Moonbox

Your analogy about picking lice out of each other's hair is daft. Economists would agree that paying people to do something of no value, provides no value to the economy. They usually call it "paying people to dig holes and then to fill them up". It's usually used mockingly to counter balogna claims that government spending always benefits the economy (a common cry of the public sector workforce). Why are you so hell-bent on comparing the oil and gas industry to barbers and nail salons, by the way? Kind of silly. The 8.21% you quote for oil and gas isn't even correct. That's the combined effect of all the mining, quarrying and oil/gas extraction in Canada. Oil and gas, as a sector itself, is probably more like 4-5% of our GDP. Compare that to 70% for the services sector. The latter is FAR more important than the former, though I'd still say oil and gas are important. Your export numbers are kind of irrelevant too. You seem to think that economics are a zero sum game, and that it's only the net of our exports vs imports that provides value to our economy. That's so wildly off the mark it's not funny. It completely ignores the value of the domestic economy and consumption and disregards money supply. That last one is more of an Econ 201 topic though so I'm not going to bother explaining it to you. You're not even at Econ 101 yet. I'll give you a quick hint to jolt your thinking on these matters though - our national current account (accounting of our imports vs exports) is only one part of the overall economic picture. TONS of activity and trade happens on a local, regional, provincial and national levels and LOADS of economic value is added outside of the international trade picture.

Except the militarization of the police hasn't been causally correlated with violent crime or homicide. Violent crime in Canada has dropped dramatically over the last 40-50 years, but our urban police forces are increasingly equipped like small armies. The idea that folks are proposing we abolish or get rid of police is a joke though. Nobody is proposing that and if we're seeing a bunch quit - then fine. See ya. The police unions in North America have long needed to be taken down a peg and along with some of the good folks we lose are hopefully a lot of the bad apples as well. There aren't just a few of them either. The fact that they're so bad at policing their own pretty much proves that. The way they close ranks and shut out investigators is alarming.

Except you're wrong. I understand what you're saying, and in the most basic sense you sort of have a point, but the idea that "stuff" is the only useful part of the economy is completely false. Mining and natural resource extraction counts for 8.21% of GDP, and agriculture less than 2%. It's not that they're not important, but they're a very small portion of our mostly service-based economy. An example that may make more sense to you is something like iPhones. These are not built in the USA. They're built in China and then imported to North America, and the assembly of Iphones is not part of American GDP. Apple does, however, employ a lot of people in research and development, and Apple's capital appreciation and dividends have made a lot of Americans rich. They proceed to spent their money in the economy and employ nail technicians and teachers, and that effect is multiplicative. In the simplest sense, a Canadian lumber jack could chop ONE tree down and sell abroad for $100. If he spends that money quick enough, and the subsequent trades and exchanges of money can happen quickly enough, that $100 tree-chopping could lead to $100,000 of economic activity. While my figures are not realistic, the point is that one of the main factors of economic prosperity and growth is the turnover of the money supply. The faster and more often money exchanges hands, the more money everyone will make (unless, as Argus says, it's fueled by over-borrowing). As an alternative, consider that lumber jack taking his $100 and burying it in his back yard as savings for his daughter's wedding 20 years from now. In that case, it's just a $100 sale and that money actually leaves the economy, thus contributing no value at all to anyone. Actually, it's worse, because now we're down a tree.

Absolutely, and that's been a problem that policymakers have just pretended didn't exist from 2015 onward. It's not that the problem didn't exist before, but 2015 seems to be the point where governments decided to stop worrying about debt and long-term economics and kick the can down the road. Why deal with today's problems now, when someone else can deal with a much bigger problem 5-15 years down the road?

It's not a useless stat at all, and your gross oversimplification demonstrates you don't really understand it. Justin's $10,000 butt-waxing pays for the butt-wax shop's two staff, which allows them to buy their groceries and pay their bills for the month. Not only that, but it allows the owner to cover his commercial rent and buy his butt-wax supplies, which in turn supports the butt-wax supplier, who himself has suppliers, staff and bills to pay. One simple transaction has a ripple effect and leads to that $10,000 being spent over and over and over again in different places, and each time the government gets a percentage as tax revenue, which they in turn can use to fund infrastructure projects or...whatever. It's not really for you or me to decide what transactions are valuable to the economy. All that matters is that there's perceived value and that money exchanges hands as a result. The more times that $10,000 turns over and exchanges hands in the economy, the better. It means more people are keeping busy and finding ways to feed their families .

