Moonbox
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Posts posted by Moonbox
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Money is about seignoriage.
Seigniorage doesn't make the Canadian Banks agents of the government. The government can certainly influence them and the markets with monetary policy, but the Charterd Banks are still going to act in the best interest of their shareholders first.
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None the less, either Canadian citizens would be borrowing that 1% GST on their consumption at 18% or the government can borrow it at 0.15%. Common sense. The deficit isn't a bad thing right now.
Can you explain how the government borrows at 0.15%? I know they can borrow low but I didn't think it was that low....
Edit:
Nevermind...I suppose you're talking Tbills. Dumb question.
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I think Obama should be impeached over the issue.
So should the majority of our parliament (Harper, Ignatieff and Layton inclusive).
That's 25 electoral votes for only $30b and the destruction of a principle of the capitalist system! Not bad.Being the lucky suckers that we are, not only will we be paying taxes on this over the next two decades, we'll ALSO get to enjoy the benefits of higher mortgage and lending rates thanks to this. That's going to be an expensive principle to give up as far as the bond markets are concerned, and we're already seeing mortgage rates rising this week. The triple whammy of it, however, is that now we're in danger of having our credit ratings lowered as a result of the excessive government borrowing. Higher interest rates, here we come!
I'll never buy one of their cars. I've given them enough money. I encourage others to not buy GM product as well.I'm with you on that.
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We didn't make the cuts during a recession though, they are long term. The income tax cuts probably would have set us up better than the GST cuts in perparations.
The GST cuts are better for during the recession. If they happened 10 months before that I really don't think it matters that much. There's no reason they have to be permanent either.
As for the Liberal election spedning promises, they were based on the latest numbers that the Tories had given...news outlets did an analysis and said they would balance based on that information, but we all now know that the information was far from current.Dion and the Liberals were the ones championing the fact that we were heading for recession. With that knowledge, they knew revenues would be way down. Knowing that, they knew there would be deficits and yet they still promised to increase spending and they continue to do so today.
They're criticizing the Harper deficits, but then at the same time they're criticizing him for not doing enough to stimulate the economy. It's pure posturing and anyone with a brain can see it.
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I think it's too complicated to say. I like to let the courts decide on a case by case basis. Sure, it may add to judicial backlogs, but I'd rather have them backlogged from keeping our politicians honest than I would with often useless appeals like it currently is.
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Then I guess the answer is to let them fail.
I can't help wonder what that would have looked like.
Helping them restructure is one thing. Setting the precedent that secured bond holders are no longer first in line upon bankruptcy and that the union should get first dibs is another. This is political pandering that, in my opinion, equates to extreme political corruption.
Obama is selling the country out to ensure he and the democrats maintain the good graces of Michigan, Indiana etc. Canada's getting a brutal deal as well.
Like I said earlier, we're getting an equity stake in the new company, but we're being FORCED to divest it over 8 years. For us to make our money back, GM share prices need to go from $1 to $120ish. There's no chance in hell that we're to go even a third that far before we're forced to sell off. We're paying $10B to ensure that GM jobs stay here until 2016 (I think). After that there's no guarantees and there's once again ZERO chance that GM's contributions to our economy will equal a current valued $10B investment over the next decade.
Obama and Harper had a chance here to make meaningful and fundamental changes to the way unions and corporations do business. Instead, they sold us out for a handful of jobs and votes and we're going to be paying off the difference for a long time.
The best part is that the bankruptcy has tainted GM's image for a long time to come, and there's no guarantee that it will even survive AFTER the restructuring. GM's ads right now are PLEADING to people to keep buying their cars.
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Income tax cuts in the same amount would have introduced money into the economy more efficiently, beucase it would have given it mostly to the middle class allowing them to have more buying power.
In a recession the only thing income tax cuts will do is make sure people have extra money to pay down their credit cards and debt. It's not likely to go to extra spending.
A gst cut, on the other hand, doesn't help anyone who's not spending, and can only encourage (to however small a degree) consumerism.
Face it, we left ourselves with no room....we've even been told as much by the PBO and private economists.The spending increases were stupid leading up to the recession, the PBO is right in that. The problem is that if not the Conservatives, the Liberals would have spent the money themselves as well, as evidenced by their election promises and all of Ig's statements since then. The economists and PBO are certainly not endorsing their causes....
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They do earn revenue like any other station...but they have to provide commerical free radio and they have to produce almost all of their own programming. The other networks get to carry popular American dramas.
The CBC carries plenty of foreign programming. Commercial free radio is a pretty dubious proposition. I don't think Canadians are exactly going to die if there are commercials from time to time.
