Another weekend is almost here. As always drive safe and enjoy.

Looking forward to reading the posts on here in the morning.

Soooooo Why were the comments disabled for the pride prade story??????

how about this:

Cost of natural gas burnt in July 2010 =$1.49
Delivery charge =$31.86 Commodity charge =$17.33 Franchise fee =$1.57
Carbon tax =$2.01
Clean energy levy =$0.18
GST =$2.36
HST 5% =$0.34
HST 12% =$0.03

Total =$57.17

That's just for a paltry 2.4 Giga Joules.

I have been trying for two weeks to get a response, via email from Colin Hansen and Premier Campbell. I asked for what should have been an easy answer from them and I have not even got an acknowledgement response. Not even "I have received your email and will get back to you."
If this is how they treat the citizens of BC, little wonder they are despised so much.
What ever happened to politeness and courtesy.
Obviously these two don't have any.

I see the gas companies are being so generous. Dropped the price of gas one-tenth of one cent.....guess they couldn't stand to see the price ending in a 0 now back to .9. surprised it took this long I had thought maybe two weeks....
But thank you oil companies for your generousity

While the province is busy selling rights to underground resources, let's hope there in no gas under Prince George to exploit. All we need to complement our foul air is sour gas. Might we spawn a Weibo Ludwig?

Way to go to the RCMP, for stopping them theives. sure we bash them everytime they screw up, but we should also be prepared to applaud them when they do good.

Thanks and keep up the thankless job.

I recently upgraded my home computer, and now I am trying to find a home for my old complete unit - computer, monitor, keyboard & mouse, printer, & scanner. It is in great working order, just slow by today's standard.

Does anyone know where I can donate this old unit so that it gets to a person/family who cannot afford one?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

I filled up with GAS in Lloydminster the other day. Price was 86.9 cents per litre. Got home to $107.9 a difference of 21 cents.

I read Ben's article titled "I'm Waiting For Those Price Drops As A Result Of The HST" and I have to agree with him.

When it was announced that the government planned to bring in the HST and that it would result in lower prices for consumers I instantly laughed. I'm sure I heard this same pitch way not to long ago when the GST was brought in.

I'm not saying that the HST is good or bad, I just don't understand why the government feels it's necessary to promote a new tax with statements that aren't true.

Even if there is a chance for retailers to lower their prices why would they? They get an instant "raise" and the consumer is still paying the same for the things they purchase.

I've been hearing from the business and corporate community that this tax is better for us in the long run and that it's "the way to go". (I still have no idea on this - time will tell)

When the government throws something on us (good or bad) and they pad their reasons I feel a little suspicious.

Am I supposed to feel that way with the people charged to run our government?

I don't like it!

HabsFans, how about checking with E Fry or another such organization? I bet they'd appreciate it! Or maybe one of the Seniors' Centres in town?

Recently I made the comment about lower prices for the consumers to a local buisness and they just started laughing. Just be prepared to pay more. The Citizen just went up around $2.00 per month, I cancelled that.

ONE thing that really irks me are those television commercials where they repeat them virtually back to back....what an interesting way to attract people to your product...by pizzing them off??

ONE thing that really irks me are those television commercials where they repeat them virtually back to back....what an interesting way to attract people to your product...by pizzing them off??

does anyone else notice a dust problem in the city? I am allergic to dust and I swear i can taste it, my teeth taste like I've got dust on them all the time, and my house is covered in it no matter how much i dust there it is again soon after like i hadn't dusted in the first place, this is gross and I am pretty sure quite unhealthy, i wonder if it has anything to do with our "bad air"or is it just my house?

It could be pollen.....mixed in with some dust....compounded by toxic chemicals stirred up by the CN track sweeper??

trains vs trucking

More long distance hauls need to be done by train. Chip hauling needs to be done by rail.

Begin

The reduction in pricing is how they may have sold the HST but really its the 6% reduction in cost of capital that will have the impact. Lets say someone decides to build a $200 million dollar sawmill. Before the HST the $12 million they would have paid in PST would have been non-refundable. Now that same $12 million is refundable effectively reducing the price of building the sawmill by 6%. Considering our productivity issues and the fact that no one is going to deal with unions if they have a choice (ie build in Alberta or China) we NEED to reduce the costs in order to draw investment and create jobs.

Ben has indicated a clear bias on this issue and if he didnt discuss this issue he is either ignorant or demonstrating his bias. The price reduction arguement is valid but pretty weak, its the cost of capital that might save this province from itself. Our deadly combination of expensive labour AND low productivity is a serious problem. If we dont get it figured out then the working middle class will disappear.

