#betteroffwithnotley ?

[ExtraSlow]

Except, what government anywhere actually thinks long term anymore? They may not focus on quarterly reports, just the next election polls.

[suntan]

TIL kertejud2 is a single white guy.

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Uprooting and moving provinces is indeed easy to do. Any Canadian can do it. You are not tied to your province’s debt. It’s a ridiculous assertion to make.

If it’s hard for you, well I believe that’s where the concept of personal responsibility and hard work comes into play. Only poor, unskilled people who are too lazy to change complain about lack of mobility if traditional talking points are anything to go by.

But seriously, you aren’t in any way personally tied to your province’s or country’s fiscal performance. I cannot stress this enough. You are actually benefitting from Alberta taking on debt rather than taxing you what it cost to not run a deficit.

[95EagleAWD]

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Except, what government anywhere actually thinks long term anymore? They may not focus on quarterly reports, just the next election polls.

Any government willing to make a long term environmental plan is. As they should be.

[Buster]

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Care to refute the claim? Evidence in favor of business owners being awesome politicians doesn't appear to be awesome.

I'm trying to think of an awesome politician of any kind.

[dirtsniffer]

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Goal of business is profit and growth at any "cost".

Government is a non profit with a goal of ensuring the wellbeing of all its citizens, ideally short and long term. 7 generations ahead if you look at some ancient philosophy.

Only an orange orangutan would think both require a screw everyone to make profit mindset.

They demand pretty well opposite strategies.

Households are non profit and look after the well being of all residents, ideally for short term and long term.

[Buster]

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Goal of business is profit and growth at any "cost".

Government is a non profit with a goal of ensuring the wellbeing of all its citizens, ideally short and long term. 7 generations ahead if you look at some ancient philosophy.

Only an orange orangutan would think both require a screw everyone to make profit mindset.

They demand pretty well opposite strategies.

Wrong.

Governments are bureaucracies designed to perpetually grow. And they have people with guns ensuring you comply with this goal through taxation.

Magnanimous they are not.

[04Terminator]

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Wrong.



Magnanimous they are not.

Largely because people voting currently believe function of government is to support a small class of elites a rather than the majority, or worse, that its the same thing. It will inevitably change.

[04Terminator]

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Households are non profit and look after the well being of all residents, ideally for short term and long term.

Can your household raise billions in capital to start a new venture after a job loss at 1% interest rates? If you can't pay your mortgage, do you lose your house or just raise your debt ceiling, create a carbon tax, or raise taxation rate on the top earners?

Your thinking is shallow, let adults speak of adult things.

[dirtsniffer]

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Can your household raise billions in capital to start a new venture after a job loss at 1% interest rates? If you can't pay your mortgage, do you lose your house or just raise your debt ceiling, create a carbon tax, or raise taxation rate on the top earners?

Your thinking is shallow, let adults speak of adult things.

Hey you're the one that said governments weren't the same as running a household and then used a justification that was exactly representing a household. It was your thinking, not mine. Ironically now you're describing business functions and responsibilities. They literally do all of those things routinely.

Oh hey plant utilization is down. Let's make a new product. We're going to need capital, oh that puts us over our internal debt to cash flow? Is it worth changing it? How do we get back under it faster? Can we add user fee or decrease the discount level on our biggest customer?

You're right though, government leaders are otherworldly beings that cannot be found in any industry and they must be life long bureaucrats to understand the nuances of government.

What you really want is a household leader and a business leader.

Martha Stewart for premier!

[Misterman]

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Stick to your day job. Running a province is nothing like running a business or household. Businessmen are terrible economic managers. Utterly clueless. Look at the great ape down south.

Looking south only proves to strengthen my argument.

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Care to refute the claim? Evidence in favor of business owners being awesome politicians doesn't appear to be awesome.

This completely depends on the metrics by which you form your opinion. As a broad overview it is pretty easy to say that everyone, no matter background, race, religion, sexual preference, are all horrible politicians. It's the system they have to work with that ties their hands generally. But some are less terrible than others when you look at prosperity of the individuals that make up the nation. And those times tend to come at a time when the politician has an economic background. I'm sure one can go cherry pick examples to say otherwise, but in general it is the case.

Now if someone doesn't particularly care about people prospering, and mainly cares about social program access as some sort of indicator of success, than I'm sure you could find all types of examples to say that some political hack is great at his/her job.

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Well, the one that seems to annoy people these days is Canada Post. Because for whatever reason, it doesn't make a profit. It's not supposed to. It's a delivery service, for mail and packages, to every address in the country, provided by the government. It goes to places where private businesses don't, or don't unless you fork over a ton of cash.

The government is not a business. It's a service. Or it's supposed to be, anyways. It brings in money, and gives you healthcare, education, and other stuff for that money.

It doesn't matter if Canadapost is supposed to make a profit or not. This is what some people don't understand about having a business mindset when operating government. Like Terminator, who doesn't understand business whatsoever, and thinks it's only purpose is to fuck everyone you can to make a profit.

Yes, a business' main function is to make profit, otherwise it cannot exist. But business' make profit by operating in a fiscally responsible realm. This absolutely does apply to government, despite the fact that government is not meant to make profit. In the canadapost example, even if they don't make profit, they can certainly lose a lot of money by spending a lot more than required to provide the same service. That inflated cost then gets transferred to the tax payer, the tax payer in turn prospers less, and the future of the nation becomes in jeopardy as the government is required to exponentially increase inflation through increased taxation. Next thing you know you've got a Venezuela issue. This can all be avoided by operating government with a business mindset, like being accountable for dollars spent, utilizing those dollars efficiently to get the most bang for your buck.

[Misterman]

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Largely because people voting currently believe function of government is to support a small class of elites a rather than the majority, or worse, that its the same thing. It will inevitably change.

I've never heard of people living in poverty referred to as "Elite". lol that's a new one.

[kertejud2]

To put minds at ease, Canada Post has been running profits more often than not the past ten years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada...its_and_Losses

[bjstare]

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Care to refute the claim? Evidence in favor of business owners being awesome politicians doesn't appear to be awesome.

Of course there's little evidence of successful business owners succeeding in politics, because as discussed in... pretty much every other thread where this comes up (probably earlier in this one too, but don't want to look back), basically every successful business owner wouldn't ever take the huge pay cut and extra headache of entering politics. So more often than not, you are left with people that possess mediocre business skills entering politics.

I was basically commenting on terminator saying that business owners aren't fiscally responsible/capable, implied by his comment about them being terrible economic managers. Basic logic defies that statement, because the only way to run a successful business is to ensure it makes more than it costs to run.