Alberta's debt soars past $100B, stoking angst in government ranks | CBC News

But I thought the UCP was going to return sanity to the books and undo the wild spending of the arch-socialist Notley.

You obviously have no idea how politics work.

The fun part was watching some of the hardcores squirm when the message was "no new taxes now" instead of the usual "no new taxes ever". A revenue crisis can't be put off forever, not when the other provinces all have sales taxes and haven't experienced the same catastrophe that Alberta has. If anything the twin demons of the oil collapse and COVID have succeeded in accomplishing one good, and that's in forever disgracing the nonsensical conservative boilerplate that minor to moderate tax increases would be an economy-killer.

Going against the grain is cool and edgy and quasi-rebellious in a fun way. Perpetually swimming against the tide though? That only gets someone killed because the tide always wins eventually, even against the strongest swimmers. I doubt Kenney will cave in any time soon, not with the real radicals in the UCP now openly mouthing off and dissenting on a more frequent basis as the heap of their governmental failures grows higher every day. A year from now though? Anything can happen, and is probably long overdue to happen anyway. Keep it up much longer though with an economic plan that's just some warmed-up crap from the 1990's and this province will be a permanent casualty of a worthless ideology.

As the image above shows, we could increase taxes by $7 billion per year and still be the lowest tax province in the country by a huge margin.

Imagine if we had the same taxes as those Marxist-Leninists in Saskatchewan - our deficit would be $3 billion, not $18 billion.

Things that makes you go hmmm....

I'd like to believe that any sales tax revenue would be equally split between program services and debt reduction. Under today's sort of conservative management though it would be far more likely put towards opening another coal mine or building another pipeline to nowhere again.

Infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure.

Any economist will tell you the best bang for the buck to grow an economy is infrastructure. Companies don't give two shits about public debt. They care about whether they can get power, water, sewer and roads so they can produce and ship product. That brings in taxes.

Why is Nairobi the biggest city in Africa? Infrastructure. Why is Djbouti such a shithole? No infrastructure.

Take Texas for example . . . . Yes, I went there.

Our homegrown conservatives would tell you that our success is due to Devine Intervention.

Infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure.

Any economist will tell you the best bang for the buck to grow an economy is infrastructure. Companies don't give two shits about public debt. They care about whether they can get power, water, sewer and roads so they can produce and ship product. That brings in taxes.

Why is Nairobi the biggest city in Africa? Infrastructure. Why is Djbouti such a shithole? No infrastructure.

Take Texas for example . . . . Yes, I went there.
Ok lets take Texas for example. As of Nov 2020, 35 high tech companies have moved to or built new facilities in Austin TX. That is just Austin, just one city in Texas. They aint moving to Alberta, and they aint moving to Canada. I seriously doubt that you had 35 high tech companies relocate to your entire country last year. Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Tesla among others are calling the lone star state home now. Most of them are fleeing that socialist paradise of California. If they are fleeing socialism and big government, then they are NOT coming your way. I bet that a lot more Canadians are looking for work in Texas than the other way around.

The power went out for a couple of days in some parts of Texas. Big whoop. Shit happens. Power outages happen all over the world. I do not recall you lefties taking commie California to task when they were going through rolling blackouts a few years back. That lasted a lot longer than a couple of days. How about the time that commie New York City went black in the middle of the day and everyone had to walk home? All the posts on here was about poor California, poor New York. They were victims. They did not deserve what was happening to them, yet somehow Texas does. I call bullshit!!! Certain regions of Canada have lost the power for several days. I never seen anyone saying that they had it coming unless it was Alberta. Somehow they deserve every famine or pestilence that is sent their way. I expect their river to turn red any day now.

The people of Texas are tough, independent people. They can handle a few days without power. They will never be whining for big government to come wipe their asses for them. They did not get where they are by being a bunch of pussies. Every region has had power outages before. Snowstorms, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, you name it. Tough independent people who fought for their independence against overwhelming odds, formed their own country, and later joined the U.S. of their own free will are NEVER going to turn into a bunch of spineless leftwing pussies now matter how much you lefties want them to. Their hardships and tribulations are like a badge of honor to them. Whatever they have, they got on their own. The U.S. government did not bail out Texas against Santa Anna, and they are not bailing them out now. Returning SOME off the money that Texas has sent east through their oil revenues is NOT a bailout. If the left demanded that it be called a bailout, than the good people of Texas would refuse the money. The U.S. is LUCKY to have Texas as a member state, not the other way around.

