statism watch

As global leaders continue attempts to legislate financial governance systems from the top down, the integration of economic regulations and taxation regimes is simultaneously pushed from the bottom up via the piecemeal regional implementation of new standards pressed on nations by policy mandarins. From the article:

Experts compare the HST implementation process to the GST experience in 1991. In 10 years, Dunn says, not only will people be accustomed to paying the tax, rates could be even higher.

Consumption taxes around the world range between 20 and 25 per cent in many countries.

The HST is genetically related to Europe’s VAT, China’s VAT, and indeed now this tax has been adopted by most jurisdictions throughout the world. Why? Control. Wikipedia gives us a useful sketch:

…if sales taxes exceed 10%, people start engaging in widespread tax evading activity (like buying over the Internet, pretending to be a business, buying at wholesale, buying products through an employer etc.) On the other hand, total VAT rates can rise above 10% without widespread evasion because of the novel collection mechanism.

The ‘novel’ mechanism?  Assessing tax at every point of the supply chain and thus building in an incentive for all business to act as little tax agencies for the Federal Government. It’s been described as a ‘money machine’, and with good reason. The upshot? Mulroney wins. The VAT he always wanted to press on the nation has finally been implemented via a decades-long detour. Happy Canada Day.

Related: Anti-HST petition could change B.C.’s political landscape | B.C. anti-HST petition meets legal benchmark | Liberals admit HST will cost families up to $480 a year | Underground economy emerges in Ontario in response to HST | B.C. anti-HST petition hits target weeks ahead of schedule | Protesters worked up over HST levy on fitness | Anti-HST petition nears goal in B.C. | HST rage puts B.C. Liberals in a spot | Harmonized tax could cost Ontarians $5.9B a year | HST will cost families, McGuinty finally admits | HST begins taxing Ontario on Saturday | First Nations protest against HST | Canadian taxes fastest-growing expense: Report | BC Govt, Anti-HST Campaigners Dispute Legality of Pro-HST Leaflet | Electricity rates surge in Ontario | Up to 50,000 protest Charest’s tax hikes | Paul Volcker: VAT, Carbon taxes may be necessary | Nova Scotia budget hikes HST rate | Thousands protest Quebec budget | HST legislation introduced in B.C. | Facing years of deficits, Ontario freezes wages | Former premier Bill Vander Zalm rallies against the HST in BC | Ontario tax collectors get $45K severance, keep jobs in HST federalization deal | Athens erupts as Greek austerity plan passes | HST ad campaign debuts in Ontario | Ont. deficit could linger for years: McGuinty | HST bill passes, 13% tax starts July 1 | Poll: HST equals Hated Sales Tax | Anti-HST protest at Ontario legislature spills onto Toronto streets | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C.

The Canadian Press
June 28, 2010

In two of Canada’s most populous provinces residents are bracing, preparing and bemoaning Thursday’s arrival of the harmonized sales tax.

Heidi Graw has decided that after years of feeling helpless as the cost of living climbs in British Columbia, she has had enough: she won’t pay another tax.

As of July 1, when the new HST takes effect in B.C. and Ontario, Graw will boycott purchases of anything beyond the basics.

“We won’t be going out to the restaurants, we won’t be going to the movies, we won’t be going to the rec centre, or all these other little frills,” says the Mission, B.C., resident.

“That’s the only way I can take control over how much tax I’m prepared to pay.”

The HST merges the five per cent federal goods and service tax with provincial sales taxes of seven per cent in B.C. and eight per cent in Ontario. That means consumers will pay more for a variety of things, depending on the province.

(more…)

President Obama wishes to create a protocol for dismantling troubled financial firms. The more skeptical among us may envision a wood chipper pointed straight into the ‘blood funnel’ of Goldman-Sachs. But don’t pay attention to the fact globalists are looting your country, look! People kicking a ball on TV!

