As far as I can see extending the work share and longer E.I. benefits to the forestry is just important as saving the auto industry. The forestry workers are still working at a reduces week ans losing 4 days of pay in the month, our mouths have to be fed, bills paid, mortgages met just like in Ontario. I know they say there is no hope past Hope, but we are all Canadian and deserves the same bail out. Jay Hill has not really done anything for us and now it is time to stand up and fight for British Columbia.

Let's put Hill's pension benefits on the table. He can only collect pension benefits for as long as he is an MP or 7 years which ever is less. If workers who pay into EI, can collect longer, then he will be allowed to collect for as long as they do.

Lost in all of this seems to be the fact that nobody is asking the two rather unpopular questions that need to be asked:

1) Is the North American auto industry even sustainable in its' current form and;

2) Is it realistic to believe that foretsry will turn around anytime soon given the expected demand for products in the short term and timber supply issues in the longer term

Until these two questions are answered and/or plans are put into place to address the issues, throwing money at the problem is simply a short-term measure that will likely have NO impact on the overall situation. I'm not saying that money shouldn't be invested, but we need MAJOR leadership on the issue. We shouldn't be so naive as to think that a few billion dollars over the next two years will solve every problem facing these industries. The issues are far greater than what an immediate cash injection can provide IMHO. It blows me away that we still don't see anyone in government (or other position of leadership) taking those bigger issues on. I hate to say that people have their head stuck in the sand, but it sure seems to be the case.

Jay Hill, where is the $57 billion dollars that the feds stole from us. Come on pretty boy, tell us the truth!! You stole $57 billion from the coffers of EI, and you have a problem helping out the people that have paid into it!! I see you are bailing out the auto industry, but not the forest industry in north central British Columbia!! Is that because you come from a family of farmers, rich in your own right, and realyy don't understand the forest industry! Well, you know what?? When you run for public office, you are supposed to represent all of us in your riding, not just your family! Get it Jay man!! We all know you are a wealthy farmer, but now, you are messing with my money!!

You know what Jay man, you better start answering some questions!! You were voted in, in the west, better represent the west! You have smoked screened a lot of people, but you have done nothing to pull the wool over my eyes.

I want to know where the $57 billion dollars went from the EI fund, and, I want to know now!! You feds, are a bunch of thieves!!

The revolution is near, Jay boy, and when it comes down, look out.

as soon as everyone realizes that unless the ecomonmy in the Ststes turns around there is very little we can do in Canada and that includes the lumber industry as well as the auto industry. The United States is going to do what it as always done in a situation like this. It will look after its own to the exclusion of everyone else and the only way that we will get a fair shake is if the countries resources [oil,lumber and mineral] are put on the table. Deal fair with us or else everything stops going south. Should look at taxing money that is going south and tax it hard. Why should the ESSos and Shells be making such a profit. You can also include the banking system. They are making far to much money investing money that is not their own. Let all the companies make a fair profit and keep the rest in Canada. Best rate we can get in a bank right now is like 3.5 % so let the big corporations make 3.5% after expenses.

Threatening our MP's are not going to promote or generate any kind of positive response. Mr. Hill just confirmed that everything is on the table for discussion. How about some sensible suggestions or proposals for their consideration? It's easy to criticize and find fault. How about some sensible solutions?

Member of Parliament? Not likely. MP stands for Messenger of Parliament. What comes from the PMO (Prime Ministers Office) is the gospel. Expected to be told to us by our elected messenger. It don't get no simpler than that.

Chester, a sensable solution would be for the government thieves to stop looting the EI Fund. nuff said.

Posted by: downnotout on December 16 2008 9:31 PM,
"as soon as everyone realizes that unless the economy in the States turns around there is very little we can do in Canada and that includes the lumber industry as well as the auto industry."
There in lies the problem. Our present governments have done nothing to make BC or Canada self sufficient or sustainable. They have only represented the party and their financiers, never the people. They have sold out our woods and energy to the US and private enterprise. They have not used our resources for our own good. Until we elect MP's or MLA's that represents us, nothing will change.

Until we start using our own raw materials to produce products then Canada and western Canada especially won't be self-sufficient.

We need to build factories and shops that make items from our own resources and market that to the world, not just the US.

But if no one is buying our products, then we still won't be self-sufficient. We'll just be flooding a market with stuff no one wants.

