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It is Truth and Reconciliation:
Truth - the past happened and we don’t deny it
Reconciliation - coming together as friends
Sounds like you have done the Truth part. Just start reconciling. Perhaps collaboratively work towards a better future if the opportunity presents itself. At the very least, show that you are up for it.
Note I did not say guilt or compensation. You can do that if you want but it is not a requirement.
Part of me wants to write off the Russian settlers comment as mindless FUD. Then I remember that Donald Trump was getting cozy with Putin while throwing tariffs at Canada, pulling out of NATO, and getting upset at the press that Trudeau had a better handshake or that Ivanka was checking him out a dinner parties.
You can never say 100% who your friends will be in the future.
I hope both Russia and Trump suffer horrible defeats this winter. Then I can go back to laughing at how stupid the settlers comment is.
It is worse than that. In North America, you have to assume the occupants are not wearing seatbelts. That means bigger, less directional airbags for example. Less safe if you are wearing a belt. Safer if you are not. In Europe by contrast, you can design with the assumption that safety belts are being used.
The “safer” European vehicles “do not meet North American safety standards”.
I know little about Chinese automotive standards but I assume they are looser. That said, simply not having anchors for car seats is enough “not to meet safety standards”. Those are easy to add. These things do not always mean what you think they do.
That is what it costs to burn the fuel. How much to mine it out of the oilsands?
Also, the 20% is every year for the lifetime of the vehicle. Do the math another way and what you get is the implication that getting cars off the road now would provide the equivalent of a 200% reduction in annual output or more ( one time ).
What does that even mean though? All my TVs are driven by Roku or FireSticks. All I use is “the display”. What is missing as a TV that you would want these days? Are people somewhere still trying to receive channels?
This is obviously in Canada. Even if you are paying for cable, they are giving you a PVR or set-top box and the “TV” is just a monitor. I cannot think of a provider in Canada where you would need a tuner in your display.
If you can charge overnight, the convenience of EV is something you can never come back from.
Imagine getting up every morning, driving as far as you need all day, coming home, and getting up again the next day to do it again—without EVER hitting a gas station.
I work 50 km away. In my gas guzzler, I frequently push my luck on a low tank because I am running late—often because I rushed home without stopping the night before. Having to fill-up with gas gives me frequent range anxiety. It seems that I am always having to stop.
My wife has an EV. When I drive it, the most striking difference is the complete lack of having to worry about fuel. Going 250 km in a day is normal for us but day-to-day life never stresses the 400+ km range that the EV starts each day with.
The only time we have to think about charging is on trips longer than 500 km. Even then, it has never been a big deal. One time on Vancouver Island we almost had an issue and did have to stop for dinner longer than normal. The fact that this has only happened once in 3 years ( and only because we did not even bother to check if it would be a problem ) really dives home what a non-issue it is.
What is long haul?
We have done quite a few trips over 2000 km — often with young children. Stopping for 20 - 30 minutes every 3 - 4 hours to grab a bite and hit the bathroom does not seem much of a burden. We did one last summer that included three North American countries. We did not even think about it. We just pulled out of the driveway, drove, and stopped when it made sense. Great trip.
They were saying we should have taken advantage of the short-term opportunity.
The problem is that Natural Gas is not portable and the plants required to ship it overseas take time and investment to build.
So, the situation was not so “pants on head” obvious really. That said, I agree with them that we should have done it. I say that as somebody that would like the fossil fuel industry to go away.
Canada would probably be a major LNG provider to Europe at this point if we had done it. However, they are trying to transition away from it as well so the clock is ticking. And, of course, if the war ends, some will go back to buying from Russia. So it was only ever a short-term opportunity for Canada ( though longer than many believed at the time ).
Natural Gas is still a fossil fuel so your main argument is correct. However, it is a lot better than oil or coal. It makes sense to move to natural gas over coal to generate electricity and the world is doing that. It also would have made sense to move vehicles, especially larger trucks, to Natural Gas. Even if the end-goal is electric, NG would have been a great first step ( especially in paces where the electricity is coal or natural gas anyway ).