Update (2010/06/29): Spoiler alert: The G20 version of Obama’s legislation didn’t happen. Not this time. Flaherty and Harper held off the EU and stuck to their guns. Maybe in France G20 2011, we hear Sarkozy’s a big fan. In the meantime, wait and see if Obama gets to sign this in as national legislation on July 4, a particularly obscene gesture.

Related: Obama celebrates banking bill’s passage in Senate | Goldman Sachs concedes case for restraining the big banks | US prepares to push for global capital rules | The Obama Banking Regulation: Big Banks Are Too Politically Connected to Fail | Obama scolds Wall Street for fighting reform, pushes new regulation package | Obama urges Senate to hand total oversight of financial sector to Federal Reserve, eliminate ‘Reserve’ part | Bernanke Pushes to Keep Regulation Power as Some Senators Waver | The Federal Reserve as Giant Counterfeiter | Bankers unite against Barack Obama and Gordon Brown in call for world regulation | Banks find gaping loophole in Obama financial reforms | Obama talking tough with banks | Wall Street’s leading bankers admit: we made mistakes | Obama ponders bank transaction levy to recoup bailout shortfalls | Explosive Leaked Emails Expose Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Deception in ‘Backdoor Bailout’ | US Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank | Financial reform bill passes U.S. House | Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ | Americans Deserve a Transparent Federal Reserve | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | Federal Reserve Appeals Order to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans | Judge Orders Federal Reserve To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions | Geithner lambastes US economic watchdogs resistant to planned transfer of powers to Federal Reserve | Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship In United States | Obama unveils overhaul of financial system oversight | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going | Paulson, Bernanke defend change of plan: $700-billion now to be given directly to banks | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | U.S. government won’t use bailout fund to buy troubled assets | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power | Financial ’super cop’ role for Fed

Caren Bohan, Mario Di Simine, Reuters
June 26, 2010

President Barack Obama, fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, on Saturday urged Congress to take up his proposal for a $90 billion, 10-year tax on banks as the next step in reform.

Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout.

“We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis — so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. [Ed. Note: Presumably not the government-connected banks, they paid their loans off in record time. It's their next biggest competitors that are targeted by this legislation.]

Obama, who is in Canada to attend gatherings with leaders of the world’s biggest economies, also used the address to welcome a deal by congressional negotiators on a historic rewriting of U.S. financial regulations.

Obama hopes to tout the changes as a model for other countries at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday and Sunday.

“I hope we can build on the progress we made at last year’s G20 summits by coordinating our global financial reform efforts to make sure a crisis like the one from which we are still recovering never happens again,” he said.

(more…)

Got to stophst.com to participate in the BC and Ontario petitions.

Related: B.C. anti-HST petition meets legal benchmark | Liberals admit HST will cost families up to $480 a year | Underground economy emerges in Ontario in response to HST | B.C. anti-HST petition hits target weeks ahead of schedule | Protesters worked up over HST levy on fitness | Anti-HST petition nears goal in B.C. | HST rage puts B.C. Liberals in a spot | Harmonized tax could cost Ontarians $5.9B a year | HST will cost families, McGuinty finally admits | HST begins taxing Ontario on Saturday | First Nations protest against HST | Canadian taxes fastest-growing expense: Report | BC Govt, Anti-HST Campaigners Dispute Legality of Pro-HST Leaflet | Electricity rates surge in Ontario | Up to 50,000 protest Charest’s tax hikes | Paul Volcker: VAT, Carbon taxes may be necessary | Nova Scotia budget hikes HST rate | Thousands protest Quebec budget | HST legislation introduced in B.C. | Facing years of deficits, Ontario freezes wages | Former premier Bill Vander Zalm rallies against the HST in BC | Ontario tax collectors get $45K severance, keep jobs in HST federalization deal | Athens erupts as Greek austerity plan passes | HST ad campaign debuts in Ontario | Ont. deficit could linger for years: McGuinty | HST bill passes, 13% tax starts July 1 | Poll: HST equals Hated Sales Tax | Anti-HST protest at Ontario legislature spills onto Toronto streets | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C.

