[Proculation]

Pseudonym wrote:

Proculation wrote:

The problem is more: where will the government find the money to buy the oil companies that worth tens of billions

Since when has a lack of funds stopped government?

You really think bankers will easily loan hundreds of billions to a country so that it can nationalize it's oil industry ?

[dino_bobba_renno]

Proculation wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

Proculation wrote:

The problem is more: where will the government find the money to buy the oil companies that worth tens of billions

Since when has a lack of funds stopped government?

You really think bankers will easily loan hundreds of billions to a country so that it can nationalize it's oil industry ?

Why bother paying for them comrade, we could just pull a Chavez.

[Canadian_Mind]

new_west wrote:

Woah...cut a newbie some slack? First post people

Lemmy wrote:

Well, his spelling's better than his economics.

Anyways, another idea online was that to make state revenue from lotteries but I'd say that's an ethical gamble no one should deal with.

Is there any constructive criticism here on the original idea instead repetitive vitriol? By the way, you should attack the policy instead of the individual. I guess next time I'll post a dissertation before being torn to shreds . I'll do some more reading on fellow member "winnipegger" and his or her style of posts.

EDIT: Thank you for your respectful post Winnipegger.

I'm working to determine the aggregate revenue of the entire Canadian natural resource industry. The 2010 Stats Canada numbers haven't been released until the second half of 2011 I believe.

As I did some searching, I couldn't find a separate single category for all resources so I'll have to look around to find what I want. Oil and mining is together though and fishing, agriculture and forestry are under one group.

The first challenge is for me to come up with my own model on the financial benefits of nationalizing the resource sector.

Oh, I also agree that Alberta and other provinces won't give up their rights under Section 92 of the Canadian constitution so easily. In order to move the responsibility of "natural resources and the environment" from the province to the federal government, it would take a historic mandate (a large margin of victory) given to a new government. A electorate craving the abolishment of tax would give the new government the pretext to attempt constitutional amendment.

I'd say only a sacrificial lamb would go against the populist tide. While they are at it, might as well remove the Senate, remake the constitutional amendment formula to be instead a national referendum using the 50+1 rule.

I'd appreciate a healthy and robust discussion

This has been discussed to death since this forum was established.

Your idea would effectively end the economy, and we'd all be dirt poor, without healthcare, education, technology, etc.

You're an idiot if you think this'll work. Go read a few economics textbook, or even a maccleans article on the subject.

[Thanos]

Given what's happened in the US with thirty years of ill-advised and excessive tax cutting effectively destroying their revenue base I'd suggest that any further shenanigans and scheming with the Canadian tax system is an extremely bad idea.

I don't think it's anti-American bashing to now believe that we should always study closely what the Americans are doing at any given moment. And, in our own best national interest, then make the informed decision to do the exact opposite.

[Canadian_Mind]

Not necessarily the exact opposite. extremism leads to calamity. Learn from their mistake of going to the extremes and choosing a more moderate approach, IE what we've done for the past 30 years, is the best approach.

[Winnipegger]

new_west wrote:

EDIT: Thank you for your respectful post Winnipegger.

Thank you. Let's see, virtual wounds appear to be healing. My typing hands appear to work, all fingers back. My way of saying these guys can be viscous, we've all suffered. I learned to immediately provide references to backup my claims.

Quote:

I'd appreciate a healthy and robust discussion

Canada has several levels of government: federal, provincial, municipal (city), and school board. We don't have counties here in Manitoba, but for some arcane reason Ontario does. I don't see the point to counties, that's just an unnecessary extra level of bureaucracy. But each of the four primary levels of government has its own authority and responsibility. Rather than trying to fight it, just work with it. Resources are under the authority of provincial governments, so why not let the federal government get its money somewhere else?

From the title of this discussion, I assume you saw my proposal/discussion "Treat debt as a mortgage, once gone abolish income tax". That is a way to abolish federal personal income tax, but requires raising both GST and corporate income tax to what they were when the Harper Conservatives were elected in January 2006. Both corporate capital tax and corporate surtax will stay gone. There are a few other things necessary to balance the budget; they're listed in that discussion thread. There is a way to balance the budget keeping corporate income tax at 19% instead of raising it back to 21%, but the idea I have in mind could be controversial so I waited for someone to ask. Besides, paying off the debt will take several years so there is plenty of time to debate that, or find a third way to raise the remaining money necessary.

I have a way to abolish provincial personal income tax in Manitoba, but it only works in Manitoba. It involves shuffling taxes around a bit.

But your resource idea is actually being done, to a lesser extent, here in Manitoba. The provincial government owns the Hydro utility. They are siphoning off profits into provincial coffers, to keep provincial taxes down. The idea was to sell power to Americans, and use that profit to keep taxes down. But Manitoba citizens ensured we had 2 Hydro utilities: Manitoba Hydro owned by the provincial government, and Winnipeg Hydro owned by the city government. Both were profitable, but both kept rates down. If one tried to raise rates as a way to raise money without raising taxes (a hidden tax) then citizens would claim "that other level of government didn't, so why are you?" Playing off one level of government against another. This worked until mayor Glen Murray. He campaigned on a platform of not selling Winnipeg Hydro to the province, but then did exactly that. Manitoba Hydro quickly raised rates. Damn him! He then tried to run as a federal candidate, and lost soundly. Good riddance. In the early part of the 20th century (almost a century ago) Manitoba used to subsidize electricity as a means to draw business to this province. Before the monopoly both utilities had the lowest electricity rates on the continent, but were still profitable. Today rates are still relatively low, but have risen significantly. Rising rates will not attract business.

