Mulcair, Lougheed, Stelmach

[kraychik]

There is no crisis of affordability. The government is running debt at around 4% of GDP. Compare that to the early 90s. The need for austerity in Canada is myth.

How high should Canada's federal debt be, then? Nevermind the provincial and municipal debts, of course.

[punked]

How high should Canada's federal debt be, then? Nevermind the provincial and municipal debts, of course.

You can ask this about a lot of economic indicators which are depending on what they are, are often more important then debt. How high should our year over year GDP growth be? How about long term unemployed? There are a lot of questions I see you don't even pretend to care about here.

[kraychik]

You can ask this about a lot of economic indicators which are depending on what they are, are often more important then debt. How high should our year over year GDP growth be? How about long term unemployed? There are a lot of questions I see you don't even pretend to care about here.

If you were honest you would've made this exact same comment towards cybercoma, as cybercoma was the one who initially brought this up by implying that federal debt wasn't that high when looking at past figures. Aside from what I even chose to ignore, because cybercoma stated that federal debt is around 4% of GDP, when in fact it's around 35%. Why didn't you go after him for stating this out-of-context statement? You and I both know why that is.

What's great about forums like this is that leftists speak openly and expose themselves. What cybercoma is doing is fantastic, as he reveals how little concern the left has for fiscal responsibility. He essentially stated that he wants to see more federal debt, which is what I wish we could get all leftists to say all the time.

[punked]

If you were honest you would've made this exact same comment towards cybercoma, as cybercoma was the one who initially brought this up by implying that federal debt wasn't that high when looking at past figures. Aside from what I even chose to ignore, because cybercoma stated that federal debt is around 4% of GDP, when in fact it's around 35%. Why didn't you go after him for stating this out-of-context statement? You and I both know why that is.

What's great about forums like this is that leftists speak openly and expose themselves. What cybercoma is doing is fantastic, as he reveals how little concern the left has for fiscal responsibility. He essentially stated that he wants to see more federal debt, which is what I wish we could get all leftists to say all the time.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I personally think that as a country we have bigger problems right now then taking on a little debt to make ourselves more competitive in the world as a whole.

[CPCFTW]

You can ask this about a lot of economic indicators which are depending on what they are, are often more important then debt. How high should our year over year GDP growth be? How about long term unemployed? There are a lot of questions I see you don't even pretend to care about here.

The problem with your perspective is that you seem to think those economic indicators are as controllable as debt/deficits. The government can't just say "we're gonna grow at 10% this year and have 2% unemployment". Those are economic indicators of the results of fiscal/monetary policies.

The government can only control fiscal/monetary policy and we have already stimulated through monetary policy. You're trying to establish a positive linear relationship between government spending and unemployment/gdp growth when one does not exist. We can't just employ the 7% of unemployed to dig ditches to reduce unemployment to 0%. The costs of printing money (inflation), borrowing money (interest), and taxing the private sector would likely just result in even more people becoming unemployed by the private sector (or a reduction in real incomes from inflation).

You cited borrowing costs as being low at this time, however, as I pointed out to you earlier, we are constantly rolling over debt. If taking on more debt now leads to higher yields in the future due to a weakening fiscal position, then when we roll over the bonds that we issued 2,5,10 yrs ago, we will have to pay more interest (effectively). In fact, our strong fiscal position at this time is already allowing us to roll over debt at much lower yields, and will lower interest costs in the future as long as we maintain that strong fiscal position.

Furthermore, the great depression line is getting a little played don't you think? We all know that the causes of the great depression are still subject to much debate, yet you keep pointing to it as a Keynesian success story. It's getting a little tiresome.

[kraychik]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Clearly.

I personally think that as a country we have bigger problems right now then taking on a little debt to make ourselves more competitive in the world as a whole.

Of you you're not worried about "a little more debt", you're a leftist. It's not your money, so who cares right?

[punked]

Clearly.

Of you you're not worried about "a little more debt", you're a leftist. It's not your money, so who cares right?

Yah business wouldn't get far with you in charge. "No loans ever who cares if they can help me expand!!!" When did the right wing start hating the idea of fiscal expansion by investment? Seriously just because I think tepid growth and high unemployment are bad and that we can stop those things by a little stimulus you go crazy.

Stop it with the black white bull. Start coming up with reasons why you think somethings are bad besides "that is what the right wing says so it is what I believe ok?". BTW I pay taxes just like you so it is "my money".

[BubberMiley]

When did the right wing start hating the idea of fiscal expansion by investment?

It didn't. But in Kraychick's world, the right is largely the left.

