Glen
Senior Member
With Alberta out of the equation and we would not have a petrodollar that has largely insulated us from inflation.
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Harper and $80 million for Ford
- Thread starter Mot
- Start date
With Alberta out of the equation and we would not have a petrodollar that has largely insulated us from inflation.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I don't think anybody really cares about the 80m, that is such a trivial amount it wont make or break anything. The issue I have is more that, as soon as an election is in the pipes, we get the same behavior that Stephen Harper himself has complained about vociferously. I guess that is politics, but I at least hope nobody seriously buys it when a politician claims moral high ground in an election.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
With all due respect to Toyota, Japan is hardly a model of economic policy. It's economy has been in a tailspin for the past 10 years. Even when its scientists (and it does have some of the best scientists on earth) develop a decent technology, it is usually incompatible with global trends thanks it's pygmy kingdom mentality. Japanese companies should be the leaders in cellphones yet, thanks to NetDocMo, they are nowhere to be seen.
afransen
Senior Member
That was a one time gain... hardly anything to base long term fiscal policy on. Remember that we already took the hit in inflation that we are now gaining back in deflation. The dollar was higher in the 70s than its most recent peak.
Whoaccio:
Yes. I don't get it... Harper must realise that it can only feed into the 'Stephen Harper, hypocrite' theme the Liberals will push. I thin the targeted constituency probably realises that the amount is too small to make much difference.
I find it hard to believe that $80 million was the difference between close/open for the engine plant.
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Yeah, but then Harper is doing this during an election, and knows that the Liberals would not argue about refusing similar funding.
Glen
Senior Member
With apologies to Red Ed, what was Alberta's role at the time?
Dichotomy
Banned
It's largely due to their protectionist policies of the '70s and '80s that finally came home to roost in the '90s.
The consumer/middle class in Japan has always taken it up the butt. Forced to buy imported rice and wheat under trade rules, the Japanese government has allowed imported cereals to rot in terminals rather than impact their farmers. Large multi-nationals have been able to 'borrow' money at virtually zero percent from Japanese banks to offset their losses in foreign markets that they are assaulting. Then there were import quotas (like beets) granted to manufacturers like Hitachi and Toshiba to offset their losses in North America as they dumped televisions here in the '70s, bankrupting every single N American manufacturer.
Then there is the devalued yen controversy........
Nobody claimed what Japan has done has been good for their people, but for such a tiny country, their multinationals went from nowhere to global dominance in the '70s and '80s due to MITI's policies.
You're absolutely right, Whoaccio, Japan is a case study in a basket-case economy due to its protectionist policies. Unfortunately, for Ontario and Michigan, those policies are costing us a lot of jobs here.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
You said it, actually I did...but I agree my statement also applies here.
That said, I can support government loans or even grants to businesses provided that the money is being used to turn the business around in an economically viable operation. If the money is simply a bribe to keep an otherwise failing business alive, well, shame on the government.
Canada has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the G8, and there is no shortage of jobs for any redundant Ford workers. The challenge is, those jobs are elsewhere in the country. In the USA, they seem to have a better concept of you go where the jobs are. For example, if you're born in Connecticut, but there are no jobs for you, you don't get to sit around in Connecticut and collect taxpayer dollars, but instead you move to where the jobs are elsewhere in the country.
I remember when I lived in New Brunswick and travelled throughout the Maritimes and Newfoundland and saw thousands of people who live in perpetual cycle of season work (or no work) and welfare in otherwise unsustainable towns with no industries or employment opportunities. Meanwhile, there are thousands of jobs out west that are in desperate need of filling. If the Federal government wasn't funnelling money into sustaining this welfare cycle, I guarantee you NS, NB, PEI and NL would depopulate by at least 25%. If the Fed's offered a re-location bonus (in addition to the very good tax deductions for moving for work), the depopulation would be more like 60% of all adults and children. I see no problem in the Maritimes becoming like the NWT or Nunavut, where there are small pockets of population, and vast areas of uninhabited forest or wild country.
Back on topic, no money should go to Ford unless the money is to turn the company around. Otherwise it's no better than giving money to some guy in Newfoundland to sit on his porch.
jade_lee
Active Member
Harper good for economy?
Let's see our economy was stable until the Conservative/Reformers took over. Now it's facing trouble and Harper has been slow to acknowledge this. As for Ontario our goverenment's official postition is no one would invest in Ontario. Truth be told when comparing combined Federal/Provincial Corporate taxes a couple States come in higher. Given this preformance people think Harper is more qualified than Dion? Harper's steady hand is steering up onto the rocks.
Posted by Jamieberry at 8:23 AM Friday, September 05 2008 < Toronto Star
I agree and I don't see how all the Harper support is blind to this fact. Now 80 million to Ford should turn things around here in Ontario? Nope. These shrills who think giving money back in taxes is a panacea in hard times are not thinking the problem through in terms of collective Canadian good.
Let's see our economy was stable until the Conservative/Reformers took over. Now it's facing trouble and Harper has been slow to acknowledge this. As for Ontario our goverenment's official postition is no one would invest in Ontario. Truth be told when comparing combined Federal/Provincial Corporate taxes a couple States come in higher. Given this preformance people think Harper is more qualified than Dion? Harper's steady hand is steering up onto the rocks.
Posted by Jamieberry at 8:23 AM Friday, September 05 2008 < Toronto Star
I agree and I don't see how all the Harper support is blind to this fact. Now 80 million to Ford should turn things around here in Ontario? Nope. These shrills who think giving money back in taxes is a panacea in hard times are not thinking the problem through in terms of collective Canadian good.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
But that's only have the info needed to make an informed opinion. How do those couple States compare to Ontario economically?
Mustapha
Senior Member
H
Hydrogen
Guest
For every job lost at Ford, how many will be lost downstream due to closure of the plant? These are well-paying manufacturing jobs that would be lost.
It's not like other jurisdictions are not investing in supporting these industries - many are doing so aggressively. The alternative is to watch as these jobs disappear to Mexico, or China. Once these positions are gone, they are not coming back.
It's not like other jurisdictions are not investing in supporting these industries - many are doing so aggressively. The alternative is to watch as these jobs disappear to Mexico, or China. Once these positions are gone, they are not coming back.
Mustapha
Senior Member
I hear you (or read you
); but imho it's not long term sustainable. The patient - Ford - is dying. If the patient can miraculously self heal and get out of bed they need to re-invent/re-tool and get into another business/look to increase market/export more Ford F150 trucks... whatever.I'm afraid Hydrogen, that the 80mil will not be used for innovation but to reopen and go through the old motions and stave off the inevitable. Businesses and markets come and go, new ones replace old. Masseys gone, so has McDonnell Douglas.
If anything, the 80mil should be used to retrain/re-locate the younger displaced workers and ease the plus 50s into some sort of partially government funded early retirement - a kind of disability payment, if you will, for the able bodied unemployable.
afransen
Senior Member
They don't need to. They don't need to say anything at all. All they need is a clip saying explicitly that he won't give money for the Essex engine plant, spliced with a clip 6 months later of Harper announcing money for same said plant. Perhaps finish it with:
Stephen Harper.
Leadership?
afransen
Senior Member
Those jobs are already gone. This payment will only stave off the closing for a few years.
Let them die.
What we should be doing, if anything, is protecting our proto-multinational firms. It's pathetic that RIM is just about the only new multinational that we've managed to produce in decades. Most of the others were allowed to be snapped up in highly leveraged take-overs. Most of those takeovers couldn't occur today due to the more realistic credit market.