[Lemmy]

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

I won't change your opinion but there is no way that you can change mine seeing what I have seen. I see jobs disappear and I rarely see any reappear. People are supposed tom start building ships here soon. NAFTA didn't help that but it very likely helped Irving import entire ships made in Asia and mothball a brand new line to build them in Canada.

You're still speaking anectdotally, not objectively. The statistics (jobs, employment, unemployment, per capita income, percentage labour force in service work, time searching for work, etc, etc, etc) and the professional research supports my position, refutes yours.

[smorgdonkey]

Per capita doesn't mean anything.

People losing jobs building cars are not replaced by Doctors being hired. That's a shell game.

[Lemmy]

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

Per capita doesn't mean anything.

It means average income, so it means at least one thing.

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

People losing jobs building cars are not replaced by Doctors being hired. That's a shell game.

Of course they aren't because if they were doctors, they wouldn't have been building cars in the first place.

[Unsound]

andyt andyt:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

Does a childcare policy that gives no breaks to couples where each earns less than 44k really make sense? Are these families not working class? How does the policy help these people stay home with the kids?

As a single guy with no kids, none of Harpers' tax breaks applied to me. Child tax credit, income splitting, RESPs - all a waste of time. I guess he really wasn't looking for my vote.

As single guys, nobody's going to go after our vote. I agree with policies that put money in the hands of people with kids who really need it. Eliminating child poverty would do nothing but good for the country. But the money has to go to those most in need first. Taking Unsound as an example, he says income splitting allowed him to buy a new furnace. Yet he's talking about buying a new Harley next year. I don't really want to be subsidizing somebody's Harley in the name of helping kids. (Sorry, Unsound, nothing personal.)

Dealing with child poverty helps all of us in reducing crime and health care costs. Subsidizing Harleys, not so much.

To be fair I believe I said I might look at a Harley. I look at lots of things. Doesn't mean I get them.

Fact is if it was up to me all these boutique credits and loopholes would be gone. I don't know the numbers but I'm sure we could dropma few points off tax rates without losing revenue if there weren't so many little slow to various demographics. But since they're they I'll take what I can get, cause I don't qualify for much.

And as far as the specific issue of income splitting I do tend to feel it's pretty fair. When it comes to things like daycare subsidies for eg. our family income is calculated as a whole, why should our tax burden not be treated the same way?

[andyt]

Because, as I said, it does nothing for low income or single parent families with kids, the ones that need the help the most. You want to help families with kids, make the child deduction much larger or make the child benefit much heftier. (that will also help parents with no taxable income.) That would still buy you that furnace, but also help those who are in no position to be buying furnaces at all.

[Jabberwalker]

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

Very little. However, as Mulroney did, I think he may have made it easy for people to like the next guy (as of yesterday, the current guy).

Chretien had the same effect on me.

[smorgdonkey]

Lemmy Lemmy:

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

Per capita doesn't mean anything.

It means average income, so it means at least one thing.

It means nothing when it comes to showing how NAFTA didn't create loss.

Lemmy Lemmy:

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

People losing jobs building cars are not replaced by Doctors being hired. That's a shell game.

Of course they aren't because if they were doctors, they wouldn't have been building cars in the first place.

Not only that but according to you, they are all dead or retired now.

NAFTA created loss. The jobs that you say replaced the jobs that were lost, were not created by NAFTA. If the jobs weren't created by NAFTA then what logic can possibly say that NAFTA didn't cause loss?

Lemmy Lemmy:

Healthcare, skilled trades (mechanics, service techs), transportation, computing/data, training, security, robotics, precision machining,

How did NAFTA create the jobs in any of those fields? They didn't.

A dude is sitting playing guitar on the corner and a guy walks by and drops a $5 note in the guitar case for him. A guy in a NAFTA shirt goes by and takes it. Ten minutes later a guy drops $10 in the guitar case for him. The guy in the NAFTA shirt still caused a $5 loss and had nothing to do with the $10 gain.

If someone was able to start a precision machining operation, then they were going to do it anyway. What about NAFTA would help them do it? Nothing.

