Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Andy83]

Originally Posted by Bonded

That’s just not true. His dear old dad did the same thing.

You know these things can be amended ya? I think they just did it last week.

The thing I read , I'm pretty sure had a picture of the Lib constitution highlighted. Will try to find it.

Edit: Can't find the article, but looked in the Liberal constitution and the language isn't as clear as I initially thought. Though, it appears he'd have to be re-elected Leader by the liberal members, and that's not happening.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Wealth concentration occurs as the result of too much gov't intervention, allowing gov'ts monopoly on power to be captured.

It's why actual socialist countries have the most concentrated wealth.

The countries with the highest wealth inequality:

South Africa 63
Namibia 59.1
Colombia 54.8
Eswatini 54.6
Hong Kong 53.9
Botswana 53.3
Belize 53.3
Brazil 52
Zambia 51.5
Angola 51.3

All famously socialist (especially Hong Kong) [fine - Hong Kong isn't a country any longer - whatever].

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

The US has an enormous amount of economic potential that is not unlocked. It is being hindered by bad fiscal policy, growing public spending, too much regulation.

The concept that unlocking the potential of an economy is "trickle down economics" is absurd. The very term implies someone has a too simplistic view of the economy and how humans create wealth. In a free market, people get rich as a consequence of economic wealth production. The notion that free markets are attempting to hand capital to the rich which then they will hand out in a miserly fashion is nonsense. It shows a fundamentally unsound view of the complexity of an economy. They aren't built in hierarchies, despite the inequal distribution of wealth. They are more like flat networks, with some parts of that network accumulating more capital. This is incompatible with the notion of "trickle down". There is no trickle because there is no down. It's nonsense.

I’m bored and stuck at the airport waiting for a flight. What do you think supply side economics and tax cuts/tax loopholes do. They cut taxes on the rich and allow them to hoard more wealth. Hilarious that you think trickle down economics criticisms are based around the wealthy literally sending wealth down to appease the masses. You should probably learn a bit more before spouting off about people not understanding the complexities of an economy.
People get rich for a whole bunch of reasons, some of them are pure entrepreneurial pursuits but a lot of it is network effects and family wealth. Supply side economics amplify that effect and we see it increasing wealth inequality and lower social mobility.
I think you read Ayn Rand and now that defines your entire worldview

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Weird that the USMCA seems to be ignored here. I guess Trump is effectively tearing it up, legal or not. The only thing I could find is that it’s subject to mandatory review in 2026.

I thought that’s why he made up the drugs and immigration issue on the Canadian border - so it can be called a security emergency and bypass existing agreements

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Wealth concentration occurs as the result of too much gov't intervention, allowing gov'ts monopoly on power to be captured.

It's why actual socialist countries have the most concentrated wealth.

So the US is more socialist than Norway? The things you learn

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Slava

So if Skippy these kinds of comments it’s fine, but somehow if Freeland does it’s inappropriate? Gimme a break. You must have been naively hoping that everyone would laud Trudeau and ride into the election like they’re facing a firing squad?

Of course the leadership candidates are going to throw him under the bus. I’m not sure if you noticed, but he’s a little unpopular these days.

It's hard to take posts like this seriously when you can't even say a politician's name. You folks just cannot help yourselves.

"Skippy" is the leader of the opposing party that wants to be elected as PM. It makes total sense to go after the other party and go on the offensive. This should not be a revelation to anyone remotely aware of politics.

Freeland just 2 months ago was vehemently defending the economy calling it a vibecession, as finance minister of the party she is now trying to lead and claim the policies failed. She got fired and she decided to quit instead very publicly. Had that not occurred, Trudeau would likely still be holding on and Freeland and co (including Carney who was set to be handed a cabinet position) would all be toeing the party line right now (with parliament likely still prorogued).

And again, Trudeau is still in power of Freeland's party and leading the country right now for at least the next 2 months. Telling the world he is awful while Liberals are still in charge of policies under him, is not helping anyone and most certainly not the Liberal party. Canadians are supposed to suddenly forget everything that has been occurring as soon as a new leader is picked?

Surely you aren't here trying to compare both as similar situations in staunch defense of the Liberals here. You do need a break.

I'm all for this iteration of the Liberals continuing to implode on themselves. I didn't say it's inappropriate, I said it's a debacle.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by Bonded

I’m bored and stuck at the airport waiting for a flight. What do you think supply side economics and tax cuts/tax loopholes do. They cut taxes on the rich and allow them to hoard more wealth. Hilarious that you think trickle down economics criticisms are based around the wealthy literally sending wealth down to appease the masses. You should probably learn a bit more before spouting off about people not understanding the complexities of an economy.
People get rich for a whole bunch of reasons, some of them are pure entrepreneurial pursuits but a lot of it is network effects and family wealth. Supply side economics amplify that effect and we see it increasing wealth inequality and lower social mobility.
I think you read Ayn Rand and now that defines your entire worldview

People think tax cuts are on the rich. That's not an accurate and useful way to look at it. Tax cuts are on capital. If you think about it that way, it will you to understand why your whole trickle down economics "theory" is an illusion.

