it's 35% in the united states. that ought to be the bare minimum level being discussed.
there is no competitive advantage in offering lower corporate tax rates than the united states, so where they stick theirs ought to be considered our minimum floor.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-ndp-fiscal-plan-1.3230097
j54445
It is 38% in Canada....
Jessica Murray
yeah, but there's all kinds of rebates and stuff on top of it; the functional rate is currently at 15%, which is just...it's stupid, really. there's not another way to describe it. in return for giving them back more than half of their taxes, harper has shifted billions of dollars of what should have been tax revenue into interest-bearing debt for the banks.
if there was any logic in this in the first place, it has been thoroughly debunked. it's a policy that has to be viewed, at this point, as sheer folly. just utter idiocy.
Don't complain
........ You can't compare U.S. with Canadian. Unemployment is far higher in the U.S., minimum wages are far lower and they basically don't want investment in American industry. They have no where to grow, we have extensive room to grow and prosper.
Jessica Murray
that's not the point. the government should be attempting to extract as much tax from industry as possible, by the mandate of the people that demand wealth redistribution. the only relevant downward force is the threat of relocation. and the only economic place to relocate is the united states. so long as it is not higher drastically here than there, there is no reason to relocate. it follows that the policy of the government of canada should be to raise corporate taxes to just higher than that in the united states.
shaftturner
why do people always forget about provincial corporate income tax?
again.....pull your head out of your a.. and learn about provincial corporate income tax before yourant and sound silly.
Jessica Murray
because there are not state taxes in the united states? you have to compare apples to apples. it's not the responsibility of the federal government to concern itself with provincial tax policy.
j54445
Utter idiocy? Just like I am reading from you. Did you not see that tax revenues continue to increase while Harper cuts our tax rates? Is that utter idiocy? The US does not pay an average of 35% as a corporate tax rate because there are abatements and reductions for that as well. Also, I would not try and imitate the Obama administration on economic policy considering their deficit is over half a trillion dollars.
Jessica Murray
tax rates have no effect on the economy. this is the basis of the policy being idiotic. politicians will say that they want to keep tax rates low on the belief it has something to do with jobs. that is empirically false. it has been proven without any question of a doubt that tax rates have no effect on jobs. to continue to hold to this kind of religious thinking is absolute delusion, utter folly - and total idiocy.
all of the parties are delusional on this point, even the greens.
shaftturner
are you even old enough to vote?
Jessica Murray
that picture is about three years old now, but, even so, i'm much older than i look. i actual identify as gen x - which puts me two generations older than the youth vote. it's trudeau's generation.
i'm actually presenting the educated view on the topic. what's depressing is how far it deviates from the conservative media narrative.
seeitmyway
you are wrong, the 155 rate is the small business rate, you need to search the combined rates for Canada, typically in the 30% range.
Jessica Murray
i'm not interested in the combined rates or the small business rate. the corporate tax rate in canada is set to 38%, but decades of rebates have reduced it to 15%. that is all rebates.
what the article should say is that the ndp is promising to reduce corporate welfare by a piddling amount. they're not raising taxes. they're reversing rebates.
38% is about right. if it were my platform, i'd throw every single giveaway and handout in the trash.
seeitmyway
As someone who owns a corp that pays it you are wrong. Period.
you are obviously young and so great at Goggling LOL. rather than believe me or anyone else on here, do some investigation for yourself.
Read and understand how corporate taxes are paid and then the dividend distributed to the investor/owner. see what taxes are then paid on the dividend. Learn what companies do with their retained earnings. I hope you will see that Corporations are not the bad guy, gov't waste is the real bad guy here and no amount of additional spending will fix that. What is needed is a real focus on eliminating waste, that will upset a lot of people especially the very powerful public unions. A simple example of waste is in your neighbourhood, I bet you have both a school library and a public one, Why?
Jessica Murray
i'm in my mid 30s. i was 32 in that picture. that's not young - unless you're very old. and, i've always identified with older people. i would consider myself mentally middle-aged, and expect my voting patterns to align with people in their mid 40s and early 50s. at a dinner party, i would tend to ignore people my own age, be very rude to people younger than me and gravitate towards the oldest people in the room, in hopes of learning something from them.
i'm not interested in what you're saying. but, i think it's clear that you're working for somebody. and you have to understand that i am neither young, nor representative of young people. i hate young people. and they hate me.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
that's how it's always been. the court party and the country party.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/how-did-your-manitoba-neighbours-vote-in-the-last-federal-election-1.3228094
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/how-did-your-manitoba-neighbours-vote-in-the-last-federal-election-1.3228094
a couple of years ago, i moved out of ottawa to windsor. i'm frankly shocked at the bus service in detroit. on the one hand, it's cheap. but huge amounts of the city have no discernible coverage and most routes end at 10 pm. if i want to hit a concert in detroit, and it's not within walking distance of the tunnel, i'm usually stuck waiting for service to start up again in the morning.
we all likely to complain about things, because things are never perfect. but, don't take your transportation system for granted, ottawa. it's won awards for a reason.
but, isn't it obvious that the deficit is due to construction costs on the tunnel downtown? building stuff costs money. you wait this out.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc-transpo-projects-11-5m-deficit-for-2015-1.3227114
we all likely to complain about things, because things are never perfect. but, don't take your transportation system for granted, ottawa. it's won awards for a reason.
but, isn't it obvious that the deficit is due to construction costs on the tunnel downtown? building stuff costs money. you wait this out.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc-transpo-projects-11-5m-deficit-for-2015-1.3227114
i think this is a kind of a misunderstood dynamic that i've been trying to draw attention to a little bit. thanks for the article.
i don't know how competitive the conservatives are going to be much of anywhere in quebec (and the few seats they manage to win will likely be very close), but the liberals are clearly up over the 2011 election in every single poll - often by more than twice and sometimes pushing three times where they were. and, a couple of polls seems to indicate that it's mostly coming from the ndp. this is being masked by the fact that the bloc are running at half what they were, on the back of further bleeding from the ndp. and, it's about the only thing that makes sense. i mean, the naive, literal view of the polling is that the liberals have picked up 10-15 points from the bloc, but that doesn't make sense; more likely is that the ndp have picked up that 10-15 points, and the liberals have picked up 10-15 points from the ndp. and these would be traditionally liberal voters in the first place.
whatever the factors that drove bloc voters to the ndp in the last election, there were also clearly factors that drove liberal voters to the ndp, as well. not only have these maybe receded, but there's a new dynamic at play. in 2011, the ndp were clearly a federalist party. that's not as clear anymore. i suppose, in theory, a liberal voting for the ndp could have sat down and carefully analyzed the candidates over the whole province and come to the obvious conclusion, but who would have really done that? today, it's a lot more obvious.
that puts a lot more ridings in play than the models are suggesting. in races that have been between the bloc and the liberals over the last several elections, that actually puts the ndp at a disadvantage because now they're actually splitting the vote.
consider a riding that was 40% bloc, 35% liberal, 20% conservative and 5% ndp in 2008. you have to remember that the ndp came out of nowhere in a lot of places. that could end up 35% ndp, 35% liberal, 20% conservative, 10% bloc. rough numbers out of my posterior, but you get the point.
of course, the ndp are still eating a little into the liberal vote, too.
but, that puts almost all of montreal in play, and all of the west in play, too.
i think what we're going to see at the conclusion of this election is that the ndp is the dominant party in *rural* quebec, and a lot of unpredictable splits in the urban areas.
this also depends on the polling you believe, too. the liberals need to be running at at least 20%, and pushing closer to 25%, for what i'm saying to make sense. some of the polls have them at 17 or 18, and if that pans out then i'm wrong. but, if they are really running in the mid to high 20s then the high ndp numbers province wide are likely very much an illusion.
(that is, an illusion as to potential seat counts. it would likely suggest they're going to win a lot of rural areas in landslides, and lose a lot of close races in the cities)
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/conservatives-and-liberals-hope-to-beat-orange-wave-in-west-quebec-1.3227976
i don't know how competitive the conservatives are going to be much of anywhere in quebec (and the few seats they manage to win will likely be very close), but the liberals are clearly up over the 2011 election in every single poll - often by more than twice and sometimes pushing three times where they were. and, a couple of polls seems to indicate that it's mostly coming from the ndp. this is being masked by the fact that the bloc are running at half what they were, on the back of further bleeding from the ndp. and, it's about the only thing that makes sense. i mean, the naive, literal view of the polling is that the liberals have picked up 10-15 points from the bloc, but that doesn't make sense; more likely is that the ndp have picked up that 10-15 points, and the liberals have picked up 10-15 points from the ndp. and these would be traditionally liberal voters in the first place.
whatever the factors that drove bloc voters to the ndp in the last election, there were also clearly factors that drove liberal voters to the ndp, as well. not only have these maybe receded, but there's a new dynamic at play. in 2011, the ndp were clearly a federalist party. that's not as clear anymore. i suppose, in theory, a liberal voting for the ndp could have sat down and carefully analyzed the candidates over the whole province and come to the obvious conclusion, but who would have really done that? today, it's a lot more obvious.
that puts a lot more ridings in play than the models are suggesting. in races that have been between the bloc and the liberals over the last several elections, that actually puts the ndp at a disadvantage because now they're actually splitting the vote.
consider a riding that was 40% bloc, 35% liberal, 20% conservative and 5% ndp in 2008. you have to remember that the ndp came out of nowhere in a lot of places. that could end up 35% ndp, 35% liberal, 20% conservative, 10% bloc. rough numbers out of my posterior, but you get the point.
of course, the ndp are still eating a little into the liberal vote, too.
but, that puts almost all of montreal in play, and all of the west in play, too.
i think what we're going to see at the conclusion of this election is that the ndp is the dominant party in *rural* quebec, and a lot of unpredictable splits in the urban areas.
this also depends on the polling you believe, too. the liberals need to be running at at least 20%, and pushing closer to 25%, for what i'm saying to make sense. some of the polls have them at 17 or 18, and if that pans out then i'm wrong. but, if they are really running in the mid to high 20s then the high ndp numbers province wide are likely very much an illusion.
(that is, an illusion as to potential seat counts. it would likely suggest they're going to win a lot of rural areas in landslides, and lose a lot of close races in the cities)
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/conservatives-and-liberals-hope-to-beat-orange-wave-in-west-quebec-1.3227976
ok, so it's the transmission lines that they're privatizing, not the generation or the board. i'm not convinced that will change rates. i'm more concerned about the logistics of operating the thing.
let's say a tree falls on a line on your property. if it's government owned, the government fixes it with taxes. if it's privately owned, does the company fix it? do they send you a bill?
this just isn't the kind of thing that really makes a lot of sense to separate from public ownership, because it's so massively collectivist by nature. but, wait - does it need to be? see, there's a caveat, here. is it even a smart buy for investors?
if we're moving into a future where people are powering their homes with solar panels, and there's a private entity in charge of the grid, what are the chances that people are going to connect to that grid? might it even act as an incentive for people to move more quickly towards energy self-reliance? and, if you starve the system of funds, will it be able to deliver electricity to those who can't afford to make the switch at prices they can afford?
there's deeper issues here than rates.
this has been a relatively progressive government from the start, but this is really not thought through well. in the end, it's going to cost them huge sums in lost revenue and could quite possibly even break the grid itself. i don't see any way around it: if they sell this, we're going to have to eventually buy it back. and, no doubt at a huge loss.
i mean, imagine selling the entire road system as a monopoly on the stock market. it's insane.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/wynne-firm-on-hydro-one-plans-despite-strong-public-opposition/article26363290/
let's say a tree falls on a line on your property. if it's government owned, the government fixes it with taxes. if it's privately owned, does the company fix it? do they send you a bill?
this just isn't the kind of thing that really makes a lot of sense to separate from public ownership, because it's so massively collectivist by nature. but, wait - does it need to be? see, there's a caveat, here. is it even a smart buy for investors?
if we're moving into a future where people are powering their homes with solar panels, and there's a private entity in charge of the grid, what are the chances that people are going to connect to that grid? might it even act as an incentive for people to move more quickly towards energy self-reliance? and, if you starve the system of funds, will it be able to deliver electricity to those who can't afford to make the switch at prices they can afford?
there's deeper issues here than rates.
this has been a relatively progressive government from the start, but this is really not thought through well. in the end, it's going to cost them huge sums in lost revenue and could quite possibly even break the grid itself. i don't see any way around it: if they sell this, we're going to have to eventually buy it back. and, no doubt at a huge loss.
i mean, imagine selling the entire road system as a monopoly on the stock market. it's insane.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/wynne-firm-on-hydro-one-plans-despite-strong-public-opposition/article26363290/
Monday, September 14, 2015
more media party tory nonsense.
stanford is right. most canadians know it. and nobody cares about the deficit.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-federal-surplus-stephen-harper-tom-mulcair-1.3227724
stanford is right. most canadians know it. and nobody cares about the deficit.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-federal-surplus-stephen-harper-tom-mulcair-1.3227724
if we have a surplus, it means we're not spending enough.
no. seriously. he's failed to properly allocate state expenditures. i demand that this money be spent, or be mailed out in the form of dividends.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/fiscal-year-ottawa-surplus-1.3226969
MyView
You should be running for the NDP... You'd fit right into that group.
Jessica Murray
the ndp will be quick to point out that they are the most fiscally conservative of the major parties. which is the major reason i don't vote for them.
SASCZ2
Portion of every surplus should go to pay off national debt. You know what I am talking about, right? The National Debt.
Jessica Murray
yeah, that's a great idea. and, why don't we just create a banker's sales tax while we're at it? you'll see it on the receipt...
PST
GST
BST
victorbasil
Look around and see how your fellow Canadians have suffered to balance the budget. If we have a budget it's meant a great deal of negative consequences.
Jessica Murray
well, i see people suffer to touch their nose to their tongue, too - it doesn't mean much to me. i don't want to laugh too hard at them, though. it's a failure in prerogatives.
i mean, if you're going out of your way to choose to suffer to balance the federal budget, you're really a special kind of stupid. it's a meaningless accounting abstraction. but, i guess it strengthens the point that balanced budgets are an ideology, right? i'm not even sure exactly what that means. voluntary donations to the bank? we haven't really implemented austerity in canada, and if we were going to it would be at the provincial level.
the reality is that we had a deficit in the first place because the government cut taxes too much. the only thing that's really changed over the last ten years is that the economy has caught up. harper has really just grown himself out of deficit, regardless of what he says. but there wouldn't have been a deficit in the first place if it weren't for his fiscal incompetency in his decision to slash taxes.
i have a hard time with this, because the entire discussion is in the realm of fantasy. y'all are horribly brainwashed.
no. seriously. he's failed to properly allocate state expenditures. i demand that this money be spent, or be mailed out in the form of dividends.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/fiscal-year-ottawa-surplus-1.3226969
MyView
You should be running for the NDP... You'd fit right into that group.
Jessica Murray
the ndp will be quick to point out that they are the most fiscally conservative of the major parties. which is the major reason i don't vote for them.
SASCZ2
Portion of every surplus should go to pay off national debt. You know what I am talking about, right? The National Debt.
