Idi Amin - Wikipedia - "On 4 August 1972, Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 50,000 Asians who were British passport holders. This was later amended to include all 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens. Around 30,000 Ugandan Asians emigrated to the UK. Others went to Commonwealth countries such as Australia, South Africa, Canada, and Fiji, or to India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sweden, Tanzania, and the United States. Amin expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and the Europeans and handed them over to his supporters. Without the experienced owners and proprietors, businesses were mismanaged and many industries collapsed from lack of operational expertise and maintenance. This proved disastrous for the already declining Ugandan economy. At the time, Asians accounted for 90% of the country's tax revenue; with their removal, Amin's administration lost a large chunk of government revenue. The economy all but collapsed"
Left wingers have a poor grasp of history, so they want to drive the rich and talented away
Mwme - Chris Freiman @cafreiman: "Your periodic reminder that Sweden and Norway have more billionaires per capita than the US"
@ Mariana G-O @MariGO2thepolls: "Is the take that Sweden is better or worse because of this ?"
Chris Fretman: "I think that Sweden does a lot of stuff right, although I'd say the most interesting takeaway from this is that "billionaires shouldn't exist" democratic socialists often say the US should emulate these countries that have more billionaires per capita"
Henry Shevlin on X - "I was on a panel recently where I said something positive about markets. Another panelist said "Surely you didn't mean to say [positive thing]?" I replied that I did, I'm a neoliberal. He was confused and said words to effect of "But haven't you heard that neoliberalism is bad?"
It was genuinely as if I'd said "Oh I don't believe in gravity." By contrast, I think I could have said that I was a Seventh Day Adventist or Zoroastrian and no-one would have batted an eye."
Dan Williams on X - "I frequently encounter a mixture of incredulity/hostility for just calmly stating my view that markets - and more generally capitalism - are on net good."
David Pinsof on X - "It's one of the great tragedies of intellectual life that people who claim to care about alleviating poverty and promoting intergroup tolerance are hostile to the single greatest alleviator of poverty and promoter of intergroup tolerance in the history of humanity."
Meme - wanye @wanyeburkett: "New York Times: “Shocking new data show that NBA players are better at shooting free throws than the general public, which demonstrates conclusively that access to the NBA explains disparities in shooting ability”"
"Representation relative to population share. Here's the income distribution of students with a 1500 or higher on the SAT. On average, richer kids do better."
Tony Blair: My advice to Keir Starmer - "Since 2019, we have seen the number of working-age people off work on long-term sickness rise by 800,000 to a record 2.8 million. Spending on disability and incapacity benefits has risen by a whopping £18 billion; and spending on mental health in England is now 10 per cent of the NHS budget."
Labour declare war on 'sick note Britain' as Streeting unveils plans - "Health Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday declared war on 'sick note' Britain. He used his first speech in his new role to outline plans to get people off benefits and NHS waiting lists and back to work. His comments came against the backdrop of 2.8 million people now being classified as economically inactive due to long-term sickness – with the figure having increased by 127,000 in the past year. Mr Streeting, stressing that the Department of Health is 'no longer simply a public services department', insisted: 'This is an economic growth department. And the health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked... In a move likely to anger the left of the Labour Party, Mr Streeting pledged to work 'hand in hand' with the private sector to speed-up access to drugs and technologies that can improve patient care and make the NHS more efficient."
Looks like fascism has arrived, and neo-liberalism is more alive than ever!
Of course, the left hate the private sector
NHS must end 'begging bowl culture' and drive growth, says Wes Streeting - "He vowed to tackle the worklessness crisis and deliver growth to the economy in his first appearance since being appointed health and social care secretary, saying the NHS and Treasury would work in “lockstep” to reduce the almost three million people on long-term sick leave and boost the economy. “It’s a rethinking of the role of the department,” Mr Streeting told the Tony Blair Institute’s Future of Britain conference on Tuesday. “It means ending the begging bowl culture, where the only interaction the Treasury has with the Department of Health is ‘we need more money for X, Y and Z’. “The starting point has got to be we will help you achieve your mission for growth and improve the prosperity and lives of everyone in this country by making sure that we are with you lockstep in driving growth. That is a big shift in mindset and focus and activity.” There are currently a record 2.8 million people of working age who are unemployed because of long-term sickness, according to the latest data. It is the most common reason for unemployment. Expert estimates put the cost to the economy at about 7 per cent of GDP, which equates to about £150 billion a year. A report by the Tony Blair Institute published on Tuesday revealed that by cutting heart disease rates by a fifth among 50 to 64-year-olds by using existing drugs such as statins and weight loss jabs, there would be an extra 50,000 employees in the UK workforce within five years, adding £2.2 billion to the economy. If the rate of disease was reduced by a fifth across the five other major diseases preventing people from working – diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory illness, musculoskeletal disorders and mental health conditions – it would boost the economy by £20 billion by 2030, as well as reducing costs to the NHS and benefit spending by even larger sums."
