Whenever has there been a "re-investment" in any industry that was specifically made to "improve productivity" that INCREASED "jobs"?

This is the area where Peter Ewart, and many others, continually exhibit confusion. A confusion that leads them to continually moan about the situation as it is, but be quite unable to propose anything viable that would improve it.

When a business invests, or re-invests, to "improve productivity" it does so to ELIMINATE "jobs", not create them.

That is the nature of "improved productivity" ~ 'more' product output from 'less' labour input.

Peter, and others, regard this as a curse because it leads to rising 'unemployment'.

Their ultimate solution always devolves into doing things for the PRIMARY reason to "make work". Not, as it should, to "make PRODUCT" more efficiently, but also to MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO FULLY 'DISTRIBUTE' THAT PRODUCT and PAY FOR IT.

Right up to the satiation of Consumer demand for it, or the full ability of it to actually be produced, whichever comes first.

And it is just here that they make their biggest error. They mix up 'economics' ~ the real process of actually providing goods and services to everyone as, where, and when, required and desired ~ with an outdated 'moral' proposition that "no one who has not first 'worked' should be allowed to eat."

A 'moral' proposition that would completely deny ALL the "progress of the industrial arts" of the last two centuries in increasingly providing for our needs and desires with LESS labour input.

"Unemployment" without an 'income' IS a curse, no doubt about it.

But "unemployment" WITH one is something else indeed. It is LEISURE, not, be it noted, simply "idleness". For many who have the opportunity for leisure right now are anything but "idle".

Indeed, most of the great inventions and discoveries of the past have resulted from people having paid "free time" on their hands that they were able to employ making those discoveries and inventions.

We can never reach our full potential as a truly "wealthy" nation so long as we are determined to follow a policy of "full employment" as a supposed necessity to distribute "incomes". We'll only succeed in making ourselves 'physically' poorer doing that.

Realise the truth in the old saying, that it is "CONSUMER demand that is the only sane origin of all economic activity", and set about making that 'consumer' demand, which we in Canada are more than 'physically' capable of satiating fully in most areas of our needs and wants, a fully EFFECTIVE demand, and we'll solve our problems.

Don't worry too much. The upcoming HST will fix everything. The politicians told me so.

Whenever has there been a "re-investment" in any industry that was specifically made to "improve productivity" that INCREASED "jobs"?

That statement/question is correct provided that the specific wood processing facility is actually now operating and at full capacity and that no other variables be considered. Variables such as different products, different markets,different customers or requirements etc.

The problem is however that from either reducing outputs or closures have also reduced employment dramatically.

The complaint by Mark Carney might seem to be based upon the single presumption that this has resulted from the lack of reinvestment towards simply making more of the same product more eficently and selling it to the same customer.

Hopefully he is smarter than governments tend to be and he sees this reinvestment is not simply limited to such a minimal potential.

The vision which Emerson seems to have is that nothing but the business model of the forest giants matters, regardless of their inability to adapt to other realities such as markets changing, or not to mention,the common good of Canada.

Excellent article Peter. Right on the money. Its a complicated subject full of variables that we could cut and slice to what ever our political persuasion is, but the facts are that our country is being sold short for the profits of the few at the expense of all the other stakeholders in our society.

Hewers of wood and water are one step away from slavery... be it economic, political, or culturally. If we can't enable the split off opportunities, and the value added opportunities, and the supply opportunities... then we are not reaching our full potential and we are not building a sustainable economy.

The problem is our economy is driven by leveraged buy outs from easy debt that allows for the monopoly capitalism under the name of productivity and synergy to consume our traditional free enterprise economy, thereby sucking the entrepreneurial spirit out of our economy.

Globalization by the banksters has been allowed undermine Canada's future while making the few wealthy in the short term. I call it political treason that it has been enabled by our elite political class.

Socred, your socialist redistribution of wealth argument is bunk... always has been.

You'd be far better off focusing on the argument of building a system that recognizes fairness in economic activity and the role taxation and monetary policy plays in leveling the playing field from the perspective that allows for equal opportunity based on ability, rather than subsidization from others, or special rules for special people.