Kiss him? Was that the only alternative? Come on Rue... The man was in no position to bite anyone. He was facing the wrong direction, had no leverage and had two much larger men on top of him. I imagine police training would instruct them not to hold their hands and arms in front of a subject's chompers, and everything they do is about gaining and taking away leverage - that's why suspects go face down on the ground, get a knee on their back (hopefully not neck) and their arms pulled behind them. I can't say I really know what police training is all about, but if THIS is what officers are trained to do, then police procedures are in sore need of updating. I understand that it's a dangerous job and we don't want our officers taking unnecessary risk, but I think present circumstances have highlighted that the police have been given FAR too much leeway in determining when to use this sort of force. These procedures WILL get updated, and the police unions will finally be taken down a peg, and we won't fall into lawlessness despite what some folk seem to think.

It wasn't. My first post was directly below and responding to taxme, and the next was under Nefarious Banana. Doesn't really matter at any rate.

It seems as though Argus does though, since he couldn't see that I was quoting and talking to you. I've no doubt you're easily amused though.

I don't think the dispatch instructed the officer to tackle the suspect and punch him in the head while he was being held down by two much larger, stronger men.

There's no doubt the Chief behaved poorly and stupidly, but then the second officer's reaction was heavy-handed and the punch from above to the side of the chief's head, after he was down and being held by TWO much larger men was excessive. This appears to be a case of the officers getting frustrated and taking it out on the man, rather than being an appropriate response. If the training supports that use of force - for tackling a man to the ground and then punching him in the face because he's acting upset and not calmly accepting have his arms twisted behind his back, then that needs to be changed. The punch while the guy was down seals is what really frames the whole interaction. You could even argue that the tackle wasn't that bad, and they tripped up with each other when they went down. The punch is what makes it look like the second cop was out for trouble.

I wasn't talking to you Argus. I was quoting Nefarious Banana and his worthless vitriol. I imagine you have him blocked, because he appears to be an angry-nonsense ranter. You and I have agreed on your OP in other thread. I'm not attacking you or even disagreeing with you.

I wasn't quoting you. @Nefarious Banana: I did elaborate...right in the post you've quoted. Go ahead and read the entirety of each sentence. As for everything else you said there...I'm not even going to respond. I don't see even a shred of interest from you on having an intelligent conversation. You just want to rant nonsense and attack people. For the record, I've never voted anything but PC in an Ontario election, and have only occasionally voted Liberal federally. I'm a typical Toronto voter though....hahaha.

Free trade is more of a right-wing thing actually. The left has done plenty of good for the economy. Things like universal health care and education are great for the economy, and are absolutely a reason why companies set up shop in Canada. Not having to provide comprehensive health benefits is a fantastic incentive, as is having a skilled and educated workforce. Conversely, the "right" has caused all sorts of damage to the economy. The financial crisis was a result of poor regulation and unchecked greed, and it certainly wasn't university professors and SJW's that caused that. Both sides have demonstrated good and bad. The danger is discounting one side altogether as bad, and deciding that the other is defacto "good". That's a recipe for brain-dead politics.

Language like "stunned and stupid Liberals" is foolish, as it leaves virtually no room for intelligent conversation. It's not much different for JK Rowling getting piled on for saying "people who menstruate" is her definition of "woman". Nobody cares what she's actually saying, and would prefer to label her as a bigot or, at best, out of touch and foolish. Both sides are are guilty of this, though obviously one side is getting more media attention than the other.

While I do agree that the "left" has got out of hand with political correctness (the latest on JK Rowling is the worst kind of SJW outrage), the sort of language you're using above is really just as bad, just from the other perspective. A lot of "good" stuff has been accomplished by the Left in recent decades. Same-sex marriage, the entrenchment of abortion rights, minimum wage improvements and even the repealing of the $10000/y TFSA contribution limits can all be seen as "wins" for the Left, and all of it is good policy-making.

I understand both sides of this argument. I watch a ton of NFL and like to get into the stats and pools etc, and in a sense you're right. Kaepernick was not a top-tier QB and his success was based off a novel offensive system, but he WAS good enough to play and better than a bunch of starting QBs and certainly better than most backups. He definitely was made persona-no-grata in the League. On the other hand, we've seen enough censorship and firings over the years by companies penalizing their employees for public behavior and outspoken views, so there's that as well. I'd argue that CK's POV and "cause" was substantially less offensive and actually kind of admirable, but at the same time you have to understand that as an employee under contract, you don't really get to set your soapbox up on national TV. Nobody does. The league did, however, handle this poorly, and it looks pretty bad on them now.

Whoops. I forgot they're a minority.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but how do they lose a money vote with a majority? I agree they're being cavalier with how they're standing in the polls, but I think it's a stretch to say they're hoping to sneak a no-confidence vote.

