Bonam

I used to care about the deficit but later I realized that what matters is one's own personal finances, not those of the country where one happens to live.

I don't know, but two Canadians above clearly stated that they do.

Ok, so Canadians care about America's deficits. But Americans don't. And by no one, I don't literally mean zero people out of 300+ million, just that the number that care is small enough that it's not a concern that is taken seriously by politicians. Your typical American can't even get their own credit card spending under control, let alone contemplate the implications decades down the road of today's deficit spending at a federal level.

No one cares about deficits any more. The only time people care about deficits is when they can use it to criticize the other party. Whether its left or right that's in power, they want to spend more and tax less, while sweeping the deficit under the rug. I don't think anyone that can read the word "deficit" is under any illusion that the deficit won't go up... they simply don't care.

Meh, I dislike Trump as much as the next guy but you are being pretty biased here. It's true that any legislative achievements are ultimately the result of work in congress, but it's also true that most of what has been done would not have been done under a Democrat president. And while Trump might not be able to read any word longer than a few letters, that doesn't mean that he didn't set deregulation as a priority at many agencies and/or appoint heads of these agencies that are for deregulation (of course, much of the deregulation is bad deregulation - but that doesn't stop it from being listed as an achievement if one is ideologically opposed to regulation). As for the tax cut bill... the criticism of it is mostly hypocritical BS. If you look at it, all it did was make America's taxes a lot more like Canada's. Reduced corporate rate (it's still higher than in Canada), reduced how much people can deduct local/state taxes (they can't deduct them at all in Canada), reduced how much mortgage interest can be deducted from taxes (it can't be deducted at all in Canada), reduced federal income tax rates (they are still higher, and more progressive, than in Canada), and increased the standard deduction so that far fewer people need to bother with the complexities of the tax code. So how exactly is this some evil bill that harms main street? No, the tax bill is one of the very few things done at the federal level since Trump came into office that's actually a significant step in the right direction.

Did you know there were over 600,000 Jews who were driven out of other Arab countries by their militaries, angry mobs, and government persecution? Their properties confiscated and many of their synagogues were burnt down. These 600,000 Jews became refugees and ended up having children in other countries. But these countries welcomed them with open arms and granted them citizenship, rather than creating an embittered disenfranchised population. Why could the one tiny country of Israel do for 600,000 refugees what 20 Arab countries could not do for their own people? There's one reason, and one reason only, Palestinians are kept stateless in camps as a cynical, cruel, ploy by Arab leaders to delegitimize Israel.

Ok, good for the UN.

We're well past that at this point, obviously. The point of my post was to explain to you that the UN is not seen as a credible or neutral or balanced authority when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict or the issue of Palestine. Therefore there's no point for you to keep referring to the UN doing something or saying something, because no one who disagrees with you cares. You have to come up with your own argument, rather than the "UN said so".

And? What did the UN do when the Arabs rejected the partition plan and invaded Israel? Did they help Israel to protect its borders and safeguards its people against this aggression? Did the UN help the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Arab countries after the founding of Israel? In later years, did the UN even so much as lift a finger to deter Hezbollah from arming itself and committing acts of aggression against Israel? No, no, and no. The UN does nothing regardless of what the Arabs do, but condemns Israel again and again. The UN has zero credibility on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and therefore is irrelevant.

The reality is that the vast majority of university students, after completing university (whether it's a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD) go off to work in private industry (or government positions). Therefore, for that majority of students, the primary purpose of going to university is to prepare oneself for their future career. A small fraction of students will go on to continue to work in academia, doing research. However, there are always many fewer positions as professors and researchers at universities than there are students graduating in that field (even PhD students), so again, it's only the top sliver who should consider betting their life prospects on following the academia path.

The world has too many of both economists and planners. That said, in almost any field, if you are a top 1% expert on the subject, you can have an excellent career and excellent pay. The only way to be a top 1% expert is if you are very interested in the subject and spend not only the required time studying it, but much of your own additional free time as well. Therefore, if you are deeply passionate about either one of those two subjects, I would suggest picking that one. But don't lie to yourself about how interested you are in something... not everyone is deeply passionate about a subject. On the other hand, if you are not deeply passionate about either and are just looking for a degree that has a fairly high certainty of letting you easily find a decent paying job, I would recommend considering some STEM fields. If you are not particularly math/science oriented, out of the programs offered at Queen's, you might considering Civil, Geological, or Mining Engineering. All lead fairly reliably to medium-high paying careers even if you are only an average performing student rather than a top performer, while requiring only an amount of math that most anyone can handle given a bit of perseverance (unlike some of the other fields which require some inherent mathematical aptitude).

