59 Replies to “I Blame Bush”

  3. It’s starting to get interesting:
    Mexico last week imposed tariffs of 20 percent on pears, cherries, apricots, Christmas trees, frozen potatoes and other products. The tariffs are in retaliation for the U.S. ending a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks to transport goods in the U.S. as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
    Robbing Pear-ter to Pay Paul

  5. Just another example of the empty suit Obamamessiah saying one thing and facilitating the opposite…
    I’m guessing that Obama will shortly invest Fidel with honourary citizenship…after all, that is what lefties do…

  7. O’Narcissist on Canada: “I lOve this cOuntry.”
    (Search-MSM)
    “Canadians love affair with Obama may be short lived
    17 Nov 2008 … Canadians love affair with Obama may be short lived, NAFTA, Canadian Jobs, Big three auto companies, Ontario Manufacturing, Dalton McGuinty, …
    http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6338”
    …-
    From the State of Washington on the Pacific Ocean to the State of Maine on the Atlantic Ocean an Iron Curtain of prOtectiOnism has descended.
    (H/T WC)

  8. Do they want our oil and natural gas or not? and how much shall we charge them for it?

  9. In the end Obama will alienate his entire commercial base with protectionism. He’s heading America towards the cliff.
    He is just turning a financial down turn into a depression. Sad for Americans as a whole, good for his cronies. Health care of course will be used like here, to stop population growth though the back door with sex education. Which will only exacerbate the situation. Guess who he has in mind for new immigrants?
    JMO

  10. You have my commiseration. At least you only have a piddly tariff on soft wood. (Hardwoods are too right wing for liberals) We are getting the whole treatment! I will trade you one Obama for a Dione,and two others TBD (your choice).

  11. CBC will blame Harper for this. Obviously, he did something to upset the anointed One.

  12. speedy – that’s quite the article. Amazing how ingenuity enables scams and under-the-table, so to speak, deals. And how these all cost us, the ordinary taxpayer, on both sides of the border.

  13. Much as HATE to be the devil’s advocate…It’s unlikely that Obama had NOTHING to do with this. To be sure the Dumbass from Chicago doesn’t know a damned thing about it.
    This is the work of the Dumocrats in the back room.
    Look at the existing trade commission’s makeup and who these jokers are.
    Ron Kirk
    Other Ron Kirk stories …
    And review the history of this dispute.

  14. “…These duties will remain in place until such time as the United States has collected $54.8 million….”
    So now they want Canadian taxpayers to help pay off their debt.
    Obama insults Americans, bows to the Saudi King, and antagonises Canada…all in one week.
    What a charmer…

  15. They STILL want the money. Short memory?
    This is nothing but a rehash of a 15 year old kebab.
    New players …. same old BS.

  16. Nothing to worry about! As this is directed at Ontario, the government will hasten to correct this and will no doubt apologize to Ontario lumber producers and the US for being so negligent. Figure on it being fixed within a week or two.

  17. Agree,pacemakerdoug.I think a 50 cent/liter and 10G’s a ton on the unrefined oil and 100 bucks /1000 cubic foot of gas would be a great place to start.Of course,our wimpy politicos would never do anything to upset the great Owe. F*&K them all!

  20. If it wasn’t evident before surely it is now that Canada has to greatly expand its trade relationships with countries other than the US. Eventually we will become much less dependent on our trade relationship with them.
    The less we have to rely on them – the better. The TOTUS says one thing in Europe and quite another in North America (he hasn’t figured out that the internet exists – I guess Al Bore didn’t tell him that he recently invented it). He cannot be trusted and is showing himself to be protectionist at every opportunity. He say one thing but his actions betray his real intent.
    Maybe its time to play a little hardball with our natural resources. I’m certainly no expert on this but we should look at those of our natural resources the US really counts on and play a little hard ball with them for it. That is what they are doing with our softwood lumber. Right now they don’t really need our lumber as new homes are not being built so they can afford to stick it to our imports in order to support their lumber industry.
    Time for us to push their backs against the wall for the things they really need from us. Enough of this sh-t from the big OWE!

  21. Let’s see…we could invite the Chinese to fund pipeline construction from AB/SK through the Rockies into Vancouver in return for a guarenteed supply contract. Or, since the planet is manifestly warming, up to Hudson’s Bay for the polar route!