The left wingers are going to be disappointed more and more money is not the prescription. And since they hate economic growth, this is going to be double galling
I won't give in to union pay demands, insists Sir Keir Starmer - "The Prime Minister said not all their demands could be realised because the public finances were in “a very poor state”, adding that he would prioritise economic stability as part of an attempt to bring mortgage rates down... His comments have sparked a backlash from unions, which traditionally back the Labour Party. Daniel Kebede, the National Education Union general secretary, said: “This is not what we want to hear from the new Prime Minister. We expect an above inflation teacher pay offer that is fully funded."
LCBO strike: Group wants grocers allowed to sell alcohol during work stoppage - "LCBO workers have now been on strike in Ontario for a full week and at least one group says it might be time for the government to consider allowing other retailers to sell spirits. Jay Goldberg, who is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, held a press conference outside Queen’s Park on Friday to call on the Ford government to consider opening up alcohol sales to grocery stores and other private retailers during the labour disruption, calling it the “perfect opportunity” to evaluate the LCBO’s current monopoly on spirit sales. “The union says that they offer the best service, the best customer service and the best choice and selection. But while they are on strike we believe that Ontarians should have an option. Ontarians should have a choice and we can see how it goes at grocery stores. Ultimately, Ontarians can be the judge as to whether or not these unionized government-run LCBO locations are actually the best in terms of convenience, price and service,” Goldberg said. The Ford government has previously said that the LCBO will retain the exclusive right to sell spirits in the province, even as it allows convenience stores to beginning selling beer and wine... The union representing LCBO workers, however, has spoken out against the expansion of ready-to-drink beverages into grocery and corner stores and has suggested that the issue is a stumbling block to reaching a deal with the province. Premier Doug Ford, for his part, has said that the government will not walk back its plans to expand alcohol sales in an effort to end the strike... “I think what Ontarians will find is what we have found in many other provinces, like Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan: having more locations and more choice and more convenience means not having a government-run monopoly.” The union representing LCBO workers has previously warned that the Ford government’s plans to open up the sale of some alcoholic beverages to private retailers could result in significant job losses among its members. “Doug calls himself a businessman. And I want to know what business person gives away some of their most profitable products and the largest growing market really right now and gives it away to everybody else,” Colleen MacLeod, the chair of OPSEU/SEFPO’s liquor board employees division, told CP24"
Left wingers hate competition and choice and love government monopolies, so they support the strike. But then, is there ever a strike they don't support?
Malcolm Jolley: The LCBO strike was a spectacular misstep - "I’m not sure how many of the LCBO strikers want to be on strike, but I have a pretty good idea that the union leadership at OPSEU needs the 9,000 members who work for the provincial monopoly more than the 9,000 needs them. A freer market in the sale of alcoholic beverages is certainly unlikely to grow the due-paying membership that pays the union leadership’s salaries. An LCBO cashier with enough seniority to have regular hours does better than a typical private sector one, but not that much better. This industrial conflict is not about putting shoes on the feet of the children of coal miners. It’s about who gets the spoils of government money. As the two sides dig in, the customers seem okay and free from panic. My son, home for the summer from university, went on a beer run to the nearest location brewery-owned Beer Store. He reported it was no more busy than usual. When I visited a Wine Rack store, owned by the Arterra winery group, I was the only customer on a Sunday afternoon. The sales clerk told me it had been busier than normal over the weekend, but the shelves were fully stocked. The bottle shops I’ve been into, like the one attached to a fancy coffee spot, were also fully stocked. There’s lots of wine, and beer, around. Winos, like me, tend to congregate around other winos, since after all these are the people who like to drink wine. An informal poll of half a dozen of them reports that none are short of stock. They’ve just switched from retail shopping at the Liquor Control Board to ordering directly from Ontario wineries or the agencies that organize imports. There’s no panic. I have ordered two cases of wine from importing agents since the strike began. The first arrived in two business days, the other in three. This is not as convenient as strolling into my local monopoly store and buying the wine for dinner that night, but it’s not bad. And the wines are more interesting, generally. They are also more pricey since these are wines targeted chiefly for the restaurant trade. Then again, the wines in the LCBO have also gotten more expensive in the past few years, so an extra dollar or two a bottle seems less painful than it might have before."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "I don't get it, why should the LCBO have a monopoly on this stuff exactly? I like how it is in the United States or Europe, where I can purchase alcohol at a grocery store."
