T
Harper goes laissez faire on Nortel after supporting auto industry
Fri, 2009-07-24 14:38
#1
Harper goes laissez faire on Nortel after supporting auto industry
Fri, 2009-07-24 14:39
#2
Quite the raging debate about RIMs bid...out there.
Fri, 2009-07-24 15:29
#3
There is some concern that the Nortel assets RIM wants to buy would create a vertical stranglehold for RIM, which has the potential to restrict trade. We broke up the Bell Canada-Nortel landline stranglehold by deregulating the phone industry.
On the other hand, the auto industry had a huge supply chain.
One could probably argue that the effects of the dismemberment of the Nortel corpse would be insignificant compared to the effect of letting Government Motors go out of business.
Guy Giorno could have let the Prime Minister know that any more bailouts of business or interference in the market economy might further alienate the Conservative base.
The polls seem to indicate that playing to that base has more upside than downside.
Fri, 2009-07-24 16:30
#4
They are giving money to Nokkia to finance the deal this is sooo stupid. RIM wants to buy without the help of the government but they won't let it happen. Cons(of whatever stripe) hate to watch canadian companies do well. Monopolies have never phased them in the past by allowing foreign owned companies to buy multiple companies of the same type. Look at the beer market 2 parties with 90% share though neigher is canadian owned anymore. Just rediculous.
Fri, 2009-07-24 16:36
#5
Nokia can always flip it to RIM if RIM really wants it...
Fri, 2009-07-24 18:51
#6
Handing it over to the competion, sort of?
Like, why would they do that?
Sat, 2009-07-25 09:08
#7
The Globe's Report on Business this morning carries the story "At Stake: The Furure of Wireless"
"As Nortel Networks Corp. hurtled toward liquidation last month, its engineers and lawyers were as busy as ever in the halls of the U.S.Trade Office, adding three new patents to a gold mine of intellectual assets developed for a decade by Canada's top research minds.
"This is the prize that has sparked a feeding frenzy among the world telecommunications giants for Nortel's remains, with the winner emerging one step closer to wireless supremacy."
But, yawn, back to personalities.
Sat, 2009-07-25 12:16
#8
Ah, the voice of the taxpayer.
Any nationalist' opinion out there? Something to do with our working (and taxpaying) future? Try to avoid "dense".
Sat, 2009-07-25 12:17
#9
Nokia can always flip it to RIM if RIM really wants it...
Are you serious? Why should we as taxpayers shell out money to Nokkia just so they can flip it at a profit to someone who already put a higher bid on it to start with. That is a waste of tax dollars, and why would the court allow it if it didn't in the first place. Can you say corporate handout to foreign company.
But I suppose it isn't going into something useless like education or healthcare. Hey how about michael jackson these days pretty big news eh!!!!!11!!1!!
Sat, 2009-07-25 12:24
#10
Ah, the voice of the taxpayer.
Any nationalist' opinion out there? Something to do with our working (and taxpaying) future? Try to avoid "dense".
You don't have to tell me the rules. I had already changed it before you posted. Yes I as a taxpayer want the best use of taxdollars so people stop thinking taxes are "bad" if they are informed and told what their money actually does and how economy of scales work. Perhaps they would pull their right wing heads out of their collective asses.
I haven't called him out but Uncle John is pretty much a troll. Or at least a lib. I fail to see him agree with most anyone on this board. Even debater is more credible than this guy. I am getting tired of it. We go through this where we let of these people just keep hanging around. At least with heywood gir and the professor you already know where they are coming from.
I got a burr under my saddle today.
Sat, 2009-07-25 12:24
#11
Their ears would certainly perk up at the word "taxes"... 'bout the only thing that would bring about that change of posture.
And I was not reading out the rules. Had quite another reason for using the word.
Mon, 2009-07-27 11:45
#12
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Nortel-RIM could be PM's Avro Arrow
Could be? Seems that it is, if our cowardly media will actually talk about it.
Everyone I know across the political spectrum has sputtered with rage about this - if they knew about it, and understood the background and ramifications. Take 3 minutes to explain, and you can bring almost anyone on-side.
