Off Topic v.2

[EnjoyingLife]

Serious question here, how's the economy doing for you guys? I read one user stating he has financial difficulties and such and has cut down on massages. I assume a lot of guys here are small business owners or blue collar trades worker?

I've observed the surroundings in Edmonton, and there are a lot of new developments coming along, but those are generally heavier towards the government funded of the P3 projects. There is the contradiction where there are a lot of new developments in Edmonton region, but there also looks to be a lot of commercial places putting up leases or subleases signs to look for new tenants. It is interesting how more commercial places are being built when there are a lot of vacancies. See Calgary's downtown as an example.

The official news is: consumer bankruptcy is up 15%, unemployment rate has gone up in the past year by 1.1%, average weekly earnings has declined by 1.2%, average housing starts declined by 11.5%, etc. You get the picture, and it looks like it is flattening out or signs of tough times. China and US are having some ridiculous trade war, and Canada is in the middle of it. China is also boycotting some of Canada's exports as well.

My current profession and job is not impacted by the economy, and I've been fortunate in investments (not investing in stocks) and in life. So I am out of the loop here with probably most Albertans. I go for massages sometimes at late night, and sometimes I apologize for coming so late to the ladies and then I hear the ladies say, generally no guys come this late.

I attend social events and meet up with old friends and faces, and quiet a few of them are in trades, some engineers or electricians, and some of them are out of work. It is quite disheartening to hear some stories, they have kids, family, and mortgage to pay.

A buddy mine slightly blames the NDP for his recent divorce, because the economy wasn't that great, they had financial troubles, and this stuff leads to divorces and all. He can't earn the income to support his wife's make up addiction or life style. His wife also compares him to her friends' successful husbands, which is terrible in my opinion. I do not know what woman would do that, and he pretty much gave his share of his house to his ex-wife and just left Alberta.

I do hope the new government can do something to help us all out. Maybe this is a good place to generally share what you are doing to survive, only if you are facing some difficulties.

 

[smorgan]

... Maybe this is a good place

Nope.

 

[Albert Johnson]

Nope 2

 

[Bob the Knob]

My industry supports the theory of gloom and dome for a lot of average income earners. Without specifically mentioning what I do, I can tell you the costs associated within this industry are rising in an area that is pretty much a critical need for people to sustain their jobs. A cost they cannot afford any longer. What once was a given has now reached cost proportions that simply cannot be maintained by many.

The costs and restrictions to gualify for this need are getting more difficult to pay for, resulting in a dangerous trend the public is staring to consider by continuing to use what they cannot gualify for in a government legislated industry.

This illegal use will result in more costs associated for fines, lawyers fees, property loss and medical injuries which will also affect innocent people who are involved indiecrectly from incidents that occur because there is no coverage to protect everyone.

This falls in the same category of every day costs like housing, food clothing, transportation etc. All necessities at various levels that the public is finding harder and harder to maintain.

 

[Bullet]

For me the economy SUCKS "
I am in O&G it really sucks, I saw last paycheck in November
Selling my house and down sizing .
I am now going for 45 min massages instead of 1 hr , with more negotiation.
I am more careful. and ask a lot of questions before the session begins. ie What will you do for me for ............
I am also going less frequent..
Not biggie sizing my fries any more ( LOL )

 

[michael garrett]

Serious question here, how's the economy doing for you guys? I read one user stating he has financial difficulties and such and has cut down on massages. I assume a lot of guys here are small business owners or blue collar trades worker?

I've observed the surroundings in Edmonton, and there are a lot of new developments coming along, but those are generally heavier towards the government funded of the P3 projects. There is the contradiction where there are a lot of new developments in Edmonton region, but there also looks to be a lot of commercial places putting up leases or subleases signs to look for new tenants. It is interesting how more commercial places are being built when there are a lot of vacancies. See Calgary's downtown as an example.

