Justin Trudeau, another Kardashian

[Argus]

On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 2:30 PM, dialamah said:

Yes, it is in the hands of the powerful and rich; you and Argus would add to that with your 'if you pay extra tax, you get an extra say' 

Those who are the mainstay of the state ought to have more say in how the state spends its resources. What is wrong with someone who contributes millions of dollars a year to the maintenance of the state having more of a say than someone who contributes nothing? In addition, those who contribute much to the state are more likely to be watchful and careful about how the state spends their money. Certainly more watchful than someone who contributes nothing whatsoever, and who will, of course, vote specifically for those politicians who promise to give them more services and money they have not earned.

Quote

 You guys don't seem to understand that; instead, you take the view that you shouldn't have to contribute as per your ability. 

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs? That's Marxism, and unworkable.

 

Edited March 6, 2018 by Argus

[Argus]

20 hours ago, ScarboroSr. said:

2.  I am having a problem with the characterizations of Pierre Trudeau that I see here.  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who would care to explain to me what people gain by using this forum to lambaste him. 

He is the father of Canada's debt, a debt we continue to labour under and which his son is unnecessarily adding to.

[?Impact]

15 minutes ago, Argus said:

He is the father of Canada's debt, a debt we continue to labour under and which his son is unnecessarily adding to.

No, Canada's debt was created during WWII. Without that legacy debt, and everything else being equal, we would have zero debt.

[cannuck]

6 hours ago, dre said:

That would have been my definition too. Wealth is created  by adding value to natural resources and creating things that people are willing to trade their labor (their money) for.

However I disagree with the 1 VS 6. If you talked to 10 random people in my particular town there would be one unemployed person, but there would be a couple of retail workers, a couple of fishermen, a couple of miners and loggers and a couple of other service industry workers. All of these jobs are part of the wealth generation process, and part of the greater economy. So I would say the number is more like 5 out of 6 or 4 out of six.

That is for the working people in town.  Then you have things such as realtors, insurance brokers, bankers, lawyers, accountants, and more to the point government employees.   Also, going back to what I wrote, each one of those productive people you mention are surrounded by dependents, which is where a bunch of the 6:1 comes from.

[cannuck]

1 hour ago, ?Impact said:

No, Canada's debt was created during WWII. Without that legacy debt, and everything else being equal, we would have zero debt.

While you are right that it was INCREASED (not created) in WWII, it was relatively small and constant level - until PET and everyone else until Chretien got it very much under control, continued on with Martin.  Before the partisan Tories chime in on how responsible their party was, you will notice that when they got their hands on the reins, the deficit spending went right back to the idiotic rate that Chretien inherited.

Now, this is in absolute dollars, not corrected for inflation, but you get the point by looking at the graph of $$ vs. time:    https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/a-really-quick-history-of-canada-s-federal-debt

Here is debt per capita - showing that the real problem started in the '20s (bit of a surprise, thought it would have been in the great depression):   http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170329/cg-h001-eng.htm

Here it goes on per capita at later dates, and you can see clearly where it started to rise BEFORE PET, but took a sharp upturn when he was in power....and continued at the same rate from Mulroney on:  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170329/cg-h002-eng.htm

As you can see, there is now way the drama queen is going to tackle this problem as did Chretien and Martin.  The solution clearly does not rest in any partisan option, but in changing the attitude of the whole country.

Edited March 7, 2018 by cannuck

[Argus]

1 hour ago, ?Impact said:

No, Canada's debt was created during WWII. Without that legacy debt, and everything else being equal, we would have zero debt.

The ww2 debt was mostly paid off when Trudeau arrived and doubled spending - twice. 

[Argus]

10 minutes ago, cannuck said:

While you are right that it was INCREASED (not created) in WWII, it was relatively small and constant level - until PET and everyone else until Chretien got it very much under control, continued on with Martin.  Before the partisan Tories chime in on how responsible their party was, you will notice that when they got their hands on the reins, the deficit spending went right back to the idiotic rate that Chretien inherited.

The only reason Chretien was able to have a surplus was that he considered taxpayer money his election piggybank. As long as there was no threat to him at the polls he refused to spend money. The instant that threat materialized he spent away most of the surplus. And Harper's hand was kind of forced by circumstances. I don't agree with some of what he did fiscally, like cutting the GST. I also think he should have stood on principal and let the opposition take over and increase spending. On the other hand, that's easy for ME to say. And the tories had been out of power for a decade and had just gotten in.

