[Martin15]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

And now that the US got the rest of the world to drop the Gold Standard so they could print money at will, it's turned out to have affected alot more countries than just them.

As for your and Beave's theories about paying off the debt, well I've got some bad news for you. That theory is based on having a stable debt load which if you're continuing to borrow money to pay for your services and obligations it won't be stable for long and will continue to increase. A fact which pretty much renders repayment of both your ever increasing interest and ever increasing national debt load dead because much like personal debt. If you can't service your debt and keep continuing to pile more on it you'll eventually hit a tipping point that will require you to go bankrupt.

The only avenue of escape the Gov't has over normal people is, that in cases of debt overload they can keep printing money which, in turn will eventually lead to hyperinflation if let go.

How easily those two 'forget' the 80's. You know, when servicing the interest on the debt was 27% of the budget ?
Oh, I remember the 80's, trying to find a job in that economy.


Their endless debt blah blah also requires a stable economy,
a stable currency,
good job growth,

which right now Canada has NONE of these things....

oh and no Baby Boomers that have retirement to be paid by a 15% smaller Baby Bust Gen X.
Never mind the Millenials, who make nothing but debt, own nothing, will own nothing,
will be interns and Starbucks clerks for decades;
and the kids coming up, who are really screwed.



They figure easy credit with no collateral gov't borrowing at almost zero%
interest rates will be available forever.

They could not be more wrong.

[BeaverFever]

Martin15 Martin15:

bootlegga bootlegga:

And as Beave noted, this debt is not something that comes due at the end of the month or end of the year. The vast majority of the debt is in bonds payable 20, 30 even 40 years from now, by which time our economy should have not only recovered, but grown substantially.

How big will our GDP (and therefore tax revenues be in 2050)? If history is any indication, it should be much larger than it is today - 40 years ago, Canada's GDP stood at $273 Billion, now it's $1.7 trillion, a six fold growth. I can't predict the future, but even half of that gives us plenty of financial capacity to pay off our debt.

The unlimited growth with limited resources,
unlimited immigration with unlimited social pressures,
oh but we have to reduce our pollution, again with more and more growth.....

and a demography that will crash soon enough.


The leftist delusions keep on deluding; one day, they will figure it out.
Course, it will be way too late, but nevermind that.

Good on you for not letting let 40 years of failed conservative predictions and literally all of modern history getting in the way of your ideology.

[bootlegga]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

bootlegga bootlegga:

That's a total red herring.

The Weimar Republic was dealing with massive reparation payments to the Allies as well as had lost most of its industrial heartland (and hence its ability to pay those reparations). Those reparations alone totalled close to half a TRILLION dollars if adjusted to 2020 dollars. That's in addition to trying to pay for everything else a national government needs to pay for.

Canada has neither raparation payments nor a loss of land and industry to a foreign occupier.

Yes, we have decreased economic activity due to the pandemic and oil shock, but we're not paying money to another country that does nothing to boost our own economy. The CERB and other beenfits the federal government is paying out now is keeping at least part of the economy running.

And as Beave noted, this debt is not something that comes due at the end of the month or end of the year. The vast majority of the debt is in bonds payable 20, 30 even 40 years from now, by which time our economy should have not only recovered, but grown substantially.

How big will our GDP (and therefore tax revenues be in 2050)? If history is any indication, it should be much larger than it is today - 40 years ago, Canada's GDP stood at $273 Billion, now it's $1.7 trillion, a six fold growth. I can't predict the future, but even half of that gives us plenty of financial capacity to pay off our debt.

The CTF and other right wing groups try to do is convince Canadians that austerity and corporate tax cuts are the way to go, but as history has shown over the past 40 years, they don't work for anyone but the top 5%, and leave the rest of us average schmoes in the dust fighting over the scraps.

Thanks but not thanks.

So riddle me this. If my claim about hyperinflation is a red herring and was only due to the Weimar Republics reparation payments and losing the Ruhr? How would you explain these other cases of hyperinflation.

Venezuela, Hungary, Zimbabwe, and Yugoslavia have all experienced periods of hyperinflation.

So Canada's industrialized, diversified economy is the same as those four basket cases?

So much for rational discussion...

