Taxes up by 50 per cent!

Which taxes are up 50%?

Taxes on restaurant food are actually up by 140%.

It used to cost 5 cents on the dollar. It now costs 12 cents on the dollar. That is a 7 cent per dollar increase or 140% increase in the amount of tax paid.

I have yet to see that anti HST groups use figures like that to press their point home.

Lets see if we've got this right. If BC exports 50% of its Production and imports 50% of its Consumption it's about even, right?

We assume that the things it exports were ones it produced that were surplus to its needs. And the ones imported were things it either couldn't produce at all, or not anywhere near as readily as they could be produced elsewhere, yet were things that were needed or desired for our own consumption.

Now if that's so, why then do we want to go to such lengths to export more than we import?

If we run a so-called 'favourable' Balance of Trade, say we export 60% of what we Produce and only import 40% of what we Consume a lot of people seem to think we've really achieved something.

If that percentage rises to, say, 80% exports to 20% imports, they're all ready to re-elect the most corrupt administration the Province has ever had.

But what if we take it to the ultimate, and exported 100% of what we Produce, and imported nothing? Think about it. Are we really getting 'richer'? Or 'poorer'?

I will dare to add one more to the many hypotheticals:

If I had a job with a company and I if got hired only because the company's exports have been on the increase I would be 100% in favour of exports, no matter what the hypotheticals are saying!

Because the alternative would be that I would be laid off, no job and on EI.

And, if it was the present government whose policies were directly responsible for increased exports (and thereby MY job!) I would gladly vote for it!

Ah, there we have it. The same kind of thinking that would have us fold our tent as a sovereign country and become a part of the United States of America whenever there's another duty put on softwood lumber. Or access to the market across the border for anything might be imperiled, as it was when security was tightened after 9/11.

Why, we'll just all die if we couldn't sell into that market. What are we to do?

We'll all be forced into starvation, with rags for clothes, and to sleep on the streets, under the stars. Impoverished and destitute. But not for want of the ACTUAL means to food, or clothing, or shelter ~ all of which exist in bountiful abundance HERE already, or could easily be created that way. But because we have no "money".

Maybe in years to come we'll have similar feelings about surrendering our sovereignty to China. If that's what it takes to keep on 'working'. Such is the power of 'money', a numerical abstraction, and currently a flawed on at that, over physical reality.

I can't say as I blame you for thinking that way, Prince George. For currently there is certainly 'individual' financial hardship spread amongst many people when we don't have export markets that their continued employment is dependent on. And their continued incomes are solely dependent on that employment.

But that's as far as most people ever want to look at it. It's an, "I'm alright, Jack", attitude if ever there was one. Only we're not "alright". And getting ever the less so each year. But no matter. For that we're really 'working' our way to a physical, as well as financial, impoverishment doesn't matter. Just so long as we're 'working'. It's the SAME policy both the Liberals and the NDP embrace, there's NO fundamental difference.

Sadly, we're going to be in for a big let down, one day, and probably one day soon.

Well I think its a good news story!! Nice to see BC companies involved in the faster growing economies.

Socredible, there is no problem! If YOU personally guarantee to pay my wages and benefits when I lose my export based job I will gladly stay home and faithfully follow you ideology!

I don't think you will back me financially so I will keep doing what comes naturally - I shall keep working, producing things which will be exported to the customer, wherever the customer does business.

Everything else is conjecture, well-meaning thinking and posturing!

One more thing: What do you do for a living?

I cut lumber, Prince George. In my own sawmill, which I've owned and operated for the last 43 years. I have a small crew, to whom I pay a living wage, which is as much, or more, than I draw from the business myself. At one time, some of my lumber went for export. Nowadays, it's all sold in BC. I am NOT against the idea of exporting, per se, it is how we pay for our imports ~ and it would be foolish to believe that 'everything' we currently import could, or even should, be produced here in BC.

There is a BIG difference between any country being FREE to trade those things it has in surplus for the alternate, needed or more desirable surpluses of other countries, versus being FORCED to trade to try to make a defective 'money' system seem as if it's working. And that latter is what we're doing. It's not a particularly desirable proposition, even if it would work. But the problem is, it WON'T work.

"Ah, there we have it. The same kind of thinking that would have us fold our tent as a sovereign country and become a part of the United States of America whenever there's another duty put on softwood lumber."

I sense that you would accuse someone who is simply trying to work and earn an honest living as being unpatriotic!

How pathetic!

Ever heard of Don Quixote and his horse Rosinante fighting wind mills?

Funny how that image comes to mind when reading some of your convoluted elaborations!

