Economist To Lead Talk on Economic Development
Prince George, B.C.- Monday May 30th, economist and author Michael Shuman will head up a workshop in Prince George focused on economic development and how communities can prevent money from leaving the community. Shuman is one of the North America’s leading experts on community economics and the advantages of small-scale businesses in an era of globalization. He will present a “local living economies” approach to economic development that focuses on building up local businesses and inviting community participation.
As part of the workshop, he will guide participants through a “leakage analysis” of the community to find out where money is leaving, and to discover ways to plug those leaks.
The workshop is set for 1-5 Monday at Hubspace 1299 Third Avenue. While the event is offered at no cost, anyone wanting to take part will have to register by clicking here.
Shuman’s stop in Prince George is one of five he will make in the coming days, he is also scheduled to visit Quesnel, Vanderhoof, Hazelton, and Smithers
Comments
Resilience.org Brilliant stuff .
There are 8 economic development regions in BC. When a $10 million building is built in PG no one knows where th money is actually spent and no one really cares. Materials and labour can come from anywhere including from out of province.
Other provinces and states typically have better info. The government has to start providing the data.
Sounds like a recipe for anti-competitive practice, inefficient production and governments(people) paying more for services and physical assets than is necessary.
You want to support local, go for it, but don’t expect the same thing with my taxes unless it makes sense.
Ever wonder how much the fuel bill is for the city that your taxes are paying for ?
“how communities can prevent money from leaving the community”
TRUMP is thinking bigger. He is thinking “How to make USA great again”. Close the borders to labour from outside, charge 35% or so fees for those who outsource services, etc.
He is not a right wing Republican, is he? He is a socialist left winger. In fact, he is to the left of Sanders.
And low income USA is swallowing it hook line and sinker.
What a bunch of tripe on Trump gopg2015. Up until the last fourty years protectionism is what defined a republican. In fact the majority of tax revenue use to come from import tariff on goods that competed with local production averaging 35% over the majority of American history.
Today those tariffs are gone so that globalist so can use labor, environment, and regulation arbitrage to undermine local economies with slave labor in places like China and then import with no tariffs. The globalists in charge of finance make sick profits while everyone else has stagnant wages at best and at worst loose their jobs entirely.
This is why so many support both Trump and Sanders IMO.
10mn ? Ever wonder why governments across the globe are paying people money to buy electric cars ? I hope he asks that question . The answer to that question is 100% economic . PG would only have to have 500 ICE cars replaced with EVs to have that 10mn$ percolating in the local economy as opposed to leaving for Texas Each Year . Another ironic note for local economies and worrisome parents , range agsiety is a good thing .
That’s the kind of thinking that issues from unscientific green wacko sites like resiliency.org and allows governments
and their corporate friends to leverage money from taxpayers pockets. The BC Liberal government recently put a cap on the electric vehicle rebate program, because it was mostly being tapped by rich people buying very expensive toys. Now you can only get the rebate if the cost of the vehicle is $77k or less. That’s still way too high. Anyone who spends that much money on a car needs to have their head examined as far as I’m concerned. This money doesn’t “percolate” in the local economy, it finds it way into very few pockets that don’t spend their money here. As for the money that is saved by the people rich enough to buy electric vehicles (which don’t work very well in this climate), well, there are only so many cheeseburgers they can buy anyway. So, I’m not sure what economic activity you’re thinking this stimulates. This rebate program as it’s currently designed, costs about $750/ton of emissions avoided. That’s insanely stupid and if anyone looks at it objectively they’ll realize that the motivation for the government implementing it has nothing to do with some sort of magnanimous desire to do good for the environment. Wake up and smell the corruption and
stop reading fluffy tripe, the likes of which you find on resiliency.org.
Agsiety ? That’s funny . Best auto fill ever . Anxiety or something .
It’s not corruption . It’s governments that can do the numbers . I did the numbers myself from American stats using a dollar per litre . To see the real bleeding of cash . I’d say there are 50k ish cars in PG . So, you can multiply that $10mn per year in gas alone by 100. Kind of make the taxes bleeding to Ottawa and Victoria look like peanuts .