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Here are the main drivers of hyperinflation and it isn't war reparations or losing part of your country, although they did contribute in Germany's case:

$1:

Hyperinflation has two main causes: an increase in the money supply and demand-pull inflation. The former happens when a country's government begins printing money to pay for its spending. As it increases the money supply, prices rise as in regular inflation.

Why the hell do you think the Weimar Republic starting printing money?

They did it because they couldn't meet their reparation payments, which was made even more difficult after France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr. Those annual payments which were in the billions of German marks in the 1920s! Yes, you read that right BILLIONS!

They didn't start printing money like crazy until after that all happened. Granted the German economy was on shaky grounds after World War 1 because of lousy economic policy during the war, but it was the massive reparations which pushed it off the cliff and forced them their hand, not the other way around.

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

As for your and Beave's theories about paying off the debt, well I've got some bad news for you. That theory is based on having a stable debt load which if you're continuing to borrow money to pay for your services and obligations it won't be stable for long and will continue to increase. A fact which pretty much renders repayment of both your ever increasing interest and ever increasing national debt load dead because much like personal debt. If you can't service your debt and keep continuing to pile more on it you'll eventually hit a tipping point that will require you to go bankrupt.

The only avenue of escape the Gov't has over normal people is, that in cases of debt overload they can keep printing money which, in turn will eventually lead to hyperinflation if let go.

For example these countries learned the hard way that you can't spend yourself out of debt.

https://www.tharawat-magazine.com/facts ... countries/

And here are 7 more that are on the brink.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bu ... /31164239/

But the scary part is that the world debt clock shows first world countries spiraling downward into the same type of debt scenarios as the ones above got caught in. But I do find it odd that people on the left keep lecturing us about changing our ways so we can save the planet but, completely ignore changing our ways to maintain the financial health of the same planet they claim they want to save.

Again, you can choose to compare Canada to Belarus and Ukraine and Belize if you want, but I don't beleive it's an apples to apples comparison.

Of course you cannot spend your way out of debt, and the 1990s showed Canada exactly how much we needed to reign in spending, which we did, and governments until about 2007 paid back tens of billions of dollars of debt. But you can spend money during a downturn to deal with a weaker economy to prevent a full on Depression, which is what we're doing now.

Yes, we'll have to pay it back someday and that sucks for future generations, but the Boomer's taxes paid off WW2 debts and Xers and Millenials taxes will have to pay off COVID-19 debts. It sucks but that's just the way it is.

Or would you prefer hundreds of thousands of Canadians living on the streets and/or starving to death because they can't afford the necessities of life?

I know which option I choose.

[BeaverFever]

Martin15 Martin15:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

And now that the US got the rest of the world to drop the Gold Standard so they could print money at will, it's turned out to have affected alot more countries than just them.

As for your and Beave's theories about paying off the debt, well I've got some bad news for you. That theory is based on having a stable debt load which if you're continuing to borrow money to pay for your services and obligations it won't be stable for long and will continue to increase. A fact which pretty much renders repayment of both your ever increasing interest and ever increasing national debt load dead because much like personal debt. If you can't service your debt and keep continuing to pile more on it you'll eventually hit a tipping point that will require you to go bankrupt.

The only avenue of escape the Gov't has over normal people is, that in cases of debt overload they can keep printing money which, in turn will eventually lead to hyperinflation if let go.

How easily those two 'forget' the 80's. You know, when servicing the interest on the debt was 27% of the budget ?
Oh, I remember the 80's, trying to find a job in that economy.


Their endless debt blah blah also requires a stable economy,
a stable currency,
good job growth,

which right now Canada has NONE of these things....

oh and no Baby Boomers that have retirement to be paid by a 15% smaller Baby Bust Gen X.
Never mind the Millenials, who make nothing but debt, own nothing, will own nothing,
will be interns and Starbucks clerks for decades;
and the kids coming up, who are really screwed.



They figure easy credit with no collateral gov't borrowing at almost zero%
interest rates will be available forever.

They could not be more wrong.

In the 80s interest rates were in the double digits and weren’t actively managed. Now they are virtually zero percent and barely if ever even reach 2%and this is the foreseeable future with plenty of opportunity to change course if things ever change. Remember higher interest rates would only apply to new bond debt not existing bond debt

BTW Printing money isn’t the only solution to control debt, government has almost infinite opportunity to sell off/ privatize public assets and services, plus all that austerity stuff that conservatives love.

