[2Cdo]

Thanos Thanos:

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

What a stupid article. Completely fabricated divisive tripe. Sure there are people Alberta got hit hard. Those people are known as "assholes."

Yeah, everybody that's hurting is an asshole.

I honestly thought you were better than that.

99.99999% sure that there was one of Zippy's trademark typos in there, like he forgot to put "who are glad" in the third sentence, as in "Sure, there are people who are glad Alberta got hit hard.". That's probably the extent of it. I've known him for over ten years now and he just isn't that kind of a black-hearted or malicious person. He might have been pissed and/or high when he was typing but there's nothing else more fucked up than that in what he intended to say.

Possibly, if so I will apologize to zip for thinking he was like the andy types.

[Thanos]

Someone should PM him to put down the bong and get his arse over here to respond.

[PluggyRug]

andyt andyt:

It's not as if all of Ontario's manufacturing is dead. Firms still around will be able to ramp up quickly as our low dollar makes them more competitive. Manufacturing widgets, that's gone, it's leaving China as well. But there's the more high quality stuff we can still compete in.

I'd like to see it happen in Ontario. Unfortunately we are stuck with a {business blind} provincial government and too high electricity costs.

I can also feel for those who have [or will] lose there jobs...been there, done that.

[andyt]

Exactly. Ontario went thru it as well. Didn't hear much sympathy from Albertans at the time. Shoe's just on the other foot.

Rightwingers. Sheesh. When Ontario has a downturn because of the recession, globalization and our pretrodollar, well that's the fault of that damn provincial liberal government. If they were just more business friendly, Ontario would still be riding high.

Now that Alberta has hit the skids, somehow this is still the fault of those damn liberals everywhere, instead of a globally determined oil price, an industry that was determined to just ship raw product to the US to make the quickest buck, and a conservative government that was running deficits even in boom times because apparently Albertans have all the economic maturity and forsight of a three year-old.

[Unsound]

andyt andyt:

Exactly. Ontario went thru it as well. Didn't hear much sympathy from Albertans at the time.

You may not have been talking to the right Albertans...

Or maybe you were. Who knows? Kind of a chicken and egg situation. What came first, the angry arrogant rich Albertan or the smug superior condescending Ontarian (or British Columbian)?

[andyt]

The arrogant Ontarian and British Columbian, since I believe they had good times before Alberta did. We seem to only have one shoe we keep trading back and forth.

[Jabberwalker]

The type of manufacturing that is/will be done in Ontario has fundamentally changed and but never will go back to where it was. Not so long ago, the appliances in our kitchens (remember the ones that lasted for a quarter century?) were from companies like Inglis in Toronto, Proctor Sylex in Belleville, General Electric in Oakville. Mattel toys and games used to come from here as did CCM bicycles and sports gear, sail boats of all kinds, gardening and yard stuff like Spacemaker barbeques, furniture, mattresses, Black and Decker power tools, Husky hand tools, ... on and on. Every one of the above list have disappeared forever, mostly in the early part of this century.

We will never, ever go back there and electrical rates are not the issue. What is the issue here (and everywhere else in the developed world) is whether you and your fellow workers are willing to live at the same level of consumption as a Chinese peasant. Perhaps, you can blame Wynne for not wanting to preside over a Third World country but that is a bit of a stretch. Any manufacturing that starts up now, here, better be very flexible and capable of doing custom runs (the Chinese are weak at "quick and innovative")or something that requires a lot of smarts from lot-to-lot. If, for example, all of those nuclear scientists over at AECL would remove all of their heads from their collective arses and come up with an inexpensive nuclear power plant that could be mass produced on assembly lines and shipped around the World, the spin-off from such an enterprise could sustain hundreds of thousands of Ontarians.

[andyt]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

If, for example, all of those nuclear scientists over at AECL would remove all of their heads from their collective arses and come up with an inexpensive nuclear power plant that could be mass produced on assembly lines and shipped around the World, the spin-off from such an enterprise could sustain hundreds of thousands of Ontarians.

