Kevin O'Leary on the NDP in Alberta | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

I guess the teachers and nurses will be happier, soon.

Guys, this isn't the comments section of the G&M. Leave us poor folk in Ontario to look after ourselves.
This is a forum for people to share their experience and knowledge about saving and how to help others.
What say we keep the politics to the MSM?

I sure am glad I don't depend on the likes of Kevin O'Leary for my understanding of politics and economics. He makes himself look ridiculous by calling the new elected government of Alberta "the dark force", "evil", and "a disease".

The Alberta version of NDP is far from being socialist, and Rachel Notley is not stupid. To listen to O'Leary, you'd think she'd never heard of or considered opinions like his. She is a native Albertan, and she knows how her province ticks.

However, this sort of fear-mongering is to be expected. We've heard it all before in his numerous tirades on CBC. He will say anything to convince others to divest. It reminds me of when Donald Trump was all over the talk shows with those cockamamy ideas about Obama not really being born in the US. The purpose is to undermine a duly elected government that you don't like. It's a political strategy. Everything O'Leary says is speculative, designed to fan the fires of discontent.

For those who are open to hearing another point of view and a different analysis of where "dark forces" really lie, here's an analysis of the fear-mongering based on the experience of it:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....e24305554/
And before you tell me that the author is biased, think about the biases of Kevin O\Leary. We all have biases. His goal, as often stated on Dragon's Den, is to have more money for himself, period. The task of governing requires a more balanced view.

The best way to ensure that things go badly for Alberta is to keep knocking the new government.
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I think what you're saying about investor sentiment is basically correct, Brian.

Markets jump whenever anything changes. But, of course, things do always change, and must change. And thus we have buying opportunities, or so I'm told.

It isn't as if things were going great guns in the oil patch before this most recent election. The new government is inheriting a very difficult situation. If it weren't a mess, they wouldn't have gotten elected.

I'm sure Notley is bright enough to take all of this into account and will weigh the various implications.
As I said, she's an Albertan. She is also an experienced negotiator. Apart from the time she spent at Osgoode Law School, I believe she has spent her entire life in Alberta. She has spent her entire life in a political environment, and she is not ignorant of the role of the petroeconomy in her province.

The people have elected her. They knew her platform, and they too are only too aware of the economic dependence on oil. Many are suffering from it. So, I hope we will agree to not use inflammatory rhetoric such as O'Leary's to diss her and her party, and pay attention to rational voices and evidence instead. However, it is clear that some people will likely stop at nothing in their attempt to undermine her because they want her to fail so that they can have everything their way again. Caplan's article, cited above, is quite instructive on how this has happened in the past.

As regards royalties and taxes, I doubt there has ever been a corporation in existence that did not complain about corporate taxes etc., no matter how low or high they were, as they always want them to be lower, no matter what. The ideal from that perspective would probably be no taxes at all while somehow being able to depend on government support when they become "too big to fail". There is always an inherent conflict between the goals of capital, which are about maximizing profit and shareholder returns, as O'Leary has told us many times, versus the public good. We all benefit from things that are done for the public good - even the wealthy. Good government requires a reasonable balance.

Norway intentionally taxed North Sea oil heavily, I'm sure much more than anybody in Alberta has imagined, over many years. They made no bones abut it. Norway, unlike the PCs in AB, regarded the oil as a natural resource which was partly the natural inheritance of the Norwegian people, so they socked the money away so that the country could withstand a downturn.

Yes, there have been job losses recently there as well, but every Norwegian has a nest-egg of about a million bucks because of the foresight of their govt. (I am not sure if this is publicly or privately held.) And I presume the oil companies didn't all take flight in horror from taxes, or else Norway would never have succeeded with this approach. They still made big profits. I am just repeating what was said in a recent television documentary, so I have no details, but they would not have made the documentary if there wasn't something to it.

The point is that we need government to have the will to look at alternatives and to withstand the demand, which will never stop, for the needs of capital to be the first and primary consideration in policy. We can't allow a situation where they holler and government is expected to jump or be labelled a "dark force". We need balance.

People can do what they want with their investment dollars, and they will. For everyone who sells their shares because they don't like the NDP gov't, someone else will be buying them because they think they're a bargain and a good long term investment. Prices go up, and prices go down. Prudent investors need to think carefully about their reasons for either choice. If someone decides to sell because they want to punish the gov't of Alberta and bring it down, that is hardly a wise investment decision; it's a political strategy, and a nefarious one at that. For the record, I have no such shares and neither do I plan to buy any.