I don't expect Harper to do anything to reduce the deficit or the dept because it was a campaign promise and most campaign promises are made to be broken. That applies to any party.
With a majority, Tories can be more aggressive on deficit
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not an excuse. Sweden's Social Democrats moved towards socialism gradually and cautiously and always studying the effects of policy decisions. They'd been like that since the beginning, not just something they'd evolved into. The NDP needs ot change its ways and learn from the Social Democrats' methodical approach to policy.
I guess you could say I'm left-leaning in principle but right-leaning pragmatically. In other words, should a left-leaning party present a well-thought out plan of action that is economically feasible and in accordance with the established principles of economics, then I'd likely vote for such a candidate. But if it's purely idealistic with no reality, then I'm not as likely to vote for it and more likely to lean libertarian.
I think NDP is more idealistic.
I like the idea of Jacks "positive" goverment.
Will see.
I gather you haven't done any research on that subject.
The marginal tax rate above 100% which was dubbed the 'Pomperipossa effect' was due to tax legislation which required self employed individuals to pay both regular income tax and employer's fees.
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Yes a candidate does need idealism, but it must be pragmatic idealism, not pie-in-the-sky idealism.
But I will give many Dipper candidats this, that they are idealistic, so they have part of what they need to succeed at least.
I think the most positive way to reduce the deficit is to re-establish a rational progressive tax system. Start, first of all, with a comprehensive system of tariffs that will protect industry and create wealth. Tariffs used to be the main source of income for the government, now reduced to almost nil. Then rescind the demand destroying GST (and PST).. in favour of a true progressive income tax system that INCLUDES Capital Gains at the full marginal rate, with the exception of Primary Residence. We'd likely find we had no need for the AUSTERITY programs Harper will inevitably invoke as part of his ilk's ideology.
Actually it was 102% and apparently affected only a single individual once. Bad luck for her, but as a consequence the tax law was changed. Be that as it may your comment was close enough and I apologize.
Smart governments have abandoned tariffs for a reason. Think about it: Should Canada introduce tariffs against foreign cars, you don't think other countries will retaliate? And with our small population and thus economies of scale, we'd be at a big disadvantage. Only a fool would believe that we do not risk retaliationa gainst Canadian protectionism.
Also, let's consider economic efficiencies: high tariffs between Canada and the US would increase trade between Ontario and BC for example where BC might be able to get similar products from Washington state and Ontario from New York state. In other words, companies will have to hire more truckers, buy more trucks,buy more fuel, and then pass the costs on to consumers forcing inflation. And the poor will hurt the most from it.
We need to abandon ideology and look at hard economic reality. Ask any trained economist, even a left-leaning one, and he'll tell you that free trade is beneficial. So, should Iqaluit start growing its own bananas now?
What I don't get is when protectionism ever became a 'leftist' position. Historically, conservatives were quite protectionist as a part of the mercantile economy. The idea was to export more than you import. But if all countries have the same aim, you can see where conflict could occur.
Also, let's consider that a number of 'leftists' have been in favour of free trade as a means of distributing wealth. Among them Willy Brandt of the German Social Democratic Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and quite framkly most European leftist parties.
The 'benefits' of protectionism are pure myth and superstition. Any economist will tell you that. Don't yo think the NDP would be able to win at least a few more votes if it actually planted its feet firmly in sound economic principles?
Another example that comes to mind is price ceilings. Toronto, Paris and New York City had tried that in the past with rent controls. The intentions were good (legislate rent ceilings so as to make rental housing more affordable). The problem though was that no won was willing to invest in the rental industry anymore so that as time went by and the population continued to grow, rental shortages became prevalent. Which is worse between expensive rent and no place to rent? Needless to say all of those cities eventually had to smarten up and lift the ceilings, causing prices to skyrocket, but at least construction of more rental units restarted.
Just another example of why left or right, a candidate's economic platform needs to be based not purely on ideology, but rather on sound economic principles.