Didn't Toshiba already do that? They offered Nanaimo a 10MW(I think) reactor that could be buried in the ground, set and forgotten. Nanaimo didn't want it.

$1:

The technical specifications of the 4S reactor are unique in the nuclear industry.[2] The actual reactor would be located in a sealed, cylindrical vault 30 m (98 ft) underground, while the building above ground would be 22×16×11 m (72×52.5×36 ft) in size. This power plant is designed to provide 10 megawatts of electrical power with a 50 MW version available in the future.[3]

[Jabberwalker]

I would say that marketing is the problem. Want to reduce atmospheric carbon? Who makes the safest reactors on the planet?

AECL is all "boffins" and engineers. If they have any marketing people, they're spending all their time bribing the VERY few Third Word potentates out there who want reactors but don't want to make nuclear weapons.

[Zipperfish]

Thanos Thanos:

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

What a stupid article. Completely fabricated divisive tripe. Sure there are people Alberta got hit hard. Those people are known as "assholes."

Yeah, everybody that's hurting is an asshole.

I honestly thought you were better than that.

99.99999% sure that there was one of Zippy's trademark typos in there, like he forgot to put "who are glad" in the third sentence, as in "Sure, there are people who are glad Alberta got hit hard.". That's probably the extent of it. I've known him for over ten years now and he just isn't that kind of a black-hearted or malicious person. He might have been pissed and/or high when he was typing but there's nothing else more fucked up than that in what he intended to say.

Yup. One of my famous typos! Sorry. Mildly intoxicated at best.

[Zipperfish]

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Possibly, if so I will apologize to zip for thinking he was like the andy types.

No need, my bad. And you were right when you said "I honestly thought you were better than that." Turns out, I am!

[2Cdo]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Possibly, if so I will apologize to zip for thinking he was like the andy types.

No need, my bad. And you were right when you said "I honestly thought you were better than that." Turns out, I am!

Fucking smartass.

On a good note, have some work starting Friday that looks to be at least a couple of weeks straight.

[Gunnair]

Unsound Unsound:

andyt andyt:

Exactly. Ontario went thru it as well. Didn't hear much sympathy from Albertans at the time.

You may not have been talking to the right Albertans...

Or maybe you were. Who knows? Kind of a chicken and egg situation. What came first, the angry arrogant rich Albertan or the smug superior condescending Ontarian (or British Columbian)?

On my Island, we aren't so much condescending as stoned or drunk on craft beer.

Wait a minute, I have to mow the lawn this weekend.

Okay, yes, we're a little bit condescending and smug....

[wildrosegirl]

Yogi Yogi:

Sure a lot of folks got hit hard. Some moreso than others. The majority of their financial problems are of their own doing. When you are making 10 k/mo you don't spend 10k/mo! Put some of it away. Do you really need an $85,000 5th wheel/Mastercraft speed boat/couple of seadoo's, matching Harley Davidsons/ Big old E350 with all the gadgets, $500,000 home? The list goes on. If they didn't have the common sense to plan for this at all then I too have no sympathy for them. The oil industry is cyclical. Always has been always will be. One of my relatives is going thru bankrupty right now. Again! He is 69 yrs old. Selling his house & they have taken a job managing apartment complex. His motto WAS, "Nothing but the best"!

Bingo. The majority of the ones that lose everything in a crash are the ones guilty of a lack of planning and piss poor money management. Live within your means (not within your finance limit at the bank) and plan for it! Everyone should know by now that history repeats itself, and economics is no different. When times are good, bloody well plan for the bad times and stay ahead of it instead of pissing it all away and then crying the blues after it's too late. That being said, the other thing that repeats itself it "shit happens" and we can't safeguard ourselves against everything, but a hell of a lot more people certainly could. Many simply can't be bothered.