Justine Hunter, The Globe and Mail
June 25, 2010

Alliance behind anti-tax campaign could lead to creation of new party to challenge B.C. Liberals

The war room of the Fight HST campaign is found at the end of a long asphalt driveway, lined with neatly clipped Portuguese laurels, next to a formal French garden. Inside an old coach house off to the side of the manor, the three senior strategists gather around a massive oak dining table.

Former premier Bill Vander Zalm sits at the head of the table. He is the proponent of the anti-HST petition, the face of the campaign, and the host. He’s flanked on his left by Chris Delaney and on his right by Bill Tieleman — a mixed-up seating arrangement, given their personal politics.

There is little here that resembles a traditional political operations room — there are no maps, no ringing phones or discarded pizza boxes. Instead, there is antique furniture, oil paintings of old Holland, a large portrait of Rembrandt in a heavy frame. From this quiet and tidy room in Ladner, B.C., they are plotting a political maelstrom.

Together they represent the broadest spectrum of right and left politics in B.C., yet the three veteran strategists have been meeting for months to organize the anti-HST petition drive that ends this weekend.

They have built a political machine, with over 6,500 canvassers spread out in every riding of the province. They have an identifiable brand and they expect to have an unprecedented victory when the petition signatures have been counted and verified by Elections BC later this summer.

(more…)

It is not, primarily, the economic cost that is too high though that is deplorable. The untold story of this summit is the globalizing, militarizing influence of the G20 summit on every city this dark imperial eagle chooses to perch upon. Look at what’s happened to the TPS – provided hundreds of millions to purchase new equipment, body armour, black uniforms, and weapons. Integration and information sharing with federal police and the military. Integration of private security forces into the new hierarchy. That’s what the money is being spent on, it should be no great mystery. That and contracts to favoured corporations, eg; SNC-Lavalin. The police are organizing to protect world leaders, the state, and global banks. That is who they serve. Are the people organizing to protect themselves from the police? This is about tyranny versus liberty. It’s not about ‘right and left’. A pox on both your houses. Wake the hell up.

Related: G20 security prepared for any threat, at any cost | G8/G20 Police Fusion Centres Unmasked in Barrie, North Toronto | No legislation, no precedent to limit G20 police powers | Hospitals, medics prepare for G20 injuries and tear gas | Torontanamo Bay: Life inside the G20 ‘security zone’ | G20 traffic fence can be closed at ‘a moment’s notice,’ police say | Police add water cannon to G20 arsenal | Toronto G20 police arsenal includes plastic bullets | Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to PM | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | Toronto G20 weekend: Private security fast-tracked, traffic jams, heavy police presence, but no sonic weapons | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | G8/G20: Cell phones to be jammed as motorcades move through Huntsville, Toronto | G20: Eastern Avenue Protest Jail | G20 Security unbridled: Cops bring out artillery as civil rights observers preach vigilance | Construction begins on Toronto G20 security barrier | Toronto police show off G20 summit security | Mounties shun ‘sound cannons’ in urban settings ahead of G20 | 1,100 private security guards to work G8-G20 summits | Police detail G20 security zone | Toronto police buy four ’sound cannons’ for G20 | Toronto and Muskoka G8/20 Summit security costs hit $1.1B | The Toronto G20 Police State Crackdown | Toronto streets get 77 more surveillance cameras for G20 | Fighter jets buzz Toronto, Muskoka in G20 test runs | Downtown Toronto To Be Transformed Into Locked-Down Police State This Summer | Police State Canada 2010 and the G20 Summit | Militarized police integrate with private security for G20 Toronto concourse drill | Small army to protect Toronto during G20 summit | Toronto G20 summit security to be ‘massive’ | RCMP needs 5,500 rooms during G20 summit | Downtown Toronto to become a fortress for G20 summit | G20 security could strangle downtown | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Oakland Ross, Toronto Star
June 24, 2010

Police in riot gear are seen following protestors across a bridge in Pittsburgh at the G20 summit last September.

