Comments for Musings of the Technical Bard

Comment on Alice in Wonderland by Taliesyn

Taliesyn — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:16:12 +0000

I suspect that was part of the “gothic” feel Tim seemed to think it needed. Less happy than orange?

Comment on Alice in Wonderland by Taliesyn

Taliesyn — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:15:19 +0000

Haven’t seen Imaginarium yet – my kids are little small for that one.

Comment on Alice in Wonderland by Nicola Timmerman

Nicola Timmerman — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:10:47 +0000

How come the Cheshire cat was black and blue?

Comment on Alice in Wonderland by ridenrain

ridenrain — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:22:46 +0000

Was it better than The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus?

Comment on Fiscal Sustainability means LOWER SPENDING by Cynical Bard

Cynical Bard — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:15:28 +0000

That’s all true. One of the serious problems is that governments tend to spend money with no idea of what the project will cost, or what will be achieved by it. Look at the bio-fuels programs or CPP.

CPP was supposed to provide for retirement at a cost of 5% of our incomes, then after it was firmly established, the cost jumped to 10%, and the chief actuary was fired because he said it should be higher, and we got to pay for the wrongful dismissal charges. At that time there were news reports that the original beneficiaries (people born in 1911) would get a rate of return of 18%, but people born in 2000 would get as small negative return.

And it goes on and on. Programs continue for decades and no one knows what is being achieved. As your MP why western farmers are bound to the Canadian Wheat Board and Ontario farmers are not.

Comment on Fiscal Sustainability means LOWER SPENDING by skuleman

skuleman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:29:27 +0000

Taliesyn, some aspects of the welfare state are essentially wasteful, but there is a huge fiscal black hole (many billions) that no one seems to address and that is all the money from all levels of government that goes out in grants to various NGO’s, crown corporations etc.
There are several problems with these expenditures. First & foremost, most of these agencies have virtually no economic oversight and the grants exist a budget line items so never get any parliamentary oversight.
Second, we fund agencies like the CBC in a way that literally encourages them to be inefficient and wasteful.
Third, by funneling taxpayer money to charities and NGO’s we introduce a huge and unnecessary administrative burden. When the government decides to “give” taxpayers’ money to some cause like Haiti, there is the overhead of collecting the taxes, then the administrative overhead of the government departments, who ultimately give the money to some NGO or foreign government.
Fourth, by burying these expenditures as line items, the vast majority of Canadians have no idea that their tax dollars are going down these fiscal drains, and if they did, would be up in arms about it.
The very first target Page should have been going after was transparency in the expenditures, which means every departments budget, at every level of government, at the line item level should be on their websites. Then taxpayers could see where their money is really going.

Comment on Fiscal Sustainability means LOWER SPENDING by Taliesyn

Taliesyn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:52:41 +0000

But you miss the point – the structural deficit exists ONLY because we insist on the maintaining a generous welfare state…

Comment on Fiscal Sustainability means LOWER SPENDING by The_Iceman

The_Iceman — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:12:13 +0000

Kevin Page did admit this week that lowering taxes on businesses does create jobs. When the government takes less money from business, they hire more workers and you get more taxpayers. He then goes on to say that it doesn’t matter if the cuts create jobs because there is a permanent structural gap. He draws that conclusion based on long term GDP forecasts where he presumes to predict resource prices in the future. We are heavily dependent on resource prices for government revenue.

Say, did you notice that oil was up 8% on the week? Apparantly some people are nervous that Iran may attempt to start a nuclear war. Get oil back over $100 a barrel, and there goes your “structural” deficit because the oil sands become profitable again.

Comment on Fiscal Sustainability means LOWER SPENDING by Nicola Timmerman

Nicola Timmerman — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:53:30 +0000

I am not religious, but I seems to me as in the story of Joseph in Egypt we are supposed to store up our grain during the fat years and then have it on hand when there are the lean years…

Comment on International Investment in the Oil Sands by Blame Crash

Blame Crash — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:25:00 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. And it’s not just because I’d love to rub it in the face of those hypocrite Democrats. The best reason to do this is that it just makes more sense to have as many customers as possible. They can push us around a lot easier when they know that they’re our only customer. Hat would change when our oil has world wide access.