[JaredMilne]

wildrosegirl wildrosegirl:

Bingo. The majority of the ones that lose everything in a crash are the ones guilty of a lack of planning and piss poor money management. Live within your means (not within your finance limit at the bank) and plan for it! Everyone should know by now that history repeats itself, and economics is no different. When times are good, bloody well plan for the bad times and stay ahead of it instead of pissing it all away and then crying the blues after it's too late. That being said, the other thing that repeats itself it "shit happens" and we can't safeguard ourselves against everything, but a hell of a lot more people certainly could. Many simply can't be bothered.

You're quite right, but that also applies to Alberta as a whole. As a province, we could be doing a better job of safeguarding ourselves against the ups and downs of oil prices, and that was in fact what Peter Lougheed had in mind when he created the Heritage Savings Trust Fund back in the 1970s.

Lougheed is the best there was, the best there is, and the best there ever will be in terms of Alberta leaders.

However, his legacy has largely been pissed away, and now we're stuck in a cycle of huge spending when times are good, focusing only on the short term, and then wailing and cursing ourselves whenever times turn bad, praying for another oil boom and promising that we won't piss it away. However, when the price of oil goes back up, we then go back to spending.

The problem is that anyone who suggests either cutting our sacred cows, including subsidies to the oil and gas industry through royalty rebate programs or the subsidies to the horse racing industry as well as education and health care, or raising taxes so we aren't reliant on oil and gas for so much of our budget, is viciously attacked as a tax-and-spend socialist, hating business and success, and even being un-Albertan in some cases.

You don't have to be a socialist to think this. Here's Brent Rathgeber's take on the issue:

$1:

Which brings us to today’s lesson: if we were just a little bit more responsible in the good times, we wouldn’t face such drastic consequences in the bad times.

In Alberta, Peter Lougheed used to preach about investing Alberta’s energy windfalls into the Heritage and Savings Trust Fund, to be reserved for a rainy day and for future generations when all of the oil had been extracted.

He referred to the royalties as a windfall; more recent “conservative” governments have grown dependent on energy royalties—in some years they comprise nearly one quarter of all provincial revenue.

Equally damaging, almost irresponsible, has been the Alberta business community. With so much opportunity in the energy sector, few entrepreneurs felt the need to look elsewhere. The result is an almost tragically undiversified economy with an overreliance on one sector and the resultant inability to insulate oneself from the invariable volatility in commodity prices.

The federal treasury has been equally irresponsible. 2009-2010 yielded an actual deficit of $55.6 Billion, the largest in Canadian history. Six years after the admittedly serious recession of 2008, Canada was still adding a deficit of $5.2 Billion to our national debt.

There is a bumper sticker in Alberta that reads: “Dear God—I pray the next time there is a boom, I promise not to p**s it all away”; yet we always seem to.

But in the reality of economic and employment uncertainty lie the seeds of economic and employment opportunity. Facing my own uncertain employment future forces me to consider all options including the possibility of multiple part time employment contracts. This “diversification” reduces the risk of placing “all eggs in one basket”.

We must consider all opportunities, vet all options, diversify the Alberta economy and most importantly, develop truly conservative fiscal policies in both good and bad economic times.

What most people don't realize, likely including the people themselves who are saying these things, is that a lot of what Lougheed and Rathgeber are saying has been talked about for decades byeconomists like Harold Innis and Mel Watkins, the latter of whom has been involved with the NDP for decades. Innis and Watkins both talked about the "staples theory" and the "staples trap", or the economic issues that can come up when an economy becomes overly reliant on one particular staple.

Innis used the examples of wheat or lumber, but in Alberta's case it's oil. Keep in mind that Rathgeber, a conservative if there ever was one, is criticizing the business community for letting itself get caught up in the staples economy. It's not unlike how Tom Mulcair has been saying things that could have come out of the mouths of Lougheed or Preston Manning.

And again, we have still more evidence for my belief that there's a lot more common ground among Canadians than most of us realize...