People get rich when capital is free flowing and allocated efficiently to those that create value. But that that's a consequence of releasing capital from the constraints of taxation, not the mechanism.

When people have a simplistic view of this, they view the participants as the key component in the flow of capital. In fact, the participants/individuals that you view as being at the top of the hierarchy are only a minor component of the capital flow, even if they appear to be wildly wealthy. For instance, if you own say a profitable donut shop, you accumulate only a small portion of the capital that flows through that shop. The rest of the capital is just using the donut shop as a conduit between suppliers, employees and customers. This is relevant because even if the people who own the business get "rich", they are still a tiny eddy in the much large and much more important flow of capital - which is the flow that helps the little guy.

You do yourself no favors by viewing the economy as some sort of two dimensional pyramid with stacks of cash at each level and the idea is to figure out how to grab the other guy's stacks.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Wealth concentration occurs as the result of too much gov't intervention, allowing gov'ts monopoly on power to be captured.

It's why actual socialist countries have the most concentrated wealth.

"socialist policies countries" is too vague of a term to be useful.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

People think tax cuts are on the rich. That's not an accurate and useful way to look at it. Tax cuts are on capital. If you think about it that way, it will you to understand why your whole trickle down economics "theory" is an illusion.

People get rich when capital is free flowing and allocated efficiently to those that create value. But that that's a consequence of releasing capital from the constraints of taxation, not the mechanism.

When people have a simplistic view of this, they view the participants as the key component in the flow of capital. In fact, the participants/individuals that you view as being at the top of the hierarchy are only a minor component of the capital flow, even if they appear to be wildly wealthy. For instance, if you own say a profitable donut shop, you accumulate only a small portion of the capital that flows through that shop. The rest of the capital is just using the donut shop as a conduit between suppliers, employees and customers. This is relevant because even if the people who own the business get "rich", they are still a tiny eddy in the much large and much more important flow of capital - which is the flow that helps the little guy.

You do yourself no favors by viewing the economy as some sort of two dimensional pyramid with stacks of cash at each level and the idea is to figure out how to grab the other guy's stacks.

That’s a lot of word salad that doesn’t address anything I said. Taxation just doesn’t happen at the individual level. Capital accumulation allows people and companies to access even more capital to continue concentrating wealth. The easiest example that I think should be cut is the ability to access loans against equity in order to avoid taxation events. The middle class is paying 40% in taxes and the wealthy are getting low interest rate loans. Flight is finally here but keep on fighting for that Atlas Shrugged world you so desire.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by Bonded

That’s a lot of word salad that doesn’t address anything I said. Taxation just doesn’t happen at the individual level. Capital accumulation allows people and companies to access even more capital to continue concentrating wealth. The easiest example that I think should be cut is the ability to access loans against equity in order to avoid taxation events. The middle class is paying 40% in taxes and the wealthy are getting low interest rate loans. Flight is finally here but keep on fighting for that Atlas Shrugged world you so desire.

You haven't described anything that anyone should find objectionable. If you don't like the mechanism of taxation, nothing wrong with suggesting changes. But that won't solve the problem with your perspective.

Your misunderstanding is that capital accumulates into wealth to a far greater degree than it actually does when the overall flow of capital is considered. The goal is to have the flow of capital be deployed in a way that creates economic growth and wealth. That's why tax cuts work - although a certain amount of taxation and government activity is beneficial. This target fixation on where and how the small portion of the wealth that gets accumulated by individuals is to not see the forest for the trees.

Let's look at an example, since people seem to not want to consider abstract concepts (nothing says I can't grasp the abstract than using the phrase "word salad").

Mckesson is a multinational corporation which distributes drugs. That's all it doesn. Delivers drugs from one party to another party. It does so with tiny profit margins. Let's call the revenue $308 billion per year. It's cash flow is about $3.6 billion. You could say it accumulated about 1% of the "capital" that flowed through the company. What happened to the other 99% that was not accumulated? It paid employees, paid suppliers for drugs (paying their employees), etc. Your trickle down theory suggests that the $3.6 billion is the most relevant portion of the capital flow. But that should, on its surface, be an absurd claim to make. This is the same with any profitable business.

