Meme - Cloyd Rivers @CloydRivers: "Call me old fashioned, but if you can afford a $60k electric car, you can afford to pay back your student loans. Merica."
Chris Freiman on X - "“Economics isn’t remotely rigorous enough to qualify as scientific.”
“Huh, OK—so what do you think explains rising prices?”
“Greed.”"
Captain Ⓐncapistan on X - "It’s rigorous enough if you use praxeology instead of statistics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Alec Stapp on X - "Another major infrastructure project is abandoned after ballooning costs — in part due to legal challenges. The groups suing to block the project claimed that the environmental review must have been incomplete because it was finished in 2 years rather than the typical 4+ years🤦🏻♂️"
Plans to Build AirTrain to La Guardia Are Officially Scrapped - The New York Times
Clearly, we need even more regulation to protect the public from corporate greed!
The left claim the US isn't left wing enough, but they already have so much left wing dysfunction
Garrett Reuscher on X - "“Everyone gets a plate before anyone gets seconds” but for housing."
Left wing logic - no one can consume more than the minimum number of calories a day as long as some people in the world are still starving
Meme - wanye @wanyeburkett: "If the restaurateur can’t keep the restaurant open without people eating there, then the people who eat there own the restaurant."
Elmo: "But Zoe if your landlord can't afford the property without your rent, then YOU'RE the one providing housing to THEM"
Oddly, another version featuring the same meme but with commentary mentioning Blackrock got blocked
sp6r=underrated on X - "I'm a tenant. Tenant activists do **nothing** for people like me. The average tenant like me pays the rent on time and wants to be able to move into new units when they get a raise. Tenant activists only care about weirdos who never want to move and the most marginal tenants."
wanye on X - "As I keep saying, of course you want some basic rules around thelandlord/ tenant relationship, but the thing about modern tenant activism is that we already have those rules. We spent the 20th century formalizing that relationship, so that the landlord can no longer just pop in, so that the landlord has to send a notice to quit with reasonable time frames, so that the landlord is obligated to adhere to the terms of the lease, so that the landlord must provide a safe environment, so that the landlord has to keep the heat on, and so on and so on. It’s all there. We already have it. All that’s left is to make it easier for people who are not paying their rent to stay in apartments they’re not paying for. That’s what tenant activism amounts to today. How can we help people who are not paying their rent stay in a building they have no right to occupy? That’s tenant activism today."
Tenant activists just hate landlords
Tenant doesn’t pay $41,000 in rent for Toronto condo but owner can’t evict her yet - "Narinder Singh of Brampton, Ont., says he and his wife bought their condo apartment in Etobicoke as an investment for retirement. “We worked for decades to save, penny by penny, for our old age,” said Singh, who runs a drycleaning business inside a Brampton supermarket. But since 2020, Singh says the female tenant living in the unit has paid rent only intermittently: he produced a ledger showing Deeqa Rafle owes $41,600 in back rent and $5,249.35 in unpaid utilities... In 2021, Singh asked Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board for permission to evict Rafle. “The system is so broken,” Singh told Global News, expressing frustration at how difficult it is to remove a tenant who doesn’t pay rent consistently In 2023, Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dube described “excruciating delay” at the Landlord and Tenant Board. In a report, Dube acknowledged his office had received more than 4,000 complaints — largely from landlords — as part of his investigation. Dube issued 61 recommendations aimed at improving the functioning of the board. In May, Global News reported on a Brampton couple owed more than $22,000 by a tenant who refused to make any more payments after he was asked to leave the family’s home when wanted to move back in. In that case, the tenant and his partner have not made any payments since October 2023. Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board has not made any decision about eviction, although another hearing is slated for late August. On Aug. 7, Singh received the news he was hoping for: Landlord and Tenant Board member Tiffany Ticky signed an order compelling Rafle to pay the entire amount she owes for outstanding rent and utilities. “If the Tenant does not pay the amount required to void this order the Tenant must move out of the rental unit on or before August 18, 2024.” However, Rafle can still attempt to appeal the decision. Even if she doesn’t, Singh will need to ask the Court Enforcement Office, also known as the Sheriff, to carry out the eviction. That agency is also backlogged. Singh says the experience with renting has left a lasting impression. He says once his tenant has moved out, he’ll likely sell the apartment because he would never rent again. “I am aware of the housing crisis in the country but if people are here to abuse the law go find your own, I’m not a babysitter, I can’t help you.”"
