Curiouscanuck

I disagree. You can have both. Decentralize the government, which is the direction the conservatives have been going. Problem solved.

I had enough of paying too much for wine. I am tired of paying a quarter of my grocery bill for dairy. I am sick of looking at my cell phone bill. Beyond cutting taxes there is a lot of work to do. Thoughts?

I beg to differ. The decentralizing of government allows for more money in provincial hands, where matters are negotiated closer to home. The majority of new spending was in this fiscal imbalance fix. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_canadian_budget This allows the provinces to have more money, and will allow for some very good provincial budgets if treated properly. In the future, my rational is that the federal government will lower taxes so the complications and inefficiency of only returning the money where it came from will be prevented. I have been hearing that this is a short sighted budget. Because of this important measure however, I believe otherwise.

How do you figure that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments I am referring to equalization. It creates an incentive for governments to overspend, overpay employees and encourages destructive economic policy. For more information - http://www.aims.ca/equalization.asp?cmPageID=159

Not good for the Ontario economy. The lost jobs are already there. We don't need these inflationary pressures. The economic disregard at this time of pain is dangerous.

In real terms Harper have done minimal to help Alberta. However, looking at this in relative terms, the plans the opposition has for Alberta would be very costly. And therefore when looking at the alternatives have actually done well.

He is only following the rules. The rules suck. Over time Quebec will continue to require more and more. The writers of the 1982 constitution should be ashamed of themselves. They created this situation. Quebeckers are merely rationally using this unsustainable law to their advantage, at the cost of the have provinces.

I agree. Don't get me wrong, there is a whole lot of other spending that is completely out of blue. I was pointing out the spending that took the majority of this budget. I wonder what new name the media will paint Harper now that neocon is out the window.

Equalization is in the constitution. Yeah, it sucks. It is like lagging around your whining lazy brother all day long. You want a change? Crack open the constitution. It is not a budget matter.

No...I still think its too cold outside.

Macleans Good read. We need provincial autonomy. Equalization is a welfare trap. This is especially true when it is used to finance a socialist agenda.

I'm with Canadian Blue. I can't say there is any serious opposition to stop this spending spree. I hear Dion responding to the budget and all the handouts and still stating there is not enough spending anywhere. Not to mention the NDP. The race is for the middle, and if this is the oppositions stance there is trouble. I must admit that it is good to see that the federal budget is giving more money to the provinces. I hope this is with the intention to hold them accountable for what they spend, with the idea to cut the federal tax in the future.

LOL! Figures you'd have "learned" that from the Fraser Institute. Thanks for almost contributing. I have shown you that capital tax is an effective tax for the economy to cut. Show me otherwise. This is a short briefing: http://www.heritage.org/Press/NewsReleases/NR050603.cfm

That's the claim. But it don't trickle down. I am going to argue that eliminating this tax and increasing taxes somewhere else aimed at the same demographic somewhere else is more Pareto efficient. Capital gains tax has got to go. If this is in the budget it will big a giant step to international recognitions.

I'm sure you won't. But is it the most effective tax cut out there? Capital gain tax is one of the most if not the most damaging to the economy. http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:8P69h8...clnk&cd=2&gl=ca

I did not say that at all. If you would like to know why southern Ontario has been so successful in my opinion it is being so close to the northeastern US consumer, which was and still is very strong. This proximity historically fed markets in the mid west to the east coast. Not as much a factor anymore, with decreasing transportation costs, but historically it was vital. The ideology I am referring to is your claim that government should step in and spur the economy (government investment). Doesn't work, and for any paper you find saying it is true (no communist Russia papers please) , I can find 100 that say private investment is the better way the overwhelming majority of the time. In terms of infrastructure I agree government funding is sometimes necessary, but provincially (or even better municipalities) not federally. Dont expect handouts from the federal government, if you want to invest in infrastructure, draw investment (by cutting taxes), and fund the projects provincially through your own tax dollars. Take Ireland for example, they cut taxes years ago and low and behold 20 years later they have MORE tax revenue than before. They are able to spend it on such projects. Don't whine to the federal government anymore, in my opinion that's is the argument that is REALLY getting old.

Im sorry NovaScotian, I disagree with your defense. The east is in a welfare trap that can only be relived through less government support, not more. Here are numerous articles stating the reasons for hardship. http://www.aims.ca/equalization.asp?cmPageID=159 Human nature is tough, no one wants to change the status quo and even more so no one wants to be told they are wrong. I know how it feels. But the fact of the matter is nearly every economist academic disagrees with you and that ideology. And they have felt this way for a long time now, with more and more evidence supporting their side everyday.

