Originally posted by PurpleHaze
Who would lead the party?? :wtf:
Moral Hazard.....although I am biased as he is my brother :D
I agree with many of his political views and I already know some of his plans if he ever was elected PM.
Our country would be a much better place.
daves
I love the use of these words such as "overthrow", "coup"... if i didn't know better I would think we are dealing with a situation involving South America and paramilitaries... rather than political parties preparing to utilize a tool built into their political system.
ChemEnhanced
quote:
Originally posted by daves
I love the use of these words such as "overthrow", "coup"... if i didn't know better I would think we are dealing with a situation involving South America and paramilitaries... rather than political parties preparing to utilize a tool built into their political system.
+1....this isn't the first time a minority government had to deal with this possibility....and if it happens it won't be the first time it has happened. Its part of our political system, it just happens that we haven't been around to see this happen before.
djeso
quote:
Originally posted by Moral Hazard
pfft; jay just regurgitates talking points from the CPC web site or what he heard on the Oakley show earlier in the day. If he were PM he'd be lost since there would be no one to tell him what his opinion is.
hey ... I don't agree with Jay sometimes but I respect him for always being straight up ... no need to be disrespectfull, it's not polite :)
feelgood
quote:
Originally posted by Skipper
NDP and liberals are still very different parties. All they are going to do is squawk at each other over leadership and spending and jack will get done...
The NDP are very different from the conservatives.. but the Liberals historically have always gone wherever the wind blows..
feelgood
quote:
Originally posted by Dr. DAS
I disagreed with the election in principle.
I wasn't going to vote for the Tories after they called such a bull election...
Keep in mind that from the CPC standpoint, pulling that election in October was a brilliant move. A move that i can say with confidence, any party would pull.
It was quite clear a year ago that we were entering a period of economic recession. Being the party in control in the midst of a recession is a VERY difficult job and usually one that will alienate your party with respect to the population. Knowing this, the CPC called the election to get a couple more years to work with knowing full well that they likely wouldnt be able to pull off another win in 2010. Unfortunately (fortunately?) they were unable to get the majority they needed to implement the laws, reforms they had planned.
In terms of the Canadian economy not being in trouble, and a GDP growth of 0.3%. It means nothing. In the grand scheme of things Canada is a comparatively weak nation on the economic scale. Our utter dependency on US markets pretty much makes us vulnerable to anything that happens to them, and in the past we've been victim to their economic upturns and downturns via a simple echo effect. We're just further down the food chain, and it takes awhile for these effects to be noticed.
Look at the Canadian Dollar. Despite a weak US dollar, we are still losing ground. Take a look around, layoffs are happening left right and center. Especially in the business, automotive and manufacturing sectors. These effects will be noticed in the next quarter and beyond.
Should we infuse more money into the system? (IMHO, no. ) Keynesian economic theory is very optimistic, but very inflationary. Ron Paul's words on the US Bailout explains best.
I think the CPC have the right idea with not increasing spending. Their Economic statement places some emphasis on cutting back on union funding which is the best way to pad an economic downturn. Unions can cripple economies in a time like this. (Think the UK, pre Margaret Thatcher)
What Harper and the CPC lack is political savvy, and personality. Harper's reforms come across as very blunt, and dont seem to be the juicy bit of hope that we want to hear. There is good reason for the decisions, as basic understanding of recession economics will show you, but there has to be a better way of presenting this information to Canadians. Give us a Green reform, or some enviro incentive to win some votes over.. dont drop aggressive political reforms and expect to have full support of the caucus/ population.
Canada already awash in stimulus
Falling tax burden frees up more for investment
Step back from the political brinkmanship and hysteria over the economy of the past few days and what we find is a Canadian economy already swimming in stimulus.
Lost amid the political hullabaloo and fixation on the deficit was this salient line from the fiscal update last week: "The tax burden, as measured by total revenues as a share of gross domestic product, is projected to decline from 15.8% in 2007/08 to 15.2% by 2012/13 -- its lowest ratio in 50 years."
