Moonbox

They think it's worth defending. They're doing it every day defending it from ignorance, stupidity and incoherent anger. They're defending it from people like you.

How can we trust this? The info coming from Global News. ?

Double post

Not may. You are. You're way off in the deep end.

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Relating to your point about China and it's plans for global hegemony, Lithium isn't going to get it very far. It's not a resource required in enormous amounts. It's not particularly scarce. It's replaceable with other battery tech alternatives. The worldwide Lithium market is something less than $10B. This is not something we need to be peeing our beds over.

Sure, but they do that with all of their exports, just like everyone else does. Lithium isn't really noteworthy.

It's not even close to 20x. I don't think we're even double China, though India it's probably something like 10x. Regardless, considering the population difference is more than 25x, Canada's footprint here is insignificant by comparison and doesn't really provide any argument against increasing density in Canada itself. Nobody said it will immediately solve the problem, but it at least provides marginal improvement and helps rather than hinders long-term.

That's not really true at all. Maybe you can say that first-world consumers harm the environment more per-capita, but Canada's footprint is quite a lot smaller than India's. They can challenge the theory that leads to the necessity, but not really the necessity itself. We can't support pensioners and health care costs of Baby-boomers with a shrinking population.

On this I agree with you. A lot of our carbon taxes are little more than an outsourcing of pollution to places with lax environmental and human rights law. The carbon taxes themselves aren't really the problem though. It's rather the lack of tarrif/tax on the imports coming from even dirtier sources. If we were all on a level playing field here, the carbon taxes would incentivize cleaner production. It's just...we're not.

I'm saying it doesn't really matter. Everyone knows China has the biggest Lithium reserves, just like they control most of the world's Rare earth supplies. The point is that there are alternatives to Lithium batteries (some of them new and better technology which will replace them) and so China can't use this as clout or blackmail. It's the same with rare earths, which aren't actually rare at all and are in abundant supply elsewhere. China profits from their near-monopoly, but only because they can mine them cheaper than anyone else. As soon as they start flexing and bullying around these things, they'll scare their markets into diversification like we've seen with Russia and oil/gas.

What's funnier is how anytime a news story doesn't conform to your foolish worldviews, that's all fake news. I'd say this is the pot calling the kettle black is an understatement. What's really funny and interesting about all this, however, is how quickly you mooks will rush to Vladimir's defense and how much time and energy you spend trying to justify his actions. This isn't coincidental. He's a smart man and understands that there are legions of ignorant and angry fools to tap in hostile nations. Thankfully you're still a small minority, clueless as you are.

Yes. They're not going to gain it with Lithium batteries. I don't doubt this either. Watching us penalize our own businesses outsource their dirty business and energy with no import restrictions etc has always been a fool's errand. No, but the idea that renewable energy or lithium batteries are a play for global hegemony is pretty dumb.

loool okay fair enough. That's the first time I've actually seen a politician promote it specifically anywhere.

We can sustainably feed/employ/occupy far more people globally than we do already, but not the way we're doing it now. There's no game about it. Overpopulation is a mainly third-world problem. Birth rates in the first world are low and mostly don't even sufficient for replacing the population and so that's why we need immigration. If our population shrinks then our economies and infrastructure will crumble long-term. The "problem" is a matter of perspective. Globally, there are certainly problems with overpopulation. Locally though it's not so cut-and-dry.

Not everything is a conspiracy, though I know you really want it to be. There are lots of alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, both older and newer tech coming online. The idea that China's going to take over the word with their lithium reserves is really, really silly.

Critical race theory is a farcical strawman that ignorant fools hold up and argue against and little more than that. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone in politics actually promoting critical race theory, but that doesn't stop the MAGA window-lickers from fantasizing about this bogeyman. As for PP, he'll not win an election. He can certainly win the leadership of the the CPC based on the voting membership, but he's dead-on-arrival for winning PM.

but that's not true at all, at least not in a country like Canada where demographics require more babies (or more immigration) to replace and grow the existing workforce. Our population growing is an economic imperative. It falls apart without that. We're not China or India.

