Moonbox

Actually, everything in life is a coincidence of some sort. If you understood what the word means, you wouldn't say that. Where you bizarrely see the Greta online exchange (where Tuop Gee provoked and was subsequently mocked by a 19-year old girl with Asperger syndrome) as cause for his arrest, normal people grounded in reality just see this as the culmination of a 6+ month investigation. Andrew Tate is saying something obnoxious and provocative to someone every day, so if it wasn't Greta it was going to be someone else on another day.

Right, because Romania is a champion of climate crusading or...something.

As usual, you don't have anything to offer but a doltish one-liner. ? Perhaps, but your predictions on this topic turn out so consistently and so comprehensively wrong that it's actually baffling you don't gain even a shred of perspective on how misinformed and ignorant your viewpoints are. If there's peace in the Spring, it won't be because Putin is desperately lobbing Iranian and South Korean garbage tech at stationary civilian targets with no strategic value. I suspect you won't like the terms either. ?

Okay...what does woke progressivism have to do with the war in Ukraine? ? Yes we know what you're "reading, watching and listening" to: Russian state-controlled propaganda, Syrian/Hezbollah backed media outlets, garbage Youtube channels and whatever anonymous journalists you can find repeating the conspiracy theories that govern your reality. These are just a list of things that you've posted on the Ukraine threads. He's doing it because he can, but only because he can't accomplish anything else. This "obvious" strategy isn't actually a good strategy, but it's the only one has. A good strategy would be to target the opponent's army and defeat them on the battlefield, but they're not capable of that. All they can do now is attack civilian targets and hope it breaks Ukrainian resolve, but we have almost a century of history proving these tactics do the opposite. ? Where are you seeing Russian battlefield victories? I'll give you a hint: There are none. These sorts of comments do little more than confirm where you're getting your information from. Russia Today and the milibloggers on Telegram are patting themselves on their backs because Ukrainian civilians are having to use boilers and spend their nights in the dark, yet Russia's done nothing but lose territory since September and continue to do so. Yes, NATO is beginning not just to believe that Ukraine could win, but that they will win. They openly talk about how providing money and material support to Ukraine is a great deal for them. Russia's illusion of strength is broken and their status as a major power crumbles to dust, with not a drop of NATO blood spilled. Ukraine is motivated and eager to fight for their homeland, and the arsenal and economies backing them are orders of magnitude larger and more sophisticated than the mostly third-world Russian industrial "might".

You have a weird obsession with this guy. ? The point stands at any rate. The way you get your "news" is the same way the angry Facebook moms do - Facebook, Youtube etc. Just keep scouring the junk net for what you want to see little buddy. You'll find it. ? Because Russia keeps bombing Kiev - a city full of people far from the front lives. The delusional mental gymnastics you have to go through to blame anyone but Russia for that is equal parts funny and tragic to behold. I'm more interested in watching Putin's kleptocratic regime tripping over itself trying to conduct this sad excuse of an invasion, wondering which shoe drops first. Does Ukraine continue to clap the incompetent Russia army all the way back through Crimea before Putin admits the war is lost, or are the knives coming out for him at home first?

It's always been time for a peace deal, but it's not going to be on Putin's terms. I'm not sure what Youtube videos from garbage conspiracy news sites has to do with it though. ?

Yes but the word is in there for good reason, which is to inform that the BoC isn't locked into any specific target and can adjust depending on circumstances outside their control if it better fits the overall goal. The main thing to take away from this is that monetary policy (things like keeping inflation low) is not the primary objective, but rather a strategic toolbox mean to support the financial well-being of Canada. Right. Global prices for commodities is not something that the BoC can meaningfully affect. They could have brought overall inflation numbers down to 3-4% perhaps, but it would have required they take a sledgehammer to the economy and plunge us into deep recession, while doing little/nothing to change gas or food prices. It's sort of the same reason why you don't use cluster munitions or saturation strikes near friendly positions under heavy attack. Yes, you'll kill a lot of enemies, but you'll also kill your own dudes. Because so much time and energy has been spent to undermine the Bank of Canada (or every other central bank around the world for that matter) that an honest and human conversation with Canadians was necessary. Pierre Polievre and cynical BS artists like him have been amplifying the general anxiety of their base and to score cheap political points, painting the central banks as untrustworthy, politically motivated and compromised institutions by the DeEp StAtE, or whatever. Because he's not a politician, or politically motivated. You don't need to look deeply into his motives. He wanted to show a human element to the BoC, acknowledge how Canadians are feeling, explain how and where things went wrong in 2022, and where they see things headed. This was an attempt to dispel the myth that the central banks are faceless deep state institutions pulling strings in the background to screw everyone over.

Ghana was spending +70% of every tax dollar on repaying debt. They were headed for oblivion no matter what.

