NEW YORK, Nov. 13 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following text is of remarks by President Bush on Financial Markets and the World Economy:
History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market - but too much.
Huh?
Hoover proves lack of government involvement led to the Great Depression. Here is Republican historical revisionism in it most blatant stupidity.Right wing American ideologues whether Republican, Conservative or Libertarian all try and avoid this obvious fact instead blaming the Smoot Hawley Act which was protectionist for the long Depression. In fact it was Hoovers hands off approach to the markets for three years that created the spiral downward. Smmot-Haweley and protectionist measures in Europe only agrivated that downward rush.
Bush, the Republicans, heck the liberals and the Libertarians in America live in a cloud cookoo land, one that imagines an artisan/farmer free market, free of monopolies, cartels and special business interests tied to the state. A time that is a fiction, a myth, of American Capitalism.
Ain't ever been such a creature nor is it the nature of American Capitalism and Imperialism.
Bush admits that capitalism is in a crisis; Faced with the prospect of a global financial meltdown
nations have responded with bold measures, and at Saturday's summit, we will review the effectiveness of our actions. This crisis did not develop overnight, and it will not be solved overnight.
And his solution is to keep on keeping on, capitalism is great, yep it has crisis, but heck its still the best system ever devised by humans.
This is a decisive moment for the global economy. In the wake of the financial crisis, voices from the left and right are equating the free enterprise system with greed, exploitation, and failure. It is true that this crisis included failures - by lenders and borrowers, by financial firms, by governments and independent regulators. But the crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system. It is to fix the problems we face, make the reforms we need, and move forward with the free market principles that have delivered prosperity and hope to people around the world.
Like any other system designed by man, capitalism is not perfect. It can be subject to excesses and abuse. But it is by far the most efficient and just way of structuring an economy. At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do, the opportunity to buy or sell the products they want, and the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. The free market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity – the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others. And as millions of people pursue these incentives together, whole societies benefit.
A nation that gave the world the I-Pod which is manufactured in China. Because as Reason magazine announced in 1999 that the world of the 21 Century was no longer America as the producer nation but America the consumer/service industry nation. A predicition that failed to understand that this would ultimately lead to a credit crisis, when a nation fails to produce value but rather lives on the value produced by others and lent to them.
Free market capitalism is far more than an economic theory. It is the engine of social mobility – the highway to the American Dream. It is what makes it possible for a husband and wife to start up their own business, or a new immigrant to open a restaurant, or a single mom to go back to college and begin a better career. It is what allowed entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to change the way the world sells products and searches for information. And it is what transformed America from a rugged frontier to the greatest economic power in history - a nation that gave the world the steamboat and the airplane, the computer and the CAT scan, the Internet and the I-Pod.
Bush went on to defend capitalism, specifically post WWII American Capitalism, which itself is not a free market economy, but one of protectionism combined with state capitalism of the Military Industrial Complex. America subsidizes its aircraft manufacturerers, its agribusiness cartels, its auto industry, and has since WWII. To hear the President proclaim the glory of free markets and free peoples, is to also deny the hisorical reality which is American Capitalism. He further equates Japan's economic boom with American Capitalism, when in reality it is the result of State Capitalism. Japan used the Military Industrial Banking model for its development.
Ultimately, the best evidence for free market capitalism is its performance compared to other economic systems. Free markets allowed Japan - an island nation with few natural resources - to recover from war and grow into the world's second-largest economy. Free markets allowed South Korea to make itself one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world. Free markets turned small areas like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan into global economic players. And today, the success of the world’s largest economies comes from their embrace of free markets.
South Korea which itself is an other model of State Capitalism, with Military and Finance capital under a pro-USA military dictatorship finally evolving into a manufacturing fordist economy modeled on the success of Japan. As for Singapore and Hong Kong these two islands of free market economies are ruled by dictators, proving that capitalism can function without democracy.
Meanwhile, nations that have pursued other models have experienced devastating results. Soviet communism starved millions, bankrupted an empire, and collapsed as decisively as the Berlin Wall. Cuba, once known for its vast fields of cane, is now forced to ration sugar. And while Iran sits atop giant oil reserves, its people cannot put enough gasoline in their cars.
Oh sure free markets really work well, except Cuba is rationing sugar because they cannot compete with American subsidized sugar and the American led economic boycott of their country. No free market here.