Left wing logic - most complaints come from landlords because tenants are stupid victims who don't know their rights, and anyway fuck landlords, who deserve to lose their investments
ELI5: The $90 million Batgirl movie tax write-off : r/tax - "Anyone who thinks that businesses write-off things just to get the tax break doesn't know anything about business or taxes."
Left wingers think spending $100 to save $30 on taxes earns a business money and it shows how broken the tax system and capitalism are and that the company earns money by doing this
Do y’all know where the phrase “eat the rich” comes from or do you just repeat it cause you heard it elsewhere? It’s not a bad... – @insanitysscribblings on Tumblr - "Do y’all know where the phrase “eat the rich” comes from or do you just repeat it cause you heard it elsewhere? It’s not a bad thing, I just saw someone say “we never said who would eat the rich” and realized a lot of y’all might not have heard the full quote It’s from Rousseau and it’s “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich" And, well, there’s a lot of people with nothing to eat…"
Ironically, the poor are more likely to be obese
Crémieux on X - "Ranking the reasons why people seek to coercively redistribute the wealth in two separate studies. The top one predicting support is envy. The top one predicting non-support is being older. Compassion doesn't enter the mix."
PsyArXiv Preprints | Each is to count for one and none for more than one: Predictors of support for economic redistribution
Weird. Left wingers like to keep claiming they're all about compassion, which is why they want to "eat the rich". Clearly such rhetoric shows how compassionate they are, and has nothing to do with envy
More evidence that left wingers just hate the rich. This is also evidence that as people grow older, they are less likely to support left wing economic policies
The Other 98% | Facebook - "If you make $40-70k a year and you're complaining about a tax on high net worth individuals worth $100 million, you might be a massive 🤡"
If you're white and you're complaining about discrimination against black people, you might be a massive 🤡
Clearly some people don't deserve "empathy". And taxing unrealised capital gains will never affect anyone other than the "rich", just like in 1913, US Federal Income Tax was only for those earning above $3,000, so anyone poorer than that with concerns about the tax was a clown
Dr. Eli David on X - ".@JMilei on the absurdity of socialist call for “equality”: “I like to play tennis, and I demand equality when I play against Federer. So let's cut off his arm.” 🤣"
How Argentina's 'chainsaw man' Javier Milei slashed rents by 20pc - "Rents in Argentina have fallen 20pc since President Javier Milei scrapped a “destructive” cap for landlords in December. Under four-year rent controls, landlords fled the market in their thousands and rents increased 286pc, fuelling an even deeper housing crisis. Since the legislation was scrapped, rents have fallen and the number of properties that are available for rent has increased significantly, according to industry body the Argentine Real Estate Chamber... The rules, introduced in 2020 by then-president Alberto Fernández, included a mandatory lease term of three years and a limit on rent to an average growth rate of the consumer price index and the wage index. This cap was set by the central bank... Worsening the situation, 45pc of landlords decided to sell their properties in the wake of the announcement significantly reducing the amount of accommodation on offer and further pushing up prices... Rental prices only increased 2.9pc in February, according to Zonaprop. The lowest monthly figure since October 2021. In mid-January, just weeks after the repeal, the number of homes available had rebounded."
Weird. Left wingers claim that regulating landlords will make them sell houses which will mean housing will become affordable
Rents plummet after Argentina drops rent control - "Many American progressives, including Nevada Democrats, want similar government interventions in the housing market here. The appeal of rent control is obvious when rents are soaring. Current renters receive a benefit when the government distorts the market to their advantage. But the downside of rent control is just as obvious if you ask a simple question. What happens next? The supply of rental homes decreases. Landlords are less likely to rent out properties. With an artificial cap on their returns, investors build fewer homes and apartment complexes. Existing units become homes or condos for sale. Landlords spend less on maintenance and upkeep because they lack a financial incentive to make improvements. Their renters won’t leave because they’re paying below market rates. Rundown apartments and homes lower nearby property values. When the supply of rental homes drops, prices increase. Thus, rent control ends up doing the opposite of what it promised. That’s precisely what happened in Argentina. After the government imposed rent control, 45 percent of landlords opted to sell their properties. Others listed them on short-term rental sites. In Buenos Aires, the number of Airbnb properties nearly tripled from 2019 to 2023. Unsurprisingly, rents soared. In Buenos Aires, the cost for a two-bedroom apartment went from 18,000 pesos a month in 2019 to more than 330,000 pesos in January. If rent had merely kept up with inflation, it would have been 210,000 pesos."