Yes and no. The article states that oil represents 120,000 jobs in Alberta. If we shut-down the industry today, would we lose that many jobs? No, far more.
What is the economy of Fort MacMurray without oil? There are probably 2 million jobs directly funded by the oil industry.
To be clear, I am not advocating for oil. I agree that we need to be moving the economy off it. Let’s not understate the problem though or we will do nothing.
Government waste is always something to be concerned. But is this really the best we can dig up to be outraged about?
Half the countries in the world have consulates in New York. For one thing, it is where the freaking United Nations is.
I am too lazy to look for a real list but this will do for a start:
So, it is not exactly an unexplainable mystery why we would want a consulate there.
$9 million for a country like Canada to have the same diplomatic heft as Nepal and St. Lucia is not exactly breaking the bank. That is not excessively extravagant or expensive real estate in Manhattan and it will certainly appreciate in value substantially over time.
Canada is going to spend $535 billion dollars this year! Let’s talk about how to reduce the $40 billion deficit. I don’t think ditching this condo is going to do it.
And the guy who has that job is not exactly unqualified. I certainly do not have his resume. I doubt he is in it for the free housing.
https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/us-eu/new_york-rep.aspx?lang=eng
And are we not reading the article or just ignoring it?
The article says that the purchase will save taxpayers $2 million as it is cheaper to relocate “to a new, smaller, more suitable, and more economical apartment” than it would be to renovate the existing residence.
“smaller” and “more economical apartment” do not sound like the kind of fat cat spending that the other comments here are promising.
I get that some of us cannot afford houses. Being mindlessly outraged about every article that mentions real estate is not going to solve that problem.
There is for sure real waste and corruption going on. Some of it actually matters. When I get mad about it, I would like to be taken seriously. So, I am not going to pile on to this nothing burger.
Wind seems like a great complement to existing hydro capacity. Wind is a clean and renewable energy source which can provide considerable amounts of power. The problem of course is what happens when the wind does not blow. It is also possible to generate more than you need sometimes even when you struggle to meet demand at other times. Wind is inconsistent. It is hard to map capacity to demand.
The environmental damage of hydro is putting it in place to begin with. Once the dams are built is is pretty clean. Hydro can provide consistent power at any time. The concern with hydro is that, as you use it, the reservoirs go down. If you use it continuously, the water levels can drop faster than they are being replenished eventually leading to a problem. So, the problem with hydro is that it offers only so much total power before more dams have to be built ( which creates significant environmental damage ). You cannot really have too much capacity with hydro as you just let the water flow if the reservoirs are full.
If you are generating lots of wind power, you need less hydro and the reservoirs fill up. They act like a battery. If the wind power drops, you can ramp up the hydro until the wind comes back.
Together, hydro and wind create an electrical power system with significant capacity, consistent availability, and the ability to service spikes in demand while remaining green and renewable. Add as much wind as you need to create overall capacity. Use the hydro to smoothly match power delivery with demand.
It is a good point. But given the importance of the decisions that get driven off these numbers, I think it is more important that they be meaningful.
In some ways, it makes it a more useful historical measure as well as you can have a greater confidence that the number reflects the pressure inflation was placing on people at the time.
We are not the US in 2008. At that point, half the market was new buyers that could only afford the ARM rates they were given ( maybe even interest only ). When home values became less than the mortgage, they just walked away. The system often allowed them to walk away without losing other assets.
In Canada, the majority of mortgage holders have mortgages far smaller than their home value. They are not going to causally walk away from these assets. Look what you are saying about lower prices being “good” for you. It does not sound like you are going to panic and sell your home in a down market. Mortgage holders also had to qualify at rates higher than they borrowed. Not as high as they are now but the new rates will not be so wildly beyond their means as happened in the US. Mortgages that are close to home value are likely insured.
Finally, rates are coming down. While higher rates will certainly apply downward pressure, the rate reductions help close the gap and also send a signal that rates will be lower in the near future ( not as low as they were ). We will probably see a lot of variable rates with expectations of sticking it out for a year or two while rates drop. If prices do come down, some people will value hunt, making bets that declining rates will drive prices up again in the future.
Once more, I think some downward pressure is likely. I do not expect anything even close to 2008.
