Tre Mac Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 He has no hair? Thought it was clear with Trudeau's election win that Canadians value good hair over little things like policies and ideals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coastal.view Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 5 minutes ago, riffraff said: And this is a problem because? out west we complain often about being ignored or at least not given due consideration by the feds quebec / francapohones will view a leader who does not speak their language to be a bit of an insult and indication of lack of consideration given to their apparent equal status within canada i find that easy to understand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Strome Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 32 minutes ago, stawns said: I'll take a school teacher to lead my country and care about it's citizens over a CEO any day of the week. Drama teacher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Strome Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 6 minutes ago, coastal.view said: out west we complain often about being ignored or at least not given due consideration by the feds quebec / francapohones will view a leader who does not speak their language to be a bit of an insult and indication of lack of consideration given to their apparent equal status within canada i find that easy to understand I certainly don't complain about being ignored by the feds. I complain that the West has to fund the East on top of the majority of all Government spending going to the east. That being said I do agree with you, under no circumstances do I want to see seperation in Canada. I hate the fact that tax payer money goes to a seperation party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riffraff Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 With all due respect. When it comes to separatist volume it's all bark and no bite. I mean really, driving into a separate Quebec would be like Chula Vista to Tijuana. the separatists are the Kesler of Canada. If they don't want to be on the team and think they can contend elsewhere then gtfo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUPERTKBD Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 12 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said: From Harper to this. Makes Joe Clark look like certified genius by comparison. Guess the Cons have long abandoned the progressive moniker, and replaced it with greedy, ignorant, and will sell out anything for a buck. I know it's the "in" thing to slag Conservatives and I think O'Leary is a scumbag, but I think it's unfair to criticize the CPC for this. AFAIK, O'Leary has the right run run for the party leadership. If he somehow garnered the nomination, then there would be something to criticize. 5 hours ago, riffraff said: Smarter than Justin no doubt.....still a big meanie. You might feel differently if you saw his abysmal performance on "Celebrity Jeopardy". Aaron Rodgers mopped the floor with him, but it likely wouldn't have mattered who the competition was, the way he was ringing in with incorrect answers... 29 minutes ago, J.R. said: *Election reform is bigger IMO but both are pretty important. If they're smart, they'll avoid celebrities and go with this guy: If only. Cullen is my MP and would make a great candidate, IMO. However, he has repeatedly stated that he won't run again. He has young children and thinks that the PM job will require too much time away from his family. The NDP screwed up when they chose Mulcair instead of him last time around. Now they've missed their window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aGENT Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 6 minutes ago, RUPERTKBD said: I know it's the "in" thing to slag Conservatives and I think O'Leary is a scumbag, but I think it's unfair to criticize the CPC for this. AFAIK, O'Leary has the right run run for the party leadership. If he somehow garnered the nomination, then there would be something to criticize. You might feel differently if you saw his abysmal performance on "Celebrity Jeopardy". Aaron Rodgers mopped the floor with him, but it likely wouldn't have mattered who the competition was, the way he was ringing in with incorrect answers... If only. Cullen is my MP and would make a great candidate, IMO. However, he has repeatedly stated that he won't run again. He has young children and thinks that the PM job will require too much time away from his family. The NDP screwed up when they chose Mulcair instead of him last time around. Now they've missed their window. Amen to the underlined. Guy's probably the closest thing to Layton they had (and arguably smarter). His kids won't be young forever Maybe not next election but the one following they'd be stupid to not put him in leadership IMO (if the can't convince him sooner). Props to him for being such a solid family guy though (one of the million reasons he'd be an exceptional PM). