Canada in 2005?

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Dissipate


I can't say I disagree with any of that. But I can't understand your stance on eliminating the doctor cartel. Was it not you who claimed that healthcare has all these market failures and requires massive government intervention?

To me it would be more likely for you to claim that eliminating the cartel would have people wind up with incompentent doctors leading to a number of deaths.

While such an outcome is possible, if you look at the quality of applicants right now, it's clear that there are many more qualified applicants than acceptances; it has reached the point where acceptance cutoffs are so strict as to be statistically irrelevant compared to many applicants who do not meet the cutoff. Therefore there is no reason to suspect that allowing more students into medical schools would reduce the quality of graduates.

The market failure in healthcare is the problem of accurately determining a set of prices for services; the price of 'dying' is generally 'everything I have' so when you restrict the vailability of physicians, you can extract massive wages for the ones that are left.

If you removed the artifical doctor cartel, I might even come around to accepting some form of public/private healthcare as a more efficient system than what Canada uses now.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Well I would start with roughly the amount we spend servicing our debt, enacted over the course of paying it off (Alberta as a privince has just retired their debt on the strength of oil-price windfalls). I would also severly revamp the nation's social safety net so it stops propping up unprofitable industries. For example, if the fishing season is 12 weeks long or whatever, and 'worth doing' then everyone on the East Coast can fish for 12 weeks a year, and then they can go back to their day jobs (and hey, if they make enough fishing to take the other 40 weeks as vacation, then good for them).

I would also like to phase out farming subsidies that don't really help farmers, hide the real cost of food, and decimate agriculture in third world countries. Unfortunately, in order to create any real benefit, all (or most) western nations would have to follow suit. Certainly this would be a money-saver. As for crop-failure relief, which tends to run a few billion a year it seems, I thought that was the original reason that State-Farm was created. I'm all for disaster relief, but it may be time to take a good look at the definition of 'disaster'.

Finally, I would remove the power of the college of physicians to limit medical school enrollment, and even if it means training doctors for the entire western world I would break up the monopoly on medical expertise. (Brain drain is easy enough to deal with; if you don't stay in the country as a doctor for 5 years, or some other arbitrary number, you get to repay all educational subsidies). I predict this would drop GP wages to the low six-figures, and specialist wages to the 200K range, severely reducing the cost of health care.

These steps would allow some pretty significant tax cuts.

I don't know about the third one. I would imply remove the barriers setup to prevent immigrant professionals from practicing here. Sure, make the write a bunch of tests, but remove the stupid quotas. For crying out loud, these are people who left good paying jobs to come to Canada, but they are reduced to manial jobs because of this stupid system.

 

[fornax]

Originally posted by: RichardE

Yep, thanks to sound financial management by our current party in power the Liberals. Regretfully this will all change when the conservatives come to power.

It's time to wake up

 

[fornax]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Well if you belive Stunt, Canada will end in bankruptcy because our crippling taxes have made us the only G8 nation to have a booming economy at the moment. (I'm well aware that a lot of this is an energy-price windfall).

Russia also has had pretty good couple of years, with growth rates about twice that of Canada.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: fornax

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Well if you belive Stunt, Canada will end in bankruptcy because our crippling taxes have made us the only G8 nation to have a booming economy at the moment. (I'm well aware that a lot of this is an energy-price windfall).

Russia also has had pretty good couple of years, with growth rates about twice that of Canada.

With all due respect to Russia, and apologies for the fact that they are part of the G8, they are hardly a mature economy.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Stunt
1) The dollar is going up (mostly from energy and commodities being at 25 year highs), our manufacturing is hurting due to taxes being some of the worst in the G8, can't rely on the dollar anymore as we have during the Liberal's term.
2) The surplus is largely from overtaxation and tax revenues from the selling of energy and commodities.
3) The exchange is 30% weighted towards oil and gas and it has had a run of over 40% this year alone. That's not even considering the trickle down into the economy for all those related to oil and gas.

But I agree, its been a good year, I was able to get an amazing job, I doubled my investments through oil plays and we are now in a position to lower taxes to levels the rest of the world enjoys and fix some of what the Liberals have broken in their 12 years in power.

So cynical, so partisan. Any government that had fixed the Deficit would have done the same things as the Liberals. If it were the Conservatives that had fixed the Deficit, the Liberals would be saying the same thing. For that I applaud the Liberals, they succeeded where the Conservatives before them failed.

 

[Stunt]

I love how you compare the Conservatives today to the Conservatives elected in 1989; the parties have no members the same, different policies, and are completely different all together.

I can see why you would credit the feds with all the economic success in Canada considering BC and the west has benefited well from the booming commodity prices and oil and gas. Out here in Ontario, the manufacturing sector gets more press; and things aren't going as well as you might be exposed to.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Stunt
I love how you compare the Conservatives today to the Conservatives elected in 1989; the parties have no members the same, different policies, and are completely different all together.

I can see why you would credit the feds with all the economic success in Canada considering BC and the west has benefited well from the booming commodity prices and oil and gas. Out here in Ontario, the manufacturing sector gets more press; and things aren't going as well as you might be exposed to.

I understand that Manufacturing isn't doing as well. That's mainly due to the strengthening $. That strenthening is certainly impacted significantly by the rise in Commodity Prices, but it is also significantly due to strong Economic Fundamentals. Those Fundamentals including the Fiscal Health of the Fed Balance Sheets.

Todays Cons are also certainly not the same as the former Cons. However, it still doesn't negate the fact that even todays Cons would have had to do the same thing the Libs did if todays Cons had inherited the situation the Libs had inherited. As it turns out, todays Cons won't inherit the same situation, in fact they will(assuming they win) inherit a far better situation. To blame the Libs for decisions that hurt many is very disingenuous though, the Libs did what had to be done.