Baronjutter posted:

People always say we need to "run government like a business". Wouldn't a smart business buy up assets with extreme long term profitability when they are at their weakest at pennies to the dollar? Hell, jack taxes up on the oil industry to put them out of business faster and then use those funds to buy them out when they are on their knees. That's running government like a business. Or do conservatives just mean "over pay upper management and only think in the short term" when they use that soundbite?

And think of all the money the government could make if it owned a huge chunk of the housing stock, and think of all the money the economy could make if stable affordable housing was available to people.

Baudin posted:

Basically the glut lasted for about 20 years from 1986ish to 2003 or so. It killed a lot of industry in Alberta which took a long time to recover. Prices fell from about $75 per barrel to $25 (based on inflation adjusted figures to 2004).

From wikipedia:

Baronjutter posted:

You'd have to be impossibly stupid to take valuable public owned housing stock and sell it off for short term gains, no one would ever be that stupid. 100% impossible.

quote:

Abbott said Atira struggled for two years trying to cover the repairs from its operating budget, in part because she was concerned about the optics of a conflict of interest that exists because she is married to BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay.

quote:

Nearly two-thirds of Atira’s revenue comes from BC Housing, with the rest from rental income, donations and other government agencies. Last year BC Housing gave Atira $12.3 million.

Bhurak posted:

That was my childhood, basically. I grew up in one of the most economically depressed areas in the province. Everyone was poor. The people that weren't were just really creative in how they evaded taxes and stole from their company. I was laid off as welders apprentice in the 90's because there was no work. Now everyone speeds around in brand new 3/4 ton diesels carrying 2 quads. I'm apparently the only one who remembers the 90's.

Bhurak posted:

Now everyone speeds around in brand new 3/4 ton diesels carrying 2 quads. I'm apparently the only one who remembers the 90's.

Baronjutter posted:

This is 100% true. My wife does insurance claims from Albertans and she says every other claim is a huge truck with quads in the back. She had no idea what a quad was until she started working there. Her albertan stereotype claim is a 20-30 year old male running his dodge ram with a quad in the back off the road into a tree while speeding drunk down a rural highway to make it to the titty bar before closing. Like that exact story is a huge number of claims, or something close. It's always a huge truck and or a quad.

melon cat posted:

I'm actually not familiar with how bad it got. Was it in any way comparable to the current oil shock?

Ceciltron posted:

Someone should unionise the girls working in the tittybars those rig hands seem so damned eager to visit.

PT6A posted:

You seem unusually gleeful about something that pretty much everyone in the industry recognizes as a temporary disruption. The next two to three months will likely continue to be bad, but no one I've talked to, in or out of the industry, seems particularly worried about the issue over the long term. But, by all means, continue to look at spot prices and masturbate with self-satisfaction if that's what does it for you.

tsa posted:

Also if people in the industry knew what the gently caress they were talking about oil wouldn't be at this price in the first place.

Buskas posted:

Fort Mac isn't going anywhere and worst case for oil companies is that prices stay low for a few years instead of a few months, reducing near-term profits and delaying development. Long-term, nothing is going to change in the tar sands.

Rime posted:

What makes you think that the tar sands are different from any other resource industry (mining, pulp & paper, etc) and that they won't just mothball operations that are losing money until the price of the commodity recovers?

Rime posted:

What makes you think that the tar sands are different from any other resource industry (mining, pulp & paper, etc) and that they won't just mothball operations that are losing money until the price of the commodity recovers?

Cultural Imperial posted:

because this time it's different

Rime posted:

What makes you think that the tar sands are different from any other resource industry (mining, pulp & paper, etc) and that they won't just mothball operations that are losing money until the price of the commodity recovers?

Buskas posted:

Where did I say they wouldn't mothball operations? I think you missed the part about "delaying development".

Buskas posted:

Where did I say they wouldn't mothball operations? I think you missed the part about "delaying development".

Rime posted:

Delaying development is very different from turning off an existing and fully constructed operation, something which happens constantly in other industries. (TECK closes and re-opens their Tumbler Ridge mine every time the drat wind changes, these days.)

Rime posted:

Delaying development is very different from turning off an existing and fully constructed operation, something which happens constantly in other industries. (TECK closes and re-opens their Tumbler Ridge mine every time the drat wind changes, these days.)

Monaghan posted:

I am giddy at the thought of Alberta's smug attitude towards equalization payments comes and bites them in the rear end once their economy tanks.

Though loving LOL if you think they'd ever go left as a result of the oil crash.

etalian posted:

I always lol at other threads in which albertans whine about other provinces stealing their money.

etalian posted:

Buskas posted:

3) Teck doesn't own the Tumbler Ridge mine. You're thinking of Walter Energy.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Quick acid test for this collapse tomorrow morning: check if the tsx bounces back up.

