Rex Murphy: That sound you hear could be the country fragmenting

[WiltonRanch]

good posts
there are so many chucks that have no idea where the money comes from
the idiots think that the govt manufactures it
well, i guess this dumb SOB does , but how much longer??

It works till it doesn’t. USA prints all kinds of money but it’s gdp makes up 50% of the worlds economy. Essentially too big and important to fail. Canadas population and economy is 10% or less and the debt we have taken on has no chance of being paid back on the trajectory our economy is on. The Chuck types, and I shouldn’t even say that he’s a pain but I really pitty him, stick their fingers in their ears and care to disbelieve resources are an integral part of canadas economy for the time being. They chagrin and chastise them but we are still essentially a hewer of wood and drawer of water. If these buttheads would look at the big picture they’d realize renewables and value adding the resources we have and a combination of such would be a boon for our country. Our few urban city states have become a Solyent Green dome and until they are literally starving and eating one another I do not know when and how it changes. If you look at history and the emergence of the dark ages people suffered in the cities to the point people dispersed back to the country or faced starvation and plague.

[blackpowder]

Fighting negativity tonight so.....
Coupled with/because of, elite repression, the Dark Ages lacked affordable food and energy.
I try not to feed the resident Napoleon Complex but just in case he reads.
I well remember my Mother washing eggs at 11 at night so I could have glasses in grade two. I also well remember double govt income relates lecturing her on how to save money.
So I'm not lecturing Chuck's hungry and weak. Simply, based on my own life, education re how money works, (the rules of money), is a lesson for all whether $10 or $10M. My parents didn't get the power of compounding, they didn't know because they believed it above them.
The desire to not want your fellow to do better than you is a dark part of our nature that will always exist. At least my parents were not that in any way.
However the dangerous people do live in that world so I guess I have to keep standing. Stay afraid CC.

[chuckChuck]

Never said resources werent important to Canada's economy. But why not tax the excess profits and collect royalties like we own the resource which we do?

Norway still produces lots of oil with higher royalty rates and a giant heritage fund.

But in Alberta and Saskatchewan we give most of the wealth away to oil company elites and investors without a plan for the future. And then taxpayers will have to pay hundreds of billions for cleaning up all the oil and gas facilities that the oil companies refuse to clean up!

The lesson is don't let conservative government friends of the oil companies negotiate anything, because they essentially work for the oil companies and not the rest of us who use their products.

[furrowtickler]

Norway is a good example, can’t argue that
But you can also not argue this ….


Are they getting taxed on their massive profits ?
Who is paying for the extraordinary medical costs …… the tax payers to boot .

Both sides are quilts of fleecing the general public

[blackpowder]

And, if you please, may I determine when You make "excess" profit?
Can we define excess expenses?
Who gets to decide or can see the future? Alberta govts have done a shallow job but then which govt hasn't and which one is the worst? (Trudeau)?
Remember CC, there could be children listening while you speak, stop and think.

[jazz]

Chuck is such a Jagmeet clone. In one hand restrict supply in the name of climate farce then complain when prices go up. Educated at School of Karl Marx.

Hey chuck did you notice Apple Tesla Facebook google Netflix and Microsoft had record profits for a decade. What did people buy with their stimulus checks? Was it oil? You are so clueless it boggles the mind.

Hey but go ahead and tax equalization and see how that works out for you.

[WiltonRanch]

The best way for a country to extract the most value from resources is to value add them. More companies doing just that paying taxes and more employed paying taxes. Oil, ag, mining are one in the same. Large risks are taken financially and time frames are long. Sure there are bad actors who don’t clean up their crap and are shady but that is with any sector of the economy. Lehman Brothers comes to mind or SNC Lavalin. Why so jealous Chuck? Better yet why is anyone jealous when someone busts their butts and makes good money? Does it mean fly by night operators can get away leaving orphan wells or not paying on lease rent? Not at all. That is slowly being resolved, and any new well operators by law put up a bond for reclamation like the cgc requires of licensed grain buyers.

[jazz]

Look at that, ABs equalization contribution going up in smoke in Quebec. What a joke this country is. Could have built 10 pipelines for what these clowns in Quebec squandered.

[chuckChuck]

Jazz how is your bitcoin doing? LOL

[chuckChuck]

The best way for a country to extract the most value from resources is to value add them. More companies doing just that paying taxes and more employed paying taxes. Oil, ag, mining are one in the same. Large risks are taken financially and time frames are long. Sure there are bad actors who don’t clean up their crap and are shady but that is with any sector of the economy. Lehman Brothers comes to mind or SNC Lavalin. Why so jealous Chuck? Better yet why is anyone jealous when someone busts their butts and makes good money? Does it mean fly by night operators can get away leaving orphan wells or not paying on lease rent? Not at all. That is slowly being resolved, and any new well operators by law put up a bond for reclamation like the cgc requires of licensed grain buyers.

Many of the oil companies are already integrated producers, refiners and retailers. They make money whether the oil price is high or low.

Right now they are making excess profits that are also coming from low and moderate income consumers who have no investments or pension plans. It's a mass transfer of wealth from consumers which disproportionately goes to the oil company elites and investors.

Canada has some of the lowest royalty rates in the world for oil and gas which are mostly owned by taxpayers. In effect they are subsidies and incentives to the industry. Any attempt to raise rates are met with stiff industry opposition.

The legacy of cleanup costs is in the hundreds of billions.

Real fiscal conservatives would have cut a better deal for taxpayers, made the oil companies clean up their messes and saved a lot for the future.

[WiltonRanch]

Many of the oil companies are already integrated producers, refiners and retailers. They make money whether the oil price is high or low.

Right now they are making excess profits that are also coming from low and moderate income consumers who have no investments or pension plans. It's a mass transfer of wealth from consumers which disproportionately goes to the oil company elites and investors.

Canada has some of the lowest royalty rates in the world for oil and gas which are mostly owned by taxpayers. In effect they are subsidies and incentives to the industry. Any attempt to raise rates are met with stiff industry opposition.

The legacy of cleanup costs is in the hundreds of billions.

Real fiscal conservatives would have cut a better deal for taxpayers, made the oil companies clean up their messes and saved a lot for the future.

Makes you wonder how low margins are on some oil plays. I agree the royalty structure is bullshit. Stelmach tried and got punted out for a closet liberal Redford. I’m pro oil. Generations of my family has depended on it for employment in one way or another so I will defend it in so much as that. Still these orphans need cleaning up and there are some messes from things done 50 years ago that was acceptable. My biggest concern is pipelines and such utilities we as landowners must put up with and the liabilities it presents to us. Call before you dig is an absolute necessity if you want to dig out big rocks.
There is still substantial amounts of raw oil which leaves this country. To the point our pipelines are plugged, and hits midpoint USA where price is far too low. Besides, push has been for sweet oil, making sour not feasible which there is enough of here with advent of thermal extraction. Lots of room to value add yet. A rail car of asphalt, diesel, shingles, plastic pellets, gasoline etc displaces a lot of low value bitumen in a pipeline. There are so many fractions to western Canadian oil in general that have value more so than the light easier to extract stuff which comes from the Middle East. That is what makes it feasible to extract and that is why if we want our industry to be sustainable value adding as much as possible is key. Then the government can ask for a bigger share.

[chuckChuck]

Governments can easily adjust royalty rates to fit the difference between really profitable ventures and the less profitable ones.

But the industry will fight tooth and nail against paying any more royalties or having to spend much of their profits on cleaning up anything. They work really hard to avoid accountability on both fronts.