The official news is: consumer bankruptcy is up 15%, unemployment rate has gone up in the past year by 1.1%, average weekly earnings has declined by 1.2%, average housing starts declined by 11.5%, etc. You get the picture, and it looks like it is flattening out or signs of tough times. China and US are having some ridiculous trade war, and Canada is in the middle of it. China is also boycotting some of Canada's exports as well.

My current profession and job is not impacted by the economy, and I've been fortunate in investments (not investing in stocks) and in life. So I am out of the loop here with probably most Albertans. I go for massages sometimes at late night, and sometimes I apologize for coming so late to the ladies and then I hear the ladies say, generally no guys come this late.

I attend social events and meet up with old friends and faces, and quiet a few of them are in trades, some engineers or electricians, and some of them are out of work. It is quite disheartening to hear some stories, they have kids, family, and mortgage to pay.

A buddy mine slightly blames the NDP for his recent divorce, because the economy wasn't that great, they had financial troubles, and this stuff leads to divorces and all. He can't earn the income to support his wife's make up addiction or life style. His wife also compares him to her friends' successful husbands, which is terrible in my opinion. I do not know what woman would do that, and he pretty much gave his share of his house to his ex-wife and just left Alberta.

I do hope the new government can do something to help us all out. Maybe this is a good place to generally share what you are doing to survive, only if you are facing some difficulties.

we are experiencing November 1981 all over again, when daddy brought in the NEP..back then all the rigs moved south …. when the liberals were ousted precision drilling bought up all those rigs from the americans, refurbished same, and put them to work back in alberta..I made a couple of bucks off precision drilling stock at that time...

 

[Cabinmon]

I have gone from posting 2 reviews per week on CAF to having a massage once a month.

 

[EnjoyingLife]

I think overall Canada is doing alright. BC and a few other provinces are doing well. For Alberta, I think it is the political landscape, oil prices and pipeline restrictions. If the political landscape changes, and we can get pipelines built, pretty sure Cabinmon will be doing at least two reviews on CAF a week, and start having ladies making threats against him again like before lol! There is money sitting there, just cash is king when there are uncertainties.

 

[Cabinmon]

I think overall Canada is doing alright. BC and a few other provinces are doing well. For Alberta, I think it is the political landscape, oil prices and pipeline restrictions. If the political landscape changes, and we can get pipelines built, pretty sure Cabinmon will be doing at least two reviews on CAF a week, and start having ladies making threats against him again like before lol! There is money sitting there, just cash is king when there are uncertainties.

Like WTF are you referring to, making threats

 

[EnjoyingLife]

Like WTF are you referring to, making threats

Man, I have no clue. You were the one who brought it up time to time about some Chinese lady making threats again you.

 

[Cabinmon]

Man, I have no clue. You were the one who brought it up time to time about some Chinese lady making threats again you.

That was a well known massage lady on this site who threatened pretty much every member. Had nothing to do with CAF

 

[Guy2013]

I thought we may have finally had a tread and a topic where there might be some civil discussion, but it appears this one is sliding into the abyss

 

[bigbill]

I'm retired from the public service, but split my career between private industry and public service.

There's little the UCP can do for the oil industry. They can't raise the price. They face all the same roadblocks the NDP faced via pipelines, and pipelines aren't a long term solution anyway. Oil is not the future and Big Oil is divesting away from high cost exploration. There a ton of pressure to be accountable for carbon output and literally thousands of institutional investors are not investing in carbon heavy oil and gas. No one "scared away" international investment. It's just not interested. Shell and other huge players are increasing investment in renewable energy, as is every major developed nation's government.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Back in 2006 I was reading economic papers foretelling exactly where we are now.

What we should have been doing is filling the treasury with boom money instead of cutting taxes, and using that money in the last 10 years to divest and weather the storm. Whoops. Too late now.

If you're out of work in oil and gas now, and you're young, seriously consider a career change.

Alberta isn't going to recover well. Families still afloat because one person works in public service are going to get slammed now. Canceling infrastructure projects will kill a lot of the trades still working. Adding to the unemployment lines during the downturn won't help the energy sector. It will hurt the entire economy. Think austerity works? Nope. Even the super conservative IMF published a paper on how austerity inhibits growth and deepens downturns. It's a failed economic policy.

