$700 Billion - To Bail or Not to Bail...That is the question

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purpleoscar said:
It's a political hot potato. The market needs regulation like freedom needs justice. Just because people have freedom doesn't mean they can cause crimes. Crimes need laws and crimes in economics need laws. We shouldn't be forcing poor people to have loans since poor people often can't pay back loans. It's better to save for a downpayment and buy a house when the job situation is better. Otherwise why force the market to supply these mortages? Just get the taxpayer in a less roundabout way to pay for it. But of course when presented that way, tax payers say NO.
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You do relize the same thing will happen in Alberta in the next few years right? People are making big money now but when that money drys up we are going to be in the same sittuation. People that were poor, or lower income are now earning 100k a year. But when the construction boom slows how are they going to pay for their 300-500k mortages?
 
European bank stocks will probably plummet tomorrow but I can't even short them because the bastard regulators fixed the market.

It's terribly unfair that I can't make money out of this unfortunate situation.:wink:
 
Dollar could appreciate in the short term.

I would be inclined to short Euro and sterling against the yen and Swiss franc.

ECB will eventually be compelled to reduce rates (in my opinion) which is bad for the Euro.
 
bonoman said:
You do relize the same thing will happen in Alberta in the next few years right? People are making big money now but when that money drys up we are going to be in the same sittuation. People that were poor, or lower income are now earning 100k a year. But when the construction boom slows how are they going to pay for their 300-500k mortages?
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I could have got a mortgage as well. I didn't because I knew that when the government had low interest rates too long that it allowed people to buy easily so they could flip for quick gains (gambling) and the demand for housing in Alberta was huge so the prices went through the roof. At some point interest rates could not go down any further and people would be in so much debt they couldn't keep flipping the houses to other suckers. All you would need is a drop or even leveling off of prices for people to not be able to sell at the price they want and also have little money left to keep making payments.:doh:

Who said that they should have bought when they did, and why didn't they save more money and put downpayments? Greed led people to think the prices would go up forever no matter how unlikely that would be. Few people ask questions about how people spend money in regards to lifestyle. It's called priorities. My dad bought at the wrong time and had to take whatever jobs he could and he put as much money into the mortage and paid it off. It wasn't fun but he honored his contract.

People should take responsibility for themselves. If they don't have a large downpayment on a house then they shouldn't get it. If more than 30% of your pay goes to mortgage payments you shouldn't get one. People knew that the government (taxpayers) would back them up to avoid recessions, (because they are political fodder), so they kept doing it anyways.

Many people will do like they always do. Go to Alberta and eat when the eating is good and go back east. Many I know live in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and just rent spaces in Alberta and send excess cash to their families in the east to buy cheap property. Things have already slowed down. Many are going to Saskatchewan. Some are addicted to drugs and blowing their money. At which point do people take responsibility for themselves and their choices or they pass the buck to the government.

All I can say is that there is no free lunch. Printing money causes inflation which is a cost. Getting the tax payer to bail out people is a cost. Or people tightening their belts and paying off their mortgage is a cost. You can't avoid the dual nature of exchange. You want a house? Pay for it.

This is why people like me rail about how so few people today really save any money at all. Throughout history we have lessons like "the fat cow and the lean cow", "the ant and the grasshopper." People don't get it. The stock market should not be treated like a casino.

The housing market was treated like a Casino. Alberta didn't have as many subprime mortages and the conservatives have been paying down debt federally so we will get hurt by the slump in the U.S. but not as bad. We have to start over and governments shouldn't be priming the pump and lending 40 year mortgages with no downpayment. Lowering the interest rates down to practically 0% is giving an incentive to go into debt. It keeps happening almost every 5 - 10 years now.

In the end if people don't want to earn 4% interest on their investments and grow over time they will always resort to gambling. "I want 20% return." Well then take the risk. Even high interest rates can't completely stop gambling if people are willing to do so. Older generations knew there was going to be a recession at some point and the younger ones thought it would go up forever. There's a sucker born every minute.

My brother has a wife that demanded a larger house no matter the cost and he said yes. Now he has 2 mortgages and if he loses his job he will have to deplete his savings to stop forclosure. He felt the economy would be doing good because of Chinese demand for oil. What is this? Gambling! He knows big shot investors that have 5 houses that they have to bankroll. Even if you make 500,000/year you're going to be sweating. McCain, Bush, Obama, Clinton. None of these guys can stop greed and stupidity completely. All they can do is try not to have perverse incentives and useless regulations. The rest is up to us. We are the economy.