[bootlegga]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Harper did have some good moments during his term. I can think of five significant accomplishments:
1. His handling the sub-prime crash was commendable, especially given that bailouts and stimulus spending go directly against his ideology;
2. Telling Putin to suck ass and attempting to flex sovereignty in the arctic, while symbolic, are essential to protecting Canadian interests in the region and establishing international recognition of our territorial boundaries;
3. The GST cut was an actual, tangible move to keep money in the pockets of low-income Canadians.
4. Income splitting is something I, personally, hope JT reconsiders. It's a benefit to working class, one-income families and, more importantly, it encourages Canadians to have a stay-home parent, which is absolutely one of the most important societal problems to have arisen in our country over the past 40 years.
5. New trade deals. The world is a global economy and no amount of protectionism or ideological grandstanding on our part will change that.

Too bad Harper's term in office had so many failures that outshine the good his government did, but credit where credit is due.

I'll give you 1, 2 & 5, but I didn't care for the other two as #3 practically created a structural deficit and #4 was geared to pander to his political base, not any socio-economic benefits.

I've always said I really liked that he reined in income trusts too - if not, we'd be in a situation where damned near every corporation would probably be an income trust and corporate taxes would be almost zero.

[Lemmy]

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

It means nothing when it comes to showing how NAFTA didn't create loss.

Any one stat tells us very little. All of them together paint a picture. The notion that NAFTA caused workers to lose out is pooh-poohed when we look at the stats today, 25 years into the deal, and see that unemployment hasn't risen and average income has.

smorg smorg:

Not only that but according to you, they are all dead or retired now.

Those most affected by NAFTA are dead or retired. Those were the 50-somethings who worked in factories their whole lives and did lose their jobs when plants closed and hadn't the skills to find work elsewhere. But that cost was borne in the early days of the deal. And we knew, going into freetrade that there would be initial costs and hardships. But those are ancient history now.

smorg smorg:

NAFTA created loss. The jobs that you say replaced the jobs that were lost, were not created by NAFTA. If the jobs weren't created by NAFTA then what logic can possibly say that NAFTA didn't cause loss?

But jobs WERE created by NAFTA. That's fact. It's easy fact to check by looking at the statistics (the ones you keep ignoring). Free trade did cause loss, just not net loss. The benefits of NAFTA far outweighed the costs. Domestic businesses grew as a result of access to the huge American market. New businesses sprung up and offered employment opportunities. Furthermore, those new jobs were cleaner and better paying than the ones lost. I seriously can't believe you're arguing that NAFTA didn't create jobs.

smorg smorg:

How did NAFTA create the jobs in any of those fields? They didn't.

By providing opportunity to access the US market. And it worked! Arguing it didn't, again, isn't arguing with me, it's arguing against facts.

smorg smorg:

A dude is sitting playing guitar on the corner and a guy walks by and drops a $5 note in the guitar case for him. A guy in a NAFTA shirt goes by and takes it. Ten minutes later a guy drops $10 in the guitar case for him. The guy in the NAFTA shirt still caused a $5 loss and had nothing to do with the $10 gain.

That's a ridiculous analogy.

smorg smorg:

If someone was able to start a precision machining operation, then they were going to do it anyway. What about NAFTA would help them do it? Nothing.

WRONG! Such an operation may not have been profitable in the small, closed Canadian economy where trade barriers made it prohibitive to compete with foreign competitors in the same field. But remove the barriers and now there's opportunity for the Canadian firm to compete in the big waters and have access to 300M new customers.

You're off the rails and out of your element, dude. You need to take some economics courses because you're arguing against the conclusions that are consensus among professional economists who study this stuff for real instead of making up guitar pan-handling anecdotes as proof of free-trade's failure.

[smorgdonkey]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Any one stat tells us very little. All of them together paint a picture. The notion that NAFTA caused workers to lose out is pooh-poohed when we look at the stats today, 25 years into the deal, and see that unemployment hasn't risen and average income has.

If the jobs hadn't been lost in manufacturing, average income would be up higher and unemployment would be lower.

