Raise the Hammer

A.S.:

Burlington and Oakville hardly have "downtowns". Most of what Oakville and Burlington have done right is to be just close enough to toronto in order to cash in on their enormous CBD (and well designed downtown core) - in addition to building disposable sprawl housing and business parks with little or no future in a less energy-rich world.

The problem with letting the free market dictate everything is that investors have a very hard time seeing beyond the next few financial quarters, and they ignore the external effects of their actions. If we operated only under the free market, we'd have filled our lakes with toxic sludge and cut down all of our trees by now. Even with the minimal regulations in place, we have come close to this already in some regions.

We live in a society. We are all connected. The every-entity-for-itself games does not work in the long run. The free market encourages crapping on your neighbour if it increases your own bottom line. This works fine as long as your neighbours never crap back.

Your lack of understanding of the problems with the blind free market is tiring. None of us are defending the current government as being 100% efficient. We are not calling for higher taxes or more spending. We are calling for the city to think harder about how it spends the taxes it's already collecting.

Our financial system can only exist if we assume an endlessly growing energy input. It is based on endless growth. This has been a short term reality for us that is coming to an abrupt end.

The short term vision of the free market works well when you only need to see as far as the ass of the lemming in front of you. Unfortunately it does you no service when it blinds you to the cliff that you are quickly approaching.

Your dream of close-to-zero taxes is a nice one, however your free market economy has put us in an unfortunate situation: every year that goes by, it becomes harder to keep up with current debt let alone finance new ventures.

Based upon previous responses from you, I am going to assume that when you read this, you will respond directly to none of it. Because it's easier than reading, here is a video that explains how your sacred financial system is one of the main causes for higher taxes (since our money is worth less and less each passing day): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT1OIKYwL...

If you think Hamilton is doing such a terrible job, and if you believe that Oakville and Burlington's tax rates will result in endless property value growth there, then your best bet is to cut your losses now and move to one of those towns.