HST..fact is, no matter how you want to sugar it up, costing me more to live...that is a fact!!!!...

But it is helping big business but I think that was the purpose...

By the way the federal government is gaining from this as well, big time....and no one seems to be asking their federal representative why they didn't try to stop it.....

"I filled up with GAS in Lloydminster the other day. Price was 86.9 cents per litre. Got home to $107.9 a difference of 21 cents."

I suggest we build a pipeline to a service station here.

I think you are wrong "born in bc" on that example of HST savings. Forest industry equipment expenses were exempt the 7% PST and so were all services.

Ask yourself this; if the ordinary working person just lost part of their standard of living to increased taxes...then wouldn't that person want/need a raise in pay? Doesn't that fly in the face of keeping BC labour rates competetive?

"...Not even "I have received your email and will get back to you."..."

It's the office stuff that is to blame.

They screen emails and decide which ones go to the boss. It is easy to configure an automatic response to emails which returns a message (such as the one above) if in fact someone is planning to do a follow-up and get back to you.

If they decide that the emails are *rubbish* then they are more than likely deleted on the spot.

Government officials (especially if unpopular) are probably swamped with hundreds of expletive deleted emails on a daily basis.

After a while fatigue takes over.

Keep trying, though. Yours probably got undeservedly lumped in with the junk.

Sometimes it's better to send snail mail, via Canada Post.

"I just don't understand why the government feels it's necessary to promote a new tax with statements that aren't true."

Because they are not practical people. They are too far removed from the people they are directing their messages to. They are too far removed from reality.

It is totally impossible to prove they are right as it is totally impossible to prove the opposite is right. There are far too many variables.

So, under those circumstances it really does not matter what anyone says. The lasting legacy will be the impression.

Bet you that if a survey were to be taken one year after the HST was introduced, impressions will not have shifted a significant percentage over what they were the week before the HST was introduced.

re:Born in BC

Hey... you're right!

Think I'll go start up a 200 million dollar sawmill.

Added to the above comments.

Does anyone know what the measurements are that we can all agree to that will measure the truth of the government statements after a year of operation under the HST?

This has nothing to do with gas prices or HST but I have a beef with the federal govt ..Why is it that when we send parcels to our young soldiers it cost us an arm and a leg?When these parcels are addressed to a person on an army base most likely its for a soldier..Why isnt there a special rate?These young men and women are serving their country ,a lot are very young and a package of homemade goodies from home means a lot.As a Grandmother of one of these brave young men I love to send a package of Grandmas cookies but that is almost impossible as it cost 16.00 for a small package (snail mail)If its next day its 30.00.Not fair considering all the perks the MLAs and MPs get.

Foresight. The PST exemption for loggers was rather narrow. It applied only to equipment that was used exclusively for logging activities. Purchaing a feller buncher was exempt from PST. However, PST was still payable on logging trucks, equipment used for road building, maintenance of landings, buildings, camp equipment. PST was payable on the construction of a sawmill building.

Small businesses will benefit from the HST as much as big busineses.

Ben Meisner owns a small business that will save money as a result of the HST. I wonder if he is going to consider his cost savings the next time he sets ad rates????

"Our deadly combination of expensive labour AND low productivity is a serious problem."

Easy way to fix that is to farm out all the low productivity jobs to other countries and increase the high productivity jobs. THAT is why the USA is so high on the list!! Of course, that creates a whole set of other problems associated with trade imbalance and ability to pay.

If we were to do that, it woul hit the Central Interior of BC hard since we are not adding very much value to products here.

Here is a table of one measure of productivity that combines total as well as per hour prodcutivity rates.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=DECOMP

You can sort the table in order of any column.

In case anyone is wondering why Luxembourg is so high on the list it is because the measure is output per population. Luxembourg has a very high rate of production facilities which employ people living just outside of Luxembourg. Those people are not counted as part of the population, but their hours worked are counted as part of the input. Thus they have a high hours worked input which is skewed in addition to the high production work developed through manufacturing plant infrastructure investment.


Then there is this piece which addresses the notion that the productivity measure really ought to include not only the outpout of production, but also the input of materials and services required to operate the country and cost of those.

http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/us-productivity-gains-misleading

Canada is 8th on the list for total GDP/person which is not bad.

Germany works 701 hours per head of population. Canada = 901

Germany has a GDP of $50.50 per hour worked, Canada = $43.20

Thus Canada has a higher GDP per person, but the work that is done is less productive.

HST or no HST does not matter one iota in that equation.

