Canadian Politics: Orange is the new government

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Canadian Politics: Orange is the new government

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Baronjutter posted:

Seriously, giant companies and Jim Pattison types should be taxed to the point that they can't donate millions to charity. Don't rely on big showy 6 million dollar hospital donations every few years, tax em and get reliable funding for the things they make a big show donating to.

Our social services should not be funded on the whims and ego's of the rich. Raise taxes on the fuckers, who cares if they stop donating you'll still have a net increase in funding.

Even if you created a new tax bracket at the top end and taxed it almost 100%, you'd still end up with people who are able to make giant donations. In the case of companies where, outside the small business exemption, there's no form of progressive taxation, you'd have to make it almost impossible to own/run a small or medium-sized business if you wanted to prevent the largest corporations from having millions of dollars in profit.

I don't disagree with the idea that rich people and companies probably should be paying more in tax, I'm just saying that your criteria is rather bizarre, and probably borne a lot more of emotion than reason.

Bilirubin posted:

well count at least two in Calgary Buffalo voting NDP. They finally managed to stop phoning us

What about you pc9a?

I live just off the Red Mile, so will be staying in.

Demon_Corsair posted:

I don't even know where ranchlands is. I generally stay in the downtown bubble.

What's everyone doing for election night?

It's too bad PTA6 is out of town, we could drink good wine/whiskey, smoke fancy cigars and one person could delight in the horror of the other when the PGA or NDP win....

I voted Liberal on Wednesday morning at the advance polls. I don't think there's really any satisfaction to be had in this election for me. I still don't like the NDP, the Liberals are in complete disarray (though Change Alberta still recommended them in Calgary-Buffalo; I hope they manage to hold it), the Wildrose are insane, the PCs can go gently caress themselves in their corrupt asses, and the Alberta Party is still little more than a joke. No matter what happens, I'm going to be disappointed. My only hope is that the PCs get their asses handed to them, and some sort of really unstable minority government results, so even if the NDP win, it will be easy to kick them out again when they prove to be insane, as I suspect they are.

# ? May 2, 2015 07:14

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# ? May 29, 2024 17:15

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

Albino Squirrel posted:

Businessmen attack NDP's 'amateur' policies

It's so tone deaf it's beautiful.

I love the quotes in this article:

quote:

�I can�t afford a raise in taxes, I can�t afford the increase in wage � I can�t afford it,� said Cameron, who has donated $16,000 to the party since 2010, personally and through his company. �Why is it always the corporations? Why is it always?

I can't afford a raise in taxes, or I might have to cut back on political donations. It's always on the poor business owners!

quote:

�I don�t understand the unhappiness and disenchantment that appears to be out there,� said Melton, who has donated $41,812.50 to the Tories since 2010 personally and through his company, plus $3,500 to Prentice�s campaign.

I don't understand the unhappiness in this province, says a man who can afford to blow nearly 50 grand in political donations.

quote:

�We don�t need amateurs running this province through these difficult times ... we�ve got to stay with the government that has got us to where we are today.�

We can't have amateurs running this province into the ground, that's what professionals are for.

Precambrian Video Games has issued a correction as of 07:34 on May 2, 2015

# ? May 2, 2015 07:27

Heavy neutrino: Sep 16, 2007; You made a fine post for yourself. ...For a casualry, I suppose.

The perspective is almost completely perpendicular. For the businessman, it's the government that got him where he is today (rich). For the average person, it's the government that got him where he is today (laid off, health care premium added to tax bill, paying more for booze).

# ? May 2, 2015 07:33

P.d0t: Dec 27, 2007; I released my finger from the trigger, and then it was over...

eXXon posted:

We don't need amateurs to run this province, we need to stick to the professionals who ran it into the ground in the first place.

"Change is scary and dangerous!"

:dealwithit:

# ? May 2, 2015 07:33

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

From a while back:

Brannock posted:

What's pointless about saying that derogatory attitudes towards techies isn't going to do anything to convince them that they need unions? There's already public resentment towards them for making So Much Money and Having All Those Benefits, even with the 80 hour work weeks and being expected to sleep at work and all those other horror stories that you occasionally hear out of the industry. (Obviously not all jobs in that field are like that.)