Lexicon posted:

Is this technical analysis hocus pocus? Or do you mean something more precise?

Franks Happy Place posted:

Teck owns the Quintette mine in Tumbler Ridge.

quote:

An even more critical reason people missed the oil crash was a failure to think seriously about how politics shapes oil production, particularly in the Middle East. Two mistaken assumptions have long convinced people that prices couldn’t fall too far.

The first is that OPEC is a well-functioning cartel that keeps oil prices near an agreed target. Faced with a modest surplus of oil in the global market, a coherent cartel would have pared back its production, propping up prices and revenue.

Except OPEC has long been miserable at coordinating; it’s a collection of countries with little in common aside from oil. Qatar doesn’t care about Venezuela’s future. Saudi Arabia would rather see Iran fail than succeed. It’s all too tempting for each member to encourage the others to cut production while doing nothing themselves: They thus might reap greater benefits from higher oil prices. The problem — common to all cartels — is that when every member has this attitude, no one cuts production, and the cartel crumbles.

The lack of OPEC cohesion we’ve seen recently isn’t the exception — it’s the norm. When oil prices last crashed, in 2008, OPEC was slow to respond. The group didn’t announce a real production cut until prices had fallen from $145 to $60, and only when they dropped below $40 did the group take decisive action. Similarly, in the mid-1980s OPEC did not cooperate in the face of painfully low prices; only when Saudi Arabia punished the group by flooding the market did it achieve a modicum of coordination. Indeed, to the extent that OPEC has succeeded previously in quickly pulling oil off the market, it has been in the face of intense pressure, either from ultra-low prices or, in the 1973 oil crisis, unusual geopolitics.

Even for those who doubted OPEC as a whole, there was always the second assumption: that the Saudis would step in alone. Saudi Arabia, which controls roughly a third of OPEC production, has long been more active than the group’s other members in attempting to influence markets. And in recent years, many analysts concluded that Saudi Arabia had decided that $100 a barrel was the right price for oil. This belief was reinforced by the Arab Spring, which spurred massive Saudi spending to buy domestic peace, convincing many that relatively high prices would remain essential to the Saudi bottom line. Such was the perceived power of the Saudis that observers also imagined Riyadh would prevent prices from rising much higher, lest consumers start abandoning oil.

History cautions greater skepticism. Just 15 years ago, most oil analysts predicted that crude would stabilize around $20 a barrel for the foreseeable future, arguing that this was the magic price the Saudis — and OPEC — would target. The 2000s proved that spectacularly wrong: Oil prices rose nearly 15-fold in less than 10 years while Saudi Arabia did little to respond. And Saudi Arabia does not need to balance its budget every year; it has money in the bank and has often run deficits in the past.

Yet despite confidently discounting the possibility of a price crash mere months ago, analysts are already explaining with great confidence what the new oil world will look like. They herald an age in which U.S. oil dominates world markets — one reporter went so far as to nominate the shale revolution as Time magazine’s Person of the Year — and predict low prices for years to come.

More circumspection is in order. The past decade has taught us that oil prices are rarely stable for long and that political conditions, not just economic fundamentals, are critical to their evolution. Indeed, some analysts who paid attention to geopolitical factors warned of a price drop at least a year ago, when a range of forecasters projected far more supply than demand. I was typical of those, warning of a looming price crash for nearly two years — but was never able to nail down the timing.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-missed-the-oil-price-crash/2014/12/05/d1fbf552-7a57-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html


but i thought a bunch of yokel shitheads in calgary know this will only last a couple months

quote:

Applicants to Canada’s new millionaire migration scheme will have their finances subjected to an intensive forensic audit by private-sector accountants, government tendering documents have revealed.

The auditors will also be required to investigate whether applicants have any criminal past or whether they are “politically exposed”.

The unprecedented scrutiny could act as a deterrent to some wealthy mainland Chinese, who made up a large majority of applicants to the now-defunct Immigrant Investor Programme, which is soon to be replaced by the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital (IIVC) scheme.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1658280/exclusive-canada-plans-forensic-audits-millionaire-migrants-finances

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1658280/exclusive-canada-plans-forensic-audits-millionaire-migrants-finances

quote:

City Council approved a number of secondary suites Monday, but several council members, including the mayor are getting increasingly uncomfortable with the process. Mayor Naheed Nenshi says,

“I felt a punch in my gut today when I heard one woman beg council for the ability to put a stove in her basement so she could afford her retirement. And I heard another older gentleman say he really wants to live with his son because he and his wife have had medical issues and they can’t afford rent in this city”

Nenshi apologized to those who had to talk about their personal issues in their search for a place to live.

Secondary suites are back before council next week when councillors consider a new policy and process for approval.