us, and our numbers are few, who would demand revolution even if we were in the UPPER class are systematically relegated to poverty or possibly pushed out of the country so our influence remains minimal. All I can do is write and who has time to read when they're working their arse off and carrying the country's tax burden? 

I probably AM a bit delusional but not entirely. Being passed over by jobs for which I'm massively overqualified; not being able to access websites on my computer while everyone else's computer has no problem with them - this includes numerous government websites some of which booted me out and wouldn't let me back in WHILE I WAS REGISTERING; being sabotaged by coworkers; having my credit rating mysteriously tanked by huge corporations (Telus) who harass me for money I don't owe yet don't allow me to pay it back; having my credit further subverted by a huge corporation (Koodo/Telus) that sold me a product that did not work and expected payment while I was trying unsuccessfully to tell them it didn't work and to shut if off; having every bank account hacked and stolen from; having all my bank cards hacked and stolen from; and being audited by the CRA, having money that I had earned withheld by the taxman and not returned even after I had done everything that was required to get that money UNwithheld. 

I believe at least some of this has happened to me because of what I write about Canada. The truth. The rich people don't want to give up their taxless existences and if loudmouths like me are heard, the masses could revolt. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "The world is his who can see through its pretention. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold is there only by sufferance - by YOUR sufferance. See it to be a lie and you have already dealt it its mortal blow." Fair enough, Canadian taxes are an example of one of these overgrown errors and I see them for what they are: a huge lie. They are a custom we stone-blindly follow. And the phrases like "If you don't pay taxes, you aren't a good Canadian," comprise their cultural deafness. If I had to pay a lot of them I wouldn't suffer them, I'd protest. Luckily (or is it by design) I can't find work anywhere but overseas and therefore don't pay a lot in taxes. Taxes are no more than a pretention here in Canada. I know that. I don't feel like any of this makes the world mine, however. Maybe only the HONEST world and there ain't much of that left. 

But I'm not even writing today about how taxes in this country have ballooned into the massive monster of inconsistency and favouritism that they have... I've written at length about that here. (whisper: That's why I can't live in Canada) I'm here to talk about the swollen powers of the CRA and how their taxation without representation needs to be exposed. (Whispered: After this they might not let me back into this country even for a visit)

Allow me to draw your attention to that first article I linked. 10% of Canadians have 60% of the wealth. As shocking as that may be, take it from a guy who has tried to find accurate statistics on anything that might reflect badly on Canada, if that was up-to-date and if we had any honest stat sources in Canada I'm betting it would be closer to 1% having 60% of the wealth. It could even be worse. Be that as it may or may not, I think we can agree that it IS getting worse and the cavalier acceptance of that fact is, in my personal opinion, downright unCanadian. But on we mechanically wander...

I need to explain that. What I see, and again I'm not alone here, as part of the problem is our limited view of the scientific world as a well-behaved, objective, empirically sensible force that is more mechanical than wondrously abstract and undefined. It makes us feel arrogant comfort to view the world in this way but this is just another of the pretentions that cause problems. Part of this well-accepted vanity is the concept of humanity being composed of material stuff and working in mechanistic ways. If this were true, we could take a person apart and put them back together like a car or a watch. We can put the parts, the "stuff" back together if we are skilled surgeons, but there's one key force, power, entity that makes humans different from machines and surgery is almost entirely ignorant of it. For such a long time science has just ignored that part and tried to work around it. This is what has led to our view of human individuality and competitiveness that is absolutely a stone-blind, stone-deaf, overgrown error. We are taught that the only way to be significant is at other's expense and this is a pretention that has turned a whole world of humanity into a robotic, mechanistic nightmare in which we see 1% of people with the majority of the earth's assets as somehow acceptable, even normal. I'm sorry but I've always thought of Canada as being more human than that, hence my description of this thinking as absolutely unCanadian. I still hope I'm right...

I hate to flog a dead horse but the longer I stay here in Canada, the longer I feel the palpable... I don't want to dismissively (and maybe arrogantly) call it stupidity because I constantly see smart people contributing to a society that they are consciously aware is relentlessly slipping further and further from that which they desire to live in, but it's a general malaise of apathetic surrender, helplessness, and frustration that only the intellectually defeated would abide. Or "suffer." I've said it before, Canada is that elephant being held where it's at by a tiny peg pounded into the ground. We have the power to stop the government, the banks, the rich, and the CRA from hosing us by hosing them back! But it seems we are no longer the country of hosers we are reputed to be, Bob and Doug notwithstanding.

When was the Boston Tea Party? The 1700's? Yes it was. 1773 actually and according to this, it wasn't just tea taxed, it was glass, paint, oil, lead, paper, and tea. The Townshend Revenue Act was passed to get the East India Company back in the black and the hosers of the US said yeah, no! Lo and behold, their government listened! Governments listen to hosers, also, their tax code wasn't a mile high and full of crafty loopholes to benefit the rich either. No, this was not Canada, but we were closer to the States in those days. We were almost all British defectors and depended on each other to fight the power. The government dropped the taxes on everything but the tea! Hooray for the good guys! But can you guess what that tax was? THREE pence per pound! Even THIS was agreed to be outrageous and the colonists who still had spines and still recognized the power of protest launched the Boston Tea Party. For THREE PENNIES! We've been bent over so long by our governments we wouldn't even notice three pennies.

