Moonbox

I think I might have seen that. Was that the low-budget and balogna debate on the CBC between relative nobodies? He blew it by overestimating the intelligence of voters in Ontario and Quebec and underestimating their ignorance in terms of anything politcally related. Actually, he and Gloria Kovach already have my vote thanks to the advanced polls. I've never been able to vote for someone so attractive before. Gloria's pretty cute.

I'll agree with that. Personally I voted for Chretien the first term and I voted for Martin the first time as well. I think they did a decent job balancing the books but I prefer the lower taxes under Harper. Other than the Liberals running big surpluses with higher taxes and Harper running lower surpluses with lower taxes, I really saw very little difference in their competence economically. If it wasn't for the Green Shift I'd probably still feel the same. I'm totally happy with a Liberal or Conservative right of centre government. I'm just not sold on a Liberal government promising tax hikes and income distribution which would undo a lot of what Martin, Chretien and Harper have done.

A good find. Basically every objective third party expert in the world is saying we are on the right track. Harper's doing a good job. Don't expect my friends in Central --> Eastern Canada believe that though.

I'm scared. I'll go on record right now saying I think that we are more likely to see a Liberal government than a Conservative one. Harper's campaign has been terrible. Dion's hasn't been great but Harper completely blew it by speaking honestly about current economic conditions. That might sound funny, but it was a huge mistake to tell people the Canadian economy is doing fine and that they should be looking to buy in the stock markets right now. Personally, I was way ahead of him on that one and have secured credit and savings so I can play vulture on the stock market, but it's certainly NOT what Ontarions and Quebecquers wanted to hear. To be honest, I'm not even sure what my fellow Ontarions wanted to hear. Did they want to hear Harper would spend into deficit to maintain liquidity in the market? A dip in the red would likely have the average Canadian pulling their hair out. When fiscal (government spending) policy is proven to be (along with central bank interest rate adjustments) the only effective ways to absorb short term shocks to the economy, what is ANYONE going to be able to do about the economy? Nothing, but most people don't know that and I don't expect them to. Take heart from knowing that Canadian Banking regulation over the last 30 years has been extremely strong in Canada and will continue to be.

So....the business-friendly Harper government has HURT the economy. I see. I had it all wrong!

This has been your argument in about 800 different threads. Harper's spending increases pretty much kept pace with Martin's spending increases. You quoted a source from the CTF the other day I think that confirmed that. I will agree with you that a 1% income tax cut is better than a 1% GST cut as far as people's wallets are concerned. The 2% GST cut, however, is quite a bit better than a 1% income tax cut and that's what the Liberal's promised last election. These are not the only tax cuts from the Tories either. What Harper did was return power and money to the provinces. THAT was his real spending increase. The provinces were hurting and needed that money. Education, Social Services, Health Care etc are ALL provincial services so why should the provinces hurt for money while the federal government over taxes us?

Could it POSSIBLY mean that the effect of 'Harpernomics' as the Liberals like to say has been twisted, misrepresented and completely exaggerated? Could it possibly mean that his policies may have had a cushioning effect on our market? We're better off than the entire rest of the world DESPITE being the most closely linked economy to the USA's. I THINK that's a good thing and I THINK that might mean that Harper really hasn't done a bad job at all. BTW, I think, you might, need to go back, to punctuation, class. Sorry I couldn't resist.

What the public 'buys' is their perogative. I'm on these forums arguing that the centre or centre-right voter is making a wrong choice voting Liberal this election. The Liberals and NDP are most certainly fanning the flames of panic. Our economy has slowed, that's for sure. What the question now is what can realistically be done about the situation? The economy of the US, where 75% of Canada's exports go, is tanking. Demand for Canadian exports will similarly tank. Carbon taxes are not going to encourage recovery and growth. Increased regulation AFTER the fact is not going to encourage growth. NDP corporate tax increases will DETER growth. Anyone thinking that a Liberal or NDP government is somehow going to improve the economic situation given their platforms is way out to lunch. They have no plan either, at least none that means anything. They're just blowing hot air and trying to emotionally appeal to the worried voter. Harper may seem insensitive to you but that's because he's trying to calm people down and not exaggerate the situation. Investor and consumer panic hurts the economy just as much or more than the actual market conditions themselves.

