CPCFTW

This isn't what I had in mind when I voted for him to trim the fat and stop the gravy train! I thought he said he would cut the waste, not the waist! I'm here all night folks!

She probably thought it was off-topic and would address the question during the appropriate interview. Come on Sharkman, how could you miss that softball?

Except that Dre is completely wrong. Most of the money went to public sector workers, bureaucrats, the sick, disabled, lazy, and the unemployed.

Or better yet, slash right wingers' throats! Amirite?

I wonder what the results would be if the question was if 9/11 was an inside job by the US govt. Or if you asked if Goldman Sachs caused the recession. Everyone knows the left, as apologists for radical Islamism, loves to follow the Mid-East.

You're thinking of people who dump all their money into penny stocks. I'm talking about day trading which involves a level of risk management to be successful.

I said day trading. People do it as a full-time job and you can trade options in a TFSA. Lets say I put 10k in my TFSA. I can buy 100 call options trading at $1.00 (exposure = 100 shares per contract or 10,000 shares). Now lets say the underlying stock is trading at $20/share, and the options I am trading have a delta of 0.7. This means that for every $1 increase in the share price, the option increases by $0.70. The stock jumps up $0.20 (1%) on some random news, and I go long the call options for 1 min during this swing. I make $0.14 x 100 x 100 = $1400. Now repeat this for 4 years with a 70-80% win rate on your trades = 300k TFSA. It's basically tax free income for these people who do it as a job. BTW I also heard a story of someone who dumped 500k into their TFSA when it was first introduced then immediately withdrew it. He got nicked for 1% overcontribution penalty for one month, then the next year his contribution room was 500k (withdrawals from previous years are added to next year's contribution room). Now he has 500k+ in tax free investment room. The government closed that loophole pretty quickly though.

And how did the government pay for those shares in those firms? Through a pro-business approach to governance for decades during which those corporations "exploited" cheap Singapore labour. The government spent money on creating jobs and investing rather than spending money on subsidizing laziness and failure like the West.

Isn't that the corporate welfare that you guys just had your camp out about? I guess corporate welfare is ok if it is for green energy and drug companies but not for oilsands development?

From my recollection, foreign takeovers of the TMX Group by the LSE, and Potash Corp. by BHP were both blocked by the Harper government. So much for that theory I guess.

Have there been any layoffs yet or just a bad day? I think they should slash ttc workers compensation and use the savings to build an express line along yonge with only 5 or 6 stops (eg. union, dundas, bloor, st clair, eglinton, york mills, finch). One hour commute times to and from work is so inefficient as a society.

Possibly. That's more of a random idea I thought of to make scrapping minimum wages more palatable to the masses. Or maybe it can just be applied to the manufacturing industry where low wage jobs is exactly what we need.

Abolishing welfare, banishing public sector unions, and slashing public sector compensation will cost billions? You are so far removed from reality. You must not have been very educated/skilled if you have such little confidence in your abilities that you think a company would only pay you 20k in this scenario. Companies will continue to pay top dollar for people with unique skillsets, or they won't be able to hire anyone because everyone with employable skills will move to the US. There will also be much more entrepreneurship and competition for labour as hiring employees and creating jobs will be much more affordable. I could start an online business that manufactures, sells, and delivers couches in the Toronto area. I'd pay the builders and drivers/deliverers $5/hr. My couches might not be the best, but I'll sell a ton of them if they cost $50 each. When my profits are high enough I hire a CEO and relax while collecting my cheques. He starts exporting my couches to a billion Chinese people and we're paying taxes on all the corporate profits. Could I do the same for an operating system to compete with Windows, or a portfolio management company that put 100% of client assets in RIM because they liked Blackberries, or a hospital that will do open heart surgery for $100, or a university for $100/semester but all the professors flunked out of high school? No because people demand skilled labour in these occupations. But yes, everyone flipping burgers, serving coffee, and mopping floors will get 20k. Furthermore, reduced wages leads to reduced prices. So people will actually buy more. I might also suggest that any company using this strategy would have to open an RESP in the employee's name and contribute $2500/yr to it. After 5 years of labour, interest, and government CESG grants, the employee would have around $20,000 to train for a better career. Finding a part-time job during school to help pay living expenses would not be hard. This would keep our labour force as skilled as possible.

