Alberta's Katrina

Report exposes flaws in Alta. disaster response

Tories asleep at the railway switch.

Nope no plan. We are a petroleum producing province, have been since 1945 that means we deal with many kinds of toxic's and hazardous wastes. We have a toxic/hazardous waste plant operating in Northern Alberta since 1984. And we don't have an emergency plan to deal with toxic spills or accidents with hazardous goods. Even though the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act has been law in Canada since the 1980's.

Nope guess thats another business the government wasn't in the business of. Hoping the private sector would take up the slack, self regulation and all that. Didn't happen. Opps sorry government is supposed to provide that service. Its called public safety.

Except in Alberta, where the Tired Old Tories were once again caught with their pants down, playing hide the sausage. When the accident happened the Minister of the Environment actually said his departments job was just to monitor the clean up. 48 hours later he recanted and remembered that he was IN CHARGE.

Its hard to run a province when you do it by letting it all slide while clipping surplus coupons.

EDMONTON -- A report into an Alberta train derailment that poisoned a popular lake has exposed flaws in the province's emergency response system, says a environment commission set up after the accident.An interim report into the Wabamun Lake spill has found officials need better training, broader definitions of harmful substances and a list of Alberta's high-risk areas - especially as a booming economy and population increase the risk of more accidents. Newell said response to the spill revealed a lack of planning and co-ordination between provincial and federal government departments.The departments of environment, transportation and fisheries in both Edmonton and Ottawa need to stage joint simulations to work out and practise who's responsible for what, he said.Response to the Wabamun spill was hampered by confusion over just what the train was carrying. The hazardous pole-treating preservative was originally referred to as lubricating oil."By the official terms of what a dangerous good was, they didn't have one," Newell said. "We will definitely be pushing the need to do a lot more work around risk assessments and risk mitigation," said Newell, who acknowledged his surprise that such a list doesn't already exist
Poor public notification and badly co-ordinated plans greatly hampered clean-up efforts at Wabamun and added millions of dollars to the cost, Goss said "No one had a plan for a fresh-water oil spill."

Premier Ralph Klein later apologized to Albertans for his government's slow response to the spill, which contaminated the lake and area wells.

Yep Ralph Klein and George Bush birds of a feather, soaked in toxic waste. Screw up and apologise after the fact. This is the most damning evidence of the inherent failure of right wing neo conservative governments to do their job, its hard to govern when you claim to oppose government.

Housing Bubble, Debt Boom

Bubble to burst?: Prices have gone too high, too fast, pessimists say, while optimists insist the increases have been restrained compared to other global hot spots

What is driving the current economy in North America is NOT manufacturing and industrial productivity but consumption. When consumption drives the market it sets up the market for collapse, as pre-WWII economics remind us. The Austrian School of Economics dominated economic thinking then too; " Taxes collected undermine productivity and growth".

Except that taxes have nothing to do with the failure of business to reinvest its profits into manufacturing as I have already pointed out. In North America the investment boom is being driven by business debt, investment in money markets and high interest financial schemes, and by personal debt. Taxes have nothing to do with it.

We aren't in a Housing Boom we are in a Debt Boom, negative productive growth in favour of growth in interest and credit. So when the economists complain about declining productivity, what they really are talking about is not worker productivity but lack of investment going into manufacturing and the industrial sector, cause all that money is circulating in credit and mortgages. Its what is supporting the largest economy in the world, the USA.

And its impact is global as the housing boom reflects the cashing out of savings and the creation of massive personal debt. Personal debt is the source of the current capitalist boom. And that was the case just before the Great Depression.

The Canadian housing market has indeed lagged the global real estate explosion of the past few years. From 1997 to the first quarter of 2005, house prices surged 244% in South Africa, 114% in Australia, 154% in Britain and 145% in Spain, according to a survey by The Economist magazine. Over the same period, U.S. prices rose a more modest 73% and Canadian prices a mere 43%. Since then, British and Australian prices have eased but North American prices have continued to climb. Historically low interest rates have prompted Canadians to take on larger and larger mortgages and to borrow more against their houses.
Personal savings levels plunging to Depression-era lows
Our savings rate is now in negative territory, meaning we spend more than we bring in. That suggests that when price gains do tail off, the adjustment could be harsh for consumer spending and the economy.

