hitops

No why would it? The reason to use the tower of money is to produce growth or a return, not just for the sake of using it. Don't be one of those guys who needs to pigeon hole people because you can't deal with the argument. I don't know what's on fox nor do I care. I don't have a TV. Sounds like you don't know what the community reinvestment act is. You should read about it and become informed. It directly ordered banks, by law, to lend to high-risk borrowers. Then gov said don't worry we'll back you. And they did, and you have the results. Umm no. Norway's economy is nearly 60% petro, similar in scope to middle eastern exporters. The US is not even a net exporter. Here in Canada the housing sector alone is larger is than energy, mining and manufacturing combined. If CEO's have terrible long-term strategies, the boards and shareholders of those companies can dump them since they will ultimately hurt those shareholders more than anybody else. You average CEO has far less that that. But you're missed the point, it's the small companies that get killed by the instability and complicated tax and regulatory environment, far more than the big ones. Big guys always get an advantage over small businesses when gov makes new laws or tries to extract more money.

All corporations will always want lower taxes, just like all people will. That has nothing to do with whether it makes sense to invest, and right now it does not. You make more money by investing capital than by sitting on it or pulling it out for exec salaries (because then it gets taxed at top marginal personal rates). So if it mades sense to invest it, they would. The only time it makes sense to sit on billions is when the alternative is worse. That time is now. There was not only oversight, but government bureaucracy directly telling banks how to behave which led up to the crisis. It started with the community reinvestment act under Clinton. This was based on people feeling bad that minorities got fewer loans. The answer? Social engineering of course - an act that forced banks to give x% to minorities no matter the (bad) risk. What about the risk to banks? Don't worry - Fannie and Freddie would back it. So it happened. And culminated in 2008. This is the direct result of government forcing behaviour x and trying to remove the risk, distorting the market. The only nordic nation running a surplus is Norway, because they are a petro-state. They are on the list of nations running surplus, which is nearly without exception all petro-states. From a labor point of view they are not. But ultimately lower employment means fewer people buying the stuff you make or the services you provide, which means lower profits. Wages need to be able to move with employment, because that's how employment is best adjusted, and how wealth is most efficiently redistributed to the most people. France has crazy benefits and protections of workers, and the result has been permanent, endemic unemployment. The rate is 25% for a new a new university grad. You don't want to know what it is for those with only high school.

No, paying wages to a bunch of people for 5 move years is better than laying them all off 5 years earlier. That's 5 additional years of wages and tax collection for x number of jobs compared to what would have been.

You're assuming non-economic immigrants are always resulting in increased consumption by family members. Often true, but they take a huge toll on the health care system which dwarfs that. Something in the range of 90-95% of all the health care dollars you use in your lifetime, are used in the last decade of life, on average. This means we are effectively giving a lifetime of health care spending to somebody who will not independently contribute to that system ever. The sponsoring relative pays for more goods and services, but they don't pay double-taxes for health and other services for the relative. This is certainly not the only source of public dollars they draw from, but clearly the largest and best example. A few extra sari's and trips to the spice store and family visits for auntie x PST does not make up that gap, not even close. You haven't given any examples of people getting rich without providing anything to folks, so I'm not sure who those people are.

That already happened in Russia and China, with the result being even more poverty-level wage earners....those that didn't just get eliminate that is. The capitalist economy is what has raised more people out of poverty than any other system in history. The middle class exists, because of the capitalist model. Before it, there were only rich and poor and very little in between.

I would respond point by point, but not really sure how on this forum. I can't seem to divide up your paragraphs. Any advice appreciated. Regarding corporate taxation - the fact that the rate has fallen is irrelevant to the point. Things are volatile, the US gov has borrowed unimaginable sums of money that requires crisis over every debt ceiling, and the EPA and other organizations are constantly threatening to legislate industries out of business. I have no idea why any rational business owner would see this as a good time to invest or build. It makes perfect sense they would hold back. Nobody gets rich off money sitting in a corporation. If it makes economic sense to use it, they will use it. When you have a president wandering around talking about policies that will make it harder to do business, manipulating your currency and saddling you complicated health obligations, it makes absolutely no sense to take risks. If you personally have a huge cost in your life possibly coming up, that makes you less likely to redo your kitchen, not more. The questions of imprudent spending or taxation is moot. The most highly taxed nations on earth can't balance their budgets. That pretty much puts that to bed. There is no amount of taxation that is ever enough for a government. They do not see increased taxation revenues as a welcome catch-up for their budget, they see it as a pass to borrow even more and go into more debt. Employers paying better wages to compete is a simply reality that happens every day. North Dakota being a prime example, where it's close to impossible to get people working at McDonalds and Wal-Mart because of the other options. If you don't want to work at Wal-Mart, then work at Costco. If there are no jobs, start your own company, hire people and pay them great if you want and see if you can compete. Wal-mart survives because it has a good business model. They are the largest employer in the US. That's better overall for the US than employing half the people at better wages.

