Republicans announced Friday that they had uncovered a “direct payment” to President Joe Biden — exactly the kind of evidence they’ve sought linking Biden to his family’s foreign business deals....
I don’t think Canada has an Alabama. As conservative as they are, Alberta is wealthy, highly educated, and they frequently vote for women and POC. They like “small government”, but also have some of the highest paid government workers in the country. I just don’t see much similarity.
I think the comparison to Texas is more apt because they’re both conservative petro states with center left suburban sprawl cities.
Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the NDP (Canada’s social democratic party), universal public healthcare (ever heard of Tommy Douglas?), and historically one of the pillars of the labour movement. It’s now the most conservative province, but still has tons of new immigrants, racial and cultural diversity, good education, and well funded government services. The SK NDP ruled almost continuously from 1971 to 2006.
SK is much more like midwestern farm states that were formerly pro-labour pro-union hotbeds but are now more moderate or conservative, like Iowa and Wisconsin.
Vacancy is pretty much zero across the major Canadian cities. We have the lowest housing per capita in the G7. There is objectively not enough housing in Canada and it’s absolutely delusional to say otherwise. Is this wishful thinking just a form of NIMBYism? Do you own a SFH and you want to “preserve the character” of your neighbourhood or something?
Where are you getting that building more homes will disproportionately help realtors and speculators? Even non-market housing, like co-ops and social housing? How in the world does that even work?? Why would speculators like that? I hate speculators, but your theory makes no sense whatsoever!
There is not a single urban economist, right or left, who agrees with you. With beliefs like this so widespread, it’s no wonder we don’t enact any policies to actually help with the housing crisis.
I am in support of any measures to make the lives of speculators and investors miserable but even the graphic you share endorses increasing housing supply! Singapore is famously super YIMBY and builds tons of public and market housing.
Frankly, whatever else we do, there is NO solution without significantly more supply. Yes, let’s change our tax code to stamp out speculation, but it will take years, if not decades, to catch up on building enough supply even if we make changes now.
I heard someone said that, at the end EV will cost you almost the same as gasoline vehicle, if you have to change the expensive battery every so often. Can someone please give me more info on this? Thank you so much.
One thing to note is that car infrastructure maintenance (e.g. upkeeping roads and bridges) is often paid for in substantial part through a gas tax. Electric cars don’t pay the gas tax, so they are essentially freeloading. In the future, this may change, but this is one reason why EVs are currently cheaper than ICEs.
Distance based taxes are economically better because they internalize the externalities of driving. That is, driving more benefits the driver but is paid for by the general tax pool. This means people are encouraged to drive more than they should because the true costs are borne by society as a whole (including non-drivers) and not the individual driving.
There is obviously a LOT of car infrastructure that is not used by commercial trucks: residential streets and parking lots account for most road surface area. There are also many other externalities besides maintenance like pollution and accidents. By not properly taxing distance driven, we are essentially subsidizing car use.
That sounds sensible. Car use is heavily subsidized, so someone is paying for those miles. It makes sense that a greater proportion of that cost falls on the driver.
Oh please, your modest increase in registration fees do not cover all the externalities of cars. Cars still enjoy TONS of subsidies, including free parking, free highways, etc. In fact, 60% of the surface areas of most cities in NA are devoted to cars.
It’s hilarious that you think you’re fighting “Big Corporate Lobbying” by defending EVs. I don’t know where you get that I’m in favor of ICEs. I am against car dependence entirely. You’re being brainwashed into thinking environmentalism is just about buying another expensive product instead of fighting the car lobby entirely.
Or at least make a distinction between commercial and non-commercial mail. I understand subsidizing a letter to a developing country but this is just extracting rent.
I have an iPad 1. I barely used it when it was given to me and then it more or less sat unused apart from the occasional booting to see if it still works every few years....
I agree the iPad is almost completely useless, but I don’t think comparing it to 13 years before the iPad is useful. My MacBook Air is 11 years old and it’s still great because it’s good enough to run YouTube, all the major websites, office suites, etc. It’s still getting security updates from Apple. I think that’s what 90% of people use a laptop for. A computer two years older than it, on the other hand, might be useless. It’s not really linear. Hopefully, iPads from 5 years ago can last over a decade.