Wealth is created all the time out of thin air by bankers in their derivative scams, it is created through finance, it is created through adding value in the production process, even from the service industry, or gaining an energy surplus from an energy source... interest charges are also interest collected (may be an argument on who is illegitimate in collecting)... but the fact of the matter is we still have independent valuations such as gold, oil, silver ect... and the facts are the only thing that limits the liquidation of costs is taxation and the regime used for taxation... its not a micro issue for every independent corporation or small business or we would all be broke and the economy would stop all together.

You are talking about a macro issue in a circular argument that discounts other areas of wealth creation.

With all your 'solutions' we would be no better off than we are today (probably worse) if central bankers and banks were still allowed to operate as they do today, and the world continued to be driven by leveraged globalization that leverages the savers tax (monetized growth), the environment, and slave labor around the globe... in which they can undermine the rule of law in our domestic economies that should be operating from the perspective of a true free enterprise economy where everyone is playing by the same rule book.

Making 2 x 4s is secondary manufacturing. However, it is very much machinery oreinted rather than people oriented. The people are employed in:

- managing the land base
- collecting data from the land base
- protecting the land base
- developing access to the land base
- maintaining access to the land base
- removing the timber from the land base
- transporting the timber to the mills
- replanting the land base
- tending the land base

Whether it is a "natural" forest or not, that is just another form of "agriculture". Specifically it is silviculture.

Even though that part of the industry has reduced the number of workers as well, it is in no way the reduction that has occured in the manufacturing side of the industry. In fact, the ratio of those woodlands workers to manufacturing workers has increased over the decades.

Yes, we could build the machinery and we do build some. But that has not been part of our culture. Exploring why not would make for some interesting research.

I know in my time, scraping the Avro Arrow project was the beginning of the end for high end manufacturing in Canada. A lot of my parents friends and parents of the teens I hung out with were involved with that industry and ended up moving to the USA to teach at Universities which had wonderful research projects, work for Boeing, etc.

It is only with the coming of such companies as Bombardier that we have reached that global level of high end manufacturing again.

We have the researchers here, but we do not have the risk takers willing to take an idea to market.

Workers? The mechanics of this world? We do not produce any in the first place to speak of. We import most of them. Our education system is not set up to develop industrial designer. We are lousy at product design.

Look at the track record of our own college. CNC is not an exeption. It is the norm. How many BCITs do we have? Not that BCIT has any world level taining for those who will be the developers of products that will make us competitive on the world manufacturing map.

I do not think that Emerson is gloating. Emerson is stating a fact. Emerson is challenging us to turn it around.

If we look at how other countries rise to the top of the manufacturing elite of the world, one has to look at their governments and one has to look at the industries the governments are in partnership with. Things do not happen by accident, they happen by design.

This country has still not learned that, no matter what government is in power in Ottawa or the various provincial capitals. I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Socreds argument is not bunk. It might be to those who get hives when they even see a word that incorporates "social" in it, especially when combined with economics.

Using traditional "work" as the only way to distribute wealth is about as archaic as it gets. A lot of people have this altruistic idea that we are all created equal and that we all have the same opportunities. Now that is bunk.

Notice I wrote "traditional" work. Was Michaelangelo's time spent on dabbling with possbile inventions less or more valuable to Society than the stone mason who cut stones for a city hall or church? Or the farmer who grew beets? Or the monk who transcribed written words to be distributed to others to read?

Thanks, Gus. I think what you wrote about the Avro and Bombardier tells us quite a bit. Both these firms have been heavily subsidised by the Canadian taxpayer with the intent of providing "employment".

The Arrow was likely a plane that would have negated the necessity of the RCAF purchasing any of the many 'lemons' that were subsequently purchased in its stead had it ever gone into production.

But it was not a plane that we could have sold to our allies at the time, no matter how good it was. Britain, France, and the USA all had their own aircraft industries at the time, all also subsidised by their country's taxpayers, and all with that same overall purpose of providing "employment". An earlier 1950's development, in Canada, of a jet passenger aircraft by Canadair, which also couldn't be sold abroad for virtually the same reason might be recalled.

Bombardier, today, without the Federal government bankrolling of its sales into foreign markets, would have collapsed long ago. Taking the "jobs" it's enabled with it.

Look closely at the position it's in. It will be allowed limited penetration into the markets of industrially developed countries. Too limited for it to continue to recover its ongoing "costs" over time as those "costs' continue to rise from inflation here in Canada.

