blueblood

Ford had to pay for those high wages because the us economy was going through the final stages of the industrial revolution where growth was similar to what china is going through today. There were not many countries in the world at that time with the same standard of living and growth as the usa, and many were not growing at all. Google and apple have very generous salaries for their employees and among the best working conditions in the world, yet their stock prices are obscenely high and they're both sitting on a mountain of cash. Stock prices aren't a commodity, when stocks are placed on the stock exchange it is to raise money for expansion of the company whether its through increased valuation or production or both. With foreign investment, other countries around the world are richer and can enjoy a higher living standard and thus produce and consume more. This benefits countries like canada and australia because the prices for the things we produce goes up. However in countries like in europe or the usa the price for their things goes down because of increased competition. Instead of the usa and europe adjusting production, they borrowed and spent on trinkets and here we are today. If the usa and ontario want to continue being the factory of the world, they need to cut costs of production to compete or get into another industry.

REALLY??? Here's a simple concept, the growth of the developing world is one of the reasons canada has weathered the recession as well as it did. Canada tends to make things the developing world wants. The better asia etc. Do, the better canada does. In western MB and saskatchewan people are saying "what recession?"

Good god its like reasoning with a brick wall. Even with the lower percentages the rich person pays far more dollars in taxes than a poor person. That rich person deserves a lower rate because the fact of him being rich helps out more people than the average joe by hiring, investing, spending, saving in a bank etc. And to say rich people don't work hard is proposterous. They work hard and play harder.

I think a common mistake is that a lot of people are focused on the short term. Right now just about everyone is either sitting on cash or trying to pay down debt. That's what the market is telling people to do. It for companies to burn through money on projects where there isn't a demand for them. The process is painful and it takes time, but in the developed world there needs to be savings so in the future there is sound money in the economy and not people burning through credit to buy apple products. Ideally with the increased savings that should bring down rates over time, but there has been bad policy of cheap money which has led to overconsumption and defaulting when the bills are due. The cheap money also leads to higher prices because of so much money in the economy. The mess of what went on in the prairies during the grain boom of the seventies almost took 30 years to correct itself. The income gap to a rational person should serve as motivation for working hard and making good decisions. Ideally the more people that do so close the gap a little bit, which in turn makes everyone richer. I think there will always be a gap, the question I have is, how bad is it really at the bottom of the gap relative to other places in the world? My favorite example is of the vietnamese boat people. Within 10 years of coming to canada with nothing and no language or skills, within 10 years their unemployment rate was 2.3 percent lower than the canadian average, 1 in 5 had a business and they were less likely to get some form of social assistance. I believe the problem of easy money widens the gap because it enables people to make bad decisions because the money is coming anyway. Ideally in a recession prices should also fall making them more affordable. The ultimate irony is that the folks in DC who pushed for an affordable housing policy have gotten their wish. Those corporations have improved the lives of ordinary people simply by existing. For the first time I can watch streaming video out in the country on a very simple and very affordable tablet computer off the cell phone network.

By saving their money in a bank, or investing it in treasuries/bonds, they are indirectly helping people. They are providing liquidity for other people wanting to borrow. They aren't stashing it in some vault behind a painting.

The stats show insite does save lives. In that regard its been successful, which makes sense as if someone ODs, they can get treatment asap. However, I couldn't find stats of anyone being cured of their addiction by going there or getting clean. There are stats of people using the detox program, but I couldn't see if that part of it actually worked. Capricorn makes the point about of smoking and why its gone down because of public attitudes. With insite I don't see the use rates changing in either direction. With the large support of insite I can't see attitudes changing and with that I can't see rates going down. However, people's lives are being saved. Imo they're treating the symptoms and not the disease.

How am I being screwed? I buy inputs and products at market rate, how am I getting screwed there? Those rich people provide capital for R and D, and providing liquidity in the bank with their deposits for people to get loans to grow their business's and buy things. Rich people also buy products and hire workers to help them make more money. But then you believe that they stuff their money in a giant ass vault. That's the only way that they don't help anybody. You do realize they would be in rags if they didn't spend any of that money. But spending money means that someone else benefits as well, most likely somebody who is not rich.

And this response reminds me of your "defense" of high paying union jobs during their work stoppages even though someone overseas can do the same job for pennies on the dollar. So rich people just get their money and stuff it in a vault and from time to time go swimming in it like scrooge mcduck?

I didn't say anything about not being able to use the challengers. I'm saying if they are going to fly them out to the carribean or use a search and rescue chopper to go to a cabin, to man up and pay the govt a check based on commercial rates, if they can't afford the cost of a plane ticket, maybe a vacation isn't a good idea. G bambino, is taking a company vehicle up to a lake front cottage and burning the company's gas a waste of company's money?

And what's harper, chopped liver? He manages to pay commercial rates for personal use, isn't harper pretty much always on duty? That deficit can always go down faster...

You would have a point if the rich stuffed their money in a mattress, but fortunately we haven't for hundreds of years. Do rich people not help ordinary people by hiring them, investing, saving in banks, and buying more products than an average person. Oh and don't forget paying more dollars in tax than the average person. A simple yes or no should suffice.

TS, other people miss flights for things that come up with work and have to buy yet another ticket or in the CDS case cut the feds a check. S*** happens. This is all about optics. We have the govt flat out telling canadians to increase their savings and reduce debt, it would make for good optics for these people to man up and pay standard commercial rates for personal travel. If the govt is looking to cut costs and improve effeciency they can start with themselves. Harper mans up, why don't the others?