These are good points. But I wonder if the longer life really comes from it being a general purpose computer per se. The points you make are more about the internet connectivity of the device. You can use a DOS machine in 2023 because it’s almost like an appliance. It works just as well now as a text editor as in the 90s. But an internet connected device has to be supported, and good enough for today’s processor intensive web apps. That general purpose DOS machine, like the first iPad, is never running Discord or Netflix.
Because they are a soulless profit-maximizing corporation, there will come a time when Apple stops supporting perfectly functioning iPads for no reason, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. The iPads they stopped supporting really do suck from a hardware perspective.
Your comment is refreshing to see. Economists across the spectrum, from left to right, agree that the gas tax is too low in Canada and the US. Here, for example, is an op-ed by an economist for the conservative National Taxpayer Union arguing against a gas tax holiday.
The US has the lowest gas tax in the developed world, but Canada is not far behind. Even BC has some of the cheapest gas in the developed world outside these two countries.
It’s unfortunate that life is increasingly unaffordable, but it’s an absolute win if we as a society shift to buying second hand and reusing things more often. I wish it wouldn’t be considered so shameful. Kids clothes in thrift stores are often in near new condition. We live in such a wasteful consumer society.
I have noticed secondhand stores are getting more expensive. In my area, it’s still way cheaper for adults than new. For children, it’s more of a crapshoot, but it’s still hands down cheaper for more expensive durable items like coats, jackets, etc.
That’s because they’re driven on by cars. Pavement can last decades without potholes and only minimal repainting if it’s for pedestrians and bikes. That’s one of the reasons why car infrastructure is the most expensive transportation infrastructure possible. Cars are a huge drain on taxes.
There is a car-free island off of Toronto with pristine roads. Take a look at around the 2-minute mark of this Not Just Bikes video.
This is also why university campuses, which have tons of pedestrian pavement, aren’t full of potholes every spring. Same with outdoor malls, amusement parks, and on and on. The freeze thaw doesn’t help, but it isn’t the main problem.
I doubt the plowing is a big factor since we actually plow our bike lanes much less frequently than other cold countries like Finland and they paint their bike roads. Then again, you have a good point about paint being invisible because it gets covered in snow.
In Finland they use lamps above bike lanes to add colour and signage over the snow. I just think the gray asphalt makes it feel like the area is still for cars. That psychological effect is a huge part of good street design.
Many vacancy taxes already exist all around the world. There is not a single one that taxes normal short vacancies. It is just false that this increases costs for all landlords. The vast VAST majority of landlords will never pay it.
On the other hand, the increase in supply due to the tax can be noticeable, which has a much bigger effect lowering prices.
Another GOP ‘Bombshell’ About Joe Biden Turns Out To Be A Dud (www.huffpost.com)
Republicans announced Friday that they had uncovered a “direct payment” to President Joe Biden — exactly the kind of evidence they’ve sought linking Biden to his family’s foreign business deals....
An extra year of training is coming for Canada's family doctors — but do they need it? (www.cbc.ca)
Non Americans, what province is the "Alabama" of your country?
In terms of having the “marrying cousins” stereotype.
Waiving the GST was just a start. These 3 ideas could help get more housing built in Canada (www.cbc.ca)
From faster approvals to hiring more workers, governments need to step up: experts...
About electric vehicle. If you add the maintenance cost for battery, how does it fair compare to gasoline vehicle? On cost we have to pay.
I heard someone said that, at the end EV will cost you almost the same as gasoline vehicle, if you have to change the expensive battery every so often. Can someone please give me more info on this? Thank you so much.
Why it's so much cheaper to ship stuff from China than within Canada (www.cbc.ca)
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is there anything much useful I can do with an iPad 1? (not picture frame)
I have an iPad 1. I barely used it when it was given to me and then it more or less sat unused apart from the occasional booting to see if it still works every few years....
Metro Vancouver gas prices soar ahead of Labour Day weekend (www.cbc.ca)
As of Monday morning, the average price of gas in Vancouver was $2.08 per litre and expected to climb
Back to school means back to basics this fall as Canadians come up against high prices (www.cbc.ca)
Llama 2 is about as factually accurate as GPT-4 for summaries and is 30X cheaper. (www.anyscale.com)
Its interesting to see so much investor money chase AI unicorns at the moment. Something tells me many of them might be making the wrong bets.
Toronto is about to get a new type of intersection unlike any it's seen before (www.blogto.com)
Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not. (gothamist.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162...