The input costs are up but it doesn't explain the scale of costs increases right now. Contractors barely need to be competitive on their bids and will offer bullshit rates to you simply because they have better and more lucrative projects lined up if you refuse - the insurance work or the pocket-mansions and upzoning I was talking about earlier. I know tons of local contractors (some of my clients, and my brother-in-law is a carpenter) and the market is hot where I live. I built a deck in my backyard last year and though timber prices were pretty high the rates the contractors quoted me were retarded. IIRC the best estimate I got for a 440 square foot deck was $12,500 for labor. Other than the post-hole digging I contracted ($1600) I built the damn thing by myself over 5 weekends with a bit of help from a friend for the heavier stuff and all-in it was maybe 65 hours. Considering I only sort of knew what I was doing and had to rent some extra tools I was unfamiliar with, I imagine actual contractors could have done it much faster. Napkin math would therefore conclude these dudes are charging +$250/hr for labor which is absurd. I agree with a lot of what you say here. The upgrading and upzoning is busying contractors on higher-margin work that doesn't do much other than fuel the asset bubble, but the economic reality is that immigration is required. Canadians aren't having enough babies. Solve that problem and then we can talk about immigration.

Take the word of the Fox News lawyers who argued, and the Trump-nominated judge who confirmed, that any reasonable viewer would conclude Tucker Carlson's statements are not factual and they'd view his comments with skepticism. They literally defended a defamation case on the basis that Tucker Carlson isn't telling actual news, that he's bloviating and performing for his audience and that any reasonable person would already know this. I understand how awkward and embarrassing that must be for you, because it means you're one of the oblivious rubes who watches and believes it. ? https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case-tucker-carlson-2020-9 "Fox News won a court case by 'persuasively' arguing that no 'reasonable viewer' takes Tucker Carlson seriously". I've already linked the actual ruling if you want to read through it. I hope that Trump-nominated judge isn't too much of a Libbie shill!

You're not making complex arguments. You're making foolish ones. It's Dunning-Kruger on full display. You're literally mocking my reference to studies and articles in favor of your pseudo-economic nattering and aimless, windbag responses. I'm not discounting your goofy tunnel-vision focus on FX rates because it's "too complex". I'm discounting it because you're oversimplifying its implications and using it as a blanket excuse for Harper's spending - as if it's the bellwether for the Canadian economy rather just one of countless factors. That the macroeconomic numbers don't support the conclusions you're drawing is problematic, to say the least. It proves not only that the FX (both in cause and effect) is not nearly as black-and-white as you pretend it is, but also that (outside of the recession) the economy under Harper wasn't nearly as bad as you'd have us believe. That you combine your pompous faux-expertise with your emotional projecting and bias etc is boring. Judging by your defensiveness and insults, you'd almost assume I kicked your dog, but no. I merely compared Harper unfavorably (with numbers) to Mulroney and Chretien and pointed to how he abandoned nearly 20 years of fiscal restraint. That was enough to set you off on an exhausting path of winding excuses, strawmen, red-herrings and insults. This is my last reply in this thread. I'm barely even skimming your responses at this point.

I really couldn't have less regard for the opinions of people who think Tucker Carlson is a serious human being worth listening to. When the Fox News literally admits that he's not actually telling the news, and the Courts agree with their assessment that no reasonable person should take what he presents as fact, there's really not much else to consider. That you're even arguing it is a testament to your coping delusions.

There's not much to say aside from the fact that Tucker Carlson has zero credibility, peddles conspiracy theories and can't pass any possible test of journalistic integrity. Don't take my word for it though. That's what Fox's lawyers argued when he was sued for defamation: Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox's lawyers: The "'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.' " She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."