It’s a good thing for British newspaper reader Reuben Camara that he doesn’t pay taxes in Canada.

The Lancashire resident was outraged last year at the price-tag for an April summit that brought the G20 leaders to London for two days. Billed in some quarters as the “budget” summit, the meeting cost an estimated $30 million.

“I’d hate to think what a full-blown summit would cost,” Camara complained on the website of the London Daily Standard.

Come to Canada, Ruben – and don’t forget your cheque book.

Ottawa initially allocated $179 million for the G8 and G20 summits – three days of talks that are now expected to set taxpayers back at least $1.1 billion. Most of the money, about $930 million, is for security.

Last September, Pittsburgh hosted a G20 summit that resulted in no great breaches of public order but whose security-related costs totaled only about $12.2 million (U.S.) – less than 1.5 per cent of the projected costs of the summits in Toronto and Huntsville.

(more…)

This is the Copenhagen ‘launch fund’ pushed by Gordon Brown, whereby poor countries will be paid to shut down their developing industries. It will be interesting to see if this is rolled into the IMF climate slush fund that is being pushed in parallel with the global bank tax as these new taxation systems integrate to form the expected ‘green’ new world order, exposed in leaked UN documents in February of this year. Really, it’s just part of the agenda to swell international banking institutions, but believe what you want.

Related: Britain pushes for new climate talks; IMF and global taxes to figure into wealth redistribution scheme | IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund | EU considers general carbon tax | Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2012 | Davos: Global climate fund threatens aid to developing world, campaigner warns | Davos 2010: George Soros warns gold is now the ‘ultimate bubble’, calls for IMF to handle climate fund | Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Canada part of Copenhagen climate deal | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | World leaders push for climate deal | UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance | Copenhagen climate summit releases draft final text | IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Canada agrees to contribute to $10-billion climate change fund | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’ | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate, downgrades CO2 threat | EU agrees to pay developing countries ‘climate aid’ to pass Copenhagen | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda | Lord Nicholas Stern: The world’s future is being decided this weekend | Thatcher science adviser: Copenhagen goal is world government | German Scientists Call for ‘World Climate Bank’ | G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | US Congress Passes the 1,200-page Climate Bill that it was not allowed to read | Climate Cops To Fine “Wasteful” Homeowners & Businesses | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment? | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change

Allan Woods, Toronto Star
June 23, 2010

OTTAWA–Canada has set up a $400 million fund to help developing countries cope with climate change, a move that has earned the country a rare cheer from environmentalists.

The fund is Canada’s contribution to an annual $30 billion global pot that rich countries agreed to establish through at a climate gathering last December in Copenhagen. The financial commitment, good through 2012, was one of the few concrete outcomes of the meeting, which had planned to broker a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions between 2012 and 2020.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Canada is responsible for 2 per cent of the world’s emissions but is contributing 4 per cent of the fund.

“This contribution is consistent with our traditional share of developed country donor pledges in the context of multilateral international assistance efforts,” Prentice said Wednesday. “It will help developing countries reduce emissions and support adaptation and capacity building.”

(more…)

That’s what the economy needs to give it a shot in the arm. Spending like the proverbial drunken sailor on more jails, massive globalist summits, new police hardware and new squadrons of high-tech fighter jets. What kind of new economy is it we’re building, exactly? A Globe and Mail editorial reads:

“If the government didn’t know what the new law would cost, its managerial incompetence is inexcusable. If, as is more likely, it knew but didn’t say, its stealth is unjustifiable. Why would Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has been promoting government-wide restraint in the name of deficit control, allow jail budgets to go wild? Why would the government not tell the truth about the Truth in Sentencing Act?”

