Toro

As mush as I am not on the Left, I love NPR because its insightful and thought-provoking. And as much am on the Right, I can't stand the cacaphony of the right-wing media as it seems to be all just bromides.

How 'bout, "People who live in Lethbridge are pretty cool." Is that okay?

When I lived in Canada, every morning I'd put on Newsworld as I got ready for my day. I brought a Bell ExpressVu system down here, and whenever I put on Newsworld, I find it boring. How disappointing. I always liked CBC radio too. The equivalent of PBS for radio here in America is NPR. It is a fabulous station, and blows CBC radio out of the water.

Western, pfft! Actually, the knock against Western is that it isn't a particularly well known school outside of Canada.

Allright, UofT! Do you have the actual rank? Or link?

They randomly search people at airports in the States because they cannot search Arab guys. Seems pretty silly to me to search grandmas, but I guess that's the price to pay in a tolerant society.

That would be just dumb - computer s/w is a essential part of most businesses. Wine is a luxery item.The when Europeans had the row over steel they put tariffs on Apple and Oranges (Florida and Oregon and important swing states). We could do the same. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I agree that a trade war is dumb. But the point of hitting Microsoft is that Microsoft has more power in DC than the lumber industry. You want to have someone else in the ear of the senators from the Pacific northwest. Microsoft is it. Microsoft is more important than the wine industry.

Hey everyone, let's welcome Carolyn Parrish, aka THELIBERAL, to the site. Welcome Carol. What are you going to do for work when you get turfed out in the next election?

Wine's shipped from Washington and Oregon too. What the government should be doing is slapping duties on goods from those states that are instigating this idiotic trade war. Maybe Canada should hit Microsoft with a tariff.

Debt in and of itself isn't a bad thing. Corporations use debt all the time. So do people when they buy a house or a car. What matters is what they use if for and its size. Alberta is in a better situation than Canada, but Canada, compared to the rest of the world, is in okay shape. And improving.

This would go in my sig if we had them...

!!!

August Martin speaks for Canadians in his capacity as PM. However, neither Martin nor Harper speak for all Canadians as representative of Canadian culture/attitudes, etc. Canada is very diverse. My guess is that if Quebec would separate, then English Canada would elected the most hardline man as PM, which would be Harper.

I have heard news reports about the price of gas being different on the west coast than the east coast. I don't know how large the difference was are but I believe such differences exist since there is very limited capacity to ship natural gas anywhere where the price is high (unlike oil). That said, there are players in the US that are investing heavily in LNG facilities that allow natural gas to be shipped from Russia and other places. Any 'Layton' maneuvers on the part of Canada would just speed up this process. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> On arbitrage: There are price differences at different hubs and in different regions. The question is can you get it there? Of course, that's what the traders at Reliant, Duke, Aquila, Dynergy, etc. do. There are four LNG terminals in America. There are proposals to build another 40. Current gas consumption in the US is about 63 tcf/d. LNG brings in just over 1. Those 40 would bring it up to 8. However, of those 40, they might build 8-12. Its more likely that they are built on the wilderness coast of Canada and piped down. Having said that, nat gas is pretty much a captive market. The problem is that utilities and industrial users would be encouraged to switch to other sources. What Layton's proposal would do would be to cause a short-term price spike for some hydrocarbons. Its not smart long-term though it might make the Americans take notice. Its a pretty big card to play. And a dangerous one.

Question; Which Party allowed tens of millions of dollars to go missing under Adscam? A. The Liberals B. The Communist Party C. The Marijuana Party

August. You make good points Per capita is a more accurate way of looking at how the individual faired. If you download the spreadsheet, you will see that the figures are in domestic currencies. I picked those dates because 1970 is when the data started, its a nice round number and that was the comparison the OECD uses in other pages. I also looked at various time periods and the results weren't dissimilair Eureka That looks like an interesting paper. I will read through it later. I note that it says "Diminishing Growth", not "Declining Growth." Of that, I will not argue that the 1980s onward saw diminishing growth. You can see that in the statistics I posted, especially in Europe. But we must understand the reasons why. We'll discuss them later since I have to get to work now.

Why thank you BHS. I'll get around to posting the expansion of government spending which at least partly caused those huge growth rates in Europe in the 1970s.

Continue to discussion on global growth here http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3710

There has been some debate on this forum about economic growth rates. I could find this out on the Internet, but frankly, it was just easier to do it myself. This is OECD data http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_...1_1_1_1,00.html Use tables 1b for the GDP data, and for foreign exchange rates use table C1. The data is after inflation and currency fluctuations, adjusted for purchasing power parity. Growth rates are in US dollars. The OECD data starts in 1970 and ends in 2003. These are the growth rates 1970-2003 Australia 1.5% Canada 2.3% France 2.4% Germany 4.6% Italy -0.8% Japan 6.6% Spain 0.8% Sweden 0.6% UK 1.1% USA 3.1% 1970-1980 Australia 3.2% Canada 3.0% France 6.2% Germany 10.2% Italy 0.4% Japan 9.4% Spain 3.4% Sweden 4.0% UK 1.6% USA 3.3% 1980-1990 Australia -0.8% Canada 2.8% France 0.0% Germany 3.5% Italy -1.1% Japan 8.7% Spain -0.6% Sweden -1.2% UK -0.1% USA 3.2% 1990-2000 Australia 0.5% Canada 0.5% France -0.6% Germany -0.6% Italy -4.0% Japan 4.4% Spain -3.0% Sweden -2.4% UK 0.8% USA 3.3% 1995-2003 Australia 2.1% Canada 3.2% France 0.4% Germany -1.0% Italy 0.8% Japan -1.7% Spain 1.4% Sweden 1.0% UK 3.2% USA 3.3%

To make it simpler then. 1. The standard of living will not improve. If you think there are no more poor people, that enough disease has been cured, that mankind is at the end of history, then fine, we don't need more growth. 2. On a more practical level, if the economy doesn't grow, profits won't grow. If profits won't grow, you won't get your pension, or at least a pension to live on. Hope you enjoy workings until you're 85. Economic growth is not a zero-sum game. If there is a limit, we are no where near it.

Of course Spain, Ireland and Portugal had higher growth rates! They came from a lower base and integration into the EU opened up vast new markets. All three of these countries were large net recipients of EU transfer funds. C'mon, man! Context!

Are you joking?

Do not listen to Mr. Michael. Why must we have economic growth? First understand that economic growth is both a spontaneous/intrinisic process AND a determined desired outcome which leads to laws and infrastructures to encourage growth. It is an intrinisic process because perhaps the biggest long-term factor in growth is technology. People invent things to make people's life easier. Utility, or wealth, is created when this happens, either measurable (which is economics) or unmeasureable (i.e. intangibles such as more leisure time, longer life spans, etc.). Because we as a society have figured out this is a good thing, we pass laws that - for the most part - make growth more desirable.

Saudi Arabia has about 500,000 barrels of spare capacity - if that - though they say they have more. That's pretty common knowledge in the market.

Wouldn't happen. Gas retailing and marketing is a low margin, highly competitive business. Prices would fall.