There are some smart people out there that did what I did and waited the market out. Soon there will be mortgages with a reasonable cost and I can enter at the right time. If something happens while I pay it I will have savings to keep my house. If I have to lose my pride and get a crappy job to make ends meet until I get a better one you bet I will do what I can instead of complain. People need to cultivate self-discipline.

If people didn't buy big screen TV's and expensive cars and multiple vacations they wouldn't be so hard up. I know a lot of people got into consumer spending and didn't prioritize right, but the media and politicians don't talk about it because they don't want to get criticized by those very same people. Does anybody ask the question "why did you spend on vacations or home decoration when you could have put that on your house?"

Dr. Frankenstein’s Wall Street by Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online

This is the only guy I heard mentioning this.

An Old Story by Michelle Malkin on National Review Online
She talked about an old story.

These are life lessons people can learn. I just wish they would.
 
Purplescar, you are right in so much of what you say. People in this province are living the good life and seem to think its never going to end. In the construction industry tradesmen from all over the country are turning their backs on long established trade unions and their responsible pension plans. They are turning away from a respectable retirement for a few thousand dollars in RRSP's that they inturn cash in and buy a new toy. People need to start rationalizing their outlook on their carrer paths. If our working life is 40yrs, we must assume some of that time is going to be tough times. We need to plan for those times and ensure that what we are doing now is going to benefit us in the future.

In my opinion, the Alberta PC's have not done that and continue to ignore the glaring holes in their plans, or lack thereof.

We are allowing Encana to build a pipeline to send raw bitumen south to Illinios. We are granting every oilsands plant and refinery that comes across the table. When does our govt get involved in responsible manangement of their finances and economy? We cannot change what the average person does, we can change what our govt does. But what do Albertans continue to do, vote for the party without a plan. Its digusting.

You say you think or hope that you have waited out the high end of the market, I hope for your sake you have. But when you do get your 300K house and the interest rates are climbing to double figures, it will not matter if you were responsible. People will start to walk away from homes if things slow down. Interest rates will sky rocket, and you, the patient taxpayer, will be stuck with the same problems as everyone else. I have a 300K, and it makes up under 7% of my income. But when my income go from $5000/week to 1000/week it won't matter if I was responsible when I purchased it, I am still stuck with a mortgage of 40% of my income.

How do we negate these problems? A start would be trying to create an economy with long term growth. Why we are building oilsands plants at the rate we are is dangerous. If, for every oilsands plant (eg. Syncrude, Suncor, Albian, LongLake, CNRL, Fort Hills, FireBag) we built a matching refinery (PetroCan, Scotsford, Mobil) we could be producing and refining and constructing for decades to come. If we then, instead of piping raw bitumen or petro chemicals south, set up tax incentives for manufacturing companies to set up plastics and other petro related manufacturing facilities in Alberta we would have longer term steady work.

There are many things right with Alberta. There are many things wrong. We need to start looking ahead, not just a few years, but decades. We need to institute the programs and show the leadership that is going to decrease the chance of this province once again falling into a deep depression. If, and when, the oil boom falls out we need other industries there to support it while we find our footing again. I do not want to have to leave Edmonton or Northern Alberta to find work, I want to live hear my entire life. I love this Province and city too much to sit back and watch the PC's let us run it into the ground.
 
It's interesting to me that we continually here others bashing Wall Street for defrauding those of us on Main Street and if it were not for greedy WS we would not be in this mess.

Last time I checked, we were in this mess because of home prices and defaulting on loans. Seems to me that if Main Street would have been more fiscally responsible like putting 20% to 30% down on a home, buiying a home they could AFFORD, or getting a traditional loan and not the 'loan to help me get into a house I can't afford' we wouldn't be in this mess.

Fact is: WS greed AND greed from MS contributed to this mess.
 
I'm just watching Nancy Pelosi talk about the bailout bill. Who would have ever thought the she and the President would be fighting so hard together. kinda weird.

