danielquinn

I loved it. I loved the whole series, but Jinx's fate still hurts.

I wrote a rather gushing blog post about it the night I finished it. It's all so beautiful.

No I'm well aware of how tariffs work. The thing is, given how tightly coupled our economies are, nearly all major US manufacturing is heavily dependent on Canadian exports. Our auto industry alone has a single vehicle traversing the border multiple times. When we impose a counter-tariff, that hurts US industry considerably. Couple this, with the lost good will between the US and it's biggest trading partner by far, and you've got a a massive devaluation of US stock prices due to diversification and boycotts alone.

In other words, the dude's not wrong that the market hit is massive, he's just got blinders on around the cause.

Those factors will likely pack more punch in Washington than the $155 billion in counter-tariffs threatened by Canada. To put this number in perspective, it's a fraction of what American stock markets have lost this week.

That's a pretty dumb take when you consider that a major cause of those losses is the market factoring in the cost of Canadian retaliatory tariffs.

It's maddening that this isn't being discussed in a more official capacity. Doctorow pitched this at least a month ago.

The whole post is far more interesting than just the screenshotted snippet.

Philosophy Tube recently did a great video on exactly this. It's on Nebula for those who subscribe.

Don't stress yourself out too much. It's the Telegraph, whose journalistic standards are on par with the Toronto Sun.

That's fair.

That's a good point. It's infuriating that racism has an effect on our politics like this. Really what this says is: no matter what Jagmeet says or does, he's not electable because of his skin colour, and that's fucked.

I was an NDP supporter for a long time, until Mulcair started doing insane things like dragging the party to the right. Now I vote Green, since they're the only party that seems to care whether there is a world for my kid to grow up in, but I would come back to the NDP in a heartbeat if I saw them genuinely fighting for the planet and workers again. But it's the fighting I want to see.

100% this. The NDP need assertive, angry leadership. Someone who can stab at the political establishment with the righteous anger of the working class and demand worker's rights, a wealth cap, and an end to rent-seeking.

I think Singh shares a lot of those ideals, but his persona is just too friendly (he describes how to pronounce his name as "rhymes with hug" ffs). Every time I hear from Angus, I find myself shouting "fuck yeah!". That's the kind of leader the Left needs.

Cough Greens cough

1. Mass importing cheap low-quality goods may lower prices but (a) it increases dependence on an unsustainable and self-reinforcing economic model based on disposability and planned obsolescence, and (b) drives wages and local innovation way down. Canada (and arguably the US) need less of this, not more.
2. Leaning hard into solar energy is a good idea, though the oil addiction Canadians suffer from is likely to be a real problem. Initially we could buy these from China, but there's no reason why the panels couldn't be built in Canada as well.
3. Electric cars are not a solution worth pursuing. Sure they're better than ICE cars, but they suffer from some serious deal breakers, like mineral availability. You simply can't convert every ICE driver into an EV one. There's literally not enough of the minerals required on the planet to do the job and they'd still kill more than a million people every year. A better option is to invest in transit infrastructure and back Canadian train manufacturing to make installing light & heavy rail across the country cheaper while simultaneously leaning into cycling.
4. This seems reasonable to me, but could antagonise the Americans and give them the excuse to invade.
5. (Your addendum: join the EU) Yes, please do this.