  22. The dependent trade relation that Canada has with the US has been set up by Canada. Canada has set up a trade relation where over 85% of its exports go to only one country – the USA. There is no other country in the world with such a dependency, such a refusal to compete in the international trade with other countries.
    And we expect, indeed, we almost demand, that the US take our exports. If they don’t – we get very angry! We don’t even attempt to become competitive and expand our trade to other nations. No – we insist that the US take our exports.
    As for softwood – there’s problems on both sides. In Canada, our policy of cutting lumber on public lands, at ridiculously low fees, amounts to, in the American perspective, a subsidy. Their own softwood producers cut on private land and pay for that.
    Canada must stop being an ‘economic suburb’ of the US, and become competitive in the world market, and market its products to other countries.

  23. ET – the issues you bring up in your post have supposedly been resolved with the US in the last softwood lumber agreement with the US. And I might add that Canada is the party that caved in order to reach that accord.
    The ONLY reason the US is going after us again is pure and simple “protectionism”. They are telling us that the agreement we are working under is “null and void”. The game rules have changed the its the US that have changed them.
    Bow to the great OWE!!!

  24. “By their deeds you shall know them”.
    A verse from a well-known book, with rather sage advice don’t you think?? Very suitable for O’brother ….

  25. Am I missing something? Four Provinces are being punished but not Alta or BC, maybe those four aren’t playing by the Rules, is that possible?

  26. How much lumber does Sask. ship to the US? It seems odd, to me, that they ignored the big fish. It almost sounds like a token gesture.

  27. I oppose most everything Obama stands for, but on this issue, he got it right. This isn’t “protectionism.” It’s enforcement of contractual rights.
    And, if your nitwits in Ottawa would quit subsidizing your lumber industry, there wouldn’t be any problem at all.

  28. Posted by: Justthinkin at April 7, 2009 9:49 PM
    Actually, JT, you might be closer to the mark than you think, but reading from the other side of the page. It is entirely possible that with the whacko environmental lobby and greenie/AGW acolyte steven chu as Secretary of Energy, the US could levy premiums on oil sands product as “dirty energy”. Then prices would rise and the extra tax would be paid by the consumer, and the maobama administration cares very little about public taxation increases. So that’s a feature, not a bug.
    mhb23re
    at gmail d0t calm

  29. Hey there, Texan, with the greatest respect, how about doing some homework?
    Stumpage is not the issue this time.
    And anyway, if you nitwits in the States are bidding too much for the wood, how is that a problem for Canada?

  30. When it comes to lumber the Americans are idiots.
    They like to play heads they win tails we lose.
    But we are worse.
    We let them abuse us when we could sell our wood the world over.
    Or just sit on it like the strategic asset that it is.
    Were I the government, I would nationalize the lumber industry and sell exclusively to anyone else in the world.
    If they couldn’t have our wood, then they might want it.
    Besides, it might be nice to live in a world where things were made out of wood instead of plastic or moulded sawdust.
    You know, like in the bad environmentally backward old days.
    When crates were wood. And fences were wood. And furniture was wood. And doors were wood.
    Things that could take a scratch or dent and still have their shape were wood.
    If they don’t want our wood then let’s have at it and live better lives using our own wood.
    I would prefer it.
    See what I did there?
    I opted out of using a wood pun.
    It’s clever.
    Like asking what’s the difference between Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson.
    Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon,
    And Michael Jackson…

  31. Maybe next week the Big O will discover on his teleprompter that the hurricane season approacheth.

  32. dougie sez :Do they want our oil and natural gas or not? and how much shall we charge them for it?
    sarge here yer gas an oil is ours already

  33. Why don’t we just introduce competive bidding into the process and be done with this silly posturing. Even the former PM of BC (Dan Miller) called it a “Soviet style” management of our forests.

  34. If the US is being protectionist why is it that Alta and BC are not included in this new tariff? Are they not considered major suppliers? Nobody seems to have addressed this vital question before attacking the US. This is selective punishment as far as I can see, probably for breaking the rules of the current agreement, not protectionism. Again, am I missing something?

