Alberta Politics Thread

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Slava

Does that include the pensions and benefits for the public sector? I'm genuinely asking here because I don't know and not trying to be difficult.

That didn't include the government portions no. I simply checked the median salaries of teachers vs median salaries for the Province as a whole. I guess the assumption was benefit and pension costs would be similar, also assuming employee contributions to those as well as union costs were the same across jurisdictions. Something worth looking deeper into when I get the time.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by belsarius

That didn't include the government portions no. I simply checked the median salaries of teachers vs median salaries for the Province as a whole. I guess the assumption was benefit and pension costs would be similar, also assuming employee contributions to those as well as union costs were the same across jurisdictions. Something worth looking deeper into when I get the time.

Yeah and I don't know that they're any different. I just think that the whole cost has to be considered. It's also a situation where wages and employee costs in the current system is one thing, but the way services are delivered and the costs of doing that is another.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Slava

We should have them open for tender, and really if companies from elsewhere are winning with cheaper bids and the like should we hire locally and pay more?

It absolutely matters when the NDP has explicitly stated that infrastructure spending is to create jobs.

Alberta NDP expects to create 100,000 private sector jobs over three years

Deron Bilous, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, told reporters 50 per cent of the new jobs forecast will be a result of the government’s infrastructure stimulus plan. Finance Minister Joe Ceci said the NDP’s jobs plan will create permanent positions.

“There will be construction jobs. There will be service industry jobs. There will be technical jobs,” he told reporters before tabling the budget in the legislature. “If you’re making investments in your businesses through tax credits or getting money from people through tax credits and you’re going to be expanding your business, I anticipate that those will be full-time, quality paying jobs.”

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

It absolutely matters when the NDP has explicitly stated that infrastructure spending is to create jobs.

Alberta NDP expects to create 100,000 private sector jobs over three years

Deron Bilous, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, told reporters 50 per cent of the new jobs forecast will be a result of the government’s infrastructure stimulus plan. Finance Minister Joe Ceci said the NDP’s jobs plan will create permanent positions.

“There will be construction jobs. There will be service industry jobs. There will be technical jobs,” he told reporters before tabling the budget in the legislature. “If you’re making investments in your businesses through tax credits or getting money from people through tax credits and you’re going to be expanding your business, I anticipate that those will be full-time, quality paying jobs.”

Right, so does that mean the bidding process should be rigged or not considered?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Slava

Right, so does that mean the bidding process should be rigged or not considered?

No, you idiot. Don't you see? If they spend out of province on a company because the bid was cheaper, then they're god damn scumbags who don't care about Alberta workers. If they spend in province on a more expensive bid, they're god damn scumbags because they're spending too much money. Duh.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by rubecube

No, you idiot. Don't you see? If they spend out of province on a company because the bid was cheaper, then they're god damn scumbags who don't care about Alberta workers. If they spend in province on a more expensive bid, they're god damn scumbags because they're spending too much money. Duh.

I see... so there is no wrong choice?

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Makarov

We certainly won't find answers in those Economics 101 textbooks everyone keeps reading (I'm being a bit cheeky now; apologies).

My turn to be cheeky.

"If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists." - Friedrich Hayek

[jammies]

Just a general disquisition referring back to the privatization arguments - any work that requires complex inputs and outputs has to be controlled by processes. "Processes", when you are dealing with organizations, is "bureaucracy". Are private organizations always better at bureaucracy than governments? No, they aren't, for many times you want thoroughness and redundancy in a bureaucracy more than you want speed and efficiency.

You can contract out roads and it'll work - it's relatively simple (although still pretty complex compared to, say, being a shyster real estate mogul) and you can clearly define the work that needs to be done, the timeframe it should be done in, the minimum quality that is acceptable, and so on. Even so, disputes, shoddy work, cost overruns, and other issues arise, and need middle managers on both sides of a contract to try to keep these to a minimum. (Middle managers, of course, are one of the targeted groups seen as "waste").

Ramp that up to something like outsourcing IT, and it gets much much harder to define the work, manage it, and thus realize real cost savings. Switching over from in-house to outsourced IT involves massive change, and massive change usually has massive costs, not all of which are readily apparent or trackable. It requires increased oversight, and that costs. It can - and almost always does - add a layer of complexity, now that you have an inter-organizational interface, and that also costs.

Then you have even more abstract differences that can cost - procurement will change, life-cycles of equipment will change, staff training and knowledge of how to use systems will change, experienced IT staff will leave and take institutional memory with them, all of which costs, and all of which adds up, despite being hard to quantify.

It's just not as easy as saying "last year it cost X, and we can outsource it for a cost of Y, so here's a good way to cut waste!" There is a certain amount of "waste" inherent in every task, it's not enough to replace something you perceive as wasteful with something else you perceive as less wasteful, you have to understand WHY a system involves redundancies, bureaucracies and seemingly bloated processes - especially when previous attempts to improve a system through rationalization are discovered to be the source of many of these seemingly ludicrous and easily fixable inefficiencies.

Outsourcing with the assumption that it will automatically make things better is economics reduced to sloganeering. Yes, Notley is on her way to presiding over a disaster, but Klein was a disaster as well. These are people that prefer ideology to careful thought, because it makes choices simple and dramatic. These are not people to emulate or admire.