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 11 minutes ago, RUPERTKBD said: You might feel differently if you saw his abysmal performance on "Celebrity Jeopardy". Aaron Rodgers mopped the floor with him, but it likely wouldn't have mattered who the competition was, the way he was ringing in with incorrect answers... I actually remember that. It was brutal. I was shocked on how uninformed he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stawns Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 1 hour ago, Ryan Strome said: Drama teacher. so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 2 hours ago, RRypien37 said: lol if you think any politician is worse/better. They all come from the same cesspool of sub human scum. The only genuine ones never make it to office or get clipped. I take it you are in your 40's-60's and still under the illusion that politics/democracy is just and fathomable. I take it you're in your 20's and still believe the world owes you something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 3 hours ago, Lancaster said: As head of an international multi-billion dollar organization, he has dealt with many powerful people across the globe. Not just the head-of-states for photo ops as JT when he was younger, but lobby groups, head of other corporations, key bureaucrats, officials and other important behind the scenes. Way more useful experience than say... I don't know... a school teacher. While I do agree that he should be a MP first, but unlike JT, being a MP is like a demotion compared to what he has now. A shadow cabinet role is lackluster as well. If he's going into politics, he's going for the top, not aiming for the bottom. Now I don't think O'leary is a good choice for the Conservatives or for PM, but that's just a reflection on the weakness of the party now. So remind us again How is running a business with the help of an entire boardroom full of lackeys and people who actually do the work for you while ensuring profits are met over peoples welfare the best thing for this country? How is it more useful experience than say...a school teacher who grew up a son of one of the most influential political figures in canadian history surrounded by and immersed in political life from his first steps Just REALLY curious to know how ensuring money over people is more experienced or qualified over a lifetime in the political theater? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 17 minutes ago, stawns said: so? Drama teacher is far less qualified than a guy who states his only job was in a convenience store before he got fired yet is somehow in tune with the common man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stawns Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 1 minute ago, Warhippy said: Drama teacher is far less qualified than a guy who states his only job was in a convenience store before he got fired yet is somehow in tune with the common man that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Many of the worlds great leaders and innovators have been educators. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Strome Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 5 minutes ago, Warhippy said: So remind us again How is running a business with the help of an entire boardroom full of lackeys and people who actually do the work for you while ensuring profits are met over peoples welfare the best thing for this country? How is it more useful experience than say...a school teacher who grew up a son of one of the most influential political figures in canadian history surrounded by and immersed in political life from his first steps Just REALLY curious to know how ensuring money over people is more experienced or qualified over a lifetime in the political theater? He is running up major debt just like his daddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 1 minute ago, Warhippy said: So remind us again How is running a business with the help of an entire boardroom full of lackeys and people who actually do the work for you while ensuring profits are met over peoples welfare the best thing for this country? How is it more useful experience than say...a school teacher who grew up a son of one of the most influential political figures in canadian history surrounded by and immersed in political life from his first steps Just REALLY curious to know how ensuring money over people is more experienced or qualified over a lifetime in the political theater? A boardroom can potentially be more diverse than a cabinet where positions are assigned. At least the boardroom can have independent members and whoever is representing over major stakeholders. You're gonna butt heads against management, other executives, etc.... a company full of yes-men won't survive long-term. As for experience, it's not just being around in photo ops and talking about politics, it's about connections and dialogue. Knowing head of states are fine and dandy, but the real cogs are the ones I listed. The bureaucrats, lobbies, and other officials.... people you have to meet and greet for business deals, the grunts doing the actual work for policies. I'm just saying that the whole "he's got no experience" is a bit overblown. Profit over people... or people over profits... you know it can't just be one over the other. It has to be a healthy balance, something many governments seem to have no concept of. Social programs, welfare, etc... all great, but not when it's not sustainable. The Canadian government has a spending problem that everyone knows and a cleanup is way overdue. This isn't to say that they're gonna euthanize grandma when she catches the flu, force people to eat dog food and turn the most impoverish people into solent green... but there is a major disconnect