Jessica Murray
yeah, that's a great idea. and, why don't we just create a banker's sales tax while we're at it? you'll see it on the receipt...
PST
GST
BST
victorbasil
Look around and see how your fellow Canadians have suffered to balance the budget. If we have a budget it's meant a great deal of negative consequences.
Jessica Murray
well, i see people suffer to touch their nose to their tongue, too - it doesn't mean much to me. i don't want to laugh too hard at them, though. it's a failure in prerogatives.
i mean, if you're going out of your way to choose to suffer to balance the federal budget, you're really a special kind of stupid. it's a meaningless accounting abstraction. but, i guess it strengthens the point that balanced budgets are an ideology, right? i'm not even sure exactly what that means. voluntary donations to the bank? we haven't really implemented austerity in canada, and if we were going to it would be at the provincial level.
the reality is that we had a deficit in the first place because the government cut taxes too much. the only thing that's really changed over the last ten years is that the economy has caught up. harper has really just grown himself out of deficit, regardless of what he says. but there wouldn't have been a deficit in the first place if it weren't for his fiscal incompetency in his decision to slash taxes.
i have a hard time with this, because the entire discussion is in the realm of fantasy. y'all are horribly brainwashed.
it's not a problem because the system has been designed this way. it's the new feudalism.
but, it's not hard to see, james, that that gap between housing and incomes needs a correction. that downward movement will ultimately be a redistribution of wealth from older people to younger people; far from being catastrophic, this is really long overdue.
and very necessary.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-skyrocketing-household-debt-1.3226359
but, it's not hard to see, james, that that gap between housing and incomes needs a correction. that downward movement will ultimately be a redistribution of wealth from older people to younger people; far from being catastrophic, this is really long overdue.
and very necessary.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-skyrocketing-household-debt-1.3226359
it's not the number that's important, it's the context. if you've read the ruling, it's...it's really not a good ruling, at all. it's an excellent exercise in critical legal study. but, it does bring up two extremely valid points:
1) setting an absolute number is perilous, as it ignores turnout.
2) a clear majority must exist throughout the entire province.
it doesn't word it exactly like that, but that's what it's getting across.
so, you could consider a situation where they get 51% on 70% turnout. is that a clear majority? i think it's a clear minority, actually - it's only 36%. and, one would actually expect mulcair to be sensitive to that argument, given that it's the same as his argument for electoral reform.
you could also consider a situation where the vote is split in half across the province. suppose support for separation is 80% in the east and north, but 30% in the west and south, and it balances out to 50 + 1. are you going to force montreal and ottawa and the aboriginal areas up north to separate with the east, when they clearly don't want to?
you can legislate the first part fairly easily - you need 50% of eligible voters, not 50% of cast votes. easy enough.
the second part is a headache, because it opens up a discussion on the divisibility of quebec. but, you can't make the changes mulcair want to make, otherwise. it's an absurd abrogation of responsibility to tell the west and south that they're at the whim of the east, whether they like it or not.
THAT is what the language of the clarity act was written to avoid - this discussion of partitioning quebec.
and, based on the discussion, i'm left with the conclusion that basically nobody understands this- not trudeau, not mulcair and not the pundits.
that's the article the media needs to write.
i know that the so-called conventional wisdom is that sovereignty took a hit in quebec starting around 2010 and this is a lot of talk about nothing. i think that's misreading the situation.
what i think is that the racist charter being pushed by the pq to try and hold adq support experienced a large backlash. quebeckers may not have seen eye to eye with the elder trudeau, but they prefer his charter.
it's still laying dormant. it's more of a left-right split in the sovereigntist camp that's got things in disarray. should that resolve itself, the issue will come up again.
and, i think the feds should be pre-emptive about it.
one option is to think about spinning the north of the province off to local indigenous sovereignty. my understanding is that some ground work for this has already been set; such a theoretical province or territory would be called nunavik.
another is to get out in front in splitting the rest of quebec in half, along the known fraction point. plebiscites could be held to determine whether the people want to form a new province or not.
i'm not suggesting that this start right away. it does seem like they're in disarray, and hopefully it sticks. but, if it comes up again, i'd like to see the feds get aggressive in redefining the question and changing the narrative. let's get a referendum on the division of quebec BEFORE a referendum on sovereignty can happen.
obgii
Jessica, as always, enjoy your posts. Substance and analysis. I would still contend that to demonstrate clear intention and eliminate the vagaries of chance for such an important issue, not one that is reversible in the next election cycle, that 50%+1 is not adequate. A value of 65% in which twice as many vote for a position versus against does show clear intent, and will dispense with circumstances of chance like a missed spoiled ballot or the person who had a family/medical emergency and could cast the alternate vote that would have made the difference at a single instance in time. True intent should be just a valid next week as it is today, independent of chance. Also, the argument that "the other guy did it", as in the Scotland referendum, is specious and irrelevant. This is Canada's rules, not somebody else's. Do they also accept that argument in other political contexts? I'd say not.
Jessica Murray
oh, i'm sorry if i misconstrued myself - i'm not in favour of putting a number down. i'm just irritated that the subtleties of the supreme court decision and subsequent legislation are being completely misunderstood by virtually everybody. i was more making a hand-tying argument: that if a number needs to be placed in the legislation, it ought to be determined relative to eligible voters rather than actual voters. in raw numbers, that would place the threshold in the 1995 election at 54% and the threshold in the 1980 election at 59%. but, the argument serves to demonstrate the point that an absolute number is a foolish way to approach the issue, rather than to seriously suggest it should be legislated.
as mentioned, what the clarity act is actually about is not what the minimum threshold is or ought to be but what the circumstances for partition are. and, i consequently feel that it is imperative that any replacement legislation that hard codes a number has a partition plan in place to deal with the inevitable necessity of partitioning the province. but, this is also a hand-tying argument: i couldn't for a moment conceive of how anybody would think it politically viable to do such a thing, nor do i think it would be good governance.
if that is still ambiguous, i'll state clearly that i am not in favour of modifying the clarity act. at all.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-chrétien-campaign-hamilton-1.3226216
1) setting an absolute number is perilous, as it ignores turnout.
2) a clear majority must exist throughout the entire province.
it doesn't word it exactly like that, but that's what it's getting across.
so, you could consider a situation where they get 51% on 70% turnout. is that a clear majority? i think it's a clear minority, actually - it's only 36%. and, one would actually expect mulcair to be sensitive to that argument, given that it's the same as his argument for electoral reform.
you could also consider a situation where the vote is split in half across the province. suppose support for separation is 80% in the east and north, but 30% in the west and south, and it balances out to 50 + 1. are you going to force montreal and ottawa and the aboriginal areas up north to separate with the east, when they clearly don't want to?
you can legislate the first part fairly easily - you need 50% of eligible voters, not 50% of cast votes. easy enough.
the second part is a headache, because it opens up a discussion on the divisibility of quebec. but, you can't make the changes mulcair want to make, otherwise. it's an absurd abrogation of responsibility to tell the west and south that they're at the whim of the east, whether they like it or not.
THAT is what the language of the clarity act was written to avoid - this discussion of partitioning quebec.
and, based on the discussion, i'm left with the conclusion that basically nobody understands this- not trudeau, not mulcair and not the pundits.
that's the article the media needs to write.
i know that the so-called conventional wisdom is that sovereignty took a hit in quebec starting around 2010 and this is a lot of talk about nothing. i think that's misreading the situation.
what i think is that the racist charter being pushed by the pq to try and hold adq support experienced a large backlash. quebeckers may not have seen eye to eye with the elder trudeau, but they prefer his charter.
it's still laying dormant. it's more of a left-right split in the sovereigntist camp that's got things in disarray. should that resolve itself, the issue will come up again.
and, i think the feds should be pre-emptive about it.
one option is to think about spinning the north of the province off to local indigenous sovereignty. my understanding is that some ground work for this has already been set; such a theoretical province or territory would be called nunavik.
another is to get out in front in splitting the rest of quebec in half, along the known fraction point. plebiscites could be held to determine whether the people want to form a new province or not.
i'm not suggesting that this start right away. it does seem like they're in disarray, and hopefully it sticks. but, if it comes up again, i'd like to see the feds get aggressive in redefining the question and changing the narrative. let's get a referendum on the division of quebec BEFORE a referendum on sovereignty can happen.
obgii
Jessica, as always, enjoy your posts. Substance and analysis. I would still contend that to demonstrate clear intention and eliminate the vagaries of chance for such an important issue, not one that is reversible in the next election cycle, that 50%+1 is not adequate. A value of 65% in which twice as many vote for a position versus against does show clear intent, and will dispense with circumstances of chance like a missed spoiled ballot or the person who had a family/medical emergency and could cast the alternate vote that would have made the difference at a single instance in time. True intent should be just a valid next week as it is today, independent of chance. Also, the argument that "the other guy did it", as in the Scotland referendum, is specious and irrelevant. This is Canada's rules, not somebody else's. Do they also accept that argument in other political contexts? I'd say not.
Jessica Murray
oh, i'm sorry if i misconstrued myself - i'm not in favour of putting a number down. i'm just irritated that the subtleties of the supreme court decision and subsequent legislation are being completely misunderstood by virtually everybody. i was more making a hand-tying argument: that if a number needs to be placed in the legislation, it ought to be determined relative to eligible voters rather than actual voters. in raw numbers, that would place the threshold in the 1995 election at 54% and the threshold in the 1980 election at 59%. but, the argument serves to demonstrate the point that an absolute number is a foolish way to approach the issue, rather than to seriously suggest it should be legislated.
as mentioned, what the clarity act is actually about is not what the minimum threshold is or ought to be but what the circumstances for partition are. and, i consequently feel that it is imperative that any replacement legislation that hard codes a number has a partition plan in place to deal with the inevitable necessity of partitioning the province. but, this is also a hand-tying argument: i couldn't for a moment conceive of how anybody would think it politically viable to do such a thing, nor do i think it would be good governance.
if that is still ambiguous, i'll state clearly that i am not in favour of modifying the clarity act. at all.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-chrétien-campaign-hamilton-1.3226216
i think i've sorely missed chretien's style of outraged indignation. the fiery, populist rhetoric. just don't ask him to prove what he's saying.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-chrétien-campaign-hamilton-1.3226216
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-chrétien-campaign-hamilton-1.3226216
so, if you have a 55% vote for separation and 73% turnout, is that a clear majority?
if you get 60% - but only 40% in montreal and 30% in ottawa - is that a clear majority?
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/13/trudeau-enlists-chretiens-support-to-attack-mulcair-on-unity-question/
if you get 60% - but only 40% in montreal and 30% in ottawa - is that a clear majority?
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/13/trudeau-enlists-chretiens-support-to-attack-mulcair-on-unity-question/
34:33 "did she just say honester?"
why aren't there any memes of dawkins, anyways? internet, you failed on that one.
the question at the start may come off as probing and deep or whatever, but it's actually rather circular because you would have had to have been told there was meaning in the first place to think that there is. you wouldn't just intuitively conclude that a god exists and there's a meaning to life and all the rest of the nonsense. i'd rather take a position of being critical of putting lies into children's brains than being skeptical about the perceptive effects of rationality.
and, speaking from experience, i was raised as an atheist. i was never told that a god exists. i was never told i'm a part of some plan. and, i consequently never experienced the shattering moment being eluded to.
i was told santa claus exists. it didn't take me long to figure out he didn't. but, that was a lot harder to deal with.
and, speaking from experience, i was raised as an atheist. i was never told that a god exists. i was never told i'm a part of some plan. and, i consequently never experienced the shattering moment being eluded to.
i was told santa claus exists. it didn't take me long to figure out he didn't. but, that was a lot harder to deal with.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
i'm agnostic on 9/11 so i'm just going to skip over it.
but, what you have to realize is that the russian-american proxy conflicts that are starting to get very hot are not an externality to the conflicts. this is a russian containment strategy, as was laid out in the pnac. it was this idea that america had to strike hard while russia was weak, because the collapse of the soviets was not an end of anything but merely a pause in a broad struggle. and, if you understand it properly, that struggle didn't begin in 1917 or 1945, either - it was a consequence of the napoleonic wars, which split europe into spheres of interest that were dominated by england and russia. there's a consistent strain of thought that the reason us industry funded hitler so generously is that it was hoping they would invade russia. if you look at the issue in ukraine closely, it's essentially an updated and modernized version of the same tactic.
the countries that they've been taking out are all old russian proxies. it's a process of plucking these areas out of the russian sphere and integrating them into the anglo-american sphere.
what has changed since libya is that the russians have made a decision to stop being naive. and, that is what the russians were: naive. they were convinced that whomever replaced bush would be more moderate, and that it was just a process of waiting the neo-cons out. but, they've realized that this was an error and have adjusted.
it's not a new war. and, if it's world war three, then world war three started a long time ago. it's the same war that's been raging for decades, and in fact centuries. and, it will neither end nor recede at any time in the near future.
history may not blame america. it may argue that any other state would have done the same thing under the same calculation that russia would not remain weak forever. however, it will certainly point to a missed opportunity by the clinton administration to push peace and co-operation rather than imperial dominance and self-interest.
but, what you have to realize is that the russian-american proxy conflicts that are starting to get very hot are not an externality to the conflicts. this is a russian containment strategy, as was laid out in the pnac. it was this idea that america had to strike hard while russia was weak, because the collapse of the soviets was not an end of anything but merely a pause in a broad struggle. and, if you understand it properly, that struggle didn't begin in 1917 or 1945, either - it was a consequence of the napoleonic wars, which split europe into spheres of interest that were dominated by england and russia. there's a consistent strain of thought that the reason us industry funded hitler so generously is that it was hoping they would invade russia. if you look at the issue in ukraine closely, it's essentially an updated and modernized version of the same tactic.
the countries that they've been taking out are all old russian proxies. it's a process of plucking these areas out of the russian sphere and integrating them into the anglo-american sphere.
what has changed since libya is that the russians have made a decision to stop being naive. and, that is what the russians were: naive. they were convinced that whomever replaced bush would be more moderate, and that it was just a process of waiting the neo-cons out. but, they've realized that this was an error and have adjusted.
it's not a new war. and, if it's world war three, then world war three started a long time ago. it's the same war that's been raging for decades, and in fact centuries. and, it will neither end nor recede at any time in the near future.
history may not blame america. it may argue that any other state would have done the same thing under the same calculation that russia would not remain weak forever. however, it will certainly point to a missed opportunity by the clinton administration to push peace and co-operation rather than imperial dominance and self-interest.
if i were roman, i'd never forget this. it would play over in my head over and over. and, while the relationship may last a little longer, it would end at this moment.
i wouldn't be able to get over the plausibility (and i think, really, the likelihood) that the "prank" is a way to cover-up for the fact that she had to take a shower. see, otherwise, he's going to get home and wonder why she just took a shower while buddy was there.
as an aside, i don't like this fousey guy. at all.
i would quietly check the laundry for evidence. and, if the laundry is running before i got there, i would interpret it as incriminating.
you'll notice at the beginning her hair was dry, and then it's edited, and then it's wet, and she looks conflicted.
i'm not passing judgement. i'm just saying, that if i was roman? i couldn't deal with this. it's not something you play with.
it's partially the public nature of it. if you consider the possibility (and, again, i think the likelihood) that it's actually a cover up to hide the fact that a shower was necessary before roman came home, think about what posting it on a popular youtube channel - in this way - does to the guy.
i mean, it seems as though she did take a shower.
