High loonie causing harm says Mulcair

Fidel wrote:

Any economist with a half a brain(Harperexcepted) will say that manufacturing will always be among the most important sectors of any prosperous nation's economy. Manufacturing is where innovation and productivity are supposed to happen in order for a country to make things other countries want to buy. No rich country was renowned for its small businessmen or its ditch diggers. And Canada will be forgotten in the future for having contributed to global warming and for having fueled the most unsustainable and most fossil fuel dependent economies of what will be known as the pre-modern old world era.

100% Yes.

The secret of Germany`s success: Manufacturing.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67899/steven-rattner/the-secrets-...

I believe NDP should show Germany as an example to Canada (especially Ontario). Because some people believe that Canada needs Alberta`s oil revenue to survive in this fragile world economy.

Germany's overwhelming success is dependent on the low value of the Euro compared to what would happen if it had a national Deutschmark as it currency. Its manufacturing sector is much more efficient than other Euro countries, which would lead to a high German Deutschmark if that were it currency, thereby reducing its export trade price advantage and therefore exports over time. However, because its currency is based on the value of the Euro, which is lower in value than a Detschmark would be due to the less efficient economies of its Euro partners, Germany has maintained its trade price advantage, thereby building a high employment economy built on high level of exports. In other words, Germany's success shows the advantage of having a relatively low-valued currency for manufacturing and employment, the exact opposite of what Harper's and Alberta's policies have done for Canada.

jerrym wrote:

In other words, Germany's success shows the advantage of having a relatively low-valued currency for manufacturing and employment, the exact opposite of what Harper's and Alberta's policies have done for Canada.

I think Argentina, Iceland, and even 1931 Germany are good examples of the need to cancel debts. According to people like Michael Hudson, there are precedents for debt foriveness and especially inter-ally loans of the WW I era. And there was generous debt forgiveness extended to Germany after that country's aggresive borrowing in the 1920s ended up strangling the German economy and paving the way for a dictator. Economists have a saying that says: Debts that can not be paid, won't be. 

Germany owes Greece a debt 2011

If Greece does eventually refuse to pay what is unpayable, they will have to consider finishing the job. They will need to consider financing new spending through their national central bank, and even re-denominate in drachmars debts curently held in foreign currencies. Otherwise they will be right back where they started except without the EU dictating the terms of repayment.

The Current Account Deficit

Paul Tulloch wrote:

 The National Bank have published a very useful and interesting report on the current account deficit, which is now running at about 3% of GDP. They argue that the deficit - largely driven by a huge fall in our manufacturing and wider goods trade balance - has now become structural, and should be cause for much greater concern than is now the case. They also argue that the Canadian dollar is clearly over-valued, and that its rise has been fuelled by large inflows of hot money rather than by the strength of resource exports.

We know we're in trouble when Pinocchio McGuinty is making more sense than our corrupt stooges in Ottawa.

I caught the end of Ezra Levant's show (I know, slightly sadistic of me) and I think i saw a headline challenging Mulcair to debate him on the tar sands issue.

jerrym wrote:

However, because its currency is based on the value of the Euro, which is lower in value than a Detschmark would be due to the less efficient economies of its Euro partners, Germany has maintained its trade price advantage, thereby building a high employment economy built on high level of exports. In other words, Germany's success shows the advantage of having a relatively low-valued currency for manufacturing and employment, the exact opposite of what Harper's and Alberta's policies have done for Canada.

Your "in other words" statement doesn't jibe with the previous sentence. That sentence clearly says that the souce of Germany's competitive advantage is its [b]relative efficiency compared with its Euro partners[/b]. Since they are all using the same currency, that competitive advantage couldn't possibly have anything to do with the value of the Euro.

What Mulcair and his admirers don't want to talk about is that a lower-valued currency degrades the standard of living of the workers in an economy where so many of the manufactured goods they buy and so much of the food they eat are imported. The capitalists whose wealth is based on plundering our natural resources rejoice when the dollar goes down, because it makes them richer. Meanwhile the workers are making do with less. Only a believer in trickle-down Reaganomics would think such a situation is acceptable.