Where you can find: Right. This references the long running 1-3% inflation target, which was renewed in 2021 and was pointedly explained as flexible: So what do we know from this so far? 1) The main role of the Bank of Canada is to promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada and 2) One of the ways they do that is by managing monetary policy and inflation targeting frameworks 3) The inflation-targeting framework is flexible, rather than set in stone. You definitely don't understand this topic, but that's not really a failing considering 95% of people know just as little or less. The fact that you even went to the Bank of Canada's website and looked stuff up puts you a step above most probably. Your problem is that before you even looked, you adopted a popular narrative and you're very resistant to hearing anything that conflicts with it. You are even quoting some of the stuff I've been trying to tell you, but because it's not following the narrative you miss it or ignore it or something. The last box you quoted literally explains the limited scope of monetary policy, and that monetary policy's core purpose is to promote the financial well-being of Canada. I've answer that question several times already, and you've even acknowledged it. I think it showed he is a good leader with, you know, honesty, integrity and accountability etc. We already knew they didn't get things right for 2022, so I'm not sure what you were expecting him to say. Should he have pretended they got everything right, and to tell you that inflation isn't as bad as you can clearly see? ? What was actually interesting is how he took the time to publicly explain what went wrong with their planning and how, but for some reason you think this is a real "AHA!" moment. I don't want to make this post any longer, but if there's to be any worthwhile debate or "learning" here, acknowledging my points 1-3 above are fundamental to even a remotely intelligent conversation about inflation or central banking in Canada. If you can't even get yourself there, then you're not actually interested.

That's not his job. You're not even reading what I'm writing. Post your sources, rather than refer vaguely to them. Your sources are wrong, but it would be interesting to see them nonetheless. If you can't even acknowledge the basic facts of central banking after having them explained to you, I don't think there's much point discussing the topic with you. You've already made up your mind and settled on the narrative that appeals to you, and you're not addressing or responding to anything I say that conflicts with it. ?‍♂️

I think we’ve seen where feelings-based perceptions of democracy get us over the last 5-10 years, haven’t we? ?

but that's the Republican base...as Sean Hannity would describe it, we "Smelly Walmart People". ?

I could self-describe myself as a Dark Lord of the Sith, but that wouldn't mean anything. Nobody can dispute him. He's not a reasonable person and you're wasting your breath trying to engage with him.

Save yourself some time and just block him. He's not a reasonable person, nor is the other guy nattering in this thread. I can't read what he's saying, but I have no doubt it's 10-IQ.

First, I think you would need to define what you mean by these terms. Calling Japan or Canada monarchies is at best misleading, giving heavy weight to symbolic institutions and ignoring practical and functional reality. Similarly calling China or Russia republics would be (putting it kindly) a bit of a joke.

Yes. Lets do that?.

No. The BoC's mandate is not to fight global fuel prices or food costs, nor is it even to keep interest rates at 2%. I should have jumped on this earlier, but was trying to address one of your other points. The 2% inflation is a target the BoC set for itself, based on their forecasts and the information they had at the time. Their mandate is to maintain financial and economic stability. To meet the 2% inflation target they forecasted for the end of 2022, they would have had to pull market liquidity (cash in the system) and raise interest rates by so much that they'd have tanked us immediately into deep recession. Because they have absolutely no control whatsoever on global oil costs or commodity prices, they'd have to drive everything else down so steeply that you'd probably put over a million Canadians out of work. Is that what should have been done? PP's decision making has been based purely on what he thinks will play well with his base and his audience. His commentary on the BoC and crypto has only made him look like a fool to anyone who knows anything about it. Incredibly, he's managed to make himself less popular in Canada than Trudeau so far. No I don't. He's explaining how his forecasts were wrong to his critics and being honest and forthcoming. That's what good leaders do. You already made up your mind on this long before, however, so I don't think what he said even matters to you. Let's go back to a military argument, because you at least can conceptualize this. Say you're a commander assigned to capture a strategically important bridge on the way to a theatre objective. You've given a deadline to do so within the next 24 hours. You get there and upon probing the enemy's defenses, you discover that they're heavily entrenched. You also discover there's a shallow fjord half a day's march to the south, which would allow you to circumvent the enemy's entrenched position and encircle them. A Russian bad commander, of course, would throw his men into the enemy's positions and take huge losses. A good commander, on the other hand, would radio his superior, tell him he's adjusting the plan and that he's going to save lives and combat strength by maneuvering around the unforeseen obstacle and adapt to the new circumstances. You're suggesting that Tiff Macklem should have role-played a Russian army commander, and that the only thing that matter was the 2% inflation target (ie. the bridge capture in 24 hours). I'm suggesting that the 2% target isn't important, but rather the financial and economic stability of Canada is, (winning the war/theatre, rather than individual symbolic/tactical objectives).

