Is he nuts?

I want some of whatever he is ingesting!

"As for the impact of the HST, he says on the positive side in the long term, businesses should be able to reap more savings and in the long term (with increased profitability) create more jobs."

Thank god for the HST.

It can't be doom and gloom all the time, can it?

Oh but it can :]

"Consumer spending will increase" Really? what with most forestry related workers laid off. Who has the money? This guy must have aquired all of the pot plants the RCMP picked up from the grow ops.

Ya right and with increased profitability will employers increase wages? Just asking.

If the economists and the weatherman switched jobs, would anyone notice?

"As for the impact of the HST, he says on the positive side in the long term, businesses should be able to reap more savings and in the long term (with increased profitability) create more jobs."

Why would increased profitability create more jobs? Increased need for products sold would create more jobs but if there is nobody to sell to (ie lumber to the USA) what good is it? Is the HST going to make lumber (or any other resource) cheaper all of a sudden? If so, by how much to make BC a bigger player on the open market? Nobody has given any hardcore numbers. All we get is the "will create more jobs" statement with no cheese to make that statement stick to the cracker.

"Consumer spending will increase. Really? what with most forestry related workers laid off. Who has the money? This guy must have aquired all of the pot plants the RCMP picked up from the grow ops"

Lots of people still have money and they don't work in forestry. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people in the Province don't work in forestry. It may be tough for some people in PG to realize, but while forestry is important to our Region, it's becoming less and less important to the Province as a whole. In fact, only 9% of people in BC work in ALL resource industries combined (agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining), down from 13% in 1990.

Times are a changing and while the resource sector is still a significant contributor to our economy, the level of its significance is declining. Who knows, within a generation or two it might even be an afterthought.

Fill your boots:

http://www.guidetobceconomy.org/welcome.htm

Well I guess we're not talking local enconomy, but I'm sure we won't see it improving in the near future, since forestry is in the dumpster.

Remember, Mr Pastrick lives in the 604. Things will improve in the Lower Mainland because for him, that is the only region that matters.

However, with forestry declining, it should be a wake up call to all levels of government in the Northern Interior to work on ways to diversify the economy. Otherwise, BC will consist of a thriving Lower Mainland and Okanagan and a bunch of old forestry towns slowly turning into ghost towns

Turning my attention locally, restaurants are still busy (there are still lineups at many places to get in at peak hours in fact), the parking lots at the mall and big box stores are still relatively full, I still see brand new vehicles driving around, etc. There is no doubt that things have slowed down from the artificial bubble economy that we experienced say 2-4 years ago, but it's not exactly a depression in PG either. Times are really tough for many people working in forestry and there is a trickle down because of that, but even if the unemployment rate is around 12%, that means that 88% are still employed.

We would be far worse off locally if we still had the same percentage of people working in forestry as we did in the 70's, 80's or even early 90's. Fortunately for us, we don't.

"However, with forestry declining, it should be a wake up call to all levels of government in the Northern Interior to work on ways to diversify the economy"

I agree completely. So shouldn't we be embracing things like the airport expansion, focusing on the transportation sector, increased health and education services, etc? I know that many people will debate the merits of these specific projects and areas, but it's not hard to see that the effort has at least been there (much of it contributed by various levels of government). Maybe the city also needs to start trying to attract a different industrial base to the city. Maybe tech, maybe energy, maybe an R&D area of a larger company that can be linked up to the University, who knows.

Balderdash... BC is a debit spend economy and not a production economy anymore. Some economists seem to think debt dollars can drive the economy forever, and I blame that on their group think that got them to where they are today.

BC will likely have in excess of a $3 Billion dollar deficit this year, which is massively more than at any other point in our history. The fiscal cuts will be deep to try and stem the red ink, and that will have a snow ball effect, because its government jobs that are the only thing holding steady right now.

When interest rates go up the party is over, and we will be paying for the small corrections we avoided by printing more cheep dollars to keep the ponzi scheme going. That day of reckoning is months if not weeks away.

We have witnessed in the last few years massive transfer shifts of taxes from corporations to individuals and to suggest that consumer spending will start the recovery is ludicrous when interest and taxes will be sucking up any disposable income left that the consumer had.

If the economist doesn't expect business to pick up until 2014, then he is selling hype to consumers to try and get people to take on more debt to fund the bailout of a broken economic system.

We won't see recovery until we see a complete overhaul of how taxes are imposed and what those taxes are tied to in accountability. Furthermore globalization in the long run is a cancer to our national economy and the quality of life of our citizens, and until we have a government willing to stand up for Canadian standards with out trade law we are doomed. We need to get rid of the corpocracy we have now and get to a free enterprise democracy that represents citizens first and foremost... citizens with small businesses and citizens that work for a living.

Time Will Tell

"We have witnessed in the last few years massive transfer shifts of taxes from corporations to individuals"

To add to that, we've also seen a significant REDUCTION in personal and corporate income tax rates over the last decade or so. All one needs to do is pull out their tax returns from the 1990's and compare what they paid as a percentage of their income back then to what they pay now as a percentage of their income. All things being equal, the income tax tax load today is far less than what it was back then.

I do agree with much of your post though. I think there certainly has been a trend to force more and more of the overall burden onto the "working class", to the benefit of big business. When I say burden, that could mean either an increase in overall "tax" load (user fee increases, property taxes, etc.) and/or a reduction in services (because there isn't enough money coming in to adequately fund those services).

The flaw in the argument is that if people are spending all their money to keep up with taxes and basic living expenses, there will be less to support the businesses that supposedly benefit. So the end result is that everyone loses.