myata

Of course it doesn't suggest any problems with a bunch of buddies controlling food distribution. Just call it "free market" and keep your fingers crossed that they suddenly decide to drop prices. Like it can happen, right? And don't ever think of "interfering"! This is a truly sad choice this country will have for the foreseeable perspective, that is, till a full blown systemic crisis of public administration and a de facto third world state. Star-eyed lefties managing by hand for Joe's own good; or don't you interfere with my monopolist buddies "free" marketeers. Just try to figure out which is the more promising one. Seriously, try!

You bet (in a dream though). An oligopoly of best buddies; or a government bureaucracy of best buddies. Make your free choice.

In an oligopolistic economy the buyer pays the seller's price. Simply, there's no other choice. Canada's mobile and Internet rates are a fine, permanent example. Put there three ombudsh@ck or thirty-three, multiply their budget tenfold or hundred-fold, the prices won't budge. Then, Canada had a tradition of cheap food. Even being an oligopoly it's not easy to change a tradition. If you move too early the others may not follow and you're screwed. If everybody moves together, without a cause it would look suspicions and the government (very reluctantly, in a free" market run by hands by their best buddies) would have to intervene. And then, there's was a miraculous, once in a life chance: guess. The result: Canada isn't a cheep food place anymore. And the prices aren't going back. Because in an oligopoly, the buyer pays...

End the age of oligopolies, especially in food distribution. Mandatory divestment or extra tax on distributors with over 10% of the market. Return to market competition, without cute disclaimers. Will "PP" do that? You bet (such a can of worms). Entitled buddies chatting over a golf game while Joe waiting for positive change, numbly and patiently. The eternal story.

Actually, not only an opinion. He admitted to turning off components of his satellite systems that affected the operations. And that just shows that he's volatile and cannot be trusted. Imagine at a critical moment a critical connection is lost or cannot be made. Absolutely no "muzzling". Just staying away from the kind of stable geniuses is good enough for me.

I honestly don't know what it is.. but here's an idea. He cannot be dumb making it to where he is, but you see, with so many a lot of dough secretes something in some gland and causes the complex of greatness and then, the p*ss of greatness shoots straight into the brain and obscures all other thoughts. Happened countless times already. Ohoh.

It's past the reason and common sense now. Why bother? The trough is there for f-@#$ ever. Doesn't matter what we do.

Sure. But who is interested? That was supposed to be our job, as citizens, to observe, think, discuss and come up with solutions. Each new phase, every new development will require an intelligent response and working solutions. But we decided to delegated it all, all of the thinking and responsibility to someone in a high office, and go back to blissful slumber of daily survival. So who's there to blame when we wake up to unpleasant surprises? They were only doing their job - as much as they understood it and defined for themselves.

Well, should I repeat again that all politics if and when left to its own instruments will end up self-serving, and much much more so, the partisan politics. Liberals are influenced by some star eyed globalists, sure whereas Conservatives, more by traditional clans like oil, tobacco and guns. There's no good answer for the society in this dilemma. It went a bit farther, added some to the prosperity and now it's in the stagnation mode and to move ahead from here, we will have to find, think and create new answers. Swapping bobbleheads wouldn't do a thing.

This is a great point, of course. How many times has this wise phrase been repeated since? Has anyone seen it, appeasement of aggressive bullies and tyrants work, like ever? Is it even possible, theoretically, that it could work? Let's see: There's a young, aspiring bully, rising. It demands from you something, and you give it no questions asked. It shows you its aggressive, bullying moves. And all you show in return is hesitation and apparent weakness and lack of will to act. So what would the result be, like always, 100 / 100? No, it works exactly as it should and have, always! And then, we turn around and do it again! So what is the connection between repeating the right phrase ad boring infinitum and then, doing exactly the opposite in the reality? That can be an important, and what if the defining, us, question.

China unveiled "an integration plan" for Taiwanese who see their country as an independent democratic state. Of course his closest ally Putin also known as an accused war criminal under an international warrant has mastered puppeteering "integrations" in his quest to dominate Russia's neighbours. Today China's Foreign Minister is going to see Putin, while Chinese fleet musters near Taiwan. What will happen if at the height of his power Xi chooses to bet on the war, and formally joins the Axis of dictators, that it has been feeding covertly for a while now? Essentially, collective West will have two options. The first one is the tried and familiar sitting on the fence, pouring good lofty words (by the ton and then), doing nothing and hoping that bad things will figure themselves out, somehow. This one can be named Clinton-Obama-Merkel (COM) realpolitik, complete with an annual vocal festival of singing "never again". It will have its cute little umbrella of course, except everyone, the whole wide world will see how tiny and pathetic it is, in a rapidly changing world. The countries and leaders will seek patronage and protection, whoever and however could provide it, and at whatever price. And the other... except: haven't we grown too cute, innocent, lazy, happy to the oblivion, for that one?

Over centuries of experience, the societies have figured out that giving free hand to capitalism solves few problems and creates many new ones (overdevelopment, pollution, destructive cycles...). Now the capitalism has globalized and its all over, again. Only who promised that we have an infinite number of tries?

And again you're looking for miracle solutions, any straw to dump citizen's responsibility somewhere else and on someone else, and again (Einstein not needed) the experience and history will show you that the cost is dictatorship and chaos.

Absolutely. Political class has long figured out that it's not that hard to make the system work for them: status, power, and money why not, rather than for the society. This is of course the natural way of things, the way of entropy and it was said so many times so long ago that laziness and complacency on the part of the citizens will have only one result: the end of democracy.

