geoffrey

A tax cut is a form of stimulus. Without it, the government would need to spend more to have the same impact. 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.

Chartered bank management are the agents of their shareholders. Not sure how the government figures into this picture.

I think Obama should be impeached over the issue. That's 25 electoral votes for only $30b and the destruction of a principle of the capitalist system! Not bad. I'll never buy one of their cars. I've given them enough money. I encourage others to not buy GM product as well.

Frank just says that for the support of the government. He's trying to get Ottawa to finance his Green cars (what's another $300mm). Your right though, condition of the deal is that cars can't be sold to the US. So it seems silly to produce cars for just the Canadian market over here. I doubt if we'll ever see a car produced in Canada. But I'm sure we'll financially support Frank.

Oh come on. No one could have balanced the budget this year. That's unrealistic. Raise taxes or cut spending. Which is it? Those are the only ways for the government to have more money.

I'm not saying we should force them to amalgamate. I'm saying they should choose to do so, save themselves provincial taxes and reduce their dependance on Ottawa. Probably good for business there too.

Harper is a liberal too, not sure what the issue is. He's all above saving union jobs above all else (GM bailout), reducing regressive taxes (GST), increasing taxes on investment (income trusts). Ending wars early (Afghanistan... before the Liberals wanted to leave). I'm not really sure what these neo-con policies are. I haven't seen a single conservative thing from Harper since he took office. Just lots of spend, spend, spend liberal measures.

Yes, but current suppliers and employees need to be paid, otherwise they won't provide more parts. These liabilities must be settled for the New Viable GM to proceed. That's what the money is for (and transitioning into the new GM). Just provided the numbers as Jerry was wondering where it was going. Showing that it's going to suppliers and employees. The bankruptcy judge, with Obama's hand hovering above his head. Obama will be quick to intervene or dismiss the judge as a traitor to the US nation if he does anything other than benefit the union. The cost of that might be huge in the long run though. Do you want to hold bonds in industrial companies now? No way. Your money will be given to the unions. There will be an increase in the cost of capital for industrial firms in order to reflect the "Obama Risk" as one of the bond traders I know calls it. You can see it in yields for industrials now. I just don't understand how you can put retiree savings out to the dogs while protecting union pensions... pensions that the employees just started contributing to last year. Life savings versus above market perk. Let's support the perk because it's union. Dumb dumb dumb.

Absolutely. We'll be paying to have Cameros and Corvettes for decades to come. I heard one analyst on BNN yesterday indicating that we've paid $14,000 in tax money for every car that GM will produce next year. That's a big subsidy. You don't recover from that level of support. The company is forever broken. Take a look at the cash flow statement from that filing I referred to. GM burned through $10B in cash in 3 months, just operating activities. Another $2.3B was burned in investing activities. Easy to see the issue, right? Funny how mom and pop that held a mutual fund get screwed when GM goes bankrupt, but the union is made whole (or will be, eventually). Retirees lose all claim on assets with bankruptcy, but the union liability remains. Weird socialist distortion there. And they all sold everything a few months back, pretty funny. The execs exited around $3/share. Won't happen, the cat is out of the box. Further, all industries are now lining up for the same benefits, some will get them. We're just seeing the beginning.

What? I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. That wasn't my logic at all.

Your an idealist my friend, not a realist. Printing just enough money to stop deflation is exactly what we're trying to do. However, it's not that simple. Economics has so many moving parts one could never be EXACTLY right. Not even close to right. It's really a shot in the dark. Monetary policy has significant lags, you see results many months after a policy is inacted. That makes it VERY difficult to make precise adjustments. a - Putting more money into the economy increases the supply of funds and lowers rates... it does not increase demand (the opposite). b - Ethical industries are quite subjective. Most would say Monsanto is not an ethical company. But their technology allows billions to be fed. Too many moral grey areas. I don't want the government making moral decisions. Further, ethical funds make lower returns on average. c - And crash the economy by removing all that investment? d - Printing money to reduce debts will *always* cause inflation. I think your a little misled by the media on how the government "prints money." It doesn't really just print it. The Bank of Canada is the money "printer" in Canada. When the Bank of Canada wants to EXPAND the money supply, it buys securities (generally government bonds, but in the US it's expanded to corporate names) on the open market. It gives people cash for bonds. When it wants to CONTRACT the money supply, it sells securities and takes cash away from people in exchange for bonds. When the government issues a bond, and the Bank of Canada buys some of that, that is also "printing money." The Bank of Canada has not been involved in this to any extent greater than normal practices at this time. Small manipulations here and there, but nothing large scale like the Fed has done. It's not like Jim Flaherty (elected representives have no control over money supply at all anyways) can just print up some cash and buy an ethical fund. You can free up cash in the markets for individuals to invest, but the government is generally pretty restricted from printing its own money for investment.

