Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Faust]

Alberta UCP activists want 'control' of party board — but to do what with it, exactly?

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7017103

[edslunch]

This is the guy who wants to control the UCP….

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

100%. However an offsetting factor would be that, with our young working population, contributions would have more time to grow before being withdrawn.

I’m not saying that makes it a good idea. Just that, objectively, that would help offset the lower returns vs the superior management of CPP.

This is the part I don't get about the whole thing, and maybe someone can clarify. If we say we are due a bigger portion of the CPP fund because our workforce is younger and Albertans have paid more into it than any other province, how can that be true? They haven't put in as much as an older workforce. It just doesn't seem to jive.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

This is the part I don't get about the whole thing, and maybe someone can clarify. If we say we are due a bigger portion of the CPP fund because our workforce is younger and Albertans have paid more into it than any other province, how can that be true? They haven't put in as much as an older workforce. It just doesn't seem to jive.

It's because everyone who was working prior to the changes in the early '90s didn't pay for their own CPP. Alberta's working age population has grown the most by far since then.

So we have lots of current workers paying for their own CPP plus the CPP of current seniors who didn't cover their own, and relatively few people collecting who didn't cover their own.

It isn't really that the population is young, it's that we have a small amount of people in the group who didn't pay enough and a large amount of people in the group who are paying extra to cover the first group's underpayment.

[Geraldsh]

The first cpp benefits were paid out in 1967. The number of pensioners collecting who never paid in their own share is dwindling every year.

Some exceptions are older immigrants who work only a few years before reaching 65 and become eligible for CPP,OAS,GIS….what a country!

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Faust

Alberta UCP activists want 'control' of party board — but to do what with it, exactly?

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7017103

Break things. These populist insurgents have no understanding of how to actually govern. All they know how to do is denounce and destroy.

[undercoverbrother]

All you need to know in a photo

[Muta]

Guaranteed at his age, that guy has had a virus or two in his time. Maybe it was all magic / pseudoscience though.

Although the irony in that photo is that he's giving all his attention to the virus that's on-stage.

[Fuzz]

People still trying to argue UCP supporters aren't deeply stupid? Jacks? Yoho? Buddy of yours?

[Ozy_Flame]

A little ivermectin and holy water will cure what ails him.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

A little ivermectin and holy water will cure what ails him.

don't forget the thoughts and prayers!

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

don't forget the thoughts and prayers!

Viruses don't kill people, heathens do.

[Eric Vail]

Originally Posted by Muta

Guaranteed at his age, that guy has had a virus or two in his time. Maybe it was all magic / pseudoscience though.

Although the irony in that photo is that he's giving all his attention to the virus that's on-stage.

At first glance, I missed the sign and thought he was referring to the racial diversity of the gathering.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

At first glance, I missed the sign and thought he was referring to the racial diversity of the gathering.

I see some diversity. There are a few people with brown hair and even blonde among the white-haired majority.


It stinks that so many Albertans cling to their conservative idnetity so tightly that reality of the modern party can't fit in.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

Those that would be doing the math for the APP calculated that the Alberta portion of the CPP is 53%.

They get an F at math with an answer like that.

I don't want someone who fails at math to be in charge of my pension.

Do you have a good objective rebuttal of the 53% conclusions you could point me towards? As in with math and analysis, not opinion? That would be super helpful.

I admittedly haven't read the Lifeworx report yet so should do that to help form an informed opinion too...

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Do you have a good objective rebuttal of the 53% conclusions you could point me towards? As in with math and analysis, not opinion? That would be super helpful.

I admittedly haven't read the Lifeworx report yet so should do that to help form an informed opinion too...

Here you go. Short answer is that the calculation is based on a hypothetical 'what if all Alberta contributions had been invested outside CPP at CPP rates of return'. But they weren't. Try using that argument with your investment advisor or company HR...'I could have made more if I had invested the money myself' and see how that flies.

Based on our review of the requirements under the CPP Act, we have calculated the initial asset transfer amount from the CPP to an APP using the following method:
(a) Total of all CPP contributions, up to effective date of split, in respect of employment (and self- employment) in Alberta
PLUS
(b) Net investment returns, up to effective date of split, attributable to the contributions in (a) less the
amounts in (c) and (d) MINUS
(c) Any benefit payments paid from the CPP that would not have been payable if an APP existed MINUS
(d) A proportion of CPP administration costs, up to effective date of split in proportion to the contributions made by Albertans versus total CPP contributions.
For the purposes of this calculation, we have considered net investment returns under (b) to be the investment returns earned on the net contributions (contributions less benefits and investment expenses).12
This methodology should produce the same outcome as if each province had run its own individual program account within the CPP since 1966 and earned the same annual returns (expressed as a percentage of the asset base at the beginning of each year) as the CPP as a whole and shared in the costs as described, while being able to borrow from the other provinces to cover any benefit payments in excess of contributions.

https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/8453...ns-2023-08.pdf

[Bunk]

Trevor Tombe is by far the best source for analysis

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=4576950

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

And for the uninitiated on the Alberta Heritage Fund when compared to the Norway Government Pension Fund. Norway modeled their plan on the AHF and started off with the same amount of capital, and then successive Conservative governments robbed every Albertan of that wealth. This is gross economic mismanagement looks like.

Alberta chose a path of low taxes in comparison to Norway, and also Alberta has to deal with equalization that has taken 550B out of the Albertan economy and into the Canadian one.

The wealth was distributed to every Albertan and Canadian, rather than contained within a sovereign wealth fund. Is this the right play when we know the average person is a total dumbass? Probably not, but I argue that it's not mismanagement of the fund - just different choices.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Alberta chose a path of low taxes in comparison to Norway, and also Alberta has to deal with equalization that has taken 550B out of the Albertan economy and into the Canadian one.

The wealth was distributed to every Albertan and Canadian, rather than contained within a sovereign wealth fund. Is this the right play when we know the average person is a total dumbass? Probably not, but I argue that it's not mismanagement of the fund - just different choices.

And choices change.

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

All you need to know in a photo

I wonder if he knows the sign is there? It reminds me of the “kick me” signs that we(not me) used in junior high school.