Mon, 2009-07-27 16:48
#13
It is true that I am not an automatic NDP supporter. I have however had some suggestions for the NDP elsewhere on this board which I thought were pretty constructive.
I don't think I have called anyone any names, which I think is not allowed on this board. I have been called names by people who should know better.
I'll go between Conservative, Liberal and NDP, like many Canadians. Also like many Canadians, when I smell blood I'll be the first to put my two boots in.
One shouldn't try to silence me, as it makes one look very, very much like what a lot of people think the NDP is about.
One should try to be tolerant of diverse viewpoints which are made respectfully.
Mon, 2009-07-27 18:23
#14
As long as the viewpoints don't come from people who wind up shitting on the poor and marginalized, the people in need at tax ttime. You know, Conservatives and Liberals. Mealy-mouthed hypocrites. Slugs.
Mon, 2009-07-27 18:40
#15
Seeing how Canadian companies operate, regarding how they treat the consumer and their employees, I'm not sure I, as a worker, have a horse in this race.
Nationalism? I'm not sure what difference it makes if I'm economically bludgeoned by Jim Balsillie, or some guy from Finland.
Heck, given the way Canadian capitalists operate, I'll take my chances with foriegners, thank you very much.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:04
#16
They'll close up your shop, TP. That's why they bought it. To close it down. End the sompetition and produce where they get labour even cheaper.
That's the record mate.
But what if we could depend (like the old days) on a corporation to stay put? We wouldn't expect it to squeeze the last nickel from production just to satisfy investors in the market. We could legislate that condition. Some countries are actually into such nationalist modes now. Why, we could even count on them to be around to contribute profits for our collective pensions.
And the RIM folk of Waterloo Region don't feel bludgeoned. Hell, the guy is interested in bringing home an NHL team just to entertain his employees. Seriously. And both CEOs are spending big to advance science and international relations. In this country.
Or is this all too agressively un-Canadian? Pushy.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:53
#17
Well, in a different world, I'd have a different view. But with so called "Free Trade" and Globalization, Canadian owned corps are just as eager to shut down operations here and move them to where the current business dogma says things are cheaper. Just do the tech support thing with Bell Canada. As a courtesy, express your sympathies for the Mumbai bombings to the person you're talking to.
Candian business' hold Candian workers and consumers in deep contempt. And, perhaps they should. We lay down for a lot.
Maybe Jim Balsillie is the real McCoy. I hope he is, George. But excuse me for being jaded. My formative years were spent watching a Canadian business using the OPP as a private strike breaking gang at Fleck Manufacturing, where they beat up women, and then were one of the first industries to flee the country and set up shop in Mexico.
Then there's Canada's own Conrad Black, who thought nothing of trying to steal his fellow Canadian's pensions at Loblaw. (or was it Dominion?)
Then there was the meteoric rise of Robert Campeau, and his equally quick exit ahead of law suits and law enforcement.
Not to mention Bre X.
And, there's nothing uglier than a Canadian owned resource industry operating in developing countries. They're going to have our kids stitching the Stars and Stripes over the Maple Leaf on their back packs soon enough.
To turn back to the thread topic, we find a venerable Canadian business driven into the ground by persons currently facing charges for some kind of business fraud.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:39
#18
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
It's okay, and understandable, to be jaded and somewhat cynical, T_P.
It's not okay to roll over and play dead, though.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:50
#19
I'm not rolling over and playing dead.
I've just sat down in a comfy spot, waiting for the rest of you to get out your pitch forks and torches and catch up with me.
And, that's a missaplication of the word cynic. A cynic would be a Canadian buisness that exploits nationalism, only to exploit Canadians wallets and backs.
Speaking of Jim Balsille, Gary "The Weasel" Bettman was just on "The Hour", and it reminds me that while we all blamed this big bad American for keeping a franchise out of Hamilton, revelations just a month or so ago revealed that it wasn't Bettman, but our own Canadian Leaf Management that has been vetoeing it all along. Which is illegal, btw.