The general advice to people in those jobs for if they feel like they're being mistreated is to go find a new job, which will likely be accompanied with a pay raise. Because there's such big demand for competent programmers right now*, if you're worth anything you'll be able to find a decent job suited to you. If you're not competent, then the general view is that you shouldn't be in the field at all. There's a significant chunk of developers who are planning to start their own company someday, as well. Whether or not it's actually true, the feeling is that the field is meritocratic. Software outsourcing has been falling out of favor. Many of them believe either consciously or subconsciously that they're holding all the cards right now, so they don't see much of an incentive to spend time unionizing. I don't see how calling them libertarian autists is going to convince them that they should unionize. Even if you don't explicitly call them that to their faces, if that's what you think of them when you're debating with them, they're going to pick up on that.

_{*Who knows how long that'll last. No one's quite sure if what we're seeing is a bubble or not -- at least this time around the field is actually producing stuff instead of tossing up do-nothing websites and a pitch looking for investor money.}

The pointless bit is posts criticizing the tone of debate here, as if it's representative of the kinds of statements made by actual Important People in the monolithic Left instead of just idle banter on a comedy forum. It's on the verge of concern trolling at this point, and it's just tiresome to keep seeing 'this is why The Left is failing' thrown out casually with little supporting evidence. Is anyone here actually engaged in actively convincing software developers to unionize? If so and if they're going around venting about how software developers are all libertarian autists, then I'd start to worry.

Now as for the point you made, times of plenty sound like the ideal moment to start a union. Otherwise, wouldn't the argument be that unionizing during a recession would be a greater threat to already uncertain and unstable employment, forcing teetering shops over the edge?

Vermain posted:

The good thing about Kliman is that he is outrageously meticulous about citations and data - he's probably the best Marxist scholar since Marx, in that respect. The references at the bottom of the article tell you where he obtained the statistical data, so you can check it out for yourself, which I encourage you to do.

As for the non-wage compensation (I misused the word "benefits", here - that doesn't capture the full scope of what Kliman is talking about), I'll quote from the book directly:

Okay, so it sounds like he is arguing that non-wage benefits are increasing during retirement, partly and mostly because people are living longer. But this seems somewhat at odds with the impression I got that corporate pensions and health care benefits have been dropping of late (thinking about automakers, steelmakers and the like)... unless government benefits are really increasing so much to compensate? That only seems plausible for health care spending.

Vermain posted:

The argument you're referring to is usually called the "underconsumptionist" position, which Kliman disagrees with. I've generally found Kliman's account, which relates to Marx's idea of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF), more compelling, as he's shown some serious logical flaws with the underconsumptionist position (see here and here for starters).

The actual explanation of the LTRPF will require a bit of simplification, since a lot of it is tied up in Marx's labor theory of value (LTV). Basically, the "value" of a commodity (which partly determines prices in the LTV) is created only through socially useful labour. More specifically, the average socially necessary labour time for the production of a commodity is what determines its value. If a commodity, on average, requires a vast amount of labour time to create, it will command a higher price than a commodity that requires very little labour time to create. Importantly, the average hour of socially necessary labor time will "always [yield] the same amount of value, independently of any variations in productivity" (Marx).

Capitalism, which is continually driven to increase efficiency in order to reap higher profits, will gravitate towards using labour-saving technical changes, with the intention that they lower the overall cost of production. If you normally require two people to make 10 gadgets, but can buy a machine that will effectively allow one person to make 10 gadgets in the same amount of time, you will (after paying off the initial cost of the machine) save money (after accounting for the cost of the machine minus the wage you would normally pay to the other person) and can therefore earn a higher profit. Importantly, this does not increase or decrease the socially necessary labor time required to create a commodity, but instead results in less and less value being added to each commodity. The result of this is that, as more and more companies produce a commodity using labour-saving technical changes, the price of these commodities will decrease, as they each contain less value than before. Thus, the overall rate of profit will fall, as profitable investment opportunities become increasingly scarce.