I love most of it. I'll add: - Once budget is balanced, continue to reduce corporate and personal income taxes. - Start issuing T-Bills for investment purposes instead of for spending. Borrow at 1%, invest in a diversified portfolio of assets yielding 5-10% for Canadians. Send Canadians over 16 y/o dividend cheques from this portfolio every month so that Canadians can start to appreciate the benefits of investment before they become NDP voters. When you reach 65 or leave the country, some sustainable percentage of your share of the accumulated capital gains on the portfolio will be paid out (to RIF if retired, via cheque and pro-rated if leaving Canada). - Implement RHSP (registered health savings plan) with tax deductions similar to RRSP. - Abolish welfare for non-disabled/insane/single parent of children under school age. - Make minimum wages illegal. - Banish public sector unions. Make all public pensions DC instead of DB with 1:1 matching only. - Create Department of Public Sector Compensation which will find comparables (in terms of duties, education/skills, hours worked, job security, etc.) between public sector vs private sector jobs. Public sector compensation and benefits will be rolled back to 105% of private sector comparables if public sector is compensated > 110% of private sector comparables. - Finally, implement "minimum income" program whereby the government makes up any shortfall in income paid by the company. Eg. Car parts manufacturer makes a plant in Canada and hires full time workers for $5/hr. Government has $20,000 minimum full-time income law. Employee only makes $5 x 40hr x 50wks = $10,000 through the manufacturer, the government pays the worker another $10,000 in "welfare" to meet the $20,000 minimum income level. This program will be paid for by eliminating welfare, heavily reducing unemployment (more tax revenue, less social costs), reducing public sector labour costs, and through taxation of the new manufacturing industry. The effect of all this will be to reduce prices (much lower labour costs) for better quality of life, increase employment, and increase disposable income (less taxes).

I don't think I have to say that I'm a conservative voter and I am very happy about this. So much for that "hidden agenda". Harper should get even more centrist votes next election. Looking forward to 7 more years of Harper's Canada.

What the hell man are you trolling or are you really this slow? I already responded this this point twice.

I called for 50% cuts in the OP and you think I care what was cut from this 3%? How did I miss your "salient" point? I just responded to it. The 3% decrease is based on a comparison with THE SAME PERIOD last year (ie. the same would have been true of the spending last year up to this point). Come on Waldo, try to keep up.

Cool story Waldo. Oh wait, http://www.parl.gc.ca/PBO-DPB/documents/Expenditure_Monitor_2011Q2_EN.pdf

You obviously know very little about government. First of all, fed departments aren't representatives of the CPC. And do you not understand how ridiculous you sound blaming the conservatives for this lack of transparency when the only reason transparency is questioned is because of the conservative created PBO?

I suspect revenue will be up from the effects of inflation, 600,000 new jobs, and higher corporate profits. I disagree about the debt, we just need to spend better. It seems like a waste to not take advantage of the ability to borrow at under 1% interest. Just spend it on financial assets, infrastructure, and REAL private sector job creation instead of welfare and bureaucrat jobs. Also paying off all our debt would make the CAD extremely strong and negatively impact our trade balance.

They projected a 1.5% increase in spending. They are doing much better than that projection after the first half of the year.

What are you talking about? Where does it say that in your link?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/tories-waste-no-time-hitting-brakes-on-spending-watchdog-finds/article2298838/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2298838 Like we said all along. The cuts will come when Harper gets his majority. 3% down, 10% more in the upcoming budget, and hopefully 50% more by the time Harper's 8 years of majority rule are up!

what?