As for the Soviet Union it collapsed because it lost the military race under Reagans expansion of military spending, the USA Military Industrial Complex defeated the Soviet Unions Military Industrial Complex. Capitalism did not defeat Communism, rather the American model of State Capitalism proved to be more flexible than the autarchic command economy model used in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately China proves that this autarchic command model can be flexible, and now American Capitalism is beholden to China for its national debt.
But Bush was not the only one to proclaim that Capitalism may be melting down but its still not the problem. In listening to their Republican masters voice, our own Finance Minister and PM echoed Bush's doctrine that capitalism has not failed.
In a piece in the Financial Times, meanwhile, Mr. Flaherty too had rare kind words for the invisible hand, downplayed grand global financial architectural plans and suggested that reform -- like charity -- should begin at home. "The open market system did not fail in this crisis," he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to join U.S. President George W. Bush in a defence of free-market capitalism and resistance to international calls for dramatic re-regulation of financial markets.
The ruling class recongizes that capitalism has once again failed, the bubble burst, the market crashed, what goes up must come down, the business cycle has not been superceded by globalization. The elephant in the room is socialism. The Republican Libertarian argument is to let the market decide, except contrary to their Libertarian dogma that market has come cap in hand to its State to bail it out. Opps. Guess real capitalism does not like the discipline of the marketplace. In attempting to not bail out the working class who is really suffering from this crisis with record home foreclosures, record unemployment and the very real threat of the meltdown of America's core manufacturing centre; Michagan, Bush and Harper need to couch the argument as a question of state intervention. The strawman they set up is to equate state capitalism, state intervention as socialism. Which it is not.
Capitalism cannot continue as it is. Temporary fixes like increased regulation, government bailouts etc. are not a solution to the crisis nature of capitalism. Socialization of capital is what is required. The fact that workers create captial, not business which only produces 'jobs', without workers capitalism collapses. This was clearly seen in Alberta last year during the height of the boom, when neither for love nor money could businesses find enough workers.
The result was many small businesses, you remember them they are the core of the economy according to Bush and Harper. closed.
Workers create captial, they circulate that capital by home purchases and by consuming the products they produce. They fund capital through their pension and benefit plans, pensions are called institutional investors in Wall Street, one of the largest sources of capital available currently.
The Canada Pension Plan fund said Wednesday it ended its latest quarter with a loss of more than $10 billion in the value of its assets, primarily because of the stock market turmoil that has battered share prices around the world.
But president and CEO David Denison said Canadians shouldn't worry that the loss will affect their current or future retirement benefits.
"This fund is designed to be able to withstand this short-term market volatility that we are living through, quite frankly better than any other fund in this country," Denison said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Here is the true source of capital the working class blue, white and green collar, that produce and consume. And it is the means to change capitalism, the use of workers productive value matched by their pension funds and the corporate pension liabilities which are owed them, with capital from public pension funds, workers can then fund the corporations and run them themselves.
In Quebec there are labour funds as well as the Cassie Popular, the credit unions which have enormous reserves of workers capital to be able to use for promoting workers control of industry. In the rest of Canada workers whose credit unions are mimicing banks, need to take control of them and use this vast reserve of capital to invest in worker controled industries.
With the socialization of capital under workers control, the question of bail outs and regulation of the market become moot.
This is the socialism that Bush and Harper fear. This is why they distort the definintion of socialism equating it with state capitalism and command economies. Which socialism never was about. It is about the need to socialize captial to benefit those who create it; the working class.
It is the working class who are the real investors in capitalism, not those investors on Wall Street who play the market. The working class exists because of capitalism and capitalism exists because of the working class. As this crisis deepens and government intervention fails to stop the melt down, the only solution that will become clear is the need for socialization of capital under workers control.
SEE:
STFU 'W'
October Surprise Was The Market Crash
No Austrians In Foxholes
CRASH
The Return Of Hawley—Smoot
Canadian Banks and The Great Depression
U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone
What Goes Up...
Wall Street Mantra
Bank Run
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Showing posts with label Bank crash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bank crash. Show all posts
Friday, November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
You know that the labour movement is no threat to Canadian Capitalism when it can agree with the bosses on a band aid to the current economic crisis.;
'Job killing' EI premiums hurt workers, employers as manufacturing sector lags
Critics say the current EI program fails jobless workers, many of who don't qualify for EI benefits because they have not worked the required number of hours, as well as employers, who worry about having to pay what Liberal MP John McCallum, an economist, calls 'job killing' EI premiums.
