Categories: Coyne v. Wells

Coyne v. Wells on what should be done with all this money being thrown around

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by macleans.ca on Friday, March 6, 2009 5:35pm - 15 Comments

Tags: Andrew coyne, coynevwells09, paul wells

Bill D. Cat

As long as governments throw all this money around willy nilly , why should the private sector do anything other than sit back and watch ?
Bill D. Cat

Sorry guys , I think I broke your blog .

Pierre Z

???

corky

why is this called coyne versus wells. theres no versus in this at all. more along the lines of question/suck up to coyne.

Paul Wells

That was my suggested title but Andrew said no and I said “Right you are, sir!”

sf

You guys were super-smiley. When do we get to see angry Coyne? The same Coyne who wrote that Conservatism in Canada is dead? When do we get to see angry Wells? The same Wells who banishes blowhards from blog comments?
emilyjoythomas

hahaha

http://macleans.ca kc

what interests me here is the split if you will in the views of PW & AC on where our future lies. Not really a split i know, but it does give me something to prattle on about. So back to the split – it does interest me since i would very much fall into Ac camp. The knowlege and VA sector may logically be where our future lies [ assuming we're stilling getting smarter, which i sometimes dispute - does increased capacity [raw data] = real progress. As in just because the hamster in the wheel is running faster, longer and maybe smarter doesn’t necesssarily mean he’s getting any where or learning anything new, it just takes less time; which does leave some space to speed things up just a little bit more. If no-one is following me i completely understand.
So, i’m in ACs camp, where i suspect the majority of us still are. H of W and D of W is what we still largely are. Apart from anything else what are these real Canadians going to do in PWs shiny new future? I’m not mocking, just sayng some roles are thrust onto us by circunstance, geography and maybe necessity. Now if i’d stayed in school a little longer i wouldn’t be so querilous and bitter, not to mention smarter. Now where’d that hamster wheel get too?
Derek Pearce

PW I found your contrast of Waterloo with Windsor interesting. I grew up in Windsor until I was 10, and then another auto town, St. Thomas, until I was 19, at which point I left to attend the University of Waterloo. Any time I go see relatives in St. Thomas or Windsor I pretty much get stories of doom and gloom. I’ve only been back to KW twice since graduating– and I’m not sure how the K part of KW is faring these days– but you’re quite right that our future economic security lies in brain power.

There’s definitely money to be made being a commodities supplier to the world, but what type of employment will it really provide Canadians? Apart from the loggers/miners themselves and the white collar jobs in running forestry and mining companies, there aren’t many spin off effects of the commodities industry.

sf

I think that’s disingenuous, the statement “there aren’t many spin off effects of the commodities industry”.

A spin-off is any business that builds upon an existing one. So you can say that the internet companies are spin-offs of the telecoms and the hardware and software companies in silicon valley.

However, since so many goods are built with commodities, such as houses, steel, and silicon wafers, you could argue that most businesses are spin-offs of the commodity industry. And in fact it is much easier keeping the spin-off businesses (and their benefits) local (with lower transportation costs) than it is for knowledge companies (which can theoretically be located anywhere).

Derek Pearce

We’d be building houses whether we had all these resources or not. And silicon wafers (correct me if I’m wrong) seem to be a developing-world manufactured product. I’m not against extracting resources and making a buck, but once they’re gone from the ground they’re gone. We need to diversify.

Adrian

Ignoring the point made above concerning that everything is on some level a spinoff of the commodities industry, the statement there are no/limited spin-offs from mining and commodities industries is quite simply wrong. While these are industries that very few people are exposed to, I can say, as somebody who is active in the mining industry, that there are literally hundreds of spin-offs from mining companies. To give one historical example the steam engine was first developed as a pump to help drain mines, it turned out to be fairly useful in other contexts as well, but much of the impetus behind its original development was for mines.

A lot of people have the impression that mining is a low tech, dirty business. While it is certainly dirty from time to time a modern mine is not low tech and there really are new innovations every day and Canada is at the center of this. Human’s will not stop needing mines and this is an industry where Canada really is a world beater without any serious competition. Most mines all over the world have either a Canadian trained engineer at or many Canadian consultants.