Tue, 2009-07-28 00:32
#20
Nothing is illegal in the old boys club of the NHL. But yeah I am also ready for pitchforks. They had a nice piece on the Otters coming back(the plane) again an arrow-esq departure from production. Very well made and over 80% still flying 40 years on. Canadians have over the years been much ahead of our time, robertson to the field artillery piece(jerry bull). We don't market it well and we routinely let it go away without a fight...or worse, actively seek out someone to take it from us. What gets me riled is the tiniest piece of info from the MSM and people are now experts on all things. My cousin reads a canwest article and it's the gospel truth. He wonders why I can't just except the americans are right. There is a whole world of evidence that says otherwise, but I am somehow wrong. Not official enough like crappy copy from canwest talking heads.
Maybe the worst, "I don't want to think about politics it just makes me angry, I have too much already" This is the attitude the elites want. Too much hastle finding things out, put on the game and have a cold one. Don't worry about being fucked over by coporations, your team has to beat it's rival tonight! Or For those less inclined to sports "Looky michael jackson michael jackson" or see what Simon has to say about some dipstick who wants his 15 nanoseconds of fame. Shows like Extra ET or Inside Edition are opiate for the masses, they are more worried about brad and angelina cheating then them doing something for an african village(which is always derided because stars can't be people concerned for their world...champaign socialists you know).
So count me in. My tagline says it all....ready for the revolution. I just know that people couldn't care less and canadians more than most.
Tue, 2009-07-28 10:31
#21
Tue, 2009-07-28 14:51
#22
The worker's experience in the U.S. from the perspective of Joe Bageant in Winchester, Virginia:
Oh sure, working class Americans' outrage over such things as $55 million CEO salaries has more to do with the fact that their corporations went bankrupt than that the CEOs looted the companies. Regular working class folks are pissed at them not because of their greed and criminality, but because, as my friend Eddie said yesterday at the Twilight Zone Cafe here in Winchester, "The CEO's didn't do their jobs, and so other people lost their jobs." They see corporations as the great givers of jobs. Jobs are everything.
And so the looting CEO and the corporation cutting cuts jobs to make the books look good for the big guys on Wall Street, are not guilty of looting, or cooking the books. They are guilty of "not doing their jobs," as if their "jobs" in any way resembled what the rest of us do. Workers know only work and jobs, because they have been undereducated, misinformed, university indoctrinated and psychologically pistol whipped into submission. It is utterly ridiculous that any adult cannot figure out the obvious inequity of this nation and American capitalism, where an elite one percent of the people grab 45% of the national pie. Such a conditioned stupidity and powerlessness makes you want to cry for your country. Or just get out of the goddamned place for long periods of time, to keep some sort of perspective and your sanity. I do some of both.
But Eddie and his fellow underclass Americans are stuck here. They have no idea that industrialized people elsewhere as poor as themselves do not live in such fear. They have no idea that old people in Sydney or Stockholm do not, as Eddie does, have to cut their blood pressure pills in half doses because they cannot afford to refill the prescription, which requires a doctor visit for re-authorization, plus $40 for the prescription monthly. We're talking about a man here in his seventies, living on about $800 a month, who, according to national social policy and benefits, is supposedly protected by Medicare -- but chose the wrong plan under the purposefully confusing plan C, which is just another way to shift more money and profits uphill.
Tue, 2009-07-28 20:13
#23
But there is an overidding sense that the social contract has been broken by business, no matter the depth of the victim's thinking, George.
It's too bad no left organization has even tried to capitalize on this. My guess is that as bad as this economy is for some, it's yet to threaten the bourgoise, who leads the left.
That's why there's no revolution, Thorin.
Anyway, back to Nortel and RIM.
Putting aside my dim, and perhaps jaundiced view of Canadian business assholes, in the climate of globalization I think attaching nationlism to business ownership is an obsolete idea.
Tue, 2009-07-28 23:01
#24
The Bageant quote was an attempt to show that "regular working class folks are pissed" down there for the wrong reasons. But Joe's "analysis" does not go beyond the populist's, even though tries to explain WHY the worker is in thrall to the corporation.
And workers are pissed up here for the wrong reasons,TP. Everywhere, the monster corporation seems indispensaable.
I'd say, it's past time to control the corporation and put it to work for us. Nordic style. Hell, you see from the still breaking elements of the story that the Cons are now forced to say they are "considering" stopping the sale to the Swedes. Why is that not a good thing for the future of workers in Canada?