Related: Canada’s inhumane prison plan | The prison spending boom | Planned random DUI checkpoints a violation of rights | An American Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully | You Commit Three Felonies a Day | Tory plans for U.S.-style prisons slammed in report | US Supreme Court rules police can initiate suspect’s questioning if right to counsel waived | Tories propose law allowing fingerprinting before charges are laid | Serious offences declined before Tories: study | Entrapment becoming standard procedure for police | Ontario to place prosecutors in police stations | ‘Mens rea’ intention test questioned prior to Toronto 18 terror verdict | Federal parolees to wear tracking anklets in pilot project | Tory ‘Guilty before proven innocent’ law to make debut in court | U.K. Develops Plan to Begin Microchipping Prisoners | CBC Radio Broadcasts Expose of North American Police State | Prisoners ‘to be chipped like dogs’ | You Are a Suspect

Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service
June 22, 2010

OTTAWA – A new prison-sentencing law will cost the federal government an extra $5-billion over five years and the provincial governments even more, Canada’s spending watchdog estimated Tuesday in a report that predicts 13 new prisons will be needed to incarcerate 4,000 new offenders.

Kevin Page cautioned that his cost analysis is not an exact science, but rather a “high-level estimation” because he says he was stonewalled by the government in his efforts to secure the needed data.

“I knew incarceration was expensive, but when we actually did the calculation . . . you get big numbers in a hurry,” said Mr. Page, the parliamentary budget officer.

“It is a lot of money in a period of time when we’re generating deficits.”

Mr. Page, at the request of the Opposition Liberals, analyzed the cost of one piece of crime-and-punishment legislation, which came into force in February.

The new Truth in Sentencing Act ends a practice of judges handing offenders time credits, on a two-for-one basis, to compensate for time spent in pre-sentence remand.

The analysis estimates additional federal costs of $1-billion annually over five years, with two-thirds going toward extra operating and maintenance costs to house new prisoners and the remaining one-third being used for 13 new penitentiaries that would be needed to handle the prisoner influx.

(more…)

They’re the government. You can trust them, really.

Related:  Ontario tax collectors get $45K severance, keep jobs in HST federalization deal | Revenue Canada destroys man’s life, refuses to pay for million-dollar mistake | Canada Revenue Agency employees arrested in corruption probe | Obama takes heat for third cabinet appointee that hasn’t paid taxes

Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press
June 22, 2010

Rogue tax workers snooped on ex-spouses, family members

OTTAWA–Dozens of workers at Canada’s tax agency have been caught snooping on their ex-spouses, mothers-in-law, creditors and others by reading confidential tax files.

Internal reports at the Canada Revenue Agency show that rogue employees are improperly reviewing the private financial affairs of taxpayers without their knowledge.

And some are using agency computers to give favoured treatment to colleagues, friends, family – and themselves.

In one egregious breach last October, a woman accessed 37,500 emails and 776 documents containing confidential financial information about ordinary Canadians. She downloaded the files onto 17 compact discs for her personal use, inexplicably helped by agency technicians.

(more…)

You have to read between the lines on this one: “several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago.”

Related: BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion | Obama Using Oil Spill To Push Green Economy Agenda | Confidential document reveals Obama’s hardline US climate talk strategy | Obama sets sights on Arctic oil and gas exploration | Obama Likely to Rebrand Climate Bill as Jobs Bill | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill

Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
June 18, 2010

While President Obama made the pitch for climate and energy legislation yet again Tuesday in his Oval Office address, he did not disclose the White House’s new strategy: push for a scaled-back bill in the Senate, and drag out the conference long enough to ensure a floor vote after the negotiations.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration continues to press for a broad Senate bill: “Last night President Obama reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. Next week he will be reaching out to senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward.”

“A number of proposals have been put forward from members on both sides of the aisle. We’re open to good ideas from all sources, and will be working with senators on a comprehensive proposal,” LaBolt added. “The tragedy in the gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the president is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year.”

But several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago.

