How is this capitalist, and not actually something else?
The government games, also known as the Olympics, takes it upon itself to gamble countless billions of taxpayer cash, then quickly secures corporate sponsors who buy various forms of advertising rights and marketing rights from the government, all of which helps the government defray the cost to the taxpayers. Remember the government already gambled away all this cash — six to eight billion dollars’ worth — on your behalf, as if it’s a core function of government to do this sort of thing now.
Among the corporate sponsors, we find examples like this: The Royal Canadian Mint. Unless you’re completely daft, or all you watch is the state-owned CBC, you know that The Royal Canadian Mint is not a “corporation”, it is another division of the federal government — wholly state-owned and state-run, with the entire board of directors appointed by the government, almost exactly the same as at the state-owned CBC division — which is nothing more than another division of the government, only that one provides the people with their much needed news and entertainment media, and stinks so bad it could actually use a mint.
The Mint is calling themselves an “Official Supporter”. The CBC merely bid, using your cash, to secure the broadcast rights, but mercifully, they were outbid by a private outfit, the CTV, which was forced to compete against their own government using their own cash, for the broadcast rights, after the cost of the rights were bid-up by the state-owned CBC division to historic proportions, using your cash, and the CTV’s cash.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and review: The government “invests” billion in the government games, then sells rights of various sorts to their own divisions of government. You are selling something to yourself to defray the billions your government spent, of your own money, taken directly from right out of your pockets. This is unique. Not capitalist. Something special. But we’re not done.
Then the Mint takes it upon itself to create and manufacture all manner of shiny trinkets that they made for the government games —the Olympics — to be sold to YOU of course. You already own all of it, because you own this “company”, and they used your own money to create and manufacture these things. But now they’re asking 
you to buy it again, from them/you. Plus you pay them the GST. And the PST. And then the shipping via Canada Post, which is another division of government. They charge tax on the shipping via Canada Post too.
Some of the trinkets include a Sterling Silver Lucky Loonie. $54.95. It’s loony alright. Another trinket is a hockey puck with a coin inside. A hockey puck. $21.95. Holy puck. This is a core function of government, just like Little Mosque on the Prairie and re-runs of Michael Moore “documentaries” are a core function of government.
Let’s review again: the government, through their Mint division, is competing against its own citizens, who already own businesses in the retail Olympics trinket market, in order for the government, in some sort of twisted, socialist quagmire, to earn “profits”, which despite my education in economics, I can’t really even define in any logical sort of way. It’s much the same way I feel it is impossible to explain buying a bottle of Jack Daniels from one of our government-owned, government-run liquor stores, which buy their stock from the government-owned, government-run liquor importation and distribution division, which we as taxpayers already own, and which competes against others in the business, for profits.
In weirdly related news, I’m still selling — or at least I’m trying to — my patriotic PTBC flag pins for $10 in order to help defray the cost of this near-dead, cash-strapped PTBC venture, which is forced to compete against the government in more than one way. Using the Olympics as a backdrop, I was going to launch a little campaign to unload a few of these pins, which I bought and paid for with my after-tax cash, since they seemed a natural fit: PTBC stands for Proud To Be Canadian, ya see. Rah, rah, shish-oom-bah. But I’m up against competition from my government and their massive multi-million-dollar campaign, which somehow managed to come up with far shinier trinkets and far more expensive marketing. I simply can’t compete against that “public option”. So I didn’t.
Please buy one instead of buying anything made by the government, which you already own.
There is no economic model which explains this sort of lunacy, except one, but that can’t be it since this isn’t in fact a communist country. And yet this is not by any stretch of even the wildest imagination, “capitalism”. Or, therefore, “freedom”.
EXTRA—NOT CAPITALIST BUT SOMETHING ELSE:
Other “corporate” sponsors of the government games include:
• BC Hydro, a 100% state-owned division of the BC government;
• the BC Lottery “Corporation”, the BC government’s gambling and lottery ticket-selling division (it’s totally fixed against you —they’re experts at this);
• the Insurance “Corporation” of BC, the monopoly car insurance division of the government;
• Canada Post “Corporation”—the state-owned mail carrier, is an “official supplier”.
• CHEVROLET —which as we know is now part of the government-owned and run Obama General Motors.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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