Moonbox
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Posts posted by Moonbox
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Too late George Bush and his destruction of the American economy was Jimmy all over again.
Unfortunately for you and your idiotic comments, George Bush (who I agree was a TERRIBLE president) is not responsible for the economic collapse. The economic collapse can be blamed on the democrats in Washington who fought to make sure anyone anywhere could qualify for cheap borrowing that even a 3 year old could see couldn't repay. George Bush actually tried make the regulations more strict but from what I've read was blocked by a largely democratic Congress or Senate or whatever.
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I agree with most of what you said.
I went to a sushi restaurant a few weeks ago called Niko Niko. I asked the Japanese waitress what that meant. She laughed and told me that "Niko" means cat, and that my BBQ eel was in fact kitten. She promptly then explained that Niko Niko (written like that) actually means "A bubbling sensation" or something and that I'm actually eating real sea food.
Most people don't care about a few offhand racial jokes. They're generally just jokes. People need to understand words and statements in the context that they were presented. If it was just in fun and joking, then leave it at that. If it was inconsiderate, rude or hateful, THEN get upset but otherwise lighten up.
It's the people that can't or refuse to distinguish that have their underwear all bunched up.
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The debt was created by the Trudeau/Chretien Liberals. It was largely that debt, at a time of double digit interest, which balooned under Mulroney. Chretien, in his first several years in office, also had large deficits.
Yes our current debt load can be blamed largely on Trudeau (curse his name). Mulroney certainly didn't help but the MATH proves that Trudeau's deficits are the reason why people vomit at the mention of deficits today.
For the record I also think it's extremely optimistic to assume the federal deficit will be gone in 5 years.
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So you don't think their is a link between national politics and trade negocaitions. Just like people aren't vindictive.
The linkage exists, but what you imply is an EXTREMELY dubious leap in logic.
Americans didn't negotiate Free Trade with us just because we're good friends. They did it because it was to their economic advantage and still is.
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Sure he does...organized labor in the US would like to see Obama follow through on the campaign rhetoric.
Yeah but this is about as important as the CPC retaining the anti-gay vote. Who else is organized labour going to turn to? The Republicans? Maybe, but not likely anytime soon. Besides, organized labor in the US is getting stepped on hard with the bailout packages. See Big Three Automakers.
Not sure how/why you can exclude Mexico from the very same trade aggreement that includes Canada.Because a lot of the animosity against free trade comes from American workers not being able to compete with $5/day wages in Mexico/China. Canada is similar in both labor standards and wages thus the free trade agreement between us is more a tool to create economies of scale than anywhere else in the world.
Unfortunately, and by Canadian design, it has taken an equally dramatic amount of foreign investment to realize such potential. Failure to diversify exports around the globe has also left Canada in a vulnerable position.Which is something that could be rectified easily. There have already been high-level talks with the EU discussing Canada's inclusion in the FTA there. That's something the Americans probably don't want.
Whether or not foreign investment helped exploit Canadian resources, they are nonetheless Canadian resources and nobody is going to stop the provincial governments from targetting them with royalties like Alberta did with oil. Make no mistake here. Just because the US is a bigger economy doesn't mean they have don't have a lot to lose here.
Nobody likes a trade war, but if it comes, Canada would take a much bigger hit.Relative to the size of our economy, yes I suppose so. On a dollar per dollar basis likely not and the long term repercussions would be that historically the US's closest and most important ally and trading partner would start looking for new friends and new places to sell their vital resources.
I still think it's a lot of rhetoric but we'll see. Obama's a fool if he wants to get in a trade war. He has very little to gain (increased support of the crybaby labor unions) vs severe and long term diplomatic repercussions and easily billions and billions of lost cross border trade.
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Hm... I don't agree that that "fair" spending is automatically more effective than "targeted" (or unfair) spending.
It really depends but I generally agree with you. Something like Bruce Nuclear is obviously providing a benefit for everyone. Other projects, like Go Transit etc, is something the provinces and federal government help pay for that people in Thunder Bay ultimately see little benefit for. There are trickle effects that are a little less obvious but the fact remains that a lot of infrastructure spending and benefits is not distributed in a way that everyone is better off for it.
Putting the extra money in an GIC? I would think that this creates little effective stimulus. .Interest rates are so low right now that I doubt we'll see a lot of that going on. I work for a bank and I can tell you the majority of GIC's are being cashed in right now instead of the opposite happening.
I'd rather see some smart folks in Ottawa (I know... that's wishful thinking) put this money to EFFECTIVE use than see it spent "fairly".I think that would be an ideal rather than something we can expect to happen, you're right. That's the problem. We all support infrastructure spending (mostly), it's just there are other ways to stimulate the economy along with that.