What would matter????? Big time is the policis of governments that encourage value added in high tech industries that supply the rest of the world with machinery and technical know how. Reduce the hewers of wood and drawers of water syndrome. Use the easy money from the black gold and invest it in research and build plants to implement the results of that research.

Others have done it. We are capable of doing it. HST means squat in that equation. HST is for those who know think business is going to be our saviour.

What is going to be our saviour is working together towards a common goal.

I doubt Ben ever paid PST on the creators of his ads, nor those who maintain his web site. Nor would he have ever paid PST for those who created articles for him, including payment to himself for creating articles.

Now all those people would charge him HST which includes the new PST component. He thsu has to pay more, but can reclaim that. It will now take him more time to do that bookkeeping, and will have to pay himself or his accountant that money.

Thus his ad rates should be going up.

Have I got something wrong there?

BTW, that should happen to ANY service dominated business.

I believe something in the order of 60 to 70% of workers in this country are service workers.

I always like the whining about labour costs. I suppose the answer is to pay sh** like in China and have all the profits go to the owners and government officials. Oh sorry that is what is happening here. That is what the whine is about having to pay employees.

Germany is in deep financial trouble so is a bad example. That trouble has a lot of relation to chasing green energy instead of building modern nuclear power plants.

If we built nukes here we would not need site c and all those ugly bird eating medeival wind mills which can never come close to suppling our energy needs.

Yes Gus. You have it wrong.

Ben has always had to do a GST return. Doing his HST return will be the same process as as doing his old GST return other than there will a little less work because there will be no cofusion about what stuff was charged PST or GST (but that time savings is small so not a big deal).

However, there are a lot of things that Ben buys for his business that will now be 7% cheaper. Including computers, software, office equipment, office supplies, phone service, legal services. If he goes and buys a new vehicle tomorrow for business use, he will save thousands due to the HST.

His costs will go down due to the HST.

Gus. Just a note about Luxembourg.

You say that "Luxembourg has a very high rate of production facilities". I didn't know that banks were production facitilites.

Luxembourg is so rich because it is a banking centre. It is the worlds 2nd largest investement fund centre after the US and the most important private banking centre in Europe. Not bad for a country with half a million people.

Steel ... and its value added products ..

http://www.lehigh.edu/~incntr/publications/documents/Luxembourg.pdf

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Europe/Luxembourg-INDUSTRY.html

that might provide a better overview for you kolberg ....

"the fourth largest producer of steel in the world and exported 22 million tons of steel products in 1999."

Who would'a thunk, eh? We all learn something new every day .... :-)

Gus

Do you have a time machine? Are you posting from 1970?

Luxemborg is an example of a country that shifted from industry to services. Yes, steel production used to be a critical part of their economy. But not any more.

As of 2001 steel production accounted for 1.9% of their economy while services contributed 81.5%. Financial services accounted for 24.9% on its own. And that was almost 10 years ago. They probably don't even have a steel mill in Luxemborg today.

http://www.portrait.public.lu/pictures/en/other/portrait_en.pdf

Yes you do learn something new every day.

Gus

O for 2. Ouch. You may want to take the rest of the day off.

There were no comments allowed about the Pride day parade only because they (most) would be negative, hurtful and judgmental. One can predict these things. So why bother? Easier to keep some people off there soapboxes once in a while. Especially about that.
Jim13135. Trying to be funny? I caught you. Whining about back to back ads on the telly. Then double posting. Good one.
It's been a good week for me. Israel hasn't bombed Iran. (yet) and Dear Leader from North Korea didn't do something stupid. I'd say that's a good week. Hope I can say the same next week.

The fact of the matter, Gus pretty much hit the nail on the head. We need to take advantage of the primary industries capabilty to develop our secondary industries.

In order for us to continue living high on the hog, we need to reinvent ourselves and get ourselves into developing new industries.

I am glad that in early forties, I decided to go into business for myself. I could not imagine how hard it would be to drag myself out of bed to go work for someone else, and watch them make and keep all the money for themselves.

There must be a lot of working stiffs making comments on this blog sites, because there is a lot of whinning against the free enterprisers.

Its risky to have your own business, but the rewards makes it worth your while.

I see Iran has not bombed Israel yet.

"we NEED to reduce the costs in order to draw investment and create jobs"

At the expense of families. Correct Born in BC?

"If we dont get it figured out then the working middle class will disappear"

Exactly what else did you think our gov't has planned for the middle class Born in BC???
Corporate Canada along with their gov't puppets have had that exact thing planned for decades. Do you really think that the CSIS leader that spilled the beans about our own politicians following the orders of foreign gov'ts and corporations was a lie?

