Economic Action Dud: Canada loses 46,000 jobs, unemployment rate climbs to 7.2%

[petros]

Suncor paid around 1/2 million for 400-500 ducks dying in their tailing ponds, I shudder to think of the fines for killing fish, fowl and plant life all along a river system

And rural drinking water.

 

[BornRuff]

Rail can't move the same volume.

You claimed that oil only made up a small portion of the rail traffic right now. If rail is so much cheaper than pipelines, then why wouldn't they just pay a bit more and take over more of the rail system rather than spend all of these billions of dollars trying to put in the pipelines?

 

[Trex]

Canada loses 46,000 jobs, unemployment rate climbs to 7.2%

The Canadian economy unexpectedly shed 45,900 jobs last month as employers cut full-time positions.

The country’s jobless rate rose to 7.2 per cent in December from 6.9 per cent as more people looked for work, Statistics Canada said Friday.

Canada’s job growth slowed by year’s end as a string of companies, from Sears Canada to Potash Corp. and BlackBerry, announced job cuts late last year while a wave of manufacturers, particularly in Central Canada, said they plan to close plants. Through 2013, job gains in Canada averaged 8,500 a month, a sharp drop from the average of 25,900 new positions per month in 2012.

December’s weak reading, which sent the Canadian dollar to a new four-year low, was far below expectations. Economists had forecast about 14,000 new jobs and an unchanged rate.

Private-sector firms trimmed 26,300 positions while the public sector added 18,200 jobs and the number of self-employed shrank by 37,900.

Youth unemployment rose, with their jobless rate climbing to 14 per cent from 13.4 per cent.

Canada loses 46,000 jobs, unemployment rate climbs to 7.2% - The Globe and Mail


Canadian dollar sinks on ugly jobs report: ‘Needed this like another hole in the head’

Jobs report drives loonie down
Ugh, and ugh.

This morning's employment report from Statistics Canada is downright ugly, with 46,000 jobs lost in December and the unemployment rate climbing by 0.3 of a percentage point to 7.2 per cent as more people went hunting for work.

In the United States, growth in the labour market slowed last month to just 74,000 positions, though the jobless rate eased markedly to 6.7 per cent.

The two reports combined added more pressure to the Canadian dollar, which tumbled fast to about 91.60 cents U.S. within minutes of the reports.

"The Canadian dollar needed this like another hole in the head," said chief economist Douglas Porter of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

"The dismal jobs data will simply pour on the pressure for the sagging Canadian dollar, which was only spared more pain by a disappointing U.S. jobs gain in December," he added.

The loonie, as Canada’s dollar coin is known, plunged as the job losses signalled that Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz will likely be “dovish for longer,” said chief currency strategist Camilla Sutton of Bank of Nova Scotia.

Coupled with that is the fact that Canada’s weak report – economists had projected gains of about 13,000 jobs – plays into a string of several soft economic readings of late.

As The Globe and Mail’s Tavia Grant reports, the Canadian reading is all the more troubling because the job losses were driven by an erosion of full-time work.

That brought growth in the labour market over the course of 2013 to 102,000, Statistics Canada said, or 0.6 per cent. The monthly average was 8,500 jobs, well down from 2012’s average of almost 26,000.

“December’s labour force survey was awful across the board with an ugly headline number and even worse details,” said senior economist Krishen Rangasamy of National Bank Financial, noting that the overall showing for last year was the “worst net jobs tally” since 2009.

In the United States, our Washington correspondent Kevin Carmichael writes, the U.S. economy sent a mixed signal, given the slow jobs growth but declining unemployment rate. Economists had expected the report to show job creation of 197,000, though a jobless rate still at 7 per cent.

The reading is expected to see the Federal Reserve move cautiously on its stimulus pullback.

Canadian dollar sinks on ugly jobs report: ‘Needed this like another hole in the head’ - The Globe and Mail

And a huge chunk of those job losses are in the leftest wasteland of central Canada.

Jobs and people are streaming out of Quebec primarily because of Canada's highest tax rates and a provincial government that sneers at business.

And the industrial heartland of Canada, Ontario is in deep, deep trouble.
And where Ontario goes, so goes Canada.
The Liberal Government of McGinty and Wynn have all but destroyed the manufacturing base in Ontario.
Billions upon billions of wasted and lost funds, which both the business's and private citizen's realize will result in even higher taxes.
Ontario's Green energy programs have both resulted in billions of lost tax payer dollars as well as pending massive energy and utility cost increases.
Ontario is saddled by extremely high unionism in both the private and public sectors which drives up business costs and saddles employers( and taxpayers) with incredibly rich pension scheme payouts.

