Why Do Countries Trade?

Canada and the United States are allowing one family to decide that one of our natural resources is going to be worked, refined and sold off our continent and make BILLIONS doing this while ALLOWING another area of the world to do the same in North America?

Do you know how STUPID the voters of our countries sound right now?

We are allowing the bought and paid for politicians by the Koch brothers to decide what is done with our natural resources while allowing another country to profit off of our taxpayers.

Why do countries trade?

We have forgotten why we trade. Countries trade because we cannot get what we NEED where we are. We get it from other countries while giving those countries something they NEED in return.

Other than that, we should be self sufficient. If we can grow beets, we grow beets for ourselves, if we can raise livestock we raise it for ourselves and if we can harvest our oil or lumber we do so for ourselves BEFORE we sell it off to the highest bidder. This goes for all countries.

We TRADE for what we need. Canada has a particular climate that growing tropical fruit isn’t possible, so we trade for it. Canada can produce numerous amounts of potatoes…so which tropical country would like to trade potatoes for bananas?

Is that too simple? It is just an example. We have much, much more to offer here in Canada than potatoes, potash being one of the leading exports for our country.

The issue is we have made it about money and how much we can make instead about what we need to survive on.

An example, McDonalds in South America should use South American beef thus promoting their economy. McDonalds in North America should use North American beef for the same reason; along with every other restaurant in these countries.

“Free Trade” is not free to the average individual. It is costing us our self sufficiency. We are giving away our resources that our countries need to survive.

China’s greatest trade for many, MANY years was Silk. The Han dynasty TRADED it for things like cucumbers, walnuts and figs as well as new skills like using grapes for making wine. They brought new ideas, products and innovation to their lives to become more self-sufficient while selling something they had an abundance of.

Now, and for many years, the secret to producing silk has been out. What China has had to do is revamp what it trades. The problem, they are trading cheap labour to companies that take advantage of the over abundance of the population and the products that are made by that population. These companies make millions on cheaply made products that these people work hard at making. It is not only that the product is poorly made; it is that it is cheaply made and that has to do with the company…NOT the workers. 

We keep allowing companies to push our governments into “free trade” deals that allow companies to take our resources, natural or otherwise, and ship them to other countries to make into products that we do not need OR if we do need them, they are taking our resources away from trading it out right for the product. 

Why would the Canadian government not trade its oil with China on its own for a quality product that Canada needs from China? Why would we need the Koch brothers as a go between? Why do the Koch family need to own any oil rights at all for that matter in Canada?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/20/the-biggest-land-owner-in-canadas-oil-sands-isnt-exxon-mobil-or-conoco-phillips-its-the-koch-brothers/

Should we not be using our OWN natural resource before purchasing it and making another country or one family very wealthy?

Should we not use our own natural resource before selling it to other countries and then selling or trading what we have left over?

We are buying a natural resource we have from other countries and selling our own oil in order to line the pockets of one family. Why are we doing this?

Just like we tell families when the economy goes in the toilet, back to basics…we keep what we need to be self sufficient, sell what we have extra and buy or trade for what we need with that extra.

Back to basic economics. Take care of our own, pay our own, feed our own, and clothe our own, help where we can and buy or trade for what we need.

I know it sounds to simple…but sometimes simple is best.

Lower Price at the Pump=Massive Layoffs

The Saskatchewan Government isn't being as honest as it should with its people when it comes to the oil and gas price drop.

In Brad Wall’s televised speech he, of course, did not go into the details of how this down time is going to affect the industry itself.

He talked about how HIS government kept its promise of job creation, which it did…through the oil and gas industry.

You see MOST of those jobs that his government may have been responsible for creating has been in conjunction with keeping up with the boom of oil and gas.

From seeing first hand what happens when that industry slows down, being Albertan, Saskatchewan is in for a big surprise.

Brad Wall and his government are very proud of the fact that they have the “lowest” unemployment rate in the country. That will not be the case if the oil does not rebound immediately.

You will have massive layoffs, not just from the oil and gas companies like Cal-

Frac, Iron Horse, Haliburton, Element and Baker Hughes…these companies rely on other businesses to do the work they do.

Many of these companies sub-contract to other companies who then have their welders and class 1 drivers do the work for the bigger companies.