On the employee side of the debate, the push is for more generous benefits.
Not surprisingly, one of the few things employer and employee representatives agree is the need to refrain from increasing the 2009 EI premiums for employees or employers. The chief actuary of the EI commission has already recommended a freeze for 2009, and the commission is expected to take the advice when it announces the 2009 rates this week.
Corinne Pohlmann, vice-president of national affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the commission should go further and cut employer premiums. Continuing surpluses in the EI fund, estimated at $600 million for the last year, should be used to reduce the rate from the current of $2.42 per $100 of insurable earnings, she said in an interview.
The federation also wants the formula rewritten so employers and employees share the cost of the EI plan 50/50, or so that the government picks up a share of the cost. Employer premiums are currently 1.4 times higher than the $1.73 paid by employees.
The business federation and the CLC have both advocated - unsuccessfully so far - to give employers a 'premium holiday' for a period of time if they use the money to train employees.
The Conservative government's plan to move to a new system for setting EI premiums, starting in 2010, is causing jitters in some circles too. A newly-created EI financing board will set the premium rate each year "to generate just enough premium revenue during that year to cover expected payments" and to ensure a $2-billion reserve is maintained, according to government documents. Legislation establishing the new system became law last June.
Diane Finley, named last week to her former post as human resources minister, declined requests to discuss the EI system on grounds she is still getting briefed on the portfolio.
But Georgetti and McCallum said the system means that if the country's jobless rate worsens, as is expected, the board will either have to raise premiums the following year or cut benefits to meet its mandate.
"It has to be one or the other," said Georgetti. "That's the only way I have ever learned to balance the books. And neither one, in this environment, is the way to go."
Once upon a time the labour movement opposed child labour now they decry unemployment of the youth sector of the economy. These are kids working at Wal-Mart, MacDonalds etc., all of course in the non unionized sector.
Canadian Labour Congress: Public Works!
Now That the Election is Over, it's Time to Invest in Jobs That Last
Young workers, many of whom work in accommodation and food services, took a big hit in October. In total, 34,400 workers aged 15 to 24 lost their jobs. At the same time 27,000 people who earned their livelihoods in the accommodation and food services sector were out of a job last month.
And in their recently released paper on the global meltdown they sound more like economic apologists for capitalism than the voice of the working class. There is no discussion of using public and workers pension funds to finance the creation of worker controlled take overs of manufacturing in Canada. Showing that Canada's labour movement has lost the vision of building a new world within the shell of the old. Instead true to its nature as business unions the CLC calls for the state to bail out its bosses.
The Meltdown, Seen from Below
What union leaders, labour experts and anti-poverty activists say needs to be done.
The CLC has just issued a paper on its response to the current crisis titled "Global Capitalism: On the edge of the abyss." The paper says the global economy is now "almost certainly headed for a deep and prolonged recession," and notes that global markets have already fallen as far as they did in the Great Crash of 1929.
The labour group blames deregulated global finance for the crisis, pointing to what it calls "the unregulated shadow banking system of investment banks, hedge funds and private equity funds," and decrying the creation of "fiendishly complex and sometimes outright fraudulent products." The face value of these highly abstract and uncertain financial instruments, the paper notes, was recently estimated at over $50 trillion.
The CLC paper quotes Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at the Stern School of Business at New York University: "The crisis was caused by the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit bubble in the history of humanity.... a housing bubble, a mortgage bubble, an equity bubble, a bond bubble, a credit bubble, a commodity bubble, a private equity bubble, a hedge funds bubble are all now bursting at once in he biggest real sector and financial sector deleveraging since the Great Depression."
The CLC paper calls on Canada to play a role in creating a co-ordinated international response to the crisis that features re-regulation of both local and cross-border transactions and the imposition of a small transaction tax on all securities trading, including commodity futures. This Tobin Tax, named for the Nobel Prize winner who first suggested it, is designed to discourage short term speculation and to raise the government revenues that will be necessary to fund appropriate investments in social services and infrastructure repair.
Bail out tied to regulation
While many critics of the official response so far are asking why so much money is going into the banks and finance houses that created the crisis, the CLC endorses some bail-out activity as necessary to avert a systemic collapse. The bail out money must come, it cautions, tied to effective regulatory rules.