  35. “The dependent trade relation that Canada has with the US has been set up by Canada. Canada has set up a trade relation where over 85% of its exports go to only one country – the USA. There is no other country in the world with such a dependency, such a refusal to compete in the international trade with other countries.”
    What ET fails to mention is that no other country in the world shares such a big common border with such a big market. While it’s true that Canada ships wood & wood products to Japan, I humbly submit that it is easier to load a truck and drive south than to load a slow boat to China. A lot cheaper too. Build a car in Oshawa and chances are it will end up in the US rather than New Zealand. Actually, Canada only shares a border with one country. I submit it is more of a case of geography than policy.

  37. ET:
    I do not think the concentration of exports the US was willful as you imply, but simply a case of laziness. Canada in general is a very poor at salesmanship – it goes back to our hinterland origins and continues today in things like the CWB.

  38. If Obama takes this money raised from tariffs and in turn provides bailout cash to Weyerhauser, Lousiana-Pacific and the like, could this not be construed as an unfair subsidy not unlike our alleged ‘low stumpage fees’?
    Why are U.S. stumpage fees so high should be a legitimate question. Are they pandering to the spotted owl and granola chewer crowd? I think somewhere herin lies the answer.
    Good grief lumber at the local Home Hardware or Home Depot hasn’t been this cheap for 10 years. Now that we’re in a recession sales are slow despite the price. So Obama slaps a tariff which in effect will raise the prices stateside when we ‘return the favour’.
    Careful what you wish for, U.S. lefties, you’re going to have more ‘chage’ than you can handle, to a point when there’s now ‘hope’ left.

  39. The fiscal power of the current economic oligarchy in the US is in collapse…since they were freed from the gold standard, reserve banking lenders have inflated debt to a point where the Fed is now a negative reserve system and the dollar is in very real danger of imploding…this desperate protectionism and lame attempts to stimulate GDP are just the dying gasp of the old banking/economic oligarch acting through their puppets in the White House.
    “the last act of a criminal oligarchy is to plunder the national treasury before it collases”.
    I say end the frantic attempts to shore up the rotten system these old corrupt econnomic dinosaurs created…let ’em die off choking on their own toxic debt and depleted reserves…let the new emergent economic community (who have been prudent enough to avoid debt/insolbency creating investing products) rise to prominence and restore hope, trust and stability in new “cleansed” economic systems which preclude the fraud and usury of the old systems.
    A crash at this time would be like an economic cleansing of the US system…maybe even get them back to real free market capitalism.
    Personally I think we should make as much economic trouble for this US administration as we can…to aid in the needed economic catharsis….sue the buggers for even looking sideways at our trade agreements. Limit production of critical US imports until there is real free trade… and dump their toxic dollars on the market at discount just to get rid of it.
    Bring it on Barry!…you wanted to be the Zombie Banking cartel’s bum boy so take the backlash sukka!

  41. Yes, low cutting fees are the problem (known stumpage), where the low fees for cutting lumber on public lands effectively means that Canadian lumber is subsidized by the government. BC was the problem last time but this has apparently been resolved.
    McGuinty had reduced the Ontario stumpage fees two years ago with 70 million in refunds and a further 3 million a year in further reduced stumpage fees. As far as the Americans are concerned, these are effectively govt subsidies of the industry.
    As for laziness and the ease of shipment to the US, that’s a quickie excuse and not very strong. It readily transforms, as it has in Canada, to an insistence that the US MUST purchase our goods. We get angry with them when they don’t. However, such an excuse is weak because any good business knows that selling to only one customer is bad business – and – other countries with borders don’t sell exclusively to each other. Does Spain sell only to France? Is the UK confined to itself? Russia?

  42. Four provinces broke the Soft Wood Lumber Agreement(2006), and these four are being penalized. Alberta and BC did not contradict the agreement and so are not being penalized. With lumber selling at ridiculously low prices why would Que., Ont., Man., and Sask. not cut back on exports. The Bloc Quebecoise is howling for more more subsidies to the forestry industry, which are against the SLA(2006) and would make a bad thing worse. Sask should pay its’ portion of the penalty outright and restore its’ reputation for fair trading. Why should the petroleum industry, decried by cenral Canadians, pay for the illegal practices of the socialist governments of central Canada? The Toronto socialists and the Quebec seperatists (quite similar in real life) always cry that Canada should limit petroleum exports to the US whenever they are knee deep in shite of their own making, then when things are good demand that the petroleum industry be shut down or taxed out of existance as it is a detriment to human-green survival.