Don’t worry though. Long before the failed predictions of conservative internet trolls and right wing hacks come true there will be plenty of warning signs from the market if debt starts to get too high for people’s comfort. And it’s largely a self-correcting problem because investors wont buy the bonds if they’re not going to get their money back


Oh and I’ll point out that we emerged from 80s crisis without ever balancing the budget or reducing debt. And the US was even worse than Canada, Reagan quadrupled the debt. Yet the US just got richer and richer and even more powerful.

[Martin15]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Yes, we'll have to pay it back someday and that sucks for future generations,

Well at least he is willing to admit that he is happy
to sell his children and grandchildren (and yours as well)

down that river for a very long time to satisfy his craven government spending orgy today.

[Freakinoldguy]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

bootlegga bootlegga:

That's a total red herring.

The Weimar Republic was dealing with massive reparation payments to the Allies as well as had lost most of its industrial heartland (and hence its ability to pay those reparations). Those reparations alone totalled close to half a TRILLION dollars if adjusted to 2020 dollars. That's in addition to trying to pay for everything else a national government needs to pay for.

Canada has neither raparation payments nor a loss of land and industry to a foreign occupier.

Yes, we have decreased economic activity due to the pandemic and oil shock, but we're not paying money to another country that does nothing to boost our own economy. The CERB and other beenfits the federal government is paying out now is keeping at least part of the economy running.

And as Beave noted, this debt is not something that comes due at the end of the month or end of the year. The vast majority of the debt is in bonds payable 20, 30 even 40 years from now, by which time our economy should have not only recovered, but grown substantially.

How big will our GDP (and therefore tax revenues be in 2050)? If history is any indication, it should be much larger than it is today - 40 years ago, Canada's GDP stood at $273 Billion, now it's $1.7 trillion, a six fold growth. I can't predict the future, but even half of that gives us plenty of financial capacity to pay off our debt.

The CTF and other right wing groups try to do is convince Canadians that austerity and corporate tax cuts are the way to go, but as history has shown over the past 40 years, they don't work for anyone but the top 5%, and leave the rest of us average schmoes in the dust fighting over the scraps.

Thanks but not thanks.

So riddle me this. If my claim about hyperinflation is a red herring and was only due to the Weimar Republics reparation payments and losing the Ruhr? How would you explain these other cases of hyperinflation.

Venezuela, Hungary, Zimbabwe, and Yugoslavia have all experienced periods of hyperinflation.

So Canada's industrialized, diversified economy is the same as those four basket cases?

So much for rational discussion...

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Here are the main drivers of hyperinflation and it isn't war reparations or losing part of your country, although they did contribute in Germany's case:

$1:

Hyperinflation has two main causes: an increase in the money supply and demand-pull inflation. The former happens when a country's government begins printing money to pay for its spending. As it increases the money supply, prices rise as in regular inflation.

Why the hell do you think the Weimar Republic starting printing money?

They did it because they couldn't meet their reparation payments, which was made even more difficult after France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr. Those annual payments which were in the billions of German marks in the 1920s! Yes, you read that right BILLIONS!

They didn't start printing money like crazy until after that all happened. Granted the German economy was on shaky grounds after World War 1 because of lousy economic policy during the war, but it was the massive reparations which pushed it off the cliff and forced them their hand, not the other way around.

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

As for your and Beave's theories about paying off the debt, well I've got some bad news for you. That theory is based on having a stable debt load which if you're continuing to borrow money to pay for your services and obligations it won't be stable for long and will continue to increase. A fact which pretty much renders repayment of both your ever increasing interest and ever increasing national debt load dead because much like personal debt. If you can't service your debt and keep continuing to pile more on it you'll eventually hit a tipping point that will require you to go bankrupt.

The only avenue of escape the Gov't has over normal people is, that in cases of debt overload they can keep printing money which, in turn will eventually lead to hyperinflation if let go.

For example these countries learned the hard way that you can't spend yourself out of debt.

https://www.tharawat-magazine.com/facts ... countries/

And here are 7 more that are on the brink.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bu ... /31164239/

But the scary part is that the world debt clock shows first world countries spiraling downward into the same type of debt scenarios as the ones above got caught in. But I do find it odd that people on the left keep lecturing us about changing our ways so we can save the planet but, completely ignore changing our ways to maintain the financial health of the same planet they claim they want to save.