The thing is though these options aren’t mutually exclusive, yes as all modern economies do, Canada will continue to evolve into a more high-tech service oriented economy. This does not mean mining and other primary industries won’t still be immensely important. Most of the people who work in mines would not enjoy and not be particularly good at a knowledge economy job. They are people who like doing things, if there’s too much of a focus on cutting edge research jobs there is a danger of losing focus on the people who plain and simple do not want to work in a research job. You can’t pull a miner off of his scoop and put him in a lab tomorrow, he wouldn’t be good at it and he wouldn’t like it.

I know this is already long but I’ll add one final thought. I am not personally concerned with running out of mines. Yes metal is a non-renewable resource but there are many many deposits all across Canada that have not been discovered yet and will be discovered in the future. Furthermore as supply decreases, prices go up rendering deposits that were previously uneconomic to mine, economically viable. This was very prominent a few years ago with every company reopening old mines and ramping up production. They’re all being closed down now, but the second the next boom arrives they’ll be open again. So for various reasons, it is my opinion Canada will remain a huge metals producer for years to come and there is no reason to think of this as anything except a good thing.

David Bakody

” All This Money Being Thrown Around” Hello Ladies and Gentlemen ….. where and how much? Correct me here MACLEANS where did the $12 Billion surplus go? and the $3 Billion emergency fund? and all those non tendered, non accountable big fat defence contracts? SO if you can not find that taxpayer money how in the SAM HILL do y’all think you will find any of the Stimulus Money and the $3 1/2 Billion that was not spent from last years budget! Ontario CON-voters East have been had …..and worst of all they still do not know it!

4.8 million jobs lost in the US and Canada is not far behind in comparison as Flaherty’s 40 year no money down mortgages sink in the tank as our unemployment numbers sky-rocket later this spring/summer …… then we turn our future over to our grandchildren who for the most part deserved better from the greedy bunch.

” Something going to break spending all this money on borrowed time” ….. . early last year I said 2015 before the markets would settle and for what it is worth by the end of the month the US will owe $11 Trillion ( http://www.zfacts.com) and are not out of Iraq and moving to into Afghanistan! ….. two more years of addition debt will be the end as their money is evaluated and then it’s all over as the Fat Lady Sings, who will lend them money? ….. think they will not be able to fund one million troops around the world, deal with the Senior Boomers, skyrocketing healthcare all couched in one Global Warming disaster after another! Hello the Gulf Coast is a garbage dump and there is nothing left to brace the next storm as it will move father inland. America had record two thousand tornadoes last year alone! So what’s in store for Canada MacLeans as our # 1 Trading Partner tanks …. let alone our own set of disasters?

kevin

THE SKY IS FALLING!! do we really need to be worrying about storms in the south west US??.. lets focus on getting our own house in order (which was the problem the original post tried to tackle) before trying to predict the date of our own demise. Very few of the things that you mentioned are in our control. The US will act how it wishes no matter what we do in Canada and that is unlikely to change. I think the main point here is that if we produce goods that people need and keep our deficit in check we will be fine. As I see it, the world does not need anymore cars produced by general motors and we should not go further into debt paying them to do so.

Stewart

Coynes argument that it is not possible that to ensure that research benefits stay close to home is absolutely correct which is why conservatism is always the right way to invest in the future. There can be many analogies. I want my family to be happy, should I be willing to pay the hefty bill required to put nutritious food in our fridge. Some might say of course, but my kids are likely to go ahead and buy junk food. Also what if the power goes out and the food rots. Well of course I can dole it out carefully… but what if I forget to fix the roof… we would be well fed but soaking wet and miserable. Ok so maybe by really scrimping on other stuff I can pool enough money for groceries AND a roof over our heads. But then what if my teenage daughter gets knocked up by that scummy kid she likes at school! Better to save my money, so I can at least help look after her kid.

The fact that a necessary condition is not sufficient to ensure a result does not make it unnecessary.