Some good reading there...

 

Yesterday when Regular Gas was at 114 a litre at Petro and Esso, Sunoco was at 104.9, today when they were at 126.9, Sunoco was at 113.4. Yes there is instability and problems from Katrina but these differences are crazy. Either Sunoco as a company is trying to provide releif or the others are really gauging.

 

Gas went up here today from 1.08 to 1.19 , this is getting out of hand! Time for some hydrogen or steam rotaries i think

 

[QUOTE=Amur_]

j00 fail at teh mind reading.

Damn, I thought I had the book on you by now.

You can do whatever you want. Make the most of what you can, where you can. Saying differently would make me an fool. If you have to jump planes once in a while to do it, and you don't mind that, then go for it.

Absolutely.


To step back a little from the Mexico/Canadia plans, one wonders if the average Mexican citizen has the opportunities to create the kind of lifestyle in any country that our Canadian foundation allows. Your friend is looking forward to very comfortable living for $100,000 down and $25,000 a year, after spending a lifetime preparing for it. How many Mexicans, young or old, can reasonably expect to pursue the same goals? How many will earn enough money to accomplish that? Last time I looked, Mexico City was famous for its shantytowns, not its condos...

All true. Things are improving for Mexican citizens living in Mexico, but at a slow rate. Very few if any of them can set themselves up as this induvidual did. The Mexican economy may be better than it has ever been (and getting better), but wages still lag behind.

Meanwhile here in the Great White North, the average Canadian can still scrape together $100 per month to put into investments for 30 years and do exactly what this columnist did--- at least for now. Look for the feds to take a much larger percentage of your earnings and of your life savings over the next decade or so than the almost 50% they now take. They'll also make it harder if not impossible to take your money and run--- unless you happen to be friends of the government in power.

Canada is still a great place to live, with much opportunity. But that situation is slowly changing at roughly the same rate as the Mexican economy is improving. It may be a gross exaggeration to say that in the next 20 years Canada and Mexico could swap economic places, but if we don't start holding our government (no matter which party is in power) accountable it may not be that far from the truth.


The comparison is unreasonable. Canada sucks b/c living here is expensive? Mexico is better b/c it's cheaper? That's damned short-sighted. I expected better from a man of your post count...

If you're comparing the current standard of living in Canada to the current standard of living for the average Mexican citizen yes, it is an unreasonable comparison. But my comparison is between a given income/ net worth spent in Canada vs. the same income/ net worth earned in Canada but spent in Mexico. In this example Mexico is the better bet. Nothing short-sighted there.

Mexico is pretty much still a Third World country. But its proximity to North American makes it easy for citizens of wealthy Canadia and the US to cross the border and spend money there in isolated sectors. And so there are resorts, and condos, and all the rest.

Yup. And said citizens bring their money with them to Mexico to spend, thus helping the Mexican economy while realizing the best mileage from their life savings.

All the benefits of a poorer nation with a weaker dollar without the hassles of financing a complex public infrastructure through higher taxes.

The responsibility to our nation sounds like a good argument on the surface--- until you consider that a) members of all levels of government from the top down make exceptions for themselves in this regard and b) the average Canadian is in the workforce full time for over 40 years, but in the first 25 years has paid a lifetimes' worth of taxes--- considerably more than what is necessary to sustain our great system, if only it were properly managed rather than abused.

I therefore feel no remorse for denying the feds the privaledge of taxing my life savings until I've drawn my last breath. Some may see me as a traitor for this stance. But before you draw that conclusion take a long hard look at our Prime Minister, Paul "Canadian-in-name-only Steamship Lines" Martin--- and a host of others like him.

You're comparing a stable, rich society that embraces a doctrine of brotherhood and personal freedom without equal...

Uh, more like a changing and progressively more financially polarized society that promotes envy and resentment ("Alberta has all that oil wealth--- make them share!"), censorship (Hello, CRTC!) and a socialist agenda that threatens to chip away at the very freedoms that helped make Canada great in the first place. Still, I understand where you're coming from and agree that on the grand scale we have it better than those in most other countries.

...to a nation that's never been able to shake its political and civil unrest (political assassinations have been commonplace there for over a century) and who's most visible national pasttime is arguably fleeing across the border into the US.

No argument there. But again, it's not as bad as it once was and is getting better. Not soon enough though. Of course, if it were to take off, so would the Peso--- deflating the value of all those Canadian-dollar life savings.

 

I didn't even start my damn car today!
IMO, this is ridiculous!

if gas hits $2.00 a liter the economy would collapse, I think.

also what I don't understand is why gasoline is /so/ expensive while diesel is still 85 cents a liter... wtf?