Oh another note. They have the camera on the dowjones, it is falling so quick.
 
bonoman said:
Purplescar, you are right in so much of what you say. People in this province are living the good life and seem to think its never going to end. In the construction industry tradesmen from all over the country are turning their backs on long established trade unions and their responsible pension plans. They are turning away from a respectable retirement for a few thousand dollars in RRSP's that they inturn cash in and buy a new toy. People need to start rationalizing their outlook on their carrer paths. If our working life is 40yrs, we must assume some of that time is going to be tough times. We need to plan for those times and ensure that what we are doing now is going to benefit us in the future.

In my opinion, the Alberta PC's have not done that and continue to ignore the glaring holes in their plans, or lack thereof.

We are allowing Encana to build a pipeline to send raw bitumen south to Illinios. We are granting every oilsands plant and refinery that comes across the table. When does our govt get involved in responsible manangement of their finances and economy? We cannot change what the average person does, we can change what our govt does. But what do Albertans continue to do, vote for the party without a plan. Its digusting.

You say you think or hope that you have waited out the high end of the market, I hope for your sake you have. But when you do get your 300K house and the interest rates are climbing to double figures, it will not matter if you were responsible. People will start to walk away from homes if things slow down. Interest rates will sky rocket, and you, the patient taxpayer, will be stuck with the same problems as everyone else. I have a 300K, and it makes up under 7% of my income. But when my income go from $5000/week to 1000/week it won't matter if I was responsible when I purchased it, I am still stuck with a mortgage of 40% of my income.

How do we negate these problems? A start would be trying to create an economy with long term growth. Why we are building oilsands plants at the rate we are is dangerous. If, for every oilsands plant (eg. Syncrude, Suncor, Albian, LongLake, CNRL, Fort Hills, FireBag) we built a matching refinery (PetroCan, Scotsford, Mobil) we could be producing and refining and constructing for decades to come. If we then, instead of piping raw bitumen or petro chemicals south, set up tax incentives for manufacturing companies to set up plastics and other petro related manufacturing facilities in Alberta we would have longer term steady work.

There are many things right with Alberta. There are many things wrong. We need to start looking ahead, not just a few years, but decades. We need to institute the programs and show the leadership that is going to decrease the chance of this province once again falling into a deep depression. If, and when, the oil boom falls out we need other industries there to support it while we find our footing again. I do not want to have to leave Edmonton or Northern Alberta to find work, I want to live hear my entire life. I love this Province and city too much to sit back and watch the PC's let us run it into the ground.
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Alberta has always gone through booms and busts but I don't think the interest rates will go as high as you say. When there is a downturn they won't need to increase interest rates because the prices will naturally come down.

The only way to reduce the yo-yo effect of commodities in Canada is to keep balanced budgets and then to lower taxes for corporations so other industries want to come here instead of just relying on commodities. The provincial government has already done that. 10% provincial corporate taxes. The federal government will do the same if the conservatives are elected again. The conservatives want to institute a savings plan of 5,000 per year to earn investment income tax free. Certainly save your annual mortgage lump sum payments in there and remove it tax free to lower your mortgage balance a little further every year.

Things will slow down in the oil sands when the royalties go up 5 years from now when they increase. Stelmach is trying to increase other industries but it will take time. It's amazing how many people have moved here and not just oilsands workers. Many are moving to Saskatchewan as well. I would think continuing to look for other sources of energy beyond oil, like nuclear power will help to offset oil as the major industry.

Certainly if the federal government didn't make us eat inflation and put the interest rates down so low things wouldn't have boomed as much and people wouldn't race to get into debt and growth would have been more stable. Unfortunately only the federal government can influence central bankers. The federal government avoided raising interest rates to curb our inflation because Ontario was doing bad so they kept them down. Ontario would scream if it was raised. Also higher interest rates compared to the U.S. would mean foreigners would invest in us a lot meaning the Canadian dollar would increase. You know that exporters would also scream if there was a high dollar. I don't know what to do beyond what is being done already. The people themselves are also coming to Alberta because they say they can't find anything in other provinces. Certainly if other provinces did the appropriate things we wouldn't have as many people coming here. These are more things the Alberta government has out of their direct control.