And yet, the vast majoriy of Canadians support funding the CBC to at least the current level. I know you'll never agree on this though, so I don't see a point in arguing any further.Vast majority is pretty misleading. As I recall in March 50% of people polled supported its funding. Factor in standard deviation and that 50% can give a majority to either side. Strangely enough, most of the support for the CBC comes from the left. Actually that's not strange at all given the CBC ombudsman recently admitted a left bias.
Is it surprising that left of centre voters support a state-sponsered left of centre media outlet? Not really. If you were taxed to support Harper friendly media, you'd likely be uspet too.
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Nowhere was there any claim that the public sector runs things better than the private sector.
But there are claims everywhere that the private sector can run things better than the public sector, which - we have seen in not only in this past year, but decade after decade - is false.
The sub-prime fiasco happened with a LOT of help from the government. It wasn't a purely private-sector mess up.
I'm not saying everything should be privatized. I'm saying that on average, over the long term, it has proven throughout the world to be more efficient because (generally) it doesn't back losing causes.
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I was reading the Globe today and found this little tidbit of information.
Canada's stake in GM restructuring
To summarize what I found pretty fishy is that Canadian governments are getting a 12.5% equity stake in the new GM in exchange for $10B in bailout money. For us to recover our 'investment' we'll probably need GM share prices to be as high as $120+ CAD (from other crap I've read). Part of the agreement, however, is that Canadian governments 'divest' their ownership of GM over set periods of time. After 3 years, we must sell 35% of our stake, 65% after 6 years, and the whole thing after 8.
Now what do you people think the chances are we recover even half of what we're throwing away here? We'll never see that money again. The tax revenues from GM and parts suppliers will never make up the difference. This is so pathetic it hurts.
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Too little and too late. Opel is a much older brand, but it has a lot in common with Saturn models doesn't it. A Euro-Saturn if you will.......at any rate I hope Frank builds the damned things here in the land of the Canuck.
Yeah most Saturn models are based on Opel designs. They're still not the same brand though and I can't see Magna making a bid on Saturn. Saturns have a bad reputation regardless and I don't think Magna wants to get in on that mess unless they get a REAL firesale price.
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Saturn.
Opel and Saturn are not the same brand. As I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) GM was planning to integrate the two brands by 2014. As far as I know they never did and Opel is not Saturn.
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There's just as much, if not more, damning footage of Harper.
No there's not, else we would have seen it already when Martin was painting him as the bogey man.
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The goal of the CBC has never been to be profitable.
I was merely responding to the other poster saying I was picking on CBC in a time when all stations are having problems breaking even. Like I said, CBC has always been unprofitable. It's always been unprofitable because it's always been unpopular.
There is and they don't. People all across the country listen to CBC Radio...people across the country watch CBC TV (in smaller numbers) and many many people use CBC.ca.Canadians disagree with you in huge numbers when it comes to the CBC, so any fight to privatize it is a losing battle.
Check your logic on that one. If CBC was as popular as you say it is, it wouldn't be in the red every year. They earn revenue from advertising just like any station. I'm not saying people don't watch it. I'm arguing that it's questionable policy for the VAST AND OVERWHELMING majority of Canadians who don't watch the CBC to have to subsidize other people's entertainment.
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Just because so-called "planned" economies suck doesn't mean that having publicly-owned corporations is a bad thing, per se.
You're right to a certain extent. I was just trying to provide counter-examples to a weak post claiming that Air Canada means privatization is bad.
Yes, that's why CEOs who torpedo the companies they run get golden parachutes. Large corporate entities are every bit as top-heavy with bureaucracy as any government.Some are, and some aren't. All governments, on the other hand, are. The golden parachute, however, is a good example of where the private sector can go terribly wrong. Total Free Market is a terrible situation, but private corporations are still going to be generally more efficient by their very nature. Large corporate entities that become too top heavy eventually fall unless they can keep trim. GM is a perfect example. That doesn't happen with governments. It's evolution.
Agreed, but it's pretty much the example that disproves your whole point. On the one hand, the corporate world doesn't want government interference (regulation). On the other, they want us to save them from themselves. It seems the private sector wants to have its cake and eat it to.Government regulation doesn't make a sector public. Banking in Canada is heavily regulated yet still remains private, profitable and efficient. What foreign financial industries did in the last 5 years was, in my opinion, nothing short of criminal. In my opinion it was a total lack of government oversight and regulation that led to this mess. It was inevitable that this would happen because there was nothing that said these greedy fools couldn't do it. They should be in jail and maybe these sort of regulations will come, but once again regulation doesn't rule out private enterprise.
TV viewing numbers are collapsing on all fronts. Strikes me that TV in general is in decline, so picking on the CBC seems a little odd.The CBC has ALWAYS been HIGHLY unprofitable. The recession is not a good excuse for a terrible business model if you perform terrible during good times like the CBC has.
