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3. Respecting Who We Are Women’s Equality What does this mean? Does this mean equal pay for equal work or equal pay for equal value of work? Cost? Cost? Why don't we make EI a true insurance program, like the word is supposed to mean? So if someone is continuously using EI, that person will see his premiums rise. This will give the worker greater incentive to find permanent employment. Aboriginal Peoples Boy, does that ever open a Pandora's box in a country with so many immigrants. Diverse Canada Great idea. Respecting Equality All the Mormons will move to Canada. Can't wait to see the NDP defend polygamy. This is nice, but recall the posts about about the Left offerring idealized solutions without fully understanding the secondary effects. Democratic Choices Good idea What makes us Canadian Why not pass a policy mandating better programing so people actually watch the damn channel?

The reason why capital gets priority over labour is because capital is initiates the business activity, not labour. 1,000 workers don't all get together and say, "We should find some capital so we can be employed." But someone with $1 million will say, "I want to start a business. I have the money, now lets find some workers." Capital is required first.

The risk takers are the shareholders. They get nothing. The employees will at least get something.

I think you mean 'existing socialist world' (at least in Canada). Socialism is merely having taxes for the common good in a free market economy. Marxism, or 100% taxation, is the extreme end, and 0 taxes, or pure capitalism, is at the other. 'Socialism' is any form of taxation from 1-99%. (As long as that taxation is meant for 'government', or common needs) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think what August means, and what I often think, is that the NDP puts forward idealistic solutions that aren't always workable in the real world. For instance, in the example of the underfunded pensions, what if funding up those pensions put the company into bankruptcy? Sounds good, but companies have gone under because of pension fund obligations. That doesn't mean companies shouldn't skirt their obligations, but to make it blanket illegal will have secondary and tertiary effects that probably haven't occurred to the drafters of the policy.

Companies that offer what are known as "defined benefit pension plans" are required to pay employees a pension based upon a formula. An example would be something like 70% of the employees' average wages over the last five years of employment pro-rated based on the number of years he worked up to a certain amount. The employer then has a pension liability and must set funds aside to pay the liabilities. The company usually puts a certain amount into a pension fund and invests the money in stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity, etc. And if at a certain time, the liability is $100 million but the assets in the trust are $80 million, then the pension plan is "underfunded". If it had $120 million, its overfunded. This is a nice idea, and companies certainly should have a fully-funded pension plan. The problem is that for funds that are underfunded, the costs to fully fund the plan, especially if its done immediately, may mean job losses at the company. Absolutely.

At least they're not saying "ordinary people". Good Lord. I understand that the Lefties eschew marketing, but must they openly mock it?

2. Building The Planet We Want Green, Clean Energy I think there are some pretty good ideas in here. Some I'd question, but I shan't quibble. Phasing out the credits over time is impractical, but the general idea is a great one. Sustainable Future/Kyoto Cost? Toxics Not necessarily a bad idea, but it will encourage chemical companies to leave Canada. An Equal World Its what, 0.2% now. I saw the number a few months ago but can't remember and don't feel like searching for it. But Canada's GDP is $1.3 trillion, so adding an incremental 0.5% to aid means an extra $6.5 billion in taxes. Are you willing to pay for it? A very good idea. This is better than development aid. The Tobin Tax is a bad idea. Most transactions in the currency markets are not attributable to speculation, but rather to hedging. I'll let you on a little secret, Lefties. Banks don't make much money in currencies, and there are relatively few investment funds that invest solely in currencies. Its a very efficient market. Plus, what will happen is that companies will merely shift this activity out of Canada into other jurisdictions. Its easy to do. There are so many things wrong with this statement IMHO, it requires a thread all to itself. Nothing wrong with this.

Let's pick it apart, shall we. http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/govrel/pdfs...latformNote.pdf 1. Building the Country we Want Municipalities 200,000 units at $100,000 a piece is $20 billion. Good idea. Sounds nice, but probably a lot of pork. Aggregate demand is not a problem in Canada so we shouldn't be investing in infrastructure unless it genuinely is needed. Public Pensions/Creating Jobs/Cutting Pollution This is a bad idea. Not the particular program necessarily but that they want to fund it through the CPP. Using your pension money to fund low-interest loans hurts your savings. Pension plans should have one purpose and one purpose only - to finance the obligations of the participants. Nothing else. If they want to have another program, find another way to fund it. Ditto You mean like the steel industry? Yet its pretty clear that the steel workers had a hand in drawing up this document down the page. In other words, we should provide special dispensation for the steel industry, but we can't invest in it. I can also see countless challenges on the item "exploit labour". Education One question: How are all those programs going to be funded? Children and Families Same question. Health Care And again. (You get the idea.) Good idea. I italicized that because I have no idea what this means practically. If there's "technological change" they're going to deem the procedure "necessary"? So how does that, in any way, lower waiting times for an MRI in, say Saskatchewan, where one must wait 6 months before a patient can use an MRI machine?

Er, Yaro http://www.bank-banque-canada.ca/en/about/are.html Labour productivity is far higher in the West than it is in developing Asia. You can find the data in the World Bank's Development Indicators. Stephen Golub has also done a great deal of work in this field as well. (I'd link it, but its midnight and its time to turn this thing off.)

Hmmmmm... The BofC is not a private institution. Its a part of the government of Canada. It makes forecasts. This is their forecast. If BMO has a reputable economics group, then why wouldn't you take it seriously? The BofC also make very poignant points about Canada's productivity and the imbalances in the global economy. In fact, the clarity of the statements about the imbalances is quite unusual for a central bank. It is implicitly somewhat criticizing the handling of monetary and fiscal policy in the US. I agree.