Well, Washington has Amazon and Microsoft and Boeing. Those three companies, by themselves, exceed the GDP of all of Canada. And they're all headquartered essentially in one metro area (Seattle). So I think Seattle can handle a $15 minimum wage a lot better than Ontario can. That said, some studies have shown that even in Seattle, the higher minimum wage has reduced the number of entry level jobs available. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?utm_term=.8e9835810e66 Details: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23532.pdf Extract from the conclusion: Our preferred estimates suggest that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance caused hours worked by low-skilled workers (i.e., those earning under $19 per hour) to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13 per hour, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Alternative estimates show the number of low-wage jobs declined by 6.8%, which represents a loss of more than 5,000 jobs. These estimates are robust to cutoffs other than $19.60 A 3.1% increase in wages in jobs that paid less than $19 coupled with a 9.4% loss in hours yields a labor demand elasticity of roughly -3.0, and this large elasticity estimate is robust to other cutoffs. These results suggest a fundamental rethinking of the nature of low-wage work. Prior elasticity estimates in the range of zero to -0.2 suggest there are few suitable substitutes for lowwage employees, that firms faced with labor cost increases have little option but to raise their wage bill. Seattle data show – even in simple first differences – that payroll expenses on workers earning under $19 per hour either rose minimally or fell as the minimum wage increased from $9.47 to $13 in just over nine months. An elasticity of -3 suggests that low-wage labor is a more substitutable, expendable factor of production. The work of least-paid workers might be performed more efficiently by more skilled and experienced workers commanding a higher wage. This work could, in some circumstances, be automated. In other circumstances, employers may conclude that the work of least-paid workers need not be done at all. Importantly, the lost income associated with the hours reductions exceeds the gain associated with the net wage increase of 3.1%. Using data in Table 3, we compute that the average low-wage employee was paid $1,897 per month. The reduction in hours would cost the average employee $179 per month, while the wage increase would recoup only $54 of this loss, leaving a net loss of $125 per month (6.6%), which is sizable for a low-wage worker.

I didn't take you for a doom prophet. What happened? Your linked article is overly alarmist and cites no scientific studies. If you research soil degradation, you will see that while it is occurring, it is not occurring everywhere, and even where it is occurring, various techniques have often been successfully used to slow or reverse the process. Humans have been successfully farming the same patches of dirt for thousands of years, ever since our ancient predecessors invented crop rotation. Widespread soil degradation is primarily occurring in areas that are being rapidly deforested and converted to farmland that is quickly over-exploited, primarily in third world areas with rapidly growing populations and no environmental regulations/protections. Extrapolating the rate of soil degradation in these areas to the world might yield some frightening predictions, but it fails to realize that vast other areas of the world are being farmed in a sustainable manner. While soil degradation is an important issue, like many other environmental issues, and should be addressed, it is far from guaranteeing a "near-extinction" event.

Don't think I've ever been anywhere where they're not legal. In fact, having chains with you or on your tires is required in many areas I drive in in winter.

Hmm, not sure it's that sickening. Walking on snow is not hard unless the hill is quite steep. Oftentimes, a snowcovered sidewalk is much easier to walk on anyway compared to one that's been scraped but has compact icy patches left. And cars can drive on snow with chains or winter tires quite well, compared to bikes that really can't handle snow at all. That said, I assume relatively few people are biking in the winter anyway.

Doubt it. Iran had larger scale protests a few years back when Ahmanidijad or whatever his name was won the election instead of the "reformist" presidential rival. And then everything re-stabilized for the most part. I think Iran is more stable than most people give it credit for.

The world would be a much better place if more people had functional bullshit filters. Alas, it is not so, and I doubt it will ever be so.

Sure, a public news source is fine, as long as it can be relied upon to be impartial enough to be better than the "alt" sites that push their ideology. The CBC fits that bill to some extent, although it does have ideological bias it usually doesn't make up its own alternative facts. Not sure such a thing could exist in the US though, politicians couldn't resist getting their hands on it and using it to promulgate their ideology and partisanship.

What's easy for you and I and other technically savvy people might still not be easy for most people, who struggle to use any kind of browser, let alone tweak its settings or know what a cookie is. And even for me, though I could go to the trouble of doing that, I most of the time don't bother. Even 3-5 extra clicks is too much to read some article behind a paywall, I'd rather look at an alternative source that isn't behind a paywall, that takes a few less clicks to get to. That's why most people just get their news off facebook or whatever other social media they are on. Mainstream news sites that decry how more and more people don't listen to them and get their info from "alt" sources have no one but themselves to blame, really.

The market is way too fragmented. There are like 1000+ different news sources, and each of them want me to pay them money? Forget even paying money, they want me to have 1000 different account and logins? F that. I'll get my news from free sources. The increasing use of paywalls will just force more and more people to only read their one preferred news outlet, forcing people more and more into their ideological echo chambers.

Bad plan. Enough idiots already think vaccines are bad for them, without government actually sneaking anything bad into them. Unless a polio epidemic sounds like a good way to address overpopulation to people here, I guess.

Methinks you don't understand how overpopulation works. You don't get a lot of results by sterilizing people who are on average gonna have only 1 kid anyway.

I think the supposed backlash from the tax reform is overblown in the media. The democrats did a great smear job on the tax bill and everyone thinks they will be paying way more tax come 2018. When they realize they aren't, and are in fact paying a bit less, the furor will die down. And even in NY/NJ/CA, the only people paying over 10k in state/local taxes are the top 5%, you know, the same people that vote Democrat so that they can pay their fair share. So they should be cheering the extra tax burden.

Doesn't matter what Trump says. He's just some reality tv bully who happened to be elected president of the US. He'll be around for a few years, a blink of an eye compared to how long Jerusalem has been around for. Israel chooses its own capital regardless of the approval of other countries, even America.

There's enough Jerusalem in Israel for it to be Israel's capital. The fact that parts of Jerusalem are disputed and may some day be part of another state does not mean that the parts of Jerusalem that are firmly within Israel cannot be its capital. All this fake outrage people have over nothing, bleh.