CPC 2017: Bernier vs Alexander

[dialamah]

3 minutes ago, Omni said:

Congratulations to Andrew Sheer It seems a bit of a surprise but a welcome one in my books. I didn't like a number of Bernier's ideas, especially his approach to our highly cherished healthcare system. I get the feeling he'll be Stephen Harper II, and if so it will keep JT safe for another term due to the residual bad taste of the previous PC decade, but Sheer now has the stage, lets see the cut of his jib. 

Pro-life groups are pretty happy about this as well, albeit for different reasons.  

[Argus]

I'd like to point out that Chris Alexander, whose name is on the topic above, got about 1.25% support. 

[-TSS-]

16 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

And the conservatives decide to go for Harper 2.0 instead of Bernier, which would be a new direction.

They would be foolish not to pick a leader whom they believe to lead the party to a victory in the next election.

[-1=e^ipi]

3 hours ago, Argus said:

Communists thought their system would work so well

Communism never worked well 'in theory'. It was theoretically bad to begin with due to ignoring the impact of wages on how much people work. A theory is only as good as it's ability to explain observations.
 

3 hours ago, Argus said:

What impact will it have on participation in the labour force? What impact will it have on business seeking workers, particularly in lower wage categories? What impact will it have on the national budget?

What, you don't think I want these to be taken into account? You can use empirical evidence to construct models to predict how human behaviour changes in response to changing financial incentives. You can also use empirical evidence to infer how much people value the additional dollar, additional unit of leisure, etc. You can combine this to predict optimal taxation systems. And what economists, be it Mankiw or Freidman, tend to find is that it is optimal to have a certain level of UBI.

But apparently, you have convinced yourself that all these economists advocating UBI haven't looked at or tried to predict how the amount people work will be affected by such a policy. Lol. I guess Freidman and Mankiw are communists.
 

3 hours ago, Argus said:

Another complexity you are uninterested in addressing.

No, strawman. The impact of CO2 taxation on economic output is something I find interesting and discuss in the CO2 & economic impacts thread and other threads.

Do you think economists like William Nordhaus and Richard Tol just ignore the 'complexity' of the impact of CO2 taxation on economic output? It's not like they use damage functions in their integrated assessment models or anything... Nah, they must be communists too. Lol.
 

3 hours ago, Argus said:

My views on most subjects are in the majority, thanks.

Then you shouldn't be afraid of having a referendum on this issue, then. Maybe you should email Andrew Scheer and tell him that you want a referendum on electoral reform.

[-1=e^ipi]

3 hours ago, Omni said:

I didn't like a number of Bernier's ideas, especially his approach to our highly cherished healthcare system.

Yes, why have a rank 1 health care system like France (according to WHO rankings) when we can have a rank 30th system like Canada?!

Our rank 30th system gives us such warm fuzzy feelings and national pride as we have free access to ridiculously long wait times which prevent us from getting much needed health care!

Seriously, what kind of messed up country determines it's health care system using nationalism and patriotism? Wouldn't it make more sense to look at empirical evidence to determine which health care systems are best? Mixed health care systems like those in France, Germany, Japan, etc. perform better.

Edited May 28, 2017 by -1=e^ipi

[Omni]

3 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Yes, why have a rank 1 health care system like France (according to WHO rankings) when we can have a rank 30th system like Canada?!

Our rank 30th system gives us such warm fuzzy feelings and national pride as we have free access to ridiculously long wait times which prevent us from getting much needed health care!

Seriously, what kind of messed up country determines it's health care system using nationalism and patriotism? Wouldn't it make more sense to look at empirical evidence to determine which health care systems are best? Mixed health care systems like those in France, Germany, Japan, etc. perform better.

Bernier's plan to take federal funding away wouldn't likely enhance our system now would it?

[-1=e^ipi]

52 minutes ago, Omni said:

Bernier's plan to take federal funding away wouldn't likely enhance our system now would it?

