Quote:
Originally Posted by cal_guy
First the authors of the report include 3 economist so your point of the politicians playing economist are clearly false. Second governments across the world have been able to increase the government take significantly in the past four years yet the government's take(including the federal income taxes) have remained the same turning Alberta from one of the least competetive royalties and tax regime to one of the most generous from a period of ten years.
Let's imagine the subsurface oil & gas resources weren't own by Alberta, but by private owners (such as in the US). Would you argue that if these owners push for the best price for their resources would you argue that they were jepordizing Alberta. Or would you think that by pushing for the best price(and the oil & gas companies only agreeing when they believe they make a profit) they would in effect pushing the market to the market equlibrium?
|
they'd only be able to get what the industry could justify in their economics, that's the beauty of a market economy and private ownership. The fact of the matter is that the natural gas business is already on its back due to low prices and a royalty increase could be the finishing punch for a lot of companies who are primarily natural gas and don't feel the benefit of the high oil price to offset the huge decreases in gas revenue.
As a sidenote, I'm quite surprised by the lack of gratitude towards the industry shown by some of the people on here. It's ironic when you consider that it's due in large part to those greedy oil and gas types that we still have a NHL team in this city. But I don't know, maybe once the industry tanks, all those overpaid CEO's will sell their Ferrari's so they can afford to keep the luxury boxes that provide the Flames with millions in revenue every year.