We need educated, professional people to handle this. Not politicians.
You’re unintentionally advertising quite strongly for Carney over Poilievre here.
We need educated, professional people to handle this. Not politicians.
Shhh Shhh Shhh. Let him cook.You’re unintentionally advertising quite strongly for Carney over Poilievre here.
You’re unintentionally advertising quite strongly for Carney over Poilievre here.
Marx would find the notion of our government being ‘Marxist’ laughable. You use the term with the same liberty that the DPRK uses the term “democratic”.No I'm not. He was counted out when I mentioned the current marxist government. I see Carney as more of a financier than someone to negotiate trade. Poliviere has lots of options in this country to find a team of business negotiators without going to the Laurentien Elites. They certainly would be better than the journalist who negotiated the last disaster.
Marx would find the notion of our government being ‘Marxist’ laughable. You use the term with the same liberty that the DPRK uses the term “democratic”.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that one of Carney’s roles (after thirteen years at the notable bulwark of communism Goldman Sachs) was leading the federal government’s divestment of its stake in Petro Canada… Not exactly the predicted socialist seizing of the means of production by the proletariat, that. If he’s a Marxist, he’s about as good at it as I am at singing opera (or singing anything else).
If he’s a Marxist, he’s about as good at it as I am at singing opera (or singing anything else).
I’m not, actually- not sure how I feel yet, and I’m not eligible to vote in the leadership anyway. I do recognize his real life non-politics resume as considerably stronger between the two, though.You seem to be the one pulling for Carney now.
Meh, opinions.
Is he wrong though?You seem to be the one pulling for Carney now.
Meh, opinions.
I’m nowhere near that smart, FJ - that’s why I can only go by what they say & doI'm no international financier. I go with my gut and what I've witnessed over 70+ years on the planet. Think of me as the guy in the bar with a ball cap and dirt under my fingernails, that your having a casual conversation with over a beer. During my military time, I've had Canadian Professional Sales Association training and been responsible for one project of over $1 million, I was NPF manager for the BG in Bosnia responsible for stock and sales of over $1.5 million and directed and oversaw all CIMIC projects done on Athena Roto 0 to the tune of well over $2 million. That's the extent of my financial and sales experience. It doesn't make me an expert in international trade. It does give me some small insight into Trumps sales strategy.
I'll leave the numbers and minutiae to the experts here to argue the finer points.
Is he wrong though?
Look, Carney is a lot of things, but “Marxist” ain’t it.
I would say he’s a weird green croney-capitalist hybrid technocrat. He wants to use the regulatory power of the state to create winners and losers. That’s bad enough. But I’ll be surprised if he seizes the means of production for the proletariat and shuts down the banks.
Like Henry Ford?I remain convinced that he and his tribe are the heirs of the corporatists that lost WW2 but survived and reclaimed their positions.
Canada isn't Marxist. IF we were we'd have gulags all over Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Would Trump tariffs ‘kill the Canadian economy completely’? Not even close
Tony Keller
Published 15 hours ago Updated 14 hours ago
In 1867, the year of Confederation, the United States had tariffs on most imports from Canada and the rest of the world. The average tariff rate: 47 per cent. In 1899, under president William McKinley, protectionist hero of the current occupant of the White House, the rate was 52 per cent. And during the Great Depression, the Hawley-Smoot tariff boosted the average U.S. import tax to 59 per cent.
For a century and a half, from the early 1800s until the late 1940s, U.S. tariffs were generally high and widely applied. Except for three years at the end of the First World War, the average tariff was higher than the 25-per-cent toll President Donald Trump has been threatening to slap on Canadian exports.
It wasn’t so long ago that a tariff wall on our southern border was a permanent feature of the economic landscape. And running parallel to it was Canada’s own tariff rampart, known as the National Policy. For decades, it was Canadian policy to make U.S. imports more expensive, and less able to compete with Canadian-made goods.
Canada likely would have been more prosperous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries if the two countries had lowered the walls and traded more freely. I’m not here to argue in favour of Mr. Trump’s love for taxes on imports.
Ottawa planning pandemic-level relief for workers, businesses if Trump imposes tariffs
But it’s important to remember that the prefree trade Canadian economy, despite being circumvallated by tariff walls, did not collapse. We had periods of boom and bust, but the overall direction of travel was consistently upward. In the early 20th century, though we were less prosperous than the Americans, we nevertheless had one of the planet’s highest standards of living.
If Mr. Trump decides to take the economic future back to the protectionist past, Canada will be hit hard. A 25-per-cent tariff would put hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work, downsize businesses and deliver a sharp recession. Many industries would suffer through a painful transition, notably the auto sector. Its continentally integrated supply chains would be completely disintegrated by tariffs, returning us to the world before the 1965 Canada-U.S. Auto Pact.
The Bank of Canada estimated in 2019 that a blanket 25-per-cent U.S. tariff, with other countries retaliating in kind, would lead to a 6-per-cent drop in Canada’s gross domestic product. That’s a deeper downturn than the recessions of the early 1980s or 2008-2009.
U.S. tariffs, and equivalent Canadian retaliation, would make our business sector less efficient and productive, by depriving it of lower-cost imports from the U.S. and the economies of scale from exporting there. That would also tend to discourage foreign investment, further reducing productivity. All of the above would put downward pressure on Canadian wages and living standards.
But in the long run, after the painful shakeup of a sharp and deep tariff-war recession, the Canadian economy would find its footing. We’d arrive at a new – albeit lower – equilibrium.
Under tariffs, the Canada of a decade from now would still be a relatively highly developed, productive and high-income economy – but less of all of the above than with continued free trade. We’d still have a functioning economy, just one with fewer things imported from the States, more produced here, somewhat higher prices all around, and lower average incomes.
It wasn’t so long ago that clothes worn by Canadians often carried a “Made in Canada” label. When I started working at The Globe and Mail, the building next to our old Toronto office was a sock factory. As a teenager in Montreal, I got my first suit when my parents took me shopping (never pay retail, kid) in what was then the country’s biggest garment district, on Chabanel Street.
That’s how things were in a world with less free trade and more protection for Canadian industries such as textiles.
Even if we got into a global trade war bigger than what Mr. Trump is threatening, and Canada for some reason decided to build a tariff wall against imported clothes, Canadians would not be left without clothing. Some companies would continue to import clothing, with the tariff passed on to consumers through higher prices. Other companies would build factories here, to take advantage of those tariff-enforced higher prices.
We’d end up with more Canadians working in textiles, fewer in more productive industries, less imported clothes, more domestically manufactured shirts and pants, and higher clothing costs all around.
Canadians would still have clothes and Canadians would still have jobs. But things would be more expensive, there’d be less competition, the average Canadian job would pay somewhat less, and our economy would be a bit less productive and prosperous.
Fox News claims that at their Mar-a-Lago meeting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Mr. Trump that tariffs would “kill the Canadian economy completely.” Wrong.
There’s no question that American tariffs would hurt the Canadian economy. But the injury would be far from fatal. Just look at our economic conditions prior to the era of trade liberalization.
We won’t welcome the U.S. building a wall against our exports, and we need to be smart about choosing forms of retaliation that do the least harm to Canada. But a 25-per-cent U.S. tariff is, however undesirable, very much survivable.
Was that even in question lol.Given his past bafflegab, I'm going to say that sounds like a big old YES from Singh