Yeah there aren't any Charter or Constitutional violations here. This is pretty simple stuff Rue. Either your accounting is transparent and subject to scrutiny, or you don't get to raise capital on our exchanges. There's nothing arbitrary about that, nor is there any precedent being set. There's no doubt some political motivation on the timing, but then the ongoing crisis has severely damaged the western world's faith in China and also raised substantial concern on their reliance on China for strategic resources. China hasn't played fair on trade for decades and hasn't played by the rules and the US, at least, has had enough. Even Trudeau seems to be getting a spine and has been showing his puppy teeth lately.

and find themselves in legal trouble as a result. The funny thing about China is that it's systematically corrupt. Corruption and dictatorship go hand in hand, and over there that's the norm, rather than the exception. The sad part is that it's not your average Chinese citizen either. They're not much different from anyone else. The government, on the other hand....yikes.

There is good reasoning. If you want to be listed on a US exchange, you have to be transparent with the books and subject to financial audit. Ostensibly, the purpose is to make sure that investors don't get fleeced by foreign entities that cook their books. While that may not be a huge fear with countries that have similar accounting and regulatory frameworks, China does not fall in line.

I know we like to think we're more functional than the Americans with out politics, but if we look back at the Harper pro-rogueation (sp?) and how the Liberals protested that to no end, and now see the Tories whining about how parliament is shut down and has very little oversight...it all comes full circle. Both parties are pathetically hypocritical, though I find what Trudeau is doing very concerning. He's riding high in the polls somehow with his marshmallow-nothing speeches, and using that popularity to bypass normal rules and oversight. I understand that we want to just get things done right now, but these are pretty blatant attempts to marginalize both the opposition and their duties/methods of oversight.

We'll see if it can pass the democratic house. It looks like a bi-partisan bill and I'd say it's low-hanging fruit, but things are pretty dysfunctional down there so who knows.

I think you're missing the point entirely. The universities-as-enclaves are not a product of the "culture-war". They're one of the primary causes. This is a deeply entrenched, reinforcing feedback loop of academia informing policy makers, who in turn (consulting with peer-reviews) are responsible for funding grants. The funding grants are often what determine the longevity of a researcher, and there's a strong survivorship bias on those promoting the prevailing thinking. The research being done, and thus the research being consulted by policy makers, therefore ends up being tilted in one direction. The curriculum also reflects that. It's profoundly naive to suggest that change is likely going to come organically from within this sort of system. The insular nature of these institutions is obvious when we see the extent to which they're going to stifle and censor alternative viewpoints (however mild), both from their students and their faculty. The fact that Peterson is an academic doesn't prove the "spectrum" is represented. That's extremely disingenuous. He's a singular example and it's not a stretch to say he was punished for going against the grain. Not only that, but his being an outlier and his subsequent notoriety have subjected him to the sort of scrutiny that his multitude of faceless critics never have to worry about. It doesn't even matter what he says anymore. What's the solution? I don't know, maybe you can tell me? I'd argue that the system is fundamentally broken and close-minded, and that much of the federal funding being granted to social sciences is of dubious merit. The natural progression of where this goes is to see the apparatus slowly torn down from outside by hostile book-burning policy makers, and the funding void will get filled with corporate/foreign entities (if at all). I don't like this solution, but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of folks grabbing the banner that JP left on the ground when he "sold out". It's not like academia is showing a lot of perspective, humility or introspection when subjected to criticism. The fact that you somehow felt it was okay to call JP supporters incels but then rankled at my comment of tweed suits (of all things) is, I think, indicative of the challenge people face with actually getting through.

Didn't check this over the long weekend...oops. I already mentioned "mainstream" wasn't a great choice of words. While I'd agree with you that Peterson doesn't have "mainstream" support, I'd also argue that his opponents are almost just as far from the mainstream as he is. If there's any "mainstream" in the "culture-war" as you call it, it's the intellectual path of least resistance. By that I mean that most people want to avoid confrontation and will do what they can do to not ruffle feathers. When a teacher or someone posts a link to a Toronto Star article lamenting how they have to buy craft supplies for their Kindergarten class, or how Doug Ford didn't want to attend the Pride Parade, woe unto anyone who brings up an alternative viewpoint. What you end up with is a vocal left proudly proclaiming their ideology, fighting against only the most absurd idiots on the right who feel it's worth jumping into the mud to get skewered. The middle ground and even the mildly-right stay far away. Those poor naive souls who do try to pipe up innocently are sent back with their tails between their legs (and maybe onto 4dchan or some other troll site). Nowhere is this phenomenon more obvious than in North American universities, except here it's formally institutionalized and given money and authority. It's easy to dismiss Lindsay Shepherd's case as one of "mishandling" by the school, but she's far from the only embarrassing example we've seen in recent years. I'll go through a list if you need me to. The real mistake is to assume that mainstream academic thinking is the actual mainstream - and this thinking has led to unfortunate consequences. The combination of the politicization of research funding with overt censorship on campuses has raised fair criticism of echo-chamber thinking and this is the last place we want that to be happening. Much of the criticism for academia is well-deserved, though I think it's worth noting that even at WLU a faculty petition to protect free speech was signed by around 50% of members (IIRC).