A rational person presenting a rational, seemingly unbiased backgrounder, yet an MLA.

A great example of what can be accomplished by an independent sitting in Parliament.

When you say only 7% of the cut goes to log exports it doesnt sound too bad in fact 40% of the coastal cut goes to log export a huge number, the docks of China are stacked with BC logs or should I say rare BC old-growth forest.Thats the problem we have here in BC the old-growth forest are being hammered.Very little is left on Vancouver Island and its being exterminated at an alarming rate.Clayoquot Sound is being threatened with logging.The Great Bear Rainforest deal allows 2/3rds to be logged and the other 1/3rd still isnt fully protected ,the worlds only Inland Rainforest is being gutted valley by valley and east of Prince George in the Robson Valley the Forest Practices Board told the government to stop logging the rare cedar hemlock forest . Pat Bell and Shirley Bond refused that report and in fact they opened it up for more logging .Crescent Spur west of Mcbride is under attack from logging which is destorying their tourism businesses these ancient cedar ae being logged for 25cents a tree.These forest are rare and are worth more standing.BC needs endangered species legislation and an Old-Growth forest strategy to end this logging and start selectively logging second growth forest.

So here’s the rub IMHO. China and other countries have extremely low manufacturing costs because they can – pay people low wages,ignore environmental laws, ignore safety laws, provide no WCB, provide no pensions,allow no unions.

Manufacturers here have to deal with all of the above and yet still compete with China et al. Unfortunately the cost of transporting the logs to China, does not exceed the lower cost of processing, so the work is done there.

So what do we do? If we ban log exports – bush jobs disappear, and we’re no better off. Do we try and get workers here to take a 50% wage cut, give up pensions, safety benefits etc? And then, what if we could? Now we would make the lumber here, try to sell it to China, but China doesn’t need the lumber because their people aren’t working because we wouldn’t sell them raw materials for their manufacturing plants.

Pure economic theory says each country should concentrate on what they do best, and let other countries do what they do better. But in the case of Asia, it’s really a defacto slave relationship. We can’t have slaves here, so we use slaves over there instead. Someone in the middle of this great equation is making a truckload of money off of the backs of Canadian taxpayers, workers, and Chinese workers. I suggest we concentrate on them to pay fair wages in both places, so that in both places everyone can share in the larger pie.

But then again, how can you get elected without whoever those generous political donations from the self same exploiters to fool people into believing you have their interest at heart. Unfortunately as long as the leash of politicians the world over is held by someone other than the people they srve, these inequities will always exist.

I agree with Bob Simpson’s article. He’s covered the situation very well. To those who believe we can somehow preserve “old growth” by “protecting” it from logging, you are ignoring the fact that trees, like all other living things, have a finite lifespan.

There have been at least seven separate forests on Vancouver Island that have come and gone since the end of the last Ice Age, and before the one that we call “old growth” that has been, or is being logged by modern man.

Even in places like Stanley Park, where large old growth Douglas firs predominated in the 1950’s, areas that have never been logged, many of these trees have since fallen from natural causes. And what has come up to replace them has been alder and maple, not new growth Douglas fir.

Much of the old growth that has been logged on the coast was grossly over mature and decadent. A great deal of it should have been logged 150 years sooner than it was. That being said, Bob Simpson is absolutely right that we (still) under utilise much of the timber we do harvest. And a lot of the reason for that is inane government policies to do with the way AAC are established and computed.

Log and lumber exports from Russia to China and other countries were reduced by over 30% when the Russians announced an export tax of 25% in 2007 and indicated this tax would increase to 80% by 2009.(The 80% never happened)

Importers of logs in Europe and Asia found other places to obtain their logs and lumber from.

This trend is now shifting in 2011. Russian exports have increased by about 40% in the first two months of 2011.

It has become clear that Russia must reduce this tax on log exports if it wants to join the WTO, which it does.

It now appears that the export tax will be reduced to somewhere between 5-10% sometime in 2012. It is expected that Russian log and softwood lumber exports to China will increase significantly in the coming years.

So our increase in lumber exports was a direct result of this Russian Export Tax, and I would suggest that once the tax is reduced there will be a significant decrease in logs and softwood lumber from BC. That is unless the Chinese Market increases to the point that it can consume all the additional logs/lumber which is unlikely.

So the credit for softwood lumber and log exports to China from BC go to Vladimer Putin, the Russian President, and not to Pat Bell.

See article by Hakan Ekstrom, Wood Resources International llC if you want to get the real story.

The economic and regulatory climate caahnge over time, just as the weather changes and even the climate. Some changes are slow over relatively long periods, others are more quick generally over relatively shorter periods.

Just as driving on a road, one must be mindful of the surroundings and act based on the challenges as well as opportunities. It does not matter whether that is the trade of beads for beaver pelts or logs for nesting Babushka dolls made in China.

Those who cannot change with the physical, economic, social, regulatory and other types of climate may be lucky to go on as they have been in the past. Those who aren’t lucky will be relegated to the back of the bread line.

It’s the way of the world.