This makes sense:

quote:

More precisely, if there�s no change in the relation between profit and wages, and no change in the relation between physical output and the physical capital that is invested��both of which are quite reasonable assumptions��then the rate of profit will fall if prices tend to decline as productivity increases. I say �tend to decline� because nowadays, unlike when Marx wrote, prices typically rise even in the face of rising productivity. But that actually doesn�t matter. As long as prices rise more slowly than they would if productivity didn�t increase, the rate of profit will still fall under these conditions.

But these quotes:

quote:

But the real clincher, the thing that convinced me that Marx�s falling-rate-of-profit is needed in order to account for the whole mess, is the fact that it happens to account surprisingly well for why the rate of profit fell. Over the six decades that preceded the financial crisis, there was little long-run change in either the relation between profit and wages or the rate at which money prices rose in relation to commodities� real values. When you set aside those factors, what�s left is that the rate of profit fell for the reason Marx�s theory singles out: employment grew more slowly than capital was accumulated via investment. The slow growth of employment in relation to capital accumulation accounts for almost all of the fall in the rate of profit over these six decades. That�s remarkable. I never would have thought that the theory would fit the facts so well.
...
But the fall in the rate of profit is far from the only factor. A wide variety of evidence indicates that the economy never fully recovered from the slumps of the 1970s and early 1980s. There�s a glaring contrast between the situation during the quarter-century following World War II, which was a genuine boom phase, and the situation during the quarter-century preceding the latest financial crisis. The rate of investment (capital accumulation) fell and never recovered, debt burdens increased markedly relative to income, growth of GDP, industrial production, employees� compensation, and public infrastructure investment were all much slower than during the postwar boom, the average duration of unemployment was higher and the problem of workers dropping out of the labor market was more serious, and there were many, many more burst bubbles and banking, debt, and currency crises.

... don't seem to be critical of the underconsumptionist position, whereas later:

quote:

Now, I�ve said that profits would take a hit if income were redistributed downward, but underconsumptionist theory says the opposite: profits would actually rise, because spending on goods and services would rise. Poorer people spend almost all of their income on goods and services, while richer people use a big chunk of their incomes to buy bonds, stocks, and other so forth, which aren�t goods and services. That much is true; downward redistribution would boost consumption spending. The more na�ve underconsumptionist authors act as if this proves their case, but it simply doesn�t. It ignores another important component of spending on goods and services, businesses� productive investment��spending on equipment, construction of factories and office buildings, and so forth. Productive investment is paid for out of profits and borrowed funds. But downward redistribution of income would reduce profit, and it would also reduce the amount of funds businesses could borrow, because rich people would be sinking less money into bonds and savings accounts. So productive investment spending would decline. If it declined by as much as consumption spending rose, the redistribution wouldn�t cause an increase in total spending on goods and services. And the fall in investment spending would retard future growth of income and spending.

The more sophisticated underconsumptionists realize that they need to show that downward redistribution of income would boost total spending, not just consumption spending. They argue that investment spending is ultimately limited by the level of consumption spending. So the rise in consumption spending would indeed boost total spending, by making possible a greater volume of investment spending. But this conclusion depends crucially on the argument that investment spending is ultimately limited by consumption spending, and I show in my book that this argument is fatally flawed. It rests on an elementary logical error, and the statistical evidence indicates clearly that investment spending has grown far more rapidly than consumption spending in the long run. For instance, in the 75-year period between 1933 and 2008, productive investment spending by U.S. businesses increased almost five times as rapidly as did personal consumption spending.

Fine, I can take this at face value. But in the last few years, all I've been hearing is that corporate investment spending in Canada has remained flat or even gone down as profits increased (or stayed flat, at worse) in the wake of generous corporate tax cuts. I have a hard time seeing how increasing consumption could make things any worse. But I suppose I haven't seen any numbers on how quickly investment spending and consumption spending have risen in Canada, so I can't say much more about that.

# ? May 2, 2015 08:00

Hexigrammus: May 22, 2006; Cheech Wizard stories are clean, wholesome, reflective truths that go great with the marijuana munchies and a blow job.