Nick Bean
+deathtokoalas You're thinking way to much into this. yeah it looks bad. but Roman is a good sport and knows this would never happen.
deathtokoalas
i don't know if you've been in a situation where you've had a partner that has not just cheated on you but lied about it, but, if you have, it's not something you get over quickly. it sticks with you. and, it affects your ability to trust people. a prank like this isn't harmless.
Nick Bean
+deathtokoalas I have, and I know what it feels like. Roman has been cheated on by his ex wife, so he already knows how that feels. Of course a lot of raging emotions came through. You could see the anger. But once you found out it was just a prank he was relieved.
deathtokoalas
+Nick Bean what i'm saying is that even if it is a prank, it's hard to know it is, for sure. and, that uncertainty is something that can never really be dealt with. it's this toxic thing that just balloons, until it explodes and takes the whole thing down with it.
Nick Bean
It's obvious you've been cheated on before. But not everyone is like that. A harmless prank is all this was.
deathtokoalas
+Nick Bean well, we'll see. i don't know...anything...about these people. but, don't be surprised if this festers and lingers and is ultimately toxic. based on what i've seen in this video, if i was in his shoes, i would have a hard time suppressing the thought that i was being played in just about the most disgusting way possible, and would be both searching everywhere for evidence (evidence to prove it wrong, mind you - i'd be trying to prove it didn't happen) and have a heightened level of caution about things i maybe hadn't thought of before.
i wouldn't be able to get over the plausibility (and i think, really, the likelihood) that the "prank" is a way to cover-up for the fact that she had to take a shower. see, otherwise, he's going to get home and wonder why she just took a shower while buddy was there.
as an aside, i don't like this fousey guy. at all.
i would quietly check the laundry for evidence. and, if the laundry is running before i got there, i would interpret it as incriminating.
you'll notice at the beginning her hair was dry, and then it's edited, and then it's wet, and she looks conflicted.
i'm not passing judgement. i'm just saying, that if i was roman? i couldn't deal with this. it's not something you play with.
it's partially the public nature of it. if you consider the possibility (and, again, i think the likelihood) that it's actually a cover up to hide the fact that a shower was necessary before roman came home, think about what posting it on a popular youtube channel - in this way - does to the guy.
i mean, it seems as though she did take a shower.
Nick Bean
+deathtokoalas You're thinking way to much into this. yeah it looks bad. but Roman is a good sport and knows this would never happen.
deathtokoalas
i don't know if you've been in a situation where you've had a partner that has not just cheated on you but lied about it, but, if you have, it's not something you get over quickly. it sticks with you. and, it affects your ability to trust people. a prank like this isn't harmless.
Nick Bean
+deathtokoalas I have, and I know what it feels like. Roman has been cheated on by his ex wife, so he already knows how that feels. Of course a lot of raging emotions came through. You could see the anger. But once you found out it was just a prank he was relieved.
deathtokoalas
+Nick Bean what i'm saying is that even if it is a prank, it's hard to know it is, for sure. and, that uncertainty is something that can never really be dealt with. it's this toxic thing that just balloons, until it explodes and takes the whole thing down with it.
Nick Bean
It's obvious you've been cheated on before. But not everyone is like that. A harmless prank is all this was.
deathtokoalas
+Nick Bean well, we'll see. i don't know...anything...about these people. but, don't be surprised if this festers and lingers and is ultimately toxic. based on what i've seen in this video, if i was in his shoes, i would have a hard time suppressing the thought that i was being played in just about the most disgusting way possible, and would be both searching everywhere for evidence (evidence to prove it wrong, mind you - i'd be trying to prove it didn't happen) and have a heightened level of caution about things i maybe hadn't thought of before.
you don't grow the economy by cutting spending, donald. and you know what? you know that. and everybody knows you know that. who do you think you're fooling?
what's he doing? his appeal was that he was out of the paradigm. but as time has gone on, he's just picked up talking point after talking point. and, he's starting to sound like every other republican.
if you line up bush and trump so they agree on every point, bush clobbers him. there's not a person in the world that votes for trump over bush, unless he's presenting some policy differences. bush is a safe bet - well, i'm saying that very carefully; from a republican voter perspective, he's a safe bet, anyways. trump is a massive gamble. and, he knows that, too.
this is how trump loses the primary - he loses his policy edge. he starts to fade in. then, he's not competitive.
slashing taxes and spending doesn't eliminate the comparative labour advantage that asia has over the united states in attracting producers, and it doesn't reverse the technology of automation. it's just a continuation of the same policies that have created the problem. it's the status quo.
he doesn't get back on message, and he's going to get destroyed.
listen: his immigration policy sounds deplorable, but he's just being honest in saying things that all of the other republicans (and most democrats) are thinking. i'm reminded of a policy paper in 1969 that the liberals in canada produced on aboriginal policy. for the first time, it explicitly cemented an assimilation policy and put the issue up for debate as to what the fairest and most just way to accomplish that assimilation policy was going to be. see, it recognized that it's past assimilation policies were often ham-fisted and repressive, but it concluded that it was (then, more than ever) the only rational way forwards and that it needed public input. there was massive uproar. but, the reality is that the government of canada had spent the previous 200 years operating a stealth assimilation policy. it wasn't a change of direction, it was just the government being honest about it for once and trying to open it up in the sake of fairness and transparency. in response to the uproar, they withdrew the paper and went back to pushing assimilation by stealth; in fact, the sneaky policies got even worse (with the eventual introduction of a blood quantum rule meant to abolish the definition of aboriginal within a few generations).
the truth is that america has a choice between carrying out a repressive, racist border policy in practice and not talking about it, and addressing it in the open so that it can be modified in ways that are more fair. and, trump was really moving in the right direction on it, relative to where this party has stood in the past.
there's been these other glimmers of hope that he's willing to take a fair, if autocratic, hand. see, this guy is a tyrant. sure. but he comes off as a sort of a fair tyrant. and, decades of slashes in education have perhaps left that as the best short term option in america - imperfect, but we may have to be realistic.
i'm not endorsing this guy. i don't like him. but, in a roundabout way, he was doing what needed to be done - before the party snapped him into line. now, he's just getting boring.
what's he doing? his appeal was that he was out of the paradigm. but as time has gone on, he's just picked up talking point after talking point. and, he's starting to sound like every other republican.
if you line up bush and trump so they agree on every point, bush clobbers him. there's not a person in the world that votes for trump over bush, unless he's presenting some policy differences. bush is a safe bet - well, i'm saying that very carefully; from a republican voter perspective, he's a safe bet, anyways. trump is a massive gamble. and, he knows that, too.
this is how trump loses the primary - he loses his policy edge. he starts to fade in. then, he's not competitive.
slashing taxes and spending doesn't eliminate the comparative labour advantage that asia has over the united states in attracting producers, and it doesn't reverse the technology of automation. it's just a continuation of the same policies that have created the problem. it's the status quo.
he doesn't get back on message, and he's going to get destroyed.
listen: his immigration policy sounds deplorable, but he's just being honest in saying things that all of the other republicans (and most democrats) are thinking. i'm reminded of a policy paper in 1969 that the liberals in canada produced on aboriginal policy. for the first time, it explicitly cemented an assimilation policy and put the issue up for debate as to what the fairest and most just way to accomplish that assimilation policy was going to be. see, it recognized that it's past assimilation policies were often ham-fisted and repressive, but it concluded that it was (then, more than ever) the only rational way forwards and that it needed public input. there was massive uproar. but, the reality is that the government of canada had spent the previous 200 years operating a stealth assimilation policy. it wasn't a change of direction, it was just the government being honest about it for once and trying to open it up in the sake of fairness and transparency. in response to the uproar, they withdrew the paper and went back to pushing assimilation by stealth; in fact, the sneaky policies got even worse (with the eventual introduction of a blood quantum rule meant to abolish the definition of aboriginal within a few generations).
the truth is that america has a choice between carrying out a repressive, racist border policy in practice and not talking about it, and addressing it in the open so that it can be modified in ways that are more fair. and, trump was really moving in the right direction on it, relative to where this party has stood in the past.
there's been these other glimmers of hope that he's willing to take a fair, if autocratic, hand. see, this guy is a tyrant. sure. but he comes off as a sort of a fair tyrant. and, decades of slashes in education have perhaps left that as the best short term option in america - imperfect, but we may have to be realistic.
i'm not endorsing this guy. i don't like him. but, in a roundabout way, he was doing what needed to be done - before the party snapped him into line. now, he's just getting boring.
definitely a good piece.
but, keep in mind that nobody voted for this. i mean, look at the 2013 convention. the chasm between mulcair and his base is enough to fly an f-35 through, and i think that as soon as he gets a platform to paper you'll start seeing caucus revolts and a mass exodus to the greens.
and, we need to have a talk on the left about this.
it seems to me that the era of mass socialization in production is over. we're in a world where those jobs are done by robots. and, we need to be looking at rebuilding the left along libertarian/anarchist lines.
corbyn strikes me as a fucking hippie. and, while it's nice to get past new labour, the left is just digging sideways if it thinks it's future is in herbal remedies to cure cancer and rallies against vaccines.
the greens have some problems, but, they're already set up. and, they're roughly sitting in the right space of co-operative friendly libertarian socialism that the left needs to build itself on. the way to get them moving in the right direction is to crash and co-opt them and steer them in it.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-laxer/2015/09/third-way-politics-suffer-massive-defeat-uk-while-canada-they-t
Alfredo Louro
Actually, the world could do with more politicians who are "fucking hippies".
deathtokoalas
yeah. great. let's all go back to the dark ages. who needs science, when you have magical thinking? after all. the best way to change the world is to change yourself!
Alfredo Louro
You'd be surprised. I have a book recommendation for you:
http://www.amazon.ca/How-Hippies-Saved-Physics-Counterculture/dp/039334231X
deathtokoalas
i want to make a far side cartoon with two bearded hippies in lab coats, standing in front of a table with flasks with coloured liquids and steam rising and whatnot, with one looking at the other and speaking:
"you know what, dexter? sometimes, i find myself wondering if everything is like strawberry fields, after all."
it's all in our minds, man. we just imagine it first, and then it appears. timothy was right.
marx was extremely dismissive about what he called "utopian socialism". now, let's not get caught up in that, sure - no need to trip over that. long time ago. but it remains true that the embrace of bullshit hippie anti-intellectualism is a one-way ticket to becoming a laughingstock - and deserving it.
Mark Ragnar
"seeing caucus revolts and a mass exodus to the greens"
Or, maybe you can hope that they will remember they are in a Westminster parliamentary democracy like the Australian Liberals did, and oust him as leader. However, if he becomes the first to lead a federal NDP government it's hard to see this or a mass exodus occurring.
deathtokoalas
well, the thing is that he's taken steps to throw a lot of people out already. the biggest victory was pushing libby davies out. in some sense, this should have already happened, but he's demonstrated a lot of control in the process...
it really depends on just how far he pushes and how fast. and, see that's the thing: where is tom mulcair on the spectrum? not his party. himself. if it's somewhere maybe just a little to the left of tony blair, and just a little to the right of brian mulroney, it's a very long ways away from a lot of his candidates. and, where is the broadbent institute in this mess? writing papers criticizing the ndp?
i guess it's release is imminent at this point; but i think this is a document that a lot of people are going to find upsetting, and that those people are going to have limited options fighting from within the party. it's not exactly the policy shifts that are going to push people out. it's the disinterest in discussing it.
Arachne646
Libby was my (utterly respected) MP and until I realized how much Mulcair had changed the platform of the Party, I thought she had retired just because of personal reasons, age and so forth. But now I really think that because she either doesn't want to work in a Party under discipline like that, or because she has a conscience, and won't shut up and be under a Party whip, she was forced to retire.
She was not paid off by the Israel lobby, and was, like Elizabeth May, one of the few MP's who spoke up against the massacre in summer 2014 by Israel in Gaza. She was a strong voice for Palestinians in Parliament.
I'll probably be voting Green in Vancouver East. The NDP platform nor the candidate in this riding doth appeal much, and there isn't a safer riding for them, but I think I'll send them a message.
deathtokoalas
it's well understood that she was forced out over comments she made about israel; the conservatives reacted, as one would expect them to, but the difference is that mulcair didn't just agree with them, but went out of his way to demonstrate it.
i tend to avoid falling into the "zionists control the world" narrative, but mulcair does seem to be unwaveringly pro-israel, which is a big difference and something i don't like, either. it's not yet clear to me exactly *why*. i'm getting the impression that a lot of it is a misreading of the public; he seems to see criticism of israel as an electoral liability, and is stamping it out for the simple reason that it makes the party look more electable. i'm not sure that's correct, to begin with. and, history isn't going to be kind to it, either. i mean, there were similar attempts to silence people in the democratic party in the united states about apartheid, and they're roundly condemned nowadays. it's worth pointing out that canada, under trudeau, played an ambiguous role; we seem to have provided more than moral support for the cuban forces in africa. but, whatever the accuracy of it, this calculus seems to be a big driver.
rumour has it that mulcair's riding also has a large jewish minority in it, but it seems to me that it's jumping through some logical hoops to deduce that this minority is supportive of likud.
a third possibility is that it's an attempt to lock into american policy, which is not zionist in the zionist sense - it's a geo-political thing, to ensure a military presence in the oil producing regions. the logic is that coming out as critical of israel would possibly alienate the pentagon and the white house, which is maybe a more important consideration in determining the outcome of the election than any of us really realize.
whatever it is, it's a real and substantial thing. the ndp have pushed out several candidates over this, and it's not likely to reverse course on it.
the reality is that there's not much canada could do anyways - actively or passively. the best hope is in electing a prime minister that is close enough to the president that he can maybe change his or her policies. but, it's pretty clear we're not going to get that from mulcair or the ndp - we're going to get an authoritarian enforcement of the status quo.
but, keep in mind that nobody voted for this. i mean, look at the 2013 convention. the chasm between mulcair and his base is enough to fly an f-35 through, and i think that as soon as he gets a platform to paper you'll start seeing caucus revolts and a mass exodus to the greens.
and, we need to have a talk on the left about this.
it seems to me that the era of mass socialization in production is over. we're in a world where those jobs are done by robots. and, we need to be looking at rebuilding the left along libertarian/anarchist lines.
corbyn strikes me as a fucking hippie. and, while it's nice to get past new labour, the left is just digging sideways if it thinks it's future is in herbal remedies to cure cancer and rallies against vaccines.
the greens have some problems, but, they're already set up. and, they're roughly sitting in the right space of co-operative friendly libertarian socialism that the left needs to build itself on. the way to get them moving in the right direction is to crash and co-opt them and steer them in it.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-laxer/2015/09/third-way-politics-suffer-massive-defeat-uk-while-canada-they-t
Alfredo Louro
Actually, the world could do with more politicians who are "fucking hippies".
deathtokoalas
yeah. great. let's all go back to the dark ages. who needs science, when you have magical thinking? after all. the best way to change the world is to change yourself!