The CLC wants Canada Mortgage and Housing to re-finance distressed Canadian home mortgages at lower rates, dismissing the view that Canada is not experiencing a housing bubble as a myth. The $10 billion a year in new infrastructure investment the CLC calls for, says the paper, would create 200,000 new Canadian jobs rebuilding roads and bridges, mass transit projects, water works and the like as well as replenishing the country's diminished stock of social housing. A public letter recently signed by 80 prominent Canadian economists has echoed this call for an active and interventionist response by government to the economic crisis.
Further corporate tax cuts should be cancelled, the paper argues, in favor of direct government support for new investments in machinery and equipment, research, development and training.
Even if all these reforms are put into place, says the CLC paper, Canada may well experience serious increases in unemployment, which will expose weaknesses of the Employment Insurance program. Far fewer workers are eligible for EI as it now exists than was true in years past, and maximum rates and time allowed for coverage are both inadequate, according to the paper, which calls for broadened eligibility, higher maximum payouts and longer terms of coverage for the unemployed. The EI system currently has a surplus of over $50 billion.
Call for new pension protection
The CLC paper predicts the current financial crisis will create a severe pensions crisis, and a follow-up paper issued on Oct. 29 calls for the creation of a new pension benefit insurance scheme (financed by the proposed tax on financial transactions) to insure annual pension and RRSP benefits for individual Canadians up to $60,000 a year.
Pensions are a concern for Bill Saunders, too. Saunders, the president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, says that Canadian workers and their pensions are more exposed to risk during market trouble because of the successful campaign over the past decades to move from defined benefit pensions, which guarantee a certain monthly amount when you retire, to defined contribution plans, promoted by market enthusiasts.
Contribution plans shovel a defined amount every month into mutual funds and other stocks, creating pension payouts that can vary widely depending upon the health of the market, as many Canadians are discovering this year as their RRSP holdings have shrunk dramatically.
"Twenty years ago," said Saunders, "60 per cent of Canadian private pension plans were defined benefit. Now that share has been cut in half. Defined contribution plans just don't deliver the goods for workers the way defined benefit plans do, and the current crisis illustrates that."
Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.Karl Marx, Value, Price and Profit, Addressed to Working Men, The First International Working Men's Association, 1865.
SEE:
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
October Surprise Was The Market Crash
No Austrians In Foxholes
Pension Rip Off
Tags
unionization, labour, CLC, Ken Georgetti, economy, trade union, recession, EI, business unions,
CLC
Labour
'Job killing' EI premiums hurt workers, employers as manufacturing sector lags
Critics say the current EI program fails jobless workers, many of who don't qualify for EI benefits because they have not worked the required number of hours, as well as employers, who worry about having to pay what Liberal MP John McCallum, an economist, calls 'job killing' EI premiums.
On the employee side of the debate, the push is for more generous benefits.
Not surprisingly, one of the few things employer and employee representatives agree is the need to refrain from increasing the 2009 EI premiums for employees or employers. The chief actuary of the EI commission has already recommended a freeze for 2009, and the commission is expected to take the advice when it announces the 2009 rates this week.
Corinne Pohlmann, vice-president of national affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said the commission should go further and cut employer premiums. Continuing surpluses in the EI fund, estimated at $600 million for the last year, should be used to reduce the rate from the current of $2.42 per $100 of insurable earnings, she said in an interview.
The federation also wants the formula rewritten so employers and employees share the cost of the EI plan 50/50, or so that the government picks up a share of the cost. Employer premiums are currently 1.4 times higher than the $1.73 paid by employees.
The business federation and the CLC have both advocated - unsuccessfully so far - to give employers a 'premium holiday' for a period of time if they use the money to train employees.
The Conservative government's plan to move to a new system for setting EI premiums, starting in 2010, is causing jitters in some circles too. A newly-created EI financing board will set the premium rate each year "to generate just enough premium revenue during that year to cover expected payments" and to ensure a $2-billion reserve is maintained, according to government documents. Legislation establishing the new system became law last June.
Diane Finley, named last week to her former post as human resources minister, declined requests to discuss the EI system on grounds she is still getting briefed on the portfolio.
But Georgetti and McCallum said the system means that if the country's jobless rate worsens, as is expected, the board will either have to raise premiums the following year or cut benefits to meet its mandate.
"It has to be one or the other," said Georgetti. "That's the only way I have ever learned to balance the books. And neither one, in this environment, is the way to go."