Same with the minimum wage. All economists will agree that minimum wages hurt the poor more than it helps them as it essentially prices them out of the market. Again, which would be preferable between working at slightly below minimum wage and being forced onto social assistance at far less income than that?
It is possible for government policy to be progressive without being anti-scientific. Codetermination legislation in Sweden would be one example, whereby workers can negotiate fair wages with management, yet without minimum wages they can negotiate their wages down if necessary. Government can also raise taxes and provide more funding for job training too, no problem, as long as you don't have minimum wage laws to legilsate people out of the market.
Start with the 1.1 billion dollar CBC...
Oh dear, it costs as much to broadcast information to all Canadians even if up in the arctic for as much as to host a week of G8 leaders standing in a line smiling for the camera while not actually making any decisions because all policy statements-and-decisions were settled before they met.
I bet the problem is you hate facts, and I bet you sit in front of FoxTV-north masturbating.
Ah, the logic of opposition. "I don't like you therefore anything you support I must oppose and anything you oppose I must support. Oh, you dislike the CBC? OK, so I'll support the CBC."
We need to raise the bar a tad higher than this.
I like many of the NDP's ideas overall. Problem is, sometimes I get the impression that often the NDP supports or opposes this or that policy just to be the opposite of the Conservatives. My Gawd, imagine if they actually agreed on something. The horror!
http://tunes.digitalock.com/Will.I.Am-AlexOnTheSpot.mp3 <--click to hear the music I was listening to while responding
The exceptions are Canada and Russia. Those two countries have all the resources required to go it alone, so the rules for everyone else don't apply for Canada and Russia.
SMALL POPULATION?!?
Have you ever *tried* to see how big a number 36 million is? It's only small compared to the idiotic overpopulation count of 7 billion, and you should be so thankful for that.
You have never studied anthropological economics.
If you had, you'd know that a standalone military-industrial nation can be maintained with one million people.
That means everything from mining the ore and oil to smelting and refining it to shipping and shaping it to delivering it into the hands of engineers and workers to fuel and build cities and computer manufacturing plants to command and control centers to satelites and fleets of drone patrol-and-destroy drones to hosting daytime soaps to early evening game shows to making movies and searving hot-dogs on a street-corner.
Everything, with one million people.
It means that Quebec would in fact be able to go it alone as a standalone nation if they were to do so. Of course, because they're not self-sufficient in all resources they'd have to trade according to the free-trade rules, but still they could do it.
For perspective, Quebec has 7 million people, whereas South Africa had five million whites, three million of which were Dutch (Boer) South Africans who'd been conquered by England.
Yet with that they had the only first world standard of living in Africa, and they controlled all the railroads in Africa all the way up to Kenya. Yes Virginia, if you look at railroad maps of Africa you'll see that everything up to the northern desert go south down to ports in South Africa.
Was it because they were white? Maybe... although Asians are damn hard workers too. It might have been an issue of white psychology tuned by Christianity.
In any case, the point is, Canada is not underpopulated. If you look at Canada's ecological footprint, it is 50 times per-person that which it is in Indonesia. In other words, Canadians are hitting their environment as hard as 1.5+ billion Indonesians living here.
So, drop the line about how Canada does not have enough workers to build all the cars it needs. Canada has more than enough workers to build all the cars it needs. Last time I heard they were complaining about not having enough work.
Geezus frikkin Kriste! First you say tariffs would create jobs in Canada, then you say it would hurt jobs.
You're in favor of exporting jobs to China so you can buy stuff cheaper on credit cards while your local economy grinds down so your kids can live second-world. You hate your kids, so that means you didn't wear a condom and now you're tortured for it and wish they'd die. You are stupid compared to the parents I know wanting to adopt. Why don't you just meet and hand it over after proving the mother wasn't a piss-tank plus ate well in her third trimester, unless you're afraid the kid might actually inherit enough from you to present the boring depressing civilization unto the future while you experience. That means you've never heard of the revers-harem, where women get to spawn kids from whatever cool guy is around to pass the muster leading to villages all looking the same, which means you've never f-cking read! Which means you never even read the Canadian Atlas from 1910 when immigration of dumbasses was blocked and they only wanted in people with educations. Right?