"Or like in Quebec ahahah, grocery stores and convenience stores have alcohol, some even have wine sections but only hard liquor is limited to liquor stores."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "Here in BC we've been selling booze in grocery stores for 10 years now and it's really been basically a non-issue for the most part. This is just how alcohol sales work in most modern societies."
"Ontario is run by a cartel aka OPSEU, that's why. Its also full of obstructionists that want regressive policies that basically every other jurisdiction has changed for the better. Same old story, Public sector Union trying to keep strength in their numbers and line their pockets by keeping monopolies that would be frowned upon if in the private sector. They've become a greedy corporation just like the private sector ones they bitch about."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "And East Asia. I lived in Japan and you could buy beer or ready made drinks out of vending machines, 24 hours convenience stores, while you get your groceries. There were even small businesses that just sold booze run by individuals; like if someone wanted to open a specialty wine shop. I don't particularly need a White Claw at 11pm, but I'm unsure why there is such a stark difference between Ontario and the rest of the civilized world. Even our own fellow provinces. My friend wanted to provide wine on the tables at his wedding reception and had a budget. He and his brother drove to Quebec to buy it at Costco. Why can't OUR Costco do the same? Never made sense to me."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "Government monopolies on alcohol sales make exactly zero sense. Those revenues were garnered by using anti-competitive practices and should never have been taken by the province in the first place. If anything the province should write a check to every Ontarian for the money they stole from them over the years."
Left wingers love government control of the economy and featherbedding and hate private business and choice, and cannot understand how competition lowers prices (I've seen some claim more competition will mean higher prices)
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "In the UK when they allowed supermarkets to sell alcohol prices actually came down a lot. This is because the supermarkets went direct to the suppliers."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "The profits LCBO makes go directly to fund healthcare, infrastructure, and public programs. If they allowed all liquor in grocery stores then the price would increase and the profits would go to the Weston family and your taxes would increase to cover the programs LCBO profits funded."
"Somehow every other country manages without an lcbo funding them"
"TIL - only the Westons own grocery stores in Ontario. I beg you to learn more about the LCBO and what it does and where it earns money. Even if all LCBO stores closed, the LCBO would still earn money by distributing products to retailers, be they Lowlaws, Sobeys, Metro, Costco, Walmart, 7-11, Quickie, mom and pop etc. But, Ford has NOT said that he want to close LCBO stores, so they would still be generating money via retail as well as distribution to other sales locations. What he wants to do is treat adults like adults and move us from the prohibition age to one that is closer to life in the real world, but even then, he won't fully liberalize alcohol sales, as the LCBO will still be the key distributor that (in the main) must be used by all."
Doug Ford to allow ‘ready-to-drink’ cocktails in supermarkets and convenience stores this week : r/canada - "Cool! The anal MD is volunteering to establish provincial grocery stores, gas stations, banks, telecoms, cable operators, car manufacturers - in fact, anything that you can buy from the private sector is going to be nationalized!"
LCBO strike seems to have given Doug Ford’s Tories a boost, but government’s poor approval rating is a warning sign, survey shows : r/ontario - "CBC reported that Ford's own internal #'s show his booze plan will cost the province more than just sticking with the LCBO. Like everything else, privatization will cost us more for basic services."
I like how alcohol is a "basic service" and the gains in consumer welfare don't matter
Meme - "Why are people saying "Why should I pay for someone's college student loans when I didn't go to college?" Instead of "Why should I pay for some billionaire's tax cuts when I'm not a billionaire?""
This is very telling of the left wing mentality. Besides the zero sum game, where if someone pays less taxes someone else must pay more, they also think the state owns part, or possibly even all, private property (at least of "billionaires", i.e. everyone richer than them), so what you keep is a boon from the state
Robert R. Raymond on X - "Smartphones are not capitalism. Capitalism is when Apple makes it so you can't replace batteries in your iPhone and then sneaks in battery-draining code into their iOS updates so that you're compelled to buy a new iPhone 11"
"Everything I dislike is capitalism. Everything I like is not capitalism"
Meme - The Globe and Mail: "There's no shortage of government rhetoric claiming the rich aren't paying their fair share of taxes. According to the 2024 federal budget: "The wealthy are currently able to benefit from tax advantages that middle-class Canadians and, especially, younger Canadians are rarely able to benefit from.""