Once upon a time the labour movement opposed child labour now they decry unemployment of the youth sector of the economy. These are kids working at Wal-Mart, MacDonalds etc., all of course in the non unionized sector.
Canadian Labour Congress: Public Works!
Now That the Election is Over, it's Time to Invest in Jobs That Last
Young workers, many of whom work in accommodation and food services, took a big hit in October. In total, 34,400 workers aged 15 to 24 lost their jobs. At the same time 27,000 people who earned their livelihoods in the accommodation and food services sector were out of a job last month.
And in their recently released paper on the global meltdown they sound more like economic apologists for capitalism than the voice of the working class. There is no discussion of using public and workers pension funds to finance the creation of worker controlled take overs of manufacturing in Canada. Showing that Canada's labour movement has lost the vision of building a new world within the shell of the old. Instead true to its nature as business unions the CLC calls for the state to bail out its bosses.
The Meltdown, Seen from Below
What union leaders, labour experts and anti-poverty activists say needs to be done.
The CLC has just issued a paper on its response to the current crisis titled "Global Capitalism: On the edge of the abyss." The paper says the global economy is now "almost certainly headed for a deep and prolonged recession," and notes that global markets have already fallen as far as they did in the Great Crash of 1929.
The labour group blames deregulated global finance for the crisis, pointing to what it calls "the unregulated shadow banking system of investment banks, hedge funds and private equity funds," and decrying the creation of "fiendishly complex and sometimes outright fraudulent products." The face value of these highly abstract and uncertain financial instruments, the paper notes, was recently estimated at over $50 trillion.
The CLC paper quotes Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at the Stern School of Business at New York University: "The crisis was caused by the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit bubble in the history of humanity.... a housing bubble, a mortgage bubble, an equity bubble, a bond bubble, a credit bubble, a commodity bubble, a private equity bubble, a hedge funds bubble are all now bursting at once in he biggest real sector and financial sector deleveraging since the Great Depression."
The CLC paper calls on Canada to play a role in creating a co-ordinated international response to the crisis that features re-regulation of both local and cross-border transactions and the imposition of a small transaction tax on all securities trading, including commodity futures. This Tobin Tax, named for the Nobel Prize winner who first suggested it, is designed to discourage short term speculation and to raise the government revenues that will be necessary to fund appropriate investments in social services and infrastructure repair.
Bail out tied to regulation
While many critics of the official response so far are asking why so much money is going into the banks and finance houses that created the crisis, the CLC endorses some bail-out activity as necessary to avert a systemic collapse. The bail out money must come, it cautions, tied to effective regulatory rules.
The CLC wants Canada Mortgage and Housing to re-finance distressed Canadian home mortgages at lower rates, dismissing the view that Canada is not experiencing a housing bubble as a myth. The $10 billion a year in new infrastructure investment the CLC calls for, says the paper, would create 200,000 new Canadian jobs rebuilding roads and bridges, mass transit projects, water works and the like as well as replenishing the country's diminished stock of social housing. A public letter recently signed by 80 prominent Canadian economists has echoed this call for an active and interventionist response by government to the economic crisis.
Further corporate tax cuts should be cancelled, the paper argues, in favor of direct government support for new investments in machinery and equipment, research, development and training.
Even if all these reforms are put into place, says the CLC paper, Canada may well experience serious increases in unemployment, which will expose weaknesses of the Employment Insurance program. Far fewer workers are eligible for EI as it now exists than was true in years past, and maximum rates and time allowed for coverage are both inadequate, according to the paper, which calls for broadened eligibility, higher maximum payouts and longer terms of coverage for the unemployed. The EI system currently has a surplus of over $50 billion.
Call for new pension protection
The CLC paper predicts the current financial crisis will create a severe pensions crisis, and a follow-up paper issued on Oct. 29 calls for the creation of a new pension benefit insurance scheme (financed by the proposed tax on financial transactions) to insure annual pension and RRSP benefits for individual Canadians up to $60,000 a year.
Pensions are a concern for Bill Saunders, too. Saunders, the president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, says that Canadian workers and their pensions are more exposed to risk during market trouble because of the successful campaign over the past decades to move from defined benefit pensions, which guarantee a certain monthly amount when you retire, to defined contribution plans, promoted by market enthusiasts.
Contribution plans shovel a defined amount every month into mutual funds and other stocks, creating pension payouts that can vary widely depending upon the health of the market, as many Canadians are discovering this year as their RRSP holdings have shrunk dramatically.