Maybe Introductory level is where you are stuck at. Every immigrant is a not working immigrant. Many do no generate wealth. And consuming accomplishes nothing if its simply done by use of public services or support with redistributed funds. In that case nothing is being gained, it's just shifting around the deck chairs. Population can grow and GDP can either shrink of grow. Humans do not produce economic gain just by breathing and residing within our borders. They actually have to produce something. Some kind of immigrants are a positive for Canada, some are not.

Corporations are indeed flush with cash....but why would they use it? The fact that personal and government debt is so high is exactly why it would be risky to do so. Gov overspending means gov will be ever more tempted to try to take from corporate in any way they can, and when everyone is maxed out there is no disposable income to church things along. Corporations, or even just very wealthy people, are not stupid. The reason to use capital is not because you have it, but because it has a chance of making more money. If you have billions but gov can't decide what your tax rate is, whether to print money, whether to borrow endlessly etc, whether to make new laws that cost you etc, that means 'danger, save money to prepare', not 'build factories.' We have costco and wal-mart because they cater to different groups, with some overlap. It's an interesting example though, since Costco just came out on top of a survey of customer opinions of businesses. They have their markets, and that's how the market works. If you don't want to work for Wal-mart, then apply for Costco. Don't like either? Go somewhere else, or start your own. It's a free country, you don't have to shop at Wal-mart, or even work for it. You can work for minimum wage and and rent a 500 sqft bachelor pad in a cheap area, and buy food and live just fine. In downtown Toronto? So move, it's not like minimum wage is a selective group of jobs only available in one particular area. Take some responsibility. Take a small student loan and do 12 months of technical training and start plumbing. Don't have kids you can't afford. The reality is that people want to live in certain areas, have certain conveniences, be free to make any lifestyle choice and associate with certain people, and those things have costs. But those are all choices, not some kind of divine persecution which others should pay for.

Yes, and continue to do so (though now by choice). I also remember when some of those things just were not available, and if you can imagine, I managed to maintain respiration and a pulse despite. But that's beside the point. A lot of things are unpleasant. That doesn't mean you should make it easier at the cost of making it harder for others, purely basis that one guy works for gov and the other doesn't.

Unions have lost sway in some ways recently, but why is this a bad thing? Unions were invented at a time when it was legal to employ children and not compensate people for getting maimed, killed or permanently disabled at work and control their lives like serfs. That time has passed. The role of unions is redundant. If you don't like working for the security company because they pay poor benefits, then form your own security company or contract your own services out, or try a different one, or do something else. If you run your company really well and pay better, the previous company will be forced to raise wages so their employees don't run to you. And the circle of life continues. The hyperbole people employ in the debate today is ridiculous. It's not hard to find living arrangements that allow you to eat and cloth yourself and sleep under a roof, even with low-wage jobs. This may involve living with family, or a roommate, or living in a small town or making/growing some of your own things, or some other arrangement. But it IS hard to find arrangements where you get a cool condo with granite and stainless, an iphone, bigscreen, cable, hip car and garage, internet, road-trips, vegan groceries and great clothes in the middle of a bumpin' city......with low-wage jobs. We make different choices today and have different priorities, and those priorities have costs.

It's been true long before I ever worked for that leeching organization, and will be true long after. It also have nothing to do with the point, and is simply an incidental example. It's widely known by folks who work at all levels of gov, that this is standard fare. Believe what you would like. Shutting down departments and shedding employees is the best thing government can do if they have any respect for the taxpayer.

It should probably be legalized, just get it over with. Police have better things to do. For awhile I thought that Trudeau might be a legitimate threat to CPC governance. Given these events and others over the last few months, I doubt it. He continuously conducts himself like a clown and makes poor decisions. He presents like a juvenile. It's embarrassing listening to the older more established and respectful members of his party trying to pretend he is a great leader, trying to figure out ways to back him. It's like being beholden to the reckless nephew because he inherited the family fortune. This should be a situation where the Liberals just sit back and watch the CPC drown in assorted bad press items which dispense like a candy machine these days. Instead, they have elected a leader who seems to determined to out-clown them for the loss. But hey, this in the American Idol generation. By 2015 it's possible they will have polished him up and and nobody will remember the aimless wonder of 2013. I guess the leader doesn't really matter much anyway.

