CPCFTW

You mean there is politics involved in high level bureaucratic positions? Stop the presses!

Wow.. Did I really just read that?

Only if it's the gun registry. Flip flop flip flop.

Alberta's one of the best places in the world to live in if you measure by unemployment, average income, personal tax rates, and services. Nothing wrong with deficits if they're used to create real growth.

850B is approximately the government spending on health care. I've explained numerous times why I used those numbers. Of course many do... I've made that argument many times. But the whole point of the Occupy movement was that 1% controlled over 50% of the wealth or something like that (I think that was their point?) If governments owned a significant portion of private assets, then their point would be moot, and the only argument would be how to distribute the returns of government owned assets. Not enough. Can't argue with that.

No I wasn't. One of the best investments our governments ever made... and they were in corporate failures. True but it is mostly the "1%" that get the profits from private sector health care. I'm suggesting that taxpayers get a cut and then any socialist ideals can be managed through the redistribution of investment profits. Universal healthcare should not preclude complete privatization... we just need our governments to become investors. It's simple: privatize nearly everything, spending is reduced by 90%, use that 90% (or whatever is left over to eliminate the deficit) to invest in the privatized companies and other public companies, redistribute the investment profits in whichever way makes the hippies happy. No more deficit, no more camping/rioting hippies, fare fewer overpaid public sector employees and bureaucrats.

Let's say your revenue is 70, your total spending is 100. You spend 25 on public health care delivery. Cut that 25 out, you're still borrowing to provide services. That's all I meant by that comment, put your mini US flag down. I'm suggesting the borrowing be used for ownership of financial assets with measureable returns. We could say we borrowed at 1%, invested 800B is private health care, had a 5% return, and redistributed 32B of evil corporate profits to the pockets of needy citizens. Instead we borrow and the only measurable returns are wait times, the salaries of doctors, nurses, and ceos, and health care sector shareholder profits to the "1%".

In my hypothetical scenario, if there was no public spending on health care, the us would still have a 300B deficit with the same revenue streams. Hence, if the alternative is to not spend anything on public delivery of health care, every dollar spent on health care is borrowed.

I've said it before, been called a commie, and I'll say it again: the public/private relationship needs to change. Private delivery, public/private ownership. Imagine yourself, as an investor, could borrow at 1-2% to invest, and could borrow nearly unlimited money. Theoretically, you could buy all the companies in the world, pay a 2-4% dividend on profits, use half to pay your debt and the other half to pay yourself. In a world in which governments operated this way, the theoretical return of a portfolio of all the stocks/bonds/debt in the world, should be the return on the lowest sovereign interest rate in the world, because that government could just borrow more money to buy the higher yielding assets. ie. the country with the lowest borrowing costs should be able to financially take over the world. Back to reality: lets say we privatized health care and personal health care costs go up due to the profit requirement (public spending on health care goes down to $0) plus there is no more free health care. Oh noes, what do we do?! Well how about we borrow to purchase a bunch of non-voting shares/bonds of the health care companies. We should be able to borrow at a rate that is much lower than the expected return of those private health care companies. The spread between our borrowing rate, and the return on those assets is profit which can be redistributed to Canadians. We could write every Canadian a cheque each year for that spread of profits which they could use to pay for health care expenses. Not nanny-state enough for you? How about the profits are redistributed according to income? You make less, you get a bigger cheque. Use your big cheque to buy health insurance, and voila, everyone who needs it has free healthcare. US spent about $805B on medicare and medicaid last year (ie. they borrowed 805B to spend on health care). That's enough to buy all of JNJ, Pfizer, Merck & Co., Abbott Labs, Eli Lilly, Sanofi Aventis etc. (in one year). These companies pay out 3-5% dividends, US can borrow at 0.72% for 5 years, even without capital gains, taxpayers are making 2-4% profit on $805B per year (16B profit). Rinse and repeat for education and there goes 50% of spending. Note: governments already purchase plenty of private assets through public pension funds. It's just that we distribute those profits/returns to an elite class of bureaucrats and public employees who get pensions the rest of employees can only dream of. Basically we are already doing what I have suggested except that we are overspending our profits, and allocating most of the profits to the pensions of the elite class of bureaucrats (rather than health care for the destitute). Governments have decided that government employees should be entitled to a cozy lifestyle while everyday Canadians struggle to survive.

Why talk about debt? Not like the US would pay back China in the event of a war.

Quite the academic. I'm on a cellphone so I couldn't open the link. Far greater credentials than most journalists. You'll have to excuse my incredulity.

Who cares what a guy with a journalism degree from g&m thinks? Do you form your opinions on what uninformed journalists tell you?

And to add: that infographic is a great tool to show that private enterprise is the source of all revenue. Public services and employees cannot exist without private sector employees' income tax revenue. Lets say you have an economy with 100 people and want to start a government which will build a school. You will hire 1 education minister, and 5 construction workers, and 5 teachers. Now how do you pay them and pay for building supplies? You need the other 89 people in the economy to be generating income privately. Then you can tax them for revenue, and use that revenue to pay for expenses like the aforementioned school and employees' labour. Yes the public employees (minister, construction workers, teachers) will be paying income taxes as well, but their incomes are entirely dependent on the 89 people working in the private sector. I had to add this because I am sick of people claiming that public service employees contribute to the economy equally because they also pay taxes. The only legitimate argument that can be made is that public services such as defense, transportation, education, and health care allow the private sector to function. But I think it is obvious that overspending on these services is not a sustainable path. Public service employment should be limited to a certain percentage of the economy because of the necessity of the private sector to fund the public sector. It would be up to governments/public to allocate that percentage of employees to the services which it most values.

