Meme - Dennis McDonald: "Imagine I loaned you $100 and said I would charge $1 per day in interest until the balance was repaid. After 300 days you have not paid me anything so you now owe me $400. Now imagine I say, since I'm such a nice guy, I will forgive $100 of your debt so you only owe me $300 (and the interest continues). Do you get that this wouldn't actually cost me any money? I'm not actually spending another $100. I'm just erasing money that never actually existed. That's how this student loan forgiveness works. It's not actually costing anyone any money. Your taxes are not paying for this because no one is actually spending any money. The amount of debt being forgiven is less than the amount of debt that was created by capitalized interest on the original loans."
This is why left wingers are poor. They don't understand compound interest, inflation, interest rates or opportunity costs. But they claim economics is astrology for men, so it's no surprise.
Meme - ellie @ellieredpath: "Even if young people actually *could* get on the housing ladder by foregoing coffee, holidays, netflix, brunches, books... why should we have to? why should we have to forego the lovely small things that make life bearable just to feel like we have somewhere stable to live?"
When you have unrealistic expectations, then blame the system being broken instead of your poor life choices
Addendum: a house, give up
Meme - "I WENT TO COLLEGE SO THAT MAKES ME BETTER THAN YOU. NOW PAY OFF MY LOANS YOU UNEDUCATED RACIST"
Meme - Oilfield Rando @Oilfield_Rando: "They can buy votes in broad daylight"
"Those who receive the relief are expected to receive an email with a message from President Joe Biden saying, "I hope this relief gives you a little more breathing room.""
"The Biden administration is canceling $1.2 billion in student debt for about 153,000 borrowers who took out relatively modest student loans and have been repaying it for the last decade or more."
Tyler on X - "I work 9-5 in an office. Your shop is open from 9-5. I will never be able to go to your shop. Why did we design our society like this?"
Of course, if services were open later, left wingers would bitch about exploitation and overwork and how shopworkers deserve to spend time with their families
Reagan Republican on X - "🇦🇷 ARGENTINA: With Milei’s decree deregulating the housing market, the supply of rental units in Buenos Aires has doubled - with prices falling by 20%."
Meme - Calla @CallaWalsh: "Being forced to ask an employee to unlock a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoo is actually insane, fuck capitalism"
@KemonomichiNL: "Bro is this you?"
Calla @CallaWalsh: "One thing about me is if I see a customer shoplifting, I pretend I didn't"
Ontario family could lose its farm due to Ford government's Highway 413 : ontario - "Doesn't this happen when cities grown when any new road it built.....kinda common sense... Redditors are similar to ndp. No definite plan. Oppose everything. Tax the money makers give to the unemployed. Even though it doesn't make sense."
Do Smarter People Have More Conservative Economic Attitudes? Assessing the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Economic Ideology - "Evidence on the association of cognitive ability with economic attitudes is mixed. We conducted a meta-analysis (k = 20, N = 46,426) to examine the relationship between objective measures of cognitive ability and economic ideology and analyzed survey data (N = 3,375) to test theoretical explanations for the association. The meta-analysis provided evidence for a small positive association with a weighted mean effect size of r = .07 (95% CI = [0.02, 0.12]), suggesting that higher cognitive ability is associated with conservative views on economic issues, but effect sizes were extremely heterogeneous. Tests using representative survey data provided support for both a positive association of cognitive ability with economic conservatism that is mediated through income as well as for a negative association that is mediated through a higher need for certainty. Hence, multiple causal mechanisms with countervailing effects might explain the low overall association of cognitive ability with economic political attitudes."
Left wingers keep crowing that liberals have a higher IQ than conservatives. Plus, Mensa is "alt right"
Stephen Covey - "People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to...rather than detracts from...our lives."
Envy is one of the seven deadly sins the left embody, after all
CEO Performance Pay Is One of Capitalism’s Great Myths - "The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is almost 300 to 1. Are we really supposed to believe CEOs work 300 times harder or create 300 times more value than us?"
