One of the reasons I won't be voting for Harper: Economic record

[Scotty]

I didn't contend anything beyond pointing out the NDP record of budgets provincially.

Cite, please.

[On Guard for Thee]

Cite, please.

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/04/29/fiscal-record-of-canadian-political-parties/

[Keepitsimple]

Oh look who is pissing on Harper. Lol. Could it have anything to do with his foreign policy? Gosh no.

Yah yah heard it. Lol. Ah that Zionist-Ukrainian loving Harper. Damn him.

So now let's talk as to the anti Harper rhetoric...there's more out of work in Canada today than in 2008 says Mulcaiir and the genious "the budget will balance itself" Trudeau.

Ah yes worst in job creation since WW2 and worst economic growth since the 20's.

Here is what neither of those 2 will discuss

....................................................................................

You don't have to be a Conservative partisan to understand that almost all of what you say is bang-on! Thanks for taking the time to provide the deaf and blind with more facts to ignore.

[Argus]

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/04/29/fiscal-record-of-canadian-political-parties/

Meh.

http://wholebuffaloreview.tumblr.com/post/126488262326/the-ndps-economic-record-a-tale-of-two-myths

Also, there's this.

Those fiscal performances came long ago. More recently, as the Manitoba record shows, the NDP’s reputation in provincial politics for fiscal prudence has crumbled.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/a-cautionary-fiscal-lesson-for-mulcair/article25541358/

Edited September 15, 2015 by Argus

[69cat]

Rue said already much of what i had to say but did it very well. Its sad when you have to state the obvious after 19 pages. Context, a word hated by the left. Worst PM in Canadas history, i am sure someone could dig up a lot of flattering Harper numbers on value of exports or total gdp, but it would not matter without context. To talk of Canadas economic performance does it not make the slightest sense to the Left to compare a country (ie Canada) to other countries during the same period? No, all that comes up in 19 pages is refernce to past governments. BRILLIANT.

And how about that deficit? Why does the left forget that the NDP and Libs voted against the Conservative balanced budget and triggered the 2011 election as they demanded more deficit spending? So the left demands deficits then hangs the government now for providing it. Wonderful.

And how about that $2.7T debt. Conservatives added $170B of debt since 2007, oh geez that is unforgivable, world economic crisis never occurred and it was Harper mismanagement. But hold on a second, lets talk 'context' that the left hates so much. How much debt did Ontario add in the same period? From $143B to $288B, i will let you do that math to test your skills. Quebec added $60B in same period. Ah, but references to provincial debt is irrelevant in a Harper bashing spree. Though we wont compare to other countries and we wont use provincial budgets to compare either because the Left wants zero context.

And TFSA is only for the wealthy. What kind of sad personal finance person would make that kind of statement? I guess the same people who do not understand context. To put it in context, i live within my means, drive a 20 year old car, 10 year old truck and max out my TFSA, did not consider myself wealthy, i think 'smart with my money' would be a better term.

And large corporations getting breaks. What do you people have against a couple of people starting a business, hiring people, expanding and doing well? I live in Saskatchewan and wonder why companies like Brandt, Degelman, Seedhawk, Seedmaster, Bourgault, Great Western Brewing Co, etc need to be taxed and brought to their knees to pay for the next national spending spree?

Canadas oil based economy. Actually its resource based economy and oil is part of it. When it is stated as 9% of the total revenue, what is the context? That is to say, have we seen a drop off in another area thus propelling oil forward? And lets not state the obvious that $100 to $200 bbl oil propels that number pretty high, will $40 oil bring it back to the 3% referenced early in this thread? I dont know, guess the person who posted that 3% and 9% can clarify what context those numbers came from and what the values in $/bbl were for those two numbers.

I could carry on but those are some of my main points.

Edited September 15, 2015 by 69cat

[69cat]

This thread suddenly got very quiet......

[Scotty]

http://www.progrestakingsive-economics.ca/2011/04/29/fiscal-record-of-canadian-political-parties/

Numbers are fun, aren't they? They appear to tell a story, but often it's not a complete story. What this person is doing is attempting to splice together the record of the Tommy Douglas prairie CCFers who were all very fiscally conservative, to the woefully poor economic management of the NDP in other provinces. The big difference, as the following article points out, was that the NDP in places like Ontario and BC are beholden to big labour, particularly the big public sector unions. That has influenced them into big fat contracts, lots of hiring, and no ability to cut back when times get bad. So what does that say about the federal NDP whose biggest internal representatives are from Ontario and Quebec unions? It says they are far more likely to be fiscally incompetent like all other governments which tie themselves too tightly to union support - like Ontario's Liberals, as one example.

http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/the-ottawa-citizen-the-ontario-ndp-shouldnt-take-credit-for-the-fiscal-record-of-their-prairie-cousins/

[PIK]

Ian Lee was saying that the new jobs that harper has created is one main reason why he has a surplus, more people working more taxes coming in.