What do Jack and Dion have to say about that?

Wonder what wayne easter has to say about that....

Jdobbin your arguing on this forum is getting a little silly. You've been stumped and the best response you could come up with was to request a direct quotation. For the sake of logical argument, the requirement for an actual quote lies squarely on YOUR shoulders. You need to prove that Harper said what you claimed because it's impossible for us to directly quote someone not saying something. If you're going to ask someone to put the effort of a direct quotation, at least make the effort of refuting the points they've made. Pretty much every point you've made in this thread has fallen flat. You're making some really worthless assumptions here and if I asked you to explain your position on what the Conservatives have specifically done to harm the economy and HOW any proposed Liberal plans would make ANY difference at this point you'd miserably fail. I don't think many people are arguing that the Green Shift wouldn't be good for the environment. What everyone is arguing is that an income redistribution tax which makes life and business more expensive for the VAST majority of taxpayers and businesses will NOT encourage economic growth at this point and help us in ANY way to avert a canadian financial meltdown. Explain to me what you think Dion has proposed that's going to do anything at this point to help anyone in Canada avoid a financial crisis that originated in another country. Please. Enlighten me. I don't want to hear your random one liners and your emotional appeals. I would really love to hear you go point for point explaining specifically how anything Dion has planned here is going to positively influence any of the forces slowing our economy down right now. Give it a shot. I'm of the opinion that we do need to take steps towards helping the environment. What I question, however, is the unveiling of a dramatic new taxation scheme in the middle of one of the biggest financial crises in world history.

I don't think environmental taxes and increased cost of living is going to help us out in our current economic situation. If you really want to protect the environment, invest in tech development for clean energy etc. Don't tax the only affordable source of fuel Canadians have right now and make it more expensive for them to live during a recession.

Perception and reality are often very different things but Party Leaders one and all are ALL arrogant. If you're voting based on body language from a bunch of stiffs in suits you really need to wake up. Maybe you should move down to the USA and vote based on which leader is more catholic or what type of dog they have. Personally, I don't think I really even like Harper. He's dissapointed me on a good number of occasions and I think his campaign this year was an absolute failure. With that said, I like that he's cut taxes and I love what he's done to immigration policy and I think what he's DONE while in government have been very good for the economy and that along with health care is the most important thing for me in any election. I know from my own extensive and personal research that the Green Shift will end up costing me and everyone but the very poor a good deal of money. It's not good for business, it's not good for the average consumer and if you want to put that sort of added strain to the economy under the current circumstances then go ahead and vote Liberal.

Regular people 'predict' where the economy is going all the time. Sometimes they're right and more often they're not. What a woman predicted a year ago about the americans losing their homes is irrelevant considering that the bad stuff had ALREADY hit the fan by then and everyone already knew EXACTLY what was going on and banks were already posting multi-billion dollar losses. Finally Topaz, what 'this woman' predicted and what you heard 'two guys' say about the economy sounds about as reliable as Russian car. The case in point here is there are hundreds of millions of 'regular folk' wetting their beds these days about the economic crisis because they had no idea what was coming and had no clue what the various indicators and signals meant. They had NO idea.

None of that even makes sense and ignores basically every function of logic possible.

That's a little far out I think. I agree that corporations are inherently greedy and whatnot and should be regulated to an extent but you went a little too far there....