There should be a special category for "News Ottawa Tries to Bury By Releasing Late Friday Afternoon While Other poo poo is Going On".

Stevie's strong, stable, floating war toy plan will cost more, take longer, and deliver less than planned. :bravo:

# ? May 2, 2015 08:04

Raenir Salazar: Nov 5, 2010; College Slice

I'm in school to be a games developer/designer and would absolutely unionize if the choice was offered if it were a AA/AAA company. Because gently caress working 80 hours a week because of upper level mismanagement.

I'm not adverse to crunch time if its for a good reason such as getting extra features I'm attached to out the door on launch day or Day One DLC, but gently caress working a death march on shipping the core features because management hosed up the schedule because of Press Demo development hell or something.

# ? May 2, 2015 08:10

Gorau: Apr 28, 2008

Hexigrammus posted:

There should be a special category for "News Ottawa Tries to Bury By Releasing Late Friday Afternoon While Other poo poo is Going On".

Stevie's strong, stable, floating war toy plan will cost more, take longer, and deliver less than planned.

Canada has a serious problem with getting any military procurement done. Our biggest problem is that we always want to use it as 'economic development' for various regions of the country. We've had this problem since the 50's and its never gone away. The Iroquois class destroyer was conceived in the late 50's, developed in the 60's and build in the 70s, and is being retired more than 40 years after that. The Halifax class was just as bad. Started in the mid 70's, not laid down until the late 80s and the last one launched in the mid 90's. Then we have the sub debacle, the Sea King farce and all the other retarded little projects that start, blow a bunch of money and end up getting canceled half way through because they realize that the amount of money required is retarded. Oh and lets not forget Canada's favourite myth: the Avro Arrow. Canada hasn't done a major systems procurement process well since the end of the Second World War, and its our insistence on building it at home that's the primary cause. If would could get over the need to try and build everything ourselves we could have a functionally equipped military at half the frigging cost.

# ? May 2, 2015 08:40

Heavy neutrino: Sep 16, 2007; You made a fine post for yourself. ...For a casualry, I suppose.

Haha yeah let's give up on the idea of developing a domestic industrial base and just import everything we can't do right this instant -- after all, it's practically the only aspect of dumb war toy spending that actually has some benefit to working class Canadians and we can't have that.

# ? May 2, 2015 08:48

Aces High: Mar 26, 2010; Nah! A little chocolate will do

you say that like every other western military doesn't go through the same poo poo though, especially when it comes to "making it our own" because every country wants to have pride that their version of the M16 or Steyr AUG is theirs and totally not the same gun as the Americans or the Brits, etc. One of the big problems is that we are such a doormat when it comes to enforcing what we want. The Sikorsky helicopters that were supposed to replace the Sea Kings? We never even got prototypes when the date came that functional models were supposed to be getting delivered to the various Wings across the country. There were contractual fines that Sikorsky was supposed to be charged with for failure to meet the deadlines and what did our government do? Oh it's ok, we'll just waive the fines, you guys will deliver them in 6 months right?

That was 3 years ago. Three. loving. Years ago :negative:

# ? May 2, 2015 08:55

Gorau: Apr 28, 2008

Heavy neutrino posted:

Haha yeah let's give up on the idea of developing a domestic industrial base and just import everything we can't do right this instant -- after all, it's practically the only aspect of dumb war toy spending that actually has some benefit to working class Canadians and we can't have that.

