Grand Bend, Ontario community newspaper and entertainment events guide. Also serves Zurich, Dashwood, Port Franks, Exeter, Parkhill. Casey Lessard photos.
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Alternative View By Lance Crossley Last month, I took a mid-year review of how I was faring with my 2010 prediction that states would face serious insolvency issues. We found evidence that this is indeed happening in the form of the Greek debt crisis as well as a number of other Euro nations that are [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley As we are nearly halfway through 2010 – scary, I know – I thought it would be a good time to see how my New Year’s predictions are panning out. In my December 2009 column, I wrote the following: “My 2010 predictions can be summed up in one word: “insolvency”. [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley Your faithful editor, Mr. Casey Lessard, recently gave me 100 trillion dollars. Seriously. Following a dinner we had a few weeks ago in Toronto’s Bloor West neighbourhood, in which I proposed that the United States is firmly on the road to hyperinflation, Casey kindly sent me a rather fitting gift: [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley In George Orwell’s 1984, the ruling party’s three slogans were “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” If you need any evidence that an Orwellian world is already upon us, you need to look no further that the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley My wife always makes fun of me after reading my columns because, as she says, “they are always such downers”. I can’t really argue with her on that one. But in my defence, I really am trying to call it as I see it. Anyway, she’s going to love this [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley Here in Canada, we seem to think we are immune to a housing bubble, so it was interesting to see the Globe and Mail – usually a real estate cheerleader – at least question the logic of why we continue to experience a booming housing sector amid the greatest economic [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley I have said this before, but future generations will write about our time as a turning point in history. One major event that is attracting too little attention is the decline of the American dollar. To understand the importance of this we must first understand the dollar’s privileged status as [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley In his weekly radio and Internet address this past weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama lashed out against critics making “phony claims” about his health care reform bill. He urged “an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions”. To be sure, the debate on health reform south [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley On July 23, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney announced that the recession was coming to an end. On July 29, President Obama said things have gotten better: the United States had prevented a depression and this was the beginning of the end of the recession. On August 3, a [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley (The last in a four-part monetary system series) It is astonishing to see how little the idea of monetary reform is up for political debate. Nevertheless, there is a small but growing chorus of voices offering an alternative vision to our money system. Here are a few of the more [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley (Part three of a four-part series examining the monetary system.) Another danger of having a money system controlled by private banking interests is something relatively new in our history: the financialization of the economy. Before the 1970s, capital was mostly used for economically fruitful purposes, such as production. Banks still [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley (Part two of a four-part series examining the monetary system.) One of the unspoken absurdities of our money system is government debt. Under our system, the only way a government can pay for its programs and services is through taxes or borrowing. Since taxes are never enough to meet its [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley (Part one of a four-part series examining the monetary system.) “Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.” – William Lyon [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley Let me share my financial predicament. My family currently rents an apartment and within the next year or two we would like to put a down payment on a house by using the government’s First Time Home Buyers Plan (HBP). The plan allows you to withdraw from your RRSP, without [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley Shakespeare once wisely wrote: “Neither a borrower not a lender be”. But in 2009, it’s clear that it is better to be a lender. If there is one thing the global economic crisis has shown, it is that the world is run by creditors. The reality is so obscene that [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley Prime Minister Stephen Harper drew heavy criticism earlier this month when he told CNN that international forces in Afghanistan were never going to defeat the insurgency. His comments provoked a tongue-lashing by everybody from opposing political parties to the renowned Washington-based magazine Foreign Affairs. What’s really shocking about Harper’s comments [...]
Loss of manufacturing sector more than just numbers Alternative View By Lance Crossley The latest job figures are not good. According to Statistics Canada, the country lost 129,000 jobs in January, which is worse than any monthly decline in the previous two recessions. Almost all the positions were full-time. Ontario was hit especially hard due [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley It can get confusing listening to the various media pundits and experts talk about what’s wrong with the economy. You hear a lot of talk about “subprime loans”, the “credit crunch”, and “market confidence”. All this is true, but for me, there is no clearer illustration of what ails the [...]
Alternative View By Lance Crossley One of the most intriguing aspects of the recent struggle for power on Parliament Hill was the propaganda war. Nowadays we call it public relations, but it still amounts to the same thing: the conscious and intelligent manipulation of public opinion. In the dramatic lead up to the Governor-General approving [...]
What the U.S. and Canadian elections reveal about “democracy” Alternative View By Lance Crossley On the surface, the recent Canadian and U.S. elections seem like a study in contrast. The Canadian election recorded the nation’s lowest voter turnout in history – a paltry 59 per cent – which is a shameful outcome for a country [...]
Alternative View By Gloria Martin In the Sept. 10 Strip, Casey Lessard made comment that he feared a majority government in the federal election, and that, although he couldn’t quite put your finger on it, he “just doesn’t trust him (Prime Minister Stephen Harper).” I have to admit that I resonate with that fear, but [...]
Alternative View By Anjhela Michielsen Somewhere between 1500 and 3000 miles (or 2400 to 4800 km) is the average distance your food has travelled to land on your plate (Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University). And the numbers are climbing. In our modern era, these may not seem astonishing because we have come [...]
Alternative View By Anjhela Michielsen “Peak oil” is the point when the world will have used half of the oil resources on the planet and the global output of oil will no longer meet demand. Peaking is usually followed by a serious decline, a prospect that worries many researching “peak oil.” Few dispute that oil [...]
Alternative View By Anjhela Michielsen Male/female. Caucasian/non-Caucasian. Straight/gay. Able/disabled. Civilized/savage. Rich/poor. Rational/emotional. Mind/body. Normal/abnormal. All of these pairs appear to be polar opposites. But in every set, in Western thinking, one part is privileged over the other. One is seen as “having” while the other is seen as “lacking.” This is called a binary. This [...]