I was offered a job at a school here in Calgary. As you can tell from my previous post I've been enjoying spending time with family since I've been back in Canada. I thought if I could find even a half-way decent job here I'd stay a bit longer. The offer was for guaranteed full-time hours, at least 24 a week with 12 extra per week whenever I wanted. $30/hr. So for my 24 hours a week I'd get 2880 a month. I plugged that into the tax calculator and immediately 30% was taken off the top! That's VASTLY more than a few pennies! And Alberta is the best province to avoid taxes! CPP $148, EI $46, Federal tax $387, Provincial tax $269. So my take-home pay was now $2031. I will need to pay a thousand at least for a decent apartment so now I have a grand left for food and such. So much for ever getting a car, insurance, and a license. Basically,

I could make a long list of other expenses AND don't forget once a year paying my taxes on TOP of all the other taxes I would pay throughout the year. It's far beyond a 3-penny tea tax and we drink coffee in Canada anyway. But what do we do about it? This sign is great but it's no Boston Tea Party and obviously we have gotten used to a LOT more abuse from our government since the 1700's. 

So what if we don't pay these taxes on the grounds that they are contributing to the dehumanization of Canada? We can be charged interest. It can be taken from your GST/HST rebates. Ever wonder why they don't just NOT charge those taxes instead of withholding the money from us then refunding it? Partially so they can use it to collect money you rightfully refuse to pay, but also to make us think (another pretention) that this is a nice bonus from our government. YAY!

Then there's the "jeopardy order." This is a legal document that allows the CRA to take immediate legal action to collect the debt. Needless to say, if this happens it adversely affects your criminal record and your credit rating. This could start the cycle of unemployment I seem to be in right now. Employers check these things before they contact you for interviews and whether you are right or not, they assume your bad credit and criminal record render you unemployable.

That's not all! The government may garnishee your wages or money. That's right, they can dip into your bank account - legally - and take what they reckon you owe them. 

They can collect from other people! That's right, the government of Canada can actually make some other person responsible for the debt you owe them! Imaging being THAT person.

Finally, (but there are probably other things they can do that I don't know enough about to print at this time) the government of Canada can put a lien on or even seize any of your assets. 

Here's the audit letter I received almost exactly a year ago:

"My Account" is one of many government websites and online services that has been disabled for me. I texted the documents they requested and emailed them to the person I reached at the number provided and was told that even though they were received, it was against policy to send them in that manner. I had to go to Staples and FAX the info they required of me. So I did. Well within the time limitation I was given. I guess they weren't expecting that so they tried several things: first they sent me a letter BEFORE THE DEADLINE stating that I had not submitted the documents by the deadline. Then I sent copies of the faxes and the receipt from Staples showing the number and that the fax had been received by that number long before the deadline. I guess they weren't expecting THAT either. People in Canada generally show more, what's that word again?, SUFFERANCE of the government's pretention and lying. I called their bluff. (In a whisper: ...which is why I can't live or work in Canada).

So they finally dropped the pretense and admitted that they had received the papers. They said I now qualified for the GST/HST and other taxes they had no right to threaten to stop withholding then reimbursing in the first place. And the retroactively withheld funds? I calculate about $3500 worth of them. They were not mentioned. I have contacted many people in many ways and have yet to receive an answer as to what has become of these funds. I will never get them back and I am being compelled to suffer this theft. 

Non-payment of taxes is considered theft and we know what the government can do to a citizen of Canada for this crime, but what can a Canadian citizen do if the government steals from him/her? Can we charge interest? Can we withhold future payment of taxes? Can we obtain a jeopardy order? The government has no credit rating, criminal record, or wages - per se - so we can't garnishee or affect those in any way. Can we hold another government responsible? "HEY US, Canada owes me money. They're your ally and neighbour, pay up!" Reckon that'd work? Can we put a lien on government assets or seize them? Or can we dip into the government of Canada's bank account? No, no, a thousand times no.

This is pure pretention, lies, corruption, and its practiced as stone-blind, stone-deaf custom by us Canadians. The government has all the power and we have none. It is only thus because we suffer it to be precisely so. Exposing this deceit is only the first step. Hopefully I'll be alive to see the day when we change this. Despite the modicum of hope I maintain, I don't feel a whole lot of Emerson's sentiment that the world is now mine and I have dealt any mortal blows here. But you never know...

I Can't Feel The Real

*** I'd better post a warning before this poem. It's not me. It's not me or I wouldn't be looking for a place to rent in Calgary so I can stay here and visit with family and friends some more. But this is what I see and what I fear as the result of the phoniness I've been on a posting crusade against. It's called I Can't Feel The Real. I reckon Johnny Cash could write a good song for these lyrics eh?

I can't feel the real. I need somehow to heal.

Family and all my friends

lose the hurt after it offends

but I have to conceal

that I can't feel the real.

 

They say that time can heal. That blood and love are real.

I used to share the joy and care

for brothers and sisters everywhere

but now put on the zeal

cuz I can't feel the real.

 

I have a hole in me that I can't let you see.

That which once was beautiful

is now becoming dutiful 

and even worse professional.

I wear a mask of steel

cuz I can't feel the real.

 

Lord disinfect my head or at least strike me dead

when I bypass the sanctity

of children playing happily,

of innocence and honesty.

I cling to the surreal

when I can't feel the real.

I have one thing to give, one reason left to live.

I will not share its counterfeit

of which there is a vast surfeit

I’d rather cease, surrender, quit

than lie and cheat and steal

cuz I can’t feel the real.

Update and Photo Dump

 Haven't posted in a while. Things have been pretty busy. Let's see... we got Mom moved to Alberta. Mark and Sherrilyn came with their truck and trailer and we loaded it to the nuts with Mom's stuff. Here's the load:

We had a riding mower, snowblower, two easy chairs, a freezer, trunks, boxes, bags, I mean this thing was chock o' block full. Then her bed and a giant mirror went in the box of the pick-up. I added my two bags and backpack and off we went April 18th. This April flower pic was 4 days earlier on my birthday.