It's not about efficiency or even common sense, far from that already. The Holy Public Healthcare is an ideological cow, something to hold on to against all odds and no matter what. The first one (and the other, universal goodness, the beavertale). Apathetic, complacent populace swallows mock pillow fights around it happily and so the party can go on forever, no scratch right to the third world hard stop.

It's very clear that it worked. Your post is a fine example. I'm not a fan of any one party, but very clearly if one slides to the Hell in a two-party system, not only the other, but the entire society follows. It has no choice. Partisan political system is never, ever good for the democracy.

And they are the product of the partisan political system. I would say, very much inevitable: in a system that allows only two players, whatever one does, becomes, with time, normality. There is no escape: it's easier to make yourself ignore a flaw on your side than to love your foe. Of course, unprincipled power-hungry jerks will use that, where's the calculus? Too bad the fathers haven't foreseen that, but it's none of their fault really. In evolution, species that failed to learn and adapt have few chances, and the prize forever and whatever isn't assured to anybody. But this time something out of ordinary is transpiring because the very foundations of democracy are being questioned and undermined: impartial election process; independence of judiciary and attorneys; abuse of the constitutional process. If and once it's taken away, what's left of the democracy? Back to square one; and if the full view of hopeful dictators, watching.

And they naturally increase the entropy in the environment. And that can look exactly like a politician serving individual (and in some sense it includes partisan) interests generating chaos in the wider society. Q.E.D. (at least on the level of appearances ? )

Of course the entropy works in social settings just as well as in the physical ones: - individual interests - partisan ones - social and democracy - basic survival For any involved agent e.g. politician serving the closest interests is most natural. That (in the system like partisan) can create chaos on a much greater scale (just as observed), increasing the entropy. No beating the laws of nature. The time is also one-directional, sorry.

It may very well be that we're living through the breakdown of the venerable American democracy. Extreme partisan polarization of politics is a real danger, a grave danger to the democracy and it will work to end it, one way (through a near-total deadlock) or the other (African / South American/ Middle East "stolen election" style). The problem is clear and present: the process is essentially, one-way. It can get worse; everybody in the right mind can clearly see how it can get worse; but there's no plausible ways in which it could repair itself. It is not possible on purely physical ground, as working against the entropy. One way out can be proposed and it's a slimmest of the slim chance to prevent the breakdown and enable the necessary change via peaceful and constitutional means: a non-partisan citizens assembly. It will examine the problem, discuss and agree on the solutions and propose them to the parties. Either at least one of them agrees to implement then when in power; or the citizens will have to do away with the both. Else, from here it looks like a straight finish line to a permanent deadlock. And one more time: a partisan political system is an extreme danger to the society. Ignoring this fact, praying on the past will do nothing, at all to negate it. It has full potential, means and it will destroy the democracy. If they don't know it yet it is only because they want to squeeze dry and a few more times, before it goes dead.

Economy and politics cycles are common in complex modern societies. Still both internal and global challenges are pointing at a new period of uncertainty ahead of us. Trying to outline the possible causes short of trying to make any predictions. 1. The humankind (and West as its most prosperous collective faction) appears to be failing in a) renewing and b) advancing the prospects and working social and economic models for shared, universal prosperity. Much data in the West over the past decades on the contrary, indicates the reversal of the trend with increasing concentration of wealth and stagnating, if not falling general standard of living. A contributing factor is the apparent failure to renew and modify the economic model, eliminating job security as the basis of general prosperity in many sectors and for large part of the population. 2. West, as an exemplar of democratic organization of the society failed to live up to its clear declared principles, over many, many unholy actions and compromises. Examples just too many: a company brutally clears up a patch for mining employing thugs to "convince" the population that it's good for them. Well, guess what, the story that will propagate throughout is the face of the collective West, as much and probably more, than all the wise thoughtful words. The little innocent trick, it's not us, they are "private" doesn't make a dent in it. Still your face - and the impression on the people. That fact can be of course used against it, creating uncertainty and mistrust in the world, influencing stability in many ways. 3. World, with collective West as its leader over the last generation, failed to establish functional and working international mechanism(s) of security. So the first time it was tested in a serious way, a failure. So back to square one. More uncertainty. Over many, many examples over centuries we can clearly observe that basic security is a necessary foundation for all forms of progress. No solution yet, in the third millennium. 4. West, but probably a general trait of humanity to avoid, actively and stubbornly any proactive thinking and action is failing to renew and update the democracy, constantly making it more responsive, effective and closer to the citizens contributing to creation of universal prosperity. Once the governments are far enough from the population, it's back to the old us and them pattern and the ritual may not matter anymore. We are short of new ideas, and prospects. And it cannot be hidden from the world. Probably more.

Last century? As opposed to working principle and daily practice? Wow.

Just great. And what is? Anything? If the leadership of a parliamentary party (a real one, in a multi-party parliament) lost confidence of the members it would be out the next vote. And they know it very well. And in Canada, they know.

And then... (no crystal ball, just reading old papers) The government will rule by hands, without any checks and controls; transparency neither (if you don't mean circus "Circus period") It will become lazy, bored and arrogant; It will allow itself screw ups of increasing proportion, being lazy and arrogant and out of all checks and controls; It won't fix any essential problems no matter how much public money they throw at it (and for itself, how else) The populace will get bored, looking for a change"; Et voila: we have another "landslide victory" Managing from screw up to screw up: the best in the world

Do you call it "freedom" when someone like an arm of the government, is looking over your shoulder and checking your every word, threatening you to leave you without the source of your income? Why do you not like those words, it's exactly what they do, there. Only facts, nothing personal.