It’s easy to con people when you tell them what they want to believe
By Lethbridge Herald on October 27, 2023.
Editor:
One of the sad truths is it’s always easier to con people when you’re telling them something that they want to believe.
Whether it’s the lottery numbers have to come up your kid’s birthdates, your street address, and your lucky number seven, or, your great grandmother really did have an affair with that African prince and now you’re in line for a slice of that Nigerian oil money, or whatever other improbability you can imagine, it makes it easier to run a con if the mark’s already buying into the yarn.
So when Danielle Smith starts touting a raid on the Canada Pension Plan she’s aiming the hustle at those people who have got themselves convinced that Alberta has been getting a raw deal out of Confederation and, if it weren’t for the Trudeau Liberals Calgary would be able to take its rightful place as the Luxembourg of North America. It’s the old Alberta Firsters and the Firewall Letter and and that gang of chancers that came out of the U of C political science department back in the 1980s, that curdled mixture of resentment and thwarted ambition which has been such a part of conservative politics for so long now. Even when the numbers don’t add up, or in this case, are pretty well imaginary, the chimera of all that lovely pension fund money just out there for the taking is going to haunt the imaginations of all those alienated separatists who so so much want the story to be so. And so, to all those who are buying into this …If it ever happens, I’ve a bridge I want to sell you.
Ken Sears
Lethbridge
7-6
Its also easy to promote an idea when both sides do not have all the facts. If you do not have all the facts you can easily insert your own. Doing so is also a con so its a matter of choosing whose con you wish to promote, isn’t it.
For instance you say you have a bridge for sale. The obvious questions are;
1) Where is the bridge?
2) Is it on a major highway
3) What is it made of?
4) When was the last time it was inspected?
5) How many vehicles cross per day?
6) Do you have a toll on the bridge?
7) If so, what is the revenue stream?
8) Is there any outstanding defects?
9) When the bridge was built, did it meet all the building codes of the day/
10) has a study been done to determine if the bridge has settled and whethe it is still settling?
So what you are doing is presupposing a con before you know the facts because you do not want to know the facts, or you just don’t want to leave CPP.
There are two numbers floating out there one is 86billion and the other is a far bigger number. One makes leaving the CPP impossible the other makes leaving the CPP highly profitable.
The UCP insists that they will not pose the refferendum until the true number is known, or you can (as you have) scream fire, when there is no fire, in hopes of scaring people out of the theatre like Notley and Phillips.
You made your choice, through presupposing and notfacts, let others make their own decisions, on facts.
Why don’t you be a hero and explain to us true conservatives why you have allowed these phoney conservatives , Reformers, to screw this Province out of hundreds of billions of dollars while you have ignored what Alaska and Norway have accomplished with their oil wealth. Watching you let them treat you like a moron while you stick your head in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening doesn’t make you look very smart does it? Maybe you and your ignorant pals should keep your idiotic comments to yourselves, the conservatives in my world don’t appreciate them and they aren’t fooling anyone I know.
I took the APP survey and and have read much of the material put out the our government in support of establishing an APP. I am left with one unmistakable conclusion: The con job is on.
Nothing like making decisions without all the factual information. I’ll wait. So far all we hear from the opposition is (see above) and other shouting from the curb. Where are their numbers so people can make an informed decision based on fact instead of rhetoric. I see our local MLA has transitioned from and environment expert and is now a financial wizard. Let’s see her numbers. Stating that 30000 answered their survey with 90% against indicates that 27,000 voted against the APP. Bravo, represents 1.5% of the persons who voted in the last election. So now that the screamers and doomsayers have done their part, let see the details of the NDP opposition that doesn’t include Notley shouting from the curb that “she’s stealing your pension”!!!!!! Please inform us.
The polls we have seen all show an overwhelming majority against Danielle Smith and her stupid CCP idea and it isn’t just coming from your NDP enemies. Even conservatives from every province have indicated what a stupid idea it is. Isn’t it too bad you aren’t smart enough to understand it? Why don’t you explain to those of us conservatives , from the world of finance, who had ties to the oil industry how Smith was able to trick you into believing the lie that Alberta is entitled to 53% of the total Canada pension plan revenues when Albertans make up only 16% of the total population of Canada and there is no way this can be true? Apparently you have allowed yourself to be conned, haven’t you? Does it make you feel proud with egg all over your face? I can’t find anyone else dumb enough to believe it.
An especially relevant fact in this discussion concerns the CPP’s record of return on investment relative to AIMCo’s. I’m going with the CPP.
Over coffee this morning, my wife and I came up with the following (partial) list underscoring why we don’t trust our UCP government with our federal pension:
1. The pre-1992 unfunded liability in the Universities Academic Pension Plan (UAPP) which accrued when the Alberta Government was involved with the plan.
2. The November 2019 order by then UCP finance minister Travis Toews to transfer investment control of the Alberta Retired Teachers’ Pension Fund (ATRF), along with three other public pension funds, to Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). Soon after AIMCo started making investment decisions, with the capacity to veto the wishes of the ATRF Board, and the fund lost a substantial amount of money. The ATRF has since wrestled back control over their own members’ money, thank goodness.