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Right. On that, I totally agree. I would be ok with a $10B deficit that enables focused, managed, infrastructure spending for 2009.
i'm okay with some infrastructure spending as well. What my problem with stimulus spending is that our governments seem unable to avoid the useless spending on social programs that end up being perpetually wasted dollars. There are some good ones out there, like EI for example, but a lot of the money is pretty much wasted from an economic perspective.
I'm especially annoyed at the tax cuts for individuals... They add up to what, a few hundred dollars a year on average? Do we really believe (or even hope) that Joe Blow earning 45K a year is going to spend his $400 on anything that stimulates the economy? What he SHOULD be spending it on is lowering his credit card debt....The reason why tax cuts are a better stimulus item is because it's FAIR. The problem with social spending is that it provides NO real benefits to the vast majority of people. Infrastructure is a little better but it takes longer to take effect (over a year sometimes) and once again, not everyone benefits. A lot of communities don't benefit from huge infrastructure projects because an unproportional amount of that money inevitably ends up being spent near large urban centres. There's a reason why everyone but the Tories do so badly outside of the big cities.
Finally, to assume that nobody is going to spend the extra money they get from tax cuts is just silly. A large portion of people will spend some or all of it. I'd probably be one of them.
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That was definitly a contributing factor, but not the main one. This is a result of the US economic apocalypse, that is being blamed on market free fall and too many tax cuts. And let's not forget all the wars - Iraq, Afghanistan, War on Terror...
Not to suggest that you are talking out of your backside or anything (actually I am), but the wars in east had next to nothing to do with the free falling economy. I'm sure they didn't help, but they're certainly not a main cause in ANY WAY. Tax cuts also help the economy. They always have. Deficits are another matter, but anyways...
At least you were on to something as far oil prices were concerned. That might have been the last straw but you can lay MOST of the blame for the economic collapse on idiotic lending practices and garbage regulation insisted upon by the US democrats (they're all idiots, not just Bush and the republicans).
The american banks and government were allowing stupid people to get stupid mortgages they couldn't afford which amounted to countless billions of dollar being lost when (big surprise) the mortgages started going bad.
The amount of money that dissapeared from the economy when that happened was catastrophic and it caused all sorts of ripples.
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And you know well enough that this deficit (Large as it is) is not going to produce the conditions you described earlier. I sense your hesitation, and I believe that you are sucking up this budget and not because you believe in it.
You're absolutely right. The budget is a hard pill to swallow. I was expecting deficits of maybe $10B. $30B seems outrageous to me. I think the US deficit is even more so. Either way, whether it was CPC or coalition stimulus, we were going to see $30+ billion of it. I think this is a classic example of stabilization policy overkill. Somehow the whole world has decided to make the same mistake.
When I support Harper's stimulus over a coalition's similar spending, I do so only insofar as I directly benefit from it more. It's pretty much assured that nothing the Bloc or NDP propose is going to do me any good so I'll take the tax cuts, however temporary they may be.
Erm,,, No.... I must have really ticked you off. :angry:At least you didn't think I was involved in insurance. Then I would have to take offense.
Haha no. I only guessed because you mentioned LLP and KPMG. I thought lawyer or accountant might be a good guess. I wasn't implying anything sorry.
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Trade restrictions with Canada will do the US no good. I can understand with Mexico, Asia and Europe, but Obama has nothing to gain by preventing Canadian goods from entering the US.
We do indeed have quite a bit of clout as far as trade is concerned. We're their biggest trading partner, we're sitting on the world's biggest fresh water and second biggest oil reserves and we have minerals and metals up the wazoo.
A trade war will blow up in his face and quickly alienate a good portion of ours and other countries.
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I was going to say the same thing. If Harper wants to lead the country, he has to take responsibility for the actions of his government. This one lands right on his doorstep. Again, if he's not up to the job....
Maybe he'll volunteer to clean up the puke from the cancer patients; victims of his neo-partisan policies. Surely, he's at least qualified to do that. He clearly can't govern.
PT again you've failed to really make any point other than that you don't like Harper.
You have all sorts of colorful words and clichés, but you just natter on friviolously. You'll take an excuse you can to criticize Harper, which is totally fine if you want to do that, but back it up if you want to be taken at all seriously.
Like I wrote above, there were NO actual nuclear experts who deemed Chalk River an impending disaster. None of them are worried now either. A Liberal appointed BUREAUCRAT (as in she is in no way an expert in nuclear science) got fired for being an partisan idiot who tried to make a media spectacle about a practically non-existant safety threat. What a scandal.....
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Let me be the first one to point out the obvious:
Isn't screw-up and cover-up pretty much what you have to expect when you override the safety regulator, as a matter of partisan politics?