"I always like the whining about labour costs. I suppose the answer is to pay sh** like in China and have all the profits go to the owners and government officials. Oh sorry that is what is happening here. That is what the whine is about having to pay employees"

Exactly Seamutt, exactly! It all comes down to greed doesn't it?

Carole Taylor ex Finance Minister for the Provincial Liberals, said the the HST in BC is a $1.9 Billion dollar tax shift from business to consumers.

What part of that statement do people not understand. For Gods sake, use your head for something other than a hat rack.

Rough numbers. BC Population is 4.5 Million. Government will rebate money to low income earners. Ie; Those below $25,000. per year. This is approx One million people in BC.

Now take the balance ie; 3.5 Million and divide it into $1.9 billion and WALLA you have roughly $550.00 per person. However once you factor in children, and spouses who do not work the number goes up substaintially. So its pretty bloody obvious that this a a tax shift pure and simple.

Business gains, consumers loose, and being an importing, exporting Province there will be no reduction in prices.

Dont make a simple tax grab complicated by discussing whether or not the tax applies on diapers, or over the counter drugs, or animal food, etc; The bottom line is it is a huge tax increase, and we need to get rid of it.

ther is too many employment services offering nothing more than whats in the paper and talking to us like we were children but !! getting killer grants to support themselves! what a joke

As far as Israel goes as with everything else in this world, is that the best defense is offense. Go figure. Besides where does it say that Israel threatened to wipe Iran off the map? Be specific.

Chip Truck in the Passing Lane, passing each other , please go back to the Sandbox to play!

I just saw that a portion of Bowen Island is being considered for a national park. Looking for votes in happy land I guess.

Does anyone know if Barkerville has been considered for a national park or would that be a bad idea.

Jim13135, did you mean to post your message twice? Or is that just some comedic irony to your complaint about back to back tv commercials?

Does anyone know when they will ever get rid of bee-hive burners?

Everytime they are given a deadline to remove them it just seems to get extended.

The one at the Plateau sawmill has been running a lot lately. There must be some better way to use that material.

Investment fund centres … you mean tax havens?

Have you got some figures of how much wealth that sector actually adds to the country? We know the number of workers. But we have no productivity measurement.

As with most so called industrial countries the majority of a country’s employment is in the service sector. There is a large difference between menial labour service and high level research service.

Please recall my post about getting rid of as many lower paying production jobs, such as those in primary industries and some secondary industries as well and increasing the service sector jobs that are required to keep the so called “producers of goods” creating consumable products.

That is where Luxembourg has progressed to. However, neither that nor the increase in banking services is the key to the productivity level of that country. The key is the mathematics of the calculation of what productivity is and the actual benefits which accrues to the country that has half its workforce commuting across the border every day.

If one were to do the same measure for a greater New York City, or a GVRD, then one would get some similar anomalies in productivity numbers.

While the report about the Luxembourg steel industry provides a historic background, it ends in the spring of 2008 and progresses through a natural progression of an industry that was based on the use do an unsustainable natural resource. There are lessons there that everyone should learn. We have learned it with our steel industry, but did not end up as Luxembourg did.

The headquarters of Arcelor Mittal in Luxembourg, the largest steel producing company in the world reported to employ 600 workers that are of course service workers not production workers.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Luxemburg_ArcelorMittal_1.JPG

The link below an example of the transformation of the industrial sector of Luxembourg from primary to secondary to the tertiary service industry. THAT is what I am talking about that we need to do. THAT is what I am talking about that our governments do not fund in this country!
http://www.luxembourgforbusiness.lu/automotive-components-industry

BTW, there is one reduction mill still operating that creates steel. The other facilities are all producing products from steel produced elsewhere.

Sort of like us. We produce the wood, others create something from it and sell it back to us.

How come a small country like Finland can build the worlds biggest cruise ships and canada can only build canoes. Thats an indicatore of the absolute failure of our governments and politicians.

Why hasn't the city invested in proper river infrastructure for those that use the river for tubing. There must be near 40 vehicles parked at the Foothills bridge almost every day during the summer months and no place to park, just half drunk people wandering all over the side of the road in between cars with tubes over their heads as traffic speeds by.

We should have a proper park designated there that has parking spots... maybe some grass... a picnic table or ten... some proper fire pits (why not)... and some garbage cans (glad to see they finally put a couple out on the bridge).

The river is our biggest strategic asset for quality of life in the summer months... so why not provide access to the public so that we don't have to resort to the spectacle we see every day in the bush town type access we have for our river? Any other city would have a park with public access to the river and lots of parking.

Calgary has a nice example of the kind of park PG could have on the Nechako river.