You obviously have not read Karl Marx nor Deng's thoughts about how to tune free enterprise under the communist principal of not letting a Baron get control of the means. That means you don't know the difference between Capitalism and Free Enterprise.
If you're one of those two nations, you can call shots if people want your stuff.
Anyway, the rest of your stuff goes on and on with the same stuff true for England and France and Germany and Japan and the US but nor true for Canada and Russia.
The oil in the ointment is that Russia has a nuclear deterrent, yet Canada has not a defense against the US telling Canada to deliver resources or it will get beat up, unless Canada were to have had a PM like King to have made the public deceleration that Canada will use nuclear power for peace, while ordering construction of hidden "poison-pill" nuclear devices to be built and buried in key locations to be detonated should an invasion happen, like how Moscow burned everything when Napoleon moved in.
Would a Canadian PM do such a thing? Check out the psychological profile of PM King.
Could a Canadian PM order such a thing? Check out the legalistics and learn how a PM with a majority has more power than an American President.
I didn't say it happened. I'm just saying look at the possibilities, because here's what's not commonly discussed these days nor has been talked about since 1966.
During WW-II, the last honorable war, all known sources of uranium were from the Belgian Congo and northern Saskatchewan.
When the Germans took over Belgium they got control of the Congo.
The Manhattan Project was started in England, but they needed to get it away from the bombing, so when the US entered the war late, England asked Uncle Sam if the project could be hosted there.
Uncle Sam said yes, and Uncle Sam said he'd pay for it. Uncle Sam could see the potential value.
At one point Uncle Sam said to Canada, "We need uranium and we will pay for the mining," and PM King with his mind like a billiard table consulted experts at UofT and asked why Americans would want Uranium.
They told him, so he said to the Yankees, "We will pay to mine it ourselves and we will meet you at the border with the stuff, but you have to tell us what you want it for."
It was war-time so the negotiations went fast, such that at the end of WW-II there were three nations holding the nuclear secret.
USA, England (because they started it), and Canada.
Now... think about what an absolute PM (PM with majority) would do.
The US and England would be going nuts on bomb-building. You're in-between. You only care about doing your job as PM which is to manage a nation, therefore there's no reason to frost either of your two closest allies. Yet still you have a border to defend. Therefore logically you use the technical knowledge to set up some suicide-defenses, and then proceed with what we really need, which is business in order to make money in order to eat.
Canada has accomplished things with kook PM's before. We will survive yet again, as a sovereign nation, with it's own border in the new world.
The problem is... election reports show American-style voter-suppression was happening, therefore there will be investigations into it if Harper PM is a leader of Canada, else he's a puppet of Wall Street, in which case the citizens of Canada can demand the Crown to fire him.
Are you nuts? I listen to CBC because I get news. Ever listen to the boring tripe from commercial stations? Only neanderthals loving to dance around a camp-fire joyfully jerking off together listening to commercial radio would relate.
I have American cousins living in northern states who tune into CBC and lament how they don't have the same thing down there.
Lemme guess... you're going to accuse them of being American liberals... Americans not yet utterly subject to corporate control.
I bet you don't know that logistically the sociological effect of corporate control of everything while paying nothing is like a war, except this one doesn't know that the laws enabling them to keep it bloodless is going to destroy the laws keeping it bloodless.
Classic cancer/Lucifer/Satan crap.
That's true for any country wanting to be industrial but does not have all the resources to do so.
The exceptions are Canada and Russia. Those two countries have all the resources required to go it alone, so the rules for everyone else don't apply for Canada and Russia.
Small population?
SMALL POPULATION?!?