BTW, when Pat Bell talks about the partly fortuitous wood product sales to China, he is the first to say that had it not been for seeds sown by previous government officials before he was the Minister responsible for Forests, the sales to China would not have been the magnitude that they have become.

We have to remember that whenever an equilibrium shift has occurred there are typically forces put into play to regain the old state of equilibirum rather than allowing a new state to continue to exist.

As one gets close to be in the lead or actually be the leader, others are constantly there to learn from you and try to dethrone you.

The name Darwin comes to mind for some reason or other. ;-)

Speaking about Darwin, are we as fit as can be?

“Someone in the middle of this great equation is making a truckload of money off of the backs of Canadian taxpayers, workers, and Chinese workers.”

Check the rich immigrant status on the lower mainland. Check to see who is buying the high priced boats and the boat show in Vancouver, that is where the money is.

Considering that the sale of logs, lumber, and woodpulp to China have been going on for 20 years more or less, and considering that the cheques are made out to West Fraser, Canfor, etc; etc;, I would suggest that the BC Government had little if anything to do with lumber sales.

Much like all the business that Mayor Kinsley got for Prince George on all his junkets to China.

Its the Pulp and Paper industry, the mining industry, the lumber industry, etc; that make all the sales. The Government is involved to some extent, but very little. These companies have been around for a long time and do not need the Government to show them how to operate.

I believe the government has a role in it in ensuring that the Companies themselves are able to get paid. This involves some close co-operation between the government owned Bank of Canada and the central Bank of China since the ‘cheque’ the Companies are paid with has to be in CANADIAN dollars, not Chinese yuan. And those Canadian dollars are an exclusive product of the Bank of Canada, they aren’t created in China.

National currencies, (with the partial exception of the US dollar), do NOT circulate internationally as effective demand for foreign goods. If they did the true nature of international ‘trade’ would very quickly be revealed.

True international trade is, and really only can be, essentially barter. It only makes sense in that it allows a diversification of consumption in each of the countries participating in it through exchanges of their alternate relative surpluses.

The kind of international ‘trade’ we’re currently engaged in encompasses that, but has a much larger purpose in creating an illusion that we have to import some other country’s ‘money’ to be able to live. This is a complete financial fallacy.

THEIR money is only effective demand for THEIR goods ~ only under the current financial set-up it can NOT be used for what it only ever really is. Instead it provides the basis (excuse, really) for the Bank of Canada (in our case) to create additional money (credit, actually ~ all money is, or is based on, credit), without which we currently would not be able to purchase that portion of consumer goods we do purchase internally at a price sufficient to cover their costs. And would have to go further than the 153% (and rising)of present consumer incomes, on average, that we are already in hock for to be able to buy what we do buy.

There is NO WAY a financial set-up like that is sustainable. But will we ever deign to take a look at how it could be made so? We will not. Instead we’ll pursue the present course of trying to increasingly ‘capture’ some foreign market. Physically impoverishing ourselves in the process of trying to become financially richer, and enslaving what’s left our of embittered workforce as it works its way to the bottom.

Those who have taken the trouble to read what I’ve written above might want an illustration of the fallacy of so-called international ‘trade’.

During World War One, the USA made up the shortage in munitions that Britain suffered from in respect of the greater productive capacity in that area held by Germany.

This caused a great prosperity in the USA, which was neutral until the last year of that War. The munitions were sold to Britain on credit, and the US dollars to pay for their production was created by the US Federal Reserve. British pounds being of no use to American industries or workers in making purchases of American goods.

After the war Britain was to pay for the goods from America she’d received, while in turn the then defeated Germany was to reimburse Britain for the cost of the War.

The ONLY way for Germany TO reimburse Britain was by Britain receiving German exports eventually equal to the value of British expenditure on all those munitions they’d “exported”, in a sense, to Germany while the War was being fought.

And the ONLY way for Britain to reimburse America for all the munitions provided on credit during the War, was to provide America with alternate goods to that value after the War.

Well, it’s well recorded in history what happened. Germany was quite willing to get busy and export goods to Britain to “pay for the war”, but Britain refused them. Their importation would unemploy British workers making the same goods.

Workers who could have been employed making goods for export to America, to pay the bill for American goods received by Britain during the War. If America had been willing to receive British goods in exchange for American ones previously provided. America wasn’t. It couldn’t. Their importation would unemploy Americans making the same goods.

So much for any country getting rich, or even paying its bills, through international ‘trade’ that’s really trade. EVERY industrialised country SHOULD be able to FULLY purchase ALL ITS OWN PRODUCTION from the total amount of wages, salaries, and dividends DISTRIBUTED in the course of making that production. NONE of them can. They ALL have to export, and get international credit (not alternate goods) in exchange.

But if NO country can purchase ALL its OWN production, how then is it to purchase the exchange of that production through a true international ‘trade’? Until the current money system is altered in a way to make that possible there will be ever increasing ‘trade’ wars, and that can not help but lead to military war. But will we look at what those “$” sign figures REALLY are? We will not. WW III is on its way ~ best we prepare for what finance will make inevitable.