Be thankful that the federal government has a surplus and will not likely be in the situation the Americans are in so there is still room for us to get into debt if it's an absolute crisis and we need to. The U.S. is already got a large deficit that will take years to narrow and they can't so easily bail out companies without going further into debt. I think a crash may be necessary and while people are on welfare programs the companies will have to start over again and act risk averse. If the government keeps bailing out people then there is no risk in the eyes of the investor and they will do more stupid investments. Capitalists are supposed to be risk averse. What's happening now is that the Capitalists don't really exist anymore. Nobody is saving and companies are leaning on the taxpayer. To be honest I'll have to do some more studying on recessions. Certainly the Keynesian method of just making more money failed in the '70's and unemployment mixed with inflation (stagflation) and they needed extremely high interest rates to make people feel confident in the currency. This lead to a huge recession in the '80's but the peopl had confidence in the currency and inflation reduced so people could go back to work again. No pain no gain. No matter where you look at it any move to reduce the loss simply transfers losses to either inflation, job losses, or taxpayers getting an increased tax burden. Throughout the '90s and '00s the interest rates shouldn't have been kept so low. I think that's the real solution. When the debts get cleared off and people start over there should be reasonable interest rates available. Most economists think 4% grows well with the economy. The rest has to do with the people which should stop gambling. The government can't stop people from making dumb greedy choices. Part of the recession was to punish bad behaviour but so many people don't understand economics and the cycle has to repeat. Super low interest rates can create fake jobs by having crappy companies exist that shouldn't. When the interest rates go up the useless jobs disappear and the government comes in with EI.

Another problem is politics. Nobody wants a recession during the election cycle so there's always a short term incentive for politicians to push central bankers to prime the pump.

Do the best you can and just plow your extra money into the house. It usually takes 10 years minimum to pay off a house and there will be economic shocks that appear during that time. Some people take on extra jobs. Wives who were at home will start working to make extra income.

It's worth the effort. My dad has enough saved to retire (despite having low paying jobs all his life and only safe investments with low rates) and his house is paid so the recession doesn't affect him at all unless the inflation goes to 100%. There's definately a light at the end of the tunnel when you do this work. This is the time people can enjoy a better standard of living. Ignore commercials and peer pressure that says you should enjoy life while you are young. When you pay your house become an investor. You're savings helps the economy so we don't have to constantly print tons of money.
 
Man, my 401k is going to take a beating...... down more than 600 pts.!?!?! You've got to be friggin kidding me!
 
purpleoscar said:
Alberta has always gone through booms and busts but I don't think the interest rates will go as high as you say. When there is a downturn they won't need to increase interest rates because the prices will naturally come down.

The only way to reduce the yo-yo effect of commodities in Canada is to keep balanced budgets and then to lower taxes for corporations so other industries want to come here instead of just relying on commodities. The provincial government has already done that. 10% provincial corporate taxes. The federal government will do the same if the conservatives are elected again. The conservatives want to institute a savings plan of 5,000 per year to earn investment income tax free. Certainly save your annual mortgage lump sum payments in there and remove it tax free to lower your mortgage balance a little further every year.

Things will slow down in the oil sands when the royalties go up 5 years from now when they increase. Stelmach is trying to increase other industries but it will take time. It's amazing how many people have moved here and not just oilsands workers. Many are moving to Saskatchewan as well. I would think continuing to look for other sources of energy beyond oil, like nuclear power will help to offset oil as the major industry.

Certainly if the federal government didn't make us eat inflation and put the interest rates down so low things wouldn't have boomed as much and people wouldn't race to get into debt and growth would have been more stable. Unfortunately only the federal government can influence central bankers. The federal government avoided raising interest rates to curb our inflation because Ontario was doing bad so they kept them down. Ontario would scream if it was raised. Also higher interest rates compared to the U.S. would mean foreigners would invest in us a lot meaning the Canadian dollar would increase. You know that exporters would also scream if there was a high dollar. I don't know what to do beyond what is being done already. The people themselves are also coming to Alberta because they say they can't find anything in other provinces. Certainly if other provinces did the appropriate things we wouldn't have as many people coming here. These are more things the Alberta government has out of their direct control.