Pretty much every tax gets passed on to the consumer, in one way or another. The gross receipt tax usually looks small at any singular point in the supply chain, but the low rates are illusionary and as it pyramids up the chain those taxes have a multiplying with each input being taxed over and over and over all the way up. There's a reason most states got rid of theirs and it had nothing to do with them not generating enough revenue and everything to do with being bad for business. Be embarrassed for yourself, goof, because you've once again lost the thread of the debate. We were talking about how corporate tax cuts have diminishing returns regarding their efficacy. The gross receipt tax is just another form of tax on corporations, with the distinction of it being much simpler math and but that its effects are distortive. You're not even making an argument here. So you we're just posting stuff for the sake of it then, is that it? My god. ? Nope! ? My argument from the start was that income-splitting was unfair and arbitrary and you disagreed and said it was fair. Your counter-argument was silly and easily discounted, and the posts are still there so go back and review them. You chose to hone-in on the dictionary definition of one word I used further into the debate and despite clarification, you're STILL harping about because you don't actually have an argument. At this point it's pretty clear that this is just how you debate. We've already been over these numbers, fool. The folks who drew the damn chart already broke it down: Before Chretien took office in 1993, per-person program spending was $6,995. At its lowest point, Prime Minister Chretien reduced this number to $5,806. Although per-person spending inched up to $6,670 near the end of his tenure, the amount was still lower compared to when he took office. According to data from the federal Department of Finance, the Harper Conservatives increased per person spending (inflation adjusted) from $6,992 in 2005 to $7,740 in 2014—an increase of 10.7 per cent. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/both-trudeau-and-harper-increased-size-of-federal-government Why are we talking about "eyeballing" the chart when the numbers have already been clearly explained by the people who drew it? Next time take a level and draw a line across the screen if you're so visual ?. but it also fell as the dollar was strengthening, from 2000-2009, and then rose when the dollar was falling, from 2013-2016. I understand what you think your argument is, but it's dumb for a couple of key reasons: 1) You oversimplify and exaggerate relationships you only vaguely understand 2) The numbers prove that. Average unemployment under Harper was historically low (at ~7%), and that's counting the bad recession years. Oops! Nobody said increase spending is never acceptable. I'm saying that if public spending is already high, increasing it further is....bad. Diefenbaker couldn't be less relevant to the conversation. I'd say double-digit percentage increases aren't small, and Harper's grounds for long-term program spending increases were dubious and cynical, just like his tax policy and all of his little boutique tax-breaks.

I watch some of both and they do an at least so-so job on their real news reporting. Where FOX falls apart as a serious news outlet is in their editorial personalities. Where CNN has/had complete hacks like Chris Cuomo, at least they live on Planet Earth. To have Tucker Carlson on your network while pretending you're serious about truth is a fantastical exercise in delusion.

Could happen, but not likely I don't think, and policymakers have talked a lot about trying to avoid this and go for a "soft landing" instead. Skyrocketing is hardly an academic term. The detachment in price vs income has been a long and steady burn, however, Well it's a question of framing. 10 years vs 5 years, what regions you look at etc. For Ontario, I don't think the farming really matters considering the shortfall and how it's not being filled by any significant measure. A question of stakeholders. The housing boom has been great for public coffers and for for existing owners and folks who could still afford. Canadians are generally terrible savers and a lot of their retirement plans hinge on their primary residence. Housing has continued to be a problem for a long time in Canada especially (but also in the US, with more recent lessons learned and forgotten) because of how many people are benefiting from it. That the problem was running away into absurdity was obvious back in 2017 and I've been cautioning clients about over-leveraging/investing into real-estate since probably 2016 (and looking like an asshole over it so far) but up until (relatively) recently, there hasn't been enough opposition to it. At today's values it's almost like investing in Bitcoin - there's no objective case to make for the price, but people think it's going to go up because it keeps going up which reinforces the idea that it's always going to go up. We're only just starting to see push-back as millennials priced out of the market are quickly becoming the most dominant demographic. This hasn't been a voting issue yet, but it will front-and-centre in the next election. Yeah that's pure insanity. That the government and the regulators didn't step in seriously back in 2017 is negligent and incompetent but the huge spike through COVID can be attributed to the big spike in disposable income. Nobody had anything else to spend their money on. There are certainly some. My cousin bought a place in a nice part of Waterloo maybe 7 years ago for ~750,000 and it's probably close to $2M now. A Chinese family bought the place next door after the first week or two they've never been back. It's just been sitting empty and getting maintained since then. Great investment.