They overrode a Liberal-appointed safety regulator who every nuclear safety expert who weighed in on the subject believed to be overreacting HUGELY. The safety regulator, in this case, was a appointed bureaucrat loyal to the previous Liberal government. She did not have the support of ANY actual nuclear safety expert on the matter and that pretty much sums it up.
I think the actual 'risk' to the Chalk River plant was if the biggest earthquake the world has ever had was suffered beneath it. For the regulator's scenario to unfold, not only would you have to have this massive earthquake, but you'd have to have virtually every safety feature in the plant fail and have the people working there be asleep and not do anything to shut the plant down.
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I would like you to explain this in greater detail. Coming from this sector and still working in much of it, dedicated to closures, I would rather you flesh it out a little deeper.
Why would I explain it? If you understood what I said about inflation etc you more than likely already know what Keynesian Theory is and I'd be wasting my breath. The debate of how much money we need to pump into the economy is way up in the air. The size of the deficits being projected are absolutely staggering from my point of view but it looks like it was going to happen regardless of who was in power.
Your theories are solid, traditional and basic. Unfortuneately, you have to drop the textbook and do some digging as to what is really happening within the manufacturing.I went basic on you 'assuming' (yeah I know) that you might not even have Economics 101 under your belt. Since apparently you're in the 'sector' (whatever that means), maybe you could clarify what your points of contention are? Are we talking about idiotic lending practises in the US? Unsustainable auto manufacturing and over-capacity? Foolish and manipulative futures trading (oil)? Massive scale financial fraud and lousy accounting? Give us a place to start, because I'd love to debate with someone outside of my immediate circle who actually knows something about it.
In the meantime, I bounce between Grant Thorton LLP and KPMG dealing with Industrial "Bankruptcies" among other things.Lawyer?
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I agree with you moonbox. In my case, I knew next to nothing about how stocks work. I was 55 when I retired. So, I placed all my retirement funds into a GIC Life Income Fund and slept soundly, grateful for each morning I wake up to live another day. Man, when the stocks tanked I was thrilled my capital was not affected. Others were not so fortunate and in many cases it was their own fault.
Which is exactly what you should have done. Greed, ignorance and a total lack of common sense sadly did not propel the masses to that sort of simple wisdom.
TD stayed out of the sub prime mess for the simple reason that their CEO and chief economist didn't really understand the deals being in made. If you don't understand and investment, don't put your money into it.
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Explain why Canada has to spend to maintain a competitive export market? Please include as much as information as possible on how this spending works. Maybe you can change the rolled eyes and frowns into a smile.
I already did.
First off, the spending is obvious stimulus and will help prop up otherwise failing manufacturers. This you understand already I'm sure.
Second, which I've already explained, the spending is tied directly with monetary policy. When you run massive deficits like the US and EVERY other western nation basically is doing right now, it causes inflationary fears. Deficits like in the USA are NOT going to get paid off easily and the best way to make sure your government can manage the debt is to start printing money and keep interest rates low.
When you start printing money, the value of money already in circulation decreases. This causes the currency to fall in comparison to other currencies. This doesn't happen immediately, but you'll see inflation rates fly in the next couple of years.
To relate that back to exports, we all know that a cheap currency makes your export goods cheaper. I assume you also know that the Canadian dollar trading at par with the US dollar put a lot of manufacturers right out of business this year. IF the Canadian government DOESN'T put some inflationary pressure on our dollar over the next few years we'll all of the sudden see it trading over the US dollar and the US will import things cheaper from other countries.
That's the basic idea at least.
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The coalition was dead the moment the LPC backed Dion to lead it. Had the LPC chosen anyone but Dion, the coalition might not only be alive and well, Iggy might well have used it as his opportunity for LPC government.
The coalition was an idiotic idea for the Liberals. It was another retarded scheme (like the Green Shift) concocted by Bob Rae and bozo Dion. A lot of the Liberal MP's didn't even want anything to do with it. I'll give my Liberal MP credit for being one of the few who publicly voiced his dislike for to coalition.
It would have been political suicide for the Liberals to share a cabinet with the NDP for the simple reason that the vast majority of Canadians barf at the mention of the NDP's name. It would have completely alienated the moderate right (which is what most Canadians are) and Ignatieff himself wanted nothing to do with it.
Don't act like it was Dion's fault it fell apart. It was a stupid idea altogether.
Having met Iggy once, it was all it took to discover he was just another disconnected Egghead. He made some naive comments and then disappeared. The LPC are doing a decent job of creating a leader image before the CPC create one for them.By 'meeting him' you mean he shook a few people's hands, said 1 or two things, and then walked away. Once again, your opinion is based on a unshakeable foundation......
In your terms,
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'Fairly conservative' means nothing unless you have a basis of comparison.