[69cat]

More people working is always a good a good thing. Cutting businesses off at the knees with high corporate taxes would go against this.

Funny how the media was all over the Harper gov for low corporate taxes over the years but then Trudeau and Mulcair say point blank there will be no significant change to CIT if they are in power. Looks like a gold star for the Harper gov being handed out by the lefties. Boy, that must be a hard pill to swallow for the left, i guess that would need a big distraction, hey a dead boy that we can blame (falsely) Canadas government on. Hey, look, squirrel.

Not any counterpoints coming in this thread, looks like there are a few more informed voters now.

[Topaz]

The surplus the Tories have, anyone can achieve it if they cut deep in programs which is how Harper got that surplus and how many programs that affect Canadians did he hurt?? The Vets, being of victim of the cuts. Another item, IF he had his surplus why did they dip into the emergency funds to pay for the income-splitting? While campaigning, Harper is spending money or promising to, like its water and IF HE really wanted these programs put in action, why wait until there's an election, he had the power to do in the past ten years. I don't believe a word he says and will judge him on his past. . http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/federal-departments-left-8-7-billion-unspent-last-year

[69cat]

Ok topaz, in your world of personal finance, if you do not wish to run a deficit personal budget and wish to start saving money, what are your choices?

Lets see, you will clearly choose not to reduce your spending.

Will you get a new job, maybe one with no secure future so you cannot budget at all

Will you downsize, sell assets maybe

Hope someone gives you a windfall

So you laid out your household budget, you have been racking up the credit card the last few years because you took a pay cut, havent saved any money, but things are looking better for you this year. And so you look at your "entertainment" budget and find out you underspent by $870. Your solution is to spend it on house improvements, because a surplus is a waste and it needs to be put into something, anything.

Here is what i do, i say "good for me" it is a few less bucks i have to scrape up elsewhere and one more step to getting to saving money. And i have my spouse also demanding i start saving money which i can now satisfy. Why am i an idiot for this, why is the Harper gov an idiot for this?

[hitops]

Again, you don't understand how the dollar works. The dollar went up because we were selling so much STUFF abroad. It didn't matter a damn what we were selling. It goes up because we produce a lot of stuff, and we export a lot of stuff. If we'd had a big mining boom, it would have gone up. If we'd have a big manufacturing boom, it would have gone up. The dollar is a measure of the health of our production and exports. You want a low dollar? The way to get it is to produce less goods and services, and export less stuff. Which doesn't exactly give us a healthy economy.

In the most general sense, yes if you export more your dollar goes up. That played a pretty small role in our story.

1) Our dollar is tied to natural resources, the biggest of which is oil as we all know. When the price went up, so did the CDN. It doesn't mean we were selling any more of it, or any more of anything necessarily, but it was more expensive for others to buy. To buy it they need CDN, which means more demand for it, which means value of CDN goes up.

2) The value is relative to the USD. The US was having a huge crisis, and our economy was relatively ok, so in relative terms the CDN gained a lot.

3) Resources in general are considered safe in bad times. After and during the crisis, money went to stable places with resources, Canada is the poster child for that. This is separate factor than selling resources to consume, it is a safe haven to store money in bad times. Just like when things are shaky, people buy gold.

Australia is the exact same story, for the same reasons, except they are even slightly more dependent on resources than us. Correspondingly, during the bad times our dollar came to parity with the USD and even briefly surpassed it. At the same time, so did the Aussia dollar, actually doing 2-3 cents better than the CDN. Now that things are normalizing, predictably, the CDN and Aussie is back at historic levels vs the USD, with the Aussie a few cents under the CDN. Basically both our dollars fluctuated directly reflecting our relative exposure to natural resources, as expected.

Edited September 16, 2015 by hitops

[Scotty]

The surplus the Tories have, anyone can achieve it if they cut deep in programs which is how Harper got that surplus and how many programs that affect Canadians did he hurt??

Not anywhere near as many as Paul Martin and Jean Chretien hurt when they slashed spending, and they're Trudeau's heroes.