2/3 of US states are now "right to work" states and manufacturing plants (and jobs) are now starting to flow into those states.
The Americans are even starting to recapture a few industries that they orginally lost to to lost cost regions like India and China.
Michigan is one of the few unionist driven states that refuses to institute "right to work" legislation and just look at Flint and Detroit today.
High taxes, unionism, high utility rates and poor local government is a death sentence as far s jobs are concerned.

Ontario....the new Detroit sounds catchy don't it.

As to the Fed Economic Action Plan it was forced upon the minority Con Government by the Dip's and the Lib's and I dont personally think that was a bad thing.
The G12, the EU, the World Bank and the IMF all say that Canada had the most effective and succesfu plan for dealing with the extended recession.

What Canada needs to do going forward is to drastically cut input costs to business and manufacturers in Central Canada.

Oh, and what about that 3 trillion dollars of O&G development that is on the books for the next 15 or 20 years.
How many jobs is that much development responsible for?
Can Canada afford to pi$$ any of those jobs down the drain?

 

[BornRuff]

In response to ^

This is way too simplistic and politically motivated.

The single most important factor in the decline of manufacturing in Ontario is the exchange rate. It was almost entirely connected to export to the US. When McGunity took power, 1 USD was equal to $1.40 here in Canada. That allowed us to price our exports dirt cheap. Since then, our dollar climbed dramatically, so now the money that we received for our goods was worth 20-30% less over the following years.

That is why you see so much manufacturing moving from Canada to the US. We can't price our goods as cheaply as we used to, so it is more competitive to manufacture in the US now.

There are some things that the government can do, but it is pretty much impossible to correct for a swing in the value of your receivables by that much.

Any party in power would have seen the same decline. A provincial leader can't do anything to fight the changing value of our dollar, which was driven up by all of the activity in the oil sands. The success in the oil patch essentially put Ontario's manufacturing sector out of business.

I'm not saying that we should abandon the oil patch, but it is pretty annoying to hear Ottawa blame Queen's Park for the decline of our manufacturing sector when they know full well that that was an inevitable effect of their focus on developing the oil sands.

 

[Trex]

In respose to ^.
Your response is far to simplistic and has been proven wrong.
The Dipper Dutch disease argument has been proven wrong over and over.
Pretty much every financial expert on the planet has confirmed that Alberta's development had next to nothing to do inflating the CDN dollar and Dutch disease.
There are no tulips in that field no matter hard you look.
It is not a zero sum game, Western Canada's increasing development does not automatically lead to the death of industry in Central Canada.

Look at Ontario, look at Indiana and Wisconsin and then look at where some of the places jobs are now going, places like Kentucky and Georgia.
The answers are all right there.
If we listened to people like you we would all believe that all the industry in Ontario and Quebec is doomed because of potash in Saskatchewan or oil in Alberta.
And that is utter hogwash

 

[BornRuff]

In respose to ^.
Your response is far to simplistic and has been proven wrong.
The Dipper Dutch disease argument has been proven wrong over and over.
Pretty much every financial expert on the planet has confirmed that Alberta's development had next to nothing to do inflating the CDN dollar and Dutch disease.
There are no tulips in that field no matter hard you look.
It is not a zero sum game, Western Canada's increasing development does not automatically lead to the death of industry in Central Canada.

Look at Ontario, look at Indiana and Wisconsin and then look at where some of the places jobs are now going, places like Kentucky and Georgia.
The answers are all right there.
If we listened to people like you we would all believe that all the industry in Ontario and Quebec is doomed because of potash in Saskatchewan or oil in Alberta.
And that is utter hogwash

There really is no debate over if investment in the oil sands pushed the dollar up and if the rising dollar has hurt manufacturers. Those two things are objective facts, though obviously not the only issues at play. The debate you are probably talking about is more about if Canada is better or worse off for all of this. It seems that on the macro level, we are better off.

The impact on specific areas of Canada is different though. It is hard to deny that prices for our trade partners swinging from a deep discount to a slight premium is not going to have a big impact on the companies that do most of their business with the US.