"I sense that you would accuse someone who is simply trying to work and earn an honest living as being unpatriotic!"
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Not at all, Prince George. But look at the 'realities' of the situation. If the US border were closed to ALL our products; and the European and Asian countries shut us out of their markets, too, what would we do?

Just wring our hands and all sit down and starve to death because we no longer were receiving their 'money', (which we don't really ever receive anyways)?

Or would we find a way to utilise our own resources to first continue to feed, and clothe, and shelter, our own citizens? And then set about to provide all the other material things which some might call 'frivolous', or 'luxuries', that we are physically capable of providing?

We, in Canada, and particularly in British Columbia, have extent in our domain far more in the way of virtually EVERYTHING that is needed to maintain a very high standard of living than most other countries on Earth.

We have an abundance of resources, both natural and human. We have energy, from multiple sources. We have education, and the means to improve upon it. And we have considerable manufacturing plant ~ not as much, in many cases, as we once had ~ but enough still that with the application of the knowledge we still do possess, and the utilisation of what does exist in the way of plant, we couldn't create, or re-create, what we needed.

To say that we would have poverty if we lost those markets is only true to the extent that we did not marshall the resources at our command to have prosperity instead. And what we'd have to do FIRST, to do that ~ which is admittedly a hypothetical situation, but maybe not as far-fetched as it might seem ~ is to have a proper "money system".

"But look at the 'realities' of the situation." Funny you should suggest that!
I was just going to suggest to YOU to come back down to earth!

The whole list of "ifs" that you keep reciting is nothing more than a whole lot of much ado about nothing.

It will never happen and it is therefore nothing but hypothetical entertainment.

It would be nice if we could live comfortably in splendid isolation but, alas, it is not only just wishful thinking but it is destined to be just that until pigs learn to fly!

We need the rest of the world as much as they need us. Hopefully they will always need us more, or else we would be in deep trouble.

:-)

Then we're already in "deep trouble".

How many jobs are lost in BC when a raw log is exported? If it was surplus raw material as socredible has mentioned, then fine. But raw logs are being exported from northwest BC to asia because there is no mill north of Houston. These same exporters are getting the wood at salvage rates because of the fact the closest mill is so far away, and stumpage is based on the distance to the nearest mill. Why isn't BC opening some of those mills in northwest BC and shipping lumber to asia instead of raw logs. And it isn't lower quality product that the politicians try to make you believe. This is better grade logs than most of our mills see around here. The reason is, as in the case with trade to the US, our policy makers are so quick to fall all over themselves to jump into bed with anyone who promises them the moon. By the time the morons find out they just made a bad deal, they are too arrogant or stupid to try to fix it, so they just keep jumping off the same cliff.

The raw log exports have been going on for more than two decades. I remember Mike Harcourt trying to deal with the issue, to curtail it. Turns out that some raw log producers can not be told by the government to stop doing it. They have customers for raw logs, but not for lumber.

He threw in the towel.

Since then it has been the same all over. If the government outlaws the export of raw logs altogether a great many workers will lose their jobs and many businesses will go under.

How do you force a customer to buy lumber when the customer is only interested in buying raw logs, either from B.C. or Russia or elsewhere?

Nobody forces us to buy something we don't want.

I don't think we are in trouble because we are still trading actively with the rest of the world.

Perhaps we should be turning those raw logs into finished products which the rest of the world WANTS to buy rather than insist on making only basic lumber.

"Then we're already in "deep trouble"."

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No, we are not. We have enjoyed trade surpluses for many years with the odd month of a deficit.

Overall statistics: Very positive!

The USA are in DEEP trouble as far as trade imbalances go.

We are not! We don't count our blessings instead of constantly griping and whining.

The problem is, most of our export is raw material. Raw material that is removed from our resource base by companies that are not even headquartered in BC, let alone Canada, and in a lot of cases are majority owned by outside interests, who only care about thier bottom line and that of thier shareholders. And the main reason for that is because our govt and major businesses, who could finance such projects, have no desire or intestinal fortitude to take a gamble. They are only interested in selling the product for the quick buck to make it look like canada is competing and creating jobs. They will create 1 job at the expense of 6 and crow oh so loud about how A job was created. Exporting of logs has been around for a long time, but not at the expense of our own mills, which is the case now. Raw log exports have steadily increased at an alarming rate while mills in BC, which are located in prime forest lands, have been shut down permanently. Even raw logs returned to the economy what they rightly should it might not be too bad. But you can't justify selling off our resources at salvage prices to an overseas market. That does absolutely nothing for the economy, except line the pockets of the company shareholders involved. No doubt a company that contribute mightily to whichever party is in power at the time.