[WIP]

Great post rue, all canadians should read that.

And they will....if they don't fall asleep first.

[WIP]

In the most general sense, yes if you export more your dollar goes up. That played a pretty small role in our story.

1) Our dollar is tied to natural resources, the biggest of which is oil as we all know. When the price went up, so did the CDN. It doesn't mean we were selling any more of it, or any more of anything necessarily, but it was more expensive for others to buy. To buy it they need CDN, which means more demand for it, which means value of CDN goes up.

2) The value is relative to the USD. The US was having a huge crisis, and our economy was relatively ok, so in relative terms the CDN gained a lot.

3) Resources in general are considered safe in bad times. After and during the crisis, money went to stable places with resources, Canada is the poster child for that. This is separate factor than selling resources to consume, it is a safe haven to store money in bad times. Just like when things are shaky, people buy gold.

Australia is the exact same story, for the same reasons, except they are even slightly more dependent on resources than us. Correspondingly, during the bad times our dollar came to parity with the USD and even briefly surpassed it. At the same time, so did the Aussia dollar, actually doing 2-3 cents better than the CDN. Now that things are normalizing, predictably, the CDN and Aussie is back at historic levels vs the USD, with the Aussie a few cents under the CDN. Basically both our dollars fluctuated directly reflecting our relative exposure to natural resources, as expected.

You can bet for damn sure that Harper and the now-ex Australian Prime Minister were happy to wrap themselves around their resource export-focused economic policies when the prices were on the way up. Now that they are down, and the prices won't go up any time soon because the main developers cannot just unplug them during economic downturns, Harper is trying to erase all connection with resource-focused economic policy.

[69cat]

Resource export based economy spoken as a bad thing, never ever thought i would hear that in my lifetime. Where exactly do you think wealth originates?

Do you think you simply sit down one day and decide you will print off a bunch of dollar bills, create carbon credits in cyber space, manufacture a bunch of micro chips who sells them to a company putting them in a box who sells them to the end user who generated his wealth by, umm printing dollar bills must be the theory.

[Topaz]

Considering he has lowered my taxes more then any other government combined in all of canadian history. I say, thank you Steven.

So if your taxes are lowered that means u are a senior or a upper income earner, right?

[Freddy]

So if your taxes are lowered that means u are a senior or a upper income earner, right?

Harper has lowered taxes for single income families like me. Since my wife makes next to nothing we are exempt of paying any taxes on everything Harper gave families.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Freddy

[hitops]

You can bet for damn sure that Harper and the now-ex Australian Prime Minister were happy to wrap themselves around their resource export-focused economic policies when the prices were on the way up. Now that they are down, and the prices won't go up any time soon because the main developers cannot just unplug them during economic downturns, Harper is trying to erase all connection with resource-focused economic policy.

I would say taking credit when global conditions are favorable, and blaming global conditions when they are not, is exactly what I would expect from any politician on the national stage.

[WIP]

Resource export based economy spoken as a bad thing, never ever thought i would hear that in my lifetime. Where exactly do you think wealth originates?

Do you think you simply sit down one day and decide you will print off a bunch of dollar bills, create carbon credits in cyber space, manufacture a bunch of micro chips who sells them to a company putting them in a box who sells them to the end user who generated his wealth by, umm printing dollar bills must be the theory.

Here's a term you and other believers in unending economic expansion need to learn: EROEI (energy-return on energy invested), Put simply, every non-renewable natural resource input used to build civilization....from oil to iron ore and copper to the increasingly crucial 'rare earth' elements, are exploited by the principle of 'picking the low-hanging fruit first.' So, since oil is the most studied and commented on example, when the petroleum era really took off in the 1920's, oil companies focused on the largest, most easily accessible deposits that could guarantee a return on energy invested of 100 to one.