Have you ever *tried* to see how big a number 36 million is? It's only small compared to the idiotic overpopulation count of 7 billion, and you should be so thankful for that.
You have never studied anthropological economics.
If you had, you'd know that a standalone military-industrial nation can be maintained with one million people.
That means everything from mining the ore and oil to smelting and refining it to shipping and shaping it to delivering it into the hands of engineers and workers to fuel and build cities and computer manufacturing plants to command and control centers to satelites and fleets of drone patrol-and-destroy drones to hosting daytime soaps to early evening game shows to making movies and searving hot-dogs on a street-corner.
Everything, with one million people.
It means that Quebec would in fact be able to go it alone as a standalone nation if they were to do so. Of course, because they're not self-sufficient in all resources they'd have to trade according to the free-trade rules, but still they could do it.
For perspective, Quebec has 7 million people, whereas South Africa had five million whites, three million of which were Dutch (Boer) South Africans who'd been conquered by England.
Yet with that they had the only first world standard of living in Africa, and they controlled all the railroads in Africa all the way up to Kenya. Yes Virginia, if you look at railroad maps of Africa you'll see that everything up to the northern desert go south down to ports in South Africa.
Was it because they were white? Maybe... although Asians are damn hard workers too. It might have been an issue of white psychology tuned by Christianity.
In any case, the point is, Canada is not underpopulated. If you look at Canada's ecological footprint, it is 50 times per-person that which it is in Indonesia. In other words, Canadians are hitting their environment as hard as 1.5+ billion Indonesians living here.
So, drop the line about how Canada does not have enough workers to build all the cars it needs. Canada has more than enough workers to build all the cars it needs. Last time I heard they were complaining about not having enough work.
http://tunes.digitalock.com/raggletagglegypsio_dancemix.mp3 <-- Click here to hear the music I was listening to while responding
Geezus frikkin Kriste! First you say tariffs would create jobs in Canada, then you say it would hurt jobs.
You're in favor of exporting jobs to China so you can buy stuff cheaper on credit cards while your local economy grinds down so your kids can live second-world. You hate your kids, so that means you didn't wear a condom and now you're tortured for it and wish they'd die. You are stupid compared to the parents I know wanting to adopt. Why don't you just meet and hand it over after proving the mother wasn't a piss-tank plus ate well in her third trimester, unless you're afraid the kid might actually inherit enough from you to present the boring depressing civilization unto the future while you experience. That means you've never heard of the revers-harem, where women get to spawn kids from whatever cool guy is around to pass the muster leading to villages all looking the same, which means you've never f-cking read! Which means you never even read the Canadian Atlas from 1910 when immigration of dumbasses was blocked and they only wanted in people with educations. Right?
You obviously have not read Karl Marx nor Deng's thoughts about how to tune free enterprise under the communist principal of not letting a Baron get control of the means. That means you don't know the difference between Capitalism and Free Enterprise.
In the first place a trained economist will tell you that Canada and Russia don't have to trade with anyone other than each other, and in the second place I happen to have the learned-at-school-paid-for-by-social-credit-Albertans learned genetic methods enabling bananas to grown out of Arctic tundra, so go blow yourself and I won't let you invest if you're a neanderthal asshole.
Moot moot moot when talking about Canada or Russia.
And your point is...?
Again, what you say is true for all nations except Canada and Russia.
If you're one of those two nations, you can call shots if people want your stuff.
Anyway, the rest of your stuff goes on and on with the same stuff true for England and France and Germany and Japan and the US but nor true for Canada and Russia.
The oil in the ointment is that Russia has a nuclear deterrent, yet Canada has not a defense against the US telling Canada to deliver resources or it will get beat up, unless Canada were to have had a PM like King to have made the public deceleration that Canada will use nuclear power for peace, while ordering construction of hidden "poison-pill" nuclear devices to be built and buried in key locations to be detonated should an invasion happen, like how Moscow burned everything when Napoleon moved in.