Alfredo Louro
You'd be surprised. I have a book recommendation for you:
http://www.amazon.ca/How-Hippies-Saved-Physics-Counterculture/dp/039334231X
deathtokoalas
i want to make a far side cartoon with two bearded hippies in lab coats, standing in front of a table with flasks with coloured liquids and steam rising and whatnot, with one looking at the other and speaking:
"you know what, dexter? sometimes, i find myself wondering if everything is like strawberry fields, after all."
it's all in our minds, man. we just imagine it first, and then it appears. timothy was right.
marx was extremely dismissive about what he called "utopian socialism". now, let's not get caught up in that, sure - no need to trip over that. long time ago. but it remains true that the embrace of bullshit hippie anti-intellectualism is a one-way ticket to becoming a laughingstock - and deserving it.
Mark Ragnar
"seeing caucus revolts and a mass exodus to the greens"
Or, maybe you can hope that they will remember they are in a Westminster parliamentary democracy like the Australian Liberals did, and oust him as leader. However, if he becomes the first to lead a federal NDP government it's hard to see this or a mass exodus occurring.
deathtokoalas
well, the thing is that he's taken steps to throw a lot of people out already. the biggest victory was pushing libby davies out. in some sense, this should have already happened, but he's demonstrated a lot of control in the process...
it really depends on just how far he pushes and how fast. and, see that's the thing: where is tom mulcair on the spectrum? not his party. himself. if it's somewhere maybe just a little to the left of tony blair, and just a little to the right of brian mulroney, it's a very long ways away from a lot of his candidates. and, where is the broadbent institute in this mess? writing papers criticizing the ndp?
i guess it's release is imminent at this point; but i think this is a document that a lot of people are going to find upsetting, and that those people are going to have limited options fighting from within the party. it's not exactly the policy shifts that are going to push people out. it's the disinterest in discussing it.
Arachne646
Libby was my (utterly respected) MP and until I realized how much Mulcair had changed the platform of the Party, I thought she had retired just because of personal reasons, age and so forth. But now I really think that because she either doesn't want to work in a Party under discipline like that, or because she has a conscience, and won't shut up and be under a Party whip, she was forced to retire.
She was not paid off by the Israel lobby, and was, like Elizabeth May, one of the few MP's who spoke up against the massacre in summer 2014 by Israel in Gaza. She was a strong voice for Palestinians in Parliament.
I'll probably be voting Green in Vancouver East. The NDP platform nor the candidate in this riding doth appeal much, and there isn't a safer riding for them, but I think I'll send them a message.
deathtokoalas
it's well understood that she was forced out over comments she made about israel; the conservatives reacted, as one would expect them to, but the difference is that mulcair didn't just agree with them, but went out of his way to demonstrate it.
i tend to avoid falling into the "zionists control the world" narrative, but mulcair does seem to be unwaveringly pro-israel, which is a big difference and something i don't like, either. it's not yet clear to me exactly *why*. i'm getting the impression that a lot of it is a misreading of the public; he seems to see criticism of israel as an electoral liability, and is stamping it out for the simple reason that it makes the party look more electable. i'm not sure that's correct, to begin with. and, history isn't going to be kind to it, either. i mean, there were similar attempts to silence people in the democratic party in the united states about apartheid, and they're roundly condemned nowadays. it's worth pointing out that canada, under trudeau, played an ambiguous role; we seem to have provided more than moral support for the cuban forces in africa. but, whatever the accuracy of it, this calculus seems to be a big driver.
rumour has it that mulcair's riding also has a large jewish minority in it, but it seems to me that it's jumping through some logical hoops to deduce that this minority is supportive of likud.
a third possibility is that it's an attempt to lock into american policy, which is not zionist in the zionist sense - it's a geo-political thing, to ensure a military presence in the oil producing regions. the logic is that coming out as critical of israel would possibly alienate the pentagon and the white house, which is maybe a more important consideration in determining the outcome of the election than any of us really realize.
whatever it is, it's a real and substantial thing. the ndp have pushed out several candidates over this, and it's not likely to reverse course on it.
the reality is that there's not much canada could do anyways - actively or passively. the best hope is in electing a prime minister that is close enough to the president that he can maybe change his or her policies. but, it's pretty clear we're not going to get that from mulcair or the ndp - we're going to get an authoritarian enforcement of the status quo.
i'm not sure if the active campaigning really matters. i think ontarians see themselves without any real options; neither the conservatives nor the ndp have been electable in ontario for quite a long time, and it's hard to see how either are going to cobble together a coalition any time soon. the conservative grass roots is widely seen as a bunch of lunatics. and, the ndp has had a really nasty ceiling imposed upon them by their inability to appeal to unionized voters, which has forced them to take some very disappointing positions.
i think what's more to the point is whether allegiances from the provincial election may still be lingering, and if they may even be more formative than federal platforms, because people tend to be more engaged at the local level. it gives the liberal a kind of incumbency advantage, and hurts the ndp by association. and, as i've pointed out in a few other places, i think the results of the last election need to be taken with a grain of salt; a lot of very liberal ridings swung blue last election, as a consequence of somewhat unique circumstances. these people aren't going to require a lot of convincing to go back to their normal voting patterns. it's just a question of trudeau not being the guy that wrote op-eds in support of an illegal war.
where i think wynne can make a difference is in providing a couple of good arguments as to why it benefits ontarians to have a change of government. not attending rallies and standing together on stage, or maybe offering a few empty platitudes. a good essay. and, there's plenty of good reasons, too - she doesn't need to make anything up, she just needs to clearly lay it out.
but, that's likely to be minor - perhaps important, but minor. overall, it's less a question of the ontario liberals doing or being anything specific, and more a question of the federal liberals not being the specific kind of awful they were four years ago.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/peter-landry/kathleen-wynne-federal-election-harper_b_8112968.html
i think what's more to the point is whether allegiances from the provincial election may still be lingering, and if they may even be more formative than federal platforms, because people tend to be more engaged at the local level. it gives the liberal a kind of incumbency advantage, and hurts the ndp by association. and, as i've pointed out in a few other places, i think the results of the last election need to be taken with a grain of salt; a lot of very liberal ridings swung blue last election, as a consequence of somewhat unique circumstances. these people aren't going to require a lot of convincing to go back to their normal voting patterns. it's just a question of trudeau not being the guy that wrote op-eds in support of an illegal war.
where i think wynne can make a difference is in providing a couple of good arguments as to why it benefits ontarians to have a change of government. not attending rallies and standing together on stage, or maybe offering a few empty platitudes. a good essay. and, there's plenty of good reasons, too - she doesn't need to make anything up, she just needs to clearly lay it out.
but, that's likely to be minor - perhaps important, but minor. overall, it's less a question of the ontario liberals doing or being anything specific, and more a question of the federal liberals not being the specific kind of awful they were four years ago.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/peter-landry/kathleen-wynne-federal-election-harper_b_8112968.html
so, foreign policy isn't justin's strong point. i'd like to point to the liberals from the last government, but the truth is that they were all thrown out or resigned during the martin purge. but, hopefully a change of power will bring some of them back - and a few new people can learn a few things under their tutelage.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/trudeau-mulcair-munk-debates_n_8117966.html
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/trudeau-mulcair-munk-debates_n_8117966.html
but, he stated previously that he was going to delay the increase in the health transfer until the budget is balanced. i'm sure it will make sense on paper*.
also:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuagPpdIgAAdBCN.jpg
* - by that, i mean that it probably won't actually make sense on paper.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/13/ndp-leader-tom-mulcair-announces-1-8-billion-health-care-plan-for-seniors_n_8129938.html
also:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuagPpdIgAAdBCN.jpg
* - by that, i mean that it probably won't actually make sense on paper.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/13/ndp-leader-tom-mulcair-announces-1-8-billion-health-care-plan-for-seniors_n_8129938.html
these battles will be fought and won in court.
it's not just a lack of political will. the crux of the pipeline debate is really around property rights.
regarding shifting out of production, the key is in building the other industries first. you can't expect the government to cut and run on it's own investments. but, you can put pressure on it to make future investments in sustainable production and phase the dirty ones out.
we've lost ten years. we can't get it back. we can try and accelerate it. but, there's really only one possible approach.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/cameron-fenton/climate-change-election_b_8119780.html
it's not just a lack of political will. the crux of the pipeline debate is really around property rights.
regarding shifting out of production, the key is in building the other industries first. you can't expect the government to cut and run on it's own investments. but, you can put pressure on it to make future investments in sustainable production and phase the dirty ones out.
we've lost ten years. we can't get it back. we can try and accelerate it. but, there's really only one possible approach.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/cameron-fenton/climate-change-election_b_8119780.html
who wrote the headline? now, look at the confused comments. yeesh.
he's trying to spur investment. you've no doubt heard that tax cuts for businesses create jobs [although they don't]. by the same logic, tax cuts for property developers making rental units should create more rental units, although it probably won't for the same reason that tax cuts to businesses don't actually create jobs. and, this would in theory reduce rental costs by increasing the supply, if it were to actually work.
another thing that is restricting supply and thereby driving up costs is the large amount of dilapidated housing we have in our urban cores. money to fix these units up would drive prices down by increasing the supply. except that it's ignoring the fact that they were largely left in disrepair because property owners want to reduce the supply of housing to drive up costs in the first place.
what is at the core of the problem is that housing is too concentrated in too few hands. these steps are good, but in order to truly be effective they need to be paired with rules that restrict the amount of housing that a company can own in any specific area.
judging by the comments - and i've seen this elsewhere, most notably at occupy - the liberals have two issues in getting a policy like this across to voters:
1) the people that want lower rental costs don't understand the economics underlying the policy.
2) the efficacy of the economics underlying the policy is questionable at best, anyways.
but, the idea is that less taxes = more rental units = lower rental costs. if you combine that with pro-active action to breakup large landowning companies, you have a decent policy.
remember - the problem with markets is not that they create competition. it's that they prevent competition. if you leave a market to evolve without interference, it will become a monopoly. state intervention is required to break the institutions up and allow the market to function. and, the contemporary tendency of governments to refuse to do this is at the root of a lot of the problems we have in front of us.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/09/liberals-vow-tax-breaks-for-landlords-homeowners-as-part-of-social-housing-plan_n_8109734.html
he's trying to spur investment. you've no doubt heard that tax cuts for businesses create jobs [although they don't]. by the same logic, tax cuts for property developers making rental units should create more rental units, although it probably won't for the same reason that tax cuts to businesses don't actually create jobs. and, this would in theory reduce rental costs by increasing the supply, if it were to actually work.
another thing that is restricting supply and thereby driving up costs is the large amount of dilapidated housing we have in our urban cores. money to fix these units up would drive prices down by increasing the supply. except that it's ignoring the fact that they were largely left in disrepair because property owners want to reduce the supply of housing to drive up costs in the first place.
what is at the core of the problem is that housing is too concentrated in too few hands. these steps are good, but in order to truly be effective they need to be paired with rules that restrict the amount of housing that a company can own in any specific area.
judging by the comments - and i've seen this elsewhere, most notably at occupy - the liberals have two issues in getting a policy like this across to voters:
1) the people that want lower rental costs don't understand the economics underlying the policy.
2) the efficacy of the economics underlying the policy is questionable at best, anyways.
but, the idea is that less taxes = more rental units = lower rental costs. if you combine that with pro-active action to breakup large landowning companies, you have a decent policy.
remember - the problem with markets is not that they create competition. it's that they prevent competition. if you leave a market to evolve without interference, it will become a monopoly. state intervention is required to break the institutions up and allow the market to function. and, the contemporary tendency of governments to refuse to do this is at the root of a lot of the problems we have in front of us.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/09/liberals-vow-tax-breaks-for-landlords-homeowners-as-part-of-social-housing-plan_n_8109734.html
i'll say it again: if corporations are people, why don't we tax them like people?
the constitution specifies that discriminatory laws are only unconstitutional insofar as they relate to "natural persons". so, preferential tax treatment for corporations and businesses gets off on a technicality. but, it's certainly discriminatory in spirit to say "these people are special and deserve a special tax rate".
eliminate the loopholes by simplifying the code; tax it all the same at the same income level, regardless of where it came from.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/baloney-meter-did-trudeau-unfairly-smear-small-business-owners-as-tax-dodgers_n_8115754.html
what's the deal with the corporations, anyways?
these people make billions of dollars in profit, and they hardly pay any taxes on it.
who are these people?
the constitution specifies that discriminatory laws are only unconstitutional insofar as they relate to "natural persons". so, preferential tax treatment for corporations and businesses gets off on a technicality. but, it's certainly discriminatory in spirit to say "these people are special and deserve a special tax rate".
eliminate the loopholes by simplifying the code; tax it all the same at the same income level, regardless of where it came from.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/baloney-meter-did-trudeau-unfairly-smear-small-business-owners-as-tax-dodgers_n_8115754.html
what's the deal with the corporations, anyways?
these people make billions of dollars in profit, and they hardly pay any taxes on it.
who are these people?
it's a bubble, and it's going to burst. i think the state's role is in determining how to react to it when it does, and i think this is a part of the strategy the state needs to adopt in trasferring the boomers out of the workforce. that is set to ramp up just about any minute, now.
boomers were told their entire professional lives to invest in housing. it's their retirement plan. when they get to a certain age (75, 80), or perhaps when their partners pass, they will sell their house and move into an apartment or a retirement home. they will then live on what they make on the sale, combined with whatever pensions they're entitled to.
and, had wages kept up with inflation it would have worked out just fine. but, as it is, their houses have been rising at 10% (inflation adjusted) while wages have been broadly stagnant. this is a useful graph:
it claims the gap is debt. in young people, it is. in older people, it threatens to be the difference between their retirement assets on paper and their retirement assets in truth - if the bubble bursts, and if they make it long enough to see it.
the first chunk of the boomers will likely be shielded from this. but, ten years from now, the first of the boomers are going to start hitting their life expectancies. as they die by the thousands, thousands of properties will appear on the market. this sudden increase in supply is going to burst the bubble, as their children seek to wipe their hands of the assets and sell them off to the people that are currently being priced out. and, i might note that this will likely slow down construction, and possibly lead to a recession. we should be building things right now, but housing is maybe not the most forward-thinking construction plan.
there's a lot of cliches about the boomers, how they remade society and etc. i think it's less clear how much of what they changed is going to survive them. and, their run through time may be better imagined as a bulge on a graph that slowly recedes over time. on the other side of this population and wealth imbalance, things may start to balance themselves out a little bit better.
so, yes - it's a bubble. and, the government has done a lot to stop it bursting, and will continue to do so (those mass purchases of toxic assets will continue). but the one thing they can't stop is a massive increase in supply created by a mass generational die-off.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/samantha-brookes/federal-election-housing_b_8119138.html
it's often stated that gen x is the first generation that has done poorer than it's parents.
another way to look at it is that the boomers were the first to place their children in debt to themselves.
we're paying interest on their savings.
