Alberta Economy

[kevman]

Originally Posted by polak

0% tax for tech companies. Boom. Solved. Where's my medal.

So what you're saying is you support the reduction or complete elimination of corporate taxes to encourage economic growth. Interesting.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by polak

Cause I'm two years out of school with no capital and a couple of unfinished ideas...

Some sort of incentive being brought forward for industry would be nice.

0% tax for tech companies. Boom. Solved. Where's my medal.

Modify it a bit to be similar to our oil royalty structure. 0% tax until some financial return metric is met.

Its a good idea. Surely almost too good though, no?

[RubberDuck]

Originally Posted by polak

Cause I'm two years out of school with no capital and a couple of unfinished ideas...

Some sort of incentive being brought forward for industry would be nice.

0% tax for tech companies. Boom. Solved. Where's my medal.

Would you incorporate your tech company? Surely a corporation should pay more than 0% tax...for the greater good and all that?

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I seem to recall a poll done at Haskayne School of Business about 2-3 years ago that said kids expect to make north of 65k+ starting salaries pretty much because they spent three or four years in post-secondary.

it's been a while since I've been in university but I think this is still quite prevalent.

I graduated university in 2007, and absolutely expected this type of salary. People who graduated a semester before got $60k easy right out of school. I ended up gladly settling for $37k a year and had to live paycheque to paycheque to afford my rent in the only illegal basement suite that would take me. A rude awakening for sure, but I think it has actually helped in the long run as I learned what items were necessities (food, rent, utilities) and what were luxuries (all inclusive vacations, Flames tickets, fancy dinners).

[puckedoff]

People always talk about diversifying the economy like its an idea so simple and so good that we must be imbeciles not to be doing it, but economics dictates that business sets up where it has some competitive advantage.

Why would a tech firm set up shop here rather than Silicon Valley?
Why would a manufacturer set up somewhere far from the consumers, and with no port access?
Labour intensive jobs are not going to favour the Alberta job market, when they can operate in Mexico or elsewhere with far less regulation.
I've had heard in the past that Edmonton could potentially serve as a hub for warehousing style companies, using rail yards to route goods imported to a Northern BC dock. But look how difficult it is to construct any kind of rail or pipeline to move goods from BC to AB, let alone get approval to construct a dock/terminal.

Mining, oil and gas production, and farming is what we've got. Thats where our competitive advantage lies and if we want to compete economically with the rest of the world we need to utilize that advantage.

(This is very simplified but it is what it is. We aren't going to transform our city into New New York overnight.)

[calf]

Most tech companies don't pay taxes for their first several years of existence anyways...they lose money hand over fist during the development phase, and can offset those losses against income they earn once they're earning revenues/making money.

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't know how large the development sector would be here software wise.

What I'm seeing is that a lot of the development companies are very small and they farm off the actual coding and QA and support to India because its crazy cheap.

[northcrunk]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know how large the development sector would be here software wise.

What I'm seeing is that a lot of the development companies are very small and they farm off the actual coding and QA and support to India because its crazy cheap.

Lot's of cheap software engineers.

[polak]

I don't mind cutting industry specific corporate tax to encourage diversification of our economy since it's a very real threat in 20-30 years. That's different than wanting to raise corporate tax and review the royalty structure to fund a shortfall for revenue since we've been giving corporations a pretty good ride tax wise for a long time now.

Originally Posted by shermanator

it's been a while since I've been in university but I think this is still quite prevalent.

I graduated university in 2007, and absolutely expected this type of salary. People who graduated a semester before got $60k easy right out of school. I ended up gladly settling for $37k a year and had to live paycheque to paycheque to afford my rent in the only illegal basement suite that would take me. A rude awakening for sure, but I think it has actually helped in the long run as I learned what items were necessities (food, rent, utilities) and what were luxuries (all inclusive vacations, Flames tickets, fancy dinners).

Yup. I settled for 45,000/yr salary m first job (albeit that was before I graduated). That put expectations in check.

I have friends who started in trades who I think might have a harsh spending/reality check one day soon though. They have never experienced an actual slow down.

[polak]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

I've had heard in the past that Edmonton could potentially serve as a hub for warehousing style companies, using rail yards to route goods imported to a Northern BC dock. But look how difficult it is to construct any kind of rail or pipeline to move goods from BC to AB, let alone get approval to construct a dock/terminal. )

Calgary is a better location geographically speaking in terms of a shipping hub.

It's already the shipping hub of Western Canada. Logistics jobs are pretty easy to come by, they just don't pay anything near O & G.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

They're already approaching the upper limit of their production. They'll probably top out at 11m bpd later this year. Their percentage of total global production is much less than it used to be. We're over 93m bpd right now vs 65m in the 80s, any further increase will be absorbed with demand growth or declines in more expensive shale oil production. They aren't the swing producer anymore, they've left it to the US.