"But the deficit." How does the government slashing services to balance the budget help you? Think about it. I'm not advocating long term accumulation of debt, but at this point, here and now, why is a balanced budget the #1 priority? Will it save the energy sector? No. Will it help to overcome the massive infrastructure deficit Klein rang up in his pathetic effort to balance the budget? No. If we let the roads rot and ruin education and health care, how does that help? It doesn't. It just makes Alberta a shitty place to live.

Investors look at a LOT of criteria today. The world is a very different place than 20 years ago. Climate change is the war were fighting and if you're not on board with fighting it, forget attracting serious capital. Pension funds and on and on don't want to invest in projects or jurisdictions not pressing hard with carbon minimization. Pretending it's 1973 won't help anyone. We're trying to be a player on a field with a lot of new rules.

We had our shot at being a world power economy. We pissed it away. Sucks, but true.

 

[JWL1668]

I'm retired from the public service, but split my career between private industry and public service.

There's little the UCP can do for the oil industry. They can't raise the price. They face all the same roadblocks the NDP faced via pipelines, and pipelines aren't a long term solution anyway. Oil is not the future and Big Oil is divesting away from high cost exploration. There a ton of pressure to be accountable for carbon output and literally thousands of institutional investors are not investing in carbon heavy oil and gas. No one "scared away" international investment. It's just not interested. Shell and other huge players are increasing investment in renewable energy, as is every major developed nation's government.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Back in 2006 I was reading economic papers foretelling exactly where we are now.

What we should have been doing is filling the treasury with boom money instead of cutting taxes, and using that money in the last 10 years to divest and weather the storm. Whoops. Too late now.

If you're out of work in oil and gas now, and you're young, seriously consider a career change.

Alberta isn't going to recover well. Families still afloat because one person works in public service are going to get slammed now. Canceling infrastructure projects will kill a lot of the trades still working. Adding to the unemployment lines during the downturn won't help the energy sector. It will hurt the entire economy. Think austerity works? Nope. Even the super conservative IMF published a paper on how austerity inhibits growth and deepens downturns. It's a failed economic policy.

"But the deficit." How does the government slashing services to balance the budget help you? Think about it. I'm not advocating long term accumulation of debt, but at this point, here and now, why is a balanced budget the #1 priority? Will it save the energy sector? No. Will it help to overcome the massive infrastructure deficit Klein rang up in his pathetic effort to balance the budget? No. If we let the roads rot and ruin education and health care, how does that help? It doesn't. It just makes Alberta a shitty place to live.

Investors look at a LOT of criteria today. The world is a very different place than 20 years ago. Climate change is the war were fighting and if you're not on board with fighting it, forget attracting serious capital. Pension funds and on and on don't want to invest in projects or jurisdictions not pressing hard with carbon minimization. Pretending it's 1973 won't help anyone. We're trying to be a player on a field with a lot of new rules.

We had our shot at being a world power economy. We pissed it away. Sucks, but true.[/QUOTE


Very well written.My sentiments exactly.I don’t know why Albertans voted Jason K.He has NO control over pipelines which is federal.Alberta did not benefit when Conservatives were in power federally for a long time and Alberta was their fixed deposit.Our number of federal seats including Sask and Manitoba has no leverage in federal politics.Trudeau is popular in Quebec and nobody there cares about Snc Lavalin.We are where we are due to infrastructure investments by Ndp which maintained jobs.Do people remember how families were devastated under Klein and divorces soar ???.No crystal ball but will see how the next 4 years turn out

 

[distinguished.gentleman]

Well said bb.

I appreciate your synopsis, and I feel for Alberta.

We missed the energy diversity train when we had a chance, but we were 'head down, ass up' dealing with a strong economy and not really paying attention to the long game.

I started and ran a commercial/industrial construction company for 35 years. During that time, we went through three tough cycles. We learned from each of them, but there is always something around the corner requiring adaptation.