Cornell Hessing
The only bubble that will burst is the one surrounding your alternate reality. Of all the factors that impact the housing market in the GTA (or Vancouver), the only one that will change is the interest rate. They wont be creating new land...foreign investors will continue to have access (even if protectionist measures are employed, savy investors will easily navigate them)...etc..etc.
Also, it's worth noting that the moment prices start to decline, supply will tighten.
Seriously, talk to someone...if you're wait for the market to crash to capitalize, you're doing your future self a HUGE disservice. Get in the market...start small if you have to, but get in! People that bought $400k townhomes 2 years ago have already seen more than $150k in equity growth.
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm not waiting for anything to crash. if i had advice, it would be to tell boomers to sell sooner than later. but, housing is not like the stock market. that's the error you're making, here, and it's rather ironic given your language - you're conflating what is called real wealth with what is called paper wealth. paper wealth is not tied to any kind of physical reality - it exists in the realm of our imagination. so, we can inflate something like the dot com bubble just about as far as we will allow ourselves to because it's just all make believe, anyways. but real wealth has to conform to the reality on the ground. and the reality on the ground is that housing cannot deviate nearly as far from incomes as it has been without eventually coming crashing down. at some point, people will simply be unable to buy property at the price it's listed at because they are not able to generate the wealth that is required to do so. banks are not likely to ease lending requirements. so, these properties will either sit on the market unsold or they will need to come down in price. that is, housing prices will need to be corrected to better align with incomes.
as mentioned, the cmhc has tools that it can use to offset reality somewhat, but the truth is that it's been abusing this power for the last decade or so and this is not a good thing. it's been trying to convert real propertied assets into imaginary paper assets, and created a lot of delusional people with delusional investments in the process. cash in while you can, because that cannot last.
it can continue the fantasy for quite some time, but what it will not be able to fight is a sudden increase in supply. this is where the demographics are leading us to. at that point, market principles overpower state intervention. and, let's be clear: the reason housing prices are high is due to state intervention, not some conspiracy theory about foreigners buying up property.
boomers were told their entire professional lives to invest in housing. it's their retirement plan. when they get to a certain age (75, 80), or perhaps when their partners pass, they will sell their house and move into an apartment or a retirement home. they will then live on what they make on the sale, combined with whatever pensions they're entitled to.
and, had wages kept up with inflation it would have worked out just fine. but, as it is, their houses have been rising at 10% (inflation adjusted) while wages have been broadly stagnant. this is a useful graph:
it claims the gap is debt. in young people, it is. in older people, it threatens to be the difference between their retirement assets on paper and their retirement assets in truth - if the bubble bursts, and if they make it long enough to see it.
the first chunk of the boomers will likely be shielded from this. but, ten years from now, the first of the boomers are going to start hitting their life expectancies. as they die by the thousands, thousands of properties will appear on the market. this sudden increase in supply is going to burst the bubble, as their children seek to wipe their hands of the assets and sell them off to the people that are currently being priced out. and, i might note that this will likely slow down construction, and possibly lead to a recession. we should be building things right now, but housing is maybe not the most forward-thinking construction plan.
there's a lot of cliches about the boomers, how they remade society and etc. i think it's less clear how much of what they changed is going to survive them. and, their run through time may be better imagined as a bulge on a graph that slowly recedes over time. on the other side of this population and wealth imbalance, things may start to balance themselves out a little bit better.
so, yes - it's a bubble. and, the government has done a lot to stop it bursting, and will continue to do so (those mass purchases of toxic assets will continue). but the one thing they can't stop is a massive increase in supply created by a mass generational die-off.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/samantha-brookes/federal-election-housing_b_8119138.html
it's often stated that gen x is the first generation that has done poorer than it's parents.
another way to look at it is that the boomers were the first to place their children in debt to themselves.
we're paying interest on their savings.
Cornell Hessing
The only bubble that will burst is the one surrounding your alternate reality. Of all the factors that impact the housing market in the GTA (or Vancouver), the only one that will change is the interest rate. They wont be creating new land...foreign investors will continue to have access (even if protectionist measures are employed, savy investors will easily navigate them)...etc..etc.
Also, it's worth noting that the moment prices start to decline, supply will tighten.
Seriously, talk to someone...if you're wait for the market to crash to capitalize, you're doing your future self a HUGE disservice. Get in the market...start small if you have to, but get in! People that bought $400k townhomes 2 years ago have already seen more than $150k in equity growth.
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm not waiting for anything to crash. if i had advice, it would be to tell boomers to sell sooner than later. but, housing is not like the stock market. that's the error you're making, here, and it's rather ironic given your language - you're conflating what is called real wealth with what is called paper wealth. paper wealth is not tied to any kind of physical reality - it exists in the realm of our imagination. so, we can inflate something like the dot com bubble just about as far as we will allow ourselves to because it's just all make believe, anyways. but real wealth has to conform to the reality on the ground. and the reality on the ground is that housing cannot deviate nearly as far from incomes as it has been without eventually coming crashing down. at some point, people will simply be unable to buy property at the price it's listed at because they are not able to generate the wealth that is required to do so. banks are not likely to ease lending requirements. so, these properties will either sit on the market unsold or they will need to come down in price. that is, housing prices will need to be corrected to better align with incomes.
as mentioned, the cmhc has tools that it can use to offset reality somewhat, but the truth is that it's been abusing this power for the last decade or so and this is not a good thing. it's been trying to convert real propertied assets into imaginary paper assets, and created a lot of delusional people with delusional investments in the process. cash in while you can, because that cannot last.
it can continue the fantasy for quite some time, but what it will not be able to fight is a sudden increase in supply. this is where the demographics are leading us to. at that point, market principles overpower state intervention. and, let's be clear: the reason housing prices are high is due to state intervention, not some conspiracy theory about foreigners buying up property.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
i agree it might backfire, but this analysis is missing the point of the ad. i'll put my biases out front: i have a lot of contempt for ad people. i think the vast majority of advertising is completely useless, and most people just ignore it. when advertising is rarely effective, it's not because it convinces people at a conscious, rational level but because it reinforces something at a subconscious level - something we've never even really thought about, but that the advertisers realize is floating through the back of our minds.
the reason the ad exists as it does is because they've collected the data through intense micro-polling and who knows what other techniques to conclude that this is a subconscious thought in the minds of the voters they're most likely to swing back. it follows that if you're analyzing the ad on the way most people react to it on the surface, you're just misanalyzing it. the question isn't about how most of us react to it actively, it's how it's target audience (older people) reacts to it passively.
but, i think it might backfire for the reason that it's transparent. not because it's talking points. not because it's awkward. but because it's obvious that it's meant to mess with people.
messing with people like this can be extremely effective, but only if people don't realize they're being messed with. as soon as people realize what's happening, it can backfire - and hard.
but, if that doesn't happen? if people don't see it for what it is? then, this is the most effective ad we've seen yet - for the 5% of voters it's directed at.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-ad-hawk-conservatives-stephen-harper-isnt-perfect-1.3225349
the reason the ad exists as it does is because they've collected the data through intense micro-polling and who knows what other techniques to conclude that this is a subconscious thought in the minds of the voters they're most likely to swing back. it follows that if you're analyzing the ad on the way most people react to it on the surface, you're just misanalyzing it. the question isn't about how most of us react to it actively, it's how it's target audience (older people) reacts to it passively.
but, i think it might backfire for the reason that it's transparent. not because it's talking points. not because it's awkward. but because it's obvious that it's meant to mess with people.
messing with people like this can be extremely effective, but only if people don't realize they're being messed with. as soon as people realize what's happening, it can backfire - and hard.
but, if that doesn't happen? if people don't see it for what it is? then, this is the most effective ad we've seen yet - for the 5% of voters it's directed at.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-ad-hawk-conservatives-stephen-harper-isnt-perfect-1.3225349
somebody needs to tell bob rae to go on vacation for a few months. they're trying to win an election in ontario, here. the last thing they want is bob rae making statements. it doesn't matter if he happens to be right. he's bob rae.
"It's a global economy, it's a competitive economy. We'd all love to tax the rich, on the left, but on the ground, it no longer works."
well, let's get the pitchforks, then, because the deduction is that we need a revolution, not that we need to become conservatives.
after all, that's what revolutions are for: to get political representation. it seems clear that the ndp aren't doing this. it's up to the people to make sure they pay for it.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-chris-hall-liberals-ndp-1.3225365
Buffalojump
NDP don't balance budgets. That's why people vote for them.
Vote NDP
Jessica Murray
the ndp are unfortunately actually quite adept at slashing services in order to balance budgets. their record since the 90s is pretty clear on that. as ndp supporters are quick to mention, they have the "best" record in balancing budgets and slashing services of all the parties - even the conservatives. if you want real fiscal conservatism and real spending discipline, the ndp is your party. the record is clear; the conservatives push deficits, the ndp don't.
but, people are broadly voting on their record from the 60s, rather than their record from the 90s. that's why articles like this are important as voter education.
the high polling numbers have largely receded, but for a while it seemed like we were voting for david lewis and about to get tony blair instead. and, that's a big problem. a big systemic problem.
and, i think the ndp need to take responsibility for it. they had a convention in 2013 where they confirmed all kinds of long standing positions. they've ignored and reversed almost all of it, without replacing it with anything in writing. the only way to know where they are in the spectrum is to follow the news cycle. they need to get that platform out soon, so people have the opportunity to realize what they're voting for.
"It's a global economy, it's a competitive economy. We'd all love to tax the rich, on the left, but on the ground, it no longer works."
well, let's get the pitchforks, then, because the deduction is that we need a revolution, not that we need to become conservatives.
after all, that's what revolutions are for: to get political representation. it seems clear that the ndp aren't doing this. it's up to the people to make sure they pay for it.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-chris-hall-liberals-ndp-1.3225365
Buffalojump
NDP don't balance budgets. That's why people vote for them.
Vote NDP
Jessica Murray
the ndp are unfortunately actually quite adept at slashing services in order to balance budgets. their record since the 90s is pretty clear on that. as ndp supporters are quick to mention, they have the "best" record in balancing budgets and slashing services of all the parties - even the conservatives. if you want real fiscal conservatism and real spending discipline, the ndp is your party. the record is clear; the conservatives push deficits, the ndp don't.
but, people are broadly voting on their record from the 60s, rather than their record from the 90s. that's why articles like this are important as voter education.
the high polling numbers have largely receded, but for a while it seemed like we were voting for david lewis and about to get tony blair instead. and, that's a big problem. a big systemic problem.
and, i think the ndp need to take responsibility for it. they had a convention in 2013 where they confirmed all kinds of long standing positions. they've ignored and reversed almost all of it, without replacing it with anything in writing. the only way to know where they are in the spectrum is to follow the news cycle. they need to get that platform out soon, so people have the opportunity to realize what they're voting for.
the conclusion of the article is that we ought to let the americans worry about innovation and just focus on producing raw materials. i'm not content with that. but, let's change what we think about innovation, and what we think about business. it is no doubt true that we cannot spend at the levels that are required to create an apple or an intel. but, do we want to?
canada is going to have unique concerns is transitioning out of the carbon economy, due to our unique climate. we may not be able to export this. but, we can use it for ourselves.
we also have unique growing concerns. i'm sick of importing fruit from california; we could build this ourselves at low cost, if we were to invest in the technology to automate indoor growing services.
there's plenty of more examples that have to do with things like public transit, housing, garbage collection and recycling...
in this rush to service the rest of the world, we've lost track of what we need, ourselves. and, isn't that what really matters? we don't just need a shift in economic philosophy, we also need a shift in priorities.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/on-the-economy-what-next-when-the-election-is-over/article26335844/
canada is going to have unique concerns is transitioning out of the carbon economy, due to our unique climate. we may not be able to export this. but, we can use it for ourselves.
we also have unique growing concerns. i'm sick of importing fruit from california; we could build this ourselves at low cost, if we were to invest in the technology to automate indoor growing services.
there's plenty of more examples that have to do with things like public transit, housing, garbage collection and recycling...
in this rush to service the rest of the world, we've lost track of what we need, ourselves. and, isn't that what really matters? we don't just need a shift in economic philosophy, we also need a shift in priorities.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/on-the-economy-what-next-when-the-election-is-over/article26335844/
great news for the climate!
let the western bastards choke on their own filth.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/02/alberta-oilpatch-layoffs_n_8078660.html
let the western bastards choke on their own filth.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/02/alberta-oilpatch-layoffs_n_8078660.html
see, a lot of historical liberal voters like myself (although i voted ndp in '04, '06 and '11) like the idea of...the ndp have moved out of this space, but the greens have maybe moved in to it. what we like is the idea of giving the liberals executive control and forcing them to have to listen to a party on their left to stay in power. that is, we'd prefer to keep a three or maybe four party system and then force the liberals to work in a minority. the reason is that we're broadly liberals, but we lean a little to the left of the party heads and want a little bit of a check on their "bay street" instincts. we're liberal voters, and we think the liberal politicians want to lean in our direction, but we're aware of the power of money when governments are left unchecked. so, it's a desire to modify the balance of power in such a way that forces the party to change the way it calculates things.
consider the following scenario: if you substitute the greens in (and that probably won't happen this election), we could see a circumstance arise where the liberals start dragging their feet under oil industry pressure. forcing them to need green party support to pass the budget would give them the incentive they need to stop dragging their feet. there's an argument (it's maybe a little off) that this is basically the dynamic we got our health care system under.
nowadays, the ndp are likely going to need that leftward pressure to act as well, rather than being it themselves. but, the same logic applies, should they form a government.
i'm a supporter of the av, and it is partly for that reason. any kind of pr, on the other hand, strikes me as a way to move against that sort of dynamic and put more power in the hands of the party executives.
in an av vote, and despite identifying more as a liberal than a dipper or a green (and in fact being left of the spectrum), and certainly depending very strongly on the actual candidate, my av preferences would probably consistently be
1. green
2. ndp
3. liberal
...unless the specific liberal riding candidate is clearly preferable, or the green candidate is obviously a right-winger [which happens sometimes]. in this election, because the ndp are ahead, and the green candidate does not appear to be terrible, and the liberal candidate is of mixed appeal to me, it would be:
1. green
2. liberal
3. ndp
that is, because the ndp appear to be ahead, my preference would be to vote for a liberal to act as a check on their power.
but, in the fptp, in my riding, i'm probably going to end up voting liberal - because i do broadly prefer the liberal party positions, and neither of the candidates is stellar.
the polling on majority v minority preferences does seem to indicate that there's quite a few people thinking in these terms.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/11/how-a-different-electoral_n_8125358.html
consider the following scenario: if you substitute the greens in (and that probably won't happen this election), we could see a circumstance arise where the liberals start dragging their feet under oil industry pressure. forcing them to need green party support to pass the budget would give them the incentive they need to stop dragging their feet. there's an argument (it's maybe a little off) that this is basically the dynamic we got our health care system under.
nowadays, the ndp are likely going to need that leftward pressure to act as well, rather than being it themselves. but, the same logic applies, should they form a government.
i'm a supporter of the av, and it is partly for that reason. any kind of pr, on the other hand, strikes me as a way to move against that sort of dynamic and put more power in the hands of the party executives.
in an av vote, and despite identifying more as a liberal than a dipper or a green (and in fact being left of the spectrum), and certainly depending very strongly on the actual candidate, my av preferences would probably consistently be
1. green
2. ndp
3. liberal
...unless the specific liberal riding candidate is clearly preferable, or the green candidate is obviously a right-winger [which happens sometimes]. in this election, because the ndp are ahead, and the green candidate does not appear to be terrible, and the liberal candidate is of mixed appeal to me, it would be:
1. green
2. liberal
3. ndp
that is, because the ndp appear to be ahead, my preference would be to vote for a liberal to act as a check on their power.
but, in the fptp, in my riding, i'm probably going to end up voting liberal - because i do broadly prefer the liberal party positions, and neither of the candidates is stellar.
the polling on majority v minority preferences does seem to indicate that there's quite a few people thinking in these terms.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/11/how-a-different-electoral_n_8125358.html
Ron Kelly
Hyer says that his "first loyalty is to my constituents and the people who elected me." But they elected him as an NDP candidate, not as a Green candidate or an Independent candidate. If his loyalty is to the voters, then he owes them a chance in a subsequent byelection to either elect him as a Green candidate or elect some other candidate. Telling your voters that you represent one party and then, without their consent or approval, switching to another party is hardly what most people would consider a display of loyalty!