"Overtaxing the rich can lead to problems"
Mark Petrisor: "Wow, what a terrible column. That parable fails to explain why executives who get paid in stock options should only have to pay tax on 50% of their income while employees like nurses and fire fighters etc. have to pay tax on 100% of their income. The wealthy and anybody that agrees with this column should really just GTFO. But don't forget to sell off all of your physical assets and don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Yet more evidence that the left just hate rich people. It's interesting that this person actively wants to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Of course, when his taxes rise to make up for the drop in revenue, it will be proof that capitalism has "failed" and the "rich" will need to pay even more, because that's their "fair share"
Dubai set to welcome more millionaires as UK wealthy move their money - "the U.K. – already the source of many of the UAE’s expatriates – is projected to see its millionaire population drop by 17% by 2028, according to Swiss bank UBS. The trend is likely to accelerate in the wake of the landslide election victory for the U.K.’s Labour Party in June, many financiers believe."
Thread by @smilleralert on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "It's well known that lower income people tend to suffer much worse health. Is poverty at the heart of this disparity, and, if so, could a large cash transfer help close this gap? We examine an RCT that provided 1000 low income participants $1000/month for 3 years. We find… The cash generated big improvements in stress and mental health, but they were short-lived. By the second year of the transfer, treatment and control reported similar rates of stress and mental health, and we can rule out even small improvements. There was no effect of the transfer on physical health, measured via self-reports, clinical outcomes derived from blood draws, and admin records of mortality. For the former two, we can rule out even very small improvements (the mortality effects are more noisy). Surprisingly little effect on self-reported access to medical care. No effect on exercise or sleep. Again our confidence intervals rule out even very small effects. Mirroring what we see for mental health, the transfer generated large but short-lived reductions in food hardship/food insecurity; even by year 2, no significant difference across treatment arms.
But! The cash did lead to people using more medical care: hospitalizations and ER visits go up, dental care did as well, and spending on medical care goes up by about $20/month. Possible that this higher usage could have improved health over a longer time horizon. Suggestive results: frequency of drinking alcohol goes up (perhaps due to more socializing), but reports of drinking interfering with responsibilities goes down, as does reported abuse of painkillers. (Note these results don't survive an adjustment for multiple testing) There's so much energy in health policy now for addressing "social determinants of health"--and poverty in particular. Could cash transfers be the way to meaningfully and effectively reduce health disparities? It's hard for me to look at these results and say yes. What's great about cash is it gives the freedom to choose what you want to consume! But that also makes it a rather blunt tool for addressing health specifically. Our participants consumed more leisure, food, housing, and other stuff. And different people chose different things. Those consumption choices did not appear to improve their health on average, but they were the things participants wanted, as revealed by their own choices. This is a feature of cash, not a bug!
If the goal policy is to improve health specifically, there are health-targeted interventions that we know work--make medical care cheaper, expand coverage, reduce barriers to initiating a primary care relationship. But if your goal is to reduce poverty or even just to give people the freedom to consume what they want, cash transfers are still an important tool in the policy portfolio."
Does Income Affect Health? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Guaranteed Income | NBER
Clearly, they didn't give them enough money
The implications for basic income are interesting
CRA says 2M Canadians invited for automatic tax filing pilot this year : r/PersonalFinanceCanada - "Great news. People underestimate just how easy it is to file a simple tax return. Also H&R block - get fucked!!"
"It's easy only if you have a job and maybe some investments. If you own a business or rental properties think again."
"As it should be; exploiting others for profit (employees or tenants, in those cases) is a position that should be scrutinized at a much higher level, systematically."
"Wait, it's now morally wrong to have employees?"