Canada has neither the need, will, nor the ability to successfully support large scale military industrial efforts. Trying to do so its prohibitively expensive and essentially amounts to the creation of jobs that exist only because of subsidies that can climb into the millions per job. It would be cheaper to buy the items in question in concert with an ally and pay people not to work. Consider our ship building plan. We essentially need to pay Irving billions to bring their sub par ship yard up to some sort of decent level of productivity. We're then going to spend millions upon millions of dollars designing a new class of frigate (actually two classes of frigate, air defense/command and anti submarine) and then we're going to try and build 15 of them over more than a decade, a couple at a time in the New Brunswick shipyard for the grand total of 26 billion. These shipyards, even after the upgrades, will never be competitive with global ship builders, and will remain essentially a third of fourth tier shipyard, used occasionally for a specialized ship build, where mass construction efficiency isn't as important or as a repair dock. Keep in mind too that there are much larger docks, and better equipped ones up and down the coast. Finally, remember that most of the actual jobs being created in this project are mostly the type that don't have much of a halo effect on the surrounding area beyond the workers purchasing power. The high tech aspects of the ship build will remain with the subsystem vendors outside of Canada with some jobs being created in Ontario to 'Canadianize' the system. Essentially we get a few hundred dock yard jobs for 15-20 years and maybe 15 ships for 26 billion dollars.

Contrast this with the alternative. If we licensed a German, Italian/French, Dutch, or the new British design (more leery of this, still in development) we would have a a ship for roughly 700-900 million USD per ship Multiplied by 15 you're looking at 10.5 to 13.5 billion USD (12.5-16 billion CAD). Essentially we're paying 26 billion dollars instead of 16. That means for say 300 jobs in St. John we're paying 10 billion over 20 years, or 1.6 million dollars per job per year. It doesn't make sense in any way shape or form.

# ? May 2, 2015 09:10

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

Albino Squirrel posted:

Businessmen attack NDP's 'amateur' policies

It's so tone deaf it's beautiful. Also someone at the Journal had fun writing this.

Edit: the Edmonton Sun has an even worse quote:

FUUUUCK YOU tt

The commenters on the Sun are almost entirely negative. When the PCs lose the Sun Media readership.... well,...

Oh my god that is delicious. I can't believe we have to wait 3 more days before this election.

# ? May 2, 2015 09:27

Gorewar: Dec 24, 2004; Bang your head

THC posted:

Oh my god that is delicious. I can't believe we have to wait 3 more days before this election.

there's a guy on my facebook feed that posted that and the G&M editorial unironically. He's got pictures posted of himself campaigning for the PCs.

I have a suspicion that Tuesday will be an interesting night in facebookland.

# ? May 2, 2015 12:58

Pinterest Mom: Jun 9, 2009

Albino Squirrel posted:

Businessmen attack NDP's 'amateur' policies

Installing deep cover socialist agents provocateurs in CEO positions is paying off :getin:

# ? May 2, 2015 14:18

David Corbett: Feb 6, 2008; Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world.

Heavy neutrino posted:

Haha yeah let's give up on the idea of developing a domestic industrial base and just import everything we can't do right this instant -- after all, it's practically the only aspect of dumb war toy spending that actually has some benefit to working class Canadians and we can't have that.

I get where you're coming from here, but otoh if we spent less money on military procurements we could spend more on other government priorities that have a more broad-based benefit to the public. (Of course, the obvious counter-argument is that governments do seem to be more willing to blow billions on new military toys than they do on, say, roads.)

# ? May 2, 2015 14:58

RBC: Nov 23, 2007; IM STILL SPENDING MONEY FROM 1888

Clearly the answer is funnelling several tens of billions of dollars to a private company to build war toys to patrol our valuable uninhabited frozen wastelands

# ? May 2, 2015 15:48

Pinterest Mom: Jun 9, 2009

Oh my god

quote:

As the NDP and Wildrose aim to knock off the Tory dynasty in the May 5 provincial election, they are also looking to fundamentally alter Alberta�s future political landscape by introducing tougher campaign financing rules.

Both parties want to ban corporate and union political donations in Alberta, with Wildrose also calling to lower the current $15,000 donation limit, which rises to $30,000 in election years.

And each party�s leader says they could work with each other in a minority government situation to try to make the change.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said Friday that phasing out corporate and union donations is �critical� and is one of the �commonalities� his party has with the NDP.

�Cleaning up government is one of those things we�re focused on,� Jean told reporters while announcing a plan to introduce new children and seniors activity tax credits when the budget is balanced.