Companies like Vanko Oilfield Services in Kindersley, SK probably won’t need all their people to do repairs to pump jacks and maintenance to picker equipment, layoffs will happen. While REV Energy Services ltd out of Kerrobert, SK will need to keep some people on, not everyone will be keeping their jobs there either. Welding companies like Gremur Industries Ltd out of Maidstone, SK could have some tough times ahead as they deal with oilfield construction, people there will probably see their time shortened with the barrel of oil dropping to less than $53 as of January 4^th, 2015.

These massive and wealthy companies get their safety equipment and supplies from companies like Kost Fire Safety Ltd in Medicine Hat, AB that have trained personnel to care for this safety gear who make sure this gear works properly so no one will get hurt, they have other work for these people to do, but the money they make off the safety equipment will take a hit if the companies stop drilling.

These are just small companies who will lose jobs and income directly from the drop in the oil price that the Saskatchewan government is not being up front with you about, it isn’t just about their “budget”. There are the other industries that are going to take a massive hit.

Oil and gas companies like Baker Hughes and Cal-Frac spend millions of dollars on hotel rooms, restaurants and fuel themselves for their own workers who travel. 

Those new hotels and motels that are built and/or renovated in Kindersley,SK and elsewhere are going to lose money when road bans are put into place in Saskatchewan and these multi-million dollar companies start handing out pink slips. The restaurants and living accommodations are going to take a huge hit when the road bans are put in place. Rental accommodations are going to lose their renters who move back to where ever they came from because landlords here got greedy, charging exorbitant amounts of money for holes in the ground.

Gas stations are not going to have the company trucks pulling in to fuel up so the workers can head home to see their loved ones, they are already at home living off of unemployment.

Which brings me to my last point Saskatchewan; this has been a boost in your livelihoods. You have never seen this kind of money flowing through the coffers before. Many of your people have gone from making substandard wages to having wealth beyond knowledge. I hope they were smart enough to save and not blow it on huge houses and expensive cars/trucks/SUVs.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/as-crude-prices-plummet-oilsands-workers-find-themselves-jobless-1.2176208

One of the biggest problems people face, especially people who have no experience with money, are that when they get money they want to spend that money. Alberta saw it in the 1980’s.

People lose their houses and vehicles because they do not budget for the price of oil dropping this low. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on building a dream home for their family with a mortgage payment that is outrageous, along with car payments for both adults (sometimes even the kids) and then the layoff happens.

Remember, you only receive 55% of your insurable earnings on Unemployment…BUT, there are stipulations, the Canadian government website http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/regular.shtml#much…says, “As of January 1, 2014, the maximum insurable earnings amount is $48,600. This means that you can receive a maximum amount of$514 per week.”  

I hope your mortgage and car payments are not more than $2000 and that you have another income coming in to cover the cost of incidentals like food and utilities…or you are going to be flooding the market with brand new houses and that vehicle is not worth what you paid for it anymore, you now have to take what you can get for it.

So people of Saskatchewan, this is the first down time in the oil and gas for you. Those Albertans who moved here and have gone through this should be fine, if they used their heads. I hope that the Saskatchewan governments’ positive spin on bringing in the industry did not take away the sensibilities of the people.

The one good thing about oil and gas prices is that it can rebound whenever the United States government decides. So when they decide to stop policing the world you may get your jobs and livelihood back, hopefully this will happen before anyone loses their shirts.

Anyone hear of the word PROPAGANDA?

It isn’t just used by terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda or the Soviets during the Cold War to bring in their recruits; it is also used as scare tactics by our governments to keep citizens in line against terrorists.

Ever wonder what drives people to become terrorists? We are told they are mentally ill, they are freaks, their ideology is whacked, but did you ever stop to think what it could actually be to cause someone to come to the point where they are willing to die for those beliefs?

Christians did it for thousands of years. Christ himself died on the cross for his beliefs. No he didn’t kill anyone but his “religion” eventually did. It has killed millions of people over thousands of years, it condemned “witches” that saved lives, it abused children in grotesque ways and it hordes money in massive amounts.

We condemn the Karan for words that are written in it, but many do not condemn the Bible for those same beliefs that are printed in older versions, that were “re-written”.

Religion has no purpose on Earth; it has caused too much strife, too much death and too much heart ache. People do not know how to control their tempers on how to allow their neighbor to believe in some other religion that does not agree with their own.

That is IF this is based on religion.

If ISIS or any other terrorist organization is trying to “help” the poor by attacking the big bad guys who rape and pillage the land, well those terrorist organizations will always find the help they need in the poor, in the oppressed and in the people who are just fed up with the garbage our governments are trying to feed us.