It’s about green alright . The green in the wallet .
Well, here is a little math lesson for you then.
Nissan Leaf starting price $36,000
Honda Civic starting price $16,000
This is just going to be a basic operating cost comparison. I’m not going to get into the cost of a charging station or the cost differential on insurance, etc.
There is a $20,000 premium for the electric vehicle which don’t work so good in the winter here.
For the sake of argument, let’s say you drive both vehicles 20,000km per year.
Fuel cost for civic @ 7.5 litres per hundred kilometers @ $1.25/litre is about $1875 per year + about $750 per year for oil and maintenance. That’s $2625 per year to operate.
The electricity costs for a Nissan is about $500/ year.
The differential is $2125 for for the Civic. At that rate, it will take you 9.5 years to catch up to the extra capital outlay for the Nissan, not including interest cost, etc.
By that time, it’s my understanding that you’ll have long since needed a new battery for the Nissan which cost into the thousands of dollars at which point you’d be better off to drive it to the dump, except they require special processing to dispose of because of the batteries. The Civic of course will still probably be running just fine.
The deeper into this analysis you go it only gets uglier for the Nissan. Starting to get the picture?
Joe , that 500 a year to charge a leaf is absolute bs and your fuel costs , oil change ,leaving out repairs , coolant , lubes are about as about as low as can be . What , do you just go around the block ? I used the USA statistics for ice car monthly average consumption of 492 gallons per month but I rounded down . Your return on investment is determend by how many kilometres you drive . EV drivers tend to drive more because it’s dirt cheap . So that excelerates the ROI even more .
Just wait until some sort of usage tax gets added to the cost of an electric. Those lost fuel taxes will not disappear.
During the winter that Nissan Leaf will just make it from downtown up the hill to the Uni and that is with the heater and wipers off. It gets very little usage but its lease just got renewed for another four years by which time the batteries will have to be replaced. Who pays for that? Yep smart move.
joe, you made an error, actually an omission in your cost comparison.
You forgot to include all of the costs for taxies and bus rides during periods where you couldn’t get to and fro in the EV. EV’s are getting better but they still don’t like winter! I can’t imagine even Ataloss driving an EV to and from work in 30 below weather with no heater on!
You also forgot to add the oost of airfare for occasional trips to Vancouver, or Calgary or some other place that you may wish to travel to. While the Civic will get you there in 8 or 9 hours, in summer or winter and will do so using not much more than a single tank of gas, the EV will require numerous stops to recharge. These stops will likely extend a single day trip into at minimum an overnighter requiring a hotel room and additional meals!
Ataloss says that with an EV, you will likely be driving more, because it’s so cheap, but you’ll spend a fortune on hotel rooms and meals if you do any travelling.
Also, let’s not forget the value of time! Think about how much valuable time the EV owner be wasting, sitting at a charging station instead of visiting with family and friends! We only get so much time between the cradle and the grave and when standing at the pearly gates, I’ll bet that you will be wishing that you could be having that time back! ;-)
Think I’d stick with the Civic!
Stockaloss you first, tell us about your electric go kart and solar system? Oh another question what about road tax? Did you happen to notice all the tax on a litre of gas, how will that be replaced?
Why does the government have to bribe people to buy electric cars if they are so great?
Why does the government have to bribe people to buy electric cars if they are so great? Because it captures the fossil money in the local economy . Please bring your bs to the event Ezra S.Mutt .
Even an economist would understand this statement.
Oil and gas companies have come increasingly under the spotlight particularly after the COP21 agreement in Paris at the end of last year and its reinforced goal to limit global carbon emissions.
The CEO knows exactly how much money solar energy makes:
Van Beurden said all the top 10 solar companies in the world represent $14bn in capital employed and invested $5 billion in solar energy last year, but none had so far paid any dividends.
This is why Stockaloss supports solar but does not invest in it.