Nobody is doomed. Things change over time, but change like this isn't easy. Blaming the problems on the people who happened to be in power when this massive shift occurred doesn't really help us find the real answers to our problems.

 

[damngrumpy]

The west is doing alright for the moment agreed but have oil drop to less than
eighty dollars a barrel and see what happens. For some the concept where we
just go ahead and do what we want cause we're in power dismisses the idea
that in a democracy everyone has a say regardless of what side of the issue we
take. I oppose the Northern Gateway for two reasons the main being the
incompetence of the company building it and secondly we should not be selling
energy supplies to companies that would compete with our businesses.
Especially when one of them is the biggest offender when it comes to human
rights yet we condemn all kinds of others for the same thing.
Kinder Morgan I have no problem with depending on where the oil is shipped.

 

[Walter]

Most of the job loss happened in ON.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

I've mentioned elsewhere that Canada's unemployment rate is forecast to overtake Britain's this year.

Canada's unemployment rate is rising. It has now climbed to 7.2%. Britain's is predicted to fall from 7.4% to 7% in 2014.

You mean if Canada keeps getting worse, it might eventually suck as bad as Britain?

 

[Trex]

There really is no debate over if investment in the oil sands pushed the dollar up and if the rising dollar has hurt manufacturers. Those two things are objective facts, though obviously not the only issues at play. The debate you are probably talking about is more about if Canada is better or worse off for all of this. It seems that on the macro level, we are better off.

The impact on specific areas of Canada is different though. It is hard to deny that prices for our trade partners swinging from a deep discount to a slight premium is not going to have a big impact on the companies that do most of their business with the US.

Nobody is doomed. Things change over time, but change like this isn't easy. Blaming the problems on the people who happened to be in power when this massive shift occurred doesn't really help us find the real answers to our problems.

You are still dancing around with weird NDP/ socialist financial theories.
Which totally suck in the real world.

Your argument is that Alberta success and it's oil increased the value of the CDN dollar and thus manufacturing died in Ontario.
But Heinz and Caterpillar moved from a low dollar environment (Canada with it's dollar at .93 USD) to a high dollar environment which is the USA with its 1 dollar environment.
And thus dies your argument.

On another note Fed politicians that blame the loss on jobs in one region of Canada on the success of other regions of Canada are both divisive and completely unqualified to manage the countries finances.

I stand by everything I said previously.

 

[BornRuff]

You are still dancing around with weird NDP/ socialist financial theories.
Which totally suck in the real world.

I am stating objective facts.
All of the foreign money flowing into the oil sands implicitly pushes the value of the dollar up.

It is a lot easier to sell the things we make here to the US when you have a 20-30-even almost 40% discount built into the exchange rate.

Please tell me how either of these things are wrong?

Your argument is that Alberta success and it's oil increased the value of the CDN dollar and thus manufacturing died in Ontario.
But Heinz and Caterpillar moved from a low dollar environment (Canada with it's dollar at .93 USD) to a high dollar environment which is the USA with its 1 dollar environment.
And thus dies your argument.

Before the last few years, the last time that the Canadian dollar was at parity was back in the 70's. It was below 90 cents for pretty much the next 3 decades, down to almost 60 cents at one point. Businesses that were here were organized based on those conditions. As the exchange rate steadily rose, it made a very big difference to our business conditions.

A business that works great at a 70 or 80 cent dollar looks very different when you are hovering around parity as we have been in recent years. There are countless considerations other than just the exchange rate, but as we climbed closer to parity, one huge reason to manufacture in Canada melted away.

So Heintz and Caterpillar were not choosing between a "low dollar" country and producing in the US(Canada has not been a "low dollar" country in quite a few years). As far as the exchange rate went, they were facing a much much worse exchange rate than they had in the previous decades.

On another note Fed politicians that blame the loss on jobs in one region of Canada on the success of other regions of Canada are both divisive and completely unqualified to manage the countries finances.

I stand by everything I said previously.

Being emotional about the economy wont get you anywhere. Facts are facts. Rising exchange rates do put pressure on certain industries. You don't have to say one part of the country is evil to recognize the effects of what is going on.

If you make policy proposals without taking such major issues like the exchange rate into account, you are inevitably going to end up with the wrong answer.

 

[Trex]

I am stating objective facts.
All of the foreign money flowing into the oil sands implicitly pushes the value of the dollar up.

