Evening Star

No, I drove and stayed with my parents... I was just being silly: You asked when the last time was that anyone here was in Ottawa, period, and I'm originally from there.

Krugman does seem a little fearful of at least some approaches to deficit/debt management, although you're right that he doesn't advocate a balanced federal budget every year: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/opinion/31krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Relevant, perhaps?: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2011/01/07/f-vp-macdonald.html

Yes, shareholders pay the tax. They may also likely try to recoup this from their employees or customers. (This is not exactly the same as saying that employees and customers are paying the corporate tax. If my income is taxed more heavily, I may spend less at the nearby pub. That doesn't exactly mean that the pub is paying my income tax.) I think we can all recognize that taxes are paid by people and not by abstract concepts. After recognizing this, it is still possible to question corporate tax cuts! - And I cited Krugman re supply-side economics and corporate tax cuts. I suppose we're having more than one discussion then!

Ha, Christmas break.

And a tax on corporate profits means those profits are taxed before they are paid to the shareholders. Seems straightforward enough. If you prefer, you could say that the individual shareholders are in fact really paying the tax but it just seems like a semantic issue to me at that point. Just because someone thinks that corporate tax cuts may not be the greatest idea does not mean that they necessarily think that 'evil corporations control the universe'. No one has said that in this thread. As it happens, msj's post makes sense to me and I would also be interested in that study.

There is much debate about the Laffer curve anyway, with many placing it around 60%: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/08/where_does_the_laffer_curve_be.html If my piece of paper means I can repossess your Cadillac at any time and also tell you when and how you can use it or that I can force you to trade it in for a Segway and give me the difference, I'm probably winning. I'm not sure what you're on about re women (!) but Krugman (the economist I cited) isn't exactly an amateur. (Neither is Topp fwiw: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/ ). Life, and even economics, may not be a zero-sum game but that doesn't mean that there is no such thing as class. Nor does it mean that putting control over a country's policies in the hands of investors and speculators is ultimately going to benefit everyone. The piece about Ireland makes this case.

But don't you think that excessive debt transfers wealth - and thus, ultimately, control over policy - from a nation's people as a whole to a narrower class of private investors, given that debt is repaid with interest? I mean, I do agree that a country's debt = more savings and dividends for private investors and speculators. I'm just not sure that's always the best transfer. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/the-irish-tragedy-and-its-lessons-for-canada/article1809235/

I don't see why the concept of "corporate tax" is any more problematic than "corporate profits" ('All profits are received by a person, somewhere') or "corporate property". If it makes sense for a corporation to e.g. own a copyright or patent (on intellectual work done by individual people), why is it so much harder to conceive of corporations being able to pay taxes? Are you sure he or she doesn't just understand them a little differently than you do?

That is supply-side economic theory, yes... Is there any evidence that it actually works? I've tended to believe Krugman that it doesn't but I am open to and interested in hearing evidence to support it. (If you haven't read this before, Topaz: http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/TaxCutCon.html ) And it is possible for productivity to be generated by the public sector btw. Ask the Norwegians.

It's a board with a different purpose than this one, spelled out here: http://www.rabble.ca/about/babblepolicy . It's not, and afaik has never been, meant to be a totally open discussion board like this one. It is intended as a space for people who agree on certain principles (generally speaking, people who are somewhat to the left of the current Liberal party). That still does include a wide range of opinion from progressive-leaning Liberals to extreme communists and anarchists (who afaict are a minority even there). If someone wants their basic values challenged, they can come to a different board such as MLW. With that understanding, I haven't found the level or civility of discourse to be any worse there than it is here. I find extreme views and attitudes in both places.

FWIW, as an admittedly occasional Rabble reader and poster (I found it after I found this site actually), I don't recognize William's screen name or posting style from the Babble board at all. I don't think he's a 'Rabble troll' or somesuch. I'm not even sure that most of his views are typical of Rabble or of Canadian leftists/progressives generally. I hope that reading Rabble sometimes doesn't get me labelled as an ideologue. I mainly read both of these boards to learn: Some of the debates here have been very challenging illuminating for me.

As much as I dislike Harper, I do agree that the Citizen is spot-on when it comes to how his government compares to US Republicans. But I also tend to suspect that he has only governed so moderately because he has a minority. We've more or less been getting Ignatieff-style blue Liberal rule imo.

(And, as a result, it is more common that those who actually sign up and pay to be political party members tend to be fairly partisan. It is less common to see 'casual Liberals' who are card-carrying party members but might not even turn out to vote in the way that my gf and her Mum are 'casual Democrats'.)

(tonne of xposts)

Political party membership works a little differently here, Bitsy. You have to indepedently sign up and pay a membership fee, not just tick a box on a form that everyone receives. As a result, the proportion of people who are members of any party is much smaller than in the US.

Admittedly, though, I'd probably have to go to the original sources (that Craig cites) to actually verify how fairly he is reporting those cases.

I'm kind of amazed that there would be much criticism of MLW for being too far left tbh.

What about Edward Herman, btw, who is a trained media analyst and economist?

These do seem to suggest more than that: Not necessarily in every case and not at all cost, no.

There were more in post #67, especially if you follow the links.

They would change their product so as to attract ad dollars, yes. Whether this would necessarily be an improvement is the question. I'm not sure that it would and I've listed numerous examples where dependence on advertising has potentially compromised reporting. Btw, attracting ad dollars often means attracting those viewers who have money to spend, not just attracting viewers period. It's like a voting system weighted by income. I'm still curious if you have evidence that suggests that the presence of Crowns has negatively impacted labour conditions or employment levels in any sector.

Yeah, but if a Crown corporation is present, we also have another employer available in the sector, one that probably offers union protection and publicly-backed employment security. So on the whole, I'm not sure that it would be bad for the workforce in the sector, although individual workers' experiences will vary (as they would anyway). As Michael notes, if an institution like the CBC were to be privatized, it would probably become a roughly similar institution, except less friendly to workers and maybe smaller.

So Westjet does seem like a good employer. Toyota seems like a less clear-cut case: http://in.reuters.com/article/idINT18852520071205 http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20080913a1.html http://www.thestar.com/article/347093 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-9887351_ITM In any case, I don't doubt that some private-sector corporations may be good employers. (Google is a good example, from what I hear.) That in and of itself is still not enough to convince me that competition from Crown corporations is generally bad for workers in the affected sector. As Michael H points out, it could easily be beneficial.

It's significantly higher, surely: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2112.html

My private sector experience is not terribly deep, I'll grant. I'll look up the cases you mention.