�We would seek the input of the NDP � or any party for that matter � that wants to have better government and a better governance model.�

Earlier in the day, NDP Leader Rachel Notley said her party, if elected, would work with the Wildrose to bring in reforms to Alberta�s �ridiculous� campaign finance laws.

�It�s very important to improving the democratic process here in the process,� she said in an interview. �It�s just long overdue.�

Under Alberta�s election laws, donors can give up to $15,000 to each registered party a year � double that amount in election years � plus an additional $5,000 to constituency associations.

Alberta is one of only two provinces that have no limits on election spending.

[...]

In Red Deer on Friday, Tory Leader Jim Prentice � who saw his party raise roughly $800,000 at a $500-a-plate dinner speech in Edmonton on Thursday night � said Alberta�s campaign finance laws have worked reasonably well for all political parties.

�This is an even playing field. They could certainly raise union dollars or corporate dollars � in the same way,� he said.

level
playing
field

# ? May 2, 2015 15:52

Ardent Communist: Oct 17, 2010; ALLAH! MU'AMMAR! LIBYA WA BAS!

I may have missed it, but no mention of International Workers' Day in the Canada thread? Montreal had quite a few events, caused a bit of disruption to the capitalist machine.
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/may-day-protests-in-montreal-on-friday
Any thoughts?

# ? May 2, 2015 16:02

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Prentice should have his mouth sewn shut until 6 May to prevent any more stupid from finding its way out. At least, I'd think so if I supported the PCs.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:02

Binary Logic: Dec 28, 2000; Fun Shoe

RBC posted:

Clearly the answer is funnelling several tens of billions of dollars to a private company to build war toys to patrol our valuable uninhabited frozen wastelands

There's a lot of oil and natural gas under those frozen wastelands.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:08

DutchDupe: Dec 25, 2013; How does the kitty cat go?

...meow?

Very gooood.

Ezra Levant is going absolute ham on the PC's on twitter. It's hilarious.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:16

Vermain: Sep 5, 2006

eXXon posted:

... unless government benefits are really increasing so much to compensate?

From the numbers Kliman has shown, they have been. I would venture that it only seems implausible because of the prevailing narrative regarding the gradual undermining of working class compensation. If you can find good numbers that contradict his, or methodological flaws that throw his numbers into question, I'd give them a serious look, but I've searched high and low and haven't found any rebuttals that don't either dramatically twist his arguments or commit the same empirical errors he's trying to address (e.g. simultaneous substitution).

eXXon posted:

But in the last few years, all I've been hearing is that corporate investment spending in Canada has remained flat or even gone down as profits increased (or stayed flat, at worse) in the wake of generous corporate tax cuts.

Well, there's three possibilities (some of which may overlap with eachother):

1) The rate of investment overseas has increased for those particular companies, while the rate of domestic investment has decreased. Higher capital costs (re: wages, benefits, safety standards/inspections, and so on) means that investment domestically will lose more money compared to foreign investment in countries without those costs.

2) Investment projects can take multiple years to actually figure out and execute, which means that you can have low investment even as profit rates are rising (as a consequence of the "lag" from when profit rates were lower).

3) The economists reporting these figures are using simultaneous substitution for their profit rate reporting. This involves valuing inputs and outputs at the same price (which means retroactively revaluating past investments) in order to compute the rate of profit. To show the flaws in this assumption (from Kliman): suppose you have a group of farmers where seed corn and labor are the only inputs, corn is the only output, and workers are paid in corn. At the start of the year, corn is $5/bushel, and the farmers obtain a one-year loan of $40 million from the bank to purchase 8 million bushels. The bushels are planted, the workers are paid, and at the end of the year, the farmers harvest 10 million bushels. At the end of the year, however, the price per bushel has fallen to $4/bushel. If you use simultaneous substitution (sometimes called the "current cost" rate of profit), the revenues ($4 x 10 million = $40 million) minus the costs ($4 [the current cost price] x 8 million = $32 million) will leave you with a total profit of $8 million, or 25%. You can probably tell that this is nonsense, however, because the actual amount of money they spent on the corn at the start of the year is $40 million, leaving them with exactly $0 in profit.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:26

Lassitude: Oct 21, 2003

Ardent Communist posted:

I may have missed it, but no mention of International Workers' Day in the Canada thread? Montreal had quite a few events, caused a bit of disruption to the capitalist machine.
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/may-day-protests-in-montreal-on-friday
Any thoughts?