(more…)

Oxfam, the NGO behind this protest (“At The Table”) is, in the words of SourceWatch, “in cahoots with the World Bank”:

John Clark, an Oxfam economist, joined the World Bank, and a few of its principals have attended discussion groups hosted by the World Bank. The implications of these moves were spelled out by Anuradha Mittal, Food First!’s co-director: Oxfam’s report contradicts its own stated mission that ending poverty requires a global citizen’s movement for economic and social justice. We are disappointed that Oxfam, one of the NGO leaders on food security, has chosen to undermine the demands of social movements and think tanks in the South such as Via Campesina, MST, Third World Network, Focus on the Global South, and Africa Trade Network which have demanded that governments must uphold the rights of all people to food sovereignty and the right to food rather than industry-led export-oriented production.

That’s astroturfing, and they’re doing it right in front of you. It’s sad to see well meaning people manipulated by the powerful, considering it’s the globalizing institutions that will benefit from the new revenue streams that the largest banks will simply pass along to their customers. But hey, tax me! I’m Canadian.

Related: EU to push for global bank tax at G20 | US issues G20 travel alert for Toronto | Activists plan walkout and tent city to protest G8/G20 summits | G20 centre for protesters set to open | Banks to close 36 branches for Toronto G20 | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | Huntsville G8 will host 10 more countries, says PM | NGOs meet with G20 sherpas, press for ‘green economy’ and inclusive IMF | Toronto G20 weekend: Private security fast-tracked, traffic jams, heavy police presence, but no sonic weapons | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | G8/G20: Cell phones to be jammed as motorcades move through Huntsville, Toronto | G20: Eastern Avenue Protest Jail | G20 Security unbridled: Cops bring out artillery as civil rights observers preach vigilance | Construction begins on Toronto G20 security barrier | G20 media centre with fake lake to cost $1.9M | Toronto police show off G20 summit security | Mounties shun ‘sound cannons’ in urban settings ahead of G20 | 1,100 private security guards to work G8-G20 summits | Police detail G20 security zone | Toronto Police to take up to $100-million of G20 security funds | Toronto police buy four ’sound cannons’ for G20 | Toronto and Muskoka G8/20 Summit security costs hit $1.1B | The Toronto G20 Police State Crackdown | Toronto police agree to erase security zone pass info after G20 | Toronto banks review G20 security after Ottawa RBC fire | Condo behind security fence during G20 summit | Anarchists plan ‘militant’ protests at Toronto G20 | Toronto streets get 77 more surveillance cameras for G20 | Toronto G20 should address climate issues: Nicholas Stern, UN | Toronto labour, native protesters ready for G20 demonstrations | Toronto G20 protest area moved to Queens Park | Fighter jets buzz Toronto, Muskoka in G20 test runs | Downtown Toronto To Be Transformed Into Locked-Down Police State This Summer | All Toronto G20 protests will be directed to Trinity Bellwoods Park | Police State Canada 2010 and the G20 Summit | Protesters and police get ready to square off at G20 summit | Militarized police integrate with private security for G20 Toronto concourse drill | Small army to protect Toronto during G20 summit | Toronto braces for G20 logistics crunch | Hundreds of Toronto G20 delegates granted diplomatic immunity | Toronto G20 summit security to be ‘massive’ | RCMP needs 5,500 rooms during G20 summit | G20 ’sherpas’ meet with IMF, World Bank on Ottawa | Downtown Toronto to become a fortress for G20 summit | G8/G20: Gearing up for the biggest security event in Canadian history | Toronto braces for G20 disruption, Ottawa to pick up security tab | Convention centre confirmed as location for Toronto G20 summit | G20 security could strangle downtown | G20’s Metro Convention Centre location to bump baseball, pride activities | Harper confirms June G20 summit in Toronto | Is G20 more than Toronto can handle? | With only seven months to go, G20 site may be moved to Toronto | Top Mountie says Huntsville too small for G20 | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

CBC News
June 17, 2010

A man wearing a giant replica of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s head led G8 and G20 protesters through Toronto’s banking district on Thursday in a peaceful show of opposition to the summits’ $1-billion price tag.