 

$1.339 regular
$1.479 Ultra 94

Oshawa today

No more daily driving the 20b that much

 

Here in Calgary prices spiked during the day yesterday too - seems that regular is now 110.0-114.9 city wide - a few days ago I filled the wife's Saturn for 93.9. Unfortunately, the 7 with its big tank is only half full right now. Premium's worse - 122 for 92 when I filled the Jetta yesterday afternoon - not even the good 94.

Looked at the CBC newslinks above - much less informative than what's on CNN - lot of uninformed people complaining for the most part. Usually I like CBC's coverage, but it seems to be in the dumper since the lockout began. I especially liked the Timmins city councillor - no doubt an expert in economics and the oil industry - suggesting reviving the NEP "for a made in Canada oil price"- as if market economics can magically be suspended to suit a particular region or industry. Such a brilliant success it was the first time - the Canadian oil industry practically shut down overnight - no new exploration or development of existing wells, and a firesale sell-off of assets from the fields to the refineries to the pipelines (mostly by American multinationals, snapping up the bargains, leaving little of the industry even to this day in the hands of Canadian based companies). So supply dwindled as suppliers invested their money and efforts abroad where they could get better returns, producing the opposite effect in spades to the stated NEP goal of creating Canadian energy self-sufficiency. I'd like to see a made-in-Canada price for cars myself - why shouldn't I be able to buy a Canadian built Lexus or Honda or Chevy or Ford for half or two thirds of the going rate elsewhere - let those foreigners pay extra so I can have mine cheap...

More personally, growing up in Calgary and being a teen during those years, I remember the shells of office buildings under construction, abandoned for up to 15 years, hazards and eyesores and bitter reminders. I remember the massive unemployment, my dad losing his senior position, and for years struggling as a family to not lose the house, let alone get ahead. I remember homes being abandoned and sold for a dollar as property values collapsed and tens of thousands didn't have the money to pay their mortgages. I remember it seeming "normal" for there to always be a few abandoned houses and businesses on every block, overgrown with weeds and falling apart. I remember being holed up in my junior high school, when a mild-mannered friend's dad snapped when the sherrifs came to repo the family house (it bordered the school field) - he took the sherrifs hostage and held the police at bay for a couple of days before surrendering. I remember my own dad, a gentle man, a model of hard work and self-sufficiency who grew up hunting & farming in northern Alberta in the thirties, and never even saw a town 'til he was 9, reduced to working whatever jobs he could get, in between collecting pogey, and I remember him wishing he or someone could put a bullet in Trudeau's head. So, while I'm a great patriot for Canada, very mild mannered, and a political centerist in a province very skewed to the right, I would certainly be happy to join the new Western Canada Army the day the western provinces separated, which would be the day after a new NEP was implemented!

 

sign me up or enlist me I've had it with those damn Liberals....Didn't the South Park boys have a song a couple of years back "Blame Canada" well we can sing "Blame Ontario" for re-electing those damn Liberals....

Communism seems more adventatious than to living under the Liberals...oh wait....we pretty much are under 1 party rule

 

I smell a recession coming.

 

That's inevitable, We can't keep going like we do as it is. Until then the rich will keep getting richer.

 

I'm moving to canada, americans are ********!!!somone adopt me!

 

Diesel has been more expensive than gasoline for quite a while.

Yesterday I filled up for 93.9 which is strange because it's been 96.9 for over a month.

 

I'm no NEP expert, but wasn't the colapse of oil prices at that time the main culprate behind the cease in exploration and development? Isn't the NEP myth the Albertan equiliant of Quebec's "night of long knives?"

 

Uh, no. The NEP fucked the west up beyond hope in the early '80s. That's when the biggest sell-off of Canadian oil assets (mostly to American interests) took place. I had moved here from NB in early 1981, just in time to hear the oil industry's death rattle. My next stop was Vancouver, where I lived until 2000 until I could no longer tolerate the ultra-lefties and enviro-*****. I had to move back to Alberta, where people made sense.

In '84-'85 the feds (under Mulroney) tried to rectify the previous government's gaff by giving the oil industry a minor financial shot in the arm, which temporarily kick-started the industry--- albiet, only for a small percentage of those who used to make their livings in oil. But that ran out in early 1986--- about the same time world oil prices cratered.

Still, this drop in oil prices didn't have nearly the devastating impact that the NEP did. The only difference between the NEP then and the envious comments and hints being dropped about an NEP equivalent (hello, Kyoto!) now is that before the NEP only about 10% of Alberta's population supported separation from Canada. (that figure spiked to over 25% after NEP). The separatist count is now around 40%, and all it would take to push this figure to greater than 60% is another socialist and envy-inspired run on Alberta's resources and right to prosper by Ottawa.

So to those who would support another NEP or equivalent, go ahead and try--- I dare ya.

 

Christ, I think you absolutely nailed it.

There's a newspaper editor here in town, Licia Corbella. She was born and raised in Vancouver, and lived in Toronto in the early years of her journalism career. She was enlightened. She was intelligent. She was sophisticated. She was Liberal. She was politically correct.