Frankly, it's envy disrupting your ability to see what should be obvious to you, which is understandable. It's not exactly intellectually elevated, though.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

You expected Harris to toss Biden under the bus while she was still his VP?

ummm the "what would you have done differently the past 4 years...
NOTHING!" cost her the election.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

You haven't described anything that anyone should find objectionable. If you don't like the mechanism of taxation, nothing wrong with suggesting changes. But that won't solve the problem with your perspective.

Your misunderstanding is that capital accumulates into wealth to a far greater degree than it actually does when the overall flow of capital is considered. The goal is to have the flow of capital be deployed in a way that creates economic growth and wealth. That's why tax cuts work - although a certain amount of taxation and government activity is beneficial. This target fixation on where and how the small portion of the wealth that gets accumulated by individuals is to not see the forest for the trees.

Let's look at an example, since people seem to not want to consider abstract concepts (nothing says I can't grasp the abstract than using the phrase "word salad").

Mckesson is a multinational corporation which distributes drugs. That's all it doesn. Delivers drugs from one party to another party. It does so with tiny profit margins. Let's call the revenue $308 billion per year. It's cash flow is about $3.6 billion. You could say it accumulated about 1% of the "capital" that flowed through the company. What happened to the other 99% that was not accumulated? It paid employees, paid suppliers for drugs (paying their employees), etc. Your trickle down theory suggests that the $3.6 billion is the most relevant portion of the capital flow. But that should, on its surface, be an absurd claim to make. This is the same with any profitable business.

Frankly, it's envy disrupting your ability to see what should be obvious to you, which is understandable. It's not exactly intellectually elevated, though.

I don’t have a big issue with wealth concentration, per se. I have an issue with the wealthy not paying thier share of income taxes. And saying they creat a bunch of other taxes just doesn’t cut it for me. They are uber wealthy, paying an equivalent proportion of taxes wouldn’t make them much less uber wealthy and it just might actually help a school stay open, or a hospital get built.

The double standard is what gets me, and trust I’m a capitalist. Very successful, at a very larger well known company. The ability for the uber rich to play by a different set of rules should be eliminated. By 2018 billionaires had a lower effective tax rate in the us then the average working class citizen.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Firebot

It's hard to take posts like this seriously when you can't even say a politician's name. You folks just cannot help yourselves.

"Skippy" is the leader of the opposing party that wants to be elected as PM. It makes total sense to go after the other party and go on the offensive. This should not be a revelation to anyone remotely aware of politics.

Freeland just 2 months ago was vehemently defending the economy calling it a vibecession, as finance minister of the party she is now trying to lead and claim the policies failed. She got fired and she decided to quit instead very publicly. Had that not occurred, Trudeau would likely still be holding on and Freeland and co (including Carney who was set to be handed a cabinet position) would all be toeing the party line right now (with parliament likely still prorogued).

And again, Trudeau is still in power of Freeland's party and leading the country right now for at least the next 2 months. Telling the world he is awful while Liberals are still in charge of policies under him, is not helping anyone and most certainly not the Liberal party. Canadians are supposed to suddenly forget everything that has been occurring as soon as a new leader is picked?

Surely you aren't here trying to compare both as similar situations in staunch defense of the Liberals here. You do need a break.

I'm all for this iteration of the Liberals continuing to implode on themselves. I didn't say it's inappropriate, I said it's a debacle.

For one, taking issue with the name “Skippy” is stupid. It’s his nickname, not one given out of disrespect from critics, but one he’s had for 20+ years given to him by fellow members of his own party.

Two, you seem to understand how elections work but act dumbstruck that leadership elections work the same way. The candidates are very obviously going to separate themselves from the current leadership, even if that means being critical of it, and should not be, as you put it, a revelation to anyone remotely aware of politics.

While I’m enjoying that you’ve gone mask-off and are no longer hiding your militant partisanship, Slava is a pretty reasonable, middle of the road guy (total NIMBY, but otherwise cool). If you’re reacting this way to his comments, do you think maybe you’re the one who needs the break? Especially as every second post of yours seems to be an extreme overreaction.

Just an idea. You don’t seem well this week.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

I don’t have a big issue with wealth concentration, per se. I have an issue with the wealthy not paying thier share of income taxes. And saying they creat a bunch of other taxes just doesn’t cut it for me. They are uber wealthy, paying an equivalent proportion of taxes wouldn’t make them much less uber wealthy and it just might actually help a school stay open, or a hospital get built.

The double standard is what gets me, and trust I’m a capitalist. Very successful, at a very larger well known company. The ability for the uber rich to play by a different set of rules should be eliminated. By 2018 billionaires had a lower effective tax rate in the us then the average working class citizen.

