Moonbox

Now we peel away the thin disguise of your "argument", which is the absurd notion that we're being grossly unfair to poor little Bombardier by discussing them specifically. That we're talking about them at all, apparently, is proof of some vendetta we have against them. Just no. Stop being silly. Bombardier is simply a really good example of the underlying problem. Not only is it a large and well-known name, but it's been a chronic offender and a shining example repeated failure. We're throwing good money after bad without changing anything and that's always a bad idea. The worst part of the whole debacle is that the founding family still holds a controlling share of the company despite their demonstrated inability to operate profitably. Corporate subsidies, tax breaks and incentives aren't always a bad thing (though often they are). In Bombardier's case, however, the past and present leadership has proven it can't be trusted or relied on to provide value for taxpayer money. We're putting public money into a company to support and inflate the value of the controlling family's stock, and they're giving up pretty much nothing for it. We're getting fleeced.

but Trudeau is way more likely to mess up without all that big and best stuff, you know? Trump has all the best things. He's got the best people, the best resources, the best experience, the biggest military, the biggest small hands, the best hair and definitely the best words. The job's going to be a cakewalk for him. His administration is a finally-tuned machine firing on all cylinders.

Look up straw-man before you post again please. I don't want to hide it from anyone. I would love to have more public spending accountability. Nobody suggested otherwise anywhere. Stop pretending like someone has. This is juvenile, school-yard logic. The fact that there are problems elsewhere doesn't mean that Bombardier itself isn't a problem and that we shouldn't be discussing it specifically. Your argument is akin to the small child saying, "...but but they all did it toooo!" You see the thread title? It's about Bombardier.

No way. Trump is a bigly man with the incredible ideas. He's got the best ideas. They're great. He also has the most resources behind him - the best resources, and the greatest team in the whole world helping him. His team is great. They're wonderful people and they're going to help him do tremendous things...really yuge things. And by the way, Trumps selected his team based on his experience running a very successful business. He's been very successful, you know? Anyways Trump does have a hard job because he has to deal with China - and he has great respect for China - the greatest respect, but Trudeau doesn't have to solve bigly problems like that. You know, who would you want on your side if China invaded? Mad-dog Mattis, or that guy Harjiit with the silly hat? How can you even fit a helmet under that thing? Ridiculous. totally ridiculous. Look, Trump has a way easier job because he has the best experience and the best people and resources. That makes his job way easier.

Because you're contesting the validity of claims regarding Bombardier's lack thereof. You're also protesting our questioning of repeated Bombardier corporate handouts/welfare, bizarrely implying that we can't discuss it specifically without talking about accountability as a general macro issue. If you extend the logic you're using a little bit further you can see how absurd it is: -How can you demand accountability from federal government and Bombardier without demanding it from corporate Canada across the board? -How can you demand more corporate accountability without demanding more from politicians? -How can you demand more political accountability without demanding more from the public service sector? None of these leaps make any actual sense, and all we really do is expand the envelope and derail the discussion.

What are you even talking about at this point? I'm not even sure you know. This is gobbledygook running off the rails.

Churchill was instrumental in writing the Treaty of Versailles?

Winston Churchill had nothing to do with the rise of Hitler. How do you even link the two? Did Galipoli lead to WW2 or something?

Three of Canada's largest media outlets accept the CTF's figures and publish them on a national scale. That counts for a lot more in terms of credibility than your lame-duck deflecting. Refusing the citations simply because you don't like the source is a cheap and intellectually vacant tactic. There's no doubt that the CTF has a bias, but that they're openly publishing numbers on a national scale that could be easily refuted/challenged if Bombardier were capable of doing so. If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could drag up alternate sources, but there's really no point. You've not provided any sources yourself to dispute any of the claims or citations being made nor have you made any effort to explain how or why they're wrong. All you've managed to do so far is bring up red-herrings and straw-men, directing us to look elsewhere for examples of failed corporate welfare when we're already discussing a current, large and repeated example of it.