Canadian Consumer Confidence Drops to Lowest Since Sept. 2001

Oct. 6 -- Canadian consumer confidence dropped to its lowest since September 2001 last month as fewer households said it's a good time to buy homes and cars, a Conference Board of Canada poll showed.The findings are similar to those of the Decima-Investors Group Index of Canadian Consumer Confidence, released Tuesday, showing a decline to the lowest level in four years, with Canadian results mirroring a similar drop south of the border.The earlier Decima-Investors Group survey found Canadians had a gloomier outlook on family finances, job market prospects and big-ticket spending. The private group's index, which stood at 87.9 in May, dropped 13 points by September to 75. "The spike in gasoline prices following hurricane Katrina left less money in consumers' pockets and clearly affected confidence in September," Paul Darby, deputy chief economist, said in a release."Even so, this is a major decline in consumer confidence and will likely affect spending and Canada's overall economic performance for the next six months."

Ottawa's new, improved mantra: 'productivity'-Cabinet sees future prosperity threatened, writes GORDON PITTS in the first of a three-part series

The simplistic approach is that Canadian companies have to innovate more, and that is often equated with research and development -- another area in which Canada is perceived as a global laggard. Only a small minority of companies in Canada actually perform R&D, and Canada already has an attractive tax incentive program to spur pure research. Yet until very recently, Canada has not done well in investing in machinery and equipment compared with other G7 nations. Paradoxically, this was happening when companies were awash in profits. Investment sentiment has improved in the past year, perhaps because the higher value of the Canadian dollar makes U.S.-made equipment much more affordable. But the record of the past decade has been generally weak, particularly in crucial high technology. The Information Technology Association of Canada recently pointed out that Canadian companies invest only 43 per cent of what U.S. companies spend per worker in information and communications technology. There are other problems. Canada is in the midst of an income trust boom, that according to Mr. Mintz militates against productivity growth. The high distributions accorded unitholders detract from a company's ability to pour cash back into equipment and machinery, or to use funds to expand or acquire other firms. "This is not a good strategy to be on top of the world," says Mr. Mintz, who is particularly appalled by the number of growth companies that are doing income trusts. "The basic assumptions are you've eliminated tax and you're not doing much investment," Mr. Mintz sighs. Even the windfall of higher energy prices is not a big productivity booster. Upward spikes simply spur companies to start bringing marginal fields on-stream. These may generate strong profits in the short term, but according to the economists' strict measure of volume per working hour, these fields are not highly productive.

Whenever I hear the word productivity I reach for my Das Kapital. Of course when capitalists talk about productivity it means outsourcing, job cuts, and of course the inevitable....wait for it......tax cuts. Yet tax cuts have done nothing in the past decade to promote re-investment in fixed capital, that is techonology, plant and infrastructure, or in variablbe capital, labour training, skills innovation.

Nope the money made in profits, and tax breaks have gone into the stock market, real estate, money markers and other capital investments, in order to make profit.
After all capitalism is about profit not production or productivity.

In this era of finance capital, productivity is about how much interest can be made on the dollar not how the dollar can be invested for our long term interest. No amount of tax cuts will improve productivity if profits are NOT invested in assets, fixed and variable capital, but instead invested in profit making financial markets. $152 billion in tax cuts federally, not including provincial tax cuts, and still productivity lags.

Tax cuts do not insure that captialists will reinvest in improving their products but it does insure they will improve their bottomline and line their shareholders pockets. In fact despite the billions in tax cuts Corporate Canada has set up Income Trusts to stash its cash in and avoid paying taxes. Corporate Canada could pay zero in taxes and it would not assure us of increased productivity in anything but coupon clipping.