If it tries to penetrate the markets of the 'Second' or 'Third' world, how do we receive payment for its products?

The import of alternate products from those countries, products which in general are 'resource' based, only leads to unemployment amongst the providers of those same resources or products in this country.

What could we import from Argentina, for instance, to pay for a new Bombardier LRT system for Buenos Aires? Anything they send us, while possibly leading to a 'diversification' of our choice of products somewhat, like wine, , are going to displace sales of domestically sourced products in our own market.

Now Eagleone seems to be a bit confused as to who is more a "socialist" in what they call for, he or I. Just as he's mixed up the 'micro' and 'macro' economies, and a few other things.

There is nothing whatsoever "socialistic" in what I've ever proposed, Eagle. Socialism is many things to many people, but fundamentally, so far as I'm aware, it calls for a forced "equality" through re-distributing incomes.

It believes that we should "take from the rich and give to the poor" to the point where all are equal.

I have never advocated that. In fact, Eagle, the 'poor' are NOT poor because the 'rich' are rich. They're poor because there is a chronic disparity between "money" and "prices" of goods and services expressed in 'money'in the economy as a whole, or macro-economy. And until that disparity is corrected, "macro-econimically", which can be done in exactly the same way any Bank now creates money "out of nothing" for productive purposes, the 'rich' will indeed get richer while the 'poor' will continue to go in the opposite direction. We do not have to nationalise the Banks to do that. In fact that would be the worst thing we could do. We want a banking system that is de-centralised in its ability to lend and be competitive for borrowers. Not to concentrate it all into 'government' ~ which will only lead to a reverse-takeover of that latter by those who are already too much in control of government policies through their existing 'monopoly of credit'.

Socialism is about taking from the people that work and distributing it to those that don't (not necessarily equality, that's communism ie equally poor under totalitarianism).

Socialism is everywhere in all societies of the world and a fact of life... its just the degree of socialism that can become problematic (ie socialism in monetary policy)... socialism needs limits or there is no incentive for anyone to do anything. The limits should start at private property and the notion that efforts incur just rewards preferably in an equitable system that never taxes the saver through the creation of money for redistribution by government.

Socred is arguing if I understand him correctly that government should print money into creation to redistribute. Not even tax to pay for this, just print the money through monetizing the dollar... this is clearly a hidden macro tax on the collective savers (ie investors) through the diminished value of their saved dollars from the inevitable inflation that the monetized dollars would generate (unless its like now and certain privileged investors get the highly leveraged debt in which to buy us all out of our jobs with... as a result of monetizing the currency by the 'private bankers' to their friends and associates).

Robbin Hood has no place in monetary policy... whether its for the socialists or the capitalists... and especially not when its private bankers playing the role of Robbin Hood.

Inflation kills long term strategic investments. Taxing savers destroys national sovereignty.

If you truly wanted to correct the financial disparity in our economy you wouldn't give the banks more private power over the monetary base or the creation of wealth. Banks only create wealth in a world of smoke and mirror ponzi capitalism... shouldn't that be very clear by now?

Clearly what is needed is regulation over things like money creating derivatives, and unregulated leveraging of debt to distort the ownership of capital. This is the role of government to protect society from the bankster vampires that think they play by a different set of rule than the rest of society.

In a society based on the rule of law, especially in the realm of finance, a society that respect its monetary policy for long term strategic planning, property rights, and a society that respects the free enterprise equality of opportunity... is a society where nobody is truly rich or poor through any other means other than merit. That is a society that can afford to be generous to those that are less fortunate, because everyone willingly buys into their roles and responsibilities in society, knowing their risks and advantages for hard work going forward, and recognizing the false incentives that drive people to try to get leverage on their competitors through lowest common denominator gaming of the system.

Socred and Gus are both bunk in their socialist monetary policy by private bankers.

Eagle:-"Socred is arguing if I understand him correctly that government should print money into creation to redistribute."
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No, Eagle, you don't understand me correctly at all. There is nothing "re-distributive" about Social Credit. That is a "socialist" idea. Social Credit is DISTRIBUTIVE. NOT "re-distributive".

You can't cure an "insufficiency", at least not for long, by simply "re-distributing" it.

