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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.

#41

Post by rfghjhbg »

sburgess wrote: post #17
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.

Or it results in the run-down no-investment nationalized industries of europe in the 70s.

Look at airports that are owned by the municipality, they have no construction, no investment - because that would look like a deficit. Then look at commercial airports that can borrow money. Or compare AMTRAK to a commercial airline.

Not building new water treatment plants, or new transport links or new hospitals but just spending money patching up the old ones = fiscally responsible zero deficit? Now imagine a corporation whose plans were to spend no money on sales, expansion, R+D etc what would it's share price do?

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

#42

Post by kingkongreveng_ »

rfghjhbg wrote: post #40
hnal943 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a development boom burden tax payers? Were there no business created in the "unrestricted development?" It stands to reason that a healthy business climate generates tax revenue, instead of increasing the taxes of existing tax payers.

No - they were mostly just housing suburbs. That brings in income from fees when the houses are built - but you have roads, sewer/water, schools, hospitals to fund forever. That's fine as long as the people living in those houses are tax-profitable middle class dual income. As soon as they aren't you have just built a 500,000 person slum to fund.

To my understanding, the financial picture of North American cities is essentially driven by public employee salary and benefit costs, which are out of control due to unions.

Whether a city is struggling or not right now, or will struggle in the future, is largely a question of how high they let the payroll and pension benefits drift.

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

#44

Post by hnal943 »

rfghjhbg wrote: post #41
sburgess wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or it results in the run-down no-investment nationalized industries of europe in the 70s. Look at airports that are owned by the municipality, they have no construction, no investment - because that would look like a deficit. Then look at commercial airports that can borrow money. Or compare AMTRAK to a commercial airline. Not building new water treatment plants, or new transport links or new hospitals but just spend…

Imagine a company that generates no revenue and yet spends money improving its infrastructure. What would its stock price look like?

I don't believe that government services are lower quality than private services because of a lack of spending.

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

#45

Post by hnal943 »

gaius wrote: post #38
ghshephard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LOL! These kids are great at friending each other on MySpace and watching videos on Youtube, but people our age built the Internet one metre of fibre at a time. We're the creators, they're just consumers.

...and when we built it, it was uphill both ways. And we liked it that way.

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

#46

Post by ellyagg »

philk wrote: post #25
ellyagg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment just reinforces what he's saying. Substitute "people who are black" for "people that age". I remember when Morgan Freeman was on 60 Minutes. It was great: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1131418n I'm never going to be black. But someday I hope to be 88, and it's going to be really damn annoying if everyone says "wow, that's pretty good...especially for an 88 year old!"

Not really. Being black doesn't make you slower, less able or more susceptible to disease. Aging does. >> But someday I hope to be 88, and it's going to be really damn annoying if everyone says "wow, that's pretty good...especially for an 88 year old!" If you're 88[1], still accomplishing meaningful things and don't have cancer or dementia you're doing brilliantly and shouldn't care what people are saying about you.…

Your argument sounds so temptingly plausible, doesn't it? Yet, women inarguably have biological limitations compared to men in some respects, but in those areas where they do, I've found that they still really hate it when you say, "you did a great job...for a girl".

Besides, your claim that specially calling out black excellence is different because of their fundamental equivalence is specious. We know that blacks are underrepresented in many high status areas. Thus, we know that there are barriers of some sort or another blocking them from achievement. It's an incredibly weak argument to say that these barriers aren't worth acknowledging, but the barriers to equal average achievement for older people are.

It's not really relevant whether you think old people are feeble on average. I, as everyone, wants to be judged on my own, as having the full potential of anyone else. When you say, man, you did an amazing job for an old person, you are suggesting that a younger person could do it better, or, at the least, I could have done even better when I was younger. But if some younger person could do it better, why aren't they? It's a little obnoxious.

Celebrating someone for having to "overcome" being black or being old or being a woman lowers their status in each case. This is just a fact.

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

#47

Post by potatolicious »

ctingom wrote: post #33
teeja wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting a full set of electric buses on those streets would still leave a big chunk of that $700mil in the bank.

Mississauga Transit has a current active bus fleet of around 410 buses. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga_Transit#Bus_fleet

And if you go there and ride them (I have), you will realize how pathetic 410 buses is for the level of population Mississauga supports. Even arterial routes are often only once per half-hour, once and hour is depressingly common, and service levels are just really, really poor. It's truly one of the worst public transit systems I've ever had the displeasure of using. If I was too poor for a car in Mississauga my life would be terrible indeed.

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

#48

Post by BearOfNH »

celticjames wrote: post #19

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.

it's a joyless wasteland of big box stores and cookie cutter urban development

Fair enough. But one man's joyless wasteland is another man's cheerful paradise.

There's no accounting for taste. At least, I hope not.

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

#49

Post by 9oliYQjP »

hnal943 wrote: post #36
9oliYQjP wrote: post #18

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…

How does a development boom burden tax payers? Were there no business created in the "unrestricted development?" It stands to reason that a healthy business climate generates tax revenue, instead of increasing the taxes of existing tax payers.

rfghjhbg said it best. They did attract a few big businesses. Microsoft Canada has their headquarters (I believe that's what it is) in Mississauga. But they did so with the lure of unsustainably low taxes on these businesses. What's worse is that for the most part, there's not enough work in Mississauga itself to sustain its population. So a huge percentage of its population works in Toronto and surrounding cities.

Fundamentally, Mississauga depends heavily on Toronto for the jobs of its population as the manufacturing businesses it attracted are hurting right now and never could sustain the huge population.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm bashing Mississauga. Toronto created this phenomenon of commuter ghettos by ignoring the living needs of middle class families through most of the 1980s and 1990s. Toronto also let just enough businesses escape to these outer suburbs through high taxes, to make it seem like a feasible option to move out there. So people did, but most of the jobs that a professional who lives in these communities works at are still in Toronto itself.

For the most part the only thing keeping downtown Toronto itself from being a mess is that it's the financial hub for Canada. This sphere of influence is not necessarily permanent though and I worry about this city a lot. Alberta is where a lot of the resources are and it would make sense for the financial sector to be there. We like to poke fun of Albertans because they have all their eggs in the oil basket. But right now Toronto has all its eggs in the banking basket. It's a very fragile proposition.

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