The Cons play the nationalist tunes when they can - although theirs tend to be military airs, glockenspiel stuff involving war and icebreakers with guns.
You've got to raise the sights of your outrage above your own foot mate, and recognize that you bought into "Globalization" to the degree that you can't see a way around it. And that's where the Chicago school and the mainstream economists have put workers in the past third of a century. But don't let the bastards grind you down.
Read Jeff Rubin on why globalization is lurching toward its end. Read John Ralston Saul on the same theme. It's not going to be a picnic, but we're going to be forced to save ourselves.
Thu, 2009-07-30 09:22
#25
I'm not dissagreeing with you George, I'm just waiting. I was a pretty active foot soldier in the great anti free trade war, I saw all this coming down the pipe back then. I haven't been ground down, I haven't given up.
I'm waiting for everyone else to catch up.
Wed, 2009-08-05 16:31
#26
Meanwhile, down in the land of do-nothin'-Obama:
Indiana, which Mr. Obama narrowly won last November, the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 to do so, is the second-largest beneficiary of the competitive grants, with a total $400 million to spur environmental technology and "green jobs." Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. flew to hard-hit Michigan to announce more than $1 billion in awards, the most by far of any state. Cabinet officials were in North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri for similar announcement at winning companies.
Wed, 2009-08-05 16:55
#27
I was fascinated when watching this light little rom-com the other night called New in Town.
It stars Rene Zellweger as a factory maintenance workers daughter who now runs with the suit crowd. She is sent to this small town factory to begin shutting it down - you can guess the entire plot from there including the darling Union head played by Harry Connick Jr.
Anyway, the behind the scences story is all about how working Americans are getting screwed over by the suits and how the union is the good guy. This was mixed in with make fun of the small town yokels. It was fascinating to see it there in what was otherwise a very typical and common mainstream rom-com.
Wed, 2009-08-05 17:02
#28
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Wed, 2009-08-05 17:03
#29
Nortel-RIM could be PM's Avro Arrow
Could be? Seems that it is, if our cowardly media will actually talk about it.
Everyone I know across the political spectrum has sputtered with rage about this - if they knew about it, and understood the background and ramifications. Take 3 minutes to explain, and you can bring almost anyone on-side.
For sure. Diefenbaker railed against the Liberals pawning off natural gas to the Yanks. And then kept quiet about it once elected. DiefenTories handed an entire aircraft industry off to the Americanos, yes they did.
Anything that's worth anything in this Northern Puerto Rico gets handed off to the Yanquis. That's what our two old line parties have done so well in the last 60 years.
Wed, 2009-08-05 17:06
#30
Roth scooped up a slew of American telecom equipment manufacturers and small companies leading up to the meltdown part one at start of the decade. I'm wondering how much of those assets are at stake for Wall Street and US interests.
Wed, 2009-08-05 20:10
#31
Okay, I'm bored.
Could somebody explain why forbidding the sale of Nortel assets to Ericsson is a good thing? If you're a RIM shareholder, I can see the advantage in getting the govt to block the sale: RIM will get Nortel assets at a discount. But since the people who will lose out - namely, Nortel's creditors, who (I'm guessing here) are also mainly Canadians - this amounts to one group of Canadians getting an advantage over another group of Canadians. Why should the government get on one side or the other of this fight?
Oh, and I'd very much like to see an answer that doesn't amount to a personal attack. I'm asking for an analysis.
Wed, 2009-08-05 20:31
#32
They can let Ericcson have the CDMA end of things. It's old technology. Nortel's LTE division should remain in Canada. I did a bit of work on the Passport switch, and that's getting on in age, too. But then there's the support and maintenance end of things which employs some number of people. I'm no economist, so I cant figure out how they can you put a price on some of the technology and potential for jobs. This isnt MasseyFergy or a Hershey's candy bar subsidiary.
Canadian taxpayers sank a lot of money in Nortel building it up over the years as a made in Canada telecom equipment manufacturer and networking flagship. Why should our stooges stop the selloff? For the same reason the NDP and others pressured them not to pawn off radarSAT technology to the Yanks for peanuts.
Wed, 2009-08-05 20:42
#33
That public money is a sunk cost; there's no way we're going to get it back no matter what happens. So it's best to ignore it when deciding what to do now.