If it seems obvious to you how things ought to work, it's probably because you have a poor understanding of how they do work now. And if arguing politics and economics on the internet solved complex problems with a couple sentences of common sense and folksy wisdom, we'd already be living in a utopia.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

I'd have to assume, but my biggest fear is that the WRP and the PCs split the vote and the NDP get back in

The last polls had Notley with less support in Calgary than she had in rural Alberta. Let that sink in for a moment.

In an election were held today, the only way she could remain Premier is if she took Edmonton in its entirety AND the PCs and Wildrose split right down the middle everywhere else with Greg Clark and the Liberals stealing a seat or two. And that is just to get to a slim minority.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

In an election were held today, the only way she could remain Premier is if she took Edmonton in its entirety AND the PCs and Wildrose split right down the middle everywhere else with Greg Clark and the Liberals stealing a seat or two. And that is just to get to a slim minority.

Hey I never said it was a warranted fear, just a fear.

Mind you when I went to bed the morning of the last election I wasn't expecting to wake up to an NDP majority based on a stupid protest vote either. Granted it's a slim possibility, but it's still much to close to a possibility for my comfort. A lot can happen in 3 years. Economy starts to recover, and the right doesn't come out with either a clearly defined leading party, or unite, and we could still see ourselves in this mess for another 4 years.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by rubecube

No, you idiot. Don't you see? If they spend out of province on a company because the bid was cheaper, then they're god damn scumbags who don't care about Alberta workers. If they spend in province on a more expensive bid, they're god damn scumbags because they're spending too much money. Duh.

Like I said, BC has a tax for all equipment going into that province intended to do some kind of work. Why not do that?

Funny story. The company that just twinned the highway from Sunshine to Louise is based in Kelowna. Now they're in Lethbridge somewhere. I mean hey, I make money off their parts but shouldn't there be an incentive for Alberta based companies to create jobs here?

And trust me, there are more than enough contractors in this province cutting each other's throats to keep bids competitive. It's just really strange that these big projects seem to be going to out of province companies.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

Hey I never said it was a warranted fear, just a fear.

Mind you when I went to bed the morning of the last election I wasn't expecting to wake up to an NDP majority based on a stupid protest vote either. Granted it's a slim possibility, but it's still much to close to a possibility for my comfort. A lot can happen in 3 years. Economy starts to recover, and the right doesn't come out with either a clearly defined leading party, or unite, and we could still see ourselves in this mess for another 4 years.

I'm not trying to single you out, but this is one of those statements that really shows how caught up people get in partisan politics. If in 3 years the economy is recovering why would you suggest we'd be in a mess for 4 more years? Just because of the party elected? Would it not suggest that they actually did something right and maybe deserve to at least be considered for another term?

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I'm not trying to single you out, but this is one of those statements that really shows how caught up people get in partisan politics. If in 3 years the economy is recovering why would you suggest we'd be in a mess for 4 more years? Just because of the party elected? Would it not suggest that they actually did something right and maybe deserve to at least be considered for another term?

Yeah, no. The NDP and their supporters don't get to use "oil tanked so its not our fault" to excuse their incompetence and then turn around and try and claim credit for any turnaround that would inevitably be brought about by a rise in oil prices.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Yeah, no. The NDP and their supporters don't get to use "oil tanked so its not our fault" to excuse their incompetence and then turn around and try and claim credit for any turnaround that would inevitably be brought about by a rise in oil prices.

You're right they shouldn't claim credit for that, they should admit failure and apologize "sorry Alberta we only did as good as the conservatives"
Somehow I get the feeling that if the price of oil stayed in the crapper and our economy started to recover in spite of it you would just find something else about the NDP to complain about.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Somehow I get the feeling that if the price of oil stayed in the crapper and our economy started to recover in spite of it you would just find something else about the NDP to complain about.

Don't let that feeling bother you too much, because that's a total impossibility of that ever happening under this government.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

Don't let that feeling bother you too much, because that's a total impossibility of that ever happening under this government.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...cast-1.3786058

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by rubecube

No, you idiot. Don't you see? If they spend out of province on a company because the bid was cheaper, then they're god damn scumbags who don't care about Alberta workers. If they spend in province on a more expensive bid, they're god damn scumbags because they're spending too much money. Duh.

That's right, snark it up and don't address the salient points.

1. The NDP claimed infrastructure spending would create jobs. I guess they were careful to specify that they weren't Alberta jobs.
2. The government is spending money that they don't have to hire out of province companies. What a fantastic plan, let's go further in to debt sending money outside of Alberta.

[nik-]

People defending it is honestly ####ing hilarious. The lengths people will go to.

The NDP clearly pushed infrastructure job creation. They're being rightly criticized for this. Three more years until this gong show is over.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by Makarov

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...cast-1.3786058

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Somehow I get the feeling that if the price of oil stayed in the crapper and our economy started to recover in spite of it you would just find something else about the NDP to complain about.

ugh thanks again oil.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

ugh

You're really starting to come around as far as your contributions to the topic are concerned

Edit: nice try with your ninja edit