$30 barrel oil?

[BavarianBeast]

Some people just make me feel hopeless for this province.

[killramos]

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Some people just make me feel hopeless for this province.

Amen

[dj_patm]

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Any size of "heritage fund" or government saving is the wrong size. The entire concept is a terrible idea.

Any capital held in government's hands is by definition capital that could be held in private hands. And if there is one thing we know for sure: governments are terrible at utilizing and allocating capital. It's literally the worst place for that $25MMM to be.

The more we idealize the transfer of responsibility (for saving in good times, say), from individuals to government, the more we damage the entire system which resulted in huge advancements for humanity in the last 100 years.

I could totally agree with that, if we lived in a place that had a stable economy with a positive long term outlook.

It doesn't work in a boom/bust economy where revenue can all but disappear very quickly and critical infrastructure and services continue to need funding. Unless of course, you don't value the province as a "home" and are fine with simply abandoning ship once you extract as much value as you can.

This example gets trotted out a lot and it has flaws but if you were forced to live in one place right now for the rest of your life and the only factor that mattered was economy, would you pick Norway or Alberta?

[mr2mike]

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Did the other provinces experience a decade long resource boom?

No, they never had something as good to build upon... they just had decades of increased spending, social programs and civil servant hirings with no good income streams outside of taxation increases.

[ickyflex]

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I could totally agree with that, if we lived in a place that had a stable economy with a positive long term outlook.

It doesn't work in a boom/bust economy where revenue can all but disappear very quickly and critical infrastructure and services continue to need funding. Unless of course, you don't value the province as a "home" and are fine with simply abandoning ship once you extract as much value as you can.

This example gets trotted out a lot and it has flaws but if you were forced to live in one place right now for the rest of your life and the only factor that mattered was economy, would you pick Norway or Alberta?

Alberta because far too many act like you and that just means more opportunity and money for me

[Buster]

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I could totally agree with that, if we lived in a place that had a stable economy with a positive long term outlook.

It doesn't work in a boom/bust economy where revenue can all but disappear very quickly and critical infrastructure and services continue to need funding. Unless of course, you don't value the province as a "home" and are fine with simply abandoning ship once you extract as much value as you can.

This example gets trotted out a lot and it has flaws but if you were forced to live in one place right now for the rest of your life and the only factor that mattered was economy, would you pick Norway or Alberta?

The Norway example is bogus. I can write you an essay on that here if you like. But I'm a bit busy today.

As for infrastructure: a government can borrow for large capital expenses on an as-needed basis. I don't have much of an issue with that. And the opportunity cost of the under-utilized capital under the custodianship of the government is far larger than the interest payments on roadwork costs as they come up.

Why do people think that government spending, and government "rainy day" funds are just money that springs into existence.

[dj_patm]

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Alberta because far too many act like you and that just means more opportunity and money for me

Act like me how? Willing to pay taxes on my great salary so that shit like what we're going through right now doesn't get as bad as it's getting?

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The Norway example is bogus. I can write you an essay on that here if you like. But I'm a bit busy today.

As for infrastructure: a government can borrow for large capital expenses on an as-needed basis. I don't have much of an issue with that. And the opportunity cost of the under-utilized capital under the custodianship of the government is far larger than the interest payments on roadwork costs as they come up.

Why do people think that government spending, and government "rainy day" funds are just money that springs into existence.

How do you service that debt without revenue during extended bust periods, or dare I say, when the commodity is essentially worthless for the foreseeable future (not blaming that last part on Alberta fyi). Seems like your entire philosophy is dependent on the booms coming on a regular basis.

[Buster]

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Act like me how? Willing to pay taxes on my great salary so that shit like what we're going through right now doesn't get as bad as it's getting?

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How do you service that debt without revenue during extended bust periods, or dare I say, when the commodity is essentially worthless for the foreseeable future (not blaming that last part on Alberta fyi). Seems like your entire philosophy is dependent on the booms coming on a regular basis.

You know what you call a province that has a boom-bust cycle with no booms?

Empty.

Infrastructure spending/debt is a tiny fraction of government spending. I'm not sure why big government apologists always use "roads and bridges!" as their excuse for governments to tax the shit outta people and keep their own piggy bank. Building roads and the relatively small tax requirement for that aspect of government is quite sustainable, even in the more challenging times.

[msommers]

Isn't Killramos like 25? I mean I know he talks like a jaded 80 year old but I think he's pretty young...

Engineers. What a crazy bunch

[dj_patm]

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You know what you call a province that has a boom-bust cycle with no booms?

Empty.