Again, that is their job. Is a scientist too focused on science? An artist too focused on art? Actually economists are programed to maximize utility, not money. How correlated these two should be is the nature of the question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility

Sure, economists that are proposing new theories may be wrong quite often, but tried and tested theories that economics have let us learn about are agreed on by the majority of economists, and proven with empirical evidence. Such as lower taxes to stimulate growth, low inflation to prevent the distortion of money, and free market producing better quality at a lower cost than government the majority of the time. These ideas are almost common fact to even a simpleton in modern times. Its not disagreement that a stock goes up and down, it is speculation. A stock would never be worth $0 if it was paying out a dividend or had any probability of losing all its profits, assests and all other wealth. If a company was producing nothing but had land somewhere that could be sold, the company still has value. I thought I read once you believed we should privatize health care. This is parallel with economists, and they have been suggesting this for a long time. Karl Marx and Adam Smith I agree. They had no good way of data collection and analysis. Nowadays data collection is turning economics into less idealism and more realism. Economists generally believe in liberty. The general rule is you can do whatever you please as long as it hurts no one else. This tends to leave the poor fending for themselves. However, the way economists say to eliminate this is through private donations to the poor, not government programs. You lost me when you wrote economists with government jobs. Economists are much better tooled for the private sector. They get held back by politics in government jobs. In my experience I was taught from day 1 the problems with government, and I go to a very liberal school. They hold a hypothesis just like scientists. Through experiments they are either stronger arguments or weaker ones. Sure new studies can wipe common knowledge in economics tomorrow, but it is the same case in science. As for income trusts I don't think any economist could doubt that it created an unlevel playing field. If it could of been dealt with better is more of the debate. Thats great to hear, we have all seen what problems ideology have created. USSR, African debt, and more recently Kyoto in Europe. In terms of Kyoto I hope Canadians can observe Europe and see if they are willing to sacrifice such a standard of living loss for no benefit in climate change whatsoever. The best thing for this country in my opinion is for a bone chilling remainder of the winter. Otherwise you'll see uncompetitive policy and our jobs will move outside our boarders, and many of our best and brightest as well.

I've heard it from many, bashing economists for claiming to know everything, while not having any "real life" experience. I have been hearing this increasingly lately. This leads me to some questions... I would like to know your view on economists. In your opinion; Do you respect their views on policy? Are they just Idealists? Do they tend to ignore the poor? Are they too focused on money? Have they been a major reason for the increase in wealth and well-being over the past half century? Should we move quicker to take on economists ideas? Or proceed with more caution? If you do not agree with economists, what other academic in social science do you tend to mould your thoughts from? Who do you respect most? You don't have to answer all questions any of the above you fancy is fine.

Good. Don't forget to state that next time Kyoto comes up for discussion. Hey Saturn that's a valid point. But I believe you took that quote out of context. I stated that we shouldn't choose which parts of an agreement we should honour, but the whole or nothing. For NATO this means everything in the agreement, including Afghanistan. We can't choose not to go to Afghanistan and then count on NATO fulfilling their side of the agreement in the future. If we're included in NATO we must always be included in NATO's projects. It is all commitments made or none. Now bringing this point into Kyoto, it would be like us stating that we want to be part of the Kyoto contract, but after signing the agreement we say "but not the oil and gas sector of Canada". This is clearly a violation of the contract just like not going into Afghanistan is a violation of the NATO contract. So us saying we are doing our part after such a statement, and saying we are part of Kyoto is incorrect. This is different than leaving an agreement completely. If we were to leave Kyoto we would not and should not expect to reap any of the rewards that Kyoto may bring to us, such as claiming we are part of it (but, of course, we would feel some positive externalities (if any?) being a global issue). So to conclude, we have the opportunity to honour/leave, hounour/stay, dishonour/leave, dishonour/stay in both the NATO and Kyoto accords. Because of points stated above dishonour/stay is breaking the rules and would have bad consequences (NATO example). So that is out. Honour/leave doesn't make any logical sense as we would be benefited greater if we just stayed in the agreement. So the decision is between honour/stay and dishonour/leave. I think we should dishonour Kyoto and leave. Reasons I've stated before, which come down to it was a horribly thought out agreement. Staying in the agreement will cost us much more, with in my opinion, close to absolutely no benefit. We could make our own/other agreement, hopefully much better thought out and have better results with a lower cost. NATO I believe we should stay/honour. For reasons I stated above.

That is an interesting take. I did watch the first 2 minutes and I can make an assumption that the reason economists have skipped over this idea is because they have an alternative answer and disagree with it. here were the q's in the introduction. and the economists answers. Why are Americans over there head in debt? Because other countries, increasingly Asian, are putting their new found wealth in low risk accounts. American debt has extremely low risk. Why has buying power has decreased so much in the last generation? Before Reagan, inflation was out of control. The inflation rates in the teens in the US until this time. With a quick calculation you would seen using this high rate it does not take long for prices to double. Currently however the range of 1-3% has been successful since Reagan. Why are both parents working for low paying dead end jobs. Well first off mean income has risen faster in the US than Canada since the 90's and we have paid down more debt than they have. Also, with globalization and the increasing push for free trade they have exported the US' middle class to countries where unskilled labour is paid much less. And both parents are much richer than their parents were and get paid more.

No I wouldnt want to job share. But why would we job share? are you assuming the amount of jobs in the economy is fixed? That is a fallacy. It is called the lump of labour fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy I can think of many jobs that no skill no experience work people can do...

High supervision cost - To me this shows how some people are just innately uncooperative, unwilling, unproductive and greedy.

Let me expand on this as I can see people firing away. It is fine not to support war. I have no problem with that. But we signed an agreement with NATO for the protection of all nations that entered. In exchange for this protection the popular NATO statement, "a war against one is a war against all" means that we have to come through on our side of the agreement when called on by the NATO contract. No one should be asking if we should get out of the war in Afghanistan, we should be asking if we want out of NATO. If we don't honour our side of the agreement why should NATO honour theirs? Do I support NATO? Yes. In my eyes it means a smaller national army and greater protection.