It is a lot easier to sell the things we make here to the US when you have a 20-30-even almost 40% discount built into the exchange rate.

Please tell me how either of these things are wrong?



Before the last few years, the last time that the Canadian dollar was at parity was back in the 70's. It was below 90 cents for pretty much the next 3 decades, down to almost 60 cents at one point. Businesses that were here were organized based on those conditions. As the exchange rate steadily rose, it made a very big difference to our business conditions.

A business that works great at a 70 or 80 cent dollar looks very different when you are hovering around parity as we have been in recent years. There are countless considerations other than just the exchange rate, but as we climbed closer to parity, one huge reason to manufacture in Canada melted away.

So Heintz and Caterpillar were not choosing between a "low dollar" country and producing in the US(Canada has not been a "low dollar" country in quite a few years). As far as the exchange rate went, they were facing a much much worse exchange rate than they had in the previous decades.



Being emotional about the economy wont get you anywhere. Facts are facts. Rising exchange rates do put pressure on certain industries. You don't have to say one part of the country is evil to recognize the effects of what is going on.

If you make policy proposals without taking such major issues like the exchange rate into account, you are inevitably going to end up with the wrong answer.

You are tapdancing quicker and quicker.
Rebut my claim that low dollar manufactory plants in Ontario moved into a high dollar environment in the States.
And save the smokescreen.

And I am not emotional about fiscal policies.
Nor am I emotional about political policies, I tend to vote all over the map trying to get the best possible candidates into meaningful slots.
And a bankrupt or rapidly diminishing country aint what I aim to try and pass on to my future generations.
Passing on debts to our future generations is, in my view, scummy.

Born Ruff seems to believe how a countries currency is pegged internationally is extremely simplistic.
As does Tom Mulcair and the rest of the Dip's.
If Ontario goes down the drain and Alberta does well, well heck it must be Alberta's fault.
A fool’s game.
If I invent the world’s most popular widget, build a manufacturing city the size of Tokyo in Manitoba to make the widget......well heck that must hurt Ontario and Quebec right?
Right?
It must, right?
Especially if Ontario and Quebec happen to need more money.
Right?

National currencies depend on a huge amount of variables.
How a countries commercial paper and bonds are rated and accepted internationally.
The countries fiscal standings and how it's assets are developed as viewed by the world’s investors.
National and provincial debts and how they are being dealt with by the country or provinces in question.
The policies of the national banks of country is it, buying bonds and paper, floating bonds, adopting aggressively simulative or conservative fiscal policies, printing money and internationally what is the acceptance, demand and velocity of that money.
Blah, blah, blah.
Oil in Canada is a minor but stabilizing influence.

Increased development and increased infrastructure in Canada tends to benefit Canadians.

As I explained before it is just this simple:
High taxes, unionism, high utility rates and poor local government are a death sentence as far as jobs and industry are concerned.

 

[taxslave]

THey ship much more oil by rail and I am going to go into the hazmat business full time. Specializing in cleaning up oil spills.

 

[petros]

You claimed that oil only made up a small portion of the rail traffic right now. If rail is so much cheaper than pipelines, then why wouldn't they just pay a bit more and take over more of the rail system rather than spend all of these billions of dollars trying to put in the pipelines?

What's wrong with you?

 

[taxslave]

Is it just me or does BR argue exactly like SJP?

 

[BornRuff]

What's wrong with you?

It is simple logic. Why would a business use a more expensive option if a cheaper one was available?

You are tapdancing quicker and quicker.
Rebut my claim that low dollar manufactory plants in Ontario moved into a high dollar environment in the States.
And save the smokescreen.

I don't know how I could be more clear.

The premise is simply wrong. Canada isn't a low dollar country anymore. Canada has been hovering around parity for years now. The dollar has been slipping recently, but the choices you site were not made yesterday, and they are made based on long term outlook, not just one price from one day.

Companies operated here for decades with exchange rates in the 70 and 80 cent ranges. The long term outlook does not point to us going back to that. The cost of doing business here is higher than it used to be, so I am sure you can understand how that affects choices.

Maybe you can respond to my very clear points at the start of the last post.

And I am not emotional about fiscal policies.
Nor am I emotional about political policies, I tend to vote all over the map trying to get the best possible candidates into meaningful slots.
And a bankrupt or rapidly diminishing country aint what I aim to try and pass on to my future generations.
Passing on debts to our future generations is, in my view, scummy.