I think to get VERY BASIC understanding of the concepts a first year university economics course would point you in the right direction. It doesn't take a genius to understand that higher inflation means higher interest rates and vice versa, or that higher interest rates can appreciate the value of the dollar, but the problem really is that all the factors are inter-linked and affect each other in different ways and in different directions. What I mean here is that it's really complicated to understand how the various factors affect one another and by how much they will do so. Nobody can ever get it right all the time, but some people do a hell of a lot better than others. Some of the candidates (Jack Layton particularly) shows such a fundamentally lacking understanding of economic theory that he's basically ensured he'll never be PM. This is what scares me. When economic policies like Trudeau's fail so miserably it shows just how dangerous it is to have a PM governing without a good understanding of how the markets work.

I think the electorate gets more respect than it deserves. The electorate is incredibly easy to fool and it has always been that way. The average voter is NOTHING like the average poster on this forum. The very fact that you're posting here means you have 100x more interest in our political system than the average Canadian does. The average Canadian votes blindly based on what: a ) They see on their chosen TV channel b ) They read in their chosen newspaper That's really as far as it goes. Given that newspapers and TV stations are heavily partisan most of the time you're never going to get a clear and objective opinion. You really have to spend hours and hours researching the issues like we do here and arguing with people from opposite persectives to have an inkling of what's going on. It's a FACT that most Canadians don't do that. Conservatives, Liberals, NDP'ers...it doesn't matter who you're talking about. The average voter doesn't have a clue. The strategy here is he wanted to come across as the candidate with the most 'leadership' qualities. He wanted to show a calm and measured image who would act prudently and responsibly. The other parties' economic plans are, in my educated opinion (I work as an advisor for investments and went to university for it etc), knee-jerk plans that most assuredly WILL hurt the economy. Jack Layton's plan is to raise corporate taxes. That has never helped ANY economy ANYWHERE. Dion's plan has been picked apart by economists and they are ALL saying it will raise prices and cost Canadians more in taxes. Harper's steady hand plan IS a good plan for the economy for the time being. The problem, however, is that the average voter/investor is infinetly stupid and when they saw the stock market go down 800 points in one day, that all of the sudden meant Harper was wrong about everything, it was all his fault and somehow higher taxes and prices would somehow reverse this. It makes no sense but that's not important to the average voter. This one I'll have to agree with. Harper has shown himself as a giant hypocrite and as PM everyone focuses on him more. The opposition is just as bad or worse, but as PM the focus is going to be on him.

There are bad economists and good economists. One of the biggest problems with economic analysts is that they provide analysis which is often very politically tilted. Whatever your position or point of view you can usually find 'economists' who will agree with you for various reasons. Another problem with economists is that external events are often unpredictable and they can never account for that. Having said that, at least an economist understands the driving forces of supply, demand, inflation, interest rates, currency exchange rates etc and can look at them objectively. The 70's and 80''s showed a disgusting ignorance of basic economic theory (under Trudeau and Mulroney) and we are paying for that now.

That's the Harper I like. This economic 'crisis' was coming for almost a year. It was PAINFULLY obvious and anyone who didn't do anything about their investments has themselves to blame just as much as anyone else. With that said, all of these people crying about their retirement savings going away need to realize that they're only losing money when they panic and sell their equity immediately after it loses 20% of its value. The investments will largely recover. Personally, I sold everything I had back in November when CIBC started posting its billion dollar losses. I have all my money in cash equivalents and I've secured credit for doing exactly what Harper said. Buy low, sell high. It's too bad the average person is too stupid to realize that: A) Equity Markets are cyclical Nothing Harper has done thus far did ANYTHING to encourage a financial slowdown in Canada C) The Canadian government's capacity to halt an economic slowdown in Canada is virtually nil at the best of times. The government can smoothe things out a little and that's IT. At this point any initiatives by ANY elected government in Canada would do NOTHING to prevent a spillover if it's actually coming unless that government is looking to start running huge deficits.

GST vs Income Tax Cuts There's one. Whether people know enough to understand him will be interesting.