Infrastructure spending/debt is a tiny fraction of government spending. I'm not sure why big government apologists always use "roads and bridges!" as their excuse for governments to tax the shit outta people and keep their own piggy bank. Building roads and the relatively small tax requirement for that aspect of government is quite sustainable, even in the more challenging times.

Well yeah, and I don't want the province to be empty.

I wasn't just thinking infrastructure. If the province had a healthy fund I'd pour funding into the universities to try and develop more industry. Fund more small businesses and start ups of all kinds (not talking about tech only, energy would be ideal I think. Feedstocks, reneweables and such). I'd also try and fund some sort of strategy to end our reliance on playing nice with BC to get anything done but that's probably just an unattainable dream. Then I'd use it to yes, fund services and infrastructure if needed (you're right, might be better off burrowing that).

[SkiBum5.0]

@dj_patm you forget that those royalties gave Alberta some of the highest quality of living during the years following the 80's downturn. Your timing is unfortunate, but you're no different than a Ontario grad in 2007, where the job prospects were limited to contract positions or gigs. It's no one else's fault for being a new grad with no job hopes - that means they chose the wrong degree. You then have the audacity to insult the welder making $300K (which would only be with huge OT, or under his/her corporation, before taxes, healthcare, WCB, truck and equipment cost etc etc). That person went to school, chose a specialized skill that the market demanded, worked in conditions worse than your cubicle, and was compensated to match. You're brainwashed to think any government could have helped your situation. The more we remove government from our finances, the better we will all be.

[BavarianBeast]

Hard not to be jaded when you have enough intelligence to see the big picture.

[Buster]

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Well yeah, and I don't want the province to be empty.

I wasn't just thinking infrastructure. If the province had a healthy fund I'd pour funding into the universities to try and develop more industry. Fund more small businesses and start ups of all kinds (not talking about tech only, energy would be ideal I think. Feedstocks, reneweables and such). I'd also try and fund some sort of strategy to end our reliance on playing nice with BC to get anything done but that's probably just an unattainable dream. Then I'd use it to yes, fund services and infrastructure if needed (you're right, might be better off burrowing that).

There is a mountain of evidence to show that the government does an extraordinarily bad job at all of the things you are wanting it to do.

[That.Guy.S30]

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@dj_patm you forget that those royalties gave Alberta some of the highest quality of living during the years following the 80's downturn. Your timing is unfortunate, but you're no different than a Ontario grad in 2007, where the job prospects were limited to contract positions or gigs. It's no one else's fault for being a new grad with no job hopes - that means they chose the wrong degree. You then have the audacity to insult the welder making $300K (which would only be with huge OT, or under his/her corporation, before taxes, healthcare, WCB, truck and equipment cost etc etc). That person went to school, chose a specialized skill that the market demanded, worked in conditions worse than your cubicle, and was compensated to match. You're brainwashed to think any government could have helped your situation. The more we remove government from our finances, the better we will all be.

Hey I'm still waiting for the Mustang to be delivered....

Haha why are people complaining about money? Don't have enough, go get a second job, or a third. Better yet, work in healthcare for the next few months while the NDP is still in power.

[dj_patm]

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@dj_patm you forget that those royalties gave Alberta some of the highest quality of living during the years following the 80's downturn. Your timing is unfortunate, but you're no different than a Ontario grad in 2007, where the job prospects were limited to contract positions or gigs. It's no one else's fault for being a new grad with no job hopes - that means they chose the wrong degree. You then have the audacity to insult the welder making $300K (which would only be with huge OT, or under his/her corporation, before taxes, healthcare, WCB, truck and equipment cost etc etc). That person went to school, chose a specialized skill that the market demanded, worked in conditions worse than your cubicle, and was compensated to match. You're brainwashed to think any government could have helped your situation. The more we remove government from our finances, the better we will all be.

It's not just jobs. I have a job, I wouldn't be this frustrated if it was just about finding work. It's about mismanaging funds used for everything. Letting your population pillage the provinces wealth without securing the provinces financial future was a massive mistake which will be a deathblow unless we have a very unlikely miracle boom to save us and we don't make the same mistakes.

I guess it's an argument of the well being of the province vs. the well being of the individual. The two go hand in hand unless you don't view the province as a long term home, which I guess in Alberta is probably a popular stance.

I'm arguing with a bunch of people who could give two shits about the health of this province 15 years from now. That's my mistake I guess.

[Buster]

Arguing for the government to tax people and squirrel the money away is no more than an argument for an inter-generational transfer of wealth. In other words it's an argument for the transfer of wealth from one population who earned it, to those that did not.

This is politically palatable, I suppose, if you could somehow define who the future beneficiaries of that wealth will be. Does someone moving in from another jurisdiction in the future have more claim to that wealth than someone here and now who is contributing to the population that hewed the wood? I don't think so.