Just like tiger woods doesn't get a night off as well then. Was there DND business in the carribean when the CDS went there to join his family on holiday? The argument isn't whether he needs the challenger or not. As a VIP he needs to be in contact and security. The argument is that when he needs to go on vacation, why doesn't he just be a man and compensate the govt for the cost of an air canada ticket for optics sake? Its like taking a company vehicle out to the cottage and not having the courtesy to fill it up with gas when your done with it.

This isn't about when they are doing their jobs, its the going to the carribean and vacations, sporting events (a grey area), and non work related flights. What's so hard about writing the govt a check for the amount of an air canada ticket? If harper can do it, the others can get their ass in line. This is about optics. If you can't afford a plane ticket on a six digit salary, you can't afford a vacation in the carribean.

If you do some research into farmland values and what went on in the 70s and 80s you'll already know. In the 70s interest rates were reasonable and grain prices exploded causing an increased demand for farmland which raised prices and farmer's debt levels. Then macroeconomic factors took effect, interest rates rose and grain prices dropped, which resulted on defaults on loans for land/equipment purchases and subsequently land prices fell like a rock. To make matters worse, to comply with the canadian bank act, the banks needed more collateral so guys would put up rapidly depreciating land, which eventually bankrupted a lot of the guys who took on lots of debt. In SK the govt tried bailing them out with low interest loans, but prices were too low to pay them off, guys still went belly up, and eventually put the govt in financial hot water. Eventually policy turned from bail out to just let them liquidate. Fast forward to 2007 and its good time charlie in the ag sector. The US govt would be wise to learn this lesson, just let the liquidation happen because it will happen anyway. That episode took 25 yrs, how long will the us and eu take?

I'm with MSJ on this one. We all know he's a VIP and gets access to the cool plane nothing wrong with that. What is wrong with him stepping up when the govt is cutting back and paying the govt the cost of an air canada ticket to show the voting public that the govt is serious about being fiscally responsible. The planes still get to have their hours and there is a fair and symbolic compensation for personal travel at market rates. If these guys at 6 digit salaries can't swing a plane ticket, its time they visit an accountant.

I get that, I was wondering if vancouver would have a softer landing than say saskatoon because of saskatoons easier time of popping up houses due to more availible land resulting in a lot of worthless houses. If a bubble pops. I wonder where the biggest percent fall would be. I think what will happen in vancouver will be the same as what happened in the prairies during the 1980's, and that wasn't pretty. That would also be good for our american friends to look at because its the same thing only on a much smaller scale. There was a happy ending, 25 yrs later.

I agree, they are part of the rich people I stated who abused cheap credit. Credit which should have been used to finance production instead of spending on commodities (houses for instance). At least the cdn. Govt has been telling people to get their ass in line when it comes to debt. As far as I'm concerned pretty much the whole country is at fault for their predicament A little off topic question, if the houses in vancouver are priced ridiculous, shouldn't they have a softer landing if a bubble pops there due to big population, foreign money pouring into real estate, and not much room to expand (mountains, regulations with farmland, etc.)?

In the short term your right, employment would fall. However employment is falling, debt is rising and producers (myself included) are sitting on cash. If producers are going to be sitting on cash because of uncertain economic future, why not get better paid for it? Over time as more and more savings occurs interest rates should fall naturally. I agree with you that in the short term a free market solution is very painful and many people will lose their jobs, however I believe that some medicine tastes bad, but in the end works. Why not let the job sector and housing market liquidate itself and let the labor and resources reallocate to things that are more productive. To be honest its a stretch for me to advocate this because in the short term commodity prices would drop which would hurt my bottom line. It would be in my short term best interest for a QE3 in fact. However, I don't think that's good for the economy as a whole and my operation long term. Its a shame because credit can be very useful, unfortunately many people rich and poor abused it and put us in the mess we're in today.

What I find interesting is a ron paul supporter throwing a pity party for the poor. All I can say is wow! I hope he knows that what ron paul calls for would bring down debt, but growth would grind to a halt and there would be more than a decade of high interest rates to encourage savings for capital because there would be a credit crunch of biblical proportions. In short there would be a massive bath everyone takes while the economy readjusts. Not too poor person friendly. Also there is the whole free to succeed and free to fail thing which doesn't go over well with poor people. I would ask this question, if the govt should be taxing profits from those that succeed, should they not at the same time cover their losses if they fail?

I'd say obama is copying bush's bubble policies. Bush got to drop the interest rate and go into debt to get out of the dotcom bubble, and obama is basically doing the same thing. However, doing that just inflates prices and reduces savings a la the housing bubble. Only now there is a debt bubble and its about to pop. If americans are trying to save, why not let interest rates rise to where they really should be, let the savings grow, and use that as capital to get the economy going again?

Politifact only used the numbers and didn't mention inflation. They must have assumed it was a wash because the costs that they were spending the borrowed money on were affected by inflation too. I was responding to AW asking for numbers, posted numbers then straightened out my goof. I don't know why politifact didn't bring in inflation because it most likely would have been made a note of in the article.

The only thing I goofed on was saying spend instead of rack up debt. And if you would read when I posted my link I said I goofed right away. Everything else was backed up by my site which says mostly true.

Using my numbers obama will approximately rack up 6 trillion dollars of debt. Which was more than all 43 presidents combined. Now if bush jnr. Did that which he probably did because he sucked at money management as well, bush jnr would have racked up 3 trillion in debt. Now bush jnr had 2 terms and these numbers are projected for 1 obama term. Ill stand by my claim that obama is spending like a drunken sailor.

See above where I said I goofed on the claim and clarified it.