At least 30 people, many of them in business attire, paraded near the intersection of King and Bay streets. They handed out fake $1-billion bills in what organizers called a tongue-in-cheek commentary on spending for the summits at a time when foreign aid is facing cuts.

The parade ended at Union Station, Toronto’s main train station, where protesters covered in an oil-like substance – actually chocolate – danced.

Police on bicycles monitored the protest, which was organized by At the Table Coalition, an umbrella group of non-profit groups.

The group is calling on Harper “to commit to the Robin Hood Tax, a 0.05 per cent Financial Transaction Tax on speculative trading that could raise billions each year for fighting climate change and poverty both at home and abroad,” the group said in a statement.

(more…)

It’s baaack… To recap briefly: any global bank levy would centralize economic control in the hands of the IMF, swell the power of global central banks and their affiliates – (eg; Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan) whose alumni populate the halls of the Federal Reserve and other central banks worldwide – and work to the detriment of smaller regional banks which are for the most part innocent of causing the financial crisis. Without the kind of political cover afforded by friends in higher places, they’re sitting ducks for merger and consolidation. If this happens, we won’t be sticking it to the banks, we’ll be capitulating to them. For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature.

Related: Tucker Bilderberg 2010 Wrapup: Attack on Iran discussed, World Treasury Dept delayed | G20 to delay tough bank tax regulations | Canada, EU at loggerheads over bank tax | European Central Bank chief: Bank of International Settlements to Rule the Global Economy | Harper calls for global economic governance, lauds G20 as ruling forum | US prepares to push for global capital rules | Flaherty wins delay in decision on global bank tax at interim G20 meeting | Bankers Prepare To Assault Americans With VAT, Transaction Taxes | Global bank tax urged by IMF | Flaherty stands firm against new bank tax | G20 sounds warning over lack of progress on global regulation | Banking reforms urgent, Harper says at G20 sherpas’ meeting | G20 ’sherpas’ meet with IMF, World Bank on Ottawa | Tories hand out $75 billion worth of ’spending restraint’ | Gordon Brown’s plan for global bank tax ‘a step closer’ | Global Bank Insurance Levy Wins Support over Transaction Tax at Davos | Harper urges G20 to follow economic accords | Bankers unite against Barack Obama and Gordon Brown in call for world regulation | IMF warns against retreat from stimulus spending | Banks find gaping loophole in Obama financial reforms | Obama talking tough with banks | EU urged to adopt bank supertax | Obama ponders bank transaction levy to recoup bailout shortfalls | No new stimulus, economy ’stabilized’: Harper | Explosive Leaked Emails Expose Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Deception in ‘Backdoor Bailout’ | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | EU calls for tax on bank transactions | UK: Brown takes campaign for Tobin tax to Commonwealth | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Flaherty, USA say no to global financial tax, yes to continued ’stimulus’ at G20 | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | IMF chief wants global bank tax | G20 nations meet as protests flare on issue of international banking regulation | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | No one talking about dumping dollar: China minister | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

Jan Strupczewski, Reuters
June 17, 2010

European leaders prepared to go it alone on levies if no consensus adopted at next week’s summit in Toronto

Europe will call for imposing a transaction tax on financial institutions at the G20 summit next week as well as a levy on banks to help pay for the costs of the crisis that started in the banking sector.

Leaders of the 20 biggest developed and developing economies meet on June 26-27 in Toronto.

“In the G20 we will … propose to explore and to develop the introduction of a financial transaction tax,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told a news conference after a meeting of leaders of the 27 EU countries.

The EU will also push for a global levy on financial institutions.

“The EU should lead efforts to set a global approach for introducing a levy on financial institutions with a view to maintaining a worldwide level playing field and will strongly defend this position with its G20 partners,” EU leaders said in a statement after the meeting.

Even the Europeans have yet to decide the details of any levy, such as its size or how the money would be used. The European Commission and EU finance ministers will work out such details by October.

(more…)