geoffrey
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Posts posted by geoffrey
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So we should only vote for people who sell themselves out for more?
Sure... completely missed my point but sure.
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Wait until the final report comes out. The best this provides is a distraction for Iggy during the debates when Jack and Harper are hammering him on the riduclousness of his "stolen" Red book. So, +1 for Iggy. For now. I'm sure this, like all the other "scandals" the Liberals think they've found, will turn out to be a bunch of hot air.
Anyone remember Bev Oda? Bev who?
Unless Tony's been slipping envelopes under the table Liberal style, there probably isn't much here. Governments of all stripes over spend all the time.
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When the dollar crashes, what will be the value of the silver then?
Obviously higher than it is today...
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So you want the 8% emitters to pay for the carbon issues of the whole country? Grow up. Those carbon emissions are part of the emissions that are used elsewhere in teh country. Those emissioss should flow through to the end users. Those emissions wouldn't exist without all the cars and factories in Ontario and elsewhere.
I don't even know where you got that number from. The Pembina Institute estimates it's 5% (http://www.pembina.org/pub/1966).
Yet Alberta should transfer wealth to Ontario and Ottawa because the oilsands industry is responsible for 5% of GHG emissions.
If you want to change the world in your own naive way, you need to raise gas prices through carbon taxes and dramtically increase the cost of food and other goods that are transported. The only way to reduce GHG emissions is through less demand of fossil fuels... not taxing a supplier.
If you impose a massive tax on Suncor for example, do you think they can afford to spend extra dollars on environmental projectsand still earn an appropriate return on investment?
Such a socialist attitude. It's always someone else's fault.
What you'll see happen is investment drop off, jobs will be lost and you'll import more oil from Islamic extremists. If that's your choice, I can't help ya.
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Well, either Iggy lied about voting in his book or he is lying about it now. He's a liar either way. Would be curious to know the truth. It doesn't matter much if he voted abroad to me, but he shouldn't lie about it.
That's the issue with Iggy. He's just so fake. He has a lifetime of writing that is in complete disagreement with the policies he is advocating today. Iggy is the guy that supported the invasion of Iraq and the torture of terror suspects for example (when necessary). This isn't the same guy that we see on the stump today.
That's my biggest issue. I read most of his academic work, and I was really supportive of this guy having some role in Canadian politics. But the reality is that he ditched his lifetime of work to come up with some ultra-liberal/socialist policies to get elected. That's a big problem for me.
Anyone willing to sell themselves out on the cheap shouldn't be PM.
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BC - CPC: 26, LPC: 2, NDP: 8
Alta - CPC: 28
Sask - CPC: 13, LPC: 1
Man - CPC: 10, LPC: 1, NDP: 3
Ont - CPC: 56, LPC: 30, NDP: 20
Qc - CPC: 8 (1), LPC: 12, NDP: 0, BQ: 54
NB - CPC: 6, LPC: 3, NDP: 1
NS - CPC: 4, LPC: 5, NDP: 2
PEI - CPC: 2, LPC: 2
Nfld - CPC: 4, LPC: 2, NDP: 1
Terr - CPC: 1, LPC: 1, NDP: 1
Totals - CPC: 159, LPC: 59, NDP: 36, Bloc: 54
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Hopefully y'all know you are responsible for ruining peoples health and causing mass tracts of land and species to be destroyed.
Actually, that's you. Go buy an electric car and farm your own vegetables and meat. Otherwise you need to stop complaining about our oil. Stop buying ANY goods shipped anywhere. Make your own clothes from the sheep in your pasture.
If you're not doing that, you are a hypocrit.
It's there, for you. When you're ready to spend $70k on an electric car (charged by your small scale hydro project in the backyard) and several million on an acreage big enough to support sustainence farming, then start complaining about the oil sands.
Cars and the transportation of goods in this country emit several times the amount of CO2 compared the oil sands. That's your problem, not Alberta's.
All this Eastern high on their horse mentality about CO2. What utter rubbish. Telling us in Alberta to spend tens of thousands per capita in carbon sequestration while they still drive their internal combustion cars and buy shipped good.
YOU go spend the tens of thousands. Then come whine to us. Until then, we simply don't care about what Ottawa has to say. And if you push too hard, watch out. No oil, no money. Yikes.
