[hurley_108]

ziggy ziggy:

hurley_108 hurley_108:

ziggy ziggy:

What about the AHTF?

Could have been way bigger.

I like this link better,less biased and I was reading it a couple weeks ago and as you can see this isnt the only year it lost money.
http://www.finance.alberta.ca/business/ahstf/index.html

The government's own page is "less biased"? Ha!

But even so, look at what the third quarter report on that page says:

$1:

For the nine months ended December 31, 2008, the Heritage Fund recorded the largest loss in its 33 year history.

But no matter what you read, it's undeniable that for over a decade, the Government has not been putting nearlay as much into the fund as it could, and has been squandering resource revenues by using them for general revenue in place of a sustainable tax structure.

[ziggy]

It's a tad less biased than the globe and mail.
I remember the day when a guy would sit with a calculator and try figure out how much it was making in interest an hour.

I thought Ralph chose to pay down the debt instead didnt he?
Some "Ralphbucks" would be good about now.

[bootlegga]

Well, we supposedly retired the debt in 2004. Why didn't we save more in the past 4 years?

Because Albertans are just as impatient/spoiled as everyone else and wanted huge government spending. It's too bad neither Klein nor Stelmach had the balls to tell Albertans that we were going to save instead of squandering the boom that we promised we wouldn't in the 80s.

Alas, they didn't and now we're going to have to make some serious cuts again.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind some more Ralphbucks either, even if it isn't the wisest way to spend our money...

[hurley_108]

ziggy ziggy:

It's a tad less biased than the globe and mail.
I remember the day when a guy would sit with a calculator and try figure out how much it was making in interest an hour.

I thought Ralph chose to pay down the debt instead didnt he?
Some "Ralphbucks" would be good about now.

Heh, here's a little gem from the history page:

$1:

1987: In 1987, the transfer of natural resource royalty revenues to the Fund were stopped.

One sad little line. They devoted more words to this little piece of self-aggrandizement:

$1:

1996: The Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund Act was amended to reflect the changes Albertans asked for in the survey results.

Or this one:

$1:

Fall 1998: The government surveyed Albertans about their fiscal priorities in the "Talk it up. Talk it out." survey. Albertans gave increasing savings in the Heritage Fund an importance rating of 19.2 per cent, behind eliminating the debt, reducing taxes and increasing spending in priority areas.

So I guess it's all okay, then, isn't it?

[ziggy]

Beer and popcorn for all!

[mtbr]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Attn: MTBR

yeah so what this is old news .. does it get you excited?..

[mtbr]

hurley_108 hurley_108:

What's funny is that this is for the 08-09 fiscal year - the one just about to end. This is the fiscal year they were forecasting a $1.6B surplus for back in April.

gee what the hell happened

[MacDonaill]

I would just like to take a minute to rub every too-big-for-his-breeches Alberta separatist's face in this unfortunate news.

[mtbr]

MacDonaill MacDonaill:

I would just like to take a minute to rub every too-big-for-his-breeches Alberta separatist's face in this unfortunate news.

no debt in Alberta

we'll give ya a call when we're in the red.