Again, you can choose to compare Canada to Belarus and Ukraine and Belize if you want, but I don't beleive it's an apples to apples comparison.

Of course you cannot spend your way out of debt, and the 1990s showed Canada exactly how much we needed to reign in spending, which we did, and governments until about 2007 paid back tens of billions of dollars of debt. But you can spend money during a downturn to deal with a weaker economy to prevent a full on Depression, which is what we're doing now.

Yes, we'll have to pay it back someday and that sucks for future generations, but the Boomer's taxes paid off WW2 debts and Xers and Millenials taxes will have to pay off COVID-19 debts. It sucks but that's just the way it is.

Or would you prefer hundreds of thousands of Canadians living on the streets and/or starving to death because they can't afford the necessities of life?

I know which option I choose.

Sadly it isn't just the Covid 19 Debts that are the problem. It's decades of spending our children's children's inheritance and then spending some more.

As for paying off our previous debt well we sold alot of products to the war effort which helped immeasurably in keeping our WWII debt manageable. When the war ended we had a debt of 18 billion which I'm not sure we ever paid off per se but didn't just roll it into the post war debt.

But, a prime example of paying back your debt is Great Briton. It took them till the 31 December 2006 to pay off their WWII loans which were the whopping sum of 21 billion dollars. So it took a country of 47 million people, rising to 60.62 million by 2006 over 61 years to pay back 21 billion dollars. So how the hell can you expect a country of 37.7 million people to pay off a debt of 768 billion in 2019 dollars?

Especially since our country isn't as industrialized nor as resilient as you think. We are by circumstance a resource based economy and with our current policies regarding Global Warming we're rapidly changing into a former resource based and industrial economy. So claiming that what happened to those other countries couldn't happen to us isn't exactly true especially since we're losing manufacturing and energy jobs at a rapid pace.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bu ... /31164239/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ ... -1.5089234

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-ne ... -a-beating


As for your assumption that to bring in fiscal responsibility and stop increasing our debt exponentially would cause massive unemployment and destroy hundreds of thousand lives. Well, i'd like you to look at the numbers of people from above because the hundreds of thousands Canadians living on the streets scenario has begun and with technology will only get wors. Future generations will be lucky if it's only that amount of people living on the streets.

And don't forget that we're only talking Federal Debt not provincial or municipal debt which makes the prospects of ever getting our debt paid off even more implausible simply because to do so would bankrupt our economy as fast if not faster than printing more money that we don't have.

The only saving grace might be that every country in the world is in the same boat and if any of the G8's go down it'll likely take everyone else with them. Which means that there'll be a massive reset of the worlds economy because as it stands now no country has the capacity to to pay back the unbelievably massive amounts of national debt that have been accrued.

But hey, if you don't think my post are rational feel free to stop reading and responding to them.

[Martin15]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

But, a prime example of paying back your debt is Great Briton. It took them till the 31 December 2006 to pay off their WWII loans which were the whopping sum of 21 billion dollars. So it took a country of 47 million people, rising to 60.62 million by 2006 over 61 years to pay back 21 billion dollars. So how the hell can you expect a country of 37.7 million people to pay off a debt of 768 billion in 2019 dollars?

Let's not forget the UK also reneged on it's WWI debts..... so lots of money saved there.

[BeaverFever]

Martin15 Martin15:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Yes, we'll have to pay it back someday and that sucks for future generations,

Well at least he is willing to admit that he is happy
to sell his children and grandchildren (and yours as well)

down that river for a very long time to satisfy his craven government spending orgy today.

More like conservatives selling children and grandchildren down the polluted river so they can have tax cuts and unlimited pollution today.

Future generations will not be thankful conservatives have turned their country into a third world shithole in the name of some unproven right wing economic theory, “well we don’t have schools or hospitals or jobs anymore but at least the debt to gdp ratio is lower, that’s what really matters!”

And given that conservative leaders have a similar or worse track record than liberals when it comes to racking up debt your third World shithole will probably still not have any improved debt position.

[Thanos]

Actually those conservative economic theories have been proven. They're all proven failures. Liberals go overboard far too often themselves but the conservative responses to those? Austerity? Tax cuts for the incredibly wealthy while increasing taxes in the guise of excessive fees? Privatization of utilities, communications, railroads, etc.? All failures that make things worse.