Conservative for a wealthy retiree might be blue chip equity. For a retiree whose savings might just BARELY give them the income they want it would likely be a lot less equity based. Conservative for someone who can barely afford their rent payments might be nothing scarier than GICs.
It all depends on much you understand, how much you can safely lose without your lifestyle suffering and how long of a time horizon you have.
Blue chip stocks are by no means a safe investment. They are SAFER than a tech, bio or energy fund in general but even the best and biggest blue chips have giant value fluctuations. Look at GM.
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Pot is about as much of a gateway drug as alcohol is. It's the 'taboo' that makes it even more of a gateway drug.
I don't think it should be illegal because already it's BARELY monitored by the police aside from large scale grow-ops. If the police and legislature cared about clamping down on marijuana they could patrol university neighborhoods and catch people by the dozens.
You might as well make it legal and tax it and regulate it like tobacco.
Personally, I couldn't care less, but I think it's easier to argue the pro-cannabis case than the opposite as far as intelligent reasoning is concerned.
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If all you can pull off is childish emoticons you really show what your arguments are worth.
You can't refute what I said because you don't understand the first thing about the economy. Way to talk out of your butt.
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The same reason why budgets are not announced until AFTER the markets are closed.
and then it affects the markets the following morning. Like I said, it makes no difference.
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It's not illegal at all I don't think. It was criticized by Layton and whoever the Liberal Finance critic was as 'irresponsible' to release before the markets opened. The thought process behind this is that it would start the trading day on a negative note.
You have to ask yourself what difference it'll make, however, whether it's released in the morning or afternoon. Zero.
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Yeah I have no idea why the right is so full of religious nuts all the time.
If they'd just give up on issues like gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research (which the vast majority of Canadians support) they'd do infinitely better.
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Madmax unfortunately for you sarcasm and what you perceive as wit don't make up for ignorance and a complete lack of understanding of the topics at hand...
2) My view is the let the US continue to run the Right Wing deficit spending of the Bush era, including there massive stimulus plan, because they will control their borders in the Global economy. When it is time to protect industry and jobs, they can and will do it. The CPC spending will not protect any jobs, or industries, anymore then their tax cuts protect jobs and industry.Okay so...American stimulus is okay because they can control their borders? Canadian stimulus is bad because we can't? The borders really have nothing to do with stimulus and deficits, nevermind the fact that Canada CAN control its border just as effectively as the US can. We're also ignoring the fact that when the US runs massive deficits, their currency depreciates, which hurts our export market because the Canadian dollar will cost more. Part of the reason Canada HAS to spend is to make sure Canadian exports remain competitive.
You need an industrial policy before any of those measures will work. Thus tax cuts or stimulus could work, but only with a plan.Uh huh...and I suppose your plan will be to come up with a plan right? Initiate the 50 day plan so that you have a plan that will be a good plan right? Yeah. I thought so.
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My thoughts are that the Roman Catholic Church has no business in politics. The moral high ground of the Catholic Church dissapeared like 1500 years ago when it became hypocritical and self-serving.
The fact that an RC bishop has decided the oil sands are bad is about as consequential as an angsty teenage boy with make up doing the same thing. Nobody cares.
Only 26% of Albertans are Catholic anyways. 40% are protestant, 25% have no religion. Even most of the Catholics won't care.
Is Ignatieff politically incompetent?
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
I don't think I've EVER seen more of a cheer leader on these forums than you when it comes to Iggy. Politicians should never be worshipped the way you worship Ignatieff nor the way the Americans are already worshipping Obama. He's been opposition leader for maybe two months now and has largely done NOTHING but you're talking about him like he's some sort of messiah.
Your praise for him has been based on fluffy qualitative nonsense and he's done nothing to distinguish himself from a right-wing CPC member. You've regularly failed to ignore that he's pro-torture, was pro-Iraq, lived longer outside of Canada than within and that he was one of the FEW opposition MP's who regularly supported an extension to the Afghanistan mission. He's the Americanization of the Liberal Party and deep down you know it.
With that said, I wouldn't cry if he became PM. It'd be like changing leaders from Harpernator model 101 to a disguised T1000 model (forgive the Terminator reference I just watched the movie).
There were 1 million fewer voters in 2008 because people pretty generally didn't care. The gross CPC vote was down 3% but their SHARE of the vote increased. The BQ vote was down 11% and their share of the vote went down, and the losses for the Liberals were STAGGERING.
You're absolutely right in that Harper totally blew his majority. Unlike you I can find fault in the man regardless of the fact that I voted for him. He's a snake and occasionally gaffs pretty big like the Quebec arts funding balogna. With that said, I still think he's better than the alternatives. Between the CPC right-wing hypocrite amero-wannabe and the LPC right-wing hypocrite amero-wannabe I'll take the one who at least felt Canada was worth living in the last 30 years.