Didn't do much for my birthday. Mom had a farewell brunch with the gals from her church. She got me a carrot cake. I was just excited to get the move over. I had spent a lot of time in Mom's place, mostly in the basement, and it wasn't action central there let me tell you.

This is a pic of what I did most of the time. My computer was used trying to sell Mom's stuff and/or find employment and for watching TV shows that weren't on Mom's cable. And the TV I used for watching hockey. I didn't manage to sell Mom's stuff or get employment so I mostly wasted time in the basement. I couldn't get wifi and my data tethering hotspot wasn't good enough to do my studying. To be fair, the course was pretty badly done so I probably wouldn't have studied anyway. 

We didn't get far before we decided to stop for a pee and a look around. We had left Montrose and travelled East toward Creston. I think the route is called the Salmo-Creston pass. I could be wrong. I'd never seen the cabin at the summit before. There was STILL a lotta snow up there! But it was warm and sunny. PERFECT conditions for avalanches! Hence, the sign below. This was taken inside the cabin. 

There's also a stove in the cabin in case some folks are trying to drive over the pass and the gates get closed for some reason. Probably avalanches or just a big snow fall. Then you have to drive back to the cabin and start a fire in the stove. There's usually wood piled in there for that purpose. The roads might take days to clear so it's a good idea to bring some food too. Maybe a sleeping bag or two.

Luckily we didn't get stuck at the summit. In fact it was a fun little stop. The lake near the cabin was frozen over and covered with snow and there were blue jays flying around and landing in the trees. We walked up to the cabin on snow that was probably way over our heads if we sunk down to the ground. But even without snowshoes we didn't. You can get a good idea of how much snow falls up there by the depth of the snow on the cabin roof.

Below is the wood stove. No wood but in a pinch a good BC traveler would have a chainsaw and be able to cut down some trees and burn 'em up. I bet the cabin would be right cozy with a roaring fire going. And if you're lucky you could catch something to fry up on top. Fish or squirrel or such. Boy howdy that's some good eatin'! 

So we got some fresh air and Mom went to the outhouses that are there. Lots of people were stopped to stretch legs. Even a few dogs. I had driven over this pass at least 20 times before and never stopped at this cabin that I could remember. It's crazy how easily you can miss some really cool things if you don't take the time to get out and smell the roses. Or the pine trees as it were. 

So we piled back into the truck and kept going. But it wasn't much longer before we got to Creston and yet ANOTHER of the best things in life I missed out on the whole time I had lived in the Kootenays during my childhood. Tim's Fish 'n Chips in Creston. Do yourself a favour... It's a small place but the food is plentiful and it'll stick to yer ribs! And if I do say so myself it is DEE licious! Since we were able to get gravy I think this might have been the best fish 'n chips I ever had in my entire life. 

That's Sherrilyn and Mark. They shared a three-piece fish 'n chips. Mom had the chicken. The two-piece meal with the gravy beside it is mine. MMM-MMM good! I even liked the coleslaw. You can just barely see Mom's onion rings on the right side of the pic. She agreed to pay for the meal although I think she thought it was a bit pricey. I thought it was a pretty good deal given the huge portions. Word to the wise, if you aren't hungry, don't go to Tim's Fish 'n Chips. 

Just look how happy Mom and I look! It was that magnificent meal. I think we were all so satiated we were ready for naps. Mark and SL look a bit happier than me and Mom. Probably cuz they had a little break from the chaos that is home life with their family. You will see them later in this post but I'll tell you their names now just so I can type to the bottom of the last picture... Natalia is the oldest, then Hazel, then Hugo, Elanor, Gwinnie, and E/B. Ernie/Bronson. I usually call him Ernie but he responds to either. There are two other kids both older than Natalia, Hayden and Lexy, who are not currently living in the house. 

So, we got to Mark and SL's place, parked the stuff in the driveway, unloaded Mom's bed, set it up, and crashed. We all stayed there for a while. Can you imagine that? It was chaotic but I kinda liked it. It was nice to get to know my nephews and nieces a little bit better. And it was nice to play cards after they all went to bed too! We even taught a couple of the kids to play Euchre, an Ontario game that nobody plays out west here. During the days we played lots of games with the kids and went out to the ball park to play Cherry or 500-up, or we just played it in the back yard dog trail. 

This was a hike to some caves we took in late April. There was still snow and those waters had fish in them. That's Sherrilyn with Ernie on her back, Mark in the red, Hugo in his soccer clothes (we all went to soccer/walking after), that's Elanor at the water, G-dawg (Gwinnie) in the green, and Hazel in the turquoise out front. I think Natalia was studying at home.

This was Big Hill Springs park. A light hike in early May. Mark was taking the easy way across the crick. 

This is in M &SL's front yard just before doing Hazel's flyer route. The flyers are in the buggy. I think we broke the speed record that day. Doesn't it look like a Sears Catalog pose? 

This was taken at Fish Creek Park. That's not too far from M &SL's house. Gwinnie and one of the Shaw kids (maybe Ivy) on the back of the log, Hazel doing her gymnastic balancing and Elanor running back to the spot where we were chucking rocks into the water to splash each other. By this time SL and Ernie had gone home. Natalia was there just not in the pic. Some Karen came by walking her GREYHOUND don't you know and chastened me by saying, "How did you break your leg while hiking with grampa?" "Screw you lady, I'm just their uncle and if more Canadian kids had so much outside time and so little screen time they might be as good at climbing and balancing as these kids are. But you be satisfied with Jr's participation trophy while these girls are winning the sports," is what I DIDN'T say. 

