denim.bsky.social
Geopolitics. Proportional Representation. Land Value Taxes solve everything. Fighting polarization. Housing. Urbanism.
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I think we can recognize that Americans are simply being inundated with the internal disruption that the Trump admin is causing domestically while recognizing only we Canadians have the prerogative to deal with the trade threat. We can't rely on Americans to solve this for us.
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Its all about power based perception. Americans don't get it in the same way that some white people didn't understand why PoCs get riled up by racist jokes/racial epithets.
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Polestar. I feel like people are sleeping on this brand. Volvo pedigree. Nice quality interior finishing. Technology forward. Mostly electric lineup.
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The irony is that this is a core philosophical pillar of conservatism: that we should protect the status quo because destroying or deconstructing that system is risky and is more likely to make things materially worse rather than better.
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But Mike, don't you know that we can't evict Happy Gilmore's grandma? Young adults who didn't buy the right size home before they were born should be content in knowing that their grandparents can age in place comfortably!
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The land transfer tax should be removed for all buyers, not just first time homebuyers. This tax simply manifests as an impediment for people to right-size their housing, whether its to buy a bigger house for a growing family, or downsizing for empty nesters.
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ITT: people who think economics isn't real and prices are just made up arbitrarily.
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True, but I had hopes the Labour convention vote where PR was voted in as a policy proposal should've been a strong enough signal that Keir would abide by democracy, but I guess I was wrong. Keir deserves the collapse of approval he's getting, every ounce.
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The regression of the Labour Party to rejecting PR when they committed to it prior to the election has made me more cynical about it being passed by others. Keir Starmer is scum.
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Here's each G7 country's cumulative increase in real GDP per capita, since just before the pandemic:
🇺🇸 +10.1%
🇮🇹 +6.4% (thru Q2)
🇯🇵 +2.4%
🇫🇷 +1.5% (thru Q2)
🇬🇧 -0.7%
🇩🇪 -1.9%
🇨🇦 -2.0%
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My fear is that we get farther and farther away from thoughtful, non-narcissistic leaders as polarization incentivizes charismatic but substanceless chameleons, only out for themselves.
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For this to happen, we need to fundamentally change industries that are sticking points in free trade negotiations with other western countries. One being to dismantle the dairy cartel which prevents other countries from competing with our dairy farmers, and the other being the stumpage system.
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Big tent parties are just constantly liable to change the ideological composition of their tent in order to make gains in their constituent base. The populists who wanted to protect base manufacturing and blue collar work in America replaced the Neo-liberal/RHINO types post 2016 Republican party.
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To hedge against this risk, we ought to form stronger ties with other similar like-minded nations like the UK, NZ, and Australia. Lets start with free trade!
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A broader problem though is that this fee that the credit card issuers impose on merchants gets baked into the cost of goods, meaning those that don't use credits cards end up paying for the rewards of those that do.
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Realistically, both need to occur. Broader consciousness is required in order to pave the way for the issue to be championed by politicians looking for policies with grassroots support. Some politicians are familiar with LVT but also keenly aware that how easy it is to misconstrue to the unaware.
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A more realistic option is CANZUK, especially now that the UK has left the EU and is looking for new markets. Or at least some combination of Aus, NZ, or the UK.
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This not only destroys the US' primary complaint with the Canadian system of logging that they use to justify the Softwood Lumber tariffs, but also lets us try to better stimulate more domestic demand.
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Another nuclear option here is to radically change the existing stumpage system into an auction based system that will allow the domestic market to quickly and more accurately price in the reduced demand for lumber due to tariffs and allow the domestic market to take advantage.
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Dismantling the dairy cartel would also allow us to reach a free trade agreement with the UK as cheese was one of the sticking points with them as well, I believe.
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Proportional representation and a multiparty democracy is the only way out.
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A two party FPTP system inherently pushes a specific game theory that incentivizes this behaviour when it comes to the actual operation of government.
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Its really about perception and control. Needing to water down a bill to get it passed due to the composition of the house or senate is different than owning a bill from start to finish, and the control that is afforded to what is included in said bill.
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Nuance:
Sourcing ideas from across the aisle but passing without requiring bipartisan support allows parties to keep full credit and control. No concession of power.
Adopting opposition ideas into bills to get bipartisan support to pass a bill: Concession of power. Opposition gets some credit.
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And this is a very partisan reading. Maybe they have no intention of going any further with this, maybe they do. But by making the assumption that nothing will happen and setting the expectations so low, we're providing the opportunity for more people to polarize in the direction you do not want.
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You're conflating the sourcing of ideas from across the aisle with the concentration of power provided via the primary process.
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I think thats giving Elon and crew too much credit, I doubt they already have a long list, if a list at all, of the items they want to tackle, let alone this particular policy suggestion from Cenk. The read here is that they discussed this policy as a result of Cenk mentioning it.
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Would you say that this has been endemic of Italy for a long time? Are there specific things events that you feel exacerbated or grew this low trust society belief amongst the people?
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As much as you might hate him, Donald Trump Jr has replied that it was a great idea and that they discussed it. I'm not necessarily saying they will implement this but this is still quite a different discourse they are striking whether you like it or not.
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Can you elaborate on this? I don't see why taxing land inherently requires higher trust, because regardless, society will see the benefits of discouraging the unproductive holding of land and the gains from a presumed shift away from taxing productivity.
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100%, and the Conservatives pushing policy to undo some of that really made it quite obvious what the choice was for those who had housing as their #1 issue.
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Political junkies discount how time consuming and difficult it is for most to follow policy discourse in a two party system. Unlike a multi-party system where you can buy into a core party philosophy and take it more or less for granted that policy will follow without needing to read every proposal.
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This is also one reason the democratic party finds more success leaning towards the center rather than towards one of many disparate groups on the left, because there is often much more shared ideological preferences in the center and right that they can appeal to, effectively.
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And this is very much a structural problem with two party/big-tent politics. The progressive big tent is just implicitly going to include groups with more significant differences than they share in ideological underpinnings.