97 percent of Shell shareholders at its annual meeting on Tuesday rejected a resolution to invest profits from fossil fuels to become a renewable energy company. The Anglo-Dutch firm had previously said it was against the proposal.
So despite twenty years of relentless spin that “Clean Green Energy” is the future, 97% of investors know it isn’t.
ht tp://joannenova.com.au/2016/05/thats-a-97-consensus-at-shell-that-renewables-are-not-profitable/
Do we manufacture solar cells here? How about solar panels?
We also do not manufacture windmills.
We do build hydro dams. We do not manufacture turbines and the heavy equipment used to build hydro dams.
We do not manufacture cement, until a plant is built in Giscome, perhaps.
We also so not manufacture cogeneration systems and equipment.
Localizing energy sources using machinery and equipment manufactured outside the community does provide cost avoidance over time. The question in such cases becomes one of approximating a projected payback period when the leakage is reversed or substantially reduced, if ever.
So despite twenty years of relentless spin that “Clean Green Energy” is the future, 97% of investors know it isn’t.
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They don’t know that. Heck, a large portion of them couldn’t even read a set of financial statements properly, let alone understand the science behind energy development.
Shell is an oil and gas company. That’s what they do. Shifting to a renewable energy company would be a massive transition. It would be like Ford Motor company deciding that they want to build boats instead of cars and trucks. The fact that the shareholders of an oil and gas company do not want to become a renewable energy company does not mean there is no future in it. It simply means that they think the current business model is sustainable over their investment horizon and that it will provide them with a sufficient ROI.
History is full of examples of people thinking that what they had was “good enough”. Transportation, medicine, information technology, aerospace, farming, logging, etc.
Alternate energy is no different. We’re simply at the very beginning of its life cycle and development. It takes time to progress. At one point, the Prius was a laughing stock. Now they are common in taxi fleets across North America. Now, every major automotive company in the world is invested in alternate energy systems for their vehicles. The advancements over the last 5 years even have been considerable. It’s happening.
As gopg2015 speaks to, do we want to seize the economic opportunities that will come with this shift? Or, do we want to sit back, ignore history, say that this is just a big scam, and let other countries and economies reap the benefits?
I suggest you read the posted article I do not think you did.
So called alternative energy is not new, it has been around for decades, has never made money and only exists with massive subsidies.
The Prius and such if so good why the big subsidy? The electric car is not new, been around since the invention of the car. Until the energy density and cost of batteries can match fuel well electric will only be a very tiny niche subsidized market.
I do not know why this discussion transitioned from $ leakage to energy.
In case someone did not notice, we have no oil in PG, no natural gas, and no electricity generation plant other than cogen at a mill or two. We also do not have coal. We do have pellet manufacturers but much of that is exported, thus we have revenue returning to local or out of town owners.
We also have a refinery. Thus some jobs are created in the energy sector, but very few.
We do have a distribution network and its maintenance which is primarily local labour.
The actual leakage in that sector is minimal compared to the rest of the leakage.
Follow the money for instance which we pay for housing via mortgages and rent we pay to those owners who have mortgages. The interest payments are huge. So are interest payments on other things we buy with loans of various types. Much of that goes into the pockets of people in cities such as Toronto as well as people who have investments in banks and other lending institutes. Most of those do not live in PG.
I do not know why this discussion transitioned from $ leakage to energy ???? It’s because for somemutts it’s about brain washed ideology . Out of one side of their muzzle renewables are marginalized , subsidized and insubstantial. Out of the other side of their muzzles its dangerous and it a communist plot to make everyone the same . I’m surprised that they’ve made the transition from pen and paper to laptops . On the other hand maybe it’s that transition that made them concept averse .
Stockaloss look way far to the beginning, you started it.
michaelhshuman.com
This site provides some background on the speaker’s interests … seems to be crowdfunding. Ought to be interesting/controversial.