Elanor's 8th birthday cupcakes with candy floss. Or do you call it cotton candy? Shows how old I am...

I buried Ernie in the playground gravel. We were using our hats as bulldozers too filling them up and pouring them out. He loves vrooms!

G-dog asked me if she could borrow my jacket cuz it was cold in the Superstore. Didn't fit too great. 

Some avuncular lasagna made from the stuff we bought at the Superstore. 

Hazel doing the ninja stuff again. She's really good at gymnastics. She can do flip after flip after flip on the trampoline. 

Hazel jumping the crick to join Natalia. I like the shadow. 

This is my almost useless hand when Mark, Sherrilyn and I were up late playing 9-5-2. I didn't even get a trick with the King if I remember right. 

More log walking. This is with Grampa George too. He came out from Ontario to help with Elanor's baptism. I actually went to church a few times. Once for Easter, once for the baptism, once to game night, and once to do some cleaning.

This is Hugo and Bronson at church one of those times. 

THERE'S Grampa George. He's a whiz at Euchre! Hugo is not quite as impressive as Hazel at working those posts. He got right in the water. Him and Dad both.

By the end of the hike even Ernie got to play in the water. It was a fun day except for the mosquitos. There weren't many but I managed to kill 6 of 'em. Nobody else was bothered much. They love to feast on my blood no matter what country I'm in.

So after the hike we decided to go out for ice cream. It was a real treat!

MacKay's in Cochrine, Alberta. Again, do yourself a favour...

It was a hard choice but I had the Haskap Berry Cheesecake. I'm happy with that choice. Haskap berries taste like a cross between blueberries and raspberries.

Then it was time to move Mom. We didn't stay long at Mark and Sherrilyn's. Mom didn't stay much more than a week I think. Luckily she got into a good place and we were able to move her almost right away. We didn't have to unload any of Mom's stuff. It just sat covered up in M & SL's driveway while we were there. Then on moving day Rob and Terri joined us and Kiera stayed overnight to help too.

Here's Rob looking like most of us felt. Where are we going to put all this stuff?

This is Kiera loading stuff into one of Mom's closets. It was nice of her to help Gramma move. 

And that about covers it. I'm now at Rob's. I sent my final document to Korea today.

If this is sufficient for immigration, my next step is to buy a ticket to Korea and get on over there. I teach my first class on June 2nd I think and I will be starting my final class of my master's degree just over a week later. By August I should be a certified, papered up Master of Education. THEN I'll be dangerous! I haven't yet figured out the financing but I'm working on it. I'm sure you'll read about that later...

Plausible Deniability

 So we have spent another half-billion taxpayers' dollars on another in a long series of public performances we euphemistically call elections here in Canada and what did we get? A banker. Number 5 on a Yahoo list of least respected occupations in Canada: banker. But I don't need Yahoo to tell me, I KNOW we don't trust bankers. Why would ANYBODY after what we learned in 2008? There are movies about it! Bankers are scum! They CHEAT people. Every one of them should be approached with the lack of eye contact and primal fear with which you'd slink up to THIS guy:

What is this guy? He's a carney. What is THIS guy?

He too my friends is a Carney. Of course you know I'm not talking about the OTHER figure in the picture who should never under any circumstances be sidled up to EVER... I'm talking about the person receiving the gift from the Orange Menace to the south. What IS that gift? Why, it's the Canadian federal election, that's what it is. I've explained it in the blog before but for those of you who don't trust my predictions even though they have proven to be right, here's another article you can read about how fighting the tariffs and takeover threats to the south has transformed another election loser into PM in a very short time. See the third guy thinking, "Did I leave the iron on?" That's Pierre Poilievre. He's the Conservative candidate who had this election in the bag before the "Canada Strong" defense against Trump narrative was manufactured. He (and of course Canada) is the loser in yesterday's election. 

Are Canadians so easily fooled? Well, if, like the household in which I currently am staying, you have any misplaced faith in Canadian elections, then even YOU have to admit they are no indication at all of what the country thinks. First of all about 73% of the seats are in two provinces: Ontario and Quebec. So election results tend to reflect how THEY voted - nothing more. But to even believe election results reflect how the people of our two dominant provinces THINK is wishful thinking at best, brainwashing at worst. Elections aren't real folks and as with most things (because there is a magnifying glass on everything they do) Americans give us the best examples of this. Watch the documentary called 537 Votes about the 2000 "vote" in America. Gore won, Bush lost but for 4 years the whole country acted like their democracy wasn't completely eviscerated. 

We already have an election vote collector from an important Ontario riding called Durham reporting that he saw CTV televising a Liberal victory in that riding before he or any of the other official election workers had even submitted their votes for counting. Is this dude lying? Probably not. Should we be surprised? Probably not. But like those who believed in Gore 25 years ago, people who believe this dude more than the election results will eventually be spun into lunatics and conspiracy theorists. 

Add to the inexplicably unrepresentative set-up and the ease with which our voting system can be manipulated, the most consistent result of Canadian elections - the fact that what voters want is never what the candidates offer and even if it appears as a small part of their platform, it is almost always what they do NOT get accomplished after being elected... you really should be able to see this ritual for what it is. Yet over 67% of registered voters voted according to this report. Mind boggling! 

If I believed everything I read in the media I'd consider the people of my country a bunch of Pavlovian suckers. But I don't. I know a lot of people who, like me, don't vote and someday we may even be able to feel proud that we are not contributing to the downfall of our own country like the reported 67% of us are. For years I have maintained plausible deniability and peace of mind that I have contributed in no way to the fraud that is our election ritual here. Maybe someday a majority will see it my way (if we already don't). Maybe someday we'll have democratic elections in Canada or even (GASP) candidates worth voting for. And as me and old Plato believe, only those who do not seek power are worthy to wield it. It was one of the many cool themes in the movie "Conclave." <<< which didn't win the Oscar by the way even though it was psychically topical. 

