The HST revisited

[gars]

Originally Posted by UFO

With HST, if Walmart can reduce the price of a product 2%, so can Superstore/Safeway/Whole Foods/Capers/Canadian Tire, so MAYBE there are savings to be seen by the consumer. But does this guarantee that they will? No way. Why would Walmart lower their pricing when they know everyone else can do they same thing, what incentive is there to decrease their profit margin when everybody else can offer the same price decrease?

If they don't decrease their profit margin, and their competitors do, they will lose business. If they decrease their profit margins, and their competitors don't, they will take business away from their competitors.

[Walperstyle]

Originally Posted by TheNewGirl

I think the glory days of Alberta are slowly coming to an end though. I anticipate you'll have a sales tax inside of the next handful of years.

By that time I'll have have my house paid off, and probably still have some renters.

sorry for trolling, I just wish someone told me 11 years ago after highschool to move here. I'm 6 years behind on life because I stayed in BC and Delt with its BS backward thinking.

[TheKingdom2000]

Originally Posted by Walperstyle

By that time I'll have have my house paid off, and probably still have some renters.

sorry for trolling, I just wish someone told me 11 years ago after highschool to move here. I'm 6 years behind on life because I stayed in BC and Delt with its BS backward thinking.

Bro. You can't just compare Alberta and BC like you do.

For one, Alberta is NOT BC. Some people like BC and want to stay in BC.
If I moved to Abbotsford i'm sure I could buy a really nice house for $500k and probably get a good chunk of land.
What's the problem with that? I don't want to live in Abby. I want to live in the GVR.

I'm currently in Toronto for school and I would probably be better off in Toronto as cost of living is lower and there are far more jobs. But, would I want to stay here after graduation?
No. But, if people do that's good for them. Toronto is just not the city for me.

Yes, some people might be like you, but you can't generalize your idea's to the rest of the population. It doesn't work that way my friend.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Walperstyle

By that time I'll have have my house paid off, and probably still have some renters.

sorry for trolling, I just wish someone told me 11 years ago after highschool to move here. I'm 6 years behind on life because I stayed in BC and Delt with its BS backward thinking.

don't blame BC for this, blame yourself.

i'm in BC and make a lot more money than you and am the same age as you, i could make more elsewhere... i deal with it

on topic, i knew this would happen... cutting HST is just a ploy to get ppl to not turn out to vote against it, HST will not go away, HST is not bad, the implimentation was terrible & it cost Gordo his job (to some degree)

Christy Clark is an idiot - raising corporate taxes and cutting taxes on purchases is stupid for the economy on the whole.... you may think you won't personally see the 2% corporate tax rate, but you will if it means a big company goes elsewhere based on this, or if it means your company moves out of province partially to do with this.

i wish we had a strong conservative leader in BC, non of this liberal BS vs. NDP BS

[Gt-R R34]

Originally Posted by 4444

i wish we had a strong conservative leader in BC, non of this liberal BS vs. NDP BS

No..

We just need a Competent one.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by gars

If they don't decrease their profit margin, and their competitors do, they will lose business. If they decrease their profit margins, and their competitors don't, they will take business away from their competitors.

If it's as simple as that, I'm going to open up a gas station and sell gas $0.05 less than everywhere else and profit

If they don't decrease their profit margin, and their competitors don't decrease their profit margin, then all businesses will reap extra profit because they know what price the market can sustain for a certain product. The decrease in product pricing that we MAY see as a result of HST is so small, that it is easily offset by things like increasin labour costs, inflation, energy and fuel costs, and to the consumer any savings will be more or less invisible and only theoretical, just like your example of how businesses like to sell things at lower profit margins to gain a competitive edge.

[Meowjin]

So why do people avoid the can am in point roberts like fire?

[wstce92]

Originally Posted by UFO

The problem I see with this view is that it's TOO big-pictured, the polar opposite of the short-sighted self-centered haste. If businesses save money, you are assuming that they are going to WANT to hire more peope, or WANT to pay their existing staff higher wages. What if they don't? Then all of a sudden many of the benefits of HST to this greater good of the economy no longer exists.

As someone who has worked with, supervised, hired, and fired many employees; I can tell you, good employees are EXTREMELY hard to find. Maybe it's the culture and this generation, but majority of people lack responsibility, discipline, or even a half decent work ethic. When businesses start to do more business, when the workload increases, I've had plenty of experience with people just quiting because they don't want to do the work or because they just couldn't handle a job that ceased to be "slack".

If you have employees that work well, you WILL want to keep them. Simple as that. Most of the time, that means giving them a raise.
To meant the increased demand of your business, you also have no choice but to hire more people (given that expected revenue covers the costs of new employees and then some).

It's not that big pictured.
If you feed your family one steak each every night, but then all the sudden you get an entire cow for dinner... you're either going to have to give each member of your family more than the standard one steak, OR you're going to have to invite more people over, OR both. You aren't just going to sit and watch the cow rot.


In terms of your eating out concerns. My parents, uncle, and one of my cousins, all own restaurants, and I'm very familiar with their books. they can't do anything about what they charge, because increased crop prices, along with increased fuel prices, have made their costs go up; and strict liquor regulation, along with the street parking meter increases (both cost of and time in effect) have made people refrain from spending too much time and money at dinner. With costs up, average spending down, average number of tables a night down; even with the savings from HST, times are tough. (This is from talking to our regulars, who say that they used to be able to sit and drink as much as they wanted over dinner, or that they used to be able to put in an hour for parking at 7 and not have to worry about it; but now it's all changed)

[darkfroggy]

Discrimination also keeps many skilled people off the workplace.

Look at administration offices. All of them are staffed by white people. Board positions at big companies? All filled by middle-aged white men.

To get good employees, you have to get rid of the nepotism, racism, and sexism in the workplace.

I have seen a TON of incompetent people in workplaces. CS reps that don't have a single clue, waiters who don't know how to serve, computer sales rep that don't even know the specs of products, etc. When managers/supervisors invite their friends/acquaintances over it becomes a total shitmess.

[TheNewGirl]

Originally Posted by 4444

i wish we had a strong conservative leader in BC, non of this liberal BS vs. NDP BS

No you don't. If we had only a true conservative leader vs the NDP the NDP would win 9 times out of 10. Because while we all hate them, we're not a conservative province on the provincial level and most of us take HUGE issue social conservatisim.

Our provincial "liberal" party is more blue then red (that's why it's their party colors), and they're far more conservative than a "liberal" party aught to be to the extent that the federal liberals won't stand on a stage with them. BUT if they went more Tory we'd out them. Look what happened to Campbell.