Canada's economy in 2007
Newsbot @ Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:20 am
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="/article/235929866-canadas-economy-in-2007" target="_blank">Canada's economy in 2007 </a>
<strong>Category:</strong> <a href="/topics/44-economy" target="_blank">Economy</a>
<strong>Written By: </strong> <a href="/profiles/N Say" target="_blank">N Say</a>
<strong>Date: </strong> Thursday, April 10 at 19:45<br><br>
Thanks largely to the money earned from resources, Canada defied the conventional wisdom and was able to overcome several obstacles to steady economic growth, according to a study released today in the <em>Canadian Economic Observer</em>.<br><a href="/article/235929866-canadas-economy-in-2007">read more >></a>
RPW @ Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:20 am
Let me see now:
foreign companies come in, exploit resources, ship same out of country, send profits out of country, leave behind a few miserable wages (for some), and a few taxes (very little), and we actually rejoice over the few crumbs they leave on the table?
It's called spending one's capital -- and what compounds this ludicrousness is that we then take these crumbs and send them out of the country for the food we are used to having, and the baubles we think we enjoy.
Where is our "rainy day" account?
http://www.norway.org.au/policy/pensionfund.htm
Where is the reserve to deal with "Tar Ponds West"?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tarponds/
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/cam ... -pollution
Ed Deak @ Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:07 am
So called "economists" should take a few elementary business accounting courses that also feature "liabilities " and "debits".
As I wrote before, what started me of into economics was one sentence by Herman Daly in the early '80s: "In economics everything goes on, nothing comes off!"
As RPW says, and I have also been writing for many years, any business running on presently used economic calculations would go bust in no time.
The sale of resources is not an income. StatsCan reports the dismantling of factories and the sale, or removal of their production machinery abroad, as "machinery exports".....the list of their idiocies goes on and on.
Increased sales of anything, especiallly of imports, like flat screen TVs, are not necessarily economic benefits, indeed, could be very harmful to any economy and the ecology. E.g. There are no longer any repair facilities in many towns and locations for the repair of electronic equipment. When something breaks, it goes into the dump and people are forced to buy new.
A couple of years ago my 4 year old computer was beginning to act up, so I went to Staples to see what to replace it with? When the saleswoman heard that I had a 4 year old one, she was surprised and said: "Nowadays they build them to last only 1-2 years on account of the technical advances".
Well, I needed no technical advances, so I had a friend build me a simple one with super heavy duty parts, that cost me less than a store bought one.
Our partner is a highly trained, Swiss master mechanic and we have his shop on our land, where he repairs everything from chainsaws to the biggest logging equipment.
I'm driving a 1980 truck, with an easily accessible and repairable engine and was looking at some of the new trucks and cars with their hoods up and couldn't even see the engine, so I asked him what it was all about ? He said: "Unnecessary garbage!"
Our whole life is filled with "unnecessary garbage", but it jacks up the GDP and our braindead economists can report "growth", while the world is going down the drain and into self destruction, but as one of their prophets, Julian Simonm said: "Humanity always managed to find new resources and solve problems", so everything is allright, while they're calling the worst cases of waste and environmental destruction "efficiency", because some crooks make lots of profits. Even when it goes out of the country.
Will humanity ever wake up and smell the rot of fraud, before it commits suicide ?
Even if the criminal theories taught in our universities not only legalize, but approve and urge this crime wave to go on and on, while calling it a "science".
Ed Deak. Big Lake, BC.
C.M. Burns @ Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:49 am
RPW RPW:
Where is our "rainy day" account?
No kidding!
We had a $14 billion surplus but Harper gave it away:
$1:
"Perhaps the biggest surprise was Mr. Flaherty's commitment to cut the corporate income tax rate deeper than planned, from its current 22.1% to 15% in 2012, at a cost of $14-billion. The rate was set to drop to 18.5% by 2012."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Story.html?id=66880
<b>A 15% Corporate Tax Rate????? There aren't words to express my anger.</b>
$1:
In 1989, the House of Commons unanimously resolved to eliminate poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000. Last year, one million Canadian children, or nearly one in six, were still poor. Aboriginal people are disproportionately affected.
$1:
Eighteen years after the 1989 all-party resolution of the House of Commons to end child poverty in Canada the rate is exactly the same, says a new report from Campaign 2000. Despite a growing economy, a soaring dollar and low unemployment, Statistics Canada data shows the after-tax child poverty rate is 11.7%, exactly where it was when all federal parties decided action was urgently needed.
The 2007 National Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada shows that 788,000 children live in poverty in Canada. A startling 41% of low-income children live in families with at least one parent working full-time all year yet do not earn enough to lift their families out of poverty. The risk of living in poverty is not the same for all children. Poverty hits children in racialized, First Nations and recent immigrant communities much more often.
"The report is called It Takes a Nation to Raise a Generationbecause we are calling on the federal government to step up to the plate with a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy," said Ann Decter, National Coordinator of Campaign 2000, releasing the document in Ottawa today. "The federal government has the fiscal resources if they don’t give them away in general, across the board tax cuts."
The 2007 National Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada shows that 788,000 children live in poverty in Canada. A startling 41% of low-income children live in families with at least one parent working full-time all year yet do not earn enough to lift their families out of poverty. The risk of living in poverty is not the same for all children. Poverty hits children in racialized, First Nations and recent immigrant communities much more often.
"The report is called It Takes a Nation to Raise a Generationbecause we are calling on the federal government to step up to the plate with a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy," said Ann Decter, National Coordinator of Campaign 2000, releasing the document in Ottawa today. "The federal government has the fiscal resources if they don’t give them away in general, across the board tax cuts."
http://www.fsatoronto.com/media/release ... t2007.html
Ed Deak @ Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:13 pm
Children, or workers are not "producers", so they don't deserve any favours.
The only "producers" are the "investors", especially the "foreign direct investors" who badly need all the benefits so they can "create wore wealth".
Ask any economist.
Ed Deak.
Ed Deak @ Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:23 am
There's another aspect nobody, especially no economists, or politicians, dare to talk about: Is buying on credit an economic benefit, or a liability?
We all have to buy certain things on credit and this has been going on forever, but when, at what point and percentage, does credit become a killing factor on an economy?
Buying things is supposed to be a trade, or an exchange of goods, or services. The purpose of money is to represent valuable assets for the purpose of real trade.
But now, we have the free money creation powers of the banks and the whole world is flooded with non existing, worthless monies buying real goods. Is this still trade, or any form of real economy?
Living in the boondocks, we have to have some credit cards, but hardly have anything on them and we pay them off right away. Yet, our credit limits are raised, as they are for hundreds of millions of people, every year, putting them into deeper and deeper debt. Hardly anybody has any savings, and when people are buying things on debt that doesn't represent real trade, but non existing, imaginary values, economists and politicians still account it as "sales" and "growth".
Like I say, the biggest con game and racket in history.
Ed Deak.
Diogenes @ Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:19 am
to add to Ed's post
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/ ... rd-repeat/
Be sure to read the responses too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM28fh4QJtw
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... edit/view/
RPW @ Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:06 pm
Canada's "boom" (the operative word at any rate):
http://www.hour.ca:80/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=13415
Ed Deak @ Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:06 pm
One of the best examples that wealth can not be created, only taken.
This kind of idiocy has been going on for a million years, yet humanity still hasn't learned the lessons, now university subjects for self destruction.
Ed Deak.