I remain unconvinced that the person we have elected is not one of the insanely dangerous men who wanted the papacy... er I mean position of PM. I guess time will tell...

Scamada

 As you may be able to surmise from the title, this is going to be a post about something that has filled me with sadness since returning to my once beloved home and native land, the veritable plague of corruption, cheating, and outright scamming that has replaced a business culture that I remember being more honest. Oh sure, there has always been all of the above but, correct me if you disagree, they are now the norm and they weren't before. There was a time in Canada when business could be done on a handshake. Now you are a fool to leave yourself so exposed. Trusting people is just opening yourself to a thorough butt pounding. Employers take full advantage of such "weakness" with no governmental or legal reprisals, giving them the conscience-saving feeling of teaching the employee a lesson by just doing what someone else would have done if they had not. I used to attribute this more to Asia but now here in Canada employers are legally screwing employees with no regulation and no loss of sleep. Canada has transformed into Scamada.

I won't rehash my stories about Canada's cable companies. The most expensive and the worst internet in the world I think, not to mention the scammy phone plans and service. My most recent is Chatr which has been very good. Month-to-month so the long term contracts that are easy to get but impossible to cancel don't exist. That's good. But for two months the internet speed I get on my hotspot when I have no wifi like here at Mom's place has gone from the promised 4G to 1980's pixel-by-pixel page building speeds. We're talking NEGATIVE 4G. That's bad. But that's not the scam of the hour.

I'm not going to talk about every phone call I get from telemarketers in either Manila or somewhere in India that Chatr gave me as part of my phone package either. I'm also not going to talk about every Canadian government agency and the website/phone labyrinths they have set up to take you VERY slowly but surely to dead ends. I have talked with representatives from every sector of the CRA, (Canada Revenue Agency) some of them not even Indian or Philipino, who have all either referred me to another department or told me they don't know why over three thousand dollars of my income tax returns for the last 9 years I was overseas has been and is still being withheld. The government of Scamada effectively STOLE over three grand from me! Not the first time either. But that's not what I want to talk about either. 

Just bear in mind the line from the first paragraph as you read today: Trusting people (in Scamada) is just opening yourself to a thorough butt pounding.

Okay, bearing that in mind, the scam I want to outline today is ongoing. We may (or may not) hear about it sometime in May I reckon. To be honest I don't know exactly how it will go yet either. What I know is I fell for it for about a week. I thought I had finally found a good job here in Canada that would pay for my transition to Korea. I still need to pay for an apostilled criminal record check, ($300) a plane ticket, ($600-$1200) and expenses during my first month in Korea (June, about $1000). I was contacted by the PISA test administrators in Canada. That stands for Program for International Student Assessment. It's something that I have blogged and written papers about and I hate. They are standardized tests which I believe I have mentioned in this blog as the worst thing to happen to education in the past 100 years or something to that effect. So right off the hop let's establish that I don't like these things. They put massive undue pressure on 14 and 15-year-olds around the world to basically prove their countries' intelligence. Schools are closed, people lose jobs, children are shamed, a LOT of suicides have been attributed to these cursed things! 

However... I am in a financial pinch here and I got a call Thursday April 10th from a 1 800 number so I can't call back (red flag number 1) and talked to an Indian gal (sorry but red flag number 2) named Rupaul. She told me that she had found my resume on Indeed (red flag number 3???) and was impressed. She felt I'd be a good candidate to not only be a PISA test administrator but a PRIMARY T/A. She told me that for every test I administered I would receive $250 plus a $40 per diem plus 50 cents per kilometer if it was at a school more than a certain distance away. But as a primary T/A I would also do pre-assessment interviews with the contacts of the schools, usually the principals, and for those I would receive $125 plus the $40 per diem plus kilometers. I would have to do some training which included online study of the T/A manual and participation in a couple of webinars. But that should only take a couple of days and I would be paid $250 per day so $500. She even mentioned that rides and hotels would be covered upon request when necessary.

Needless to say I was interested! I kept saying I didn't want to count my chickens or get my hopes up, but I did. I always do. I'm SO stupid! This sounded too good to be true so for the next few days I kept my eyes open for the catch. There HAD to be one, right?

Over the next few days I completed the onboarding, sent some reference contact information (and they DID call one of them), did an online criminal record check, sent them the one I had recently done myself, and made it to stage 4 successfully. This is the stage where they give you all the training manuals and tests and scripts and papers you will need for the job. This was also the stage where you receive a contract. I got the email yesterday (my birthday, April 14th) and started studying. They said that even if you haven't received the contract to go ahead and start reading the T/A manual and do the testing and the live webinars. Unfortunately there was a webinar today at 9 AM but I couldn't attend it because you are required to use as your ID the name with which you signed your contract plus your PISA T/A I.D. number. Mine is 5746. (Red flag number 4? I see this as a childish attempt to make something unofficial seem official. Like a treehouse password to keep icky girls out)

So I started studying. The first thing that needed to be done was the initial contact with the schools. This needed to be done on or after the first day of PISA procedures April 22nd. During the call you were to set up pre-assessment meetings. Let's say I was able to set up appointments and go to the schools for the pre-assessment visits when we make appointments and arrangements for the actual assessments in about 5 business days. Schools aren't open on weekends and I don't know how many schools I would be assigned, but I'm guessing about half a dozen. It'll take some quick organizing and some double booking but I think it could be done in 5 days which is 5 business days which is really a little over a week. Allowing a day or two for scheduling eventualities, we're finished with April. 

