USA looks towards Alberta's oil sands

[Tron_fdc]

Yes, there are good businessmen in the cattle industry. I guess I should have been a little more descriptive. I have been told that the line between good ones and bad ones is going to be quite apparent this fall when this year calves go to market and farmers get paid next to nothing for their beef. The good ones will survive, the bad ones probably won't. Once again, this is all hearsay as I only half pay attention when it comes to bovine talk around me.

The problem he has is convincing said farmers to diversify out of the US market. It seems they are more willing to wait and see what happens with the border closure instead of trying to develop an off shore market for Canadian beef. This has everything to do with your point that it's easier to use the USA than go somewhere else. It is no more apparent than the farmer sitting on his hands, feeding 1000 head of cattle waiting for the gate to come up so we can ship to the US. If softwood lumber is any indication of US government policy I doubt this is going to happen anytime soon. They'll keep the borders closed for as long as it benefits their economy, and unless someone in the US steps up and says "hey, we need more beef, we're almost out" it's going to be a long wait.

When it comes to reasons "corrupted meat" wasn't sent out of Brittain, I would venture a guess that it was because the science wasn't there to back up British claims that their meat was safe for human consumption. That simply isn't the case right now: Canadian beef as a whole is has been scientifically proven to be as safe if not safer than any other beef on the planet. Even British beef, at the height of the mad cow crisis, has now been proven to be less of a threat than rabies was at the time. Were they running around shooting dogs at sight because there might be a crazy Fox Terrier loose in the countryside? Not that I can recall.

I do recall a few figures thrown around at a recent mad cow symposium put on a few months back in regards to the science behind it all:
- There were 300 000 cases of mad cow in Great Britain year to date
- of those 14 people died from what they thought could have been associated with mad cow
- of those 14 people one was a vegetarian
- during that time 22 people died from rabies
- the scientific "rule of thumb" was that if you found a single casr of mad cow in your country, it's been there for 10 years.

So, I would say that the borders are closed due to purely political reasons, and not scientific ones. If our government wasn't so inept, they might consider going to China, and proposing a thing called a "trade" with them (are you reading this Paul Martin??) anyways.....

And I'm not saying we shouldn't sell oil to the US, but only tread softly while doing it. It doesn't make sense to me to run around pillaging our natural resources to make a quick dollar, when my grandkids won't be left with anything of value 50 years down the road. I would be willing to bet the area with the most oil in the ground 2 or 3 generations down the road stands to make a fortune if they sell it then (unless of course Fotze gets off his lazy ass and makes me my Flux capacitor)

[Lurch]

The lousy ones eventually disappear as the economics of farming force larger and larger operations . . . . and the land remains under tillage regardless. The land doesn't miss the lousy farmer at all.

Interesting opinion, given your views on the NHL business situation (which has lost no teams, I might add). Protection for billionaire owners and throw farmers to the wolves!!

As for the trade aspect of your thoughts, it definitely reads straight out of a macroeconomic policy manual in a free trade world. However, IMO, I don't see this being a sustainable relationship with the US b/c I think their borders will grow much stickier over the next 25 years, both for economic reasons as well as geo-political ones, i.e. terrorism. As such, I think we will need to show a willingness to engage in the same type of trade tactics as the US - should we initiate a trade war today? Of course not. However, I do think the Canadian government needs to start putting incentives in place to reduce our dependance on raw good exports to the US, or else the US will put those same incentives in place all at once at some point down the road, only they won't be incentives so much as trade barriers. It's still going to hurt when it happens, but contigency planning is much easier before the event actually happens. Unfortunately, I see none of this happening.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Lurch@Sep 9 2004, 08:37 PM

Interesting opinion, given your views on the NHL business situation (which has lost no teams, I might add). Protection for billionaire owners and throw farmers to the wolves!!

As for the trade aspect of your thoughts, it definitely reads straight out of a macroeconomic policy manual in a free trade world. However, IMO, I don't see this being a sustainable relationship with the US b/c I think their borders will grow much stickier over the next 25 years, both for economic reasons as well as geo-political ones, i.e. terrorism. As such, I think we will need to show a willingness to engage in the same type of trade tactics as the US - should we initiate a trade war today? Of course not. However, I do think the Canadian government needs to start putting incentives in place to reduce our dependance on raw good exports to the US, or else the US will put those same incentives in place all at once at some point down the road, only they won't be incentives so much as trade barriers. It's still going to hurt when it happens, but contigency planning is much easier before the event actually happens. Unfortunately, I see none of this happening.

A sure fire way to get a farmer to get a sly smile on his face is to point out that while a farmer might go bankrupt, the land he leaves behind in bankruptcy usually becomes more productive in his absence as someone better takes over.

