hitops

I'm all for divestment, let the clueless artificially lower the cost of those companies for me. But really divestment has no impact. Furthermore, it's pointless. All the other stuff they will move those investments into, will itself be invested in oil or tied to oil in some way. The economy is interconnected, not separate pieces.

Right now I am going through Nesbitt Burns. Would you include them in the clown category? I would really like to invest on my own a little. Have been reading Garth Turner blog for a few years now, I would probably fall into the 'too scared' category. But I do have time and motivation to learn. At the risk of sounding dumb, you can invest in ETF's outside of your home country correct? How do you recognize what are broad, relatively safe ETF's?

Housing costs are out of control which spill over and drive up rents, and this is one of the biggest costs for retirees. Something like 1/3 of people retiring today, still have a mortgage. The lower-income retirees are affected more by the effect on rents. Is there a cheaper way to passively and safely invest than just going through a typical bank-affiliated investment adviser?

But Americans, and increasingly Canadians, love the politics of race. Most of the differences based on race disappear when you correct for other underlying factors.

More or less yep. We want to live in a fantasyland where we continue to have a modern existence requiring energy, and don't extract or use fossil fuels. So we pretend we are doing something by stopping oil transport in Canada, while simultaneously consuming loads of oil from other countries. And this is for the 'environment.' It's schizophrenia.

That's also my same point. In particular, their are gaping differences in economic and social outcomes between so called African Americans and African black immigrants.

No you just don't understand. I live up north and it's expensive! I won't move....because......because this is where I am! You owe me.

I'm glad I don't pay into this. Abolishing the CMHC would do more to help retirees than the CPP ever will.

I agree, but people insist on specious arguments that 'poverty is worse in the US'. The whole point is that the US is not comparable to Canada. But if we insist on comparing, we should at least make our best efforts at comparing the groups as similar as possible. The fact that some African immigrants groups do tremendously well and vastly ourperform African Americans is an important piece of information in understanding what drives poverty and prosperity. Especially so, now that everybody is obsessed with racist explanations for everything.

Which it is not. It just an indicator of our own problems. I don't think that. Those are the findings of various US, WHO and OECD reports over the last decades. For our fisheries. Not for the world. Inertia is the wrong word - it implies that things are good due to previously being good. The exact opposite is true - things were previously much worse, and are now much better than before for your average human on this planet. Also, a little worse for your average Canadian. Which is why we need less of it.

This number is so tiny it is not worth worrying about how it might affect the numbers. They are far outnumbered by African immigrants, whereas in the US the descendants of slaves far outnumber the immigrants. These are not comparable groups of blacks.

I take issue with those claims - The brief 2 years when our earnings were more than the US, was due entirely due to the resource boom and our dollar coming to parity. Now that we are back to $0.70, they earn more again, just as they always did before. - With the exchange rate, the average minimum wage in the US is basically the same as in Canada - Even if we have a 'better paid lower class', the consequent increased cost of living most disproportionately affects that same lower class. It's just shifting the deck chairs, minus the waste lost due to the costs of the shifting. - None of that is even considering the fact that we don't really pay our lower class more. In reality, we pay some of them more, and price others out of the labor market into unemployment. The US unemployment is indeed much lower than ours. A real comparison of our lower class workforce would be to compare Americans making minimum wage to the average of Canadians making minimum wage added to the extra percentage of those employed who are making nothing.

I doubt they made it up. I doubt it is a coincidence their number comes from 2006 - the last time we had the long form census. I'm not sure you are really wanting more data on the state of Nigerians as an example of an African immigrant group. Given the sources I've provided, I doubt you would argue that they are similar to African Americans. We need to compare similar groups. We have never had African slaves, nor do we have descendants of any (other than perhaps a tiny minority who may have come here from the US), so we can't look at their African Americans, who are by far the worst performing group in either nation, and say their poverty is worse by means of their economic system. It's same reason we can't look at a nations mostly consisting of well-educated white people and conclude we should do what they do. If we want to compare to Sweden say, we need to compare Sweden to Canadian well educated white people. Most likely if we did so, we would find that group does as well or better in Canada, and pays a lot less in tax. Even more so in the US, would be my guess.