And just how is "the world" going to "pay" us for all the output from these "factories and shops", Mercenary?

The only practical way is for us to receive alternate 'goods' in exchange for them, is it not? But don't we have a little problem here if that's so?

If WE couldn't BUY 'all' the goods we're exporting, with the total amount of incomes paid us in the course of making them, then how are we going to be able to ever BUY their equivalent value in imports?

Strange no one seems to mention why we are in this mess.Would it be the Amercan banks that were overtaken by greed and didnt cut off lending to those that might be at risk. Could it be that the consumer market in the USA collapsed and there was no more money to be made by buying and selling shares.

It is always a shakey economy that depends on the retail market ot keep it afloat. When the wheelers and dealers should of been investing profits in manufacturing instead of importing cheap products from off shore like China.

Wasn't it the PC"s that gave us free trade and the global economy so that we go as the globe goes. At this time when the unemployed could be drawing EI to ease the market problem the funds for that purpose have been used by government and are now giving them to the banks.

The fact is the Republicans in the USA and the PC's in Canada dont give a dam about those that provide the labour to keep the economy afloat and now its pay back time.

Cheers

The so-called financial"crisis" derives from a faulty financial price-
system which generates consumer prices more rapidly than it
distributes incomes--forcing consumers to rely increasingly on
creation of new money issued as repayable debt in the form of bank
loans.

When liquidity becomes eroded to the point where borrowing can
no longer be sustained the whole financial edifice collapses like a
deck of cards.

Mass foreclosure which ensues reveals the confiscatory
nature of the financial system, manifesting a tragedy of human
effort.

In a free society and rational economic system producers
should get their money from consumers. Subsidizing producers so that
they can create more goods for which consumers lack income to
purchase is lunacy. What is needed is enhancement of consumer income
to balance aggregate purchasing power with aggregate prices in each
cycle of production. This would place consumers in a position to
determine the viability of producers.

The physical cost of production
is fully met as production progresses. There should be no aggregate
need for consumer debt whatsoever. If society had followed the Social
Credit policy of C. H. Douglas who advocated Consumer Dividends and
Compensated Retail Prices instead of the Fabian Socialist Social Debt
policy of the late economist John Maynard Keynes none of the current
madness would have occurred.

We would be enjoying increasing
prosperity with falling prices and increasing leisure as should be the
case in any modern and civilized society.

socredible, you are so right, but you have complicated the situation some what, so people may not understand. It is not often that I agree with you, but I do on this. Let me try to explain it another way!

I am in my mid to late 50's! OK, damn it, I am 56, going on 57! Let me take everybody back to a time.................

When I was growing up, we got a drivers license at 16. Some were able to take the family car out on a Friday night, but few. I was one that was not allowed to drive the family car. My dad said, it was the ONLY car he had, and he could not afford to replace it if one of his children were to smash it up. Not unreasonable, I never thought.

Did you notice, I said family car?? very few families could afford a second car. It was a system, that would not allow people to over spend their budget. Banks wouldn't lend you money, if you didn't have the ability or the means, to pay it back, in a reasonable amount of time.

I bought my first car from my sister, for $150.00 cash. Saved it from my paper route. My parents did not help me with this purchase, it was mine, and mine alone! My sister had purchased the same car 3 years earlier for (if I remember rightly) $200.00, and again, no help from our parents.

OK, here is the point. Today, anybody can buy a new vehicle! You can buy one with very little credit rating, if any, with zero down, and 0% financing over a good number of years!! Just about every young person drives a new car or truck. The parents have a vehicle each. They have toys in the driveway, and all financed to the hilt!!

Very few people know how to save up for something, all they know how to do is finance!

So, the big auto company's have lent out all this money, so people can own a new vehicle!! What is wrong with this?? Well, if I keep borrowing, to a point where my ability to repay is diminished ! I will be in serious financial trouble, right! I can't pay anymore!!

The auto makers have done the reverse, they have lent out all this money, so people can drive a new car (that they can't afford). They have offered people 100% financing, with no interest. It goes on and on, driven by greed. ( the rich get richer), the poor, well that is us!! In the 60's, poor was pretty good, compared to today. They have lent out all this money for vehicle financing, while they had to pay the wages for the people that work there, and to all their suppliers! I think suppliers want their money in 30 days, and wages have to be paid every two weeks. Well guess what, they don't have any money left in the bank, and the car loans, are coming back very slowly, if at all in some cases. It ain't rocket science, it doesn't compute, never will. they are broke, as most everybody is. If you owe, or you are owed, and the money coming in, is less than you have to put out, you are BROKE!! Plain and simple folks!