Be thankful that the federal government has a surplus and will not likely be in the situation the Americans are in so there is still room for us to get into debt if it's an absolute crisis and we need to. The U.S. is already got a large deficit that will take years to narrow and they can't so easily bail out companies without going further into debt. I think a crash may be necessary and while people are on welfare programs the companies will have to start over again and act risk averse. If the government keeps bailing out people then there is no risk in the eyes of the investor and they will do more stupid investments. Capitalists are supposed to be risk averse. What's happening now is that the Capitalists don't really exist anymore. Nobody is saving and companies are leaning on the taxpayer. To be honest I'll have to do some more studying on recessions. Certainly the Keynesian method of just making more money failed in the '70's and unemployment mixed with inflation (stagflation) and they needed extremely high interest rates to make people feel confident in the currency. This lead to a huge recession in the '80's but the peopl had confidence in the currency and inflation reduced so people could go back to work again. No pain no gain. No matter where you look at it any move to reduce the loss simply transfers losses to either inflation, job losses, or taxpayers getting an increased tax burden. Throughout the '90s and '00s the interest rates shouldn't have been kept so low. I think that's the real solution. When the debts get cleared off and people start over there should be reasonable interest rates available. Most economists think 4% grows well with the economy. The rest has to do with the people which should stop gambling. The government can't stop people from making dumb greedy choices. Part of the recession was to punish bad behaviour but so many people don't understand economics and the cycle has to repeat. Super low interest rates can create fake jobs by having crappy companies exist that shouldn't. When the interest rates go up the useless jobs disappear and the government comes in with EI.

Another problem is politics. Nobody wants a recession during the election cycle so there's always a short term incentive for politicians to push central bankers to prime the pump.

Do the best you can and just plow your extra money into the house. It usually takes 10 years minimum to pay off a house and there will be economic shocks that appear during that time. Some people take on extra jobs. Wives who were at home will start working to make extra income.

It's worth the effort. My dad has enough saved to retire (despite having low paying jobs all his life and only safe investments with low rates) and his house is paid so the recession doesn't affect him at all unless the inflation goes to 100%. There's definately a light at the end of the tunnel when you do this work. This is the time people can enjoy a better standard of living. Ignore commercials and peer pressure that says you should enjoy life while you are young. When you pay your house become an investor. You're savings helps the economy so we don't have to constantly print tons of money.
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I'd like to hear your thoughts on the PC's failure to institute any form of restriction on "scrapping the top soil" or send raw bitumen down the line to the states. That I think is the key issue in making our economy more diverse and keeping it going at a sustainable pace. Also the PC's are still not regulating the pace of our devolpment. There isnt any Albertan that does'nt see the complete lack of planning that has sent us into high construstion inflation and the resulting failure of out infustructure.

Retirement is not as big as a concern for me as some others. My pension will be the equivalent of 38hrs per week when I retire. Should I being living at a point that with my RRSP's and my house being paid off that I cannot live within those means, then I'm doing something seriously wrong! I contribute 14-18K a year to my pension/RRSP's so I'm fairly comfortable thanks to being a Union tradesman.

Interest rates can rise if the bottom falls out. They will rise. If they rise and house prices (in some areas eg. McMurray, Grande Praire, Athabasca) fall back to where they should be (100-200K less) people will just hand their keys to the bank and walk away. This is where the interest rates will rise. I'm pretty secure but when we were considering going on strike last year people could'nt afford it. Between house, truck, quad, skidoo, bike payments lots of tradesmen were 3-4 workless weeks from being broke. Its a sad reality and far more prevelent in my field.

I agree the economy runs in cycles but we need to have more cusioned lows and more level headed highs. When we accomplish this we will have a economy that we can be comfortable with.
 
bonoman said:
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the PC's failure to institute any form of restriction on "scrapping the top soil" or send raw bitumen down the line to the states. That I think is the key issue in making our economy more diverse and keeping it going at a sustainable pace. Also the PC's are still not regulating the pace of our devolpment. There isnt any Albertan that does'nt see the complete lack of planning that has sent us into high construstion inflation and the resulting failure of out infustructure.

Retirement is not as big as a concern for me as some others. My pension will be the equivalent of 38hrs per week when I retire. Should I being living at a point that with my RRSP's and my house being paid off that I cannot live within those means, then I'm doing something seriously wrong! I contribute 14-18K a year to my pension/RRSP's so I'm fairly comfortable thanks to being a Union tradesman.

Interest rates can rise if the bottom falls out. They will rise. If they rise and house prices (in some areas eg. McMurray, Grande Praire, Athabasca) fall back to where they should be (100-200K less) people will just hand their keys to the bank and walk away. This is where the interest rates will rise. I'm pretty secure but when we were considering going on strike last year people could'nt afford it. Between house, truck, quad, skidoo, bike payments lots of tradesmen were 3-4 workless weeks from being broke. Its a sad reality and far more prevelent in my field.