Lemmy Lemmy:

But that cost was borne in the early days of the deal. And we knew, going into freetrade that there would be initial costs and hardships. But those are ancient history now.

Canada has lost an auto plant in the past few years, that's not ancient history.

Lemmy Lemmy:

You're off the rails and out of your element, dude. You need to take some economics courses because you're arguing against the conclusions that are consensus among professional economists who study this stuff for real instead of making up guitar pan-handling anecdotes as proof of free-trade's failure.

I only have read things that conclude otherwise. There are still jobs being lost here.

Lemmy Lemmy:

By providing opportunity to access the US market. And it worked! Arguing it didn't, again, isn't arguing with me, it's arguing against facts.

Most of the access to the US market is for raw materials. That isn't clean 'better' work. You still didn't tell me how NAFTA created those jobs in health care.

The 'facts' as you call them, is just data on paper. Applied in the real world is something that I think you are off the rails and out of your element in. As so often happens in life, academics interpret data and people outside in the real world see the truth. Your entire argument reminds me of this prof who was on the radio last week discussing a topic which he is a recognized expert in and who was commissioned to do a study on. He stated 2 facts which were completely incorrect on and suggested another point which was incredibly misleading. Data on paper is thin and fragile.

Once again, I completely disagree with you and you are going to continue to completely disagree with me. If you can find any article which shows me any direct correlation between NAFTA and job gains then feel free. I would love to see it.

[Lemmy]

smorgdonkey smorgdonkey:

Once again, I completely disagree with you and you are going to continue to completely disagree with me. If you can find any article which shows me any direct correlation between NAFTA and job gains then feel free. I would love to see it.

Do your own homework. I don't care what you believe. You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with facts. I've said that for the last time. Believe whatever makes you feel good.

Nice guitar collection, though. BTW, if you spend a little more money, you can get them with bindings, gold hardware, etc...

[smorgdonkey]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Do your own homework. I don't care what you believe. You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with facts. I've said that for the last time. Believe whatever makes you feel good.

Everything that I see says I am right and everything that I can find says that I am right.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/naftas-dep ... cy/5364731

Believing it doesn't make me feel good. NAFTA ripped off the regular people in Canada and helped the rich (no surprise).


I am not disagreeing with facts...you are interpreting data. the same way that someone can say "unemployment is down" when there are just less people actively looking for work.

Lemmy Lemmy:

Nice guitar collection, though. BTW, if you spend a little more money, you can get them with bindings, gold hardware, etc...

Normally I wouldn't say anything...but it seems to me, Mr Prof that you missed the binding and the gold hardware in the picture.

That's ok. I am used to you missing the nuances and just hitting the raw part of the data.

[Thanos]

I really liked how the omnibus "Canadian Armed Forces" description was brought to an end, and how the three branches given back their own separate command structures. I also really approved of how the air force and the navy were given back the words "Royal Canadian" to their names in order to restore the connection to Britain and the Commonwealth that the Canadian military operated under for most of their history. It was a good overturning of what Pierre Trudeau did to the military with his antipathy towards Britain, and it restored a lot of esprit de corps for the people serving.

[Sunnyways]

The good stuff was a continuation of Martin's work on banks and the economy. The bad stuff was the marginalization of Parliament which is deepening the trend started by the previous Trudeau and made worse by everybody since. I hope JT can do something to reverse this.

We also need to redevelop the Canadian consensus on foreign policy. We need a united front to the world.

[Sunnyways]

Thanos Thanos:

I really liked how the omnibus "Canadian Armed Forces" description was brought to an end, and how the three branches given back their own separate command structures. I also really approved of how the air force and the navy were given back the words "Royal Canadian" to their names in order to restore the connection to Britain and the Commonwealth that the Canadian military operated under for most of their history. It was a good overturning of what Pierre Trudeau did to the military with his antipathy towards Britain, and it restored a lot of esprit de corps for the people serving.

That's really going backwards. Most Canadians have no clue about contemporary Britain, nor should they. The U.K. Is a completely foreign country with its own agenda. The rushed legislation over succession showed the problems inherent in this relationship.