[punked]

The problem with your perspective is that you seem to think those economic indicators are as controllable as debt/deficits. The government can't just say "we're gonna grow at 10% this year and have 2% unemployment". Those are economic indicators of the results of fiscal/monetary policies.

I am not saying the government can control GDP growth that simply. Although you know what shrinks GDP real fast? CUTS CUTS CUTS! Why are we cutting when we know that is going to kill our GDP growth. The fastest growing countries right now are those that have spent Big on Stimulus. Sweden, Austria and even Japan is going to be doing ok this year. The Private sector is never going to pick up the slack if we keep shrinking into nothingness and if we keep falling behind we are just now getting back to 2008 that means 4 lost years of productivity. Now you want to lose some more. Anti growth that is what you guys are.

The government can only control fiscal/monetary policy and we have already stimulated through monetary policy. You're trying to establish a positive linear relationship between government spending and unemployment/gdp growth when one does not exist. We can't just employ the 7% of unemployed to dig ditches to reduce unemployment to 0%. The costs of printing money (inflation), borrowing money (interest), and taxing the private sector would likely just result in even more people becoming unemployed by the private sector (or a reduction in real incomes from inflation).

No one is saying we dig ditches. We could be doing something right now that will needed to be done in the future anyway though and at very low costs because interest rates are so low. We could be developing our Hydro to lower power costs to out manufactures. We could be investing money to connect our energy grid across this country. We could build a pipeline from Alberta to both coasts so we don't have to build one to the states. We could be doing a lot to keep our workers skilled and up the skills of other workers. That way this global recession is over and companies are looking to expand they expand to Canada because we are ahead of the game. That is what they did in the 30s.

You cited borrowing costs as being low at this time, however, as I pointed out to you earlier, we are constantly rolling over debt. If taking on more debt now leads to higher yields in the future due to a weakening fiscal position, then when we roll over the bonds that we issued 2,5,10 yrs ago, we will have to pay more interest (effectively). In fact, our strong fiscal position at this time is already allowing us to roll over debt at much lower yields, and will lower interest costs in the future as long as we maintain that strong fiscal position.

The time to cut is during the boom not the bust. I agree we need to balance our budget however now is not the time. If in the future when the economic of Canada is pumping on all cylinders we will be better off if we invest in the country now and cut later. That is the whole point.

Furthermore, the great depression line is getting a little played don't you think? We all know that the causes of the great depression are still subject to much debate, yet you keep pointing to it as a Keynesian success story. It's getting a little tiresome.

Yah who cares about comparing now to the closest economic example we have and how we fixed that. It will just make you look dumb right? So lets ignore it and not talk about it.

Edited July 17, 2012 by punked

[kraychik]

Yah business wouldn't get far with you in charge. "No loans ever who cares if they can help me expand!!!" When did the right wing start hating the idea of fiscal expansion by investment? Seriously just because I think tepid growth and high unemployment are bad and that we can stop those things by a little stimulus you go crazy.

The government doesn't have the ability, and more importantly doesn't have the incentives or disincentives, to trusted with risking money on investments in the same way that private enterprise does. The entire narrative of "economic stimulus" is completely false, anyways. The government doesn't have the ability to do such a thing. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The government can destroy an economy through intervention and centralisation.

I'm glad that you're here, and I'm thankful for all the leftists of Mapleleafweb for exposing their economic illiteracy. We need more of you leftists to talk, so that Canadians can see for themselves how you view economics. You exposed your own hypocrisy in asking me for more context when that request should've been directed towards cybercoma, and now you're exposing your lack of concern of fiscal responsibility by talking about "a little more debt" and pretending that the government has the expertise and incentive to "invest" in "the economy".

[punked]

The government doesn't have the ability, and more importantly doesn't have the incentives or disincentives, to trusted with risking money on investments in the same way that private enterprise does. The entire narrative of "economic stimulus" is completely false, anyways. The government doesn't have the ability to do such a thing. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The government can destroy an economy through intervention and centralisation.

I'm glad that you're here, and I'm thankful for all the leftists of Mapleleafweb for exposing their economic illiteracy. We need more of you leftists to talk, so that Canadians can see for themselves how you view economics. You exposed your own hypocrisy in asking me for more context when that request should've been directed towards cybercoma, and now you're exposing your lack of concern of fiscal responsibility by talking about "a little more debt" and pretending that the government has the expertise and incentive to "invest" in "the economy".

What are you talking about? How about you name some countries where the government has never invested to improve their country because Canada isn't one of them. Seriously you think the government doesn't have the ability to improve country to make it a more productive place? Those roads that Bombardier uses to get things to their plants must have been a terrible investment for the government then. All that Hydro Quebec and Ontario have that they sell to the states should never have been developed you say?