Hopefully we can pump up diversification, and I echo your words urging young people who have been hung out to dry in the energy sector to look at other avenues. A career change when you're young is much easier. Take it with a grain of salt, but at my age, I do have the benefit of looking back with 20/20 vision. Better than looking ahead through rose-coloured glasses.

Idle rambling on a Saturday evening....

 

[michael garrett]

I'm retired from the public service, but split my career between private industry and public service.

There's little the UCP can do for the oil industry. They can't raise the price. They face all the same roadblocks the NDP faced via pipelines, and pipelines aren't a long term solution anyway. Oil is not the future and Big Oil is divesting away from high cost exploration. There a ton of pressure to be accountable for carbon output and literally thousands of institutional investors are not investing in carbon heavy oil and gas. No one "scared away" international investment. It's just not interested. Shell and other huge players are increasing investment in renewable energy, as is every major developed nation's government.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Back in 2006 I was reading economic papers foretelling exactly where we are now.

What we should have been doing is filling the treasury with boom money instead of cutting taxes, and using that money in the last 10 years to divest and weather the storm. Whoops. Too late now.

If you're out of work in oil and gas now, and you're young, seriously consider a career change.

Alberta isn't going to recover well. Families still afloat because one person works in public service are going to get slammed now. Canceling infrastructure projects will kill a lot of the trades still working. Adding to the unemployment lines during the downturn won't help the energy sector. It will hurt the entire economy. Think austerity works? Nope. Even the super conservative IMF published a paper on how austerity inhibits growth and deepens downturns. It's a failed economic policy.

"But the deficit." How does the government slashing services to balance the budget help you? Think about it. I'm not advocating long term accumulation of debt, but at this point, here and now, why is a balanced budget the #1 priority? Will it save the energy sector? No. Will it help to overcome the massive infrastructure deficit Klein rang up in his pathetic effort to balance the budget? No. If we let the roads rot and ruin education and health care, how does that help? It doesn't. It just makes Alberta a shitty place to live.

Investors look at a LOT of criteria today. The world is a very different place than 20 years ago. Climate change is the war were fighting and if you're not on board with fighting it, forget attracting serious capital. Pension funds and on and on don't want to invest in projects or jurisdictions not pressing hard with carbon minimization. Pretending it's 1973 won't help anyone. We're trying to be a player on a field with a lot of new rules.

We had our shot at being a world power economy. We pissed it away. Sucks, but true.

excellent detailed report bill..yes alberta is not the place it was when I came here from the west coast in 1977, but even with the changing economy, some cold weather, eg., we still have some good clear minded people like yourself in this province that I would not trade for the weather, water, or anything else the west coast has..i am proud to be here, proud of the people and I appreciate what alberta has done for me...so once again great report bill

 

[EnjoyingLife]

I have to respectfully disagree with bigbill on a few items here.

UCP can not control oil prices, but UCP can help Alberta's market share in the O&G industry. Oil prices is politics and a chess game, and I agree with some people that a large portion of the global O&G industry does not want more of Alberta's oil to flood the market. Look at what they are doing to Iran, random sanctions are being applied to them to limit their abilities to flood the market with their oil and gas. Look at Venezuela, due to political events and influences, their O&G platforms are not maintained at all, and this reduced their oil supply in the market. their oil production literally is in the shit hole from all time high. There are external forces that want to collapse these oil supply markets to keep certain portion of individuals wealthy. If I were them, I would do the same thing to maintain power and wealth.

I know we all here are drinking the global warming kool aid, but global warming is a natural occurrence, and there is no questions about it. The question is, are we speeding this process up? We only tracked the earth's temperature since the 1880s so this is probably less than 0.000000001% of the earth's overall age. So how can we confirm global warming is a true occurrence when our data is so limited in relation to the earth's overall age? There also something called milankovitch cycle that proves global warming is natural, if you don't believe global warming is a natural occurrence. Of course, the news articles will never tell you this stuff.