The wheat still grows. They know it.

We lament the loss of the small farmer but his passing is only important in other ways, say the money he might have spent in the grocery story in the small town he's near. That's where the negative impact lies.

In terms of the NHL, its a matter of how important a value is placed on the weakest link in a business within a business.

It was only ten years ago, in the 1994 lockout, that Mr. McMullen of New Jersey said: "To hell with small markets!!"

Yet we see in sports that anti-trust exemptions recognize that the relationship between franchises is not the same as the relationship between one farmer versus another.

The most profitable sports league in North America, the NFL, values the Green Bay Packers, the team most likely to disappear if it had a dog-eat-dog system of survival of the fittest.

We're probably at the point where a similar value will be placed on Pittsburgh and Calgary in the next CBA. If hockey were farming, both would disappear, the players distributed to New York and Toronto.

Cowperson

[Lurch]

Pretty dubious logic, I must say.

1. Farmer: small farms are disappearing b/c international subsidies have lowered commodity prices while input costs continue to rise. As a result, large corporate farms are developing b/c they can more efficiently deploy capital and better manage cash flows and risk.

Anti-trust exemptions are an excursion from the point, and I'm sure you know it. Anti-trust cannot apply to farms b/c no one farmer can be said to have any power given that there are literally hundreds of thousands of farmers. Collusion only applies where it can be shown that the parties can be shown to have an impact on the market. I doubt you could get 100,000 farmers to agree to pay only $6/hr for farm labour and back your workforce into a corner.

2. Hockey: teams in large markets have access to more demand, thus can generate more revenues, and are driving smaller markets out of the league. In effect, the guy with an advantage is taking over.

We 'lament' the loss of the small market teams in Winnipeg, Quebec but their loss is only important due to the loss of peripheral business, as the direct employment of a team is pretty small. New markets are developed, and hockey fans in Quebec and Winnipeg still have access to hockey - NHL on TV and AHL/Junior live.

The league has never, as far as I know, actually contracted and until it does it is no different IMO than farming, which has also never contracted, i.e. the land still grows the wheat and some city still has an NHL team for every one that moved. Either you like capitalism and its forces that push the weak sister out of business, or you don't. To suggest that NHL hockey is somehow different is an inconsistency that reveals the relative values you place on small market farmers relative to small market hockey teams. I'm not saying I disagree or that it is wrong - just that any attempt to dodge around the fact is intellectually dishonest.

[troutman]

The league has never, as far as I know, actually contracted

The Cleveland Barons were contracted and merged with the Minnesota North Stars I believe.

[Lurch]

I stand corrected - the NHL has lost businesses several times after I went back and checked it out. 1978 was the last time, prior to that was 1938 when the original 10 (1926-27) finally shrank to the 'Original 6'. However, after the contraction in 1978, the league expanded by 4 the very next year when the WHA folded.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Lurch@Sep 9 2004, 09:54 PM
Pretty dubious logic, I must say.

1. Farmer: small farms are disappearing b/c international subsidies have lowered commodity prices while input costs continue to rise. As a result, large corporate farms are developing b/c they can more efficiently deploy capital and better manage cash flows and risk.

Anti-trust exemptions are an excursion from the point, and I'm sure you know it. Anti-trust cannot apply to farms b/c no one farmer can be said to have any power given that there are literally hundreds of thousands of farmers. Collusion only applies where it can be shown that the parties can be shown to have an impact on the market. I doubt you could get 100,000 farmers to agree to pay only $6/hr for farm labour and back your workforce into a corner.

2. Hockey: teams in large markets have access to more demand, thus can generate more revenues, and are driving smaller markets out of the league. In effect, the guy with an advantage is taking over.

We 'lament' the loss of the small market teams in Winnipeg, Quebec but their loss is only important due to the loss of peripheral business, as the direct employment of a team is pretty small. New markets are developed, and hockey fans in Quebec and Winnipeg still have access to hockey - NHL on TV and AHL/Junior live.

The league has never, as far as I know, actually contracted and until it does it is no different IMO than farming, which has also never contracted, i.e. the land still grows the wheat and some city still has an NHL team for every one that moved. Either you like capitalism and its forces that push the weak sister out of business, or you don't. To suggest that NHL hockey is somehow different is an inconsistency that reveals the relative values you place on small market farmers relative to small market hockey teams. I'm not saying I disagree or that it is wrong - just that any attempt to dodge around the fact is intellectually dishonest.

Anti-trust cannot apply to farms

Thanks for agreeing with me. That was the point. The NHL is comprised of businesses within a business. Farming is individual businesses competing with individual businesses. Hence one qualifies for anti-trust exemptions and the other does not.

Cowperson