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From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: tariffs,shoes: a source
Message-ID: <2663@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 11:36:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2663
Posted: Fri Oct 18 11:36:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 06:21:12 EDT
References: <2650@watcgl.UUCP> <52@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 53

> In article <2650@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> > They also say tariffs account for less than $.01 per person
> > per day (in Canada).
> 
> When expressed this way the amount of money in question seems trivial.
> Why don't you make the number even smaller by computing it on a per hour
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> or second basis? Nevertheless, you cannot get around the fact this works out

Because this is how the shoe manufactures stated it.

> to 25,000,000 people paying $0.01 for 365 days which is $91,250,000 for, 
> according to you, 16,000 jobs. On tariffs alone we are subsidizing these

 A minor point but, again, this is according to the manufacturers not me.
 My point is that out of all the money "removed" from me (people like
 the Fraser Institute estimate half my/your yearly income) by the
 government $0.01/day is totally insignificant - or put another way: there
 are a lot more important things to gripe about.

> jobs to the tune of 5,703 dollars a pop. Since there are also *quotas* on 
A *much* lower figure than was originally quoted, by the way.
> shoes the cost of keeping these jobs is even higher. 
> 
> To me the problem is that we are subsidizing one industry at the expense
> of others by distorting the importance of that industry. Ninety-one 
> million dollars is a lot of money (except maybe to socialists) and
                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^
or people who believe in reagonomics (doubling the national debt in 5 years).
You might like to believe that overspending is the hallmark of socialism
but the facts just don't bear this out.  Everyone likes to make a big
stink about the federal deficit but after 40 years of conservative rule
in Ontario the provincial debt is about $19 billion.  The only socialist
government in BC's history left office with a surplus - care to state
how big a debt the Social Credit party has run up? By the way a large
part of the Ontario (and other provinces) debt is from borrowing from
our federal pension plan.  The federal government now feels it can't
ever retrieve this money and this is why they are talking about such
high increases in cpp contributions.

> there are other more worthwhile and productive things that we could
> purchase rather than a crutch for the shoe industry. However, the 

 Quite possibly.  I have no particular axe to grind with respect to
the shoe industry - it is however a mistake to just assume that all
tariffs are bad or that they total to a significant amount.

> shoe industry is just one of many industries that soak the Canadian
> public by convincing the government of the need for tariffs or quotas.
> Any one of these subsidized industries may not cost us very much but
> it all adds up and in the end it costs us a lot.
> 
> Donald Acton