Alberta Politics Thread

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

I'm not sure why I'm bothering here, but companies looking at laying off significant numbers of employees aren't making profits and so aren't paying business taxes.

You make a lot of good points in your response but this part is a little misleading. Companies don't only lay people off because they aren't making profits so when they are doing it to reduce labour costs to keep their margins up they are obviously still paying taxes.

Your proposal would reward companies who can afford corporate taxes (those growing or maintaining their staff) while paradoxically in a relative sense punishing those who can't (the small cohort who are cutting staff but manage to maintain marginal profitability and so would be paying tax).

This was a factor I was considering when I wrote the post, I still think it could work to some extent within smaller businesses. Your point is a very valid one though, it is in the same line of reasoning for why I don't think across the board business tax cuts will help struggling businesses, like you said if they aren't making profits then they aren't paying taxes so it would only help businesses that have managed to stay out of the red.

Saving a job when it's not needed is a waste of life for the employee (the purgatory of going to work with nothing to do), is bad for the company (morale, waste and inefficiency that comes from being overstaffed), and is thus a waste of tax money.

I would suggest you go ask one of the 100k people currently unemployed which situation they consider a waste of life: going into work and getting paid even if it's slow but waiting for things to pick up, or sitting at home collecting ei? I will agree it would have negatives for the employer financially, but to make it appear that the employees would be worse off because of it really was surprising to read given how reasonable your other points had been. Morale would go down? How good is morale when people are going into work every day expecting a pink slip? I don't see how company showing its employees that it cares enough about them to do whatever it takes to keep them employed would ever have a negative effect on morale.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I would suggest you go ask one of the 100k people currently unemployed which situation they consider a waste of life: going into work and getting paid even if it's slow but waiting for things to pick up, or sitting at home collecting ei? I will agree it would have negatives for the employer financially, but to make it appear that the employees would be worse off because of it really was surprising to read given how reasonable your other points had been. Morale would go down? How good is morale when people are going into work every day expecting a pink slip? I don't see how company showing its employees that it cares enough about them to do whatever it takes to keep them employed would ever have a negative effect on morale.

100k? Try closer to 400k. Unemployment is at 9%, up 2.1 from last year.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

100k? Try closer to 400k. Unemployment is at 9%, up 2.1 from last year.

I was using the Calgary number, not sure what you hope to prove by nitpicking at the number, it could be 1 million, how does it make any difference to the point I was making?

[KevanGuy]

Facts matter.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by KevanGuy

Facts matter.

Are you living in the same Province as I am? Because if you are then you know that your statement is patently false.

^

I used both emojis because I'm not sure if that was a funny little dig at the idiotic NDP or the sad realization of our current reality.

And now I'm having an Existential Crisis.

Thanks Notley!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by KevanGuy

Facts matter.

Yes they do, unless I suppose if it's a case of someone wanting to make an informed assessment on the full extent of impact the carbon tax would have on a local business right?

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

This has got to be the best troll job of 2016.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

This has got to be the best troll job of 2016.

Whats that? The NDP election?

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Yes they do, unless I suppose if it's a case of someone wanting to make an informed assessment on the full extent of impact the carbon tax would have on a local business right?

Unable to defend your position? Better change the subject!

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I was using the Calgary number, not sure what you hope to prove by nitpicking at the number, it could be 1 million, how does it make any difference to the point I was making?

Lol, your post was ambiguous. How would I know you meant Calgary?

In any case, it matters because the 400k unemployed workers in this province is the actual number. It's more of a macroeconomic issue.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

100k? Try closer to 400k. Unemployment is at 9%, up 2.1 from last year.

Turns out there is an actual count of unemployed in Alberta -- Approx. 228,800 This is an increase of 52,200 over the past year.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tabl...fss01c-eng.htm

oddly enough, Alberta still has the highest employment rate in western Canada 66.7%

( because the actual numbers matter...)

Update:
https://work.alberta.ca/documents/la...ic-package.pdf

9.9% unemployment in Calgary
6.4 unemployment in Edmonton
6.1% unemployment in Medicine hat - lthbridge

[CaptainCrunch]

Does that number include Contractors who aren't receiving benefits and people that have actually come to the end of their benefits?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

Unable to defend your position? Better change the subject!

I did defend it in the response he was responding to. I wasn't debating the number of unemployed, the number was completely irrelevant given the context it was being used in. It was a minor detail that could have been replaced with any number or even just "if you asked an unemployed person". Facts matter, but that doesn't mean they are always relevant to every conversation.

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Lol, your post was ambiguous. How would I know you meant Calgary?

In any case, it matters because the 400k unemployed workers in this province is the actual number. It's more of a macroeconomic issue.

Now that it's clarified. Do you have any comment on the part of the post that it created the confusion for you on?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

It was a minor detail that could have been replaced with any number or even just "if you asked an unemployed person". Facts matter, but that doesn't mean they are always relevant to every conversation.

I feel like I've told someone this before...

[GGG]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

Turns out there is an actual count of unemployed in Alberta -- Approx. 228,800 This is an increase of 52,200 over the past year.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tabl...fss01c-eng.htm

oddly enough, Alberta still has the highest employment rate in western Canada 66.7%

( because the actual numbers matter...)

Update:
https://work.alberta.ca/documents/la...ic-package.pdf

9.9% unemployment in Calgary
6.4 unemployment in Edmonton
6.1% unemployment in Medicine hat - lthbridge

I'd suspect we still have the highest employment rate because are demos skew young. So less old retired people

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by GGG

I'd suspect we still have the highest employment rate because are demos skew young. So less old retired people

It is more simple than that. The rest of Alberta is not as dependant on oil patch as we are here in Calgary. Other places are more diversified.

http://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/c...onomic-stories

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Just curious, are there any new gas plants planed? I've heard about some of the conversions from coal. Is anything of the scale of Shepard in the works? We need about 7 Shepard's to replace our loss in coal. I'm not sure how many are going to be converted.

This is just what I've heard, however I believe the idea is to use existing coal based equipment (turbines, boilers, generators) and retrofit these plants to operate on natural gas instead. I'm not overly knowledgeable of the process, but it would make sense that most of this equipment could still function with a different fuel source.

[Nufy]

Coal plants still Use steam to turn the turbine...
They are just changing the source of heat.

[para transit fellow]

This seems counter-intuitive

http://theamericanenergynews.com/mar...imate-policies

[La Flames Fan]

I don’t like paying taxes. Nobody does.

We like it even less when the economy is rocky and our jobs and incomes are uncertain.

So, no, you’re not going to be happy to wake up Jan. 1 and see the price of gasoline at the pump has jumped by 4.49 cents thanks to Alberta’s new carbon levy.

But then, no one is happy when the price of gas jumps — and it’s been volatile for months. Even with pump prices back to $1 a litre, they’re still well below what we paid in 2013 and 2014.

You won’t jump for joy when you see your next natural gas bill, either.

But then, natural gas prices in Alberta for 2016 are the lowest they’d been since 2012 — and incredibly low, historically.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...851/story.html