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88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

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Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#11

Post by derefr »

cookiecaper wrote: post #6
techiferous wrote: post #2

What does being 88 years old have to do with anything? The title could've been "White Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." or "Female Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." One thing that annoys me is that for anyone over 80 years old, the first (and often only) thing that people notice is their age. When I get that old, I want people to see me first and my age second, not the other way around.

I like to see articles that emphasize that smart people are old. Ageism is far too prevalent, imo; old people are worthwhile and should be revered, not mocked or denigrated. Oldness is experience, and oldness is an advantage in most cases.

Experience is an advantage as long as it is not squandered by adopting extreme traditionalism. If you can keep learning when others have stopped, you can achieve anything.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#12

Post by philk »

cookiecaper wrote: post #6
techiferous wrote: post #2

What does being 88 years old have to do with anything? The title could've been "White Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." or "Female Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." One thing that annoys me is that for anyone over 80 years old, the first (and often only) thing that people notice is their age. When I get that old, I want people to see me first and my age second, not the other way around.

I like to see articles that emphasize that smart people are old. Ageism is far too prevalent, imo; old people are worthwhile and should be revered, not mocked or denigrated. Oldness is experience, and oldness is an advantage in most cases.

Experience for youth is not a fair trade. Experience is usually domain specific and prone to being rendered worthless as times change. Additionally, experience can render you resistant to further learning. Youth brings energy and the ability to learn faster than others.

Lets remember that the article emphasises the mayor's age precisely because 88 year olds achieving great things is so very rare.

I hope that I'm wrong and you're right, but I'd rather have youth than experience any day of the week.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#13

Post by jacoblyles »

I just think it is an interesting idea to tie tax levels to the city budget (which is what I assume they mean by "charging what they need"). This would provide incentive for the city to balance the budget, as the cost of any spending programs would be felt by the citizens immediately and not delayed to the future.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#14

Post by ghshephard »

techiferous wrote: post #10
boucher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because, on average, people are dead before they turn 88? Or, because people retire at 65 (or 55 in Canada?)? Or, because she's been mayor for over 30 years, which isn't exactly something you can accomplish at a young age? Or because she's in incredibly good shape for a woman of her age? There exist inappropriate times to comment on someone's age, or to make decisions based on it. This wasn't one of them. The…

"I'd also mention that she does not in any way seem offended by such comments." Yeah, I wonder how I'll feel about this when I'm older. Maybe I won't mind. It just sounds weird to me when people mention the age of someone and it's not relevant to the story, kind of like when someone is telling you a story about someone and they mention that they are black and it's completely irrelevant.

I recall, at the ripe old age of 34, being put off by a new engineer who said "People of your generation look at technology different than us younger people, but it's cool that you are so familiar with the internet."

Now, I recognize that 34 is _little_ out of place at some startups, but I hadn't realized I'd moved into a new generation.

It didn't really bother me, so much as cause me to be aware that time is certainly passing by...

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#15

Post by jjs »

techiferous wrote: post #2

What does being 88 years old have to do with anything? The title could've been "White Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." or "Female Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." One thing that annoys me is that for anyone over 80 years old, the first (and often only) thing that people notice is their age. When I get that old, I want people to see me first and my age second, not the other way around.

What does being 88 years old have to do with anything?

It means she grew up during the worldwide Great Depression, but was still old enough to have known its stark contrast to the prosperity of the 1920s. This could have influenced her towards extreme frugality.

She was also an adult before the worldwide adoption of Keynesian fiscal policy, so the idea of even temporarily running an unbalanced budget might be particularly odious to her.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#16

Post by neilc »

techiferous wrote: post #2

What does being 88 years old have to do with anything? The title could've been "White Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." or "Female Mayor Gets City Debt-free..." One thing that annoys me is that for anyone over 80 years old, the first (and often only) thing that people notice is their age. When I get that old, I want people to see me first and my age second, not the other way around.

The mayor's age is relevant, because being a mayor at 88 is quite unusual. White mayors or female mayors are to be expected; an 88 year old mayor who has served for 31 years is simply a remarkable part of the story.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#17

Post by sburgess »

jacoblyles wrote: post #13

I just think it is an interesting idea to tie tax levels to the city budget (which is what I assume they mean by "charging what they need"). This would provide incentive for the city to balance the budget, as the cost of any spending programs would be felt by the citizens immediately and not delayed to the future.

I agree. Passing costs on to future generations is common place in other cities. This practice would surely cause elected officials to think twice before building.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#18

Post by 9oliYQjP »

Woah woah woah. I live in Toronto. Mississauga is a suburb. They got out of debt by getting into bed with developers who went wild with unrestricted development. All this wouldn't be out of the norm if the mayor's son wasn't a developer and she had excused herself from meetings involving the city and his company. But she failed to disclose the conflict of interest and her son's company benefited. Mississauga is now a textbook case of traffic gridlock, is starting to experience high violent crime (because all the families that moved their in the 1990s now have teenagers with nothing to do), and it is on track to lose its debt-free status as of 2012.

http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/507414

Hurricane Hazel is definitely a character though. I don't disagree with everything she's done but I've always been particularly skeptical of how she ran the city's books because I figured that it was unsustainable and the population would eventually have to pay. The developers helped build out their infrastructure but now that the development boom has matured there, the tax payers are left having to maintain it. It will cost them and I expect they'll run deficit budgets for much of this decade.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#19

Post by celticjames »

Have you been to Mississauga? It's urban sprawl gone mad. It's one of the most bland, characterless strip mall excuses for a city in North America. The books may be balanced, but it's a joyless wasteland of big box stores and cookie cutter urban development.

Re: 88yr Old Mayor Gets City Debt-free & Puts 700M Cash In The Bank.

#20

Post by thwarted »

ghshephard wrote: post #14
techiferous wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'd also mention that she does not in any way seem offended by such comments." Yeah, I wonder how I'll feel about this when I'm older. Maybe I won't mind. It just sounds weird to me when people mention the age of someone and it's not relevant to the story, kind of like when someone is telling you a story about someone and they mention that they are black and it's completely irrelevant.

I recall, at the ripe old age of 34, being put off by a new engineer who said "People of your generation look at technology different than us younger people, but it's cool that you are so familiar with the internet." Now, I recognize that 34 is _little_ out of place at some startups, but I hadn't realized I'd moved into a new generation. It didn't really bother me, so much as cause me to be aware that time is certain…

So familiar with the Internet?! Kids today, with their Bings and Googles. We had to use Veronica and Archie, and we liked it! Back then, both our browsers and our hypertext transfer protocols were at version 0.9, if you can believe that!
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