The CEO effect and performance variation over time - "How important are CEOs to the performance of the firms they lead? To answer this question, there is a long tradition in which variance decomposition studies have been conducted to compare the variation in firm performance among the tenures of different CEOs. These studies have found that typically approximately 15–20% of a firm’s performance variance can be attributed to the tenures of its different CEOs (Hambrick and Quigley, 2014, Quigley and Graffin, 2017)... we find a CEO effect of 11.5%"
As always, the left live in fantasy land
Jeremy Kronick: When Ottawa caps interest rates, high-risk borrowers don’t get loans - "There are two types of borrowers, prime and non-prime. Prime borrowers have strong credit scores that give banks and credit unions confidence they will pay their loans on time and in full. As a result, they can borrow at reasonable interest rates. Non-prime borrowers are more diverse. Some have a checkered repayment history. Others, including immigrants, have no Canadian credit history. Because banks and credit unions often won’t lend to them, they have to seek credit elsewhere. To offset the higher risks involved lenders in these alternative markets charge higher interest rates. Higher rates for riskier loans will strike most people as common sense... A study of Illinois’ decision to cap rates at 36 per cent showed a big drop in the number of non-prime loans – almost double the corresponding increase in prime loans – and a reduction in the average amount lent to non-prime borrowers who did still receive a loan. If Ottawa’s real goal is to go after payday lending, it could exempt non-payday alternative lenders, defined appropriately. If it wanted to do more, it could pursue policies to protect consumers and increase competition for non-prime borrowers, thus lessening the need for price regulation. On consumer protection, it could do more to ensure that loan terms, including all fees, are as transparent as possible and are explained in simple language prospective borrowers understand. Clear, simple language about the interest rate, how it is calculated, and what happens if borrowers fail to repay on time would help weed out bad actors and drive down average rates."
The left hate "predatory loans", and claim that if you pay many times more than what you borrowed over the lifetime of the loan (because you keep making the minimum payment), it's unjust. But if you ban them and some people can't get loans anymore, they are also upset. At least unlike with student loans they can't demand government pay for it
Police chiefs right to worry about proposed cap on lending rates - "In modern times, the Canadian financial sector has benefited from the pragmatic vetting of Ottawa’s policy proposals in discussions between industry participants, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (Canada’s bank regulator), the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) and policymakers in Canada’s Finance Department, including the finance minister. When this process is followed, policymakers, regulators and financial institutions typically identify unforeseen and unwanted outcomes and the end policy is reworked to mitigate the unseen risks embedded in the original policy proposal. In some instances, proposals are quietly dropped. If this process isn’t followed, you get outcomes like the Feb. 5 announcement by The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, which took the extraordinary step of publicly calling out Ottawa’s proposal to reduce the maximum amount of interest alternative lenders can charge for loans, a move the chiefs warned could reduce the safe supply of credit and lead to a “dangerous rise in criminal activity.” Certified alternative lenders are legitimate businesses subject to interest rate rules under Section 347 of the Criminal Code. The federal Liberal government has introduced legislation that will reduce the maximum amount of interest alternative lenders can charge from 47 per cent to 35 per cent. These lenders play an important role within Canada’s financial ecosystem, taking on consumers who are “de-banked” due to their credit history, or business borrowers whose risk profile is outside what a Schedule 1 bank would serve. The size of this market may be surprising to many, but some estimates indicate eight million Canadians have credit scores too low to borrow from Schedule 1 banks (think Big Six). Alternative lenders serve this market, providing high-risk loans and charging higher interest rates that cover the associated losses this kind of lending entails. This ensures the lender remains solvent, profitable and stable despite such losses. Moreover, that 47 per cent maximum interest rate that currently exists (which only the riskiest of clients pay) is a bargain compared to paying as much as 442 per cent charged by payday lenders, businesses that are exempt from Section 347 of the Criminal Code and which the FCAC cautions against using. In short, the unintended consequences of the Liberal government’s legislation to cap interest rates of certified alternative lenders will push many to payday lenders and higher interest costs or to loan sharks, the scenario that police chiefs want to avoid. And this isn’t the only example of ill-conceived financial policy proposals coming out of Ottawa. In her Fall Economic Statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa “will take action to reduce the non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees charged by banks.” NSF charges usually run between $40 and $50 and are charged when a customer purchases goods or services using a cheque without having sufficient funds to pay for those goods or services in their chequing account... Cutting an NSF cheque isn’t a “victimless” crime. It can compromise the payee’s ability to cover cheques they have written on their account not to mention the work involved in tracking down the cheque writer to try and get paid. For the bank itself, processing an NSF cheque isn’t a simple, automated process. It takes manual work and time to process and document given the potential criminal nature associated with writing bad cheques. And here is the unintended consequence. Freeland will be calling on Canadian banks to produce an action plan on NSF fees this year, and some consumer activists (who appear to have the minister’s ear) are suggesting NSF fees should be as follows: $10 for the first NSF cheque, $10 for the second and $0 for the third. Given that banks have a duty to protect the integrity of the payment system, the more likely outcome is banks closing chequing accounts belonging to clients who write a second or third bad cheque because they can’t balance a chequebook and have little incentive to learn."
