i'm no free market advocate, but that's exactly it. ricardo was a socialist. tariffs are neither foundationally good or bad, what they are is hard, and what the americans are threatening to do is dumb. let them do it and let the ricardan models work themselves out. they will lose market share in the end.

the theory of free trade does not tell us to retaliate, it tells us to avoid retaliating. it's really economics 101. canada shouldn't get feisty and act like rocky, it should be smart and listen to the academics and avoid a fight.

...except in a small, very targeted manner, that is designed to make american businesses absorb the losses rather than canadian consumers.

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/to-respond-to-u-s-tariffs-canada-should-hit-trump-where-it-hurts/

ultimately, in the sense that there has to be some response, putting sanctions on american financial interests is a better way to respond than putting tariffs on canadian consumers.

so, he understands how tariffs work. good.

the next step is realizing that responding with socialism by using subsidies to save canadian jobs is a better approach than generating a recession by responding with competition by using retaliatory tariffs is. with a caveat.

there has to be some reaction. but if they're going to punch us in the face, we shouldn't just punch them back. we could, for example, try to blow up their house, instead.

if we react by collectivizing the losses via a covid-like subsidy system and then sue them through the wto for unfair trade practices, they could even end up paying for it in the end. we could then even flip the script by trying to undercut their steel and lumber businesses through increased government subsidies, which could drive american businesses to lose market share in the united states itself. we could increase subsidies to dairy farmers. we could bring back the wheat board.

who pays for the tariffs? americans pay for the tariffs! that should be the goal of canadian government policy - to make sure americans get the bill for this, in the end, and not us. the best way to do that is to use socialism to collectivize the losses by shifting it to debt, and to avoid being competitive in trying to find a way to spread it out. we can't compete. the sprott guy is right; that's a dumb idea.

retaliatory tariffs should be restricted to things that hurt american policy objectives, like defence and medical spending. sanctions on uranium exports, for example, would be the kind of thing that we should do, while we really shouldn't tax ourselves to import ketchup or orange juice. parts of canada have a major scurvy problem. import taxes on orange juice is in truth an incredibly stupid idea.

i would normally strongly oppose subsidizing the tar sands, but it's a better idea to let trump increase gas taxes and socialize the losses than it is to try to prevent canadian crude from getting to american refineries. americans won't accept increases in gas prices for very long. they didn't vote for that. they'll throw the bums out in two years, and that would be a good outcome for canada.

if trump wants to charge americans more and increase inflation for american consumers, we should just let him do it with a minimal response - except things that specifically hurt american policy objectives like sanctions on uranium - and wait for the midterms. we shouldn't get into a fist fight with somebody that is stronger than us.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video/2025/01/24/trudeau-explains-how-tariffs-on-imports-and-exports-work-and-who-pays-for-them/

i don't think elon musk even knows what a sieg heil even is. you can't assign that to him.

more interesting to me is that his body language, as usual, looks like that of a young child, like a little kid playing with his toy trucks. there's a certain stiffness in their shoulders you only see with young boys under the age of 10 and musk has it constantly. it's quite apparent when he speaks publicly.

i would diagnose him with a mental disability from a distance; perhaps not autism, exactly, but some level of delayed development, certainly. you can't miss it. he's blatantly retarded.

it speaks to the ability, or lack of ability, of the market system to effectively make choices based on merit. capitalism simply doesn't select the best or the brightest, it more frequently selects the most immoral or the most ruthless. sometimes, it outright selects retards that succeed because they don't understand what they're doing instead of because they do, or because they've done something better or at a higher level. an actual scientific analysis is that markets frequently generate random outcomes.

the irony is that this movement wants to eject any kind of social control mechanism and instead let the market pick winners and losers (which actually makes the market the socialist control mechanism. actually functioning markets are the absolute worst kind of vicious socialism.). well, who did the market pick? the answer is these guys. is that the government we want? the society we want? the culture we want? the world we want? really?