between what people want and what people is able to afford. If you run a company like that, you're outta business. You run a country like that... you become the PIIGS nations. I don't really know much of O'Leary besides watching him occasionally on Dragon's Den... so I'm gonna reserve judgement until he comes up with actual policies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuckin_futz Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 Here is just a brief summary of Mr. O'Leary's record as a businessman. By 1983, O’Leary saw the potential in the emerging software and personal computer industries. He formed SoftKey Software Products Inc. in the basement of his Toronto home, convincing computer companies to bundle his software into their products. SoftKey moved to Boston and focused on the booming field of educational software. By 1993, it was trading on Nasdaq and had revenues of $110-million—and a loss of $57-million. The company grew by making a string of acquisitions. SoftKey’s most prominent takeover was of San Francisco-based The Learning Company (TLC). Prior to the sale, TLC hired the Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA), a forensic accounting firm, to examine its suitor’s financials. CFRA alleged that SoftKey may have overstated its earnings by bundling various general and administrative costs into write-offs. CFRA was also unhappy with SoftKey’s decision to fire its auditor, Arthur Andersen, after the accounting firm found deficiencies in the company’s internal controls. CFRA noted that SoftKey’s audit committee “holds several questionable members, including the CEO… as well as an outside member associated with two public companies charged with financial improprieties and another member who is a paid consultant to the company.” Yet SoftKey’s acquisition of TLC went through, and SoftKey adopted the TLC name. By 1996, TLC had 3,000 employees and was the biggest educational software company in the world. It continued to grow via acquisitions, driving revenues up over $800-million. But SEC filing shows that TLC suffered net losses of $376-million in 1996, $495-million in 1997 and $105-million in 1998. Moreover, TLC’s accumulated deficit topped $1.1-billion by the end of 1998. That same year, toy giant Mattel Inc. made a takeover bid for TLC, without doing proper due diligence. Desperate to reverse a steep slide in the company’s stock price, Mattel CEO Jill Barad seized on educational software as a driver of future growth. The takeover shocked many, largely because TLC was seen, according to software-industry analyst Sean McGowan, as a well-known “house of cards” that was burdened with tired brands—not helped by the fact that O’Leary had slashed R&D from 24 down to 11 percent of expenditures. “There was a lot of [TLC] inventory out there that was not moving very well,” McGowan says. “They pumped up the sales by repackaging and distributing to convenience stores and drugstores.” Indeed, TLC was later accused in a shareholders’ lawsuit and by a Mattel executive of “stuffing the channels”—shipping product at the end of a quarter and recording it as revenue, even though much of the merchandise would be returned. “Stuffing the channels was part of the business back then,” says a former TLC sales rep based in California. In the end, Mattel purchased TLC for about $4-billion in the spring of 1999. O’Leary took over as president of Mattel’s new TLC digital division. Weeks after the sale, CFRA produced a critical report on Mattel, claiming TLC was already experiencing collapsing revenue, a surge in receivables and a deterioration of operating cash flow. In the third quarter of 1999, Mattel expected profits of $50-million from the TLC division. Instead, it was a loss of $105-million (the next quarter losses rose to $206 -million), which wiped out more than $2-billion in shareholder value in one day, as the company’s share price slid from nearly $17 to $11.69. In short, O’Leary had sold Mattel a turkey. One investors' lawsuit says O’Leary cashed in his Mattel shares just before the losses were announced when the stock was at its peak, pocketing almost $6-million. In November of 1999, O’Leary was fired, six months into a three-year contract. Four months later, Mattel’s CEO, Jill Barad, was forced out too. “There is nothing I can say to gloss over how devastating The Learning Company’s results have been to Mattel’s overall performance,” Barad said as she went out the door. Mattel hired Bernard Stolar, a video-game executive, to see if he could salvage TLC. “It was an absolute disaster,” he says. In 2000, Mattel handed over its multi-billion-dollar acquisition to another firm for a mere $27-million and a share of its future profits. Mattel’s purchase of TLC was later labeled by Businessweek magazine as one of “the Worst Deals of All Time.” Shareholders launched a class-action lawsuit, naming O’Leary as a defendant, accusing him of insider trading and of being part of a scheme to obscure TLC’s financial state. While O’Leary denied the allegations, in 2003, Mattel settled the lawsuit for $122-million—considered a “mega-settlement” at the time. O'Leary has blamed Mattel's management for the problems with the TLC division, not his own involvement. While O’Leary’s actions cost Mattel’s investors hundreds of millions, he netted $11.2-million between his severance package and sale of his Mattel stock. *********************** Then