Manitoba has lots of water resources. In the 1970s (perhaps earlier) Manitoba Hydro mapped out several locations where additional dams could be built. We have enough power to replace 3 of the 4 coal burning power plants in Ontario, including the giant Nanticoke plant. From an environmental point of view this would be good. From an economic point of view, getting money from Ontario would help keep provincial taxes down. Manitoba should be able to abolish provincial corporate capital tax, and perhaps reduce other taxes with that.

::Edit:: spelling

[Winnipegger]

Thanos wrote:

Given what's happened in the US with thirty years of ill-advised and excessive tax cutting effectively destroying their revenue base I'd suggest that any further shenanigans and scheming with the Canadian tax system is an extremely bad idea.

I don't think it's anti-American bashing to now believe that we should always study closely what the Americans are doing at any given moment. And, in our own best national interest, then make the informed decision to do the exact opposite.

The problem in America has been excessive spending. They did succeed in balancing their federal budget in year 2000. The Clintons claimed they had a surplus in 1998, 1999, and 2000, but they raided the federal government employee pension fund. When you treat that as a loan that has to be repaid, they had a small deficit in 1998 and 1999, but they had actually had a tiny surplus in year 2000. Insignificant compared to their debt, but at least it wasn't a deficit. US military spending in year 2000 was $288 billion. I thought that was huge! Canadian military spending today is $18 billion. But military contractors whined that they didn't get the big fat contracts they had when Ronald Regan was president. George W. Bush pandered to these whiners, running up military spending and putting them back into a hole. Actually, the US recession started in the beginning of February 2001, just weeks after George W.'s inauguration. I worked for a Winnipeg firm that sold primarily to US customers, so we saw business drop off immediately.

As a comparison: US military spending for year 2000 = $288 billion
military + national security spending for year 2008 = $700 billion
military + national security spending for year 2009 (last budget passed by George W.) = $799 billion
military + national security spending for year 2010 (first passed by Obama) = $901 billion!!!!!
military + national security spending for year 2011 = $895 billion

Source for year 2000 budget figures: website of the US Congressional Budget Office
Source for year 2008 through 2011 budget figures: WallStats budget poster

Ronald Regan started his Star Wars program (actually called Strategic Defence Initiative) believing it would work. Most of the technologies didn't work, but it baited the Soviet Union into an arms race. It became a bet: let's see whose economy collapses first. The US won, it worked better than anyone could have expected. The Soviet economy collapsed, then their country collapsed. But that left the US with a $3 trillion debt! Well, better than world war 3. As long as they paid off the debt that was a good thing. But under George W. they fell into their own trap. They're military spending is 3 times what they can afford. They're spending themselves into bankruptcy. Obama hasn't been able to reduce military spending, so it's just a matter of time until the US economy collapses.

The conclusion here is their problems are not the result of cutting taxes, they're caused by excessive military spending.

[dino_bobba_renno]

Winnipegger wrote:

The US won, it worked better than anyone could have expected. The Soviet economy collapsed, then their country collapsed. But that left the US with a $3 trillion debt! Well, better than world war 3.

Sounds like they both lost. But you are right, better than WW3.

[Thanos]

WInipegger:

When the G.W. Bush tax cuts for the wealthy took $3 trillion out of the economy at exactly the same time he began his massive spending on the military and on the expansion of Medicare I'd have to suggest that tax cuts should be viewed as equally ill-advised as the spending binge was. So I have to stand by original assertation: smashing their revenue base to bits with thirty years worth of wrongly-targetted, ill-advised, or just outright wrong tax cuts has to be seen as deadly to the fiscal health of the United States as excessive spending has been.

And now they want to target almost all of the major spending cuts at those who benefit the least from the American style of crony capitalism. The (mythical) welfare queens who are destroying America must be finally exterminated but restoring upper class revenue to the tax rates of the 1990's would be worse than Stalinist Communism. Teacher's unions = bad. Bank Of America/Exxon/G.E./etc. not paying any taxes at all = good. Like I said going in the exact opposite direction as America goes would seem to me to be the sanest thing for the rest of the world, including Canada, to do right now, considering that the entirety of the American economy seems to be under the complete control of pirates, profiteers, and outright lunatics.

[DanSC]

This plan only works in Dubai

[Lemmy]

new_west wrote:

Is there any constructive criticism here on the original idea instead repetitive vitriol? By the way, you should attack the policy instead of the individual. I guess next time I'll post a dissertation before being torn to shreds

It's not vitriol, my good man, it's all good hearted. You're new and we're naturally testing of newbies. You need to earn your stripes here, so to speak. You've chosen to jump into the forum with a fairly bizarre and certainly crackpot scheme with which to introduce yourself. You can't show up to a party dressed in a pink rabbit suit and then get pissy when someone comments on your attire. I suspect you'll have to thicken your skin up some if you expect to enjoy your time here.

Welcome aboard from Southwestern Ontario.