3. The decision by the UCP to bet on Donald Trump and Keystone XL Pipeline project, resulting in a loss of $1.3 billion. We are not gambling folk, but we think that investment would be called a “long shot.”
4. The decision, again by the UCP, to lower the corporate tax rate from 12% to 8% which has failed to be the game changer the UCP promised. One must wonder how much of the tax savings were used by corporations in the form of share by-backs and increased executive compensation? Interestingly, if a systematic, analytically rigorous analysis of the impact of the corporate tax cut has been undertaken, and we would hope that it has been done, it has not, at least to the best of our knowledge, seen the light of day. So much of transparency in government.
5. And most recently, in an obvious attempt to embarrass the Federal Government, the UCP spent nearly $75 million to purchase sub-standard pain medication for children from a Turkish company. According to a recent Globe and Mail article (October 26), “only 9,000 of the units were ever distributed to hospital pharmacies before AHS, in July, ordered its staff to stop using the weaker-strength product because the domestic supply had stabilized.”
Simply put, neither I nor my wife trust this government with our CPP.
In the 32 years I spent in the world of finance it was a well known fact that slashing taxes did not create jobs it only made CEOs a lot richer. But that was the plan.The only thing that created jobs was an increase in the amount of business the company was able to acquire.
However this has always been a lie these Reformers have used as just one gimmick to pour more of taxpayers money into the pockets of those who supported them, just like slashing royalties and changing the rules on cleaning up the abandoned wells has done.
Who have been the biggest losers? These ignorant fools, mainly seniors, who have blindly support them of course and hurl their sarcastic comments at us for not being as dumb as them. They try to pretend what great conservatives they are yet would rather believe the lies these Reformers feed them over anything the true conservatives tell them. They are so screwed up I doubt they would even believe Lougheed if he were alive today.
I would add to this list mismanagement of the Heritage Trust Fund and the fact that the UCP needs to find a pile of dough to address the orphan well disaster, the blame for which we can lay directly and unequivocally at the doorstep of the UCP and previous PC administrations.
One point that needs to be seriously considered: Ontario and Turdo government are adamantly opposed. The only reason for them to be that way is they are losing something. They don’t care about alberta/albertans. They only care about the east.Must be net benefit to us for them to act that way about “our” share.
Of course Ontario is opposed, as are other provinces. As for the Feds, the CPP operates at arms length from the federal government so their opposition is grounded in the potential impact on workers outside Alberta. It’s not always about putting the boot into Albertans.
How is Ottawa going to lose anything when even the conservatives and NDP aren’t dumb enough to support it?
You are certainly right and we know Trudeau isn’t responsible for our high power bills that Ralph Klein created with deregulation but treating Albertans like morons is what these reformers do best isn’t it? We think that is her idea. After letting the oil corporations get away with not paying to clean up their mess, let’s steal their pension money and give it to our oil industry friends. Why not we are already helping them steal their oil and tax wealth, let’s add their pension plan funds to it also.
Make certain you google “Alberta Politics “ where David points out the $75 million Danielle Smith screwed Albertans out of trying to insult Trudeau by buying her own pain medication from Turkey and what a disaster that’s been. Once again Albertans are the losers thanks to these Reformers.
Fed up must be blind to the Turdo governments carbon tax which affects everything in this country. Secondly the “green initiative” which can only work when fully funded by – – – – ( no you to blind to guess) – – resource generated power. Oil and gas!
Poor mindless old school . He still hasn’t figured out what those carbon tax rebates are for and finds it smart to ignore the huge fees that he’s paying each month that have been added to his power and gas bills thanks the deregulation that his pal Ralph Klein rammed down his throat . Of course he doesn’t give a damn about the orphan oil well cleanup mess Klein gave us, he never mentions that. But then it’s only because he can’t find any way he can blame it on Notley and Trudeau yet. Danielle Smith hasn’t yet told him that it’s all their fault. As a lawyer friend used to say “ I wonder what it’s like to be so stupid you can’t think for yourself, you have to have a drunk like Ralph Klein to do it for you and believe every lie he feeds you”. Well now old school is believing every lie Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith have fed him and with so many people not dumb enough to support them he hasn’t figured that out yet. He couldn’t possibly be wrong could he ?
Last winter when my friends and I were hearing all these mindless seniors whining about the Carbon Tax and blaming it on Notley and Trudeau just like the Reformers taught them to do we decided to check out our own situation. In my case I had paid $10.30 that month in carbon taxes, yet my fees added to my power and gas bills totalled $130.60. All thanks to what Ralph Klein did to us with deregulation and we were all receiving $111. per quarter in carbon tax rebates, and in other words we all felt we were making money from the carbon tax program. But when you talk to these fools it’s going to financially destroy everyone of us. The Reformers must be proud of how easy they are to fool.
Another one of their stupid ideas is that it’s all Notley and Trudeau fault for closing down our coal fired power plants, because the Reformers told them so. Not only weren’t they closed down they were converted, where possible, to natural gas fired plants and the truth is this conversation plan was all started by their pal Reformer Stephen Harper but of course none of them are smart enough to understand that. Notley and Trudeau had nothing to do with it. Maybe before making a damn fool of yourself you had better do some research, don’t you think?