Wed, 2009-08-05 21:18
#34
Ya but, what do we do when the oil and gas, timber, and the bananas run out? I know, I know, theoretically we'll never run out of oil and gas so long as sufficiently high enough prices prevent overconsumption, or some such economist techno jargon. Thanks, Stephen. I thought you were angry with me there for a while.
Wed, 2009-08-05 21:36
#35
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
What industry will replace telecommunications when Canada sells off and withdraws from yet another high-tech sector? Who will do R&D in this country? Where will the next Mitel or Newbridge come from?
Wed, 2009-08-05 21:45
#36
Where will the next Mitel or Newbridge come from?
Ya, who will start up the next Mike and Terry's Lawnmowers? And do the Marla interviews?
Wed, 2009-08-05 22:18
#37
Why would Canadians do R&D if they know that the best price that they can get for their work is the one offered by other Canadians? Other researchers in other countries can expect to get top dollar for their ideas.
If RIM were serious about getting Nortel's assets, theirs would be the highest bid.
Wed, 2009-08-05 22:28
#38
In the Ottawa Citizen a few weeks ago, Ericsson people were quoted as saying that they would maintain and exceed the number of r&d people in Ottawa. I do think new management would be a really good idea for Nortel.
Wed, 2009-08-05 22:33
#39
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Strange that Canadians at Nortel generated any patents at all I guess. More strange that they produced more than 5000 of them...
Thu, 2009-08-06 00:04
#40
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/pension-liability-clou... liability clouds Nortel auction[/url]
If Nortel's pension plan is liquidated, Canadian retirees would get $12,000 a year from the Ontario pension benefits guarantee fund, according to analyst Diane Urquhart, who works with the former Nortel employees groups. As a result, Nortel's failure would create a liability over several years of some $500-million, she said.
Ontario contributed to a multibillion-dollar bailout of General Motors of Canada Ltd.'s pension earlier this year, and Premier Dalton McGuinty has said the provincial fund - which did not cover GM - is broke.
[url=http://www.ndp.ca/press/government-must-protect-canadian-nortel-assets-f... Government must protect Canadian Nortel assets from U.S. seizure[/url]
"The government must take immediate action to secure Canadian Nortel assets and protect Canadian pensioners before the pension funds are seized by the U.S.," says Dewar. "They must stand up for Canadians and ensure that if pension assets are held in Canada, then they stay in Canada," he added.
The US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation recently seized the pension fund for Nortel's American employees, and has announced that it will guarantee pensions for as much as $54,000 (US) per pensioner annually.
"If Canada had a federal version of the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Nortel pensioners, and for that matter, all Canadian pensioners would be protected as well," said Marston. "The New Democrats' recent Opposition Day Motion, which passed unanimously in the House, calls for the creation of a national pension insurance program that would have protected these workers, yet this government refuses to take action and protect Canadian employees."
Thu, 2009-08-06 02:28
#41
Good work, LTJ and Fidel.
And without applying a single label to our homegrown comprador look-alike.
Thu, 2009-08-06 04:06
#42
Stephen RIM wasn't allowed to bid in this supposed free market auction of canadian technology. What was your response to Gerald Bull selling the super gun to Iraq? He developed it here, with grants but we wouldn't buy at the behest of uncle sam. I have trouble understanding how rightwingers hate government to interfere with business even if government helped so much in said business.
Take the 407 for example. 100 BILLION taxpayers dollars to acquire the land, with a further 1.7 billion...but hell let it be leased for 99 years for 3 billion or so. Why should I as a government hating type not be furious with this delinquent use of my money? Oh yeah the gov can't run anything but you would be hard pressed to find some business man able to finance a 100 billion dollar project. Even bill gates doesn't have that kind of money. Hey lets have the taxpayers build it and give away the plum to the lowest bidder for 2 pennies on the dollar. Sure makes economic sense don't it.
SO I fail to see how you can not account for the money sunk into the business from taxpayers. Or is this the economic law of Selective Free Markets. It was reported that the bid RIM was offering was 10 million less than erikson, who only bid after the media had splashed the supposed bid all over the business section. Nokia offered several hundred million less with the canadian government OFFERING loans for them to secure the bid until erikson stepped up at the last minute with a bid just slightly higher than a reported nonlegal bid by RIM. SOunds a little odd don't it?