I don't see why from that infographic. Corporate taxes are 8.9B, and the budgetary shortfall is 15B. Best case scenario, higher corporate taxes will have no negative effect on other revenue, and 0.05 x $8.9B of additional revenue is generated. This is approximately $450 million, or 3% of the shortfall (remember this is best case and very unlikely). Corporations effectively don't pay taxes anyway. They pass it on to the consumer and employees. Raising corporate taxes would just mean more layoffs, higher prices, less personal income tax revenue, and lower returns on financial investment (ie. further encouraging consumption over saving). Take a look at an income statement, and you'll note that net income is a line item net of taxes. This means that the residual income after taxes is distributed to shareholders or reinvested in the company (more employees, capital, other economic activity). Lets take a look at CAT's income statement: http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CAT&annual As you can see, in 2010, CAT paid $968M in income taxes on profits and had a net income of 2.7B after taxes. What if CAT had 0% income taxes? CAT would have an additional $968M to distribute to shareholders (into RRSP, 401K, pension funds, mutual funds, etc.), or to create more jobs/economic activity. Furthermore, higher corporate profits would encourage competitors to enter industries and thereby lower prices. Blaming corporations is so passé. What really needs to be done is to continue to reduce corporate taxes (but increase taxes on profits which are repatriated out of Canada). This will encourage companies to invest in Canada and to keep investing its profits in Canada. Other than cutting services, budgetary shortfalls should be covered through personal and sales taxes. Presuming that 0% corporate taxes would lead to lower prices, sales taxes could be increased without significantly impacting consumers. Lower corporate taxes will also lead to higher income tax revenue from the "1%". Since corporations will have more profits to distribute to shareholders, the 1% who own so many financial assets will be taxed more. Reducing corporate taxes to 0% would be one scenario where I would support the Occupy movement's call to increase taxation of 1%ers. Increasing dividend taxes would lead investors to demand that corporations focus on capital gains (ie. growth/reinvestment). For example, BMO has 640M shares which paid $2.80 in dividends in 2011. That is $1.8B from one company that was returned to shareholders rather than re-invested in the economy. However, the economic justification for favourable dividend taxation is that it allows investors (aka the market) to more effectively allocate capital in the most economically profitable way (ie. theoretically companies should pay dividends if they cannot invest in capital projects which offer a greater ROE than other investment opportunities). Therefore, capital gains taxes should also be increased such that dividends still remain favoured by investors. If reduced corporate taxes are not palatable to the public, then corporate tax credits which can reduce effective corporate tax to 0% should be offered for job creation. I would think that increased dividend and capital gains taxes would help curb some of the public outrage over 0% corporate taxes. More should be done to encourage Canadians to invest rather than consume. The TFSA is a good start. Higher investment returns would also help. Economy fixed.

I'm thinking we'll see some Mulroney majority seat numbers for Harper.

Yes, but can the Chinese write a 300 page study on the application of Kant's categorical imperative in Shakespeare's literature? Who needs a fancy practical education when we can have philosophy, journalism, and social sciences grads running our country and government?

d

He was clearly talking about having a party representing Trudeau's supposedly universally Canadian views win an election. The reason Trudeau made these comments is probably because the CPC had nearly 50% of the vote outside of Quebec. His Canada is a Canada that the majority of Canadians outside of Quebec do not want, so he wants to force Quebec's political views on the rest of Canada or separate. Pretty pathetic defeatist attitude.

Trudeau is officially anti-Canadian. Way to go libs... Firm up that center vote for Harper!!

lmao it was pretty obvious that she actually thought she had the correct number... she even later on says "10million?? 33 million!?!?". But I've got to admit that she had a nice recovery and segue into a rally for more voter participation.

Speaking of the evil 1%.. How about Zuckerberg's potential 2B tax bill? But it better be at least 30% of his income for the year, or jacee will be camping outside of the NYSE!! Why the NYSE?? Your guess is as good as mine..

Dre: What I don't understand is why you keep ignoring the fact that central banks DO have the means to decrease money supply. The results of decreasing money supply would be far less economically palatable for "the 99%" than the current situation. What happens with a decreased money supply? Banks have less money to lend and can therefore charge more interest on loans. Home ownership becomes an impossibility for all but the wealthy. Money gets pulled from corporate stocks and bonds and reallocated to high interest savings accounts. Companies can't raise as much capital and start cutting costs and laying off employees. Millions of bankruptcies because, as you have noted, there is not enough money in the system to pay off the debt. Make no mistake: the expansion of the money supply is for supporting the 99%'s spending habits only. The wealthy will always make money, whether that money is invested in stocks and bonds to create jobs for the 99%, or if it is in high interest savings accounts to benefit from the scarcity of money in your limited supply scenario.

You do? Maybe if you're a business. Is it work when someone pays you to do something for them?

It's actually a course... it will cost you about $1000 to take. It's mostly about the Canadian securities industry in general, but there is a chapter on economics and monetary policy. Sorry, I just wasn't sure how you arrived at that number. I'm still not quite sure I understand it without making the assumption that the money supply can't be adjusted, but I'll let it go.

Coulda sworn coins were money. Guess I'll throw out all these useless toonies Btw did you not just say "to print coins". So what is it? Punched or printed? Make up your mind!