i might want to suggest something rather different than this as an outcome, and it would require a centralized control mechanism other than market competition making choices about what it perceives as "merit". these guys are just wrong. this outcome is shit.

hrmmmn.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declassification-of-records-concerning-the-assassinations-of-president-john-f-kenned/

deportation and migration concerns are not likely to be very important to me over the next four years, and i am unlikely to say much about this issue in this space at all, as i haven't in recent months and years.

it's not my issue; i have pressing economic issues to deal with.

how should enlightened people approach immigration in the next four years and activism around it, for better or worse?

i think it's important to realize that this is happening because the system - both in the united states and here in canada - requires some reform. you can't scapegoat migrant workers without the existence of economic uncertainty, and the cultural issues exposing themselves are entirely real. i'm currently fighting with neighbours that moved into my duplex and expect me to abide by islamic law because there are muslims in the house. that's not how we do things here, and isn't how we're going to start doing them, and i'm not about to start abiding by islamic law, but it will be if they get their way and people don't realize that the legal system of democratically enacted laws and common law (judge made law that can change, and is not fixed to the dark ages because god says so) needs to be supported and won't continue to exist if it isn't. if you don't support your culture, it won't exist anymore.

trump is kind of right in a sense; you need boundaries, or you don't have a country, don't have a culture and don't have a society. the question is how to do it fairly and reasonably. you don't need to mirror the islamic extremists to protect your culture; indeed, it's better if you don't. 

activists should insist that anything and everything coming from trump and the republicans utilizes due process. there are people that won't be able to stay. they need a fair process.

however, there are also currently very real economic and cultural concerns at play that the left needs to adjust and react to, rather than kneejerk or dig in on. i want a secular left to support, so i don't have to juggle the fact that i'm not in the same class as the right-wing political base and there are economic ramifications of that with the reality that that very truth demonstrates economic value in specific right-wing xenophobic positions. i don't want to be forced to balance that. i want a more realist left, like currently exists in quebec.

don't be surprised if the actual way the americans keep oil prices down is to increase saudi imports at the expense of canadian ones.

in fact, that might even be the actual point - to slap a tariff on gay ass canada so trump can help his friends in the saudi monarchy recapture the american market.

the canadian oil industry - and this has been parroted by our government - has for many years argued that the americans are better off buying oil from us than, say, saudi arabia. who would argue that?

i watched part of the davos speech by accident tonight; it came up on autoplay after i rebooted on a computer that i don't log into.

canada is going to have to take a step back from it's previous argument, at least for the next four years, because it is abundantly  clear, and doubled down by his statements at davos, that donald trump thinks that canada is a morally inferior culture to saudi arabia, and the saudis are the more ethical choice. donald trump does not like trudeau, but he's very good friend with the saudi royals.

some substantive non-zero subset of the very conservative united states agrees with him.

she's come off as incredibly bored before, like they have to pump her full of fentanyl in exchange for having her do this shit job, or like she was out all night partying and slept walked into work.

this is something like what i was trying to say and like what danielle smith is also trying to say. it might be good politics to want to go toe-to-toe with the yankees, and just react by eating more spinach, but it's not a very smart approach.

carney has been annoyingly quiet. he should be a better source of answers right now.

we might have to do this but we should do everything possible to avoid it and we don't want to be excited about it.

google actually couldn't find me a picture of gretzky in a covid mask, so maybe all of the bitching actually got to him, subconsciously. you'd think somebody snapped something somewhere, right? apparently not. i found one of his daughter, but that doesn't count.

i wish i could find one, because i would then have to ask trump to go off on gretzky for wearing a surgical mask in public. it would be required.

actually, i think she's on to something with the comment about donald trump complaining about whiners; is donald trump really just america's don cherry? we understand don cherry, right? trump can't be that hard. he just needs to blow off elon musk and get a ron maclean, clearly.

and tell gretzky to get rid of the fucking face mask. it's european or muslim or something.