That is stimulus, folks, as more money is freed up for spending and investment.
In many respects, a lower tax burden is the final reward for the fiscal odyssey Canadians have been on since Paul Martin and Jean Chretien began to wrestle the deficit to the ground in the early 1990s and which the Opposition now seems intent on squandering with a barrage of panicked and reckless spending.
The painful cuts to spending initiated by the Liberals helped bring Canada's books into balance after years of fiscal insanity, while a good dollop of growth and serendipity in the form of tech and commodity booms allowed surpluses to build.
To their credit, both the Liberals and the Conservatives used that better fiscal footing to start cutting taxes, the Liberals with their $100-billion package of personal and corporate income taxes beginning in 2000 and the Conservatives with reductions to the GST and personal and corporate taxes that are set to total $200-billion by 2012.
After hitting highs of 18.4% of GDP in 1990-91 and 18.2% in 1997-98, government takings of personal, corporate, excise and "other" taxes, along with employment insurance premiums, have materially dropped.
"It may have seemed like a glacier at times, but we have seen a number of rounds of tax cuts since the start of the decade," says Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. "As well, employment insurance premiums have declined."
As Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, has repeatedly stressed, a good chunk of stimulus is still to come.
Past budget measures will reduce taxes by $31-billion in 2009-10 from 2006, or almost 2% of GDP -- precisely the amount of stimulus the International Monetary Fund recommended at the recent Group of 20 summit in Washington.
Much of the new stimulus over the next few years will come from cuts to corporate income taxes, which are set to drop to 15% by 2012, the lowest in the Group of Seven and a dramatic decline from the 22.12% rate that was in place in 2007.
Meanwhile, federal funding for provincial, territorial and municipal infrastructure projects in 2009-10 will be double its level in 2007-10.
In recent years, federal and provincial governments have handed out $10-billion to help the battered manufacturing sector get through its recent cataclysm, allowing companies to write off investment at preferential rates, outright subsidies for the auto and forestry sector, interest-free loans and fresh funds for research and technology development, including greentech.
Perhaps it is the fact that the bulk of stimulus in the pipeline is in the form of tax cuts that is offending the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois -- parties that have traditionally preferred governments to spend instead.
Well, we have had gobs of spending, too. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives alike have continued to spend well above the rate of inflation and population growth, one of the key reasons we now find ourselves at the door of deficits once again.
Program spending increases have averaged 7.3% since the budget was balanced in 1997-98, with the big outlays in transfers to the provinces for health care, education and the like.
The real question might be, why with all this stimulus isn't Canada producing blockbuster 7% growth instead of the steady 3% we have averaged in recent years?
The main reason is the Canadian dollar has thrown up a major roadblock, heaping added pain onto a manufacturing sector already beset by intense international pressure
and restraining export growth.
Luckily, cuts to the GST and personal income taxes have bolstered domestic demand, allowing the domestic economy to roll along and employment to stay strong. Canada is set to report third-quarter growth of about 1% today, while many of the major economies already have one foot in recession.
True, that is yesterday's news. The pink slips are set to rain down and though the Conservatives may continue to live in fiscal fantasyland, the deficits will inevitably pile up.
The question is how deep do Canadians want them to go? It is clear that no amount of fiscal stimulus can save an auto sector that is self-destructing, though Mr. Flaherty yesterday promised more "temporary" aid.
The best the government can do is try to ease the pain with funds for retraining, generous employment-insurance schemes -- already in place -- and perhaps aid for defunct pension plans.
The Bank of Canada can do some more heavy lifting by continuing to slash interest rates, which now stand at 2.25%, while Mr. Flaherty has pledged to keep credit channels open by buying up to $75-billion of insured mortgage pools from the banks. Canada will also ride the coattails of any U. S. stimulus that is announced.