  43. There is no “stumpage” in the U.S.
    Cutting rights are determined by a bidding war as I understand it.(unless the company already owns the land).
    So theoretically, a company that owns the land where the timber is pays nothing at all for “stumpage”.
    Conversely, A company who is overzealous in bidding for the timber then complains because they are paying more than their Canadian counterparts.
    I dont see how the two completely different systems can be rationalized, unless Canada gets rid of the stumpage system and does the same as the U.S.
    At one time, Weyerhaeuser owned 9 million acres of timbered land in the U.S.,just to give an idea.

  44. I’m probably not going to make many friends by saying this, but here goes.
    The US has a legitimate beef against the Canadian lumber industry. The provinces sell provincial rights to lumber companies instead of forcing them to buy the land outright. This is not a free market system but based on an arbitrary (gov’t defined) price system. The Americans argue that the gov’t prices the rights below a fair market price, giving Cdn firms an advantage (subsidy). I believe they have a point, although the tariffs they demand are clearly too high and stink of opportunism.
    The current problem is that eastern producers in Canada signed an agreement. That agreement stated that for 5% export duty, they would have to adhere to certain quotas. We busted our quotas and violated our agreement with the Americans. Now obviously the timing of this stinks of protectionism, but if we had stuck to the agreement we had signed, the Americans would have no ground to stand on.

  45. I’m going to posit a question here, because I don’t know if this is a plausible theory or not:
    Let’s say, that protectionism and tariffs on imports/exports between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. become more of a problem instead of less –what would happen to the standard of living/general conditions in all three countries (ok, Mexico’s isn’t great, but it could be even worse)? And what would be the one way to fix such a problem? And would things be so bad, so annoying to the common person that they wouldn’t mind the solution after all?
    Yes, I am wondering if this is another ploy to reach the goal of an EU-like North American Union.

  47. “She says once the transaction is completed there is no way to track where the weapons go, who purchased them, or for what purpose.”
    Alternate quotes we’re likely to see:
    “She says once the tree is cut down there is no way to track where the wood goes, who purchased it, or for what purpose. Ordinary people could be making dangerous spears with it, she added.”
    “She says once the mint distributes the rolls of quarters, and Wal-Mart sells the 12 pair of socks for 6.99 there’s no way to prevent people from getting a hold of both, or knowing why they did so.”
    “She says once the transaction is completed, there is no way to track where the hockey sticks go, who purchased them, or for what purpose. Hockey is a national pastime, she added, but in the interest of public safety, we need a hockey stick registry.”

  48. Sorry ET, I have to disagree with you on this one. The US economy is the largest in the world. It is larger than the second, third, and fourth combined (Japan, Germany, China). Therefore, more than 50% of our exports would naturally be going to the US, regardless of location. Please also note that the proximity of the US market vs the distance of the other markets means that the cost of transporting goods to markets other than the US are much higher. Therefore, it is entirely logical that the bulk of Canadian exports find their way into the US. It doesn’t make sense for China and Japan to import Canadian lumber, when Russia and China are as big or bigger suppliers of lumber when compared to Canada. Likewise, why would Germany import Canadian lumber, when Russian lumber can be brought in much more cheaply by rail from Russia?

  49. Well, we wouldn’t have a problem if cowardly leftard government wouldn’t subsidize union labour with public assets sold cheap.

  50. ET, the problem with your analysis of this situation is that “Canada” does not trade with the US, individual people and companies do.
    The fact that Canada sells the bulk of its goods to the US is a result of thousands of decisions made day by day by thousands of Canadian business owners. They have made these decisions based on their own view of what makes sense for their own business operations.
    Therefore, “Canada” as a whole cannot decide that it would be better off if only 50 instead of 85% of our exports went to the US. As well as the size of the US market, the proximity and the similarity (language, culture) of the US market make it natural that exporters would concentrate their efforts there.
    So are these exporters expected to do something that is not in their own best interest to satisfy someone else’s goal of having more varied trade?

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