Meme - "It's always rich leftists telling everyone else to share. And those rich leftists always have giant properties in spots that were supposed to be underwater 20 years ago"
Michelle Obama: "someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
"$11.7M Marthas Vineyard mansion. $8.7M Hawaii mansion. $8.1M Washington mansion. $1.7M Chicago mansion"
Thread by @Aella_Girl on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "it freaks me out a bit how extremely misguided economic opinions permeate so much of media for young people. I watch youtube and people will casually drop anti-landlord, anti-capitalist, etc. sentiment in completely unrelated videos. I really fear for voting shifts in the future. normally i'd think uneducated economic activist opinions is a niche thing and if i'm seeing it then it's probably some selection bias, but it pops up in places i wouldn't expect to see it. And NO sane economic understanding is casually popping up in the same places. we're headed in an actually fascist direction, not the flashy memeable fascism but the sort that well-meaning people don't realize is fascism, which is by far the most terrifying type. i do admit i'm using 'fascism' loosely. While fascism does seem to include 'ignoring individual interests for the good of the whole' and heavy control over economy, maybe a more accurate term for what i'm saying would be authoritarianism. tho tbf i get the impression that a lot of the younger demographic that's anti-capitalist and anti-landlord are also using 'fascism' to mean a government passing laws that restrict behavior, just in ways they don't like (e.g. abortion, immigration)"
David Trone on X - "🧵When I’m out on the trail, I get a lot of questions about how we can reduce crime. I’m committed to comprehensive solutions that address the root causes, not just the symptoms. A lot of times that’s poverty, educational gaps, and lack of job opportunities."
Thread by @Rafa_Mangual on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🧵 Antisocial criminals are the “root cause” of violent crime—not poverty, educational gaps, or a lack of job opportunities. Notice the vagueness throughout the OP. Those who advance this claim (against the weight of the evidence) never bother to explain the mechanics of how poverty, unemployment or educational inequities cause a man to stab a teenage girl to death because she rejected his advances. Here you have a literal millionaire gangster who live-streamed himself shooting an unarmed man at point blank range over nothing. Why didn’t his immense wealth stop this shooting from happening? Consider also this case of another millionaire who killed a guy over a $1,200 drug debt. Why? Not because he was poor. It was, according to a key witness in the case, “the principle.” And how does this claim (“poverty, etc. causes crime”) explain the many crimes committed the Bernie Madoffs, Jordan Belforts, Eliot Spitzers, etc.? They don’t say. The reality is that the relationship between crime—esp. violent crime—doesn’t run in the direction these folks claim. Are many offenders poor, undereducated, and underemployed? Yes. But they never consider that these things are outcomes associated w/ antisocial dispositions. Then there’s the lack of relationship between crime measures and socioeconomic indicators at a macro level. E.g., in 1990, NYC had 2,262 homicides. By 2017, that number was down to 292. Did NYC solve poverty? No. NYC’s poverty rate in 1989: 18.8%. In 2016: 19.5%. Did violent crime rise during the Great Recession? Nope. Between 2006–2009, NYC’s unemployment rate for working age black men jumped from 9% to 17.9%. NYC homicides fell from 596–471 over that period. Nationally, the homicide rate dipped 15% between 2007-2010, despite the unemployment rate doubling. And between 1980–2016, income inequality rose by 20%; but the violent crime rate declined from 593.5 per 100k to 386.3 per 100k. NOT what you’d expect if poverty, etc. ➡️ crime.
Then there’s the “Crime/Adversity Mismatch” problem articulated by Barry Latzer, which shows that there exist massive disparities in group offending rates between groups with similar levels of socioeconomic status. Then there’s the within-group changes in both socioeconomic status and criminal perpetration over time, which are also incongruent with the theory posited in the OP. See, e.g. screenshotted excerpt from my book 👇🏽 The only reliable short-to-intermediate-term solution to crime, as Barry Latzer and I argue in the piece below, is NOT attempting to solve society’s most intractable problems (poverty, inequality, etc.), but rather to responsibly enforce the law:
As for the half-hearted “systemic racism” claim advanced by Mr. Trone, understand that it is a claim with many holes. The biggest of them is that the claim’s singular focus on disparities in *enforcement,* as if enforcement measures are the system’s only outputs. They’re not. What Trone and others don’t realize is that there are very stark disparities in violent victimization (see below). These disparities tell us not only who suffers the brunt of the violence problem, but also who stands to gain the most from violent crime reductions. The undeniable reality is that policing reduces crime (see trove of evidence in thread below). So does incarceration. Both policing and incarceration combined to produce a big chunk of the 1990s homicide decline. And how were the benefits of that decline distributed demographically? 🤔 So here’s the $6M question: Why would a “racist” system so disproportionately *benefit* the group Trone says the system discriminates against?"