I've always had the feeling that Quebec has a stronger leftist political movement than anywhere else in the country.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:31

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Pinterest Mom posted:

Oh my god

level
playing
field

This election is looking too good to be true.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:35

Jan: Feb 27, 2008; The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.

Ardent Communist posted:

I may have missed it, but no mention of International Workers' Day in the Canada thread? Montreal had quite a few events, caused a bit of disruption to the capitalist machine.
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/may-day-protests-in-montreal-on-friday
Any thoughts?

Bylaw P6 needs to be abolished yesterday. It gives too much leeway for police to break up otherwise pacific protests because ~those anticapitalists~. Apparently they declared illegal and hit four protests with tear gas at exactly the same time, that's not curtailing an illegal protest, that's suppressing dissidence.

Take this with a grain of salt, but by spraying tear gas downtown nilly willy, they appear to have caught children in the crossfire.

e:
vvvvvvv
Exactly who and what I expected to post next.

Jan has issued a correction as of 17:04 on May 2, 2015

# ? May 2, 2015 16:47

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

*Takes advantage of growing up in a free, first-world capitalist country*

*Won't stop bitching about it*

# ? May 2, 2015 16:51

Ardent Communist: Oct 17, 2010; ALLAH! MU'AMMAR! LIBYA WA BAS!

PT6A posted:

*Takes advantage of growing up in a free, first-world capitalist country*

*Won't stop bitching about it*

Haha, here's that argument 200 years ago.
*Grows up in prosperous, safe European Kingdom*

*Won't stop bitching about the monarchy*

# ? May 2, 2015 16:53

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

nothing bad ever happens here

# ? May 2, 2015 16:53

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

why would you long for the revolution when you're already in Utopia?

# ? May 2, 2015 16:54

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

I hope Omar khadr blows himself up at this years Calgary rodeo.

# ? May 2, 2015 16:54

Political Whores: Feb 13, 2012

Vermain posted:

Well, there's three possibilities (some of which may overlap with eachother):

1) The rate of investment overseas has increased for those particular companies, while the rate of domestic investment has decreased. Higher capital costs (re: wages, benefits, safety standards/inspections, and so on) means that investment domestically will lose more money compared to foreign investment in countries without those costs.

2) Investment projects can take multiple years to actually figure out and execute, which means that you can have low investment even as profit rates are rising (as a consequence of the "lag" from when profit rates were lower).

3) The economists reporting these figures are using simultaneous substitution for their profit rate reporting. This involves valuing inputs and outputs at the same price (which means retroactively revaluating past investments) in order to compute the rate of profit. To show the flaws in this assumption (from Kliman): suppose you have a group of farmers where seed corn and labor are the only inputs, corn is the only output, and workers are paid in corn. At the start of the year, corn is $5/bushel, and the farmers obtain a one-year loan of $40 million from the bank to purchase 8 million bushels. The bushels are planted, the workers are paid, and at the end of the year, the farmers harvest 10 million bushels. At the end of the year, however, the price per bushel has fallen to $4/bushel. If you use simultaneous substitution (sometimes called the "current cost" rate of profit), the revenues ($4 x 10 million = $40 million) minus the costs ($4 [the current cost price] x 8 million = $32 million) will leave you with a total profit of $8 million, or 25%. You can probably tell that this is nonsense, however, because the actual amount of money they spent on the corn at the start of the year is $40 million, leaving them with exactly $0 in profit.

It's not profits that Canadian Corporations are hoarding, but cash.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/canadian-corporate-cash-hoard-rises-to-630-billion-in-first-quarter

However, assuming they don't see any chance of investments producing a worthwhile rate of return, I don't really think that's incompatible with anything Kilman's put forward. The only part of the analysis I wonder about is striation within the working class. Have benefits accrued really been distributed all that equally? If finance employees and executives count as receiving wages ie. working class, than I'm not sure that definition really serves a good purpose anymore. Certain segments of the working class would have real interest in maintaining the status quo, no false conciousness required.