[bootlegga]

Martin15 Martin15:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Yes, we'll have to pay it back someday and that sucks for future generations,

Well at least he is willing to admit that he is happy
to sell his children and grandchildren (and yours as well)

down that river for a very long time to satisfy his craven government spending orgy today.

Actually, unlike right-wing anti-tax nutjobs, I'm willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund the services I want. I'm willing to pay a sales tax and higher income taxes if it means we have a strong healthcare system, an excellent primary school system, and post-secondary education is affordable.

It's people like you who always whine taxes are too high and we need tax cuts, so conservative governments run massive deficits to do it. Or worse, they institute austerity and still run large deficits because they realize their voters want to have their cake and eat it too.

Martin15 Martin15:

How easily those two 'forget' the 80's. You know, when servicing the interest on the debt was 27% of the budget ?
Oh, I remember the 80's, trying to find a job in that economy.


Their endless debt blah blah also requires a stable economy,
a stable currency,
good job growth,

which right now Canada has NONE of these things....

oh and no Baby Boomers that have retirement to be paid by a 15% smaller Baby Bust Gen X.
Never mind the Millenials, who make nothing but debt, own nothing, will own nothing,
will be interns and Starbucks clerks for decades;
and the kids coming up, who are really screwed.



They figure easy credit with no collateral gov't borrowing at almost zero%
interest rates will be available forever.

They could not be more wrong.

I remember the 80s well, and yes, the first half royally sucked. Fortunately, saner heads have prevailed and there is no way the federal government will ever let interest rates get anywhere near that bad again.

And many Millenials (1980 - 1995) are in the same place now that Gen X was after 9/11, out of school, in their mid-late 30s, and into careers by now. Remember, the Millenial generation started in 1980, which means the first Millenials are turning 40 this year and are now often homeowners and have families, which is where most the economic growth (housing, automobiles, travel, consumer goods, etc.) in our society comes from. It's this generation generally that is buying starter homes/small condos closer to the city core so they can use transit or active transportation and eschewing huge McMansions in the suburbs.

The generation you're thinking of is Gen Z/Net Generation/whatever you want to call them, the oldest of which is turning 24 this year (Gen Z is generally agreed to have started in 1996/97). It is Gen Z that is screwed because of 40 years of trickle down economics and austerity have left them with sky high student loan debt, poor job prospects, and insane housing prices.

[bootlegga]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

More like conservatives selling children and grandchildren down the polluted river so they can have tax cuts and unlimited pollution today.

Future generations will not be thankful conservatives have turned their country into a third world shithole in the name of some unproven right wing economic theory, “well we don’t have schools or hospitals or jobs anymore but at least the debt to gdp ratio is lower, that’s what really matters!”

And given that conservative leaders have a similar or worse track record than liberals when it comes to racking up debt your third World shithole will probably still not have any improved debt position.

Well said - conservatives always leave the revenue side out of the financial equation, and only complain about spending, and therefore wind up with the same deficits as liberals do.

Had Harper not cut the GST by 2%, he wouldn't have run a deficit in most of the years his government was in office, and would have been able to pay down the debt instead of adding Billions of dollars in debt during their decade in office.

I would like to see more fiscal prudence and don't give Trudeau a pass on most of his deficit spending, but I will give him carte blanche on his COVID-19 spending, just like I gave Harper credit for deficit spending in 2008-09. In a crisis, all bets are off and we just need to help people. After the crisis has ended, we can figure out how to pay for it all. In my opinion in Harper's case, he should have increased taxes not cut spending on veterans, DND, and everything else after the financial crisis ended.

[BeaverFever]

Interesting piece on the radio today on this very topic. You can listen to the full-lengthy story at link below:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayediti ... -1.5594636

Excerpt from story Summary:

$1:

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proposes a shift in focus from a balanced budget to a balanced economy: one that offers full employment, a more equitable distribution of wealth and a social safety net for all who need one.

At the moment, there appears to be a rare consensus among economists, business leaders, and politicians of all stripes that governments have to spend whatever it takes to ease the pain for millions of Canadians suffering the aftershocks of the pandemic. That may be one of the reasons why MMT, which has been around for decades, is in the spotlight and challenging economic orthodoxy.

Modern monetary theorists are essentially looking to shift the focus of economic policy-making away from a preoccupation with balanced budgets. Their central argument is that any country that controls its own currency, as Canada does, can do whatever it wants with it, including printing as much money and ringing up as much debt as it needs to, in order to achieve a more balanced economy.