I agree the economy runs in cycles but we need to have more cusioned lows and more level headed highs. When we accomplish this we will have a economy that we can be comfortable with.
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Like I said before the interest rates are controlled by the federal government and the PC's can't really do anything in those regards. If we want to export to the U.S. governments usually try to mimic close their rates so our products aren't too costly.

If people have to hand back their keys and then so be it. It's time for people to realize that the government can't always be there. At least you have a plan. Many people are retiring with mortgage payments. They didn't save anything for the 40+ years they worked. They will get only CPP, OAS, and GIS. That's a major crimp on people who expect higher standards of living.
 
purpleoscar said:
Like I said before the interest rates are controlled by the federal government and the PC's can't really do anything in those regards. If we want to export to the U.S. governments usually try to mimic close their rates so our products aren't too costly.

If people have to hand back their keys and then so be it. It's time for people to realize that the government can't always be there. At least you have a plan. Many people are retiring with mortgage payments. They didn't save anything for the 40+ years they worked. They will get only CPP, OAS, and GIS. That's a major crimp on people who expect higher standards of living.
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What I'm trying to get at is that the PC's can try to make this economy far less boom/bust so when the economy does slow it does'nt slow to the point of people lossing their houses. You need to relize that the government does play a role in economy, like it or not. I don't think you'd be so flippant with people lossing their houses if you were around in the 80's when houses were being given away. I don't think either of us are old enough to be so dismissive of hard times, we have'nt seen them yet.
 
Audiophile said:
It's interesting to me that we continually here others bashing Wall Street for defrauding those of us on Main Street and if it were not for greedy WS we would not be in this mess.

Last time I checked, we were in this mess because of home prices and defaulting on loans. Seems to me that if Main Street would have been more fiscally responsible like putting 20% to 30% down on a home, buiying a home they could AFFORD, or getting a traditional loan and not the 'loan to help me get into a house I can't afford' we wouldn't be in this mess.

Fact is: WS greed AND greed from MS contributed to this mess.
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:up:

I agree 110%. Sure, Wall Street & banks created bad loans (with the help of deregulators in DC). But it's the morons who took out the loans who really are to blame. Come on, do your friggin' homework before you take out a loan. Everybody their brother knows that an ARM is a stupid mortgage. Anyone with two shits of a brain knows that you don't buy a house that's going to eat up more than 50% of your income. And yet that's just what happened. I can't tell you how many friends I have who bought houses in the last 4 years because "prices will just keep going up," and who complain that they're "house-poor." Stupid.


Now, it's the stupidity of Main Street again that's holding the rescue up. People who seriously think that it's designed to fix "Wall Street's mistakes," and not their own. Folks who also fail to realize that when banks don't have money or comfort, they don't give out loans to Joe Shmoe when he needs to buy a car or a house, go to college, or start a business. The loans they do give out go only to those with outstanding credit, and at moderate interest rates.

Man, people are stupid.
 
It's not being flippant. The federal government can't smooth the economy without raising interest rates during a boom and lowering them during a bust. If our major trading partner doesn't do that then our hands are tied because we want a cheaper dollar to sell exports to the U.S. If the U.S. keeps it low we have to lower it or our currency will be worth more than theirs and they will buy less from us. It's all connected.

I'm not saying that a recession doesn't hurt. It does but I'm tired of worrying about things I have no control over. The only control we have is what we do. Ask Stelmach what to do and he won't have an answer because nobody would have an answer. When oil crashes and we don't get a hold of our spending here we will be a deficit. At minimum we will use the heritage fund which is the only thing we have. The rest is voting Liberal and having them increase taxes to pay for poor people. When the economy stabalizes what advantage do we have then with higher taxes?

If you have any ideas then name them. All governments do is take money from the taxpayer and move it to someone else.
 
purpleoscar said:
It's not being flippant. The federal government can't smooth the economy without raising interest rates during a boom and lowering them during a bust. If our major trading partner doesn't do that then our hands are tied because we want a cheaper dollar to sell exports to the U.S. If the U.S. keeps it low we have to lower it or our currency will be worth more than theirs and they will buy less from us. It's all connected.