Which is a pity, because other parts of the world have government-owned or at least subsidized passenger rail, simply because it's a much more rational way of moving large numbers of people from place to place.It works better in areas with centralized populations (as in not Canada). Even so, if there was demand for such a service, the private sector would certainly provide it.
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If anybody's going to claim that the private sector runs things better than the public, take a look at Air Canada and then the sub-prime fiasco down south.
You could also take a look at the USSR, Korea/China and see how well the economies run there.
The reason why the private sector runs things better than the public is that the private sector doesn't sustain losers. The smarter and better run companies survive.
Before you get into the sub-prime fiasco, it also might be useful to note it was a result of an entire culture, rather than just a few greedy executives. Western society at large was stuck in a habit of over-spending and over-leveraging. The government encouraged it. It wasn't the public or the private sector that failed us there. It was both and you can lay the blame on hundreds of millions of people.
For the record, I'm THRILLED at the idea of CBC being sold off. It's a failure. The fact that it's a failure is a testament to how little people watch it. Other than Hockey Night in Canada, it's a waste of a channel.
I don't really know much about VIA rail, but I don't really see the need for it.
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Cars can be made in both Germany and Canada...and it's interesting convoluted logic you have going on there. Because we were bailing out GM anyway, your tax dollars would have been supporting someone else bailing out GM....since Magna stepped in, we now own part of the company.
What this really all boils down to is you wanting to hate this. You want to hate it because it helps Ontario and union workers...well...too bad, your Conservative government did it...and so you can't even blame it on the east or the unions.
It's not convoluted logic. The majority of Magna's sales are to the Big 3 automakers. If not for the bailout, Magna would be a disaster.
Nobody is 'hating' on this deal, it's just that the reality of things is that no vehicles will be produced in Canada in the forseeable future.
Think about it. What the hell is Opel? What's the brand recognition in North America? Zero? I'd never heard of them before this. What do you think it would cost to start up dealership networks, production and advertising for a totally unheard-of car manufacturer in North America? I'll let you work out the numbers.
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So Ontario will continue to milk our wealth forever, and we can do nothing about it because we don't have a considerable chunk of votes? That's great. I'm glad you acknowledge the situation.
Considering that being robbed blind has been Ontario's problem far longer than it has been Alberta's, I'm confused at what you're saying here. The auto bailouts are a pittance compaired to how big our economy is and how much money we've doled out to everyone else. I don't agree with how they're being done, especially how we're financing over-generous pensions for greedy GM workers, but that's something altogether different.
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Because they hope to make it something Canadian. Yes, a group of Russians wil lhold a larger share, but we now have a Canadian autmoaker that will hopefully be good for this country. Where does it say tax dollars are going into this, anyway?
I think you missed the part where we said it wouldn't be a Canadian automaker. The cars won't be produced here. The majority of ownership is outside of Canada.
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Magna bought Opel with the German government's approval as far as I read. The cars are going to be made in Germany. Maybe some of the parts will be built here. This looks like a vertical acquisition to me in that Magna now has a guaranteed buyer for its car parts.
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I think we've had enough polls.
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The Neo-Conservative cult has collapsed.
It is intellectually IMPOTENT, and in denial.
Don't talk about intellectual impotence if the most substantial argument you can come up with is to use clichéd and meaningless labels for something you don't even understand.
Intellectually impotent is posting on the forums with the name "KingIggy", thus making it explicitly clear that you're not here to actually debate anything, but rather to cheerlead Ignatieff and label anyone who doesn't share your hard on for him as the previously mentioned "Neo-Con"
I can go on, but in the short time you've been here you've made it quite clear you're nothing but a clown.
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No tax increases, no decreases. No reduction in spending for services, I am tired of paying for nothing.
More accountability in spending, less bureaucratic waste. Theres too many hogs at the trough in our public funded institutions. Just look at the published list of the $100K club. There's no value for our money there.
No deficit spending. It only benefits the wealthy.
HA!
HA!
HA!
That's because it's always the upper-echelons in a company that get laid off first right? I mean, the execs lose their jobs, and then only at the very end of a company's life do they start laying off workers.....
Right? Isn't that how it works?The wealthy also need public health care the most. I mean they're the ones who are the least healthy and least able to afford private health care. Right?
It's also pretty normal to see people in $1000 suits lining up at the bank of Friday mornings with their welfare checks.
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Silly poll.
Could you add in: Politician who wants to pay down out debt first, reduce spending and reduce spending?
Canada's debt
in Federal Politics in Canada
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I edited my post and took that out sorry. I think I understood finally at least what you were TRYING to say, although it still doesn't really make sense.