I agree completely with your opinion! It is BECAUSE we are in the fortunate position to have a country with all those raw material resources that we are doing not too badly, but we could do even better if we would turn those raw materials into secondary products for our own consumption and for export!

We are lacking the incentive to do even better! There are countries which encourage domestic entrepreneurship and risk taking, with support for domestic R&D and incentives to not outsource but to always put the country first!

Recently I had a call from my Canadian bank to ask me if I was interested in additional services, like life insurance and a long distance phone call plan.

The fellow sounded like Peter Sellers in the movie "The Party" and I had to ask him to slow down a bit so I could get used to his East Indian accent! We ended up talking about the weather in Mumbai, how hot it is over there and how cold it is here in Prince George! Nice fellow. But....I wonder why my Canadian bank does not give a person IN CANADA the opportunity to earn a living doing the same job!

My bank makes a billion dollars annually in net profits! So it can't plead that poverty prevents it from paying a Canadian a living wage for doing the same job!

Heck, even the screws I bought recently were Made in China and they were not very cheap. Since when did we lose the knowledge to make nails, screws, hammers, saws, light bulbs, and so forth here, in our own country???

A lot of furniture is Made in China and then sold in Canadian stores. I suspect that some of the wood in that furniture has made a complete round trip!

Our politicians are asleep at the wheel or too busy roughing each other up during Question Period to get involved for the benefit of Canada.

And it does not matter which party holds power.

"Perhaps we should be turning those raw logs into finished products which the rest of the world WANTS to buy rather than insist on making only basic lumber."
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The ONLY reason the rest of the world would WANT to buy most of those finished products would be if they were "cheaper" than they could get the same thing for at home.

And therein lies many problems ~ as anyone who has ever had anything to do with the value-adding of wood products could surely relate. Including me.

But aside from that, when we increase our exports of raw materials, or semi-finished products, the exchange value of the Canadian dollar rises relative to other currencies. This has already happened due, in large part, to our export of Canadian oil from the oil sands and elsewhere.

This should be a 'good' thing ~ for it means we can purchase MORE foreign made goods for fewer Canadian dollars. But it is NOT such a 'good' thing if this leads to those foreign made goods displacing Canadian made goods in our own home market. Nor if it leads to Canadian made goods becoming "priced out of the market" in those global markets we're so anxious to 'capture'. Both of which has happened.

It's NOT such a 'good' thing because the way we distribute incomes in Canada is still primarily based on 'EMPLOYMENT'. And too many of us cannot conceive of any other way to do that. Our 'moral' upbringing gets in the way. But when we've just become un-competitive in our own market, as well as foreign ones, what happens to 'employment'? And when the more labour input we put into a product, the more un-competitive we become?

What happens then is what has been happening. There are 'jobs' in those industries where there is minimal Canadian labour input. And those industries nearly all involve the extraction and shipping of raw materials, not finished products.

But once the construction phase of any new resource development is finished, only a relatively small workforce is required to actually extract and ship product. And this workforce becomes smaller, year by year, as increasing technology continually displaces labour.

Look at a modern logging crew. Four or five people can put more timber on the truck in a day now than forty or fifty people could a few decades ago. And do it better, and safer.

We try to 'grow' our markets, so we can produce more and employ more. Not in making finished products, the ones we'd like to make, because we're priced out of them. But in providing more oil, or more coal, or more concentrates, or more lumber, or logs. And what happens? We flood the market, that's what. Because those countries like China, and Korea and Japan who are encouraging more extractive projects here, are doing the SAME THING EVERYWHERE ELSE.

We're looking at the short term ~ how much 'money' we can make in how short a time. They're looking at the long term ~ how much 'resource' they can access at the LOWEST possible cost for how long a time. And if they have to sell us so much of what they do sell us, expendable 'junk' in return for those resources, all the better. It isn't that they COULDN'T produce better ~ they could. But we, by and large, couldn't AFFORD it.

"The ONLY reason the rest of the world would WANT to buy most of those finished products would be if they were "cheaper" than they could get the same thing for at home."

Not so, of course! We would not stand a chance if we would try to flog our products off in the "cheap" market! The products have to be BETTER than the competition, superior design, superior construction and superior quality of assembly, finish, durability and longevity!

Then, and only then, will customers with money pay the higher price which this better product can justify!

It is the customers who have money and who demand better quality which should be our target.

Not only that, but customers who purchase long-lasting quality rather than cheap quantity are the real green consumers because they don't have to consume a lot of cheap and flimsy merchandise which ends up in the dump in regular short cycles.

If we, as you believe, can't afford stuff of the very best quality perhaps we should find customers for our best quality products in other countries where there are enough people with money to purchase it.

