kimmy

If a Canadian gets that job, he starts paying taxes and stops claiming EI or whatever. He starts buying goods and services and some of the money he's earning will spin off to the benefit of other Canadians. All other things being equal, it's simply better for me if that work is being done in Canada. Selfish, maybe, but "rational self interest" is a primary tenet of those who are advocating on behalf of the outsourcers in the first place. -k

Roger Ebert At The Obituaries -k

I'm not usually into shooters, but I loved Borderlands and Borderlands 2, and I might give this a shot as well. -k

Higher taxes? As I stated earlier, RBC has not provided me with lower costs by making use of lower-cost labor. As I said earlier, I do often buy foreign-made goods when they are considerably cheaper than a domestic equivalent. But if there is no benefit to me, then I'll certainly buy a Canadian product over a foreign-made one. If RBC wants to become the equivalent of foreign-made tube-socks, and their price is going to be the same as the Canadian-made tube socks, then I'll buy the Canadian made tube socks, because all other things being equal I would prefer that my purchase support Canadian jobs than foreign ones. -k

Spurious grounds? It's not spurious at all. As I said before, there's no effect at all on me if my neighbor marries a foreigner. But there is a tangible effect on me if my neighbor is unemployed. If my neighbor loses their job, then: -there's one fewer taxpayers -there's one more person receiving tax-funded benefits. -their condo fees might not get paid. -they might even break into my apartment while I'm at work. Perhaps you think you live in a world where you're completely detached from the people around you. But you're wrong. Maybe you don't think it be like it is, but it do. But it do. -k

That's a ridiculous non-sequitur, August. Weird, even by your increasingly weird standards. The nationality of my neighbor's houseguest has no bearing at all on me. My neighbor's employment and well being certainly do. -k

I'm still speechless. -k

If they can show me how sending jobs to India provides a tangible benefit to me, they're welcome to do so. As it stands, I see a tangible benefit to them, but none at all to me. If a textiles company decides to have its labor done in India instead of Canada, they can point to an obvious benefit for me: a lower price. What's the benefit to me when RBC decides to have labor done in India? Are they going to lower their banking fees so that they can get an edge on their competitors? No, they are not. If they have a good argument as to how *I* benefit, I have yet to hear it. They have provided vague newspeak about "improved services at reduced costs" and "initiatives that enhance the client experience." That's crap. They have never ever reduced my costs, and I can't recall anything they've ever done to "enhance" my "client experience". I'm of the opinion that there's a tangible benefit to me if RBC hires a Canadian, and a tangible detriment to me if RBC lays off a Canadian and has that person's work done in a foreign country. The counter-argument seems to be that this Canadian has been liberated to do some new and more valuable sort of work. I am skeptical; I doubt these middle-aged and semi-skilled bank employees will be off to start the next Facebook or Apple now that they've been "liberated" from their jobs. If the best RBC can do is tell me that it's not really my business if they outsource some of their back-room type work, that's not very compelling. If they have an explanation of how their current policy benefits me, rather than just their shareholders, I have yet to hear it. I imagine that RBC's competitors will be coming forward to make their own case, and given the public relations debacle this is turning into for RBC, that will be an easy case to make. -k

RBC is free to outsource jobs if they wish. I'm free to take my business elsewhere if I wish. I sometimes buy low-cost products that were made in China or India or Bangladesh... so why should I care if RBC outsources jobs? If I buy low-cost products that were made in China or India, what's the benefit to me? Well, I save money. If RBC outsources jobs, what's the benefit to me? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Are they going to give me higher interest on my deposits? Nope. Are they going to reduce my service charges? Take some of their savings off of my mortgage? Nope. Nothing. Their statements to the press on this topic says that they are constantly looking for ways to save money so that they can "continually improve our service at reduced cost and reinvest in initiatives that enhance the client experience". I call BS. I can't recall them ever reducing my costs in any aspect of their service. I can't recall my "client experience" being "enhanced" either. Their shareholders benefit, I guess, but I'm not a shareholder. Just a customer. It makes not one whit of difference to me if their shareholders pocket a few extra bucks in their next dividends. If RBC is axing jobs in Canada, that means there are fewer tax-payers, more people claiming EI, less people spending their paycheques in Canadian communities. Why should I be in favor of that? I get no benefit from it, and as a taxpayer it costs me money, and as a citizen it hurts my neighbors. Some shareholder pockets a few extra bucks, but most of the benefit is derived on the other side of the planet. What's in it for me? Aside from this debacle, RBC is also among the banks being investigated in the LIBOR rate rigging scandal. I'm not proud to be a customer of this bank right now. RBC is free to do what they're doing, and I'm free to shop elsewhere for financial services. And I will start shopping. I have been with RBC since my very first savings account when I was a small child. My family has been with RBC for a very long time. I have a mortgage and a substantial chunk of assets with RBC, and they're not easily unentangled. But I can take my savings elsewhere, and I can start new RRSP accounts elsewhere. I will definitely look into it. -k

