The only problem with this election is that if you vote NDP or Liberal again, the rest of us don't really get conservative if there is a minority. The coalition, formed formally or not gets to dictate, and no matter what Iggy says about not forming a coalition, it always looms. I can tell it is in the back of his mind when he talks as he speaks so carefully about what he will do with his budgetary demands (raise taxes to the sky, Luke) The tendency to power can be intoxicating. If the NDP and the Liberals form a coalition I am moving to Liberia and waiting for the revolution. If they raise taxes it will cause a secondary crash in the economy, just as in 1932. I have never seen high taxes stimulate an economy. The worker has only so much to give, and I believe most of us have given all we can. Tax the rich is a joke. 90% of the taxes now come from mid range wage earners who earn less than $80,000 per family. Considering that $40,000 per family is the poverty line how many CDNs are living there? I think it is north of 20%.
The main thing I have against socialist governments is that while they feel comfortable they are doing hidden silent damage like heart disease. It just works away at the economy until the government is broke like Obama. Government, already too large keeps expanding. Mining regs keep getting tighter until no one will take risks. It is no secret that liberals are enemies of mining. McGuinty has tightened mining law in Ontario until now there are 38 reasons why you cannot stake or develop a mine. For 150 years there was only one. It was already staked by someone else. There can be no staking at all on private land south of North Bay. People seem to forget that when the exchange tightened regs after the Texas Gulf SEC hearing in the late sixties there was dearth of mine financing for about 15 years. Not even Cominco and Falconbridge could raise money during that period. Debt was all that worked. Cominco had to go to Europe to sell bonds. Between Trudeau who shut down the Kerr Addison with tighter envi regs, and the TSE/SEC no new mines really got started for about 20 years. In 1979 there were 200 mines operating in Canada. in the 1990's there were 85 mines operating in Ontario. Now there about 85 mines operating in Canada as a whole. We are on a desperate luddite vector and liberalist politicians are mostly to blame. Our greatest industry, mining and metals, which employed 11% of all CDN workers and provided 38% of our foreign exchange before the 1980's, is dying at home. We raise 80% of all equity mining money worldwide, and quite a bit of the debt, but it is not for mining in Canada. We built the copper mining industry of Chile, some $28 billion of it, through Dresdener Bank in Toronto. Not one Canadian mining venture was built by that bank. The NDP shut down 138 mines in BC during the 1980's. The stopped Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting from making a profit. You once could get a whole mill and mine outfitted in Vanvcouver or Toronto with local companies in the 1980's. I know, I did it. That won't happen today. All the manufacturing left town. If it had not been for the conservatives bringing in flow through Canada would not have a venture capital market at all. There would be no TSXV. If we lose it with liberal policies our greatest industry will be deader than roadkill in 5 years. I know McGuinty wants to hand the OSC to the Feds. that means if the liberals get power in one way or another they will have a stranglehold on new issuers and mining law, as well as flow through, which will be killed in favour of their high tax policies. Canada has not got the brainpower or trading favour with the US (no market penetration, we are not Japanese or Chinese) for hightech nor the investment base to develop it. We have the experience at metals and mining. We don't make cars anymore, as that was a function of Autopact and special agreements which died with free trade and wheat and fish won't pay the bills. Service is all government civil service which is now 65% of the economy. In manufacturing in Canada without government contracts you aren't in business. Generally that has been true for over a 100 years.
We have to get industry going again. We have to get back to business.
This election is about mining stocks. Don't believe anyone who tells you different.
Ogi does not like politics because he believes it would cause an OT free for all. However there are issues which bear directly on our business and I believe they are fair game.
EC<:-} |