One reason that Norway's example is not valid is that Norway's citizenship rules are much different than CAnada's, let alone the ability for other Canadians to migrate to Alberta in the future. Do I enjoy paying extra taxes now to the benefit of the unborn child of some nobody from Hamilton that will move to Alberta in 10 years? No of course not.

[killramos]

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Isn't Killramos like 25? I mean I know he talks like a jaded 80 year old but I think he's pretty young...

Engineers. What a crazy bunch

I certainly found it entertaining to hear how much I sucked out of Alberta in the boom times

[suntan]

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I could totally agree with that, if we lived in a place that had a stable economy with a positive long term outlook.

It doesn't work in a boom/bust economy where revenue can all but disappear very quickly and critical infrastructure and services continue to need funding. Unless of course, you don't value the province as a "home" and are fine with simply abandoning ship once you extract as much value as you can.

This example gets trotted out a lot and it has flaws but if you were forced to live in one place right now for the rest of your life and the only factor that mattered was economy, would you pick Norway or Alberta?

Any fuckface that compares a country with a province deserves his nuts bashed in with a bat.

[Misterman]

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The PCs guided the province out of a recession when people who graduated university 2 years ago weren't even born yet. Since then, they squandered and mismanaged a record boom. I was a twenty years old when Redford was voted in, didnt have much of a voice back then. Anyone with basic economics knowledge knows cutting taxes during a boom is a mistake.

Knowledge has nothing to do with it. The government has no right to your hard earned money, it doesn't matter if it's boom or bust, not a penny more in taxes should be collected than to pay for basic services. Anything more is over taxation. You can argue this with some type or moral high ground, but not by claiming one way is smarter than the other.

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Lol yeah so the fund was around 15 Billion when the PCs left office. It was 25 billion after the 80s recession. So during the record boom, the PCs managed to reduce the size of the fund. Great work. Perfect example of Conservative financial management.

Once again, terrible fiscal management compared to what? This is like the Trump vs Hillary argument. You can't sit here and criticize Trump for being an idiot, when the only other choice was 10 times worse. Same goes for Albertas financial past, you can't exactly criticize the PC's in good conscience for leaving a 15 billion dollar Heritage fund, when the alternative was 15 billion in debt.

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What exactly is wrong with what the NDP has done since they took office? Let me guess, Carbon Tax right? (WORKING WITH HER GOOD FRIEND JUSTIN TRUDEAU). Scrapping a tax is definitely going to help Albertas revenue problem though, thats for sure.

What have they actually done? Period. We have a new mountain of debt that my great great grand children will be paying for, and nothing to show for it. Carbon tax is a great point, thanks for bringing it up. Extra government revenue on the backs of the middle class, that will do nothing for the make believe environment problems, but make life harder for all citizens. Same goes for the increased personal taxes.

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Im the one drinking the kool-aid lol. Listen, the proof is in pudding. The PCs left the Alberta economy in ruins less than a year after oil prices dropped. You want to re-elect them. Who is drinking kool aid?

If I had a better choice I wouldn't be electing them. Part of me is happy they got an ego check, but I'm not the type to cut my nose off to spite my face, so I would've rather let them continue to be the lesser of two evils. The Kool-Aid binge is clearly you. You are continually criticizing an entire political party for ruining your life, despite them leaving us in better position than any other alternative would have. It's easy to sit here and arm chair quarterback years after the fact, I would've liked the PC's to do a lot of things differently myself. But I'm not so delusional to think we would be better off with anyone else at the helm.

[Misterman]

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Im pissed because you left the province in ruin for future generations. I think thats a valid reason to be angry no?

Could've built up a top university to attract more talent and sophisticated industry. Could've built up a fund to give the province breathing room while other industry develops. Couldve built more infrastructure or saved funds to replace the now decrepit infrastructure we're going to have to deal with.

Nope instead Johnny the Welder without a GED got to horde his 300K salary and leave now that the going is getting tough.

In ruin? Alberta is better situated to prosper than any other Province in this country. A simple pipeline getting built and everybody is sleeping on bags of money again. Hell even in the bust people here are making higher average salaries than anywhere else.

Built a top university? Maybe you should google a place called UofA. But sure, let's build another one..................... for what? To pump out more useless degrees for jobs that won't be in demand, and saddle young kids with heaps of student debt they can't ever pay off. Great idea!

Feel free to sack up and go do what Johnny welder does, work away from your family, outside in the cold, in garbage work conditions, with a financed welding rig that you'll default on if the industry goes tits up. Self pitty gets you nowhere. If you want success then go get it, be responsible for your actions. It's not the governments job to float you through life.