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I am pointing out people can't come here and pretend Alberta is a different province then it is because it has some Windmills. Just one oil sands development produces more Carbon in a year then a province that operates on 90% coal power.
I am fine with that, however let's not try and pretend it is something it aint.
That oil isn't consumed in Alberta though. It's mostly consumed in the U.S. and Eastern Canada. It's not our fault the oil lays under our soil. We are simply fulfilling the energy demands of the rest of the continent/country. The reality is that transportation and manufacturing consume most of this oil. That's an Ontario/Quebec problem. Not an Alberta one.
You guys should be writing us huge cheques because of the environmental efforts we need to implement due to your demand. We don't burn the dirty fuel, that's you guys. It just happens to be under the surface of our province.
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How many more ways can the East devise to rip Alberta off, ignoring their own economic mismanagement?
Carbon tax is just another hand into my pocket.
By the way, we might mine the fuel out here, but Ontarians burn it in their cars. The only proper tax would pass on all tax to the end consumer. Ontario/Quebec manufacturing and the millions of drivers out there.
Alberta should pay very little. 3 million drivers, little manufacturing. A true carbon user tax should be a Ontario/Quebec cost. They need to find better ways to manufacture and transport their people. Don't blame Alberta for supplying their habit... I'd rather keep the money in country than send it to Ghaddfi.
Alberta produces more wind power per capita than any other province. Does the Maritimes need to write me a cheque for all that oil and diesel they burn in their generators.
A true carbon tax would impact Alberta very little, maybe even positively. Unfortunately the carbon tax the Liberals and Ontarians/Quebecois have in mind is more like Suncor writing Charest a big cheque to spend on daycares and Quebec culture. That's not a real carbon tax.
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I agree with you, but on the other hand, it does give the opportunity to engage in a low cost object lesson to every other arab dictatorship that there is a line that if crossed, comes with ultimate consequences.
It is for this reason that the Arab league is having a hard time supporting the mission as they pay lip service to the efforts to drag arab politics into the 20th century.
Well, there have been plenty of other opportunities to do so in the past. Just seem politically expedient this time around. We bomb Ghaddafi while the Saudi's behead people for petty theft and shoot their own people in protests. We all know how this plays out.
I'm just sick of getting involved in messes over there. It's not our business. I'm in favour of us taking a Swiss approach to all this.
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Coming back from retirement...
I really disagree with our intervention in Libya. On a number of grounds:
#1 - This is a internal issue. It's really, not our problem. I'm really sick of Canadians and other Westerns risking their lives for those that attach no value to life. Seriously, no our problem. We have oil here. Let's keep the boys here rather than have them risk their lives for a bunch of sand.
#2 - We don't have any idea who these "rebels" are. We cannot support them. We (read: "the West") supported the Mujahadden against the Russians because we didn't understand them. I really don't feel like having another situation like Afghanistan crop up in Libya due to us supporting the wrong guys. Ghaddafi, as insane as he is, is not an Islamic radical. We have enough Islamic radicals in the world and we are about to get more because we threw our friend Mubarack under the bus in Egypt. We don't need another Islamic religious state in Libya too.
#3 - We really don't know if the rebels have popular support. It seems like they didn't really have any real support anywhere out of Benghazi once the rubber hit the road.
#4 - Ghaddafi was normalizing relations with us until this all broke out. I do trust that he was no longer supporting terrorism. Having Canadians over there now makes us a target for Libyan terrorists, which are fundamentally different than your typical wack-jobs. They are mercenary for-hire types, which are far more dangerous than your run of the mill self-detonating individual of certain religious affliations.
#5 - The mission has absolutely no goals or objectives or endgames. It's impossible to be successful when success has not been defined. This mission is doomed to a Somali type situation where no one knows what the hell is going on or what our role is over there.
Personally, I believe they should just fight it out. It's not our problem. There are worse dictators in the world I'd want disposed of long before Gaddafi (Mugabe for example). Even if the world would be happier with Gaddafi gone, I'm not sure his replacement will be someone any more aligned with our interests.
And that's something we need to pay attention to. OUR INTERESTS. We don't want to be fighting for a group that is against our interests. And we really don't know what the hell these rebels are for.
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I hear what you are saying, but to play devils advocate... If I were a police officer, and I was stopping you for whatever reason, I for one would like to know that information. I'd like to have as much information as is available to ensure the safety of myself and the general public. If know that you are the owner of a shotgun or rifle then at the very least I am aware that the possibility exists that you have a weapon on you. I see no issue with it what so ever.