But then she moved to Calgary--- and grew out of all of those characteristics. Here's a couple of recent editorials by her:

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnis...1/1194817.html

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnis...1/1196807.html

 

Enough of this bullshit, I going to load up my turbo 7 and moving to Venezuela.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...bal_gasprices/


ok,ok, so I'm not, but what ever happened to the "Gobal Pricing" line I always hear about?

 

Aviator, i'll catch up with ya later. I've been sick as all hell all day.


I do have this to share with some concern -> they're experiencing gas shortages in the US. As near as Pennsylvania. I wonder if that's going to start happening up here.


http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/st...8&nav=4QcHe626


https://www.rx7club.com/lounge-192/yep-i-just-heard-very-good-sources-pa-about-get-gas-rations-459513/

 

honestly what is even sadder than all the complaining is the fact weve all been pissed about these prices for so long yet we still pay for the gas.
so my question is how high can they make the gas before we stop bitching AND STOP buying?

its like the prices of electricity and gas that the gov is deciding no longer to cap do we really have a choice? Cars have become such a way of life like technology people wouldn't know what to do without it. I feel that we are getting taken such advantage of and at a certain point why the hell would the gov start the retraction in alberta, when they can just sell it for a ******* lot higher with just a little bitching and no action .....
GRRRRRRRRRRR **** me off too boys,
BRI

 

Uh, no. The NEP speed shifted Alberta's economy from 5th gear to reverse between '80 and '84 - layoffs of thousands a week were the norm, despite global oil prices being strong thoughout the early 80's, and in fact reaching their peak in 1982 (even against current prices, adjusted for inflation). A modest recovery started with the election of the PC's in '84 (and their repeal of the NEP), and carried on 'til oil prices tanked in late '86 and '87. The price crash was nothing compared to the NEP, it froze the recovery, but not the wholesale negative growth we had with the NEP. So no, it is nothing like Quebec's "Night of the Long Knives".

 

[QUOTE=Amur_]

Aviator, i'll catch up with ya later. I've been sick as all hell all day.

Hopefully you don't have the same nasty cold/flu that my wife and I are just getting over. (have your genitals fallen off yet? ). Hurry up and get well, this thread isn't the same without ya.


I do have this to share with some concern -> they're experiencing gas shortages in the US. As near as Pennsylvania. I wonder if that's going to start happening up here.

As long as the refineries supplying gas for most of Canada aren't the ones effected by that bitch Katrina I don't imagine so--- unless our suppliers start spreading themselves too thin in an effort to fill the void south of the border. But prices may still spike here as oil companies use Katrina as an excuse to keep pump prices in the stratosphere.

 

I think there is a very good chance of another NEP - in a disguised form. There ain't one ******* on the government side of the house who has a hot clue at the extent of western alienation. Hell, if the Albertan's go for it, I will sure as hell move from Ontario and join them.

Canada is dissolving into regional political interest zones, and the Liberals are COMPLETELY to blame for it. I used to be somewhat of a proponent of Canada, now I think it is a aimless, immoral and increasingly rudderless backwater, whose only output is those who prattle tediously about "Canadian values." Well that's code for Liberal Party values, and they ain't mine. Last one out turn out the goddamn lights.

 

We need to look no further tha Europe (typical cost = > $2 per liter) to find the answer to this question. We'll bitch and whine for many months, and then slowly accept the situation and keep on driving. SUVs resale values will tank, and most of us will trade in on economy cars, but we'll still rack up just as many miles as before.

The kicker is that if gas prices had risen gradually along with inflation over the last 25 years $1.50 per liter wouldn't seem that far out of place at all. SUVs would never have become the status-mobiles that they have been (but not for much longer) and the sports car market would not have taken the hit that it did. Mazda would probably have still been able to sell lots of RX7s in North America right up until 2001.

But now everyone will be descending on Smart cars, hybrids and econoboxes like never before, and there will be Smart clones produced by almost all other major auto manufacturers until the car as we know it has been reduced to a single-cylinder 2-seat padded cell--- selling for 30k.

 

The socialist government of Venezuela simply chooses to ignore market pricing, in an attempt to kick start their languid economy with low energy pricing (made-in-Venezuela pricing), and to appease the angry citizenry! Of course, the fact they ignore market economics may have a lot to do with why despite having substantial potential oil wealth, the country has teetered on the brink of economic and political chaos for years. The low cost fuel is simply bought or stolen in quantity and sold to foreign buyers, meaning what is meant to be a subsidy for Venezuelan industry ends up subsidizing neighbouring countries as well.

 

I don't get the flu. This was burnout plus 2 migraines in 3 days. I crumpled. Still feeling hazy.



I think that's the first time someone's said that outside the Lounge. Awww.

 

That was a raccoon in Pennsylvania. I'd suggest not voting for it in future elections...