What do you mean?

What?

Good for Martin.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/Business/

Is there any evidence at all that this program has done anything to reduce crime?

Well. that's what happens when you get a B.A. hahaha! Seriously, when I came out into the job market in the early 90s, I worked in a bar, as a telemarketer and night audit in a hotel. Like Renegade said, there is no gaurantee of getting the job you want, or even a good job. All it does is increases the odds.

Well, that's one less seat for the NDP and one more for the Liberals. The NDP should emulate Tony Blair. This "Third Way, No Way" campaign that went on at one of their conventions a few years back keeps them as a bit player on the national scene. As to August's question about what the NDP are, I grew up in Saskatchewan, and it floors me that there are exactly zero NDP MPs from that province. (And 13 Tories.) That's your answer about whether they are working class or urban, academic, white-wine socialists.

eureka I cannot remember what the exact figures are, but up until 2000, Europe paid out more in agricultural subsidies than anywhere by a substantial amount. Bush increasing subsidies was a direct aim at the Europeans to force them to the bargaining table. Plus it bought votes in the midwest. What is happening in South America is not a new Bolivaran revolution. Its nation states acting rationally. There have been a few trade treaties signed in South America in part because the US was not interested, or at least not interested enough, in signing CAFTA-like deals. Plus, they should be doing that. Chavez has been using oil to buy influence and also to lessen the regions dependence on the US by offering to sell oil at below market prices. Well, of course countries are going to be interested in buying oil below world prices. But also, it makes sense for the South American countries to look first at each other to increase ties. It should be noted that most governments in South America are leftist governments, but they're not adopting the rhetoric of Chavez. Even Chavez, despite his belligerence, isn't Castro or Che. Heck, he cut sales taxes a few months ago.

Here is the labour participation survey ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt Its pretty much as one would expect. The percentage rose as more women entered the workforce. Then the rate of growth slowed in the mid-to-late-80s. Percentage of the population participating in the labour force 1970 - 60.4% 1975 - 61.2% 1980 - 63.8% 1985 - 64.8% 1990 - 66.5% 1995 - 66.6% 2000 - 67.1% 2004 - 66.0% Percentage of the population employed 1970 - 57.4% 1975 - 56.1% 1980 - 59.2% 1985 - 60.1% 1990 - 62.8% 1995 - 62.9% 2000 - 64.4% 2004 - 62.3% "Civilian noninstitutional population" is the population who are not children or senior citizens.

Its a survey. The survey incorporates all hours worked so part-time would be included in that. The percentage of part-time workers in America has not risen, or at least not materially. It has in Europe, and it may have in Canada. In restrictive and high-cost labour markets, there is greater incentive to hire part-time. In less restrictive and lower-cost labour markets, there is less incentive to hire part-time. There was a good article in the WSJ a few weeks back about how part-time work has exploded in Spain, thus driving down the unemployment rate, because of this. In the BLS statistics, there is a labour force participation data stream. I'll find it and post it. But again, on a per capita basis, real wages have been rising. If the more people are entering the workforce to maintain the same level of wage growth, you would expect per capita real wages to be falling. That has not happened.

That may be eureka. 2000 was the top of the stock market bubble and the cusp of the recession. But what I think you have to look at are long-term trends. I think we give too much credit and blame to politicians. The resilience of the US economy is remarkable IMHO. Hours worked have fallen. The government does a wage survey, which I believe is on the Bureau of Labor Statistics homepage. I've seen it and posted it before but can't remember where it is now. Anyways, the numbers are something like in 1970, the average work week was 40 hours while today its about 34. I'll find it and post it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Here it is. ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt Average weekly hours worked, private sector 1964 - 38.5 1970 - 37.0 1980 - 35.2 1990 - 34.3 2000 - 34.3 2004 - 33.7

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this. Government spending is a counter-cyclical stabilizer in the economy. However, the real per capita wages I posted earlier are gross wages paid before taxes.

That may be eureka. 2000 was the top of the stock market bubble and the cusp of the recession. But what I think you have to look at are long-term trends. I think we give too much credit and blame to politicians. The resilience of the US economy is remarkable IMHO. Hours worked have fallen. The government does a wage survey, which I believe is on the Bureau of Labor Statistics homepage. I've seen it and posted it before but can't remember where it is now. Anyways, the numbers are something like in 1970, the average work week was 40 hours while today its about 34. I'll find it and post it.

I'm not sure. I do know that the household formation has risen faster than population growth for at least the early part of that time period. Also, if you scroll backwards, I posted real income per capita data, which has also been rising, and in fact accelerated in the 1990s. If the marginal contribution of labour and thus wages was falling, I think you'd probably expect real per capita wage growth to be falling as well.

I found some data on income inequality from the census bureau. Income has been rising for all income stratas, including the poorest of the poor. However, it has not been rising as fast as the richest. In constant dollars, income by household. (1998 was the latest data available) The poorest decile 1967 - $7,324 1998 - $9,700 Increase 32% The richest 5% 1967 - $85,317 1998 - $132,199 Increase 55% http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/incineq/...4/p6098tb3.html Share of aggregate income The poorest quintile 1967 - 4.0% 1998 - 3.6% The richest 5% 1967 - 17.5% 1998 - 21.4% http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/incineq/...4/p6098tb2.html