Would a Canadian PM do such a thing? Check out the psychological profile of PM King.
Could a Canadian PM order such a thing? Check out the legalistics and learn how a PM with a majority has more power than an American President.
I didn't say it happened. I'm just saying look at the possibilities, because here's what's not commonly discussed these days nor has been talked about since 1966.
During WW-II, the last honorable war, all known sources of uranium were from the Belgian Congo and northern Saskatchewan.
When the Germans took over Belgium they got control of the Congo.
The Manhattan Project was started in England, but they needed to get it away from the bombing, so when the US entered the war late, England asked Uncle Sam if the project could be hosted there.
Uncle Sam said yes, and Uncle Sam said he'd pay for it. Uncle Sam could see the potential value.
At one point Uncle Sam said to Canada, "We need uranium and we will pay for the mining," and PM King with his mind like a billiard table consulted experts at UofT and asked why Americans would want Uranium.
They told him, so he said to the Yankees, "We will pay to mine it ourselves and we will meet you at the border with the stuff, but you have to tell us what you want it for."
It was war-time so the negotiations went fast, such that at the end of WW-II there were three nations holding the nuclear secret.
USA, England (because they started it), and Canada.
Now... think about what an absolute PM (PM with majority) would do.
The US and England would be going nuts on bomb-building. You're in-between. You only care about doing your job as PM which is to manage a nation, therefore there's no reason to frost either of your two closest allies. Yet still you have a border to defend. Therefore logically you use the technical knowledge to set up some suicide-defenses, and then proceed with what we really need, which is business in order to make money in order to eat.
Canada has accomplished things with kook PM's before. We will survive yet again, as a sovereign nation, with it's own border in the new world.
The problem is... election reports show American-style voter-suppression was happening, therefore there will be investigations into it if Harper PM is a leader of Canada, else he's a puppet of Wall Street, in which case the citizens of Canada can demand the Crown to fire him.
Indeed.
Huh?
Are you nuts? I listen to CBC because I get news. Ever listen to the boring tripe from commercial stations? Only neanderthals loving to dance around a camp-fire joyfully jerking off together listening to commercial radio would relate.
I have American cousins living in northern states who tune into CBC and lament how they don't have the same thing down there.
Lemme guess... you're going to accuse them of being American liberals... Americans not yet utterly subject to corporate control.
I bet you don't know that logistically the sociological effect of corporate control of everything while paying nothing is like a war, except this one doesn't know that the laws enabling them to keep it bloodless is going to destroy the laws keeping it bloodless.
Classic cancer/Lucifer/Satan crap.
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Omicron Are you nuts? I listen to CBC because I get news. I have American cousins living in northern states who tune into CBC and lament how they don't have the same thing down there. Lemme guess... you're going to accuse them of being American liberals... Americans not yet utterly subject to corporate control. I bet you don't know that logistically the sociological effect of corporate control of everything while paying nothing is like a war said:
That is absolutely right. The traditional definitions of Conservative, Liberal, Socialist have been totally corrupted over the last few decades.
National systems, protecting economic sovereignty have traditionally been associated with Conservative Governments. The Free Trade mania of Stephen Harper's Conservatives are much closer to Liberal free market libertarianism. John A. MacDonald's national policies built the Canadian economy as a sovereign and viable entity.
Despite your attempts to nitpick cause and effects.. the overall results of Free Markets (Free Trade, Monetarism, Deregulation, Privatization) has been an UNMITIGATED DISASTER for Canada. De-industrializing the nation, destroying the sovereignty and integrity of its industrial infrastructure.
It has not stopped. It is collapsing world wide as we speak. It has handed the destiny of the world to a greed infested cabal of Global Traders and Investors, addicted to debt and pumped up by fictional profits.. utterly amoral and predatoryl. It will FAIL because it is a Moral and Practical disaster.
We will see financial crisis after financial crisis, ever more devastating as this collapse of the an unsustainable economic paradigm plays out.