Danish Supreme Court: Danish tax authorities may refuse deduction for part of salary with retroactive effect
Denmark - Corporate - Other issues - "In order to address cases where mergers retroactively exclude income earned in Denmark from taxation, a new provision was implemented in the Danish law concerning mergers in June 2018. This provision prevents cross-border mergers, in which a foreign company is the recipient company and where income that is earned in the Danish company before the merger took place, is exempted from Danish taxation. The merger date for the Danish company that participates in a tax-exempt cross-border merger with a foreign company shall be the date on which the merger is adopted in all the merging companies. Therefore, the merger date cannot be prior to the date of the actual merger of all the merging companies. The new rule has retroactive effect for cross-border mergers adopted by one or more of the participating companies on 23 March 2018 or later."
How To Optimize Your Investments For SKAT - Saving Taxes In Denmark - "some financial products in Denmark are subject to taxes on unrealized gains. For example, every year unrealized profits from ETFs will be subject to taxes."
Skat driver rockerforretning mod sagesløse skyldnere
Hvordan beviser man overfor SKAT at man ikke ejer ejendom i udlandet? : dkfinance
No wonder the American left loves Denmark so much. Too bad they change immigration law retroactively too
Opinion: Don’t blame the boomers for the economy – they put in more than they take - The Globe and Mail - "Boomers continue to contribute more to the economy than any earlier generation. It is they who pressured governments some years ago to eliminate mandatory retirement at age 65. Today, they are working longer than the generation before them... Before the boomers, retirement was binary: you’re either working full-time or retired and receiving a pension. Now, retirement is varied, with any number of ways to combine paid employment with pensions... contrary to popular belief, boomers in retirement are not huge beneficiaries of government largesse... Boomers are not draining public health care either. Other than being eligible for pharmacare at age 65, they generally have the same publicly funded health benefits as all other Canadians. If admitted to a nursing home, they must pay between $2,000 to $3,000 a month from their own pockets for accommodation and meals. Nearly all older Canadians fend for themselves, financially and otherwise. They remain independent, relying on family, friends and neighbours as needed, until death or until they require intensive medical care."
The ageist left believe in the lump of labour fallacy, so they think higher retirement ages are a bad thing
Meme - Matt Golden: "If you choose to take a tax write-off in lieu of actually releasing a finished film, that movie should immediately become public domain and made available freely and legally, as we the people have effectively bankrolled it."
i>The left once again showing their ignorance of how taxes work (just like how they think companies asking customers to donate to charity are getting tax breaks based on how much customers donate)
Noah Stephens | Facebook - "A 2019 study published in Harvard University’s Quarterly Journal of Economics shows poor diet in low-income American communities is driven primarily by a preference for low-nutrient food. This contradicts received wisdom that poor diet in so-called food deserts is driven by a lack of access to health grocery stores. This research also retroactively validates my position which was snidely dismissed by fellow guests during my appearance on an Al Jazeera America program, October 1, 2013, 11:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time — not that I hold grudges, or anything."
Damn victim blaming!