"Twenty years ago," said Saunders, "60 per cent of Canadian private pension plans were defined benefit. Now that share has been cut in half. Defined contribution plans just don't deliver the goods for workers the way defined benefit plans do, and the current crisis illustrates that."
The final irony is that despite calls by the CLC to meet with Harper government it appears that labours agenda was accepted by the Premiers and the PM at their first ministers te'te' today.
Harper, premiers agree on infrastructure, pensions
Once again proving Herr Doctor Professor Marx correct:Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.Karl Marx, Value, Price and Profit, Addressed to Working Men, The First International Working Men's Association, 1865.
SEE:
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
October Surprise Was The Market Crash
No Austrians In Foxholes
Pension Rip Off
Tags
unionization, labour, CLC, Ken Georgetti, economy, trade union, recession, EI, business unions,
CLC
Labour
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Steady Eddie Runs Away
Alberta's farmer CEO Ed Stelmach has no plan to deal with economic meltdown so what does he do instead skips the first ministers meeting for an all expenses paid junket to Europe. Guess he missed the news that this is a global crisis and that Europe ain't open for business its businesses are collapsing. And typically the Tired Old Tories have no plan. Instead they put their heads in the sand and hope no-one notices their arses are in the air.
Alta. premier to skip first ministers' meeting
Trish Audette , Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 03, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is skipping national economic discussions in Ottawa next week in favour of going to Europe on a trade mission.
Stelmach explained Monday that his presence at the first ministers' meeting, hosted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is unnecessary. The premier said organizers rejected having him connect to the Ottawa meeting by phone, so Alberta is sending a senior cabinet minister.
"We'll clearly identify the areas that we're concerned about," said Stelmach. "One of them is income trusts and another is where they cancelled all of the accelerated capital cost allowances for the oil and gas industry."
Premier needs to deliver plan that will restore hope
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence . . .
Danielle Smith, For The Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
On Monday, the finance ministers met to talk about the next steps the federal government will take to address the pending economic crisis. What Premier Ed Stelmach now needs to do is set a date to provide an economic update of his own, so Albertans know what he intends to do about it.
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence among consumers and business owners. Meanwhile, Alberta is not likely to avoid the effects of what appears to be the beginning of a global economic slowdown.
Business confidence is at the lowest levels we've seen in nearly two decades.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
But the most important question Taft levelled, which still appears to have no clear answer, is: "As the world economy staggers to a halt, what is this government's plan to protect the wealth and jobs of Albertans?"
Stelmach responded that he would dip into the $7.7 billion stability fund if he needed to, but that doesn't address the core problem. The core problem is the Alberta government spends too much.
This year, the province increased operating spending by 9.7 per cent and capital spending by 22 per cent.
Not long after the budget was delivered, the province threw out its surplus management strategy (which was supposed to dedicate one-third of surpluses to infrastructure, one-third to infrastructure maintenance, and one-third to savings) and announced it would spend an additional $4 billion, on carbon sequestration and public transit.
Tories 'handing' U.S. oilsands upgrading jobs
Premier blames federal government
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Opposition leaders accused Alberta's premier on Monday of standing idly by as the United States siphons oilsands upgrading jobs from the province.
In question period, Liberal boss Kevin Taft seized on new industry warnings that Alberta is on track to upgrade only half of its bitumen production, far short of Premier Ed Stelmach's goal of 75 per cent.
Taft listed a litany of American upgrader projects designed to process the province's tar-like bitumen, including plans slated for Indiana, Minnesota and Montana.
He said the Alberta government should be worried that $30 billion worth of oilsands projects, including upgraders and processing plants, has been shelved due to the global financial turmoil.
"This government is on the brink of handing control of Alberta's wealth to the United States," Taft charged.
Unintended consequences: discounted Alberta land
Crescent Point says royalties deflated prices
Dan Healing, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's a bold investment strategy tinged with more than a little irony -- Calgary oil executive Scott Saxberg, a vocal opponent of higher Alberta oil royalties unveiled a year ago this week, says his Saskatchewan-focused company is going to aggressively bid for land rights in this province.
"We are now looking at lands in Alberta because we believe, based on the way royalty rules are, Alberta is basically giving away their land for free," the president and chief executive of Crescent Point Energy Trust told the Herald in an interview this week.