I'm not saying that a recession doesn't hurt. It does but I'm tired of worrying about things I have no control over. The only control we have is what we do. Ask Stelmach what to do and he won't have an answer because nobody would have an answer. When oil crashes and we don't get a hold of our spending here we will be a deficit. At minimum we will use the heritage fund which is the only thing we have. The rest is voting Liberal and having them increase taxes to pay for poor people. When the economy stabalizes what advantage do we have then with higher taxes?

If you have any ideas then name them. All governments do is take money from the taxpayer and move it to someone else.
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i don't believe I mentioned taxes in any of my posts. I don't mind the tax sturcture in Alberta, save for conventional oil royalities.

I think I have pointed out things that we could do. That we are in control of. Stopping the shipment of raw bitumen across the border would be one. Making sure all oilsands production is refined in Alberta. Aproaching petro chemical manufactures about coming to Alberta. Pacing the devolpment of construction so the jobs can be filled by Albertans and less by foriegn workers. These are just a few of the things we can be doing.
 
Utoo said:
Everybody their brother knows that an ARM is a stupid mortgage.
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I remember looking at condos 3 or 4 years ago. A mortage broker recommended an ARM loan if I planned to move out of it within the first 5 years in order to take advantage of the lower initial rates. The thought that real estate values might plunge never entered his mind - that's the nature of asset bubbles. Fortunately, I passed on the condo because the price gap between owning and renting was simply too large.
 
bonoman said:
i don't believe I mentioned taxes in any of my posts. I don't mind the tax sturcture in Alberta, save for conventional oil royalities.

I think I have pointed out things that we could do. That we are in control of. Stopping the shipment of raw bitumen across the border would be one. Making sure all oilsands production is refined in Alberta. Aproaching petro chemical manufactures about coming to Alberta. Pacing the devolpment of construction so the jobs can be filled by Albertans and less by foriegn workers. These are just a few of the things we can be doing.
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The only thing you would have to think about is if anybody is affected in a way that would make them lobby against it. I know that raw bitumen is something Obama wanted to stop because he looks at it as dirty, and Harper wants it to be shipped only to countries that establish similar reduction targets. This is already being protested. I don't know how it can be possible to hire more Albertans when there is a huge gap with the demand for labour I don't know if any government that could really do something about that. I think bringing petro chemical manufactures may be protested by environmentalists. I don't know what laws we have but the building of refineries has been limited. Global warming politics will likely get in the way of that. We already have idiots like Jack Layton flying (with jet fuel) over the oilsands trying to stop it completely.

But it certainly is a good stab looking at the situation. Nuclear power would be good, especially if we could recycle the waste. We have freer trade with B.C. If we could negotiate with other provinces to expand that it would help with increasing the variety of industries. We need some manufacturing here as well. We rely heavily on commodities in Canada.
 
I can't believe they have been so stupid.

Let me repeat that.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY HAVE BEEN SO F***** STUPID.

Somebody needs to get in there and knock some heads together over the holiday tomorrow, things are bad enough as it is. Get Buffet in there or something, anything.

Post from trader on another forum:-

Update on things:

Today has been the worst day in living memory of everyone here.

I repeat, nothing comes close to this.
We have had one day crashes but nothing of this magnitude.

As one senior person has put it,

"the dominios are in line, the first few have been tipped, now all we can do is wait..."

There is no cash out there. NONE....
The banks are very worried, the central banks even more so, the regulators are terrified and the government is like a rabiit in the headlights.


The irish market is the worst preforming market today in the western world. We are truly pariahs. No one will touch us.
I would like to see what spreads the government would get right now on the debt it needs to issue..The euro won't help much.

The FED along with every where else has opened the floodgates, if this doesn't ease up soon, it will get very dark indeed. Even if it does, we are never returning to the glory days.

Cash is king, only the foolish will enter the market now. Yes, you can make a fortune, but you could lose everything. Sensibility dictates that you stand on the sidelines. VaR numbers are sky-rocketing. The libor and futures market is so dislocated that doing anything could, and probably will, make things worse.

And tommorrow will open terribly.
Click to expand...
 
To be honest I am not sure this deal should have been passed.

But that is not the point, because they set it up to seem like they were passing it and they are responsible for the hit the market subsequently took.
 
anitram said:
To be honest I am not sure this deal should have been passed.

But that is not the point, because they set it up to seem like they were passing it and they are responsible for the hit the market subsequently took.
Click to expand...

What is the alternative to this deal? A depression? What? I have yet to hear a legitimate alternative from any side.
 
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