Those terrorist organizations find the poor, the sick and the needy and say, “We are here to take it away from the big businesses/corporations/governments and give it back to those of you who work hard for it. We are only looking out for the little guys.”They are the Robin hoods of this century, only they have weapons of mass destruction where 3 or 4 hundred years ago well a bow and arrow or an axe had to do.

While we have those big businesses/corporations/governments yelling that the terrorists need to be put down like the mad dogs they are. These are the people who do not want us knowing that the terrorists are human beings who have been trying for years to tell the world that they have had enough of our governments’ interference, our government’s invasions and our corporations taking from their people the only thing they have to support them…Oil.

I have a few questions for Canadians, what would us little pee-on Canadians do if our government and our big corporations stopped doing ANY good for us?

 All the money that we paid them in taxes and all the money we gave them-from spending at the pump to the money we put in their tills-all went straight into their pockets with no relief at all? No royalties, no donations, no nothing?  

What if health care and education were not available at all for ANY of our citizens?

What if we did not make enough money to put food on our tables to feed our children or cloth our children or medicate our children? What if we didn’t have tables or beds for that matter?

What if we saw people on the other side of the world receiving these things but complaining constantly about those things?

 Would we see them as gluttonous and ungrateful?

We can say, oh but we would never do that…but can we really say that?

We do not live in a third world country where it is desert for the most part. Where our children starve most days and go without medical attention for common diseases. We have clean running water, garbage collection, medical care because we pay taxes that go towards these things.

But we also see that demonstrating does not work, police shut that down. We see petitioning does not work, corporations and governments ignore them. Terrorism has worked in the past, during biblical times, and it works now. It brings the attention that the people, human beings, want to the forefront.

Does it mean that the terrorists are crazy lunatics? No, it means they have lost sight of how to get their point to the world.

 It means the world has stopped listening to what is important.

 It means us, the ones who can make the changes, have lost sight to what is important.

What is important is that we stop judging each other on what we have, what religion we choose to practice, and who we choose to love.

It means we start to help our neighbors and pull together instead of building temples only a select few are privileged to enter, we stop hording treasures in churches and we stop hiding billions of dollars in banks on the other side of the world and owning billion dollar trinkets…just because we can.

Stop the greed that human nature has put in our path to control our desire and learn to control the greed. People do not have to live without; people do not have to live with billions of dollars.

Did anyone ever think that maybe, just MAYBE some of these “terrorists” would like for their people to be taken care of in their countries but everything goes to the rich and corrupt in their countries and in ours while their children and grandchildren suffer but  we are told otherwise through propaganda by our governments? 
We really do not hear the whole story people, only what they want us to hear.

It might be me being full of shit, but I think back to what every war has been about, oppression, lost dignity and the propaganda on both sides feeding the wars and it makes me wonder what the true story is…

Remember, there is two sides to a story and the truth.

fyi. I am not affiliated with any religion nor ever will be. My views are based on the research I have been doing over the last few years.

What are royalties for?

When Alberta’s Premier Ed Stelmach chose to up the amount of royalties companies were going to have to pay Alberta for extracting oil and gas the companies were outraged and Saskatchewan took advantage of that by opening its oilsands.

I have become more enlightened about what royalties are used for over the last few years. Only because the area I now live in has become swamped with pump jacks over the last five or six years.

Many people are making a great deal of money off of this venture, land is becoming very expensive and housing even more so. There are those who will and are taking advantage of this situation, oil and gas companies are in the lead.

What is not happening is the care to the system with the extra people coming into the province.

With more people, come more expenses. New housing developments take new sewer, new power and new development while older areas are overlooked. This always happens no matter where you are.

With more people there is more use of infrastructure and services.

http://www.oilandgasinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/PW_august_2010.pdf

http://www.oilandgasinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/PW_sept_10.pdf

Several examples of this are easy ones, like roads.

this was shortly after they "fixed" the pothole.

Sask. Transportation warns people of a danger spot with the "red flag"

Oil companies hauling the oil from the rigs take a toll on the surfaces of the roads and reconstruction/maintenance is always needed. This road is far from the worst in Saskatchewan, it is just one of the main roads I use. 

(Please notice the large chunks of asphalt that could be caught in a semi trucks tire and spit up at a vehicle following...that could cause one hell of an accident and who would know what caused it if there was no survivors. My last blog about the roads in Saskatchewan talks about this.)

Another is power.

With the rigs sucking the power out of the grid, I am sure that wouldn’t be the cause to peoples and businesses appliances burning out and break down with the surging and constant cutting in and out? No one is responsible for paying the cost of our refrigerators, freezers, washers and dryers, etc. being replaced or fixed because of this is there?