He wanted to shift the tax burden to the provinces since it is a provincial jurisdiction and all these health care transfer payments from the federal government to the provinces ends up being a nuisance. Spinning it as 'defunding healthcare' is inaccurate.

[Omni]

4 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

He wanted to shift the tax burden to the provinces since it is a provincial jurisdiction and all these health care transfer payments from the federal government to the provinces ends up being a nuisance. Spinning it as 'defunding healthcare' is inaccurate.

Provinces have varying abilities to fund healthcare. For instance the east has a much slower economy than does the west currently, and with a much more elderly population. In order to be successful you need a "referee" such as the federal government, to balance the system.

[-1=e^ipi]

1 minute ago, Omni said:

Provinces have varying abilities to fund healthcare. For instance the east has a much slower economy than does the west currently, and with a much more elderly population. In order to be successful you need a "referee" such as the federal government, to balance the system.

I'm not advocating Bernier's position. I think that health care should be a federal responsibility, not a provincial one. I'm just pointing out that Bernier's position is not to 'defund healthcare'.

[-1=e^ipi]

I'll point out that one of the reasons why the Eastern provinces are consistently poorer is because they are more socialist and less free market than the Western provinces. Also, one of the reasons why the East has a more elderly population is because they've been more socialist (which has scared away jobs, reducing immigration, and causing young people to move to Western provinces to get more employment).

[Argus]

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Communism never worked well 'in theory'. It was theoretically bad to begin with due to ignoring the impact of wages on how much people work. A theory is only as good as it's ability to explain observations.

Much as advocates of a guaranteed income do.

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

What, you don't think I want these to be taken into account?

Clearly not.

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

You can use empirical evidence to construct models to predict how human behaviour changes in response to changing financial incentives.

Drivel.

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

No, strawman. The impact of CO2 taxation on economic output is something I find interesting and discuss in the CO2 & economic impacts thread and other threads.
Do you think economists like William Nordhaus and Richard Tol just ignore the 'complexity' of the impact of CO2 taxation on economic output?

Clearly. Yes.

1 hour ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Then you shouldn't be afraid of having a referendum on this issue, then. Maybe you should email Andrew Scheer and tell him that you want a referendum on electoral reform.

Sure. But the only people allowed to vote are those who pay taxes.

[Argus]

Just now, -1=e^ipi said:

I'll point out that one of the reasons why the Eastern provinces are consistently poorer is because they are more socialist and less free market than the Western provinces. Also, one of the reasons why the East has a more elderly population is because they've been more socialist (which has scared away jobs, reducing immigration, and causing young people to move to Western provinces to get more employment).

And so you think turning all of Canada into a Socialist paradise will make it a better place?

[-TSS-]

4 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I'm not advocating Bernier's position. I think that health care should be a federal responsibility, not a provincial one. I'm just pointing out that Bernier's position is not to 'defund healthcare'.

Be it federal or provincial responsibility, I guess the biggest problem in a country like Canada is that there are a lot of very remote places that even good salaries won't attract anyone to move into.

[Omni]

18 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I'll point out that one of the reasons why the Eastern provinces are consistently poorer is because they are more socialist and less free market than the Western provinces. Also, one of the reasons why the East has a more elderly population is because they've been more socialist (which has scared away jobs, reducing immigration, and causing young people to move to Western provinces to get more employment).

And I'll point out that one of the biggest reasons the East is poorer than the West is because they weren't blessed with the abundance of natural the latter enjoys. Having spent years living on both of the islands that bracket this country I can attest it has certainly nothing to do with any lack of willingness to work hard to make the best of what they have. 

[OftenWrong]

5 hours ago, Argus said:

I'd like to point out that Chris Alexander, whose name is on the topic above, got about 1.25% support. 

He was my pick though I knew he wouldn't win. I read all the policy pages, thought his was the best.

http://chrisalexander.ca/policy-1/

But he simply doesn't have the charisma, which is of utmost importance these days.

All candidate policies were fairly similar in some ways, with subtle differences. Some candidates mentioned gun rights. I think that is a non-important issue for federal politics these days, just mere pandering. Others had very little information at all. Andrew Sheer's page is gone now, unfortunately. Every link just redirects to "Thank you".