E: I also sort of wonder about intergenerational issues. Pension plans really are getting less generous, and employees working now in several sectors are going to end up getting much less than previous generations or workers, so it seems like certain segments of the working class have benefited more than others.

Political Whores has issued a correction as of 17:04 on May 2, 2015

# ? May 2, 2015 16:58

Excelsiortothemax: Sep 9, 2006

Oil Barons get top loving news on CBC Alberta with their opinions on the election. If that doesn't say all that there needs to be about this province.

I hope the NDP win by a land slide.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:00

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

I don't. Any monumental shift, especially to the NDP, is going to cause a great deal of fear and uncertainty, even if I think most of their policies are okay. I'd like to see a minority government of some stripe, hopefully PC, moving to NDP next election, just to keep things good and steady as progress gets made.

The freakouts that will happen if the NDP forms a government aren't going to be good for anyone.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:03

Mederlock: Jun 23, 2012; You won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it; Grimey Drawer

PT6A posted:

I don't. Any monumental shift, especially to the NDP, is going to cause a great deal of fear and uncertainty, even if I think most of their policies are okay. I'd like to see a minority government of some stripe, hopefully PC, moving to NDP next election, just to keep things good and steady as progress gets made.

The freakouts that will happen if the NDP forms a government aren't going to be good for anyone.

[Citation and/or explanation needed]

# ? May 2, 2015 17:05

Violet_Sky: Dec 5, 2011; Fun Shoe

Technically Canpol, but Will and Kate now have a princess! :3:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/william-kate-welcome-new-royal-baby-girl-1.3056832

# ? May 2, 2015 17:10

Albino Squirrel: Apr 25, 2003; Miosis more like meiosis

PT6A posted:

I don't. Any monumental shift, especially to the NDP, is going to cause a great deal of fear and uncertainty, even if I think most of their policies are okay. I'd like to see a minority government of some stripe, hopefully PC, moving to NDP next election, just to keep things good and steady as progress gets made.

The freakouts that will happen if the NDP forms a government aren't going to be good for anyone.

Cowardice is no way to run a province. Sometimes change is necessary and has to happen quickly - and this is a province where change happens in seismic shifts.

Ceterem censeo Conservativem esse delendam.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:11

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Mederlock posted:

[Citation and/or explanation needed]

Drastic shifts of any sort, even just perceived, cause uncertainty, and uncertainty is bad for investment, which in turn is bad for the economy. Things need to change, but I don't think an NDP landslide victory is the best way to go about that. A very tenuous minority where no one can do too much is probably the safest thing for now, at least until people get used to the idea that the PCs aren't going to hold power perpetually.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:11

Gus Hobbleton: Dec 30, 2003; Can't post for 3 years!

PT6A posted:

I don't. Any monumental shift, especially to the NDP, is going to cause a great deal of fear and uncertainty, even if I think most of their policies are okay. I'd like to see a minority government of some stripe, hopefully PC, moving to NDP next election, just to keep things good and steady as progress gets made.

The freakouts that will happen if the NDP forms a government aren't going to be good for anyone.

YOU CANT VOTE FOR THE NDP!! FEAR!! TERROR!!! UNCERTAINTY!!!

# ? May 2, 2015 17:15

flashman: Dec 16, 2003

How are ideas that things need to change, and a tenuous minority where nothing can be changed is the best solution, at all compatible? Electing a slightly to the left provincial government is going to make no difference to investment you nit wit.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:19

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# ? May 29, 2024 17:15

Mederlock: Jun 23, 2012; You won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it; Grimey Drawer

flashman posted:

How are ideas that things need to change, and a tenuous minority where nothing can be changed is the best solution, at all compatible? Electing a slightly to the left provincial government is going to make no difference to investment you nit wit.

I think PT6A's views miss the mark a lot of the time too but ad hominems are even more useless.

# ? May 2, 2015 17:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Canadian Politics: Orange is the new government

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