You might want to compare your unemployment rate against Texas, your cost of living against Texas, your weather against Texas, etc., etc., Texas pretty much blows Alberta out of the water in EVERY way. NO corporation is picking Alberta over Texas. NONE!!! Not even in the bizarro world.

Absorb, a leading LMS developer moved to Calgary.
mCloud did too, it chose Calgary over Perth, Atlanta and SF.


Lets not think Texas is the end all be all.

Calgary places as a better place to live for quality of life over any of your Texan cities.
Crime is much lower here too.

Try again.

You couldn't pay me enough to work and live in Texas.

Texas is a great place. There's people flocking there for a large number or reasons, including because Democratic strongholds like California have become so over-regulated, overly-woke, and joyless to live in that going to a place like Texas is the only way to live freely. Fuck, if I had the resources and enough youth left Texas is exactly the sort of place I'd like to relocate to.

Texas's only drawback, just like in far too many other American states, is that the culture war/games played by Republicans over the last forty years have put their political party of vultures, plunderers, and hatemongers into perpetual dominance. Mix economic Darwinism and intolerant hate-filled religion together and an unending social crisis develops sooner rather than later, and has a nasty tendency to never go away. That's why Ted Cruz, Dan Patrick, and Greg Abbott really have nothing to worry about, no matter how badly they've behaved and botched their duties as elected representatives. The poison their party specializes in has rendered the ground so toxic that the only thing capable of growing there are shit-weeds like them.

But why did this particular outage happen in Texas and what will be done to stop it happening again?




I don’t think governments can be blamed for bad weather, at least not in the short-term.

Well firstly, I didn't compare Texas to Alberta. But if I did, I would compare cost of living, and quality of life, longevity and overall health. Unemployment is moot, because States only report people looking for work, not those who have stopped. Alberta reports everyone who can work, and who isn't. Apples and golf balls.

And yes, absolutely every place has wide spread power outages due to weather. Except Alberta. And BC. And Saskatchewan. See, we winterize things, and put our power lines underground in most places.

As for fierely independent States, I'm sure Alaskans were looking at Texas sideways last week.

As for the rest, I invoke my policy of not defending arguments I haven't made.

This is total apples and oranges - you can't compare companies moving HQs within the States to companies moving to a foreign country in the middle of a pandemic. That's like me saying, "Well Texas must suck because Wattpad's HQ moved to Halifax, not Dallas." See how asinine that sounds?

FWIW, foreign investment in Canada is strong, and according to survey after survey, more people are happier and healthier living in this socialist paradise then they are living anywhere in the USA. And the brain drain to the USA has changed to a brain drain to Canada in recent years:

https://www.cicnews.com/2020/07/u-s-imm ... #gs.uwodfc

Maybe Biden will in policies that change that, maybe not.

The problem with a lot of Americans is that all socialism is bad, when in fact, it's not, just like all capitalism isn't evil. Like politics, economies work best when they take a middle of the road approach.






Of course Texans didn't deserve the blackout, or the death and chaos caused by it, but it was a near certainty because Texas ignored a 2011 report that recommended winterizing the power grid after several smaller events in Texas. Because of their 'go-it-alone' attitude, the state also lacked inter-ties to the rest of the CONTINENT'S grid so that they could get power from less-affected areas.

Yet on the other side of the state line, Oklahoma faced far fewer and shorter power disruptions because they had winterized their grid and were connected to the rest of us socialists. No other southern states suffered the way Texas did due to the extreme cold. Hell, places like El Paso which aren't on the Texas grid, had no major long term power disruptions.

The question is will Texas heed that report now? Based on past history, probably in a half-assed way, if at all because that will cost money and increase prices.

On the other hand, California meanwhile faced rolling blackouts because a combination of drought and power lines were causing massive forest fires. So, to prevent more fires (with economic losses and human suffering), they instituted rolling blackouts to reduce the chance of wildfires.

Apples and oranges...





Tell that to the families of the 30 or so Texans who died - I'd be willing to bet at least some of them would disagree with you.

* edited for spelling