They would go bankrupt.
No matter how anti-capitalism you are, I hope you can see how broken the argument being made here is. The absolute reality is that, without protections, things like pharmaceuticals would never exist at the scale that we enjoy them.
Of course examples of things that require years of research would exist. However, there would be far fewer of them than there is today.
Patents and copyrights have become corrupted. They need reform. We have to remember though that when they were created, it was to improve the world that existed ( the world that this commenter thinks would be better ).
Patents and copyrights were not invented because making companies richer was a goal. They were invented to better society. They were created with the recognition that, if we wanted companies to invest in innovation, and if we wanted individuals to commit to a long, intensive creative process, that they needed protection. The downside of capitalism at the time was that evil corporations and unscrupulous entrepreneurs could steal your hard work. Patents and copyrights were created to right that wrong and to promote a culture of creativity, invention, and innovation. And it worked wonderfully. We all benefit.
Now, things have of course been corrupted. The idea of “intellectual property” has emerged and we get nonsense like calling copyright violations “piracy”. The protections have been extended far. The penalties have become too great. The idea of public benefit has taken a backseat to profit protection. All this is bad. Throwing out the baby with the bath water is not the answer.
Well, “death tax” at least ( unless I understand what you mean ) is just a portion of the deceased estate. So, they can at least afford it.
I would actually be ok if a basic level of funeral expenses were covered by the state. Like health care, the idea that we, as a society, can take care of everybody to a minimum level appeals to me.
It does not have to be extravagant but people should not be afraid to collect loved ones because of the financial burden.
Thank you for replying. If I understand correctly, you are saying that principal appreciation ( unlike income ) is not taxable like income is.
There is some truth to that. Property sold for a profit is taxed as capital gains but at a lower level than income. On your primary residence, there is an exemption. And your point that you can essentially “spend” appreciation without selling by borrowing against the equity is a good point ( without attracting taxation ).
I am not sure I agree that this withholds tax revenue from the government though. After all, asset appreciation is kind of money from nothing. It does not represent money that came from somewhere without getting taxed. And, as above, this newly created money results in new tax revenue. Even borrowing creates new money in the economy, including consumption taxes.
What all this new money does is devalue money as well, which devalues cash savings but also devalues debt.
I will have to think about your perspective a little more. At the moment, your other points feel stronger.
There is no doubt at all though that “ownership” accelerates wealth inequality as assets tend to appreciate faster than wage growth.
Both ways. He should live it up for a couple of years. Make sure to use her line of credit and credit cards. His wife’s ex-husband will have to pay half when they finally divorce. Buy a car in her name, sell it, and use the proceeds to buy a car in your name. The possibilities are endless.
[I am not advocating this obviously. Mostly I am agreeing how super dangerous this is.]
Not sure what OS you are running but I have 3 different Macs between 2008 and 2012 that I use everyday ( iMac and MacBook ).
I run Linux and it amazes me how few things I cannot do on them. But I have also started to use remote desktops.
One of them sits in my living room and I started using remote desktops just so that I could continue tasks without having to go back to the office upstairs. It works brilliantly and the screen is gorgeous. I started doing it on the other machines as well and now I have one powerful machine running multiple containers and VMs that are mostly accessed from these old Macs.
I still browse the web, edit docs, watch video, listen to music, use the USB, and even teleconference locally. But big compiles, machine learning, video editing, distro experiments, and other stuff are all done on the remote desktops. A nice side benefit is that I do better environment isolation now with different desktops dedicated to deferent tasks. For example, I compile SerenityOS fairly often and even do some basic news site browsing in Ladybird. That has its own VM so I can kick it off on any of these old machines with no impact on the local CPU.
Is this a real comment?
The answer of course is that a single ICE vehicle contributes more pollution in a year than what you describe. So, selling more electric vehicles is great for the environment ( what happens when you lowers their prices ) even if you build them in China.
If an EV stays on the road for 20 years, it will be a net environmental win for 17 or 18 of them.
[Note: I do not really want to import cars from China but let’s not resort to lying to make that happen. ]
I think if Trump loses the election, it will hurt Pollievre as well.