SEE
The Economist On Alberta's Fair Share
Still not getting our due
Ed's Politics Of Fear
Nationalize The Oil Patch
Royalties Pay For Jobs
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Alta. premier to skip first ministers' meeting
Trish Audette , Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 03, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is skipping national economic discussions in Ottawa next week in favour of going to Europe on a trade mission.
Stelmach explained Monday that his presence at the first ministers' meeting, hosted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is unnecessary. The premier said organizers rejected having him connect to the Ottawa meeting by phone, so Alberta is sending a senior cabinet minister.
"We'll clearly identify the areas that we're concerned about," said Stelmach. "One of them is income trusts and another is where they cancelled all of the accelerated capital cost allowances for the oil and gas industry."
Premier needs to deliver plan that will restore hope
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence . . .
Danielle Smith, For The Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
On Monday, the finance ministers met to talk about the next steps the federal government will take to address the pending economic crisis. What Premier Ed Stelmach now needs to do is set a date to provide an economic update of his own, so Albertans know what he intends to do about it.
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence among consumers and business owners. Meanwhile, Alberta is not likely to avoid the effects of what appears to be the beginning of a global economic slowdown.
Business confidence is at the lowest levels we've seen in nearly two decades.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
But the most important question Taft levelled, which still appears to have no clear answer, is: "As the world economy staggers to a halt, what is this government's plan to protect the wealth and jobs of Albertans?"
Stelmach responded that he would dip into the $7.7 billion stability fund if he needed to, but that doesn't address the core problem. The core problem is the Alberta government spends too much.
This year, the province increased operating spending by 9.7 per cent and capital spending by 22 per cent.
Not long after the budget was delivered, the province threw out its surplus management strategy (which was supposed to dedicate one-third of surpluses to infrastructure, one-third to infrastructure maintenance, and one-third to savings) and announced it would spend an additional $4 billion, on carbon sequestration and public transit.
Tories 'handing' U.S. oilsands upgrading jobs
Premier blames federal government
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Opposition leaders accused Alberta's premier on Monday of standing idly by as the United States siphons oilsands upgrading jobs from the province.
In question period, Liberal boss Kevin Taft seized on new industry warnings that Alberta is on track to upgrade only half of its bitumen production, far short of Premier Ed Stelmach's goal of 75 per cent.
Taft listed a litany of American upgrader projects designed to process the province's tar-like bitumen, including plans slated for Indiana, Minnesota and Montana.
He said the Alberta government should be worried that $30 billion worth of oilsands projects, including upgraders and processing plants, has been shelved due to the global financial turmoil.
"This government is on the brink of handing control of Alberta's wealth to the United States," Taft charged.
Unintended consequences: discounted Alberta land
Crescent Point says royalties deflated prices
Dan Healing, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's a bold investment strategy tinged with more than a little irony -- Calgary oil executive Scott Saxberg, a vocal opponent of higher Alberta oil royalties unveiled a year ago this week, says his Saskatchewan-focused company is going to aggressively bid for land rights in this province.
"We are now looking at lands in Alberta because we believe, based on the way royalty rules are, Alberta is basically giving away their land for free," the president and chief executive of Crescent Point Energy Trust told the Herald in an interview this week.
SEE
The Economist On Alberta's Fair Share
Still not getting our due
Ed's Politics Of Fear
Nationalize The Oil Patch
Royalties Pay For Jobs
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October Surprise Was The Market Crash
On the Sunday News Talk Shows and on the American cable news channels the pundits all commented on how this election there was apparently no October Surprise.
In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the presidency.
No October Surprise???
What do you call this.......Mutual funds plummet in October as global credit crisis grows
THE US stock-market crash appeared to draw to a close with the month of October, as a gain in the final session helped shares to stellar returns for the week.However, consumer-spending data and a steady stream of layoffs suggest the bear market is not over yet. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 144.32 points, or 1.57 per cent, to 9325.01, for its first two-session gain since September. For the month of October, the Dow fell 14 per cent, its biggest percentage drop since August 1998. It could have been worse: Until Tuesday's rally helped it bounce 11 per cent this week for the best weekly return since 1974, the Dow was looking at one of the worst months in its 112-year history. The Nasdaq Composite rose 22.43 points, or 1.32 per cent, to 1720.95, gained 11 per cent on the week and finished the month with a loss of 18 per cent. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 14.66 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 968.75, helping it to a 10 per cent gain for the week. In October, the broad S&P 500 fell 16.9 per cent, its worst month since the date of another infamous crash, October 1987. "It was nuts," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-founder of agency brokerage Themis Trading, of the October action. "There was a time there in the middle of the month people were afraid, thinking: 'What is really happening here? Is this the end of the world? What's going on?'