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

And so you think turning all of Canada into a Socialist paradise will make it a better place?

Man, I can't win. 1 person in this thread thinks I'm an extreme socialist. The other thinks I'm an extreme libertarian.

[-1=e^ipi]

1 hour ago, -TSS- said:

Be it federal or provincial responsibility, I guess the biggest problem in a country like Canada is that there are a lot of very remote places that even good salaries won't attract anyone to move into.

Australia also has a lot of remote places. Yet they manage to have a mixed health care system and a higher life expectancy than Canada.

Moving towards a mixed health care system, like the Australians and the French have makes sense.

[-1=e^ipi]

58 minutes ago, Omni said:

And I'll point out that one of the biggest reasons the East is poorer than the West is because they weren't blessed with the abundance of natural the latter enjoys. Having spent years living on both of the islands that bracket this country I can attest it has certainly nothing to do with any lack of willingness to work hard to make the best of what they have. 

It is true that that is a factor. To be fair, BC and Quebec have very comparable natural resources though.

Also, some eastern provinces are somewhat anti-development of natural resources. For example, banning fracking, pipelines, etc. You can have all the natural resources in the world, but if you have anti-development politicians in power it doesn't really matter. There is a reason why LNG has taken off in USA and Australia, yet it stagnates in Canada. It's because of the anti-development politicians in power.

[Omni]

12 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

It is true that that is a factor. To be fair, BC and Quebec have very comparable natural resources though.

Also, some eastern provinces are somewhat anti-development of natural resources. For example, banning fracking, pipelines, etc. You can have all the natural resources in the world, but if you have anti-development politicians in power it doesn't really matter. There is a reason why LNG has taken off in USA and Australia, yet it stagnates in Canada. It's because of the anti-development politicians in power.

Or maybe it's politicians, who likely are following the will of the people they represent, and heading towards development that looks to the future instead of getting stuck in the same old fossil fuel mud.

[August1991]

On 5/24/2017 at 0:59 AM, August1991 said:

Newfoundlander, I had the chance to meet some of these candidates in person in Montreal.

======

Scheer is tall (6'2) but fat, lazy: he'll never defeat Trudeau Jnr.

O'Toole is short (5'10) but genuine, good: he'll never defeat Trudeau Jnr.

Chong: A misguided leftist, loser but a decent human being: must be included in any 2019 Conservative cabinet, campaign.

Raitt: She impressed me.

Alexander: Tall but boring, misses the point.

Leitch: Short, hyperactive, pointless.

I may live to regret this description/prediction of Scheer - but Newfoundlander, you made me do it.

[-1=e^ipi]

3 hours ago, Omni said:

Or maybe it's politicians, who likely are following the will of the people they represent, and heading towards development that looks to the future instead of getting stuck in the same old fossil fuel mud.

Or maybe it's the result of people trying to approach an inherently quantitative problem like climate change qualitatively and as a result make bad decisions.

[Omni]

1 minute ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Or maybe it's the result of people trying to approach an inherently quantitative problem like climate change qualitatively and as a result make bad decisions.

Not dealing with climate change would be a really bad decision. 

[-1=e^ipi]

44 minutes ago, Omni said:

Not dealing with climate change would be a really bad decision. 

I agree. Which is why I think we should pursue a global pigouvian tax, where the level of taxation is justified by integrated assessment models.

[Omni]

4 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I agree. Which is why I think we should pursue a global pigouvian tax, where the level of taxation is justified by integrated assessment models.

Or just head toward renewable s where you don't need a pigouvian tax and you just tax the profits like any other business.

[-1=e^ipi]

Just now, Omni said:

Or just head toward renewable s where you don't need a pigouvian tax and you just tax the profits like any other business.

Such a pigouvian tax eventually gets you to a non-CO2 emitting economy.

All approaches that do not involve a pigouvian tax are economically inefficient and are therefore undesirable.