Argentina markets cheer Milei's 'ambitious' zero deficit budget - "Argentina's sovereign bonds and stock index climbed in early trading on Monday, as investors cheered an ambitious 2025 budget plan from libertarian President Javier Milei, that predicts robust growth and sticks to a "zero" fiscal deficit."
Meme - Isabella M. Weber @IsabellaMWeber: "Shock therapy once more doing what shock therapy does. After Milei abolished price controls & slashed government spending, inflation shot up to ~300%. 3.4 million Argentinians pushed into poverty. Poverty rate highest level in two decades. At least 136,000 jobs wiped out."
Readers added context: "Argentina's inflation didn't shoot up to 300% under Milei. Inflation dropped from 25.5% per month in December to 3.9% per month by August. The 300% figure represents the annual rate, which includes the months before Milei took office. Weber's use of this number is misleading."
To think that she's an economist
Meme - "Someone worth 70 million and another worth 3 billion telling you "Don't trust rich people!" *Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey*"
Map of the US states that pays more tax than what they receive from the government, courtesy of CGP grey : r/MapPorn
So now it's wrong to take from the rich to give to the poor, when it helps the left wing agenda
Change my mind: Alcohol sales in convenience stores are a blatant vote bribe to south Asian owners of convenience stores to vote conservative : r/niagara - "He already threw Galen Weston a major win with beer and wine in grocery stores."
"That was Wynne though. Beer started in grocery stores in 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/grocery-beer-1.3365553"
"They don’t want facts they want to be mad at conservatives."
Pretty wild we are soon gonna be able to get a tank of gas and 6-pack : r/Newmarket - "Is it wild? You can do this anywhere in the states and Mexico. If they started selling parts to make a nuclear warhead, I might consider that wild, but a Bud Light? You gotta get out more friend"
Pretty wild we are soon gonna be able to get a tank of gas and 6-pack : r/Newmarket - "My biggest complaint with the LCBO is the control the use to decide what beers/ciders/spirits are available. Years ago you used to be able to get a great selection of British beers and ciders. Slowly but surely they are stopping importing them, now the only British cider they stock is strongbow. And the British beer selection is down to about 20 beers, some seasonal"
"The selection of whiskeys and beer is insulting enough (I can’t even buy a lot of Canadian whiskeys despite being a Canadian living in Canada), but when it comes to their selection of things like gin it’s extremely hard to get a good product, and for mezcal/tequila it’s simply impossible"
"There’s so many great products that we’ll never see in Ontario because there is a single gatekeeper standing at the border shouting “you shall not pass!” While waving its big government stick at the sky."
Left wingers hate choice, so too bad
Meme - Wholesome Comics: Construction Worker: "Do, Do, Do, I'm a builder. Do, Do, Do, I build stuff *Bam bam bam*"
Man with tophat and monocle: "Say, my good man! what are you building for me to exploit?"
Construction Worker: "This" *guillotine*"
When left wingers call something "wholesome", there's a good chance they just mean something that pushes the left wing agenda (a group about "wholesome" memes does this a lot too)
Meme - Big BIrd: "Hi kids, today we're going to learn about WAGE THEFT. Record-breaking profits without any increase in worker wages is called: WAGE THEFT."
So when profits fall and workers' wages don't fall too, is that profit theft?