John Northey
Howsabout having all NDP MP's resign once Mulcair was picked as leader since many voted for Jack Layton's NDP not Mulcair's. That is a bigger issue than Hyer leaving due to locals wanting him to keep voting as he had always voted.
Ron Kelly
John Northey, it's not Mulcair's NDP and it wasn't Layton's NDP. It's the members' NDP. And that hasn't changed! And if Hyer didn't want to vote as the NDP and its members wanted him to then he shouldn't have asked them to let him be their candidate. I doubt very much if he sought the NDP candidacy with the slogan: "Choose me so I can ignore what you want me to do!".
jessica amber murray
actually, it has changed pretty dramatically. the 2013 convention resolutions have been thrown in the dustbin; mulcair has demonstrated nothing but contempt for where his members sit, and has instead just made things up as he's gone along.
be prepared to be shocked by their platform. it won't be recognizable as an ndp document.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/bruce-hyer-thomas-mulcair-green-ndp_n_8118582.html
Hyer says that his "first loyalty is to my constituents and the people who elected me." But they elected him as an NDP candidate, not as a Green candidate or an Independent candidate. If his loyalty is to the voters, then he owes them a chance in a subsequent byelection to either elect him as a Green candidate or elect some other candidate. Telling your voters that you represent one party and then, without their consent or approval, switching to another party is hardly what most people would consider a display of loyalty!
John Northey
Howsabout having all NDP MP's resign once Mulcair was picked as leader since many voted for Jack Layton's NDP not Mulcair's. That is a bigger issue than Hyer leaving due to locals wanting him to keep voting as he had always voted.
Ron Kelly
John Northey, it's not Mulcair's NDP and it wasn't Layton's NDP. It's the members' NDP. And that hasn't changed! And if Hyer didn't want to vote as the NDP and its members wanted him to then he shouldn't have asked them to let him be their candidate. I doubt very much if he sought the NDP candidacy with the slogan: "Choose me so I can ignore what you want me to do!".
jessica amber murray
actually, it has changed pretty dramatically. the 2013 convention resolutions have been thrown in the dustbin; mulcair has demonstrated nothing but contempt for where his members sit, and has instead just made things up as he's gone along.
be prepared to be shocked by their platform. it won't be recognizable as an ndp document.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/10/bruce-hyer-thomas-mulcair-green-ndp_n_8118582.html
the concept that is "progressive rock" was not meant to set a style into stone for it to be emulated over and over, but to set fire to the convention of genre, allowing for absolute expressive freedom.
i liked some of the darker material on the colour spectrum, but that really hit me by surprise; what i expect from this outfit is stale cliche, and that is predictably all i've gotten from them since and all i expect from them in the future. hipster nods to appalachia, recycled post-rock, generic film scores, fairytale conservative narratives - it's not challenging, but tiring.
70s punk critiques of 70s prog were mostly strawmen arguments; roger waters had a more sophisticated critique of capitalism than anybody that came out of the punk movement did; peter gabriel reflected working class values better than anybody out of punk did, too. but, they apply startlingly well to the totally pretentious, fully recycled, creatively dead, lowest common denominator garbage that we call modern prog.
ReptoidBoffin
+deathtokoalas You're so goddamn right. I always found punk opprobrium towards prog rock bizarre, it isn't as if it's a pro-establishment genre or anything. (I am confused as to why you want to kill koalas though).
deathtokoalas
+ReptoidBoffin to an extent, i think it was a typical conflict between theory and practice. punks just wanted to fucking get on with the revolution. spontaneous anarchist revolt! prog had a lot of escapist aspects, and that deserved the criticism that it got, but the more politically oriented of it wanted to take the role of social critic, vanguard and curator. it's a pretty typical argument in leftist circles.
also, koalas must be destroyed due to their despicable cuteness.
i liked some of the darker material on the colour spectrum, but that really hit me by surprise; what i expect from this outfit is stale cliche, and that is predictably all i've gotten from them since and all i expect from them in the future. hipster nods to appalachia, recycled post-rock, generic film scores, fairytale conservative narratives - it's not challenging, but tiring.
70s punk critiques of 70s prog were mostly strawmen arguments; roger waters had a more sophisticated critique of capitalism than anybody that came out of the punk movement did; peter gabriel reflected working class values better than anybody out of punk did, too. but, they apply startlingly well to the totally pretentious, fully recycled, creatively dead, lowest common denominator garbage that we call modern prog.
ReptoidBoffin
+deathtokoalas You're so goddamn right. I always found punk opprobrium towards prog rock bizarre, it isn't as if it's a pro-establishment genre or anything. (I am confused as to why you want to kill koalas though).
deathtokoalas
+ReptoidBoffin to an extent, i think it was a typical conflict between theory and practice. punks just wanted to fucking get on with the revolution. spontaneous anarchist revolt! prog had a lot of escapist aspects, and that deserved the criticism that it got, but the more politically oriented of it wanted to take the role of social critic, vanguard and curator. it's a pretty typical argument in leftist circles.
also, koalas must be destroyed due to their despicable cuteness.
Friday, September 11, 2015
hopefully you'll get a call from michael stipe, soon. yeesh....
listen, what do you want to do? have the rest of the world ignore the sanctions? bomb iran, through the russian anti-aircraft defenses? nuke moscow?
you have no leverage. none. you couldn't order the ayatollah to spell his own name correctly.
the russians are now in control of iran. maybe that could have been prevented by bombing then ten or fifteen years ago, like the neo-cons wanted - at however high a cost it may have been. but it's too late, now. and you need to deal with this.
listen, what do you want to do? have the rest of the world ignore the sanctions? bomb iran, through the russian anti-aircraft defenses? nuke moscow?
you have no leverage. none. you couldn't order the ayatollah to spell his own name correctly.
the russians are now in control of iran. maybe that could have been prevented by bombing then ten or fifteen years ago, like the neo-cons wanted - at however high a cost it may have been. but it's too late, now. and you need to deal with this.
except that the national numbers are broadly misleading because they mask various levels of regional dominance. if current trends hold, the maritimes, suburban ontario and urban quebec will likely vote in liberals - and the urban sections of the prairie provinces, the urban cores in ontario and the vast bulk of rural quebec and northern ontario will likely vote in new democrats, with quite a few areas in urban ontario and urban quebec being ndp-liberal races where the conservatives are not competitive. bc seems to perhaps be volatile. it's easy to look at the numbers and do the math, but it's not always useful depending on the demographics - unless the parties were to sign a pact before hand. this vote splitting scenario really only occurs if the ndp vote rises in the 905 and 519 areas around the gta; that will merely elect conservatives. and in some areas of bc and manitoba that are less clear cut in terms of cause and effect.
ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/loewen-polls-on-vote-splitting-tell-frustrating-story-for-ndp-and-liberals
ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/loewen-polls-on-vote-splitting-tell-frustrating-story-for-ndp-and-liberals
this is excellent news! now, let's take the opportunity to divest from oil and invest in sustainable manufacturing while the dollar is low.
Mark Naiman
Yes. lets invest in pot
Jessica Murray
hemp will almost certainly be our primary source of plastics in the post-carbon economy.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/goldman-sachs-oil-1.3223993
Mark Naiman
Yes. lets invest in pot
Jessica Murray
hemp will almost certainly be our primary source of plastics in the post-carbon economy.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/goldman-sachs-oil-1.3223993
the most politically important part of the refugee part of the poll is that 25% of liberals and 15% of dippers think we're bringing in too many refugees. i'd need some polls on the topic directly to be sure. but i would think that people that think we should do more on this issue would be very unlikely to change their vote on this topic alone, but that people that are...racists, basically...might find the issue has some pull. and, yes - there are plenty of racists that habitually vote ndp and/or liberal.
these numbers are more realistic than what we're seeing elsewhere. big sample sizes. phones, not panels. but, a few days behind. you want to believe this poll, whether you like the results or not.
and i don't. but it's reflecting the problem that the liberals have in campaigning on the right (which they're now moving away from, thankfully). if we're going to be pretentious and pretend we need an explanation for such a small shift, let's not ignore the deficit announcement. but, let's not jump to absurd conclusions either - these are tories coming home, and voters the liberals could have never kept through any sort of difficulty. it takes a lot for them to swing liberal, and very little for them to go back home. it's true that the liberals may have blown the duffy scandal by taking a smart economic position on deficits. but, they could not have won solely on the scandal, anyways. and if the ndp can form a government, the liberals are in a lot of trouble. they have to fight on the other side.
i haven't seen the regional numbers yet. i'm going to guess that the conservatives are mostly up in alberta, and if that's the case then this boost is largely inconsequential. what i want to see are the numbers in ontario.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/11/the-ekos-poll-could-the-refugee-crisis-be-good-for-harper
these numbers are more realistic than what we're seeing elsewhere. big sample sizes. phones, not panels. but, a few days behind. you want to believe this poll, whether you like the results or not.
and i don't. but it's reflecting the problem that the liberals have in campaigning on the right (which they're now moving away from, thankfully). if we're going to be pretentious and pretend we need an explanation for such a small shift, let's not ignore the deficit announcement. but, let's not jump to absurd conclusions either - these are tories coming home, and voters the liberals could have never kept through any sort of difficulty. it takes a lot for them to swing liberal, and very little for them to go back home. it's true that the liberals may have blown the duffy scandal by taking a smart economic position on deficits. but, they could not have won solely on the scandal, anyways. and if the ndp can form a government, the liberals are in a lot of trouble. they have to fight on the other side.
i haven't seen the regional numbers yet. i'm going to guess that the conservatives are mostly up in alberta, and if that's the case then this boost is largely inconsequential. what i want to see are the numbers in ontario.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/11/the-ekos-poll-could-the-refugee-crisis-be-good-for-harper
modest deficits are, in fact, the historical track record. but, 20% interest rates to fight huge, sudden increases in the price of oil were starkly unusual. whatever you think of the debt (i don't care...), it is not the direct consequence of "over-spending". it's a consequence of the inflation that resulted from the 1973 oil embargo, and the interest rate hikes that were set to fight it.
it follows that if it really bothers you, you should be focused on keeping interest rates low, not on maintaining a balanced budget.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/11/most-canadians-in-favour-of-modest-deficits-ekos-poll/
it follows that if it really bothers you, you should be focused on keeping interest rates low, not on maintaining a balanced budget.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/11/most-canadians-in-favour-of-modest-deficits-ekos-poll/
Thursday, September 10, 2015
see, i was thinking about this, too. but, are voters going to hand them a majority if they can't pass legislation, or are they going to turf them? if we end up with an ndp minority, and we need another election because the senate isn't passing anything because he won't appoint senators, i couldn't see this working in his favour - he'll get slammed for obstructing parliament. and, if the reason it won't pass is because he won't appoint senators then he IS obstructing parliament.
rather, i think it is clear that he will actually appoint senators and that we can reduce claims to the contrary to simple demagoguery - which he has been doing quite a bit of in this campaign. this is a policy that is much older than mulcair is. on the one hand, i don't really doubt he'll do something or other on the file, even if he's starkly limited by the reality of it. on the other hand, he's really being a spokesperson for a longstanding party tradition, and what he says about this should really be taken with a grain of salt.
what he's been saying about it is really flatly irrational.
to me, the bigger question is whether the consistent gaffes, weasel words and inconsistencies coming from him are beginning to add up or not. it takes about three minutes of careful thinking to realize that he's not being honest about this.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-senate-problems-1.3220763
rather, i think it is clear that he will actually appoint senators and that we can reduce claims to the contrary to simple demagoguery - which he has been doing quite a bit of in this campaign. this is a policy that is much older than mulcair is. on the one hand, i don't really doubt he'll do something or other on the file, even if he's starkly limited by the reality of it. on the other hand, he's really being a spokesperson for a longstanding party tradition, and what he says about this should really be taken with a grain of salt.
what he's been saying about it is really flatly irrational.
to me, the bigger question is whether the consistent gaffes, weasel words and inconsistencies coming from him are beginning to add up or not. it takes about three minutes of careful thinking to realize that he's not being honest about this.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-senate-problems-1.3220763
my position on this is that there shouldn't be a distinction in the first place. and, if it weren't for the precise wording of the constitution (which uses the term "natural persons"), it would certainly be unconstitutional to give corporations different tax rates than people.
corporations are people. let's tax them like people. all of them. big. small. and everywhere in between.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-justin-trudeau-small-business-tax-rates-criticism-1.3221858
corporations are people. let's tax them like people. all of them. big. small. and everywhere in between.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-justin-trudeau-small-business-tax-rates-criticism-1.3221858
very little of the polling since the beginning of september is reliable - the nanos polling will throw off the long weekend starting tomorrow. and i think we should get an ekos poll tomorrow, although i don't know if they polled over the weekend, and it may need to be taken carefully (although the larger sample size should balance it out).
the idea of a poll aggregate is good if all inputs are created equal. i know you're weighting them relative to various concerns. but, when you start taking good and bad polls and averaging them out, you're polluting the good polls rather than balancing out the bad ones.
that said, i think the trendline is clear. and, thankfully, the country is aligning into regions rather than splitting itself across the board. but, yeah - it's ontario. but, it's believable, given the recent provincial results and the seeming truth that the ontario liberal party is in the midst of a decades long dynastic rule, comparable to the previous red tory domination of the province. and, whatever you think of trudeau, he doesn't have the ideological liabilities of ignatieff [nor is the green party in a position, *this election*, to ruin trudeau like they ruined dion]. it used to be that things were kind of jumbled up regarding positions, and that ontarians wanted the parties to balance each other out at a provincial and federal level. but that dynamic seems to have receded, leaving ontarians with a smaller palette of options.
wherever you were approaching the situation from previously - red tories uneasy about harper's thatcherist bents, or the elusive literal centrist that thought it was worth a shot - has altered. harper has failed to appeal to anybody. and, it may have harris-like long term consequences in the province.
when ontario elected mike harris, a substantial number of [mostly older] voters had to think they were voting for the party of bill davis. but, they got something very different. and, as these voters have died over the last 20 years, their ideological descendants have grown up in a world where the right has never appealed to them. they may have been red tories in the 70s, but today they're simply liberals. that puts the ontario liberals in a very strong position for a very long time. and, there's little reason to think a similar reality *wouldn't* play out at the federal level, in reaction to a government that has ignored almost every issue that would be important to traditional tory voters, while pushing a number of things that make their skin crawl.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polls-sep10-1.3222457
Love Karl Marx
Liberals today are not the Liberals of JT's father either. PET was a communist and I supported him completely and the Liberals under him. But, not any more. Neoliberalism is an evil ideology.