You're not making a case because you can't. You're ranting about what you want to see happen rather than what will actually happen, and you can't find any credible information to support your position. Like the bozo "hyperinflation" arguments people like you were promoting in 2021 (and which obviously proved untrue), common sense and hard data don't back up what you're saying. This couldn't matter less to you though. ?‍♂️

All objectives are not equal. There are realistic objectives, and unrealistic objectives. An unrealistic objective by its very nature is not achievable. Absolutely not, because the tools of central banking policy generally have little/no impact on global inflation factors. The BoC could have doubled the interest rate hikes and crushed inflation this year, but what would that have accomplished other than spiking our economy into the ground and putting people out of work? It wouldn't have affected globally determined fuel and grocery prices, which would have remained high because of Ukraine, nor would it have made China open its economy back up and start sending the components and materials that are backing up production lines around the world. Is that really the reason though? By your logic here, you should be tipping your hat to Tiff Macklem, because Canada's inflation is amongst the lowest in the G7, the G20 and the world. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-which-countries-have-the-highest-inflation/ With these numbers in front of you, we can assume you'll agree our national central bank governor is a hero and should be a model for the rest of the world? ?

As I said, you don't really have much to offer but juvenile insults. You reference Kremlin propaganda sites and outlets backed by Iran/Syria/Hezbollah as your counterpoints, because that's all that you can find to back up your delusions. You reference them because they're telling you what you want to hear, not because they're saying anything remotely reasonable. You've already told us, in your own words, that you want Russia to win and that they were right to invade Ukraine. You've proven you know nothing about the region's history. You're so cluelessly self-deluded that you even believe nonsense like you posted above. There's no doubt in any reasonable person's mind that Putin would take a mulligan on Ukraine if he could. The whole thing has blown up spectacularly in his face and Russia is in every way in a much worse position than they were before the invasion. The Russian army is in shambles and has done nothing but retreat since the summer. NATO expansion has accelerated as a result of Putin's aggression, and they now have two new incoming members on their Baltic doorstep. The Russian economy has contracted this year despite sky-high oil prices, owing to their being closed off from the majority of the import and export markets. As their foreign currency reserves shrink, this will only get worse. These are all facts that you don't have answers for, other than your comical and highly ironic insults about other people's intelligence. ???

Back in 2008/2009 I was listening to guys like Ed Clark tell us why the ABCP and CDO market made no sense, and therefore he wouldn't invest in them. To make the case for an impending economic disaster, you actually have to present a coherent argument and support it with facts. Talking about a movie from 2015 doesn't do that, nor have any of the other goofy "sources" you've attempted to provide in this section. This sort of doom-porning is common in crypto circles, and just like them I'm sure you'll blithely forget how the thing you said would definitely happen, doesn't happen. ? Of course if you stick with it long enough, you'll eventually be right, but in the same way an astrologer is right when she warns of "bad things coming".

I've watched that movie. It was a great movie. It doesn't really do much for predicting the next disaster, or show why we're "definitely headed for another one", but this sort of doom-porn seems to be your jam.

This is something that I've been saying since joining this forum back in 2008. The CBC's pro-Liberal bias is notorious and well-documented, and as a MSM news outlet it's commonly been polled as one of the most biased in Canada. That bias perhaps damages the integrity of the organization and makes it difficult to trust if you're looking for balanced journalism, BUT (and this is a big BUT), it is still a reliable source of fact-based news. They don't just make crap up, and you can generally report on things that are true. Where they fail is in their editorializations, which do not provide balanced perspectives or viewpoints whatsoever and are highly subjective anyways (IMO). This is the problem with the "MSM fake news" narrative. The news is generally not fake. The editorials and opinions are just not balanced, with some far worse than others. Because the editorials and opinion pieces annoy certain people, they go and find alternatives like Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, Russel Brand or Tucker Carlson etc, who are 100% editorialists and peddling their own brand of highly biased bullshit, but from a different angle. TLDR: Fox News journalists can be reliably expected to report on factual news (filtered and catered though it may be), but Tucker Carlson is a pure editorialist and peddles little more than BS.

The internet is full of people ranting ignorantly or outright making crap up. If they're not reliable, why would you reference them? ? You're not legitimately trying to reason with anyone here. The idea that you're looking at "both sides of the story" is comical at face value given how every ounce of your energy has been spent criticizing everyone except the architect of this invasion. You've done nothing but parrot his talking points, and you've been unable to support any of your arguments beyond citing propaganda pieces from Russia itself, or their dubious allies. You criticize western support for Ukraine vs Russia as "bloodthirsty", but then gleefully point to Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities far from the front lines. You tell us how you just want the war to end, but then tell us: Your position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine is obvious to everyone, and your attempts to dissemble and convince people otherwise are embarrassing. I don't even know why you try. There's no serious debate to be had with you if you can't even coherently reconcile your stated position with all of the foolish things you've said that directly contradict it. Even when someone does try to engage with your seriously (like Army Guy a few pages back), your responses are usually little more than juvenile one-liners. If you're not going to offer anything more than that, then yes, you're going to continue to get ???, which is as serious a response as your posts deserve.

As opposed to Russia Today. ? As far as MSM goes, it really couldn't get more mainstream than that. State-controlled news outlets from Russia, apparently, are reliable, but everything else around the world, whether it's southeast asia, the middle east or anywhere that isn't a tin-pot dictatorship is unreliable compared to...Russia Today. ?