Seriously you can not believe the things you say. No one can really believe what you think.

BTW I should clarify. The government does have some stimulus coming down the pipe I credit them for that. The Ship Building (although it looks like they are going to drag that into 2015 start date so it wont help here), loan to Muskrat falls, A few joint federal provincial projects. All of these are a good start it is too bad we aren't investing across Canada in real projects we need now to make us more productive in the future.

Edited July 17, 2012 by punked

[madmax]

The problem with your perspective is that you seem to think those economic indicators are as controllable as debt/deficits. The government can't just say "we're gonna grow at 10% this year and have 2% unemployment". Those are economic indicators of the results of fiscal/monetary policies. .........

Nice Post

[madmax]

If by stimulus you mean world war 2.

Agreed... the governments found LOTS of ways to spend money on war, so the excuses used during the GD were just that excuses Spending then increased after the war and the economies roared ...

[madmax]

You can ask this about a lot of economic indicators which are depending on what they are, are often more important then debt. How high should our year over year GDP growth be? How about long term unemployed? There are a lot of questions I see you don't even pretend to care about here.

I don't suffer fools... but you seem to relish in it.

[blueblood]

What are you talking about? How about you name some countries where the government has never invested to improve their country because Canada isn't one of them. Seriously you think the government doesn't have the ability to improve country to make it a more productive place? Those roads that Bombardier uses to get things to their plants must have been a terrible investment for the government then. All that Hydro Quebec and Ontario have that they sell to the states should never have been developed you say?

Seriously you can not believe the things you say. No one can really believe what you think.

BTW I should clarify. The government does have some stimulus coming down the pipe I credit them for that. The Ship Building (although it looks like they are going to drag that into 2015 start date so it wont help here), loan to Muskrat falls, A few joint federal provincial projects. All of these are a good start it is too bad we aren't investing across Canada in real projects we need now to make us more productive in the future.

Oh Moses smell the roses.

You don't run up debt just because you have a good credit. That's insane. That's like a farmer maxing out his credit card to buy machinery when crop prices are bad. That "stimulus" that was done did nothing but run up the debt, and that ship building thing was happening anyway.

You talk about the govt spending bailing out the depression? It was the govt focusing on fighting a war that allowed all the malinvestment that took place originally to clear. By your logic, when the boys came home from the war, the economy should have been in the toilet because all the soldiers came home and nothing to do because it was depression before. We both know that didn't happen. You can look at the depression of 1920 and compare it to the 1930s and find one huge difference. One had massive govt spending and raged for almost a decade and the other had no govt spending and was over in a year. Both were depressions, both had massive unemployment and all that jazz,, both had similar starts, yet One was over shortly and one is famous throughout history. And not only that, the second world war was also a huge financial burden and not saviour as some would like to make out. Here's an idea, let's have the USA, Europe, china, and Russia all build ships and munitions with massive govt stimulus park them out in the middle of the ocean and have a remote control naval battle and let's see how much better off we are with that. Everyone's employed right?

Japan tried following FDR/hoovers massive govt intervention spending spree. They haven't had respectable growth since the 80s. I don't want to see the USA like Japan, that's not good for anybody. Not only that, north America has to compete with emerging markets to produce things our consumers want. The problem is our consumers want goods at rock bottom prices, yet want a kings ransom to make theme. The consumer almost always wants the lowest price, hence outsourcing becomes an option. The world is going through a massive correction. North American workers are going to have to work for less or go unemployed until workers in emerging markets start consuming their own products.

North Americans are going to have to realize we can't have our cake and eat it too. I also don't understand why the left gets so angry at the emerging markets taking "all the jobs"' they're willing to work at a competitive wage so we can have cheap goods, their living standards have risen greatly, but because 8% of us here are unemployed because nobody wants to take a pay cut and mire industry in red tape, it's all the emerging markets fault? Instead of berating them, why isn't north America looking to get rich off them like Australia and to some extent western Canada are?

Running up the debt is foolish, that's what started this nonsense in the first place. Running up debt is a far nastier way to screw the little guy. By jacking up the money supply, that's making what the little guy has saved up worth less and less each time. The more money there is floating around the more if it there is to chase around products with, hence the prices go

up.

Far better to pay off the debt, let the bad investments get liquidated. What would be so wrong with a young person having his pick at all those cheap houses in the USA and not burdening himself with massive debt? Let the person/bank who made the overvalued purchase take their bath, and that young person is further ahead to spend/save money on other more appropriate ventures.

Keynesians need to realize you can't have a permanent boom, it has to be cyclical in order for true price discovery/equilibrium to take place. By the govt essentially printing money, that equilibrium takes longer to reach.