Dark Prince of Oil Decries Dark Side of Oil

Imperial Oil CEO decries high oil, expects gasoline costs to 're-equilibrate'

Yep even the bosses of Big Oil are whining about oil costs. These are the guys who have a monopoly on the extraction and refining of oil, and facing increased public pressure over their record profits and price gouging, are trying to shift the blame to the 'market'. Whatever that is, since they are a monopoly dominating that market. Oh yeah thats right its OPEC's fault. Except OPEC is toothless.

This is rich. Well actually Imperialist Oil is rich. Methinks they are getting nervous about the calls to Nationalize the industry.

Tim Hearn, president and chief executive of Imperial Oil Ltd. (TSX:IMO), told Calgary business leaders Thursday that there's a "dark side" to sustained high crude prices that have driven fuel prices to record levels. While world oil prices have dropped by nearly $5 US this week to close Thursday at $61.36 US, Hearn said he'd prefer to see them keep falling to between $30 US and $40 US a barrel. "Those kinds of prices will more, long-term, reflect the replacement costs of the kinds of energy sources that oil will come from," he said after his lunchtime speech.

In other words the high prices are driven by speculation on future prices, such as betting that expensive Tar Sands oil will replace Alberta's declining conventional oil Reserves.

Hearn said lower prices would help the global economy, and many businesses, including even those in the energy industry who are currently seeing massive profits from the higher prices of both oil and natural gas.

May I ask a rhetorical question? If lower prices would help the global economy and you set the prices why don't you lower them...oh yeah its all those futures speculators on Wall Street that are the 'market', so much for supply and demand.....as if that ever existed outside of economics text books.

Mackenzie pipeline uneconomic, Imperial CEO says

Meanwhile Mr. Hearn and Imperialist Oil are back at the trough asking for handouts and subsidies for the Mackenzie Pipeline project. Can you say BLACKMAIL? How do you spell Corporate Welfare Bum? IMPERIAL OIL.

CALGARY -- The proposed $7-billion Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline doesn't make economic sense unless Ottawa signs another special fiscal deal for the backers, the chief executive officer of Imperial Oil Ltd. says. "We're not asking for handouts, we're not asking for giveaways," Tim Hearn, Imperial president and CEO, told reporters after a speech yesterday at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

They aren't asking for handouts or giveaways, yeah right, well they already got those for the past decade, why change now see Corporate Welfare for Big Oil

Mackenzie Valley would be more profitable than a proposal for a gas line out of Alaska and other projects looking to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to North America from Qatar, said brokerage Tristone Capital Inc. in a lengthy report in May on the subject.

"Pipelines appear economic," Tristone concluded, noting that Mackenzie would recover costs and produce a 10-per-cent return with natural gas at about $3.10 (U.S.) gas a thousand cubic feet.

Imperial -- majority owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Tex., the world's largest public oil company -- is using a long-term natural gas projection of $2.50 a thousand cubic feet. In the 1990s, gas averaged $2, which rose to $6 this decade before hurricane Katrina. It is now about $14.

"The world is not short of natural gas," Mr. Hearn said. "I'll guarantee you that if LNG comes into North America, you won't find $14 gas. I don't know where it'll be but it won't be $14."

Many market outlooks suggest that while LNG will probably pull down gas prices in North America, $5 a thousand cubic feet has been suggested by a majority of prognosticators as a reasonable long-term forecast

Asked about Imperial's gas forecast, Mr. Hearn said: "I'm not going to comment on it." Asked why he believes the pipeline is not economic, Mr. Hearn said: "I'm not going to answer your question."

The Globe and Mail reported last week that Imperial is asking for significant breaks from Ottawa, requests that follow the federal government's offer in July of $500-million (Canadian) in social and economic funding for northerners.

Research conducted by the Sierra Club of Canada, an environmental lobbyist, indicated last week that Imperial's requests amount to a dollar tally of $2-billion.

Yep they aren't at the trough with their hand out, no siree, not Imperialist Oil.