My position is, Alberta's oil still has value, so do everything you can to get it to the market as soon as possible. Build pipelines, fight for pipelines, make threats against other provinces who blocks the development of new pipelines. Since Alberta's oil still has value, who knows, 30 years from now that could change due to alternative energy sources, and then what other resources does Alberta have to bring revenue to pay off debt, healthcare, public service, etc. ?

 

[Guy2013]

I'm retired from the public service, but split my career between private industry and public service.

"But the deficit." How does the government slashing services to balance the budget help you? Think about it. I'm not advocating long term accumulation of debt, but at this point, here and now, why is a balanced budget the #1 priority? Will it save the energy sector? No. Will it help to overcome the massive infrastructure deficit Klein rang up in his pathetic effort to balance the budget? No. If we let the roads rot and ruin education and health care, how does that help? It doesn't. It just makes Alberta a shitty place to live.

Unfortunately Alberta is somewhat of a one trick pony, Energy. Sure there's farming, a wee bit of tech, some tourism, but the sector that has filled the coffers for decades has been energy. So reduced or no energy activity means less government revenue, so when it comes to reducing the debt and balancing the budget the time is now. Waiting until energy sector revenue has completely dried up just means you are handing the problem to the next generation, not solving it. The reality is that government has very few sources of revenue, the lions shares comes from taxes in one form or another ( I include energy royalties in this) so good fiscal leadership should demand that you NEVER spend more than you take in. I am sorry if everyone cant have everything from the government, but frankly enough with wealth redistribution in one form or another. The same individual who expects $25.00 per day childcare would never consider knocking on their neighbors door and demanding that they pay to raise that individuals children. However they have no issue having the government do just that, acting as their bag man and extorting the funds from their neighbor.

The reason we are now sitting on a massive provincial debt and deficit budgets is the inability as a people to live within our means

 

[bigbill]

People that don't think global warming is man-made or a severe issue are missing the facts. This has been studied, extensively, and other than some random junk science, it's universally accepted to be true.

Nothing can be "proven." Gravity is a theory. Most all science works this way.

I agree that governments need to be fiscally responsible, but also understand that governments work contrary to business. When times are good, governments need to contract, keep taxe rates stable (don't reduce them to eliminate surpluses) and fill the treasury with money. Don't build large scale infrastructure that competes with business for labour.

The PCs did exactly the wrong things. When the boom came they cut taxes and failed to put money away. They tried to build some infrastructure but not much got done because they were bidding for scarce labour and the costs were astronomical. Then the bust came and there was no rainy day money. It's essential as that's the time for government to step in. Build things and grow your infrastructure to prepare for the next boom. Also, during downturns people need social services more than ever. Retrain obsolete workers. Heath care demands increase. And so on.

The NDP were handed the worst possible scenario. A massive downturn and no money in the bank. A huge infrastructure deficit and no way to pay for it. Social program demands were rising thanks to the people out of work.

Back to climate change. Ignore the science and ignore the escalating costs from severe weather. The reality is that almost all institutional investors are not ignoring these things and walking around saying "we don't believe in man-made climate change" won't alter their investing strategies. Without that investment, it won't matter what happens, Alberta is sunk.

Exxon has internal documents from the 1970s predicting rising carbon emissions would be detrimental. These are facts, and ignoring them is foolhardy. The world is coming around to seeing this as the real and severe issue it is and if we don't get on board, we're left long behind.

 

[m694ever]

Rather than calling it global warming perhaps people should study evolution of a planet. The human race is a blip in the life cycle of earth and we simply are along for the ride however long it is. In the big picture is we will either be killed off by ourselves, climate, or another means out of our control. For people trying to save endangered species, and change the planets evolution I wish you good luck. It’s inevitable that cheetahs will die off as did the Albertosaurus. Our brothers to the south do not recycle, they produce power from coal, and are on a rampage to extract all the oil that they can at the cost of losing historic and natural areas. Is that right? No but should we offset their environmental impact? Instead of promoting our clean resource technology and growing we want to lean on programs impossible to find. I’m proud to be a builder of this province, earning my way and not expecting others to support my greed.