Meme - "IF I HAD A HICHEL FOR EVERY TIME A RADICAL LEFT E-CELEB THAT HATES CAPITALISM WAS EXPOSED FOR NOT PAYING THEIR EDITORS AND WAS A PSYCHOTIC ABUSER IN PRIVATE, I'D HAVE THREE NICKELS. WHICH ISNT A LOT BUT IT'S WEIRD IT HAPPENED THRICE... AND MORE MONEY THAN THOSE EDITORS GOT PAID *Jim Sterling, Xanderhal, and Hasan Piker*"
“The Meritocracy Trap,” explained - "even the most critical commentary often focuses on the fact that our so-called meritocracy is not quite meritocratic enough; entrance into the ranks of the elite is still rigged in favor of the wealthy and privileged at the expense of the most intelligent and hardest working. This is what we can think of as the aspirational critique of meritocracy. It posits that the problem with our current system isn’t the ideal of meritocracy itself but our collective failure to live up to that ideal. If only we could replace the forces of aristocracy, oligarchy, and corruption with a genuine meritocracy, then we would have a just and equal society. There is also a principled critique of meritocracy, although it is far less common. Principled critics argue that any society where socioeconomic reward is based on the principle of “merit” itself is inherently unjust. For them, the ideal of meritocracy is flawed and must be replaced either by radical egalitarianism or a return to aristocracy... At its core, The Meritocracy Trap is a comprehensive — and rather scathing — critique of the aspirational view. Markovits argues that meritocracy itself is the problem: It produces radical inequality, stifles social mobility, and makes everyone — including the apparent winners — miserable. These are not symptoms of systemic malfunction; they are the products of a system that is working exactly as it is supposed to... Rising inequality is the product of meritocracy itself. At midcentury, the super-rich really were a mix of oligarchs and aristocrats. In the 1950s and ’60s, the richest 1 percent of earners received around three-quarters of their income from capital... A Harvard Business Review survey found that 62 percent of high-earning individuals work over 50 hours a week, more than a third work over 60 hours a week, and one in 10 work over 80 hours a week. According to Markovits, elites today work an average of 12 more hours per week than middle-class workers (the equivalent of 1.5 additional workdays). The rich are also more skilled than ever. Students from the top 1 percent of households overwhelmingly dominate elite colleges and universities, despite the fact that bribery and nepotism are much less the norm. The rich today are no longer an indolent “leisure class” but what Markovits calls a “superordinate” working class: they work harder, longer, and perform more high-skilled work than ever before. As a result, Markovits calculates that three-quarters of elite income now originates from labor rather than inherited capital... Meritocratic inequality works like this: First, elite workers acquire super-skilled jobs, displacing middle-class labor from the center of economic production. Then, those elite workers use their massive incomes to monopolize elite education for their children, ensuring that their offspring are more qualified to dominate high-skilled industries than their middle-class counterparts. The cycle continues, generating what Markovits calls “snowball inequality”: a compounding feedback loop that amplifies economic inequality, dramatically suppresses social mobility, and creates a “time divide” between an elite class whose members work longer and longer (due to a higher demand for their talents) and an increasingly idle middle class (whose work has been made redundant)."
Meritocracy only leads to equality if you assume everyone is equally talented and hardworking. But they are not
Inequality is good if it rewards talent and work - even if you think those who are more productive don't deserve more because they didn't do anything to deserve it (since even if some people perform better, talent and motivation are not willed by the individual but endowed by chance, which is an odd claim since we still have lotteries where pure chance determines the winner), there is a very practical reason for meritocracy: not rewarding talent and hard work means people won't work as much, then good luck funding all the social spending that left wingers keep demanding
The thesis of the book, that the middle class is made redundant, is silly. We've had predictions of economic change leading to mass unemployment for centuries, at least going back to the luddites
Because elites don't want to opt out of the game, no one must be allowed to play
I find it interesting that it's a bad thing to "exploit" your talents and abilities. Presumably the pursuit of mediocrity is better
Matthew Lau: Liberals' productivity 'working group' shows why Canada isn't producing - "The article, which cites Carleton University economics professor Vivek Dehejia, suggests Canada’s crisis-level productivity is rooted in unfavourable economic structures that limit competition and discourage investment, including by means of federal monopolies. “We know the causes of this problem,” Dehejia said. “As for (the government’s) proposed solution to create a working group to investigate it, I find that quite laughable. I actually find it quite sad that they feel the need to create a working group on something that I teach my first-year students.” So there you have it: the federal working group isn’t just a joke, it’s a sad joke. A spokesperson for Anand says the working group will be made up of “public and private sector representatives, academics, and union members,” which makes it even more laughable. Asking civil servants and unions how to increase economic productivity is like asking the Toronto Maple Leafs how to win a playoff series. On