It cost McCain the election when he insisted that the fundamentals of the economy were good as the market came tumbling down.US Election Panel: 'It was close until the credit crunch
Wall Street collapsed right on top of McCain
Point: Dan SchnurThe most decisive event in this campaign wasn't anything either of the candidates said at their respective conventions or in any of the debates. It wasn't a sound bite from a speech or interview, or a memorable assertion in a television commercial or e-mail attachment. The turning point in this election didn't happen on the campaign trail but rather on Wall Street. In the last week of September, the race was essentially tied. Then Wall Street collapsed -- and it collapsed right on top of John McCain.In the first week or two after the extent of the economic meltdown became apparent earlier this fall, what had been a closely contested election broke significantly in Barack Obama's direction. The worst month for the Dow Jones industrial average in more than a decade made McCain's national security credentials almost irrelevant to voters frightened about their economic futures. Just as the success of the troop increase in Iraq and the rise in gasoline prices earlier this year represented real-world events that boosted McCain's support, the political ramifications of the rapidly spreading economic crisis have been of immense assistance to Obama's efforts to convince voters as to the necessity of a change of course in Washington.
SEE:
McCain A Socialist
No Austrians In Foxholes
tagsGreat Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession, asset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,October Surprise, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession,
In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the presidency.
No October Surprise???
What do you call this.......Mutual funds plummet in October as global credit crisis grows
THE US stock-market crash appeared to draw to a close with the month of October, as a gain in the final session helped shares to stellar returns for the week.However, consumer-spending data and a steady stream of layoffs suggest the bear market is not over yet. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 144.32 points, or 1.57 per cent, to 9325.01, for its first two-session gain since September. For the month of October, the Dow fell 14 per cent, its biggest percentage drop since August 1998. It could have been worse: Until Tuesday's rally helped it bounce 11 per cent this week for the best weekly return since 1974, the Dow was looking at one of the worst months in its 112-year history. The Nasdaq Composite rose 22.43 points, or 1.32 per cent, to 1720.95, gained 11 per cent on the week and finished the month with a loss of 18 per cent. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 14.66 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 968.75, helping it to a 10 per cent gain for the week. In October, the broad S&P 500 fell 16.9 per cent, its worst month since the date of another infamous crash, October 1987. "It was nuts," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-founder of agency brokerage Themis Trading, of the October action. "There was a time there in the middle of the month people were afraid, thinking: 'What is really happening here? Is this the end of the world? What's going on?'
It cost McCain the election when he insisted that the fundamentals of the economy were good as the market came tumbling down.US Election Panel: 'It was close until the credit crunch
Wall Street collapsed right on top of McCain
Point: Dan SchnurThe most decisive event in this campaign wasn't anything either of the candidates said at their respective conventions or in any of the debates. It wasn't a sound bite from a speech or interview, or a memorable assertion in a television commercial or e-mail attachment. The turning point in this election didn't happen on the campaign trail but rather on Wall Street. In the last week of September, the race was essentially tied. Then Wall Street collapsed -- and it collapsed right on top of John McCain.In the first week or two after the extent of the economic meltdown became apparent earlier this fall, what had been a closely contested election broke significantly in Barack Obama's direction. The worst month for the Dow Jones industrial average in more than a decade made McCain's national security credentials almost irrelevant to voters frightened about their economic futures. Just as the success of the troop increase in Iraq and the rise in gasoline prices earlier this year represented real-world events that boosted McCain's support, the political ramifications of the rapidly spreading economic crisis have been of immense assistance to Obama's efforts to convince voters as to the necessity of a change of course in Washington.
SEE:
McCain A Socialist
No Austrians In Foxholes
tagsGreat Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession, asset-backed commercial paper ,, goldhomes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, oil prices, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,October Surprise, Inflation, Staglation, Stock-Market, US, Federal-Reserve-Chairman, Oil, gold, commoditiesSmoot-Hawley, protectionism, tariffs, Herbert Hoover, U.S., U.S. economy, Canada, Great Depression, John McCain, market crash, free trade, Republicans, recession,
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