Thu, 2009-08-06 11:05
#43
The House of Commons industry committee hearings into Nortel are to be televised, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, according to Can Press. We might even be able to see NDP position on this - an unknown given the MSM blackout on things New Democrat.
And there are nationalist stirrings again in steel. Hamilton's Vic Alboini told Can Press yesterday he wants to see U.S. Steel forced to sell the former Stelco operations that it shut down, putting 1,500 people out of work. His company, Lakeside Steel Inc., already bought Stelco's steel pipe operation, and has now proposed to the court a plan to resume operations immediately at the Hamilton and Nanticoke facilities."
It's not just that your capitalist automotons live only in the pages of your textbooks, Stephen. In the real world, nationalism can be used to make a buck, buying in at firesale prices on the cusp of economic recovery. Employs people, too.
Thu, 2009-08-06 12:11
#44
Stelco was shut down so U.S. steel could protect American jobs, and sell coil steel made in the U.S. up here in Canada.
And we subsidized U.S. steel so they could do this.
Thu, 2009-08-06 12:56
#45
Too late schmart eh, TP?
But the feds are suing them for reneging on their promises. Gotta keep the legal beagles in scotch.
No, I only hope U.S. Steel can be held up to public scrutiny and forced to sell to Lakeside under some archaic act of Parliament. Would really like to have a free press and learn just what New Democrats are saying on this. Or at least a party webmaster who does not fall asleep at the switch.
Fri, 2009-08-07 21:50
#46
CBC news carried the delivery, today, of Mike Lazaridis, co-chair of RIM with Balsillie, to the Parliamentary Committee investigating the Nortel sellout.
The RIM executive revealed that RIM had talked with Nortel for months, only to find Nortel ignoring those talks and proceeding to sell Nortel piecemeal.
Lazaridis called the sales inimical to Canada's interests. And now it's over to the PM.
But, perhaps others watched it all on CPAC today?
Sat, 2009-08-08 07:39
#47
United States Steel used to dominate what we call INCO today.
It was a convenient relationship where Canadian Nickel was mined here, then moved to the States for refining, and then exported to Germany.
In 1916.
Sat, 2009-08-08 08:11
#48
And then much U.S.industry moved north in the 1920s - old John A.'s tariffs still held, and Adam Beck's hydro was cheap like borscht - and people tended to forget 1916.
I only heard Lazaridis briefly on radio, but these guys at RIM are honesto-to-God Canucks trying to turn back a sellout...and reverse the hockey talent drain.
Sat, 2009-08-08 08:17
#49
I am of two minds on this George. Yes, in a perfect world I think certain key industries should be held by fellow citizens. Preferably by all my fellow citizens but that's another debate.
But on the other hand, if a Canadian owned fertilizer company got caught filling big orders to a certain "O.B. Laden, Third Cave, Jihad Lane, Kandahar" what would happen to them?
Order of Canada, I suspect.
Sat, 2009-08-08 08:38
#50
Right now, the free-market-at-any-price crowd are divesting Canuckistan of yet one more home-grown product (pre-dating 1916 by many moons). And I cannot see them being anything but embarrassed by such an act of encouragement to "statism".
Sat, 2009-08-08 10:20
#51
The Waterloo Region Record has quoted Lazaridis extensively, from his presentation yesterday before the Parliamentary Committee, where he called on Ottawa to stop the "loss to foreign control of technology he called 'a national treasure.' " Allowing it to happen, he said, would have effects paralleling the decision to cancel development of the Avro Arrow in 1959.
After months of talks between RIM and Nortel, and the two companies were trading emails "about the wording of a news release announcing " a deal, when Nortel went into bandruptcy proceedings in January.
"We were snookered." said Lazaridis, who told the committee Nortel "effectivel;y blocked RIM from the auction process by throwing up 'non-disclosure' conditions in the auction process, which he likened to "making an offer to buy a house and then discovering, before the paperwork was finished, that the owner had given a lifetime lease and sublet rights to someone else."