No, it's that you are talking about only fisheries, and I'm talking about fisheries and global quality of life indicators. You don't want to talk about the global stuff, except you brought it up claiming that somehow our fisheries mean life is worse everywhere. It isn't. Yes, we should have open competition and not monopolies. No, the world is not worse off today than decades ago, overall.

How about natives as an example. Different sources will give slightly different numbers. The AFN says average household income for aboriginals was 16K in 2006. http://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/factsheets/quality_of_life_final_fe.pdf US census says median household income for native Americans was 35K in 2011. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff22.html Not a perfect comparision - different years, median vs average, CDN vs USD. We can crudely correct for this: - USD worth more (add 30% for US) - Average normally higher than median when talking about incomes statistics (about 10-20% higher depending) - Incomes normally improve over time (1-2% inflation per year) Overall, better down south. None of that even touches on things like how they have far more access to goods, much cheaper food (especially produce) and fuel, and other things that affect quality of life.

Except it isn't. Our fisheries have no relation to global welfare. The whole can do well, while one part does poorly. This is incredibly difficult for you to grasp, for reasons unknown. You haven't correctly represented a single position that I hold, thus far. I can't respond based on your imagination. I can only respond based on my actual position. You are so invested in the fisheries issue, you are not really reading anything that is being said.

No it's a reality gap. I see that's it's reality, and you I guess believe Quebec powers it's cars with good wishes.

By transporting oil in a more dangerous way, and funding monarchies who don't let women drive or vote? Jacee, always the progressive.

Could be true, but not my point. US coal is a perfect example of a self-inflicted problem, and we would see the results if not for fracking lessening the blow. That's exactly the point - the absurdity of being a net exporter, yet needing to import for the east, simply because people don't like the ideas of pipelines. Oil by rail and tanker though? - totally fine.

The US coal industry is the perfect example. The difference is that fracking came along at the same time and more than compensated, with very cheap and very clean NG energy. The irony is that the pain caused by the anti-coal forces was relieved by fracking, which those same forces also hate and would stop if they could. But no, we are pretty much the only nation that is in the ridiculous position of having tons of oil, but choosing to buy oil from Saudi while blocking transport of our own, to our own country. You couldn't make up a dumber plan if you tried. This is our reality.

It's pretty juvenile. I would prefer a serious grown up with principles as our representative.

The fact that the leader of our nation runs around taking fan selfies. Just put him on one of those Japanese game shows where you run around obstacles, bat each other with sumo bellies and fall into water pits and we can get it out of our system.

Maybe you should clarify what you want cited. I mistakenly assumed that when you quoted my statement and asked for a citation, you were wanting something related to what you quoted. Guess I should have increased the gain on my mindreader 3000.

Except they're not. The alternative is the status quo - oil on tankers and rail. They are not talking about that at all. The real alternative is not what you think could happen, it is what actually does happen.

What are you even arguing here? Your claim was that the world was going to hell. The basis for your claim was the fisheries problem and inequality. Yes, the fisheries have problems. No, the world is not going to hell, in fact it is improving. Those two facts can, and do, exist simultaneously, and that's ok. There's nothing illogical or impossible about that. You want to believe it, because it's the story you want to tell. Most likely, you want to conjure up sympathy for the fishermen losing out. To do so, you need this to be an apocalyptic event. It's just not. Quite right. And completely unrelated to your accompanying claim, that the world is falling apart. Separate the issues. Life is way, way better today for hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis and many others, even if it is worse for thousands of Canadians, compared to 20-30 years ago. Other people (for example the poorest on earth) deserve an chance to improve their lives too, not just us. If those lives are improving due to globalization and dispersing for manufacturing and labor markets, and this raises worldwide standards of living, even if we feel more of a pinch in our corner, I embrace it.