*** Actual assessments need to be scheduled a minimum of two weeks AFTER the pre-assessment visits. I am not sure whether this means two BUSINESS weeks for just two weeks but now we're doing assessments in the latter part of week two and week three of May. 

I read on. There will be some occasions in which the school requires regular assessments AND "UH" assessments. These are "une heure" assessments for SPED kids which are shorter than the regular 2-hour exams, one hour or une heure. So a good scheduler is going to need to space these tests at least two days apart. Further apart allowing for eventualities like flat tires, sickness, who knows what? Suffice to say there's gonna be a crunch. 

I read on. I found the whole process description to be almost unreadable due to its pedantic, detail-oriented nature, I can only imagine how harsh the actual procedure would be. Filling out STF's Student Tracking Forms with all the detailed codes in all the correct boxes. For example O for absent. Oa for temporary remote learner. 1 present. 1a computer problem. 1b hardware problem (I don't see how this is different from 1a so it could easily cause discrepancy... red flag 5). 1c internet issue. 1d absent >10 min. 1e might have skipped several questions. 2 parental refusal. 3. lack of accommodation for SEN (special educational needs. 4. changed school. 5. enrollment unknown. 6. permanently online studies. 

We need to go over all of these we can verify with the principal or contact in the pre-assessment visit and compare with any other T/A to be sure they are all identical. THEN we need to take attendance before the first part of the test, the second part, and before the questionnaire part. This is excluding the pure unadulterated tedium of inputting all this info on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and submitting them to CMEC the Council of Ministers of Education Canada. There they are scrupulously pored over and who knows how long this could take? I'm only boring you with part of the procedure so that you will know that with the time crunch, with the superfluity of data that needs to be recorded by multiple people, there are bound to be discrepancies. Only an idiot would expect all of this (plus the stuff I haven't told you about) to go off without a hitch. That's why red flag number 6 is important. "If there are any discrepancies, CMEC will not be able to remunerate the test administrators." 

However, I am used to exacting expectations from uploading grades in Korea to crappy university portals using antiquated hardware and software. I still figured I'd be able to pull this off. Then I read red flag number 7. No pay will be received by the T/A until the completion of his/her first assessment, the submission of all the forms, and the receipt, verification, and approval of said forms by CMEC. How long that will take... well there's no tellin'. 

I need the money for my job in Korea that starts June 1 but with all the submission, re-submission, editing, double, triple, quadruple-checking that is GOING to be necessary, it could be July before I see a dollar from these scamsters! To make things even more stressful (red flag #8) there will be make-up assessments if there is deemed to have been less than 85% participation during the original assessment. I think there can actually be TWO make-up assessments (I'm assuming with different test questions) but there will not be a third. This means, again I'm assuming, there will be no payment for the T/A. It's possible that THREE assessments could be done FOR FREE!

Think back to the phrase I told you to bear in mind. Trusting people in Scamada is just opening yourself up to a butt pounding. We've now established that I wouldn't be receiving any money for all the work I'd be doing until at least the third week of May. Allowing for discrepancies, make-up assessments, eventualities, scheduling mix-ups, (and you'd be an idiot NOT to allow for these things) AND assuming CMEC will take the requisite governmental time, whatever that is up to now, AND considering the sheer volume of PISA documents they'll have to process from every province in the country AND taking into account the time it takes to get bank account numbers, set up direct deposit, submit tax forms and other information to the employer, NObody's getting paid till June by these scammers. BUT how much money will the T/A's spend traveling all over the country staying in hotels, HOPING, or maybe I should say TRUSTING that CMEC will pay them what they say they're going to be paid?

This was enough to change my excitement to the familiar depths of Scamada job market despair, but wait, there's more! There always seems to be, doesn't there?

I got the contract. WHILE typing this! Oh it's a beauty! The very first thing it says is that my contract is NOT with the council of ministers of education of Canada but the CORPORATION of the council of ministers of education of Canada. CMEC is not a government ministry as the title obviously wants people to assume, it's a corporation. Not only is it a corporation, it's a fucking LOBBY! Their job is to get money from the government. That's it. And I've said it before many times, the government has no money. This is taxpayer money. They work in cahoots with Stats Canada who have lost all credibility with me. Just check their laughable statistics on immigration and you'll know what I mean. Red flag number... what are we at now 9? 10?

I read on. As a private contractor you are not an employee of the corporation and are therefore not covered by the Employment Standards Act, Workplace Safety Act, Canada Labour Code or other such laws. So I guess if I have a car accident while driving to an assessment I'm on my own. There are minimum standards that employers are NOT allowed to contract out of in Canada but maybe for private contractors it's different? I dunno. Too scummy for me at any rate. Red flag number 11.

I have to agree to indemnify the corporation against any claims by CRA or any other agency or entity with respect to withholdings they make of any kind. So if they can't find a discrepancy, they can make one up and not pay me for an assessment or WITHHOLD my pay and I have agreed to that by signing the contract. Red flag number 12.

30 days notice required to quit a 40-day contract. They are required to give only 14 days notice to fire you. They have 100% assignment rights, I have 0%. Intellectual property waiver so I can't write anything like this after signing the contract. And there is the expected secrecy promise. This requires a new paragraph at least.