If you say so. What about all of the citations from the CBC, GlobeandMail, Financial Post and the Ottawa Sun? Are we pretending they were never linked? If you're going to demand references and citations, at least acknowledge them and/or refute them before you foolishly proceed to say that we have no evidence for what we're saying. The fact is that Bombardier can't and won't explain/prove how much they've paid back and they're working hard to prevent the public from getting this information. It's juvenile logic to ask for evidence that the loan repayments haven't happened, because it's impossible to prove something hasn't happened unless you can prove what has happened. So far we can only prove that a small fraction of the loans have been repaid and any other information is being suppressed for very suspect (and likely very obvious) reasons. Okay perfect. I'm glad we agree. Since the subject of the thread is Bombardier and its apparent lack of accountability, can we now continue to discuss it without further protest? This is a large and obvious present-day/current-event example.

I've provided you with numerous links to confirm exactly what I'm saying. The fact that you chose not to read any of them or to get an idea of what we're talking about isn't my fault. Your argument is straw man. You've invented this idea that we're all perfectly okay with bad corporate welfare initiatives in general and that it's only Bombardier that we have a problem with. That's not the case so let's drop that altogether. This thread is about the current bailout plan for Bombardier and the reasons why and how a lot of us think it's a bad idea. Previous bad ideas do not justify the next bad idea, so stop bringing up the auto or softwood lumber industries as support for the newest Bombardier debacle. If you want to have a general discussion about corporate welfare in Canada, start a thread about that. It's been discussed at length before with many of the same conclusions but I'm sure you'll find takers in a new thread.

Obviously you don't understand what straw-man is. Nobody is saying anything of the sort. Almost everyone here would agree that accountability should apply everywhere including (and here's where we actually get back on top) Bombardier. The reason this story gets more attention than others is because of its scale, size and history. This isn't the first, second or even third time we've handed public money to bail out Bombardier. Their repayment history on previous loans is poor and there's no reason to believe this will change in the future. Continuing on the same path without major changes is pretty much the dictionary definition of insanity.

Hopefully Trump doesn't feel insecure about Trudeau's big mouth though. We have to be careful and acknowledge that Trump's mouth is more bigly. It's a great mouth - the best mouth. He can do wonderful things with his mouth - the best things. It's going to be great.

This is pure straw-man and a wildly diverging segway from the discussion at hand. None of the above has anything to do with the Bombardier handouts or why it's okay for them to hide their their repayment history while continuing to receive corporate welfare. I suppose you thought that poor corporate behavior elsewhere somehow supports Bombardier's position, but that makes no sense whatsoever.

There is "information" available. Just not the information we're specifically interested in and Bombardier goes to great lengths to keep hidden their loan repayment history. It's incredibly easy to bury this information in the corporate books of company that big with vague/general terms, long repayment schedules, deferrals, and GAAP magic. The fact that you thought you could go through annual reports online to get a coherent understanding of Bombardier accounting suggests (no offense or insult intended) that you might be a little naive about how useful these reports are to the the average reader. Don't take my word for it though: http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/how-bombardier-inc-suppresses-information-about-how-much-government-funding-it-receives " Bombardier Inc. has gone to great lengths to suppress the release of information about the government funding it receives, heading to court 10 times in nine years, often citing competitive concerns. " http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bombardier-planes-federal-government-1.3452023 "...over the last 50 years, Bombardier has received more than $2 billion in government assistance, with only $543 million of it having been repaid."

yet the repayment history of the federal/provincial loans they've received are not made public and kept hidden under the guise of "competitive trade secrets". Ooops!

The amount of time you spend trolling these forums is something special. Guys he's not even trying to have a conversation. This is just outright baiting mockery.

None of us really know the details. One of the main reasons all of this stinks so bad is that it's all being kept hidden. Details, repayments, conditions etc. We're not even allowed to know how much of taxpayers' money has been recouped. Personally, I think that if your business is floundering and you need to beg the government for money to stay afloat, you don't get to hide your books anymore. That's public interest now.

I don't know, why don't you tell me? While you're at it, tell me how it helps determine why it would be a good idea to disrupt Canada-US trade. It also has a bigly military, a yuge population, and the best words. Tell us how any of this suggests a positive outcome for starting a trade dispute with Canada. So far you've failed miserably. and you're apparently building a wall to keep them out. Brilliant. Compete or be left behind? Is that why President Trump is intent on scrapping Free Trade deals? Because US labor is so competitive with Chinese and Mexican "human capital"? Are you even giving these comments a whiff of thought before barfing them out on your keyboard?