I couldn’t access the link to Shuman, but I’m guessing what he’s on about from what you call ‘crowdfunding’ is another version of a LETS scheme proposed by various people from time to time as ‘the’ solution to improving local economies. We had one where we are many years ago. It even rated a film crew coming up from PBS in Seattle, and doing a documentary on it. They were a bit premature. Despite the initial superficial attractiveness it quickly fizzled out. The idea’s been tried elsewhere with a little better results and longevity, but all in all it’s not really much of an answer to what’s really the problem.
“$ leakage” is a bit of a misnomer in any case. If the whole world was one great big ‘global village’ and had one universal currency, it would very quickly become apparent that the real problem the economist in the article above is trying to address lies elsewhere than where he’d like to place it.
In the link ataloss provided above there’s an article that talks about the desirability of a “steady state” economy. This is actually an economy that is only theoretically possible, simply because in the real world it takes ‘time’ for things to happen. So the best we could hope for is an economy that’s in a condition of “quasi-steady state”. One where all things are proceeding through time relative to one another. There is an assumption that this actually happens, and it COULD happen, but not under the current financial conventions. Not as long as generic ‘labor displacement’ is a factor, and most people still derive their incomes mainly from wages and salaries.
And so long as the world’s population continues to increase any “quasi steady state” economy would have to be in a condition of “quasi-steady state EXPANSION”. Unless we’re perpetually content to endure recurring periods of ‘financially’ (rather than ‘physically’) induced poverty.
And to go a bit further, there’s really nothing whatsoever wrong with EXPANSION so long as it’s ‘physically’ necessary or desirable in and of itself. NOT something that’s incurred, as is presently too often the case, simply to try to make a failing financial system seem as if it’s still properly functioning. When it clearly isn’t, even though to many people that may not yet be apparent.
Almost describe the situation in China to a T.
They didn’t have a market big enough for all the extra surplus they produce, so they use monetary expansion to drive down their dollar making their products cheaper overseas (as if slave labor arbitrage wasn’t enough), and use the fiat currency to build ever more factories and real estate in a giant ponzi scheme trying to create the demand for their surplus.
Those on the inside with the communist party benefit most from monetary expansion having the rights to borrow at the subsidized rates for factories and real estate early in the ponzi scheme, selling out later their shares to foreigners and the Chinese middle class that bought the dream of the Chinese miracle.
As the Chinese sit there with whole cities of realestate sitting empty because no one can afford it… they print ever more money (manipulating the currency value) so that real estate can be flipped for ever more profits and equity, and the smart ones use this printed like confetti fiat ‘equity’ to convert into foreign assets in places like Vancouver buying whole cities like Richmond wholesale and getting citizenship handed to them like candy for their substantial investments (anything over $800,000).
The Chinese elite know they have a national ponzi of over production in everything from factories, to roads, to high end office and residential realestate… which they can never pay for under normal accounting and rules of capitalism… so they are all off-shored now with their families and large portions of their wealth buying up everything that we will sell them with their ill gotten converted paper.
The globalists will tell us this is a good thing that the Chinese now have 600 million in the middle class (and that they profited immensely in the process); but what they won’t tell you is that this is done by undermining the rules based markets of the west and making a mockery of capitalism through currency manipulation on top of all the LCD arbitrage of environment, labor, and regulations that our national economies operate by.
The Chinese are so bold with their monetary ponzi that they now essentially feel they can challenge for world domination if not through the Chinese national power, than through their own ill gotten financial and voting power within the leading democracies.
Casinos and groceries are two of the biggest leakages from the local community followed closely by the globalized mega stores and senior levels of government.
Casinos, that is how governments get their handouts back.
Taking advantage of the most vulnerable in society for privileged profit is what government does best.
It describes EVERY modern, indusrialised economy, Eagle, not just China’s. There isn’t any one country, or even any one trading bloc, that could buy ALL its own production and fully pay for it from ALL the wages, salaries and dividends distributed in the course of making it. They ALL have to try to export their unpurchaseable surplus to try to get export credits sufficient enough for their respective central banks to convert into their own currency. And/or go ever further in debt.
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