There aren't that many way to do it effectively. You'd have to support simplifying the tax code significantly. Maybe even eliminating it and going to a flat tax of some kind.

Or you could consider going to a straight consumption tax, which can't be avoided and scales with spend. This has its own issues also.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Mckesson is a multinational corporation which distributes drugs. That's all it doesn. Delivers drugs from one party to another party. It does so with tiny profit margins. Let's call the revenue $308 billion per year. It's cash flow is about $3.6 billion. You could say it accumulated about 1% of the "capital" that flowed through the company. What happened to the other 99% that was not accumulated? It paid employees, paid suppliers for drugs (paying their employees), etc. Your trickle down theory suggests that the $3.6 billion is the most relevant portion of the capital flow. But that should, on its surface, be an absurd claim to make. This is the same with any profitable business.

Did you forget about all of the fixed assets that were acquired with some of that money?

Frankly, it's envy disrupting your ability to see what should be obvious to you, which is understandable. It's not exactly intellectually elevated, though.

You’re really laying it on thick here. Low-mid wage employees at these types of companies have to invest most of their income on things like rent, food, transportation, etc just to keep themselves alive so those businesses can profit from their labour. Those expenses contribute to even more tax being collected from their income above what they’ve already paid.

Their at best in the low thousands total dollar value profit margin on their accumulated capital may be slightly higher than the billion dollar total value profit margin dividends paid out to a small number of shareholders who could also have even more money coming from investment in numerous other companies. That much is true, but you’re not explaining why you believe that it’s envy causing someone to suggests it’s still problematic as opposed to simply calling bull#### bull####.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Did you forget about all of the fixed assets that were acquired with some of that money?



You’re really laying it on thick here. Low-mid wage employees at these types of companies have to invest most of their income on things like rent, food, transportation, etc just to keep themselves alive so those businesses can profit from their labour. Those expenses contribute to even more tax being collected from their income above what they’ve already paid.

Their at best in the low thousands total dollar value profit margin on their accumulated capital may be slightly higher than the billion dollar total value profit margin dividends paid out to a small number of shareholders who could also have even more money coming from investment in numerous other companies. That much is true, but you’re not explaining why you believe that it’s envy causing someone to suggests it’s still problematic as opposed to simply calling bull#### bull####.

Because none of it is problematic. So the simplest explanation is probably true: envy causes people to perceive a problem where none exists other than their dissatisfaction.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

Because none of it is problematic. So the simplest explanation is probably true: envy causes people to perceive a problem where none exists other than their dissatisfaction.

Is it possible that greed and/or your own personal dissatisfaction with the alternatives is affecting your perception?

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Is it possible that greed and/or your own personal dissatisfaction with the alternatives is affecting your perception?

Anything is possible. But capitalism has either directly or indirectly provided you with almost everything you enjoy about your life and continues to do so.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

But capitalism has either directly or indirectly provided you with almost everything you enjoy about your life and continues to do so.

What’s your point? There’s varying aspects of every capitalist economy.

Really interested to hear your explanation for how capitalism guarantees an outcome like continuing to provide me with almost everything I enjoy in life.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Firebot

It's hard to take posts like this seriously when you can't even say a politician's name. You folks just cannot help yourselves.

"Skippy" is the leader of the opposing party that wants to be elected as PM. It makes total sense to go after the other party and go on the offensive. This should not be a revelation to anyone remotely aware of politics.

Freeland just 2 months ago was vehemently defending the economy calling it a vibecession, as finance minister of the party she is now trying to lead and claim the policies failed. She got fired and she decided to quit instead very publicly. Had that not occurred, Trudeau would likely still be holding on and Freeland and co (including Carney who was set to be handed a cabinet position) would all be toeing the party line right now (with parliament likely still prorogued).

And again, Trudeau is still in power of Freeland's party and leading the country right now for at least the next 2 months. Telling the world he is awful while Liberals are still in charge of policies under him, is not helping anyone and most certainly not the Liberal party. Canadians are supposed to suddenly forget everything that has been occurring as soon as a new leader is picked?

Surely you aren't here trying to compare both as similar situations in staunch defense of the Liberals here. You do need a break.

I'm all for this iteration of the Liberals continuing to implode on themselves. I didn't say it's inappropriate, I said it's a debacle.

Yeah, I will concede that I shouldn’t have called him Skippy. I also don’t like it when people do that and try to have a conversation, so that’s on me.

As far as the Liberals and whether they should continue defending a policy that everyone hates, it’s amusing. I understand that the entire CPC campaign was “axe the tax” and “we hate Trudeau”, so with both of those things gone there isn’t much to campaign on. But that’s politics.