That way we can eventually improve our purchasing power sufficiently to be able to afford the finer things too.

Look at the volume of lumber that comes out of the Prince George region alone ~ every day! How much of THAT do you think you could put into value-added products of ANY type, let alone the kind of specialty products you're talking about?

You're dealing with a principal species - lodgepole pine - that was considered a "weed" species only a few decades ago. It's botanical name is Pinus Contorta. Does that not tell you something? It ISN'T the kind of stuff you make high-end, value added lumber products out of. You could get anything like that, only better, from IKEA, and that ISN'T the kind of stuff those with the big bucks part with ANY of them for!

Coastal hemlock, which is still readily available "cheap" (right now, and for the past number of years), in CLEAR, close grained, larger dimensions, much easier to kiln dry and work, and no problems with pitch bleeding around every knot, is still only used to a minor degree for such purposes.

What can you make out of lodgepole? Primarily what it's being made into already. What value adding that CAN be done is already being done, with very limited success ~ it simply is NOT a high-end wood. As several would-be value adders have already discovered.

And another thing.... how many Canadian and American manufacturers who made, "...products .. BETTER than the competition, superior design, superior construction and superior quality of assembly, finish, durability and longevity!", are still in business?

Undoubtedly, there are a few who still are.

But a great, great many more who ARE NOT.

They've been done in by the lower prices of the import to a country where "disposable incomes" continue to shrink in ratio to our own country's product "prices". And each year the ranks of the survivors thins out that much more. The "playing field" of globalism is far from being level, Prince George.

Ah yes, the global market economy which was to bring prosperity to everyone. The largest impact it has had by far is shipping out manufacturing jobs to 3rd world countries where workers are dying to work for 50 cents an hour. On a smaller scale but still very evident, I have dabbled in outsourcing my programming skills to companies worldwide, the net result is if you want to work that way you better get ready to bid with the 3rd world countries who have programmers who are willing to undercut your bid sometimes as much as 80% and more. How do you compete with that if you want to be able to buy anything. The same hold true for virtually all we buy in this country now. Go to any hardware store and try to find a tool that isn't made in china. Even at canadian tire where they supposedly support canadian manufacturers. A box will say, product of Canada, you would assume that means made in Canada, but as soon as you take the product out and read the maufacturing details on the tool, or whatever, it will almost always say, Made in China. It costs less, it lasts 6 months, then you throw it away and get another. And if you decide to buy a high end tool instead, it doesnt matter, it too will be made in China. We're screwed if China ever decides to withhold all this crap they are sending us, or hold us hostage to get more of our resources, because quite frankly Canada has traded away, unwisely, a lot of thier manufacturing capacity in favour of cheaper products for the consumer from 3rd rate manufacturing companies. This is what free trade and global economy means to Canada.

Socredible, if you set your ambitions, visions, energy and expectations LOW enough you will never reach any higher goals!

You can take high strength virgin snow white pulp (the kind produced in P.G.) and sell it as a raw material to foreign countries for 900 dollars a tonne. There, overseas, they make that tonne of pulp into specialty paper products like document paper (not the cheap kind you put in you computer printer) and increase the value of that ton of pulp by ten or twenty times!

It is NOT sold by the tonne, but by the sheet!

Do you see the advantage?

Or, you can do it here and sell the product here and overseas with a tremendous profit!

I can give dozens of other examples, but...why bother?

If we set our goals LOW enough - voila, LOW will be the result!

Acopolympics, I agree! We simply will never be able to compete with low wage low cost countries on price alone! We must rise to a higher level and compete on quality!

Why do people buy Jaguars, Rolls Royces, Mini Coopers, Belgian chocolates, French wine, German beer, Swiss Rolex watches, Leica cameras and so forth in spite of the markets being flooded with low quality imitations?

They pay extra (voluntarily) for superior design, quality and prestige!

No countrys' economy is sustained on a handful of expensive, high quality and luxury products they sell. You are talking not just quality, but items that are too expensive for the average taxpayer to afford. And this has somehow turned around to arguing essentially the same point. I believe our resources should be kept here and made into products here, thus creating jobs and a sustainable economy.

We can keep some of our resources here and use some of our resources to make high quality items for our own consumption and for export. Many countries export high quality merchandise and they have been doing very well.

Examples: Japan, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Korea and many others....all exporters on a large scale! Exports make up a vital part of their economies and standard of living.

If you are suggesting that we should completely isolate ourselves from trading with the rest of the world - it won't work!

What in the world would we accomplish by doing something like that?

But, one opinion is as good as another as long as the result is positive.

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. And you are right, it wouldn't work. But we shouldn't have to pursue a trade that isn't 'trade' either.