The government could hand out $1,000 stimulus cheques to every Canadian in the land, which would temporarily boost spending; dish out more aid to failing industries or start building bridges across Lake Ontario, but the cost could be a renewed plunge into deficit we would only have to pay for later.
Better to stay the course, let the stimulus underway kick in and the inevitable economic turnaround gain traction.
Import
quote:
Originally posted by exstasie
I read an interesting article about Zimbabwe the other day and apparently they were in the same situation as the US with their banks going bankrupt, and they created their own version of TARP, which didn't work out to well if you don't manage the funds properly as we can see the kind of State that Zimbabwe is in right now.
I always thought I knew a lot of Canadian politics but I just don't understand. They say Harper is going to ask the GG to make perogies for the parliment and that will delay dealing with the crisis. I know perogies can be tasty but solving our political problems...someone please explain this to me.
I think the US has generated $15 Trillion (give or take a few Trillion according to analysts and this was of a week ago) in relief funds and other safety funds so far...
Obviously the government doesn't have this in cash lying around...i think an additional $15 Trillion might cause some inflationary instability.
I think the issues in the US are far greater than most people think!
Edit: PS. That 231,000,000% inflation increase was back in October 2008. I can't imagine what it is now 2 months later!
StereoPrincess
quote:
Originally posted by musicsnob_NOT
I always thought I knew a lot of Canadian politics but I just don't understand. They say Harper is going to ask the GG to make perogies for the parliment and that will delay dealing with the crisis. I know perogies can be tasty but solving our political problems...someone please explain this to me.
oh is that what that is.
Spam
quote:
Originally posted by ********
It is stable, eg 250 million isn't thrown out the window again. The Liberal led coalition has a better economic team also, a smaller cabinet, and more support both populus and in the house.
It is in all ways a better government. Harper repeatedly lies and has little if any forsight into the future of Canada, in the last few months he has made repeated blunders. His own party members are implicated in illegal, dishonourable or immoral activities, and he has given the banks $75 Billion after he stated they were fine and stable, and that the problems in the US woulnd't effect Canada, etc..
His double talk, and the impotence of his party is an issue for Canada, especially when tides are changing in the US, and he seems constantly winded.
Frankly the coalition government appears to be better able to strenghten the Canadian position, without compramising social ideals, or doing more damage to the economy than the conservatives would do.
This is not about only 1 issue, it is about many, and the most prevalent is that none of the other parties support a conservative government anymore and they, the coalition, are the majority.
Care to explain how the Coalition has a better economic team? Throwing billions of dollars at ailing manufacturing sectors who only have themselves to blame for the mess they're in isn't exactly what I would call "prudent" financial management.
Our economy IS stable compared to the rest of the developed world right now. Our economy is ailing as a result of the world economy crashing, not because of anything that Harper has decided to do/not do. There's NOTHING that we here in Canada could have done to stop the Americans/Europeans from giving away trillions of dollars of easy credit to people who couldn't afford it. And until all this bad credit gets cleared from the system, the economy is going to continue to suffer. This is what you could call a mass-market-correction. All these companies that thought they had money coming in have realized that "Oh , we DON'T have all this money coming in!" and so stocks need to adjust to reflect that reality, and companies need to adjust to save their bottom line.
The biggest problem OUR economy is facing right now is lowering commodity prices, and neither the CPC or the Coalition can do anything about that. In fact, there is very little that ANY government, ANYWHERE, can do to boost an economy, short of starting another World War. No amount of stimulus can make the general public start to spend their money, in fact more stimulus is more likely to prolong the suffering because it allows the inefficiencies in the system to continue for a longer period of time.
The decisions made by the CPC in the past 2 and a half years have nothing to do with the economy going to . In fact, they've already spent their first mandate preparing for this by lowering taxes, which is a much better way to input 'stimulus' into the economy than propping up inefficient, union-controlled companies and industries like the Liberals and NDP are set to do.