Born Ruff seems to believe how a countries currency is pegged internationally is extremely simplistic.
As does Tom Mulcair and the rest of the Dip's.
If Ontario goes down the drain and Alberta does well, well heck it must be Alberta's fault.
A fool’s game.

It is very simple economics. Supply and demand. When foreign companies want to invest in Canada or buy things from us, that money eventually has to be converted to Canadian dollars. More demand for Canadian dollars pushes the value up. The level of supply and demand is determined by a lot of different things, but increased investment in the oil sands is undoubtedly a force pushing in the up direction.

If I invent the world’s most popular widget, build a manufacturing city the size of Tokyo in Manitoba to make the widget......well heck that must hurt Ontario and Quebec right?
Right?
It must, right?
Especially if Ontario and Quebec happen to need more money.
Right?

When things change in the economy, there are always winners and loser. Higher exchange rates are good for some, and bad for others. It is a fact of life. Ignoring it doesn't change the facts.

National currencies depend on a huge amount of variables.
How a countries commercial paper and bonds are rated and accepted internationally.
The countries fiscal standings and how it's assets are developed as viewed by the world’s investors.
National and provincial debts and how they are being dealt with by the country or provinces in question.
The policies of the national banks of country is it, buying bonds and paper, floating bonds, adopting aggressively simulative or conservative fiscal policies, printing money and internationally what is the acceptance, demand and velocity of that money.
Blah, blah, blah.
Oil in Canada is a minor but stabilizing influence.

What does that even mean? If more foreign people want to put money into the oil sands, that unambiguously pushes the value of the dollar up.

Obviously there are many factors at play, but no matter what all of the other forces are doing, the forces attributed to the oil sands push the dollar up higher than it would otherwise be.

Can you actually find even one economist that disagrees with the fact that the increased investment in the oil sands does not push the dollar up?

Increased development and increased infrastructure in Canada tends to benefit Canadians.

As I explained before it is just this simple:
High taxes, unionism, high utility rates and poor local government are a death sentence as far as jobs and industry are concerned.

The real problem that Canada has faced is low productivity. That has been constant for decades, but the low dollar masked the problem. Crucifying the guys who happen to be in power when the bandaid is ripped off doesn't really yield helpful results.

The thing you mention certainly could help, but they are not enough to make up for the 30% change in prices. Ontario is going through a larger shift that is going to take a lot more than just crushing unions or a tax cut.

 

[pgs]

AB and Sask are still shy of around 50,000 jobs.

Much of Canada's unemployment is a sheer matter of those that won't go to where the work is.

It is to the point that the gvt is providing tax relief to those companies that need to find temporary foreign workers

Nope they will go to where the work is . They will not however submit to the testing required .

 

[Trex]

It is simple logic. Why would a business use a more expensive option if a cheaper one was available?



I don't know how I could be more clear.

The premise is simply wrong. Canada isn't a low dollar country anymore. Canada has been hovering around parity for years now. The dollar has been slipping recently, but the choices you site were not made yesterday, and they are made based on long term outlook, not just one price from one day.

Companies operated here for decades with exchange rates in the 70 and 80 cent ranges. The long term outlook does not point to us going back to that. The cost of doing business here is higher than it used to be, so I am sure you can understand how that affects choices.

Maybe you can respond to my very clear points at the start of the last post.



It is very simple economics. Supply and demand. When foreign companies want to invest in Canada or buy things from us, that money eventually has to be converted to Canadian dollars. More demand for Canadian dollars pushes the value up. The level of supply and demand is determined by a lot of different things, but increased investment in the oil sands is undoubtedly a force pushing in the up direction.



When things change in the economy, there are always winners and loser. Higher exchange rates are good for some, and bad for others. It is a fact of life. Ignoring it doesn't change the facts.



What does that even mean? If more foreign people want to put money into the oil sands, that unambiguously pushes the value of the dollar up.

Obviously there are many factors at play, but no matter what all of the other forces are doing, the forces attributed to the oil sands push the dollar up higher than it would otherwise be.

Can you actually find even one economist that disagrees with the fact that the increased investment in the oil sands does not push the dollar up?



The real problem that Canada has faced is low productivity. That has been constant for decades, but the low dollar masked the problem. Crucifying the guys who happen to be in power when the bandaid is ripped off doesn't really yield helpful results.