[?Impact]

59 minutes ago, Argus said:

The ww2 debt was mostly paid off when Trudeau arrived and doubled spending - twice. 

It was $19 billion or 25% of GDP. Trudeau increased it to 38% of GDP and Mulroney increased it to 64% of GDP.

[GostHacked]

19 hours ago, ?Impact said:

No, Canada's debt was created during WWII. Without that legacy debt, and everything else being equal, we would have zero debt.

Wrong, the government always spends more than they make, right down to the municipality levels.

Also things like the mess that is the Phoenix pay system which is now 1 BILLION over budget also has an impact on our national debt.

[Accountability Now]

18 hours ago, cannuck said:

As you can see, there is now way the drama queen is going to tackle this problem as did Chretien and Martin.  The solution clearly does not rest in any partisan option, but in changing the attitude of the whole country.

Chretien and Martin were the beneficiaries of an economic boom. As I stated on another thread, the Canadian economy is heavily tied to the US economy and wouldn't you know it that in the same time frame that Chretien and Martin had their surpluses, the US also had four years of surplus too.  Those surpluses for the US were the only surpluses they have had in many, many years. Obviously times were good with the dot.com bubble and the housing bubble not yet popped. 

[dre]

21 hours ago, Argus said:

He is the father of Canada's debt, a debt we continue to labour under and which his son is unnecessarily adding to.

Actually Richard Nixon is the father of Canada's debt.

Nixon's shakeup of the global financial system, is what allowed governments to take on all this debt. Guys like Trudeau and Reagan just took advantage of the new system. Its worth mentioning that every single western country started to accumulate huge debts after Bretton Woods ended, so blaming it on Trudeau is a little silly.

[PIK]

People seem to forget what harper had to deal with and we came out smelling like roses. Now ih the 3 idiots were able to take over , we would be in big trouble now.

[PIK]

39 minutes ago, dre said:

Actually Richard Nixon is the father of Canada's debt.

Nixon's shakeup of the global financial system, is what allowed governments to take on all this debt. Guys like Trudeau and Reagan just took advantage of the new system. Its worth mentioning that every single western country started to accumulate huge debts after Bretton Woods ended, so blaming it on Trudeau is a little silly.

Trudeau was not forced to spend like he did ,trying to build a just society.

[Argus]

19 hours ago, ?Impact said:

It was $19 billion or 25% of GDP. Trudeau increased it to 38% of GDP and Mulroney increased it to 64% of GDP.

It was $15.8 billion in 1967, the year before he took over. It was $173 billion in 1983, his last year in office. 

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a47

Trudeau's adjusted (for inflation) deficit was $71.5 billion his last year in office vs $4.5 billion his first. Mulroney's adjusted deficit was actually lower when he left office than when he started. As a % of GDP Trudeau went from -0.9% to -7.9% while Mulroney went from -8.3% to -5.6%. The chief reason why the debt grew so much under Mulroney was because of the sky-high interest rates AS APPLIED TO THE TRUDEAU DEBT. Without that accumulated $200 billion debt we would not have seen such a rise under Mulroney. He actually managed to get down to an operational surplus, but the high debt service costs kept him in deficit.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/canada-s-deficits-and-surpluses-1963-to-2015-1.3042571

I am no fan of Mulroney and his envelopes full of cash, but truth is truth.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Argus

[Argus]

2 minutes ago, PIK said:

People seem to forget what harper had to deal with and we came out smelling like roses. Now ih the 3 idiots were able to take over , we would be in big trouble now.

The Liberals especially seem to forget that they demanded a huge economic incentive program, and complained several times over the following years that it wasn't big enough and that more spending was called for.  And yet the same Liberal supporters who shrug off Trudeau having deficits during really good economic times criticize Harper for having deficits THEY DEMANDED under really bad economic times. Does anyone have the slightest doubt about what deficits we would have run if Trudeau was in power then? Or even Ignatieff and his two amigos from the NDP and BQ?

[taxme]

On 2/14/2018 at 9:09 PM, August1991 said:

Yet.