But adding more power to the grid will not do any good if the older infrastructure is not updated; something a government should have thought about 5 or 10 years before allowing companies to come in and suck the power right out from under their current customers...ahem... 

Updating the power lines and poles before allowing the rigs into the area would have made more sense. 

But sense doesn't always come into play when cents are involved.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/20/2187071/federal-government-charges-lower-royalties-than-many-states-for-oil-and-gas-drilling-taxpayers-lose-out/

(It looks like this is not just a Canadian issue…Go figure huh…yes, sarcasm)

Many people forget things like schooling and health care.

The men and women who work for these oil companies are not all single.

Many have families and these young children need schooling. It is no wonder the government cannot afford to pay its teachers more, but maybe had they demanded a better deal from the oil companies when it came to royalties your teachers would be getting paid a better raise over the next four years.

Some think that the teachers are asking for too much. I think those people are crackers!

Our teachers have to deal with 20 to 35 children in one class each day, some teaching more grades then one and teaching more than one subject. Many of those children have learning disabilities or are just downright disrespectful and should be dealt with by parents or police not by teachers.

We ask teachers to teach our children things that we as parents should be teaching our children; “we” do not have time to teach our own children anymore. Teachers, who are accused of not working enough days, getting too many long weekends during the year, having summer holidays and only having to work from 9 am to 3 pm…if only people knew.

Shadow a teacher for one 24 hour period and you will be sorely surprised at what they do in one day for our future!

Back to my original point,

Royalties are to help with the influx of people using the services and infrastructure in your communities. If you do not demand that the companies pay those royalties, they are not going to be generous and give them to you.

They may donate a little here and a little there to make themselves look good to the general population, but it NEVER amounts to what they should be paying to offset the cost of what their companies and their workers are using.

Health care is another biggie.

In the area I live there is a clinic that used to be a hospital. Not anymore. The closest hospital with an emergency is approximately 34 kilometers away and it isn't exactly what you would find in a larger center either. The doctor that comes to our little village once a week comes from that town. Once a week we can see this doctor or once a week we can see a RN.

With more people there is more demand on the doctor’s time.

The doctor out here is the only one, he deals with several small villages and towns in the area. He works his butt off in a very large area, so when I am sitting in his office I tend to bring a book…it could take awhile.

With the influx of people in the area this doctor’s office has a habit of double booking. I can understand many people can be rude enough to either demand to be seen immediately or they just don’t show up so staff get to know who might be a no show.

On one occasion, being as polite as I could, I had to remind a jerk that there were children present as he was complaining to another patient with the F-bomb every other word that the doctor’s office was double booking his appointment time.

Here is my point;

Once again, the overflow of people with jobs from the rigs has caused a massive amount of strain on services like doctors and teachers. It has caused substantial damage to infrastructures like roads and the power grid.  

Without the extra investment of royalties from the oil companies that are bringing in these issues, the issues are going to keep getting worse…not better.

Oil companies love free. They will rape Saskatchewan and move on. It might take years, but it will happen and in the mean time, it is the pee-ons that suffer. 

Land owners that rent to the oil companies don't suffer, they are getting well paid for the pump jacks being on their land. The government isn't suffering, they do not have to deal with cranky children or disrespectful patients. 

The lowly taxpayer who has new neighbors disrespecting his property, the doctor who has to deal with hundreds of patients with very little time off and the teachers who do not receive the respect and pay they deserve are the ones who suffer. 

http://desmog.ca/2013/02/28/if-canada-oil-rich-why-are-we-so-debt

(Our government is doing the taxpayers no favors. They are not working for us, they are working for the wealthy oil companies.)

Making any company pay to use the infrastructure and services that a province has only makes good sense.

Companies are not going to “take their business elsewhere” they have nowhere else to go! They need our resources, the longer the resources are in the ground the more they are worth.

If Norway can get 70 cents of each dollar an oil company makes, then why are we in Canada begging for pennies? 

There are many things that Norway does that Canada could follow examples of. Not having any foreign debt and having a "rainy day" fund sure does go to show they are a country worth watching and learning from, but will we?

Any company that wants to work in our country, take our resources, use our resources and bring workers into our country that use our infrastructure or our services need to start paying royalties.

That is where the royalties come in, they go to help alleviate the extra costs in fixing the roads, upgrading the power grid, hiring more teachers and doctors…

The important things that are needed and used.