Good Debt: Infrastructure
Bad Debt: Social programs
Does Alberta have a Provincial sales tax yet?
We prefer to call them subsidies. The companies that 'paid' $M's to build a road to one well that was not even connected to any method that one truck every 3 weeks. Everybody made money, a bottle of aspirin was available at 3AM with one phone call, that it cost $500 wasn't even an issue. Hookers at the well-site when the super's wife comes for a visit is another story completely, lol. Completely paid for by the Provincial Govt (taxpayer lost revenue) and the cut Ottawa in at the same time.
Social programs should have an endgame that is factual down the road. The $5B spent on Syncrude to produce axle grease is a good investment as that is the main ingredient. Spending $500B more to get 3 gallons of low grade gas is stupid when you are burning off NG to get the gasoline, a lot of NG. What is burned off in flares to keep the pressure low in the lines would power a lot of engines, for free. That isn't a very good reason not to do it.
Social programs seems to include education. Rather than spend more on the current system where endless money has a population of university grads with nothing to do with those skills. Kids don't really pay attention until they are about 12 so start grade 1 at 12 years old and by 20 they have high school and 2 years advanced education or 2 years on the job training. Both paths lead to the same income if they both worked until 55 and then both retired. On the job means the cash comes faster at the start and slower at the end of that period of 'being useful'.
Below 12 send them all to the mall and lock the doors for the day. First-aid and such would make better educational classes for that age group and the staff would be the older workers that are unable to keep up with the faster paced segments of society (the ones in society needing first-aid the most). The very young and the very old will find their own balance.
The PST might even be a hidden tax. When the Social Credit got in by cancelling all private debt that load actually got transferred to the Govt books and was paid off by the taxpayer over the coming decades. Since Alberta is a consumer destination perhaps there is a different delivery charge to us than there is to places with PST. Wouldn't that make having a warehouse in AB that sells through a server in Alberta be the way to sell to Ontario and save them some money so they would order from AB rather than do it locally at a higher price. (assuming shipping doesn't suck that savings up, which it does)
Why couldn't I set up a company in Alberta where members would log onto their $3/mo membership and they could shop using the 'no PST' Alberta address for the purchase but the 'delivery' was to an address that just happened to also be in Ontario so the shipping was next to zero?
Unless it has changed I can order from Ontario but not pay PST because I am from AB.