Just saying it seems awfully wasteful to have provinces smaller than many cities. Why not amalgamate them and save Canadians money? We pay alot in transfers to these provinces, I have to wonder if much of that is to support these governments. The Maritimes would probably be alot more financially healthy as one entity rather than a splintered group. I'd make the same argument out here with Alberta and BC. Together we'd have considerable influence on Ottawa. Apart, we have none. It's not an anti-East argument, just a common sense one.

We won't see a dollar back on this one, GM's stock value isn't going to $125/sh. But I feel more for the bond holders of the firm that lost billions when their rights were trampled by Obama and his parade of socialisation. Bondholders have first right to the assets of the firm... unfortunately not in Obama's world. Obama makes these bondholders look like evil speculators (whatever that means). The reality is that GM is one of the widest held debt securities by pension funds and many mutual funds. The evil bondholders are generally your average Joe that just wants money to retire. Obama screwed individuals with 401k's (and Canadians with RRSPs in fixed-income funds) in order to help his buddies in the union secure their pension. Now that's really low. But that's the way Obama is. His friends first. The law be damned. He is the savior after all, right?

That's a good question Jerry. If you look at GM's May 8, 2009 SEC filing 10-1, you can find PART 1.1, Consolidated Financial Statements. This is their most recent balance sheet prior to the bankruptcy. There you can see that GM has the following current liabilities (due within 1 year): Accounts Payable: $18.253B Accrued Expenses: $36.989B Subtotal... $55.242B Now these accounts would need to be settled first, in order to continue production. These are amounts due to suppliers and likely their employees (in accrued expenses). Plus Current short-term debt and long-term debt maturing this year... $25.556B Now that amount will likely have to line up with other unsecured senior creditors, but a portion is probably payable now. None the less, GM has $80.8B in short-term liabilities that would need to be settled priored to continued operations. That's likely what the government money is doing. Paying the bills. GM had $11B in cash on hand at this time, but much of that could be tied up in subsiduaries... and it's still insufficent to cover their payables. They have $11B in inventory on hand... that they can't sell... not to mention it's probably not worth $11B anymore. That might have just been more confusing, but hopefully I provided some explanation of where the money is going.

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. A majority vote would be hard to ignore. Imprisioning a population would look really bad internationally, especially since Harper set a precendent in supporting Georgia's departure from Russia. Anyways, the public support isn't there so it's not a real threat, I agree. By the way, mineral resources were given to the province of Alberta quite specifically in 1905, so they probably come as a package upon departure. None the less, the imbalance in confederation is very real. Whether or not anything can be done is a legal issue. Whether something SHOULD be done is a moral one.

Canadian tax dollars are supporting the bailout of GM (current owner of Opel) and allowing them to sell the assets. Otherwise, Opel would belong to the bondholders. Germany allowed the transaction on the condition that cars would be made in Germany. That was a fundamental part of the agreement. Frank can lie through his teeth all he wants about how great this is for Canada, but it's just good for him and his racehorses. No cars will be produced in Canada. Maybe a few more parts or what not (exactly following my point in the other thread, part markers will just shift to other companies).

That's ABSURD. Canadians will consume roughly the same amount of cars regardless of the existance of GM! If GM isn't making the cars, Toyota and other Canadian-based factories will make them instead! Part markers will shift to making parts for Toyota or Honda and other "replacement" companies. Toyota is as "Canadian" as GM is now in terms of % of mix made in Canada. The losses are WAY overstated. Union jobs may go, but more reasonable jobs will take their place. And we'll have better cars. Just because GM exists doesn't mean we'll need more parts or cars. That doesn't make sense. The jobs will just shift to better companies.

Most of it is owned (80%) by non-Canadians. Cars to be made in Germany. What is Canadian about this? Your just blinded by the glory of the media smallC. Think rationally for a second.