I can certainly understand that Trump and others want to get out of disadvantageous trade deals generating gigantic and persistent trade deficits. The key difference is that the US exports just as much as it imports with Canada, suggesting Canada-US free trade has been beneficial overall for American workers. This is especially true if you consider what sort of resources and materials are being exchanged. Canada is likely importing more value-added/labor-intensive goods from the US than vice-versa. Trump's tax and deregulation strategies are none of Canada's business. If he wants to try to make the US a more competitive place to do business, good for him! As for a trade war with Canada, no, it wouldn't help the US long term. The effects would be mirrored on both sides, with both countries placing restrictions on goods flowing across the border, and both looking to develop their own manufacturing capacity. Long term, all you'd have is less specialization and efficiency across the continent and the overall net effect would be negative on both sides. This is ECON 101. The Canada-US trade situation is fairly unique because you have two countries very similar in culture, Law, living standards and values. A Canadian manufacturer can't escape paying decent wages by moving a factory to the US nor can the reverse happen. That's not true with Mexico or China, but by all means, show us how you're going to continue to grow those trade balances without running deeper and deeper trade deficits.

Trade negotiations aren't zero-sum. The idea of "leverage" and "advantage" is juvenile and shows a profoundly poor understanding of basic negotiating and trade economics in general. The whole point of world trade is to take advantage of specialization and scale so that both sides "win". There's no question that Canada depends more on US trade than vice-versa, but that doesn't mean that a trade war would help the US. Because of how balanced the trade across the border is, the US would likely suffer just the same in in terms of $'s lost. The only difference is that the effect wouldn't be felt as widely. It'd be border and coastal states, and the Rust Belt in particular, that would suffer. Colorado and Texas probably wouldn't care much though!

Sure. FYI, sometimes Google is easier than demanding evidence for super-easy-to-find info. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadian-taxpayers-lose-35-billion-on-2009-bailout-of-auto-firms/article23828543/ The Bombardier information is less clear because they go out of their way to block public disclosure of their repayment history (citing it as third-party competitive industry secrets or whatever). http://www.taxpayer.com/commentaries/more-taxpayer-money-for-bombardier--just-say-no,-mr.-trudeau-22511 is just one source but there are plenty of news sites you can go to as well saying the same thing. We know how much we lent Bombardier. The fact that we're not allowed to find out how much they've repaid is a pretty strong indication in itself that the repayment history is poor.

That was a worthless relationship. With Trudeau just getting started, and Obama on his way out, there was never going to much there other than mutual ingratiation and fluff-pieces on them smiling and patting each other on the back. Despite his popularity here, Obama was never much of a friend to Canada and the Harper/Obama relationship was exceptionally frosty. I don't even know where to start with this comment. Literally everything you said was nonsense. Your grasp of economics and trade is poor and your understanding of negotiating and bi-lateral relations is worse. We get access to the largest economy in the world? Cool. You get access to 10th largest. Apparently the US ends up on the losing end of that deal somehow...I guess because #1 is bigger than #10? Canada is by far and away the US's largest destination for exports and the two countries enjoy (mostly) balanced trade. You're running a $300 billion trade deficit with China every year. The US has protectionist trade barriers just like Canada does. Don't cherry-pick your data.

It see your point, but it's actually very different. First off, the federal and Ontario governments got something like 80% of their money back from the auto-sector bailout (as opposed to the maybe 20-30% we've been paid back by Bombardier). Had the auto bailout been managed better and had the ownership stake been maintained longer and sold at better market prices, we'd have done even better. Additionally, Chrysler and GM are widely traded public companies that went through major restructuring and leadership changes during the bailout and the unions had to make concessions as well. Bombardier apparently gets to just keep following the same failed formula. I'm all for supporting and maintaining manufacturing capabilities in Canada. There will come a time when we're going to have to be more than a resource-based economy and we don't want to be starting from scratch. That being said, there's no reason to continue supporting failed leadership and failed execution for a major manufacturer. If we're going to continue supporting Bombardier, we should be getting ownership stake that we can use to implement changes.

The key here is that a thawing of relations would be good for both countries. After 16 years of relative unfriendliness between the various administrations, we could do with more cooperation and bi-lateral respect. Trudeau (and Canada) of course need the US on their side more than the other way around, but that's a really pointless and unproductive way of looking at things. Canada and the USA are each the other's most important (and profitable) trading partner. There's every reason for them to deepen and consolidate that relationship and zero reason to drag in the dirt.