"Nothing good ever trickles." – Wanda Sykes

WRT the thread title, I think Mulcair is absolutely correct, as is McQuinty and his "petrodollar" comments.

KenS wrote:

There is one BIG fallacy.

The tradeoff is NOT Alberta versus seats in the manufacturing belt`of Ontario and Quebec.

It is Alberta, hinterland BC, SK, good part of MB and Northern Ontario versus the manufacturing belt seats.

You have listed the sites of the resources but that is not where the benefits of development go. In BC the profits always go to Howe Street and the environmental costs are given to the local communities. The BC hinterland needs small manufacturing they don't need fracking crews working and then leaving to spend their money.

I live in Burnaby where most of the refineries in BC are located.  The cost of gas in Burnaby is higher than everywhere else except the far north.  We'd love to see $1.10 gas again.  It hovers around $1.40 in Burnaby and 3 to 5 cents cheaper elsewhere across the Lower Mainland. I was on Vancouver Island this weekend and the gas was 8 cents a litre cheaper than in Burnaby.

One theory is the oil companies charge the residents more to offset any municipal taxes they have to pay.  I don't know if that is right but I also know the cheapest gas prices in the province are almost always in the Invermere area. They in effect get Alberta prices.  I am sure it is serendipitous that many of Calgary's 1% have summer homes and winter ski chalets there. 

The oil industry is not an engine for economic health it is a toxin.  Mulcair's views will only piss off people in BC that are in the 45% of the electorate who would rather die than vote NDP.  It seems to me the best thing is to refine the oil in Alberta before then shipping the refined product to other provinces. Even Albertans would agree that with that.  Put the brakes on the planned exponential expansions in the tar sands and built another couple of up graders like the LLyodminster one.

___________________________________________

Soothsayers had a better record of prediction than economists

To reiterate.

Mulcair's views will only piss off people in BC that are in the 45% of the electorate who would rather die than vote NDP.

You've merely pointed out much of the decades long propaganda that led them there. In BC the federal NDP needs to motivate the 45 to 50 percent who are open to them as potential government and the high loonie message will work with them. In this province trying to win over the other 45% is a recipe for election loss, after loss, after loss.

M. Spector wrote:

 Then the NDP will have to find some other target instead of the exchange rate on the dollar.

Yeah like all those absentee corporate landlords owning more than half of Canadian manufacturing. Look where that's gotten us.

M. Spector wrote:

Fidel wrote:

M. Spector wrote:

 Then the NDP will have to find some other target instead of the exchange rate on the dollar.

 

Yeah like all those absentee corporate landlords owning more than half of Canadian manufacturing. Look where that's gotten us.

Just as I said: Anything to avoid actually having to acknowledge and come to grips with the fundamental contradictions and crises of the capitalist system itself. 

Right. You have suggested before that our current situation has nothing to do with all those automatic aye-ayes for foreign takeovers since Mulroney scrapped FIRA pushed for by the NDP. 

They could've replaced our two colonial administrative parties in Ottawa with big-giant rubberstamps of approval and saved Canadian taxpayers a lot of money for all the careful deliberating they didn't actually do while marauding international capital proceeded to hollow-out Canada.

We were supposed to become as like a prosperous 51st state. Instead Canada has become a sort of northern Puerto Rico with a few homeless Polar bears.

What's afta NAFTA?

M. Spector wrote:

Eventually, the Canadian dollar will return to its historically low levels...

Not if the Harper stooges or their "at arm's length" BoC Governor, Art Carney, have anything to do with it. The two old line parties and the various superrich friend they are obliged to cater to prefer a higher dollar. Remember the centre of power is supposed to have shifted west where the dirty oil is. Our corrupt stooges will have Canadians paying corporate America to take it off our hands and exporting jobs down the Mississippi as usual.

Canada's Oil: For Sale to the Highest Bidder

Jim Stanford wrote:

Want to know why Canada's currency is sky-high despite our sluggish recovery, our large and persistent current account deficit, and our lousy export performance?