That's like trying to cut a pie smaller and smaller as more people arrive at a community picnic than were expected to show up. They might all still get a slice of pie that way, but they'll be just as likely to all go away from the table still hungry, too. That's "re-distibution" for you.

A better solution is to get busy and bake a bigger pie, so when you distribute it at supper everyone has enough.

We've baked that 'bigger pie', Eagle. It's our entire productive system. It can already more than provide us with a majority of all the things we need and want. Physically, that is.

But it doesn't 'deliver'. Something stands between what COULD BE done, and what IS done. And that something is "money". The 'production' isn't the problem. It's in the agency of 'distribution' that we have a problem. That agency is "money". That's what is collectively "insufficient", and no amount of 're-distribution' is going to ever correct that. You have to have 'more' of it, and distribute it to everyone.
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Eagle contines:- "Not even tax to pay for this, just print the money through monetizing the dollar..."
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Not the "dollar", Eagle. "Productive capacity". That's what we want to 'monentize', and get that 'money' into the hands of the public.

What is the use of creating 'plant' if there is no market that can buy the 'product'for want of the 'money' to pay for it?

Why should we have to continually create MORE 'plant' just to try to distribute enough money to buy the products of the existing 'plant' we've previously created that we can't otherwise fully draw upon?

And then what do we do when the new 'plant' comes on-line? We repeat the whole stupid process, that's what. Or at least try to.

Eventually we can't do that, and by then we're stuck with 'plant' that's simply too large for any real economy of scale. Since even though it's "unit costs" might be lower, it can only function economically if it operates at full capacity and ALL the "units' can be sold. And they can't be.

That's what CAUSES 'inflation', Eagle. The carry-over from one cycle of production to another of "costs" that can't be fully liquidated. Unless someone goes ever the further into debt, which we do, so long as we're able to.

You can't do it through taxation. Taxation, is "re-distributive". There has to be an ongoing infusion of 'new money' into the economy which is not "costed' into any production. Enough to allow collective "prices" to match collective "incomes" in any same given time period.
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I disagree... inflation is caused by the unlawful creation of capital that outstrips real wealth in society. Whether its central bankers printing it to fund government deficits, or whether its your friend the bankers using private derivative contracts in a socialized banking sector... its the monetization of wealth that doesn't exist that causes inflation.

The carry over of costs theory, as stated above by Socred, relies on the assumption that there should be no accountability to the laws of a free market. In a free market if the business plan fails, so to does the business, and the revaluation of assets reflects the correction for the failed business model that didn't take into account all factors... those that pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollar can create new real wealth by better utilizing those assets from their new base of valuation (the write down correction for the 'insufficiency' you are trying to address). No new money needs to be created, because those that respected the laws of a free market were rewarded by additional purchasing power of their real unadulterated dollars.

The only new money a central bank should ever be allowed to bring into circulation should be money that is directly associated with new wealth that has been created in the real world economy. Money and wealth should always be congruent, so that monetary blocks (ie Canada) can be sovereign through prudent long term fiscal planning that reflects the laws of the market in practice and in theory.

Printing money to distribute or redistribute violates the above principle. Distributing money on a macro scale dilutes the real purchasing power of those that chose to save and invest. There is no getting around that. It is theft on a macro level. It violates the laws of a free market that can only be enforced through a stable and concrete valuation of the monetary unit.

The example you cite above proves my point well... when the plant is taken over in a hostile take over financed by overleveraged debt (ie Abitibi in Mackenzie), which is a perversion of the monetary base, it then monopolizes the industry reducing its entrepreneurial sustainability through one size fits all race to the bottom of wealth extraction from the industrial process cannibalizing until all wealth is gone from the enterprise.

A true free enterprise market on the other hand would see winners and losers always competing to fit the needs of the market as dictated by the laws of a free market. Capacity issues in the production side of the economy would self balance themselves, rather than be directed by a bureaucracy as Socreds distributive model envisions.

The productive economy shouldn't be captive to the idea that it should produce for everyone everywhere... simply the finite resources don't allow for that and that is why we have money that has fixed valuations. With out a standard in the economy we have no real direction and the end result is boom bust bubbles that enrich those that play the redistributive game of leaching off of the real economy and those that create the actual wealth in society.

Only through having economic standards can a person hope to have a society of equal opportunity governed by the laws of a free market that enable anyone through merit first and foremost.