As calculated, if I or any other T/A make a visit to a school on the second day of work, April 23rd and set up an assessment exactly 2 weeks from then, which would be the earliest possible date, May 7th could be an assessment date. This is unlikely, but during the second week of May I expect some kid to bring a phone into the test, take some pics of the questions and upload them for all of Canada to see. We are instructed to take precautions against this but nowadays... good luck. I would suggest metal detectors or even just stickers over the camera lenses of students' phones. But some clever kid will find or MAKE a combo calculator/cam, body cam, pen cam, whatever. What are we gonna do then? Will these tests all be disqualified? Certainly then nobody will get paid!

I'd have to be absolutely hurtin' for a butt pounding to accept this job, wouldn't I? Especially since I'll need a driver and no WAY will I find one who will wait till June to get paid! So I'll be going hundreds of dollars into the hole AND extending an idiotic amount of trust to a frigging corporation of lobbyists if I accept this job. 

But they almost hooked me! Fucking Scamada! It's hard NOT to get hooked. This is a pattern I've seen that has transformed Canada into Scamada: You get lobbyists to schmooze money out of the government however they do it. Probably I don't WANT to know how they do it. But that's their job. They don't teach English or administer PISA tests. They need to subcontract. Who gets the contract? The lowest bidder. Who is the lowest bidder? The entity that can figure out how to set something up to fracture a few Canadian laws, sidestep a few of our business ethics, and cleverly cheat desperate workers into accepting jobs that will never be full time (and have benefits) or jobs that have built-in pitfalls like this one where you KNOW you will be doing some work for free. These are the ethics that never used to be part of Canadian business and I think if we're honest with ourselves, we know where they come from. We've adopted business practices that overpopulated countries with insane levels of dog-eat-dog, do-or-die competition have developed. We're not big enough to need these practices and we need to smarten up and stop using them. Turn Scamada back into Canada.

Anyway, watch the news for stories of T/A's who weren't so lucky. Mid to late May this year I'd expect. 

So now it's off to Calgary to cut lawns or walk the streets for money till June. You want big bear? I love you long time!

Wish me luck...

History Repeating

 By way of reinforcement and update of my previous post called, "What Does A Carney Do?", check out this article of how invested Trump, and by extension the USA, now are in the digital currency scam. The article tells us that economist Paul Krugman says that the digital currency market value rests on "nothing but technobabble and libertarian derp." Does that make you feel secure? Not me. 

Now, if you haven't exceeded your free article limit at Forbes this month, go ahead and read our current PM's views on digital currency and if he gets elected (which it looks like he will) how invested CANADA will soon be in it. 

Cryptocurrency, which Trump likes, and CBDC, which Carney likes, are the same but slightly different. I doubt it would take much convincing to get Trump on board with a central bank backed digital currency once Carney explains that it could make him infinitely richer and more powerful than the crypto currency backed by technobabble and derp that he is investing in now. And as I said in my former post, this is what I'd expect from 4 years of these two crooks in charge of our countries. Carney will likely get elected based largely on his fake anti-Trump stance but we are already seeing signs of THAT facade breaking down. Maybe this was part of their "constructive, productive" conversation and part of their future "comprehensive negotiations." I doubt it will be long before they're smoking cigars, drinking snifters of port, and screwing our taxpayers together.

*** I have to sneak this in here before posting: This I am writing about a week after writing the above and imagining that Carney and Trump now ARE smoking those cigars and sipping that port. All the while people like the Blundell twerp I referenced before are PRAISING Carney for pulling off some ingenious money moving that actually hurt Trump. The explanation you will probably have seen posted by some anti-Conservative friends on Facebook by now is straight out of the past. The past when money was backed by concrete items like gold or government bonds. Nowadays, as explained in previous posts, banks just print money or pull it out of the air or some other fundamental orifice. Essentially the explanation is that Carney bought up US Treasury bonds while Trump was crashing the economy. He also told the leaders (central bankers) of other cuntries to do the same. I doubt it was only bonds they bought, they could have been investing in almost anything since everything was diving in price as the stock markets plummeted. The idea that Blundell and others are trying to push (and they know is bullshit) is that selling them off en masse would hurt Trump and the US so he'd better smarten up and by golly he did! What a bunch of heroes! 

Here's what probably REALLY happened: That little meeting between Trump and Carney was an agreement that included Trump blustering about Tariffs all over the place and causing the stock market crash (which even I had predicted). What I hadn't predicted was that it would be just a taste of things to come. It was an illustration of how easily they could make piles and piles of dough for the rich people in their countries and others. It was probably arranged that Trump would postpone or cancel the tariffs causing a stock market recovery and allowing the governments to sell what they had bought cheaply for tremendous gain. He would announce the time to buy the cheap stocks somehow... maybe a social media post like "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" This is just classic stock market manipulation and it's yet another crime the convict in chief has committed and will get away with. Do I even need to type that exactly NONE of these massive gains would be distributed to any citizens but the already filthy rich? 

Trump and Carney both probably made themselves tidy little sums - something Trump's not good at doing. This undoubtedly cemented the love between the central banks of these countries and Trump rather than hurting him. The tariffs are still only on hold and this pattern could repeat itself to a much greater extent when the tariffs are back on the table. It also will be related to Trump that this is peanuts compared to what they could do with CBDC. But they needed his trust before making that jump. They probably have it now cuz what does Trump trust more than piles of money? And the most delicious part of it all is that Carney will get elected by accusing Trump of market manipulation among other things in his posturing against him. Like Trump conjured this up on his own!

And in case you are now saying, "Yeah but Dave, it DID hurt Trump. How's he going to recover the losses?" Easy. Same way any financial crash is "recovered from" nowadays. Print more money that is backed by nothing causing the NON - filthy rich to pay for it all. This is just recent history repeating itself. 

The current political shenanigans bring a song to my head. I hear Shirley Bassey saying it's all just a little bit of history repeating. 