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According to the same logic, then, the city of Ottawa would benefit greatly if it introduced protectionism against imports from other cities. Why should I buy a computer built in vancouver for example if the exact same computer is also built in Buffalo, let's say. Why should I waste my money paying for the transport costs from Vancouver to Ottawa when I could save on gas, wear and tear on the truck, and the driver and buy the same thing from Buffalo?
And of course would the Seattle resident not benefit from buying the same computer from Vancouver rather than Buffalo?
Yes, free trade creates jobs, especially for truckers and others compensating for the new inefficiencies. Such jobs though are essentially make-work jobs that burden the economy, not productive jobs that contribute to the GDP. And of course the poor are hit hardest as they then have to fork our more cash to pay for the new inefficiencies.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that under the scenario above, it would make more sence for the Seattle resident and the Ottawan to buy cross-border than from cross-country in their own countries.
If I missed something, please let me know, because it sounds to me like you're proposing that it would make more sense for an Alaskan to buy from Washington state when he can get the same thing from British Columbia more efficiently.
Yes, I want the government to create jobs, but not make-work jobs but productive jobs. That of course will mean more investment in education and more open borders, free labour movement agreements, possibly sharing a common currency, establishing common educational standards for various trades and professions, etc. Not boxing ourselves in and having Nunavummiut growing bananas.
And on a separate note, albveit still related to the thread title of paying off the deficit, with gas prices soaring, we might want to look at a 4.5-year moratorium on new highway construction and focus more on building walking and cycling paths in cities so as to ake pedestrians and bicycles off the roads we do have to as to maximize their utility.
And of course would the Seattle resident not benefit from buying the same computer from Vancouver rather than Buffalo?
Yes, free trade creates jobs, especially for truckers and others compensating for the new inefficiencies. Such jobs though are essentially make-work jobs that burden the economy, not productive jobs that contribute to the GDP. And of course the poor are hit hardest as they then have to fork our more cash to pay for the new inefficiencies.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that under the scenario above, it would make more sence for the Seattle resident and the Ottawan to buy cross-border than from cross-country in their own countries.
If I missed something, please let me know, because it sounds to me like you're proposing that it would make more sense for an Alaskan to buy from Washington state when he can get the same thing from British Columbia more efficiently.
Yes, I want the government to create jobs, but not make-work jobs but productive jobs. That of course will mean more investment in education and more open borders, free labour movement agreements, possibly sharing a common currency, establishing common educational standards for various trades and professions, etc. Not boxing ourselves in and having Nunavummiut growing bananas.
And on a separate note, albveit still related to the thread title of paying off the deficit, with gas prices soaring, we might want to look at a 4.5-year moratorium on new highway construction and focus more on building walking and cycling paths in cities so as to ake pedestrians and bicycles off the roads we do have to as to maximize their utility.
And as for the CBC, it's a great channel. I don't watch much TV, but when I do, it usually is the CBC. That said, I still don't understand why it needs government funding.
There is a big difference between a city and a nation. At a purely practical level, intra national trade, that between cities, allows free movement of labour, and holds a common currency. International trade, that between countries has neither. The profit equation of the Free Traders demands a captive and desperate work force competing against those of other countries. That is put into place by restricting the movement of labour and by manipulating and sabatoging currencies for their own enrichment.
Free Trade might produce some shipping jobs, increasingly unregulated and underpaid.. at a cost of high payed, secure manufacturing jobs.. perhaps 10 good jobs for every one 'new economy' job. And what are these new job.. more and more.. stoop labour, flipping burgers, driving trucks, warehouse workers.. unskilled, minimum wage.
Nothing shows what a disaster the Liberal Economic paradigm has been than the exploding deficit. As our real wealth disintegrates, so does our ability to support programs developed in more prosperous times.
You are dealing with the sophistry of the Free Market, machjo, which reduces everything to the specific case, and obfuscates totally the general case.. which involves vast polarization of wealth, and economic collapse.