I truly hope, the whole thing collapses at every level, and we get to start over, with a sensible society!! One car families, 1200 sq. ft. homes. Kids driving very safe junkers ( they don't have to be new, just safe) Toy's that we pay cash for.

Up until now, the only ones that have benefited from our desire to have toys, is the manufactures. Now they are going to bite the big one!!

Conrad Black is in prison, and there needs to be millions more joining him, including politicians!

Taxinapothole, all that you're saying sounds very reasonable, but there's no going back. It won't work. To do that we'd have to forego every bit of 'labour saving' technology that's come along since the 1960's, at least, if not a long ways before that. That's what's changed.

Take a look at any industry you want, auto-manufacturing, logging, sawmills, agriculture, mining ~ anything that actually 'makes' something, or assists in the process. They've all shed "jobs" apace, and are still doing so. Even in 'normal' times they're doing so.

Sure, new industries do open up and they do employ. So do 'service' industries, like fast-food, shopping centres, etc. But overall, in the whole economy, "job" loss in manufacturing product continues year after year after year.

How many acres can a three or four man logging crew with modern machinery put down in a day now, compared to what 3 or 4 men could do 30 or 40 years ago? There's no comparison!

100 years ago, over half of the population was employed in agriculture. Had to be, just to be able to feed themselves and the other half that wasn't. It's something like 3% today. And there's more food today, in general, than we could ever eat. Even though there's far more of us around to eat it.

In 1966 I started working as a green chain puller in a sawmill. I was 19, and the wage (Union wage, too) was $ 2.25 per hour. A nice house could be had for less than $10,000. A new pick-up truck, about $ 3,000. My first pick-up was a 1949 Chev. Cost me $125. Getting it insured (pre-ICBC days)cost me nearly twice that!

Guys I worked with were supporting families on that wage, and people, in general, did 'save' more than they do today. For one thing , their savings weren't yet being as eroded by 'inflation' as was later the case. The 'one-income' family was the norm. Wives stayed home, and minded the housework, and the kids.

Now what you say about easy credit does have a bearing on the situation, no doubt. Many do live beyond their means. Others, are forced to do so by the demands and standards set by modern society. "Aircare" in Vancouver is a prime example. Your 'junker' may be safe, but if it won't meet the standards for emissions, it's a choice of thousands to fix it or buy a new one. If there's no guarantee it CAN be fixed, which do you choose?

But the real "cause" lies elsewhere. If, in the economy as a whole, through 'labour displacement' in all its many forms, overall "incomes" are constantly falling in ratio to the overall "costs of production" coming forward into "prices" at the point of final retail, there is NO WAY those "incomes", taken collectively, can ever TOTALLY liquidate those "costs of production". Currently, the ONLY way they can be liquidated (and they have to be totally liquidated, before industry taken as a whole can book a profit and repay its loans), is though a further increase in overall DEBT.

If however, we recognize this problem, we can easily rectify it. Not the way our governments are presently planning to do. Which will only succeed in raising the prices of everything, and putting more people further into debt than they already are. But by using an amount of 'credit' to 'lower' consumer product prices collectively, to the point where collective incomes distributed in the course of making those products are then able to fully liquidate their costs.

It is not difficult to do. It doesn't involve 'taxing' anyone. The basis for the 'new credit' used this way is the same basis for 'new credit' advanced to producers now ~ an expected increase in the volume of business. Which is what we'll get, and employment with it.

reduce the availability of credit, and reduce the introduction of new technology!!
Modern technology, will be our downfall in the end!!
Modern day technology, only makes the rich, richer!!

We have no end of missouri in the finance dept., as long as these two others exist

What are you people talking about. Run that by me again . I'm sure you won't mind as you like to hear yourselves talking

Cheers

Well, the Banks have all "reduced the availablity of credit" lately. As for reducing the "introduction of new technology", that will come about, too, if there's no access to the credit needed to pay for it. So if that's all it takes to "end the misery", what's everyone so concerned about?