Some computer-savvy person wrote about this a while back. I think the gist of it was that they don't even need people to click on their links... just the fact that their links exist on the forums is valuable to them, because when the search engine webcrawlers find their links, it boosts their search engine rankings. Something like that, at least. -k

The whole argument being put forth ("cockroaches (or coelacanths or sturgeons or horseshoe crabs) haven't changed in millions of years! So why aren't they evolving? huh? huh?") is a dead giveaway that the person offering the argument doesn't understand what they're talking about. I think Betsy reacted badly to having this pointed out to her and posted something that earned her a month-long vacation. -k

A good post, and a worthy effort, Cliff! Sadly, it will be completely wasted on Betsy. -k

"Current policies will bankrupt America! We need fiscal responsibility! And that means trillions of dollars of tax cuts!" Why is it that when it comes to the Tea Party types, their "particular issue" always involves social conservatism, and "du jour" is tous les jours? -k

Interesting idea. I can agree with the premise that the CHMC shouldn't insure every mortgage without agreeing that it should be abolished entirely. I disagree with some of the ideas presented. I got my own mortgage about 15 months ago, and based on the approval process I went through, I'm skeptical that somebody just out of highschool can get a $300k mortgage, or anything close. My bank was willing to lend me up to $200k, and I have a good income, solid employment record, and well-established credit history. Tim mentions they no longer insure homes over $1 million. Sounds good to me. Likewise, if that hypothetical high-school kid applies for a mortgage, I hope somebody from CHMC tells the bank "if you want to lend to that kid, you're on your own." In fact I suspect that this was part of the process I went through with my bank. I assume that the $200k limit that we arrived at was a result of guidelines about what CHMC would insure. -k

I liked Roger Ebert. One thing that he got that many movie "snobs" don't seem to is that different movies have different purposes and succeed or fail by whether they accomplish what they set out to do, not whether they appeal to movie snobs. He was capable of giving a gross-out comedy an enthusiastic review... if it was funny. Roger himself wrote about this question. -k