Let's be realistic. Nearly all of crime in Canada is committed with firearms outside the registry. I'd say that knowing someone has a registered firearm shows they are LESS risky a call then your average everyday folks. They are under higher scrunity and are constantly punished with bureaucracy for following the law.
Everyone else, especially those gangsters with unregistered handguns, don't have any oversight.
It's way more risky being involved with someone without registered firearms. Who knows what they have?
So the value of the registry in itself is absolutely zero.
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Get tough, get some balls and pass legislation to prevent another bubble and bust!!!
It's easier for Obama and co to just tax. That way they don't have to face the reality that broken housing programs (those requiring banks by law to issue mortgages doomed to fail) and other social issues are the real problem behind the collapses.
The reality... most Westerners live beyond their means. And the government requires banks to provide for them the rope to hang themselves with. The problem is everyone goes down with that.
Again, just really unpopular to tell people they can't have houses and cars and live poor. But that's what needs to happen. Too many people have houses and other nice things. That must change.
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I do not know what his background is really like outside of his credentials, but as credentials go, now is certainly a good time to have someone versed in constitutional law to be the Governor General. Such an academic is exactly what is required right now. An expert to deal in matters requiring expertise.
100% agreed.
Though I maintain we'd be better off without a GG!
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Bull! It’s paid for by the PEOPLE of Ontario!
Don't forget the transfer payments from Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. We fund it too.
You got $347M from us this year.
And we're (in Alberta) not even subject to any silly PST nonsense.
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You could us all a favour and take your whining elsewhere....
Where are you going to get the money to fund your socialist wasteland if Alberta is gone? Ford? Magna International?
If we provide the money, we should have a bigger say in where it goes. Your Ontario centric media crap isn't in my tax dollar interest, so it's right for Alberta politicans to be critical of where media dollars are spent.
If Ontario/Quebec earned their own money, then they'd have the right to tell us to shove it. Unfortuntately, right now they do not.
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Kind of a silly comment.
Yes, central banks will hold Canadian dollars.
No, the Canadian dollar is NOT gaining reserve status.
Just because a central bank holds loonies doesn't mean the Canadian dollar is going to ever be a substantial reserve currency. The reality is that our debt markets are far too illiquid and small for there ever to be consideration to moving any major money into the loonie.
Compare how many outstanding US t-bill/bond issues there are versus Canadian $ bills/bonds and the volume traded in each and you'll understand. Central banks don't hold CASH, they hold debt. There isn't enough Canadian debt!
Banks hold Aussie and Canadian dollars for balancing purposes, we are big exporters of resources, most countries are importers. Keeps currencies stable in a roundabout way through times of commodity volatility.
USD/EUR/GBP/YEN/CHF will be reserve currencies. No one else has the depth to challenge that. Especially not the meagre amount of Canadian debt product in the markets.
Gold is a reserve instrument, arguably a currency, that will have more influence in the future as well.
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And what happens if there is a serious downturn in the economy?
Actually not. Individuals pay insurance premiums at market (maybe even above market) rates for CMHC guarntees. CMHC is a profitable business for the government.
CMHC is already holding the bag. But has made a huge fortune off mortgage insurance since inception. I'm not worried about CMHC.
And Leafless, did you miss something or did you not see that we've already gone through the biggest downturn since the Great Depression. Less than 2% of mortgages defaulted and less than 1% foreclosed in Canada. Let's say that triples over the next year. CMHC is still profitable.
By conducting this transaction, the government actually reduced risk as it's now collecting a spread on the mortgages versus it's own funding. Before it only had insurance premiums, but had equal liability.
CMHC is only effective because it has a government guarntee. It doesn't work without it. Again, there is no real risk there. Just a bunch of people that don't understand how this all really works.
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These are whats commonly referred to as derivatives.
A derivative has no underlying asset. MBS are not derivatives, they are collateralized securitizations. There are real assets backing every dollar of an MBS. Not true of derivatives where there are no real assets.
Don't get confused with synthetic MBS derivatives like what Goldman was dealing in... the current SEC investigation.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12007This is a little old but it is a very well written article about the financial obligations that are following this transfer of funds regardless of the reasoning.
The article was written by someone that seems to have no futher than a grade 6 education. There are so many fundamentally incorrect statements in that article... don't waste your time with such drivel.