“WW III is on its way”

Good Lord ……

So tell me about Germany, Japan and Italy and WWII

And Korea

And VietNam

And Iraq 1

And Iraq 2

And Afghanistan

And about a guy called Ossama Bin Laden who may be considered as the cause of several skirmishes.

And any other major and minor conflict since they are obviously not included in the above list.

Or maybe all those comparatively minor skirmishes.

Are all those “minor” skirmishes mere readjustments of the economies around world trade?

Not every war is strictly for economic reasons, Gus. But the major ones of the 20th Century certainly were based on a perceived prior need to ‘export or die’. Harry Hopkins, FDR’s close advisor admitted openly in early World War Two that the USA couldn’t stay out of it ~ a Nazi victory would wreck American exports.

Prior to World War One the industrialised countries of Europe all sought to have Empires, which were really of more use to them as captive markets for their otherwise unsalable surplus manufactures than for the resources they were able to exact from them.

It is why India was the “jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire, and far more valuable to Britain than its other colonial possessions. It was the Imperial dumping ground for what couldn’t ‘financially’ be sold at home.

Likewise the Kaiser’s Germany, which got into the colonial game late, regarded the German “sphere of influence” in China as far more valuable than Togoland, Samoa, Cameroons, Tanganyika, Namibia, and half of New Guinea combined.

Even with those Empires Germany and Britain were engaged increasingly in a pre-WW I ‘trade war’ for remaining world markets for their goods.

It’s why a fledgling United States of America, which in the mid 19th century hadn’t even fully fleshed itself out in what became the lower 48 States, sent its Navy across the Pacific to “open” Japan to trade. And later practiced ‘gunboat diplomacy’ on all the major rivers of China. The Americans didn’t need anything from either place, except a market for what couldn’t be sold at home.

The Cold War provided a non-combative way of distributing incomes that made up for what would otherwise have been a systemic shortage of purchasing power after World War Two. Other wars since then have helped in that regard too. The Viet Nam war provided a tremendous boost to American exports. They didn’t get ‘paid’ for them, but that’s nothing new, for how, really COULD they get paid for them?

One problem now though, there has been so much displacement of labour in modern manufacturing methods that even with accelerated production of munitions employment levels would be hard to maintain, let alone increase.

Its a theory. It is a point of view. I am not an economist. If This were really true, and it was all about selling more beads so that you could get back some pelts, or silk, or spices, it really show how simple we are.

To think that all that supposedly unpaid energy was used to sell more rather than invent better and sell better to the homefront really shows how stupid humankind still is because we are still not involved in better as much as we are in more.

So I have to ask myself, how much of this sort of economic thinking, if one wants to call it that, still goes on and is holding us back?

So, a Nazi victory would wreck American exports, eh? LOL

So, what is wrecking American exports now? Three guesses, the first two do not count. Or, to make it even more interesting, we can make it four, and all four do not count. ;-)

I envy people who have a religion. Life’s twists and turns are so simply explained. ;-)

I think socred makes a valid point.

Only thing is the elites in control at the banking and finance level are consolidating power through the economics described above… they know the gig is almost up and thats why we have things like Homeland Security in the US.

computer problem…

In the meanwhile our societies are being harvested… its why guys like Harper go to China… he’s an economist he knows what the game is and who’s side he really works for.

WW3 is around the corner, but its not the kind of war we think of in the 20th century with nukes and large armies… this next war is the kind of war we see in Greece today where the youth under 30 have 50% unemployment and are starting to fight back against the money powers who got them there. Harper would like to see austerity and is clearly on the side of globalist finance as he stated in Davos siding against the Greek people, and even taking aim at Canadian pensioners.

WW3 will be a war not of nations per say, but rather of globalists against nations of peoples. Only when a nation gains its sovereignty back for its people will it become a war against nations… and then it will be ‘coalitions of the willing’ against those that try to free themselves. If enough try to free themselves the stakes will be raised and it will be a campaign of fear taken to new extremes, and then its any ones guess… IMHO.

I think if the bankers are cornered it will be biological (they already have their weapon weaponized and in the last year its been distributed), then they will once again have the upper hand and the outcome will be swift. Those that are isolated and survive will live in a world far different than even the best science fiction writers can imagine. We are already slaves, we just don’t yet have the awareness as societies to realize it yet… maybe too late already, if not we are at best five minutes to midnight.

Its thinking like Bob Simpson in his article above that will get us there IMO.

Prior to World War Two the US dollar was just another currency, Gus. So American exports were quite vital to the USA. International trade balances were settled in gold transfers from a ‘debtor’ country to a ‘creditor’ one. At that time, on a relatively small base of gold was built an enormous base of credit. And so a small shifting of one nation’s gold reserve to another impacted mightily on the ability of that nation’s banking system to finance its industries, and thereby its ability to produce and consume.

It really is more of an ‘accounting’ problem than an ‘economic’ one. Which is why economists, like Stephen Harper and others of his ilk, do not readily see the proper solution. And often move in ways that make the problem worse, instead of better.