This ability to print money means that Canada will always be able to pay its bills, it can never go broke, or default on its debt, no matter how deep into the red it goes.

And for Canadians who are fretting about the size of our debt, Stephanie Kelton has a simple solution: we should just stop selling billions of dollars of interest-bearing bonds and Treasury bills to investors.

”The Canadian government never needs to borrow its own currency, ever," she explained in a recent interview. Instead, the Bank of Canada could purchase our debt, interest-free, "move it onto their balance sheet, hold it to maturity, stop issuing bonds and you'll be done with the whole thing."

It might sound far-fetched, but Japan has been doing this for years. The bulk of its roughly $11 trillion US debt is owned by the Bank of Japan. Many economists disapprove, but Japan remains the world's third largest economy.

Inflation is the limit

Modern monetarists believe there is a limit to how much governments can spend. That limit is not the threat of insolvency or bankruptcy, but inflation.

"MMT distinguishes the real limits from delusional and unnecessary self-imposed constraints," Kelton wrote in her book.

Traditional monetary theory, developed in the 1960s by economist Milton Friedman, holds that injecting too much money into the economy inevitably will lead to hyper-inflation. They point to Germany in the 1920s and Zimbabwe and Venezuela today, as examples.

But modern monetarists again look to Japan, which has been boosting its money supply for 20 years, and has seen no inflation. Similarly, central banks in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere have been printing money at an accelerated pace since the financial crisis of 2008, and inflation has consistently remained below two per cent.

"If inflation doesn't show up in the next three years or four years then maybe the modern monetary theorists are going to be able to come out and say, 'Hey! Look we were right,'" conceded Steve Ambler, an economics professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal, and the David Dodge Chair in monetary policy at the C.D. Howe Institute. "I'm just extremely doubtful that that's going to be the case because in the longer run, if we get back towards full employment, these huge money stocks eventually do become inflationary."

In the meantime, so long as global economies remain on life support due to COVID-19, there is little danger of inflation, and governments will continue providing what Stephanie Kelton describes as a "vivid, real-world demonstration of the power of the MMT way of thinking."

Print money, spend it, repeat.

[Martin15]

bootlegga bootlegga:

I'm willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund the services I want.

No you aren't.
That's the whole point behind government debt.
You want your gimmees today, but are not willing to pay for them.

So you sell out your family, your community and your country.

[BeaverFever]

Martin15 Martin15:

bootlegga bootlegga:

I'm willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund the services I want.

No you aren't.
That's the whole point behind government debt.
You want your gimmees today, but are not willing to pay for them.

So you sell out your family, your community and your country.

Martin thinks having schools hospitals and a functioning sewer system is a “gimme”. He also doesn’t understand that when the greedy conservatives he supports turn this place into a dysfunctional third world shithole, he's rhe one selling out his family community and country.

[bootlegga]

Martin15 Martin15:

bootlegga bootlegga:

I'm willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund the services I want.

No you aren't.
That's the whole point behind government debt.
You want your gimmees today, but are not willing to pay for them.

So you sell out your family, your community and your country.

No, that's mostly Boomers who don't want a sales tax (here in Alberta anyways), and who want lower income taxes, no estate taxes, no capita gains taxes when they sell their home, pretty much any tax.

But they sure as fuck want more doctors, newer hospitals, pharamcare, and everything else to prolong their lives.

On a federal level, I'd have no problem if GST went back to 7% (like it was before Harper cut it). In the past, those two points raised $14 BILLION annually, and it's a huge reason why Harper ran deficits almost every year he was in office. Had he left GST alone, he would have only run deficits in the years after the sub-prime meltdown.

I also support carbon taxes for the same reason I support sin taxes on cigarettes, booze, marijuana, and so on. Hell, if they want to tax the one vice I enjoy - junk food - I'm fine with that too.

The point of all those taxes is to encourage healthy behaviours, and drivign less, smoking less, drinking less, and even eating less would all be better for Canada and Canadians.

I want a better future for myself, my children and Canadians, and the tax-cutting, austerity BS Conservatives have foisted on Canada ovef the past 30 years has been a dismal failure at building a better Canada.

So go right ahead and raise my taxes JT, I'm okay with it.