Is anyone in Nova Scotia campaigning to reduce the size of their government? Why do you need so many representatives? Population less than Calgary (or Edmonton, or Ottawa, or whatever). Over 50 representatives. Why? Maybe the Maritime provinces need to merge up and reduce their overhead. It would be a great step on being a little more self-sufficent. PEI - 27 members NS - 52 members NB - 55 members For a total of 134 members representing 1,828,252 people. That's absurd. Ontario has fewer MPPs (107). Or Alberta at 83. For example. That's huge government out East. You could cut that in half and save a ton of cash/taxes. Is anyone proposing such measures? Or are they all too concerned with being able to help out their political friends with lucrative jobs?

What? This is no big deal? You do realise that your going to be paying this off the rest of your life. Your ok with that? Your ok with shipping $15.5b to a US company and inflated pensions?

Huh? This isn't even Canadian. Production is in Germany and it's owned by Russians more than Canadians. Why would you want your tax dollars supporting this?

Iggy can think he's God all he wants, but the CPC has some damning footage of him denouncing Canada and saying how happy he is to be American. That will cost him any perspective gains in Quebec and much of the rest of the country. Either way, neither part deserves to win. I'd rather have it exactly deadlocked so that nothing can be done. That's the best option right now. At this rate, both parties would be very willing to sell our future for a few quick votes in Windsor and Oshawa.

How is a 20% Canadian company, Canadian owned? Huh? Opel is now more a Russian company than a Canadian company. The government should be supporting (if anyone, which they should not be) real Canadian champions like our banks and oil firms. That's it. These are foreign firms, even if Frank "The Race Horse" Stronach is in charge. Do we really want our tax dollars supporting a company that's purpose is to allow Frank to buy a few more thoroughbreds? This has nothing to do with Canada or Canadian firms. This is a joke.

Cut off the welfare cheques and see how fast they change their minds. Simple. If they get our money, they get our terms. They don't want our terms? Find their own cash.

Canada and Ontario to provide $9.5m in aid to GM... (article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-b...rticle1162686/) So GM has (finally) filed for bankruptcy, costing the Canadian taxpayer billions of dollars. Canadian's obviously lack the mindspace to comprehend the size of the bailout, so I thought I might put it into some terms. This bailout has saved 20-30k jobs in specifically Southern Ontario. The government is investing $9.5B on top of the $6b on May 23rd where we all paid for GM's over generous pension plan to the workers. So we've paid $15.5b for 20-30k jobs. - That's $517,000 per job (assuming 30k jobs saved). It will take the average autoworker 18 years to pay that back in taxes. - That's roughly $500 per Canadian or on average $2,000 per Canadian family in taxpayer funded costs. - That's more than 50% of the entire corporate income tax estimated to be paid this year ($26b) - This increases our national debt by approximately 5% and comes with it approximately $650mm in interest costs in the next year. Canadians should be outraged. Canadians should be up in arms. Give me $15.5b and I'll employ 10x as many people of higher education than these lowlife autoworkers. We have guarnteed pensions that the majority of Canadians could only dream of. We've created permenant wards of the state. And worst off, we've cost autoworkers at Toyota and Honda and Nissan plants in Canada their jobs, as they received no bailout. They'll certainly be unable to maintain their staff levels in this recession with their biggest competitors operating for free for a few years. THIS HAS NOT SAVED A JOB. This has transferred jobs from Toyota (profitable) to GM (not-profitable). This is the largest socialist abuse of the public purse in Canadian history. It has destroyed free market principles (giving the union more than the bond holders for less debt forgiveness). It has permenantly distorted the market for automobiles around the world. And worst off... yes indeed.... THIS IS NOT A CANADIAN COMPANY! We've bailed out Obama's pet firm. Seriously? We've given $15.5b to an American company to protect a miniscual amount of jobs in Southern Ontario. Why not support the oilsand companies, true Canadian champions like Suncor, Nexen and Talisman who are struggling to keep their employees and contractors on the job through this recession? Many more people lost their jobs this year in the oilsands than in car plants. Why? Because it's in Alberta. And money only goes one way in this country. From Alberta oilmen to Ontario politicans. Ottawa would never be seen to be bailing out a Canadian champion like Suncor, saving 10-15k professional jobs! Instead, they bailout a US company! And that's why we need to leave this country. Alberta needs to go. Thought is no longer rational in Ottawa. It's all about take from us, and give to the East. That needs to end. And the only way to do it is to leave.