[cybercoma]

You fail to realize that government debt is not the same as personal debt.

[blueblood]

You fail to realize that government debt is not the same as personal debt.

It's still debt and it has to be repaid. Ask Greece and Argentina what happens when you don't take your debt seriously.

Preston manning, Paul Martin, and Brian Mulroney knew the answer to this problem.

Edited July 18, 2012 by blueblood

[cybercoma]

It's still debt and it has to be repaid. Ask Greece and Argentina what happens when you don't take your debt seriously.

Preston manning, Paul Martin, and Brian Mulroney knew the answer to this problem.

I'm pretty tired of this "ask Greece" argument, as though any public spending or debt is disastrous. Why don't you ask Sweden and Norway what public spending has done for their economies?

[punked]

Oh Moses smell the roses.

You don't run up debt just because you have a good credit. That's insane. That's like a farmer maxing out his credit card to buy machinery when crop prices are bad. That "stimulus" that was done did nothing but run up the debt, and that ship building thing was happening anyway.

Give me a break. That is not what I said and if that is what you got out of my post there is no use in even trying with you. I am saying cutting right now is only going to kill our GDP, and that right now maybe even for the next few years we need to be pro growth. That means running some deficits and maybe even looking at some big projects which will help our country in the long term because there is slack in the labour market to go along with record low borrowing costs. The world wont be in crisis for ever but for now we need to shelter Canada from the storm not throw Canada right in the middle of it just because you are scared of a few years in deficit.

The time to cut is the boom not the bust. The Bust is when you spend. Just because your guys got it backwards so we create bubble growth does not mean that is the right way to regulate an economy.

[punked]

It's still debt and it has to be repaid. Ask Greece and Argentina what happens when you don't take your debt seriously.

Preston manning, Paul Martin, and Brian Mulroney knew the answer to this problem.

I'll ask Greece and Argentina that right after I get done asking them how much trouble you get in when people don't pay taxes ok? Ok?

[punked]

I'm pretty tired of this "ask Greece" argument, as though any public spending or debt is disastrous. Why don't you ask Sweden and Norway what public spending has done for their economies?

What Sweden who grew 6% in 2010 and 5% in 2011. Who would want those types of numbers when we can grow at a nice easy 2% under these guys.

[blueblood]

What Sweden who grew 6% in 2010 and 5% in 2011. Who would want those types of numbers when we can grow at a nice easy 2% under these guys.

Growth will be less than Canada's this year, because it's export economy will be hurt by the gong show that is Europe. oh and Sweden didn't turn on the spigot for growth like that.

My link

it helps when Sweden has a beneficial trade arrangement with the rest of Europe. It helps more that a centre right govt with fiscal responsibility as one of it's tenets runs things.

[blueblood]

I'll ask Greece and Argentina that right after I get done asking them how much trouble you get in when people don't pay taxes ok? Ok?

You forgot entitlements and spending in there. One has to spend more than one makes to go broke.

[cybercoma]

Growth will be less than Canada's this year, because it's export economy will be hurt by the gong show that is Europe. oh and Sweden didn't turn on the spigot for growth like that.

My link

it helps when Sweden has a beneficial trade arrangement with the rest of Europe. It helps more that a centre right govt with fiscal responsibility as one of it's tenets runs things.

Fiscal responsibility and some of the largest social spending in the world.

This is exactly what Jonathan Kay was talking about and it's practically the NDP's platform.

[blueblood]

Give me a break. That is not what I said and if that is what you got out of my post there is no use in even trying with you. I am saying cutting right now is only going to kill our GDP, and that right now maybe even for the next few years we need to be pro growth. That means running some deficits and maybe even looking at some big projects which will help our country in the long term because there is slack in the labour market to go along with record low borrowing costs. The world wont be in crisis for ever but for now we need to shelter Canada from the storm not throw Canada right in the middle of it just because you are scared of a few years in deficit.

The time to cut is the boom not the bust. The Bust is when you spend. Just because your guys got it backwards so we create bubble growth does not mean that is the right way to regulate an economy.

Ask Japan, they've had a bust for 20 years and are swimming in debt. Cutting spending doesn't put us in a storm, malinvestments and excess spending do. Lucky for Canada we produce what the world wants. If not for our ag, and energy sector we would be in trouble.

The problem with GDP metric is that it counts govt spending. We could run a massive debt and have sky high GDP. Why don't we do that? The market is saying to the western world to pay your debt. Heck, Canada was in recession in the late 80s and the early 90s and how did we get out of that one when spending was slashed and a consumption tax was introduced?