Jessica Murray
now, *this* is an interesting troll...
i think there's an argument that trudeau was somewhat of an anarchist, in the way that anarchism intersects with liberalism - he seemed to hold a lot of ideas that fall into that grey area. but, there's not a smidgeon of evidence that he ever supported workers taking control of their means of production. and, if you don't support worker-owned industry, then you're not a communist. sorry.
old man marx would have ripped the charter to pieces as a bourgeois document that exists to restrict people's rights. and, he may have been slightly correct in his denunciations, with a large list of caveats.
the idea of a poll aggregate is good if all inputs are created equal. i know you're weighting them relative to various concerns. but, when you start taking good and bad polls and averaging them out, you're polluting the good polls rather than balancing out the bad ones.
that said, i think the trendline is clear. and, thankfully, the country is aligning into regions rather than splitting itself across the board. but, yeah - it's ontario. but, it's believable, given the recent provincial results and the seeming truth that the ontario liberal party is in the midst of a decades long dynastic rule, comparable to the previous red tory domination of the province. and, whatever you think of trudeau, he doesn't have the ideological liabilities of ignatieff [nor is the green party in a position, *this election*, to ruin trudeau like they ruined dion]. it used to be that things were kind of jumbled up regarding positions, and that ontarians wanted the parties to balance each other out at a provincial and federal level. but that dynamic seems to have receded, leaving ontarians with a smaller palette of options.
wherever you were approaching the situation from previously - red tories uneasy about harper's thatcherist bents, or the elusive literal centrist that thought it was worth a shot - has altered. harper has failed to appeal to anybody. and, it may have harris-like long term consequences in the province.
when ontario elected mike harris, a substantial number of [mostly older] voters had to think they were voting for the party of bill davis. but, they got something very different. and, as these voters have died over the last 20 years, their ideological descendants have grown up in a world where the right has never appealed to them. they may have been red tories in the 70s, but today they're simply liberals. that puts the ontario liberals in a very strong position for a very long time. and, there's little reason to think a similar reality *wouldn't* play out at the federal level, in reaction to a government that has ignored almost every issue that would be important to traditional tory voters, while pushing a number of things that make their skin crawl.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polls-sep10-1.3222457
Love Karl Marx
Liberals today are not the Liberals of JT's father either. PET was a communist and I supported him completely and the Liberals under him. But, not any more. Neoliberalism is an evil ideology.
Jessica Murray
now, *this* is an interesting troll...
i think there's an argument that trudeau was somewhat of an anarchist, in the way that anarchism intersects with liberalism - he seemed to hold a lot of ideas that fall into that grey area. but, there's not a smidgeon of evidence that he ever supported workers taking control of their means of production. and, if you don't support worker-owned industry, then you're not a communist. sorry.
old man marx would have ripped the charter to pieces as a bourgeois document that exists to restrict people's rights. and, he may have been slightly correct in his denunciations, with a large list of caveats.
i agree with him on the corporate tax hike, and not much else.
i'm glad he's clarifying his budget stance. it's just a question of people knowing what they're voting for.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-interview-1.3221183
NeedPotLegalizedSoICanSurviveTheNextFourYears
So you're for a tax hike that may very well be the straw that broke the camel's back, forcing corporations to relocate to other countries, taking those jobs with them?
Because that what will happen as a result. MARK MY WORDS.
Jessica Murray
you know, i'm not really that concerned about that. there's two reasons.
the first is that a lot of our economy is resource-based. that means that we have the leverage, not them. we can tell them that if they don't want to pay their taxes, then they can't access our resources - and award contracts to other companies that are willing to pay the taxes. you've got the whole thing backwards, when it comes to resource-based economies.
the second is that i think workers should run their own industries, anyways. such a policy may make investment here less attractive for hierarchically organized foreign corporations, but i don't want an economy driven by hierarchically organized foreign corporations - i want a society driven by horizontally organized local corporations. i would say "good riddance" - and "let's build a better system".
we control what we produce. we control what we buy. we are not the whim of imaginary market forces. and we really need to remove the mental shackles of pretending that we are.
of course, none of the parties are proposing this. and, the constitution specifies "natural persons" for a reason.
i'm glad he's clarifying his budget stance. it's just a question of people knowing what they're voting for.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-tom-mulcair-interview-1.3221183
NeedPotLegalizedSoICanSurviveTheNextFourYears
So you're for a tax hike that may very well be the straw that broke the camel's back, forcing corporations to relocate to other countries, taking those jobs with them?
Because that what will happen as a result. MARK MY WORDS.
Jessica Murray
you know, i'm not really that concerned about that. there's two reasons.
the first is that a lot of our economy is resource-based. that means that we have the leverage, not them. we can tell them that if they don't want to pay their taxes, then they can't access our resources - and award contracts to other companies that are willing to pay the taxes. you've got the whole thing backwards, when it comes to resource-based economies.
the second is that i think workers should run their own industries, anyways. such a policy may make investment here less attractive for hierarchically organized foreign corporations, but i don't want an economy driven by hierarchically organized foreign corporations - i want a society driven by horizontally organized local corporations. i would say "good riddance" - and "let's build a better system".
we control what we produce. we control what we buy. we are not the whim of imaginary market forces. and we really need to remove the mental shackles of pretending that we are.
of course, none of the parties are proposing this. and, the constitution specifies "natural persons" for a reason.
i think you need to read the polls correctly to get to the right answer. and, it's just a libertarian position on the matter: it's the individual's choice and shouldn't be interfered with by the government.
if somebody wants to die, what right does a state have to interfere in the matter and force them to stay alive? it's an absurd position, frankly. and, it's broadly consistent with what polls say on a wide range of other issues. see, this is what the conservatives consistently screw up. canadians aren't opposed to economic regulation. we're opposed to social regulation. you know - real liberalism, not this perverted neo-liberal crap. but, they're slashing economic regulations while refusing to address social regulations. i think that mclaughlin is closer to the public perception on this than any of our political leaders are.
sure: it requires taking a step back from a certain religious persuasion. but, canadians have already done this. they're just waiting for the political system to catch up, and the supreme court has given them what they need to to do so.
the law needs to be written around ways to ensure the state is not able to interfere, not ways to reform state interference. you're going to need a contract. some witnesses. let the lawyers work that out - but it's not all that complicated, it's just a question of ensuring a public record exists of consent and can be verified before the action occurs.
http://globalnews.ca/news/2213196/election-2015-is-canada-ready-for-physician-assisted-death/
if somebody wants to die, what right does a state have to interfere in the matter and force them to stay alive? it's an absurd position, frankly. and, it's broadly consistent with what polls say on a wide range of other issues. see, this is what the conservatives consistently screw up. canadians aren't opposed to economic regulation. we're opposed to social regulation. you know - real liberalism, not this perverted neo-liberal crap. but, they're slashing economic regulations while refusing to address social regulations. i think that mclaughlin is closer to the public perception on this than any of our political leaders are.
sure: it requires taking a step back from a certain religious persuasion. but, canadians have already done this. they're just waiting for the political system to catch up, and the supreme court has given them what they need to to do so.
the law needs to be written around ways to ensure the state is not able to interfere, not ways to reform state interference. you're going to need a contract. some witnesses. let the lawyers work that out - but it's not all that complicated, it's just a question of ensuring a public record exists of consent and can be verified before the action occurs.
http://globalnews.ca/news/2213196/election-2015-is-canada-ready-for-physician-assisted-death/
it's the right idea. and i've pointed this out repeatedly. but the kinds of numbers we're seeing in ontario suggest they're likely to take a bigger dent out of the gta than is present here. superimpose a map of the last provincial election to see what i mean.
my rants were rooted in the idea that they weren't running away with anything, and that the high ndp numbers were more likely to split in favour of the conservatives than actually win the ndp any seats. but, the liberals are positioned far better to take advantage of a dip in ndp support than the ndp are to take advantage of a dip in liberal support. if the liberals are really pushing 40, they will do far better in toronto than this map is letting on, and may very well leap frog. but, that's a question of regional polling, not national polling.
on the one hand, they could get 30% nationally and win 40 seats - if it's scattered around all over the place, as was appearing to be true a few weeks ago. on the other hand, they could get 25% nationally and win 100 seats if they, say, crash to near zero in the prairies and climb into the high 30s in ontario.
there's just really not any evidence that 2011 was a defining election in the 905. as mentioned, these areas just voted for kathleen wynne. and i wouldn't underestimate the effect of that pension plan, which is popular in ontario and that wynne has set up as an election issue. along with a number of other things.
on top of that, there were some factors in 2011 relating to voter apathy with ignatieff that are not present here. as i've stated elsewhere, i think all the liberals really had to do to win in 2011 is not run somebody that backed an illegal war.
but, i'm rationalizing the numbers - the fact is that the snapshots right now are almost identical to the 2014 provincial election results. and, as of this moment, i think there's little conclusion other than that you'll see similar results.
what i was worried about was that the "orange wave" might run over ontario in such a way that converted two-way liberal-conservative races into conservative wins. a three-way split across the province, even if it led to less conservative votes and more liberal votes overall, would just elect more conservatives. but, that doesn't seem to be happening.
globalnews.ca/news/2212501/10-ridings-the-liberals-need-to-win-to-get-out-of-3rd-place/
my rants were rooted in the idea that they weren't running away with anything, and that the high ndp numbers were more likely to split in favour of the conservatives than actually win the ndp any seats. but, the liberals are positioned far better to take advantage of a dip in ndp support than the ndp are to take advantage of a dip in liberal support. if the liberals are really pushing 40, they will do far better in toronto than this map is letting on, and may very well leap frog. but, that's a question of regional polling, not national polling.
on the one hand, they could get 30% nationally and win 40 seats - if it's scattered around all over the place, as was appearing to be true a few weeks ago. on the other hand, they could get 25% nationally and win 100 seats if they, say, crash to near zero in the prairies and climb into the high 30s in ontario.
there's just really not any evidence that 2011 was a defining election in the 905. as mentioned, these areas just voted for kathleen wynne. and i wouldn't underestimate the effect of that pension plan, which is popular in ontario and that wynne has set up as an election issue. along with a number of other things.
on top of that, there were some factors in 2011 relating to voter apathy with ignatieff that are not present here. as i've stated elsewhere, i think all the liberals really had to do to win in 2011 is not run somebody that backed an illegal war.
but, i'm rationalizing the numbers - the fact is that the snapshots right now are almost identical to the 2014 provincial election results. and, as of this moment, i think there's little conclusion other than that you'll see similar results.
what i was worried about was that the "orange wave" might run over ontario in such a way that converted two-way liberal-conservative races into conservative wins. a three-way split across the province, even if it led to less conservative votes and more liberal votes overall, would just elect more conservatives. but, that doesn't seem to be happening.
globalnews.ca/news/2212501/10-ridings-the-liberals-need-to-win-to-get-out-of-3rd-place/
interesting polling project.
the two comments left here a little more than a year ago are similar to what i want to say, which indicates that the solutions are “in the air”, but i think it’s maybe useful to back up a little bit.
we often compare the current period of unfettered neo-liberal capitalism (or whatever you want to call it – unregulated capitalism, “really existing capitalism” – or perhaps “late capitalism” if you want to really poke fukuyuma in the eye) to the gilded age, but is that really a good comparison? globally, perhaps. when we think of the gilded age, we get images of dickensian factory labourers. kids working as chimney sweeps. and, the conditions that a lot of things we buy are made in overseas may mirror those conditions.
but, the issues we’re facing in north america are not related to poor working conditions, but to a lack of employment, itself. it’s more of the luddite critique. but, could the luddites actually be right, this time? and, if they are, is it cause for alarm or cause for celebration?
the existence of the middle class was predicated on the existence of labour in the first place. on one hand, it was fought for through union struggles. but, the left romanticizes this to a degree that is perhaps too self-congratulatory, and largely fantastical. the existence of the middle class has a lot to do with the adoption of fordism [the idea that workers should be able to buy the products they make], and the use of keynesian policies to break the cyclic downturns and keep workers buying.
but, there needs to be workers for there to be fordism. and there needs to be jobs for there to be workers. we’re looking at tactics that worked in the past and pondering whether they can be emulated, but not questioning if the conditions are comparable. and, i would argue that they are not.
moving forwards, we are not going to see a return to the kind of workforce that made fordism possible, or keynesianism viable. we’re going to see increasing mechanization. robots can never be members of the middle class. they are necessarily slave labourers. in a society that is veering in this direction, there is no place for a middle class of comfortable labourers – there is only space for a professional class of financial managers and technocrats, and a wide swath of low wage drone workers. and, even the drone workers that we see around us everywhere – in everything from fast food to retail – are on the brink of obsolescence. the day you order a big mac on a computer screen is the day the economy implodes. and, that day is not merely close but entirely imminent.
this requires a deeper rethink. but, as pointed out, the answers are in front of us. far from being the end of progress, these answers are the resurrection of it. instead of being partisan and ideological, let’s look at history as though it is a process for a minute. i’m citing engels here, but that’s not important.
nobody doubts that liberalism was designed to maximize freedom; some claim it’s framers were naive, others claim they were just wrong, but nobody doubts the intention. and, maybe i’m naive myself, but i think it’s an entirely reasonable economic arrangement – under certain conditions. the first condition is that everybody has to own property. the second is that everybody has to own themselves. if every individual can produce their own products with their own labour, indeed if they even *must*, it is a system than can maximize individual freedom – and if everybody is working in freedom to carry out their own goals, society should be the better for it.
but, then we had the industrial revolution, and it abolished those assumptions. individual workers could not compete with the machines, and became converted into wage labourers. property was eaten up by the people that owned the factories. and, it did not make sense to work against this. within this vacuum, socialism was born as a way to apply the ideals of liberalism to an industrial society. we never got to communism, but i’d take fordism over stalinism or maoism any day. it took some fighting, a few scares, some bad crashes – but we got there. for a while.