While driving recently in Montreal, a (female) friend, immigrant, Canadian citizen said to me (I translate):

"He's the most beautiful leader in the world. He's more beautiful than you!"  

All I can say about this female is that she must need new glasses.  

[taxme]

On 2/25/2018 at 7:32 AM, ?Impact said:

Could he lose it by being duped by the Russians?

We should get Mueller to look into this. 

[taxme]

On 2/25/2018 at 6:03 AM, AngusThermopyle said:

Many years ago the science fiction writer Robert A Heinlein proposed that a voter must earn the right to vote. His book Starship Troopers further expounded on this idea. There is a lot to be said in favour of this proposition. It would help ensure voters who are invested in the process rather than voters who cast a ballot on a whim or for trivial reasons.

It is sad that the only time that we see people will get involved in politics is at election time. After that it's back to non-political business as usual. It's no wonder that feminist prime mistakes like Trudeau get elected. Oh, he looks so cute or he said that he is going to give me a raise of five dollars on my old age pension check. I am going to vote for him. Politics is so sad. 

[taxme]

On 2/25/2018 at 12:24 PM, Argus said:

Well at least the people who vote for expensive programs will be the ones who pay for them.

And so will the rest of us also pay. No one wants to pay for anything themselves. They want other people's money to  also help finance those expensive programs and agendas. 

[taxme]

21 minutes ago, PIK said:

Trudeau was not forced to spend like he did ,trying to build a just society.

It was too bad that all Canadians had to be robbed of their tax dollars for papa Trudeau to build his just society. If what we are seeing today is a just society well than give me back the good old days before that misfit came along. And just what was this just society all about? I think that it had something to do with getting rid of the WASP society. Trudeau had no love for the British or the Queen. Trudeau must have been really pizzed off when Wolfe kicked Montcalm's azz on the Plains of Abraham. Just saying.  

[Argus]

1 hour ago, taxme said:

All I can say about this female is that she must need new glasses.  

Or maybe August is just really ugly. You think of that?

[cannuck]

3 hours ago, taxme said:

It was too bad that all Canadians had to be robbed of their tax dollars for papa Trudeau to build his just society. And just what was this just society all about.  

Simple: once PET finished his brilliant socialist inspired brand of social engineering and Marxist economic planning, all that would be left of Canada would be just society.

Edited March 8, 2018 by cannuck

[cannuck]

17 hours ago, Accountability Now said:

Chretien and Martin were the beneficiaries of an economic boom. As I stated on another thread, the Canadian economy is heavily tied to the US economy and wouldn't you know it that in the same time frame that Chretien and Martin had their surpluses, the US also had four years of surplus too.  Those surpluses for the US were the only surpluses they have had in many, many years. Obviously times were good with the dot.com bubble and the housing bubble not yet popped. 

True, but it is what they chose to do with that situation that deserves credit.  Most governments would have hiked up spending instead of keeping it under control.   I am no fan the Chretien, but he did do a few things right.

[PIK]

Chretien gutted the military like no other.

[Accountability Now]

6 hours ago, cannuck said:

True, but it is what they chose to do with that situation that deserves credit.  Most governments would have hiked up spending instead of keeping it under control.   I am no fan the Chretien, but he did do a few things right.

Fair enough but if you check out the financial reports for the various years he was in power, it shows what they call a Scorecard which evaluates how the government estimated the economy in the budget and how it actually happened. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071126012234/http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr/2000/afr00_5e.html 

In most cases they underestimated revenues and overestimated spending because the economy was booming, not because of what they were doing but rather because of what was happening south of us. If they were true wizards (and I don't mean that facetiously) then their estimates for both revenue and spending would have been in line with their budgets. Its like my old boss used to tell me when I estimated jobs,  being over by 10% is equally as bad as being under by 10% for an estimator since you weren't right either way! Like I said, they were the beneficiaries of an economic boom. 

Full disclosure, at the time I remember wanting to vote for Chretien but voted PC for my local MP.  I don't dislike the guy but I just don't agree with anyone who who thinks any leader is anything more than a guy sailing the ship through the waters of a global economy. If times are good then the water is calm (Chretien years) but when the waters are rough like they were in the Harper years then you can't expect magic.