there's this beauty ......... The rise and fall of O'Leary Funds By 2008, having painted himself as a business guru, O’Leary felt it was time to cash in on his new-found fame and start another business. That summer, he announced the creation of his own mutual fund company, O’Leary Funds, despite not having a background in investing other people’s money or a broker’s license, and having denigrated mutual funds on TV. In the end, O’Leary would be the hood ornament to woo investors; he hired former Wall Street investment banker Connor O’Brien to be the portfolio manager. One of the first things O’Leary said was he wouldn't “grind the capital” of investors, meaning he would not pay back to investors their very own principal to meet dividend demands (as opposed to generating dividends as a result of astute investing). The funds took off. By 2010, O’Leary was hoping his funds would hit $5-billion in assets within three years. Yet it was not long afterwards that some sharp-eyed experts on Bay Street found evidence that, in fact, O’Leary Funds was paying out dividends to investors with their very own cash – in other words, grinding their capital. “The issue is not do other people grind their own capital, it’s that he said he doesn’t do it,” says Mark McQueen, CEO of Wellington Financial. “And I found half a dozen of his funds where he had.” By 2012, investment advisers were pulling their money out of the O’Leary Funds simply because they were not performing as well as O’Leary had touted. And the funds continued to leak over the next three years before O’Leary finally folded his tent last fall, selling the entire business to Brett Wilson's Canoe Financial. Meanwhile, O’Leary’s television career also began to flag. In 2014, he left CBC and Dragons’ Den and The Lang & O’Leary Exchange to become a gadfly at CTV. His profile in Canada has dimmed considerably since. In the end, O’Leary succeeded in becoming a millionaire. But more so because he learned how to turn himself into a celebrity and not because of his business acumen. Lots more in the link http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/01/26/news/real-and-shocking-story-kevin-olearys-business-career ******************* He ran TLC into the toilet. Then dressed it up via acquisitions (lipstick on a pig). Hid the true financial condition of the company and sold it to an idiot (Mattel). He committed fraud and got away with it because Mattel was too damn embarrassed about their own stupidity in the matter. Notice how all he'll ever say on the matter is he built a company and sold it to Mattel? Never more details than that. Mattel is so embarrassed about their own lack of due diligence on the matter even nearly 2 decades later they won't talk about it. The man is a financial charlatan. In the end, if the argument is Trudeau is a celebrity with no clue what he's doing then how is replacing him with another celebrity with no clue what he's doing the answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBeard Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 should be great, He seems to be the same in every situation and appeals more to logic than emotion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 2 hours ago, stawns said: that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Many of the worlds great leaders and innovators have been educators. Sarcasm Stawns, sarcasm 2 hours ago, Ryan Strome said: He is running up major debt just like his daddy. Harper added $150 billion to the national debt/deficit. Trudeau about what 100? 120? When you add it up, Trudeau screwed up, but harper screwed up more, plus you have to add harper AND mulroney, Chretien was bad but him and martin managed to start paying some of it down. Trudeau will have to work extra hard to equal the screw ups left him by harper mulroney and trudeau sr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Strome Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 2 minutes ago, Warhippy said: Sarcasm Stawns, sarcasm Harper added $150 billion to the national debt/deficit. Trudeau about what 100? 120? When you add it up, Trudeau screwed up, but harper screwed up more, plus you have to add harper AND mulroney, Chretien was bad but him and martin managed to start paying some of it down. Trudeau will have to work extra hard to equal the screw ups left him by harper mulroney and trudeau sr. What happened to the 10 million dollar deficits for 3 years? Anyhow isn't this thread about an ignorant billionaire? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM_ Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 5 hours ago, Ryan Strome said: Thing is leaders in this Country are picked by the party. I highly doubt the cpc will pick him. His comments about the military and his ignorance towards those who aren't billionaires will make his quest pretty much impossible. Oh don't underestimate the "don't touch the hot stove" factor for the CPC. Trudeau shell shocked them. The allure of a "star" will be too much for them. Plus they really don't have a candidate that can make a wide appeal to add to the base. Leitch e.g., will never outlive some of her comments. Bernier has the most experience (and a hot girlfriend) . The only thing Kevin can bring is a much needed revision of how Canada funds R&D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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