Three thoughts:
- Part of our current problem is a lack of consumption. People are tending to save more than you'd expect, as they expect possible hard times ahead. If you return more money from taxes to taxpayers you're likely to see them save a large portion of it, which isn't optimal.
- Lowering income taxes overwhelmingly benefits wealthy people vs poor people, since poor people pay very low or no income tax. Infrastructure spending, especially spending on transit, massively benefits poor people (and all people in society) and is definitely preferable.
- There's nothing wrong with governments subsidizing jobs during slowdowns since that's a time when employment is naturally lower anyway. Recessions also tend to have an outsized effect on construction jobs since private sector tends not to invest as much when the outlook is bad, so subsidizing construction jobs makes a lot of sense.
Agreed on the latter two points, but the first point is, I think, incorrect. What little growth Canada had last month was because Canadians aren't saving enough, which, in turn, is why household debt is increasing at a disturbing rate.
This. With all due respect, ksharp, that high school economics class you took is not comprehensive enough to account for the complexities of today's economic world. "Cutting taxes creates more jobs" is oversimplifying big time.
He's citing the Wall Street Journal as his reasoning for being opposed to deficit spending and in favour of tax cuts. I think suggesting he's even taken a high school economic class is vastly overestimating how much he knows what he's talking about.
Reminder that this is a ridiculous rolling 4 week sample of 250 people across the whole country per week.
...yet, somehow, it's more or less in line with what most polls are telling us: that the Liberals have improved (either a little or substantially, depending on who you're looking at), NDP momentum has stalled and/or is falling (apart from that rogue poll from Forum that had them up around 40% -- though I'd take Nanos' credibility over Forum's any day), and the Conservatives are holding on to their base and no one else. I can see the problem with such a small sample, but it's not like his results are that outlandish.
Do you have any articles painting Mulcair in such a light? I'm definitely not as down on Mulcair as you are and language laws and whatnot aren't my main concern.
The Rabble.ca crowd seems to be up-in-arms about Mulcair taking the NDP to the right, though I think most of the people who post there probably consider everything short of a move to a straight-up community revolution a move to the right. For a less crazy left slant, there's The Walrus'
Doubting Thomas article that just came out a few days ago.
With the NPD support numbers north of 50% in Quebec is it time to start wondering if Trudeau will be able to keep his seat?
I'm *shocked* that you, of all people would be openly wondering something like that. Shocked!
Gutter_trash's shtick is annoying, but I don't think it warrants mod intervention.
Ignore him or have some fun with him.
I, personally, legit wonder sometimes if g_t's shtick isn't possibly related to some type of OCD behaviour. Reminds me of a non-insane Manabyte a little.
Gutter is kind of a xenophobic nutjob, but I've always attributed that to him not being born here. Immigrants (because I remember him saying he'd immigrated to Canada in the late '80s/early '90s) are often even more fervently supportive of their new countries. And if he came here in the midst of Quebec sovereignty being the biggest issue in the country, it's not too shocking that he'd gravitate strongly to one side or the other.
Oh, and my Vote Compass results:
Not too surprising, but I think it overstates the extent to which I agree with the NDP. In addition to the Quebec issues, I'm strongly opposed to their approaches on foreign policy and trade...plus, obviously, I
really don't like Mulcair.