I think this is your problem, you think it's about what we choose to believe. I'm sorry but there is a real world out there, where you can't just think up a utopia which then starts functioning. Not trying to get in your face too much here, but your series of posts in this thread are possibly the most economically illiterate to date. Government does not create wealth or create anything at all by employing people, it just shifts wealth from one group to others. It does not recover wealth through taxation of government jobs, unless you believe all government jobs are taxed at 100%. If you employ people without market demand for that service, you are not gaining anything by collecting their 20-30%, you are just losing the other 80% to a pointless position that serves no purpose for Canadians. The idea that government work exists to provide work, rather than to provide a service, is exactly why numerous European countries are falling apart right now, lurching from crisis to crisis and economically contracting. They are living the results. You have a chance to learn what happens with those policies, right now, in real time. Take advantage of it, you get to watch in unfold instead of just reading about it in history books 50 years from now. It's a free country. If you want a pension, you are free to apply for any job that offers one. You are not free however, to just demand that because you don't want to apply the input to get to a job that does, that everyone else should pay it for you. That is not only insulting to the average person, but incredibly arrogant and destructive. If you want a pension, work for a job that provides one. If you don't want to, then don't expect one. If you believe a company is terrible for not providing one, then work for yourself and start your own company. This is not a fantasy land where companies 'should' or 'should not' do x, y or z just because you or some elite believes they should. They have to operate in reality, where profits are required to exist and continue to pay employees. If we force a company to give pensions to everyone, the result is not that everyone in company x lives happily ever after. The results is company x goes out of business, because they get out-competed by company y who operates on a normal, sustainable business model. I have worked for the city. It is the laziest bunch of half-baked braindeads one could ever meet, I know this absolutely first hand and for a fact. Being a conservatively minded person, my first few weeks I wanted to do a good job and worked really hard. After 2 weeks I was doing roughly double the work the previous crew with 15 years experience had been doing. I received a scolding from others, telling me in not so many words that I better tone it down because was making the previous group look like lazy f*ups (which they were) . Yep......funded by regular market-employed people's property taxes. What a disgrace. People who think gov departments should exists with good wages just for their own sake, do nothing but destroy their societies, and there are many of nation-examples in recent history to illustrate that.

Source?

It causes Canadian a net harm to have any transfer payments at all. It doesn't matter which direction it goes. It's important for governments to deal with what they have, not what they can demand from others. Likewise it's educational for people to see the results of different policies, instead of just taking from success and giving to failure. It's also healthier for the economy, to allow for the natural incentives for people to move to the work, instead of propping up areas that have no work. It's better for both regions with lots of work and those without. Those with lots benefit from gaining more workers and those without benefit from having fewer individuals to provide for.

The main point of fracking is getting oil, not natural gas. The North Dakota/Montana boom is an oil boom. Natural gas is also abundant. Some fleets use natural gas in their vehicles, for example when I worked for the city there were entire fleets of vehicles that ran on it. Main disadvantages IMO were that you had to fill up very often and it stank.

Why is it different? lol Because the speaking club is not relevant to any legislation he might be dealing with! That's why Justin is being accused of 'conflict of interest', and not just 'getting paid'.

Not before, during. From the cbc article: "...financial problems that arose from the time he was conducting speaking engagements while he was an MP" From global: “The Liberal leader took over $100,000 in personal payments from unions, including tens of thousands of dollars in his time as MP,” Lobb, MP for Huron-Bruce, Ont., said in the House of Commons on June 18.

How does that refute the point? The have-not provinces still aren't forced to deal with their actual situation, and the have provinces and not allowed to fully benefit from it. This is a perverse incentive, otherwise known as moral hazard. I don't know, I can't respond to something you made up. Not sure what this has to do with my post, which has nothing to do with Alberta specifically. I didn't claim that it was bad for all Canadians to have the same services, I claimed that it was a terrible way to accomplish it which promotes waste and moral hazard.

What difference does allowing same-sex marriage make? People will have a relationship regardless of the laws. The people who disagree with it, are disagreeing on religious grounds. That's fine, their religions doesn't change the definition just because the government does, they have nothing to do with each other and that's the point. Let the religious consider it invalid all they like, this is a free country and that should be celebrated. That shouldn't alter the way the government sees it. Now if you start forcing religious people, in their own private institutions, to praise and accept and perform legal ceremonies for same-sex marriages, that is going way beyond equal rights into coercion of the rights of others. If gov says it's legal, then let gov employees perform the same services for same-sex and traditional couples. There is no basis for forcing private individuals and private institutions to do so.

It's one thing to accept donations from companies during political campaigns, all parties do this and it's impossible to completely eliminate it. It's quite another to be a sitting MP and accept money which goes into your personal bank account from a vested interest group, regardless of the cover story. It's worse because the potential for corruption is much greater.

It's not, it's just a really bad way to accomplish it. It promotes waste and discourages observational learning about how different behaviors/policies lead to different outcomes. It anything, money from 'have' provinces should be used to help people move to areas of better employment opportunity, rather than used to simply make it easier to stay in an area of low employment.

A negative amount, if you are including Alberta. But really what difference does it make? Does a bad idea become a good one just because the deck chairs got re-shuffled?

lol well hey welcome back. A futures market predicting time to your next ban might be interesting, unfortunately intrade has been shut down.

It's possible, but if you're a politician I don't think it's possible to resist the temptation to grandstand against another country's carbon emission rather than dealing with your own, even if your own is worse. Perfect example - routinely pointed out this side of the border, is that coal makes up a way larger share of US power production than up here, and it's a very dirty form.