now that mechanization has taken over, and we are exiting industrial society and entering a mechanized society, we need to ask the same question: how do we apply the liberal ideals of self-ownership within a post-industrial society? and, the answers seem to have one thing in common: we need to find a way to take ownership of the machines that we now all rely so heavily on out of the control of a minority and into broad, public oversight. exactly how this is to be accomplished is up to us to determine together. but, it seems clear that it is the answer. and, it seems clear that most people know that it is the answer.
freedom on the other side of mechanization could be true liberation. legitimate emancipation.
but, we have to get our heads around it first. and, that means, first and foremost, that we have to understand that the idea of a middle class is a historical relic of a technological era that we’ve moved out of.
www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2014/08/from-the-end-of-history-to-the-end-of-progress/
the two comments left here a little more than a year ago are similar to what i want to say, which indicates that the solutions are “in the air”, but i think it’s maybe useful to back up a little bit.
we often compare the current period of unfettered neo-liberal capitalism (or whatever you want to call it – unregulated capitalism, “really existing capitalism” – or perhaps “late capitalism” if you want to really poke fukuyuma in the eye) to the gilded age, but is that really a good comparison? globally, perhaps. when we think of the gilded age, we get images of dickensian factory labourers. kids working as chimney sweeps. and, the conditions that a lot of things we buy are made in overseas may mirror those conditions.
but, the issues we’re facing in north america are not related to poor working conditions, but to a lack of employment, itself. it’s more of the luddite critique. but, could the luddites actually be right, this time? and, if they are, is it cause for alarm or cause for celebration?
the existence of the middle class was predicated on the existence of labour in the first place. on one hand, it was fought for through union struggles. but, the left romanticizes this to a degree that is perhaps too self-congratulatory, and largely fantastical. the existence of the middle class has a lot to do with the adoption of fordism [the idea that workers should be able to buy the products they make], and the use of keynesian policies to break the cyclic downturns and keep workers buying.
but, there needs to be workers for there to be fordism. and there needs to be jobs for there to be workers. we’re looking at tactics that worked in the past and pondering whether they can be emulated, but not questioning if the conditions are comparable. and, i would argue that they are not.
moving forwards, we are not going to see a return to the kind of workforce that made fordism possible, or keynesianism viable. we’re going to see increasing mechanization. robots can never be members of the middle class. they are necessarily slave labourers. in a society that is veering in this direction, there is no place for a middle class of comfortable labourers – there is only space for a professional class of financial managers and technocrats, and a wide swath of low wage drone workers. and, even the drone workers that we see around us everywhere – in everything from fast food to retail – are on the brink of obsolescence. the day you order a big mac on a computer screen is the day the economy implodes. and, that day is not merely close but entirely imminent.
this requires a deeper rethink. but, as pointed out, the answers are in front of us. far from being the end of progress, these answers are the resurrection of it. instead of being partisan and ideological, let’s look at history as though it is a process for a minute. i’m citing engels here, but that’s not important.
nobody doubts that liberalism was designed to maximize freedom; some claim it’s framers were naive, others claim they were just wrong, but nobody doubts the intention. and, maybe i’m naive myself, but i think it’s an entirely reasonable economic arrangement – under certain conditions. the first condition is that everybody has to own property. the second is that everybody has to own themselves. if every individual can produce their own products with their own labour, indeed if they even *must*, it is a system than can maximize individual freedom – and if everybody is working in freedom to carry out their own goals, society should be the better for it.
but, then we had the industrial revolution, and it abolished those assumptions. individual workers could not compete with the machines, and became converted into wage labourers. property was eaten up by the people that owned the factories. and, it did not make sense to work against this. within this vacuum, socialism was born as a way to apply the ideals of liberalism to an industrial society. we never got to communism, but i’d take fordism over stalinism or maoism any day. it took some fighting, a few scares, some bad crashes – but we got there. for a while.
now that mechanization has taken over, and we are exiting industrial society and entering a mechanized society, we need to ask the same question: how do we apply the liberal ideals of self-ownership within a post-industrial society? and, the answers seem to have one thing in common: we need to find a way to take ownership of the machines that we now all rely so heavily on out of the control of a minority and into broad, public oversight. exactly how this is to be accomplished is up to us to determine together. but, it seems clear that it is the answer. and, it seems clear that most people know that it is the answer.
freedom on the other side of mechanization could be true liberation. legitimate emancipation.
but, we have to get our heads around it first. and, that means, first and foremost, that we have to understand that the idea of a middle class is a historical relic of a technological era that we’ve moved out of.
www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2014/08/from-the-end-of-history-to-the-end-of-progress/
i take your point, and it is important. but economists don't actually have jobs. they may teach. the article bit is true, but it's kind of a technicality; i'd push back against that, on some level. not too strongly. peer review is important. but it's not the only way to measure a person's contribution to a field. i'd personally rather publish over appspot than in journals, but i'm an anarchist so take that for what it is...
the other thing about a field like economics is that there's really a very small amount of base material. i had economic students in my math classes, and the way they explained it to me was that there's basically two years to the degree and the rest of it is entirely speculative and really broadly ideological. once you know what the basic glossary is, and understand a few basic mathematical techniques, the rest is just politics.
because economics is not a science. it's barely even a social science. it's more in the realm of political philosophy.
i'll call myself a mathematician from time to time offhand, depending on the context, but if i get challenged i'm not going to push the point, because i do know better than to pretend i'm really, seriously a mathematician. but, i also know that the fact that i have 30 odd credits in math (including enough taken at the graduate level when i was studying other topics to get a master's degree, if i were to apply for it) means i know more about math than you do, and can teach you more than a few things about the topic if the situation arises where i have the opportunity to.
i guess what i'm getting at is that this isn't binary. there are shades. harper may be more white than grey, but it's exaggerating to suggest he has no business talking about the economy, or something.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/frank-koller/stephen-harper-not-economist_b_8104870.html
the other thing about a field like economics is that there's really a very small amount of base material. i had economic students in my math classes, and the way they explained it to me was that there's basically two years to the degree and the rest of it is entirely speculative and really broadly ideological. once you know what the basic glossary is, and understand a few basic mathematical techniques, the rest is just politics.
because economics is not a science. it's barely even a social science. it's more in the realm of political philosophy.
i'll call myself a mathematician from time to time offhand, depending on the context, but if i get challenged i'm not going to push the point, because i do know better than to pretend i'm really, seriously a mathematician. but, i also know that the fact that i have 30 odd credits in math (including enough taken at the graduate level when i was studying other topics to get a master's degree, if i were to apply for it) means i know more about math than you do, and can teach you more than a few things about the topic if the situation arises where i have the opportunity to.
i guess what i'm getting at is that this isn't binary. there are shades. harper may be more white than grey, but it's exaggerating to suggest he has no business talking about the economy, or something.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/frank-koller/stephen-harper-not-economist_b_8104870.html
online polling doesn't have a good track record, and the nanos polls were taken over the long weekend. you can see the conservatives snapped back to almost 29 this morning when the wednesday numbers were included (he's doing three day rolling averages, remember). the forum polling has been unusual for a long time and i'm not sure what to make of it; it seems to me that they're underreporting their margins, but i couldn't tell you how or why (perhaps their ivr system is flawed). it's less that there's a specific trend and more that there's a wider range of outcomes.
i'm still looking at the last ekos poll as the most accurate recent snapshot, but that should hopefully change over the next few days.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/08/stephen-harper-federal-election-2015-projections_n_8105740.html
Suleyka Montpetit
The only change you can be hopeful for is the downward trend of the Conservative. The house of cards is falling down and everyone can see it.
Jessica Amber Murray
the lowest that the conservatives have ever polled in the history of the country is a little above 29% [if you take into account the split in the 90s, and the liberal-conservative voting patterns in the late 1800s]. polls that put them below 29% are consequently historic in scope. i may agree that harper has been a poor prime minister, but it's another thing to suggest that conservatism is at such depths. if that is true, then this election is not about stephen harper. it's about something more fundamental.
i don't claim that they're polling much higher than that. and i suspect that you may see some other parties on their right increase their vote share, especially in the west: the christian heritage party, or perhaps the libertarian party.
but it is very, very hard to believe that the conservatives are polling under 28 - because they never have before. ever. or, at least not without fracturing themselves into multiple components.
Cav
your comments and opinion would have far more credibility if you knew proper grammar and punctuation. This isn't teenage texting hour. Do you know what a 'capital' letter is?
Jessica Amber Murray
that's some fighting words from a sheridan college graduate. i refuse to capitalize! i am an anti-capitalist, an alphabetical egalitarian and a general grammar anti-authoritarian. i will flaunt the dictates of any and all centralized grammar authorities - and with reckless, wanton abandon.
i'm still looking at the last ekos poll as the most accurate recent snapshot, but that should hopefully change over the next few days.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/08/stephen-harper-federal-election-2015-projections_n_8105740.html
Suleyka Montpetit
The only change you can be hopeful for is the downward trend of the Conservative. The house of cards is falling down and everyone can see it.
Jessica Amber Murray
the lowest that the conservatives have ever polled in the history of the country is a little above 29% [if you take into account the split in the 90s, and the liberal-conservative voting patterns in the late 1800s]. polls that put them below 29% are consequently historic in scope. i may agree that harper has been a poor prime minister, but it's another thing to suggest that conservatism is at such depths. if that is true, then this election is not about stephen harper. it's about something more fundamental.
i don't claim that they're polling much higher than that. and i suspect that you may see some other parties on their right increase their vote share, especially in the west: the christian heritage party, or perhaps the libertarian party.
but it is very, very hard to believe that the conservatives are polling under 28 - because they never have before. ever. or, at least not without fracturing themselves into multiple components.
Cav
your comments and opinion would have far more credibility if you knew proper grammar and punctuation. This isn't teenage texting hour. Do you know what a 'capital' letter is?
Jessica Amber Murray
that's some fighting words from a sheridan college graduate. i refuse to capitalize! i am an anti-capitalist, an alphabetical egalitarian and a general grammar anti-authoritarian. i will flaunt the dictates of any and all centralized grammar authorities - and with reckless, wanton abandon.
i think this is a mixed bag in terms of accuracy. and, that her comments should be analyzed by the metric of accuracy. she seems to be representing a large swath of the population that...it's "hippie bullshit". but, this is a fact of life in our political system and something to get used to.
i think she's partly right on the domestic violence front. there have been many reports (including reports by the united nations) that conclude that marijuana lowers domestic violence - *if* it is used as a replacement for alcohol. that's almost certainly what she's getting at: that alcohol is very strongly correlated with domestic violence, whereas marijuana is not. that's not the same thing, though, as suggesting that marijuana lowers violent crime. the un report actually concluded that marijuana legalization is consequently preferable to alcohol legalization - and i hold that position, as well. to me, one of the most profound consequences of marijuana legalization is the hope that it reduces alcohol consumption. alcohol abuse is a serious root cause of a lot of crime.
the cancer thing is more than tenuous, but you need to bring in a lot of caveats. first, the studies that suggest that thc may be useful to reverse tumour growth are with very highly concentrated amounts that you could not access via smoking a joint, or even eating a brownie. suggesting that recreational pot use has anti-carcinogenic properties is simply a bad argument. second, marijuana is usually rolled with tobacco.
i don't know where she's getting the idea that mom smoking pot raises kids' iqs, but it seems beyond dubious - especially if mom is smoking pot rolled with tobacco. that sounds like something from some hippie website like "natural news" or something.
now, i suspect these views are part of a broader anti-science perspective. somebody needs to ask her about vaccines. and gmos. it's a continuum of thought. and it's a real thing.
it is on that basis that i would challenge her candidacy, rather than on a kneejerk anti-pot or "law and order" basis. to me, it sets off red flags that this is somebody that is not scientifically literate enough to sit in the house.
moving forward, i think this is something that needs to be more closely vetted. anybody who has been on facebook knows how widely spread this nonsense is, and how strongly it resonates with "regular people" that lean towards activism.
if i was running a party, the very first question i would ask is "do vaccines cause autism?". i'm not joking. it would be the absolute first level of screening.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/09/joy-davies-marijuana-pot-trudeau-south-surrey_n_8114066.htm
i think she's partly right on the domestic violence front. there have been many reports (including reports by the united nations) that conclude that marijuana lowers domestic violence - *if* it is used as a replacement for alcohol. that's almost certainly what she's getting at: that alcohol is very strongly correlated with domestic violence, whereas marijuana is not. that's not the same thing, though, as suggesting that marijuana lowers violent crime. the un report actually concluded that marijuana legalization is consequently preferable to alcohol legalization - and i hold that position, as well. to me, one of the most profound consequences of marijuana legalization is the hope that it reduces alcohol consumption. alcohol abuse is a serious root cause of a lot of crime.
the cancer thing is more than tenuous, but you need to bring in a lot of caveats. first, the studies that suggest that thc may be useful to reverse tumour growth are with very highly concentrated amounts that you could not access via smoking a joint, or even eating a brownie. suggesting that recreational pot use has anti-carcinogenic properties is simply a bad argument. second, marijuana is usually rolled with tobacco.
i don't know where she's getting the idea that mom smoking pot raises kids' iqs, but it seems beyond dubious - especially if mom is smoking pot rolled with tobacco. that sounds like something from some hippie website like "natural news" or something.
now, i suspect these views are part of a broader anti-science perspective. somebody needs to ask her about vaccines. and gmos. it's a continuum of thought. and it's a real thing.
it is on that basis that i would challenge her candidacy, rather than on a kneejerk anti-pot or "law and order" basis. to me, it sets off red flags that this is somebody that is not scientifically literate enough to sit in the house.
moving forward, i think this is something that needs to be more closely vetted. anybody who has been on facebook knows how widely spread this nonsense is, and how strongly it resonates with "regular people" that lean towards activism.
if i was running a party, the very first question i would ask is "do vaccines cause autism?". i'm not joking. it would be the absolute first level of screening.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/09/joy-davies-marijuana-pot-trudeau-south-surrey_n_8114066.htm
see, you have to understand that most trans people don't identify as homosexual, unless they're homosexual relative to the identity they move into. there's consequently not a contradiction. rather, the idea of conflating the issues is very false. you need to understand her comments as though they're coming from a sarah palin, as that would be how she would conceive of herself in her own mind - not as a queer person.
in a sense, i think this is an opportunity for people to really understand the trans condition. but, with that very sparse introduction as guidance, i'm going to let people reflect on it rather than write about it.
in a sense, i think this is an opportunity for people to really understand the trans condition. but, with that very sparse introduction as guidance, i'm going to let people reflect on it rather than write about it.
i was thinking it was going to be arnold. but i called it.
he's getting set up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KinTp7uh8Os
he's getting set up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KinTp7uh8Os
america is built on the idea that it's only wrong if you get caught. it's the legacy of puritanism, built right into the constitution - it's the fourth amendment. it's the political culture, the corporate culture and especially the financial culture.
so, when you do an undercover operation like this, it hits people as an affront to what they consider to be fairness - that is, the right to commit crimes so long as you don't get caught.
so, when you do an undercover operation like this, it hits people as an affront to what they consider to be fairness - that is, the right to commit crimes so long as you don't get caught.
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