There is no risky or un risky...they bought secured debt...which is a sound investment.Further, it was debt they already guarnteed through CMHC, so they were on the hook regardless.
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That's because Obama has yet to deliver on anything he says and the market is starting to understand that. He has no real plan. He's not accomplishing anything he's set out to do. The U.S. is bleeding private market jobs.
Put it this way, fewer people working everyday. The only new workers are on the government payroll. So where is the money coming from?
Americans only generate internal wealth by buy property and selling it to another American for more money a few months later. Goldman Sachs might intervene and make an MBS based on it as well somewhere along the line. However, that doesn't make any external wealth. That nation doesn't get any richer. It doesn't allow them to buy more from China or import more oil from the Middle East. It's all just fake wealth.
Shell game my friend. A country that grossly imports far more than it exports is bleeding. It can't last forever. Eventually Americans need to live within their means and actually produce something. I know, I know. They produce services and 'intellectual' property. True. But they consume way more than what that's worth (see: current account).
I don't predict the end of the United States. But entitlement programs will disappear, taxes will go higher and Americans will live far less well off than they did last generator. And we'll pay a price in Canada too.
Be careful of real-estate. Make sure you have commodity exposure in your portfolio. Diversify your foreign holdings. It's about to get real ugly.
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Here is the deal. All these mortgages were going to be bailed out my the government anyways if they failed. That's what CMHC is for. These were CMHC guarnteed mortgages, so the banks had no risk anyways. CMHC and eventually the government of Canada always had the risk.
Mortgage buyers pay insurance premiums when qualifying for CMHC mortgages. Unlikely Freddie/Fannie in the U.S., CMHC is a cash cow because it collects way more in premiums than it pays out, lowering your income taxes. But none the less, the government always had these mortgages as liabilities, now they have them as a cash cow asset too.
So the government is borrowing with 0.35% 3 month t-bills to buy 5.0% MBS that they had 100% exposure to ANYWAYS. Let's say this is $50B in mortgages? I believe that means that the government is making $2.3B on the carry trade right now. For you.
Hmmm... Harper should get a medal for that. Brilliant if you ask me. Plus it increases liquidity in the market so that hooligans like Topaz can get bank credit.
So everyone won with the deal. Anyone that claims otherwise is stupid or had an agenda.
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I hear Niagara Falls is only an hour and bit from T.O. about the same time for me to get to Canmore, so do we credit T.O. for the Falls?
Sure. Niagara Falls is a dumpy trash town, but if you want to credit Toronto with it, sure.
Falls, pretty stuff. I'll take the Rockies with a lifetime of outdoor opportunity over a 5 minute viewing of the falls or a 20 minute ride on the Maid of the Mist.
But yes, I'll give Niagara Falls to Toronto. Though I really don't think that adds any quality of life.
Algonquin is too far for me to count that, but if it was counted, then we'd be talking.
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Delusional? Pearson International is in Mississauga... so using your logic, I'm still right. Toronto doesn't have an international airport. How sad.
The proximity to the rockies is a key quality of life driver in Calgary, regardless if it's within some kind of census boundary or whatever. Just as Pearson is a key aspect of Toronto's economy and quality of life. Even though it's in a completely seperately administered city.
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Canadian banks didn't need any government assistance. The taxpayers didn't put up any money.
So why tax them for doing the RIGHT thing? Canadian banks had appropriate risk measures and capitalization in place. Let them continue on. They are a reason for Canada current economic and fiscal strength. Taxing them now would be highly immoral and contrary to national interest.
Foreign dollars have been pouring into Canada because of our strong banks.
AG Draft Report: G8 Funding Lacked Transparency
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
It really isn't Harper's report to release. It's up to the AG and the Speaker (a Liberal). Sheila is saying be cautious as the report as seen in the media has nothing to do with the final, which she will release upon the return of the House.
No, it's just that Canadians have more important things to worry about than whether or not a minister scribbled "not" on a document that disallowed funding for a marginal hippie group that most Canadians wouldn't want funded anyway.
The constant non-scandal "scandals" that the opposite kept bringing up every couple weeks has muted their appeal to the electorate now. I imagine most people are saying, "oh ya, ANOTHER scandal that will turn out to be nothing," and just tuning out.
Anyone that thinks that Oda is an election issue is clearly delusional.