The thing you mention certainly could help, but they are not enough to make up for the 30% change in prices. Ontario is going through a larger shift that is going to take a lot more than just crushing unions or a tax cut.

You continue to blow smoke and tapdance around.
You have rebutted nothing I have said and continue to dodge issue after issue.
Instead of ducking and weaving why not clearly explain yourself to the forum at large.

I debate your points raised and you seem incapable of debating mine.
Are you trapped in a fixed political dogma?
If not rebut my positions.

You say you do not understand me when I say that internationally the CDN dollar peg is extremely complex and dictated by many variables, least of which is oil pricing.
Well fine, we now all know that it's beyond your understanding so please lets move on.
If not please explain how I am in error about how CDN dollar values are determined on the international stage by a huge number of variables least of which is oil pricing.

You endlessly drone on about how the high CDN dollar is driving industry out of Ontario and yet you fail to explain how Canadian industries leave low dollar Canada (.92 USD) to relocate in high dollar (1 USD) locations.
Save the smoke and leftist dogma and please explain how that can possibly happen on an ongoing basis?
And yet again I say that people that want to penalize successful regions and industries in Canada simply because of their success are both regressive and destructive to the nation.

You talk about productivity and on that note I would tend to agree with you, in Ontario and Quebec productivity sucks.
And it has nothing to do with the dollar peg because industries are leaving low dollar Canada (.93 USD) for high dollar USA (1 USD) on a pretty much non-stop basis.
Productivity is defined as the efficiency in producing a marketable product.
And a marketable product is only marketable if it can compete with similar products.
And I believe drastically higher input costs result in higher production costs.
So please, for the third time, explain how this statement: High taxes, unionism, high utility rates and poor local government are a death sentence as far as jobs and industry are concerned.
Is erroneous.

If you do not agree with my positions Instead of ducking, weaving and disseminating why not not just clearly and simply show them to be wrong?

If you can not or will not rebut my statements, please do all of us a favor and cease to quote them.

 

[gopher]

In the United States, growth in the labour market slowed last month to just 74,000 positions, though the jobless rate eased markedly to 6.7 per cent.

Lower unemployment rate in USA, higher in Canada. Gee, I wonder how Wally feels about that ?

 

[pgs]

In response to ^

This is way too simplistic and politically motivated.

The single most important factor in the decline of manufacturing in Ontario is the exchange rate. It was almost entirely connected to export to the US. When McGunity took power, 1 USD was equal to $1.40 here in Canada. That allowed us to price our exports dirt cheap. Since then, our dollar climbed dramatically, so now the money that we received for our goods was worth 20-30% less over the following years.

That is why you see so much manufacturing moving from Canada to the US. We can't price our goods as cheaply as we used to, so it is more competitive to manufacture in the US now.

There are some things that the government can do, but it is pretty much impossible to correct for a swing in the value of your receivables by that much.

Any party in power would have seen the same decline. A provincial leader can't do anything to fight the changing value of our dollar, which was driven up by all of the activity in the oil sands. The success in the oil patch essentially put Ontario's manufacturing sector out of business.

I'm not saying that we should abandon the oil patch, but it is pretty annoying to hear Ottawa blame Queen's Park for the decline of our manufacturing sector when they know full well that that was an inevitable effect of their focus on developing the oil sands.

B.S. when the Ontario manufacturing sector was at its strongest and growing the Canadian $ was stronger than its U.S. counterpart.
It is only because of wrong headed moves by successive governments both Provincial and Federal mostly but not only liberal that have lead us to this point . Now what to do other then trying the same failed policies over again ?

The west is doing alright for the moment agreed but have oil drop to less than
eighty dollars a barrel and see what happens. For some the concept where we
just go ahead and do what we want cause we're in power dismisses the idea
that in a democracy everyone has a say regardless of what side of the issue we
take. I oppose the Northern Gateway for two reasons the main being the
incompetence of the company building it and secondly we should not be selling
energy supplies to companies that would compete with our businesses.
Especially when one of them is the biggest offender when it comes to human
rights yet we condemn all kinds of others for the same thing.
Kinder Morgan I have no problem with depending on where the oil is shipped.

Actually Grumpy my friends in the patch say that we are profitable at around 50 to 60 a barrel .I may be out of date !