I think this is a pretty good post. I think corporate tax cuts are good in that they DO encourage business. Any government, whether NDP, Liberal or whoever that is looking to increase them is nuts. On the other hand, WIP is right in that the income disparity in Canada is getting absurd and the middle and poorer classes need to be protected from exploitive corporations. The only way to do this is put up trade barriers and prevent companies from manufacturing everything in China and Mexico where these countries enjoy completely unfair advantages. I'm all for Free Trade as long as it's fair. Trade with most of the rest of the world, however, is not in the least bit fair. Having our steel and everything else manufactured in China ultimately does a lot more good to shareholders than it does to the rest of Canada.

I actually read that as well and I'm pretty sure the CTF didn't say Harper's spending leaped past 2001 and 2006 levels. It said that he went over budget twice and that government spending increased at almost EXACTLY the same rate as under the Martin Liberals. Also, the CTF certainly didn't endorse the other parties. In fact, its criticism of the Liberal Party was scathing: "Mr. Dion will instead levy a $15-billion carbon tax on traditional energy sources. The revenue will be used to lower personal and business income taxes by $9.5-billion. Low-income families will receive payments totaling $4.5-billion and the remaining $1-billion spent on research and development. In other words, for every $2 in income tax relief there will be $3 in additional taxes and another $1 in spending. This plan will grow the size of government, drain more resources from the economy, and make middle-class families poorer." Jdobbin, some of your points are indisputable. I can't argue that Harper isn't spending over budget. I can't argue that he's probably spending more than I would like him to. What I've been arguing all along is that the other parties, specifically the Liberals, are going to be spending WAY MORE than the Tories and that we'll all have LESS money in our wallets after they're done. The CTF, which you just referenced, confirms this.

If you actually look at ALL of the numbers, as in the ones that actually MATTER, like inflation rates, debt relative to GDP and interest rates paid for debt accumulated already, spending under Trudeau did WAY more to hurt Canada than under Mulroney. Mulroney was a bad PM but Trudeau was 5 times worse. You bring this argument up all the time whowhere but the fact of the matter is Conservative immigration policy is more selective than Liberal policy ever was and they are improving it immensely. You seem to have a problem with the fact the conservatives are ensuring that skilled and productive immigrants come to the country instead of how the Liberals let ANYONE in on a first come first serve basis. Not to sound insensitive but the fact that your department was dead weight on the corporation and needed trimming isn't really the fault of Conservative Policy. The conservatives really made no changes to immigration policy as far as I know of prior to the last 3-4 months. Even if you lost your job in that period, the policies hadn't even been implemented yet really. You're complaining that the Conservatives are making it so that skilled immigrants get into the country first ahead of unskilled non-english speaking immigrants. Naturally they will be competing for skilled work but to argue against these policies is to suggest that Canada is better off with unskilled immigrants suitable only for minimum wage work so they can mooch off our social system. Your argument isn't really making sense. You can't find a job because immigrants have a low standard of living and that's why you're still on temporary employment making $20,000? The immigrants, with their lowly standard of living, are doing your $50,000 job and doing it for less than $20,000? I would love to know what your lowly immigrant manager's department was and what your job was. I think there is a lot of 'poor me' and blame game being played here. Generally speaking, native Canadians have a VASTLY better time finding jobs than immigrants. To say that ALL of the jobs you could apply for are being filled by foreigners on work permits is juvenile. It's strange that it's never occurred to you that there MIGHT be other reasons other than mythical conservative policy why certain specific people lost and then can't find jobs.

The GST vs Income tax debate was really based on a GST cut of 1% vs an Income Tax cut of 1%. On this basis, the income tax cut was better for almost everyone except for the very wealthy or the ridiculously poor. A 2% GST decrease, however, is a great deal better than a 1% income tax cut by the very simplest of math. I'm young, I'm working for slightly less than $20/hour, and given my spending habits the GST cuts save me almost $400/year. My income would have to be over 40,000/year for me to save 400/year with Dion's previously promised 1% income tax cut, but then if I was making 40,000 per year I'd be spending enough to offset the difference either way. The other benefit is the GST cut encourages consumption which, regardless of what Green economists say, drives our economy.