Needless to say, the extraction of oil was highly profitable, and the major costs were securing land rights as cheaply as possible, both in America and abroad as the search for cheap oil went to the middle east and elsewhere. Since there are no more cheap oil fields left in the world, the search for oil to keep the wheels of modern global capitalism rolling, has...with great regret on behalf of the producers, descended deeper into continental shelf offshore deposits, and the "tight" oil we are already so familiar with: kerogen/or shale oil, and bitumen/the tarsands equivalent of oil. This crap is not only expensive on an ecological basis, it also requires high amounts of energy to extract and refine for market. So, any honest accounting on EROEI numbers for shale and tarsands determine that....even if extraction can be made more efficient, you can't break even on this crap unless oil prices are at least $70 per barrel....hence the present quandary. Because our economies can't function apparently when oil is $100+ per barrel. Every time oil has pushed past $100, economic output goes into decline....like it is today. The rising costs/declining EROEI of other....close to 90 essential raw materials should be added in to the calculations, but the message for anyone....regardless of who or what they vote for, is don't expect economic growth next year, because when it comes to oil, the shit hasn't actually hit the fan yet, but it will very soon! Because right now, the decline in oil has been caused primarily by global drop in demand/not increases by any major oil producers. But the oil producers....even of expensive oil, can't halt production because of the high amounts of capital invested in their operations. They have to keep producing, even if it means producing at a loss for now. And the only way this works is if prices all of a sudden turn around next year. That's not going to happen until a lot of producers are wiped out financially, and then the dilemma will be prices will rise, but there won't be any available sources of capital to restart their operations!

The fact that the real costs of production and manufacturing are so detached from both politics and economic theory today, is on full display when we have three candidates debate about why the economy is declining and how they....and only they will put the right bandaids on to fix it and restore economic growth. So, on a thread that's supposed to be about comparing Harper with the other candidates, ALL of them are out to lunch in my estimation when it comes to their policies and proposals about the economy. Like I said before, I'm voting for whoever provides the sure vote against the local Harper rep in my riding, and if it continues to look like West Hamilton is locked in by the Liberals, I can afford to throw away my vote and cast a vote for the Green Party on election day.

[The_Squid]

A personal or family budget/deficit is clearly not the same as the government budget/deficit. The two things, while people like to equate them, are nothing alike and can't be compared rationally.

[Argus]

Stephen Harper has put all his eggs in one basket. That's the sign of a bad economic manager and the results are in.

You lefties all read from the same hymn book on this, but even the CBC the other night acknowledged how ridiculous the claim was.

Canada's mining, quarrying, oil and gas industry COMBINED make up just over 8% of our economy.

http://www.investorsfriend.com/canadian-gdp-canadian-imports-and-exports/

[The_Squid]

If it's such a small part of the overall economy, then the recession can't be all because of such a minor part of the economy.... the rest of the economy probably isn't doing very well either....

[69cat]

WIP, the economics of most things in life are as you say. Whether you are digging for gold, building an apartment building or paying someone to clear snow. It usually gets harder and more expensive as you go farther.

I also think of the old saying: the cure for high oil prices is high oil prices When the price goes up it becomes more profitable to develop other areas and supply increases, and price goes down. Supply and demand actually. And it is not a new phenomenon that some companies will still produce when price is low, there is no need to specify oil industry when discussing that principle. If grain prices are down i am not going to sit on my butt, i will, as you say, do what i do and see how things go.

So with that all said, what is your proposal for the economy?

I heard Alberta say they are going to produce a knowledge based economy and will be leaders in green tech. Hmmm, lets put that in practice, they will compete with the entire world as everyone is saying the same thing. Now, of say 300 companies, only say 30 will rise and survive and the others will be ashes. And if they are lucky enough to have 2 of the 30 located in Alberta they better be darn good because as soon as a competitor in the world comes up with a new idea (knowledge base economy and green tech is Alberta new economy) then their economy is done. So yes, they can follow that model, but if it falters it is game over.

Or did you have some other vision if resources are off the table and manufacturing ceases to exist because you cant manufacture anything without a resource to put into it.

So i am kind of curious what your economic plan looks like. I understand mining, farming, forestry, oil and gas and manufacturing, but all these sound bad in the "new economy". Power production is great but with no industry to sell to i dont know how joe gets his pay check to pay for his power.

[69cat]

Squid i have heard the two budgets are different but never heard why. The government collects money from the tax payer, gets it from business, and then purchases services. When less money comes in then they pay out, it is bad. Canadas combined public debt is $2.7T. With your personal budgets, when you die you dont have to worry about but you hope your affairs are in order so your kids are not burdened. with government the debt we have now is going to be paid on by my kids for sure and likely their kids. And if the interest rates rise, well i guess my kids will have to worry more about finding food when the country collapses.

If it were me, i would run the country excatly like my household and pay down the debt i incur now so my kids dont have to. How does your budget plan go? Just curious and i sure hope it doesnt involve anything like "you can be assured that your kids will be paying more than you are now" because if i can get my hands on that financial genius it wont go well. So tell me and put my mind at ease.