rookiepilot wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 12:25 pm
Squaretail wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 12:08 pm
rookiepilot wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 8:50 am
And you all wonder why I have an affinity for America. At least they don't do that.
And they heavily subsidize not only pilot training, but also general aviation as a whole. For some reason you never hear the free market proponents criticize that.
You misquoted me deliberately. Seems to be a favourite thing on this site.
I said "at least they don't do that -- meaning Federal government calling all of there small business owners parasite tax cheats".
I'm missing how I misquoted you, but apologies if it offended, the difference between how the American Government treats small business and how the Canadian one does wasn't really the focus of my post. From my small experience in the matter, in practical terms there seems to be less of an actual difference between the two - neither government are especially friendly to small business, even if the American politicians talk a better game. When you consider how politicians are in the pockets of big business, the picture becomes clear - big business is interested in quashing competition from small business where ever and when ever they can, and the government assists them in doing so at every turn. Don't get me started on how the regulator has no sense of scale, its been a preoccupation this year. If anything, I guess you could just say that the Canadian government is just honest about how it feels about small business - and I'm not saying that sentiment is correct - it just is how it is.
Now I could just turn things around on you and say stop whining about this aspect, but I won't.
This is all really just to say that don't be so certain the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I mean its bad enough the Americans like to paint this place as some third world nation to scare their own populace on how much worse it could be like in "Socialist Canada". On further thought though I'd like to offer some counter arguments for your consideration about education as a whole, retaining a somewhat of an aviation bent to it. I'm just cutting and pasting, so again I'll apologize if you feel you were misquoted here.
(tourist) demand goes up -- hey why not stay in school, Gov't (meaning the rest of us) are paying;
I don't see this as a huge issue. While I know there are career students out there, its a really small number. Most of these are ones that aren't subsidized, but rather have an unlimited line of credit from the bank of Mom and Dad.
Costs skyrocket -- look what tuition has done the last 20 years;
Keep in mind that over that period education in terms of what is available to loan to students has been heavily reduced. The Government of Canada is not in the business directly of giving students money, but rather it is run through the banks, who are the real winners here. You used to be able to get a student loan which you didn't have to pay interest on for as long as you were in school, and only had to start making payments on - at least when I did it - didn't start until a year after you finished school. I'll note that I paid that loan back in full, with interest, so I'm seeing that the taxpayer came out ahead on that deal. Now because the government regulated how much was given depending on the program you were enrolled in, the schools charged appropriately, and you were more likely to get approved for such a loan if you went to places that were cheaper. The schools themselves were of course subsidized, partly based on what they offered, but partly based on how they kept their costs down.
Now that the banks control how much money students will get though, like if you go for a mortgage, to the inexperienced they will try to convince you to loan as much money as they can. Schools have priced accordingly. Students are also not enticed by possible options of cheaper career paths - rural doctors for instance. I don't envy kids these days trying to get ahead in the world. Arguably myself and my parents had it easier. You're right in that tuition has skyrocketed, I'm not sure your conclusion on why is correct. In essence, while we still subsidize schools, we don't subsidize students to more effectively control the supply and demand.
Quality plummets. No market incentive exists to compete.
This happens because the tendency of the market forces are for institutions to gain local monopolies on students. This has happened in flight training in particular. Now you are right in that subsidized schools can out compete non- subsidized ones, its also a consequence of simply the bigger fish being able to out compete the small fish naturally, which also includes a bigger capacity to get subsidized. A vicious circle. Your complaint about how small business is treated here is valid. It should be noted that in the case of flight training, the Americans don't directly subsidize it, consequence of their biggest socialist construct (in fact possibly the worlds largest most money churning one), their military. Canada could really steal a page from their book in this case. We used to do this more, but certainly have drastically cut it back. After all, we all know about the old guy at the airport who got a cheque for $300 for his pilot training. It would be win-win. Canada could up its military expenditure (to show that magic 2% GDP) and GA in Canada would flourish, and a more ready supply of pilots to keep labour costs and ticket prices down.
Arguably part of the Government's job is to protect us from market forces that push towards monopolization, which isn't good for anyone outside of course the few who control the monopoly. Side note - I've only come recently to realize the horrific implications of the game
Monopoly. It only has one winner after all.