Check out this fascinating story in Friday's National Post, by Yadullah Hussain, on why Canada's oil reserves are such a uniquely hot commodity in the eyes of global oil corporations. ...

As I have argued before, a good way to break this damaging link between oil prices and our currency (the 25% overvaluation of which which continues to devastate all non-resource export industries, including manufacturing, tourism, and tradable services) is to take down the "For Sale" sign currently hanging on our oil reserves.

Interesting comment by Larry Kazdan at bottom. Why destroy the environment and the rest of the economy for the benefit of a few energy companies, many foreign owned?

Only in Canada would colonial administrators hold a knife to Canadian workers throats and thereby working in service of marauding international capital and foreign ownership of natural resources. Monbiot was absolutely right - Canada is a corrupt petro state.

JeffWells wrote:

KenS wrote:

As to alternatives, I gave an example. An exhaustive tour of BC mill towns by Mulcair. Where among other things he repeats the message of what the petrodollar is doing to these communities. And reinforcing what does not have to be said, but requires Mulcairs presence: we're here for you.

I like it.

 

There are a few mothballed factories and mills in Ontario and Quebec that are very tourable, too. 

Mulcair could also tour the oilpatch itself to see the impact that out-of-control development is having on the area, particularly in regards to environmental destruction and the high cost of living.

Doug wrote:

There are a lot of economic problems the Conservatives are just ignoring for the sake of preferring to pull goo out of the ground instead. Like this one:

Canada lags in e-commerce

"She also said that it's hard to find tech-savvy people who want to work for small companies; they'd rather work for big, multinational corporations."

I was helping out a retired guy to build an auction web site with open source software. He has hundreds of antique books and other collectors items he wants to sell. I was suprised to find out that Google's merchant side checkout/wallet capability for online transaction processing is only available to Americans, their non-NAFTA partners in crime in the U.K. and a few other places. 

I think our corrupt stooges must be doing more snivelling and grovelling than anything else when in Washington because they sure as hell aren't helping Canadians to venture into e-commerce, that's for sure.

The thing is the two other parties in government have actually attacked workers in Central Canada and East coast plenty of times over the years with 600, 000 higher paid manufacturing jobs lost and tens of billions of dollars in wages sucked out of the economy since 2000. They want to hold the rest of the economy hostage for the sake of an oil sector and what amounts to a paltry 18% of export GDP. It's totally insane and not to mention totally corrupt.

The current fiscal Frankenteins in Ottawa are creating a permanent structural account deficit with the high dollar propping-up a fossil fuel economy.

Our corrupt stooges are running Canada like a banana republic.

Boom Boom wrote:

If I read this article on the NDP website correctly, the NDP is calling for more refinery capacity here in Canada:

 

NDP releases dissenting report on pipelines and refining capacity

I think so. But the Exxon-Imperialists and the rest of the fossil fuel industry probably don't want many more refineries anywhere in North America. Not if building more refineries increases supply of value-added products, like gasoline etc. Multinationals want to maintain their right to monopolize and gouge us every step of the way. These Reform Party retreads couldn't run a lemonade stand without screwing it up. They are poor business planners themselves, and that's exactly what Canadians are supposed to think about government in general. Essentially we pay them to do a poor job of things and give federal governments a bad name.

Has everyone seen this, from yesterday's New York Times? Because every Canadian needs to. Especially the ones who believe the NDP are going too hard on the tar sands. (Oops, I mean oi- no; I mean tar sands.)

Quote:

Game Over for the Climate

By JAMES HANSEN

Published: May 9, 2012

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obamain Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

...

James Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is the author of “Storms of My Grandchildren.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html...

Harper may soon regret his attack on environmental group funding.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/10/pol-forest-ethics-advoc...

Hansen is NASA's top climatologist and he has more information available to him than you or I will ever see or know. So if he says the tar sands are that bad, I tend to believe him.

Another article of interest about Hansen.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

He talked a lot of nonsense, but said one thing that it correct. Mulcair needs to come and spend a bit of time out here , expecially if this is going to be a major issue for him.

Yes, understood - but it's not as if Mulcair hasn't been out there already.