You do realize you're comparing a news organization to a comedy show and a celebrity gossip show? Yeah, they always labeled him as "former Clinton advisor" so that Fox viewers would assume he's a Democrat. So when he says "Romney landslide," they think "gee, if even a Clinton advisor is saying this, the Democrats must be in deep trouble!" If they'd labeled him "Current Romney campaign employee" rather than "former Clinton advisor," that might have helped Fox viewers understand where he was really coming from. The complaint was never that he made a bad prediction. The complaint is that he wasn't making a prediction at all: he was as he admitted in the interview with Hannity, trying to boost the Romney campaign: I didn't have to make that determination; Morris himself admitted to it after the election. All the networks have campaign staffers on their shows to speak for their party. All the networks except Fox identify them as such. Dick Morris isn't the only one; Fox had a number of Romney campaign members on their shows as "analysts" to spread Republican talking points while failing to identify their ties to his campaign, particularly Elaine Chao and John Bolton. The other thing I pointed out is that the conservative media wasn't just giving Dick Morris and his ilk a platform, they also devoted a ton of ink to trying to "debunk" all the polls that indicated Obama was comfortably in the lead. "NONONO DO NOT LISTEN to these polls that say Obama will win! It is a Liberal Media™ trick! They are trying to deceive you!" They devoted daily space to this topic on their websites, all based around the premise that the Liberal Media™ was inflating Obama's poll numbers by oversampling Democrats. Shady provided us with almost daily updates on this hot-button issue. They also devoted considerable space to personal attacks and character assassination of Nathan Silver. "He is a liberal! He writes for WaPo! He is a WaPo Liberal! He has kind of a high-pitched voice! He's not very manly! Do not listen to his blogs! He looks kinda fruity! Liberals only trust him because he says Obama will win! Nate Silver is like a security blanket for liberals in denial! He may have his little polls and his formulas, but we have Gut Feelings! We here in the Conservative Media Bubble are giving you the Real Truth that the Lamestream Media won't tell you! Ignore Nate Silver! Listen to us! And after the election, you can laugh at all the liberals who thought they were going to win! 'Merica!" And of course we here at MLW had some number of users who were likewise convinced that the lamestream media was skewing polls to make it look like Obama was winning, and that after the election they'd be laughing at everybody who bought into the lamestream media lies and Nate Silver and his funny little calculations. And of course it turned out that the lamestream polls were right and Nate Silver was so accurate that people suspect he might be from the future. All of that "debunking" was BS motivated by nothing more than a desire to attack information that was inconvenient to the political outcome they wanted. Regressive politics just aren't electable anymore? Well, it's a democracy, Pliny. I don't know what to tell you, aside from "sorry". Well, good for them for being honest, I guess. The point was, they're what the Tea Party has become. It might have started out as a small government movement, but it became a magnet for social conservatives. Our own Reform Party started out the same way. A "grassroots movement" is bound to attract people who feel disenchanted with the political mainstream, and for the Reform Party, that included getting flooded by social conservatives. The Tea Party was the exact same. So instead of the Less Government movement, they're now the More JEEEZUSS movement. I'm not sure what kind of mental gymnastics you have to do to square libertarianism with social conservatism, but whatever it is, hopefully you can explain it for us so that we can see the thought process. -k

The greenies would absolutely load their pants with rage at the idea of mini-nuclear reactors proliferating everywhere. -k

For the curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#As_a_fuel However, I still think that electric vs internal combustion is a no-brainer. -k

The point isn't whether it worked or not. As you'll recall, the premise we have been discussing is the hilarious notion that people who are plugged into the right wing media bubble are better-informed than everybody else. But the extent to which those media outlets were flat out wrong during the election, and especially the extent to which they intentionally misled their viewers, is ample evidence that living in the right wing media bubble doesn't make you better-informed. I didn't say Dick and Rover were part of the Tea Party. I said that Breitbart is deeply involved in the Tea Party faction. They are. As for your analysis of why Romney lost, I think it's bad and you should feel bad. I won't spend much time on it, because the election is long over and all of this has been rehashed ad nauseum. I mentioned the election coverage because it was such a graphic example of how disconnected the right wing echo-chamber is from reality. One thing I'll point out, though, is that I think it's hilarious that you mentioned the "dog on the roof of the car" thing, but didn't mention the "47% video" thing. That speaks for itself; I don't need to add anything. As for the Tea Partiers being about limited government... well, maybe once upon a time it was the place for good libertarian kids like yourself. But now it's the place for Todd Akin and Paul Broun. -k

OMG! It's here already?! OMG! OMG! I had no idea! I am so stoked! -k

Electrical storage and electrical generation technologies are advancing at a rapid pace. Electric-powered transportation is already viable for commuter-type transportation, and will become viable for most vehicle travel within our lifetimes. Only the heaviest vehicles and equipment will require fossil fuel. There's no reason to fear that "big oil" will stop it, because the genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back in. -k

What do you mean "we"? An American company spills American-owned oil from an American-owned pipe-line on American soil in an American jurisdiction... what does this have to do with Canada? Are we supposed to protect Americans by not selling oil to them any more? -k

Reminder to Christians: you can prove your faith this Easter Sunday by participating in the first annual Jesus, Take The Wheel Day! Reminder to everybody else: stay off the roads! -k

"The difference between outreach and inclusion is outreach is when five white guys have a meeting and call you. Inclusion is when you're in the meeting." -Newt Gingrich. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/07/gingrich-i-was-wrong/ -k

Had mine Friday; back to work tomorrow. -k