Spot on.

Only difference though is that the US won't have nearly the same swing capabilities. With Saudi Arabia it was almost as simple as turning a valve. With the US it is going to be on the scale of 6-12 months to swing. There's no valve. They actually have to go drill new wells and tie them in.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Why would you not want to develop O&G when it is right beneath our feet?

Exactly.

Originally Posted by polak

Cause it won't always be below our feet and cause no one has any idea what the value of it will be 20 years. Could be worthless, could be gold.

You talk about uncertainty for O&G companies with an NDP government, well that's a ton of uncertainty for the citizens of Alberta.

I will bet any sum of money that oil will be a valuable commodity in 20 years. In 50-100, you're point is very valid. Therefore we should a) get it out of the ground and sell it as fast as possible, and b) start figuring out how to diversify.

Personally, I'd love to see us become a nuclear tech centre of excellence (calling SeeGeeWhy). We have tons of engineers familiar with large facilities, our nation has experience with CANDU and the Ontario plants, our provincial neighbour has large uranium deposits, and it tops my list of sustainable energy sources.

[Hack&Lube]

I fall in that the category of <35, in O&G and don't "professionally" remember the bust but I was also born and raised here and it's vividly burned into my memory when my dad was laid off, all my friend's dads were laid off, and then all my childhood friends disappeared as they moved to Vancouver and Toronto suddenly around 1993. It's more of a childhood trauma than institutional memory but I can definitely comprehend how bad things can get.

Overall, there needs to be an adjustment in costs because things inflated out of control over the past decades. My main concern is if external drivers will cause certain necessities to remain unaffordable in Alberta (such as housing) even if everybody slowly adjusts to a new cheap oil paradigm.

Alberta has been trying to diversify it's economy for 40 years but we're still right back here again because people seem to forget all about it when times are good and they have been, for the past decade.

[Daradon]

Yawn. Boring.

We do this every few years when an oil man gets his panties in a knot.

As well worded as the OP's stance is, it lacks critical truths. And blames young people.

Yes your ancestors built this province. The did it being revolutionary and new. Why don't you try some of that yourself instead of propping up an industry that is killing us all.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Yawn. Boring.

We do this every few years when an oil man gets his panties in a knot.

As well worded as the OP's stance is, it lacks critical truths. And blames young people.

Yes your ancestors built this province. The did it being revolutionary and new. Why don't you try some of that yourself instead of propping up an industry that is killing us all.

The only thing "propping up" that industry is the enormous volume of oil below our feet and the enormous amount of global demand for oil.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Yawn. Boring.

We do this every few years when an oil man gets his panties in a knot.

What are you talking about? Who's the oil man? I'm talking about the economy of this province, something that affects everybody.

Originally Posted by Daradon

As well worded as the OP's stance is, it lacks critical truths. And blames young people.

I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just saying we can't keep pretending that booms are business as usual. This province has a cyclical economy. It booms big, then it crashes big. So let's prepare for the crashes.

Originally Posted by Daradon

Yes your ancestors built this province. The did it being revolutionary and new. Why don't you try some of that yourself instead of propping up an industry that is killing us all.

So what are you doing to diversify the province's economy? Have you started a business that doesn't rely on oil and gas, or customers who get their money from oil and gas? Do you create software that you sell out of province? Or develop drugs or health care technology with a global market? Let's hear your contribution.

[LanceUppercut]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Why don't you try some of that yourself instead of propping up an industry that is killing us all.

I sure hope you use nothing even remotely related to oil in your day to day life with hyperbole like this.

[nik-]

It's a well known fact that Oil companies produce oil even though people around the world just don't want to use it. If it wasn't for Big Oil forcing it onto humanity, we would all be free of plastics and gasoline and transportation of goods and jet fuel.

They sell it because people want it because it makes the tasks of life insanely cheaper and easier. Don't blame companies for "killing us all" by serving a need.

[burn_this_city]

We produce oil with the explicit hope that it kills everyone. Hurry up and die so we can rule over the ashes.

[VladtheImpaler]

Some interesting posts, except Daradon's. I am exactly the same demographic as Cliff, and recall our 21% mortgage and my parents turning over the keys to the bank. I particularly like the posts of puckedoff and Frequitude... I recall the "diversification" mantra since 1980 and nothing has actually ever happened. Nuclear is interesting, but that industry seems to be in the doldrums, and I don't know how realistic it is to go there from scratch. If I were to guess, our diversification would have to begin as some sort of a spin-off from NG - it's hard to imagine anything that's not already here coming in, given the remoteness (relative)...