the increases they’re asking for probably don’t make up for the high inflation in the recent past. Particularly if inflation, as measured for consumers at that income level, doesn’t stay at 2% or less for the next 4 years.

Candyman…candyman…cand-…nah

I don’t really mind more frequent elections. If anything, the govt needs a shorter leash and more accountability. The population should be able to remove a bad govt almost instantly, say in 30 days, not in 3.5 years. Regardless of their success in the previous election.

I’d be even more insistent on a low bar for recalls if the electoral contest was truly fair, ie the advantages of the wealthy in influencing outcomes were entirely removed. That seems very far away. The problems in the contest really seem to obscure the problems with choices of election systems like FPTP vs PR etc.

part of the idea is that clicking every ad presented destroys the ad system’s ability to do meaningful targetting. I’m happy about that. Without the data collection and analysis performed by Google, Amazon, and Meta, advertising through them is less attractive to advertisors.

Most of the advertisors are lying garbage too. I have no sympathy for them.

AdNauseum. Built on uBlock Origin.

Block all the ads so you never seem them, but click them all so the advertisor pays.

China, India have tiny attempts and smaller successes at influence compared to the thousands of corporate lobbyists that meet with Canadian politicians every year.

What about the influence of the construction industry? Property developers outright own provincial and municipal politics in Ontario. Big tech?

Oil?!?

How about all the huge military and consulting companies that place 50% of the labour in govt workplaces and suck a 25% margin off each one?

Most of those aren’t domestically owned either.

enjoy the recessions that come with balanced budgets and surpluses… everyone will be sending in extra taxes to balance that budget.

The Canadian govt is the primary creator of Canadian dollars.

When the federal govt runs a deficit of say $1B, that’s a surplus of $1B in the private sector. $1B more spent into industry than collected in taxes. Good times for the private sector.

When the federal govt runs a surplus of $1B, that is a deficit of $1B in the private sector. $1B more collected in taxes than spent. This is an absolute disaster for the economy.

When you consider the above, you can see how ridiculous it is for the federal govt to run a balanced budget or surplus. A balanced budget is a strongly recessionary position, choking off economic growth in the private sector.

instead of a long complicated process to pre-empt corruption, just have an automatic and detailed post-award review for corruption. Corruption discovered in the review is referred for criminal prosecution.

After the first 500 or so corporate CEOs and executives are jailed, the rest will get the point. Offer your best price, compete with your competitors, sell your offer on its merits in the open bid, and stay away from the bid evaluators and other potential or actual bidders.

it’s to stop attempts to leave and commit terrorism from lawless jurisdictions. I think it’s fairly new and related to the short period of time when ISIS held territory in Syria & Iraq. Odd to see it used for the US, but why not.

from every possible thing that can happen to you while smoking…

cancer while smoking COVID while smoking caught in fascist riots while smoking hit by bus while smoking bear attack while smoking container dropped from a plane while smoking etc

Smoking puts you out in the world which increases a lot of risks you wouldn’t otherwise have.

I’m hoping for a What We Do In The Shadows / Star Trek crossover.

Baron Afanas and Saru surely have some weird dreams? The Baron also faces a series of extreme transformations.

Cut our taxes! Don’t make ugly utilitarian structures! Typical ignorant whinging.

I hope they mount a nice speed camera on it.

car thieves aren’t slipping away in car chases. The car is in a box on a ship in the ocean before the cops know anything about it.

If the cops start digging a bit into longstanding organized crime groups, the judge will jail them for a long time. Police aren’t bringing those cases.

which version of which bible?

and Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, almost all of central & South America.

why do Republicans care, since the US and Israel don’t recognize the court’s jurisdiction anyway?

I think both would likely be found guilty by any reasonable court. I don’t think Gaza has one, but I think Netanyahu’s legal troubles are going to get a lot worse in Israeli courts.

it’s right wing bullshit.

The UK is never limited in the amount of £ it can issue to cover govt deficits. Read a textbook. Issuers of currency do not borrow i that currecy. Debt and deficits have economic impacts, but there is no hard limit.

The only reason for austerity is that rich twats want austerity so they can continue their insatiable greed.

Brian Lilley can fuck off. 6 pages of text for a a veiled anti-immigrant attack.

Far from his worst too.

Rae would advise on the options and consequences. I expect he did a good job advising Trudeau.

You don’t just suddenly hork in your friend’s face at a party. You try to work things out and move them in a direction and keeping it mutually acceptable.