the other hand, at least the Leafs have done that once in the past 20 years — which is a higher success rate than the public sector and labour unions have enjoyed in increasing economic productivity. To understand how the Trudeau government flattened Canada’s economic productivity, consider its economic development strategy. The federal working group was announced on August 27. The very next day the government made a series of corporate welfare handouts: $1 million of taxpayers’ money to a frozen-pizza company in Montreal, $98,000 to a rubber manufacturer in Sherbrooke, $95,000 to a tourism association in Nova Scotia, $160,000 to an Indigenous manufacturing network, and about $6 million in interest-free loans to various Saskatchewan businesses, including a software company, steel manufacturer and IT recruiter. The wide diversity of recipients shows there is no activity whose cost the Trudeau government won’t shove onto the backs of taxpayers. Moving on from central planning of economic development, two days after announcing the productivity working group, the Trudeau government turned towards central planning of entrepreneurship. Two cabinet ministers announced that, as part of the government’s $25-million 2SLGBTQI+ Entrepreneurship Program, $8 million would be distributed to various organizations via the 2SLGBTQI+ Ecosystem Fund, of which $5.2 million would go to 17 organizations listed in the announcement. The money would be used to offer programs and resources to support to 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs, “raise awareness of the challenges they face” and “cultivate a more cohesive network of 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs and ecosystem organizations.” Got that? When you have two cabinet ministers giving an average of $300,000 in taxpayer funding to 17 different organizations so they can be part of an “ecosystem” to organize awareness-raising, more-cohesive networks and still more ecosystems based on sexual orientation, this is not an entrepreneurship policy. It is a policy to give away $5.2 million of taxpayers’ money to bureaucrats, activists, consultants, and lobbyists who specialize in writing, reviewing, and approving grants for public funds, and then spending those funds on things that will sound marketable in a government announcement. A hard question that needs to be asked is: how much money will actually reach entrepreneurs after being filtered through governmental and non-profit ecosystems? Any money that does make it to entrepreneurs will have little to do with actual entrepreneurial activity. True, applying for government handouts does require a measure of initiative. But receiving them does not constitute entrepreneurial activity. Besides, the claim that 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs face unfair disadvantages that justify preferential government treatment is one the Trudeau government makes without evidence. And even if were true on average, members of that population able to help themselves to taxpayers’ money through special identity-based government programs are unlikely to be among the disadvantaged. With federal policies like these, low economic productivity in Canada should not be a surprise. What’s needed instead are deep spending cuts, widespread deregulation, and cancellation of large numbers of federal programs. As for the federal working group, it is expected to officially launch in the fall and then deliver its recommendations by next spring. Six months for public-sector officials and unions to tell us why they think economic productivity is so low in Canada? The federal working group on productivity is itself an unintended demonstration of how the Trudeau government is killing productivity."
Clearly, more subsidies and regulation is the answer
Meme - "Flo Crivello @Altimor: "> be europoor
> vote for anti-capitalist policies for 70 yrs
> smugly tout the superiority of your social system which « is the envy of the world »
> refuse to work hard, take 5 weeks off per year
> tax rich people and regulate companies to oblivion
> whydoamericanshavemore.gif"
gon @chinesegon: "can i say something without europoors getting mad"
I want to take everything from Americans
I'm 36 years old and live in Northern Europe, earning €4,200 a month after taxes. After paying €2,200 for rent and utilities, plus my groceries and loan, I’m left with just €600 for the rest of the month. I still don’t own a home, and I haven’t slept in three days—I’m feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. It makes me angry to see the immense wealth in America, with their high TC and billion-dollar businesses. It feels so unfair. We deserve just as much as they do. I want to take everything from Americans for the unfariness that's happening"
Meme - Caroline Farrow @CF_Farrow: "Cranleigh, a Surrey independent school will *only* pass on a 12% VAT raise to parents. They managed to save on the 8% by abolishing all bursaries & free places & stopping free use of facilities to local youth groups, in order to recoup costs of maintenance. Nice one Labour."
Aaron @gastrocritical: "An interesting take. An alternative one... Independent school shamelessly withdraws opportunities for disadvantaged students in order to protect its profits and serve its shareholders."
Caroline Farrow @CF_Farrow: "Most independent schools don't make profits or have shareholders."
Left wingers keep screeching about taxing churches, because they have no idea why churches aren't taxed in the first place
Brad Wilcox on X - "Truly astonishing indictment of our welfare policies fr @AtlantaFed. A single mother in DC can make no gains, financially, as her earnings rise from $11,000 to $65,000 because benefits like food stamps & Medicaid phase in/out as her income rises. Terrible for work/marriage."