There are a lot of people dancing right now, but do we know who's singing? Let's go back... waaay back to 1890. This is when Trump's hero President William McKinley was doing something remarkably similar to what is happening now. How similar you ask? I'll tell you a few things that will undoubtedly ring bells for everybody and I'll tell you some results of these things that really ought to ring warning bells, alarms, emergency sirens, and danger Will Robinsons. 

Canada was a young nation with our first PM John A. Macdonald who had been elected in 1867, was getting old, and probably wasn't going to win the upcoming election. He resigned in 1873 after getting busted for taking bribes but got re-elected in 1878 cuz - what do you expect from a PM? Honestly! The US was a bit older and well-established and thought their northern neighbors were a good source of raw materials. One example of our "trade" then is the fishing ships that stole wood and water from us while pretending to fish. But Canada was doing the exact same thing in Minnesota. "Reciprocal tariffs" of the 1890's trade war actually included colourful entrepreneurs like "timber pirates." I dunno, to me it seems somehow more honest than the entrepreneurs of today who just move money around in such an impersonal way scamming billions from the working stiffs of the middle and lower classes. 

What I'm getting at is our current situation with that tariffying menace to the south is shockingly similar to what we had in 1890. Here's a summary of just a few of the similarities.  Back then the tariffs backfired but part of the reason for that is they didn't have the stability of the central bank behind them. That would only come a couple presidents later along with the beloved income tax. Basically charging your own people directly instead of making it look like you are charging other countries but are charging your own people directly. And how did Woodrow Wilson get away with the temporary/permanent income tax? A huge crisis. WWI. Anyway, let's not get too far ahead. What McKinley DID have was the backing of the richest man in the world. 

Andrew Carnegie was not in cars or tech like Elon Musk because they were not the huge industries of the time, steel was. Steel was important to railway, building, and military construction. Carnegie was a "robber baron" abusing the workers, extending their hours and cutting their pay, and notably busting unions in the 1880's and 1890's. In his "The Gospel of Wealth" he wrote about his version of trickle-down economics which clashed with his earlier belief that "amassing wealth was one of the worst species of idolatry." He clearly caught what I call in this blog the "money disease," but toward the end of his life he found some sort of cure and gave a LOT to charity which is the ONLY significant way in the history of economics that wealth trickles down from the ultra rich to the poor. Carnegie can be partially forgiven for his late life philanthropy, but I can't see Trump or Musk ever doing that. Back to our history lesson...

Carnegie used strategies of vertical and horizontal integration, basically buying all the raw materials and shipping and absorbing competing companies respectively, along with some market manipulation in concert with other robber barons in oil (Rockefeller), and banking (J.P. Morgan), to make his vast fortune. He supported McKinley's tariffs as part of his protectionist efforts to eliminate foreign steel companies as competitors. He also liked the idea of Canada becoming a friendlier (US state) source of raw materials. 

The McKinley-Carnegie partnership was pretty similar to the Trump-Musk axis of evil we see today and so was their market manipulation. It also involved the central bank (personified by JP "Jupiter" Morgan) and a financial crisis - the worst to that point in American history. The stock market crash of 1893 was largely triggered by Canada's failure to become a state going so far as to re-elect the aging and unpopular Macdonald who won on the platform of "Canada Strong" and the counteractions of business diversion away from the US to Europe. Lower trade with Canada, and lower trade with Europe, which was now being supplied largely by Canada, and the bankers' scrupulous maintenance of the gold standard in favour of just pulling money out of their asses, caused a bank run. This triggered a proposal by Morgan and some other banks to purchase gold in exchange for - you guessed it, government bonds. This stabilized the US money supply and virtually instituted JP Morgan as the central bank of the time. Not the first, mind you, Andrew Jackson dismantled the 2nd Bank of the US in 1832 for being subversive and dangerous to the rights and liberties of the people. He was so right!

In fact, in 1901 McKinley made a speech on the virtues of dropping the tariffs and protectionism in favour of diversifying international trade once again (with Canada and Europe). It might as well have been entitled "This Tariff Shit Don't Work." He was assassinated the day after the speech by a dude who was one of MANY people who had been adversely affected by the tariffs and economic policies of the times and resorted to anarchy. Leon F. Czolgosz worked at a wire mill (steel) in Cleveland where the wages had been cut resulting in a strike. He eventually was fired and blacklisted but got his job back as Fred Nieman (nobody). He was so affected by the inequality between workers and the wealthy that he quit work and got more involved in the anarchist movement. 

Are you noticing any parallels yet? More to come...

Morgan, now the central bank, merged some railroads into a huge hideous conglomeration and did the same with steel by, with Carnegie, forming US Steel the first billion-dollar corporation ever. Unfortunately for them, McKinley's replacement, Teddy Roosevelt, was a strong believer in antitrust and limiting monopolies. This, and some more unscrupulous banking, led to the 1907 financial crisis which was averted by the "central bank" (JP Morgan) bailing out the banks that were failing to meet the demands of the panicked public demanding their savings back. How did he do it? You're starting to get this aren't you? More bonds. ... and a further monopolization of the steel industry by US Steel. Some even accused JP Morgan and others of manufacturing the panic to increase their profits, which they humongously did. But, now I'm just GIVING you parallels, it was never proven. 

This created a "need" for a central bank to be the lender of last resort so that scheisters like Morgan couldn't do such things in the future. What Morgan did and what central banks do now is vulture capitalism and it's been repeated over and over again. It's going on now if you ask me. If you have the time, read about it here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://teachdemocracy.org/images/pdf/jpmorgan.pdf

It's all just a little bit of history repeating.