Michael Taube: The Ontario government needs to get out of the booze business - "Ford and the Ontario PCs should therefore examine other provincial models related to the privatization of beer, wine, cider and spirits in different venues. It could help them get new ideas, learn from past mistakes and serve as a form of inspiration to devise their own privatization model — and hopefully do it as well or better. Alberta is the best place to start. Then-premier Ralph Klein deregulated the public monopoly in alcohol in 1992, and the province has never looked back. University of Alberta economics professor Doug West made some important observations about Alberta’s shift to privatization in a few Fraser Institute papers . This includes: overall product selection of beer, wines and spirits doubled with liquor privatization, retail liquor prices fell on average and basically followed wholesale price adjustments, full-time equivalent employment levels nearly tripled in more than a decade, and there was an astonishing 134 per cent increase in the number of Alberta-based liquor stores. West also noted that Alberta government revenues increased after Klein introduced liquor privatization. Whereas the province made $427 million from its government monopoly in alcohol in 1992, those revenues soared to about $540 million in liquor taxes from private outlets in 2002... “There has always been a grand degree of irony that British Columbia, the most liberal province in Canada, has an approach to liquor retailing that was born in Prohibition and survives because of special-interest pressure.”"
The left hate private business, so too bad
Meme - Noah Smith @Noahpinion: "This is one of the best and most impressive things happening in the world today. India is conquering poverty."
Science Is Strategic @scienceisstrat1: "There's been an extraordinary decline in poverty in India"
Left wingers like to claim that the plunge in world poverty is meaningless and doesn't show that capitalism is responsible because after you strip China out (because it's inconvenient to their argument) the fall in world poverty isn't much. So much for that
How poverty tends to trap people into making poor decisions
Crémieux on X - "Many studies of the psychological consequences of scarcity have been published and they've received tons of citations over the years. They tend to have very low power and few results replicate. Not only that, but they're also generally methodologically shockingly low-quality. Consider my favorite example, which also happens to be one of the most popular papers in the field: Mani et al. (2013). This famous study is entitled "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function." It involved a series of experiments and a field study. They found that
"They found that considering a projected financial decision, such as how to pay for a car repair, affects people's performance on unrelated spatial and reasoning tasks. Lower-income individuals performed poorly [on tests] if the repairs were expensive but did fine if the cost was low, whereas higher-income individuals performed well in both conditions, as if the projected financial burden imposed no cognitive pressure. Similarly, the sugarcane farmers from Tamil Nadu performed these tasks better after harvest than before."
But this conclusion was unwarranted. In a reply, @JelteWicherts noted that Mani et al. had performed a median split, resulting in a false-positive based on artificially dichotomizing the data in an unsupportable way. The result was that the interaction effect Mani et al. claimed to find was completely unsupported, with p-values of 0.084, 0.308, 0.323, and 0.164. Mani et al. responded, of course, and their response was remarkable. I'll let McLelland et al. explain:
"[Mani et al.] justified their use of median splits by citing papers published in Science and other prestigious journals that also used median splits. This 'Officer, other drivers were speeding too' defense is often tried but rarely persuasive, especially here when the results of the (nonsignificant) continuous analyses were known. Though Mani et al. further noted their effect reached the .05 level if one pooled the three [core] studies, we would guess that the editor poured himself or herself a stiff drink the night after reading Wicherts and Scholten's critique and the Mani et al. reply."
"It is hard to imagine that Science or many less prestigious journals would have published the paper had the authors initially reported the correct analyses with a string of three nonsignificant findings conventionally significant only by meta-analysis at the end of the paper."
If you scroll back up, you'll see that Mani et al.'s study also failed to replicate. That's unsurprising since it never convincingly showed anything in the first place. What might be more surprising, however, is that there have been multiple replication failures, and none of them has anywhere near the number of citations that Mani et al. has. This is particularly embarrassing because Wicherts' refutation was published just four months after Mani et al.'s paper. The vast majority of the citations to Mani et al.'s paper have been supportive and came after it was shown to be a very obvious example of Science publishing nonsense. According to Google Scholar, there are 3,219 total citations for Mani et al.'s paper and 436 results for citations since 2023, with 37 of those happening in 2024. By contrast, Wicherts' decisive refutation has received a total of 56 citations since it was published more than a decade ago. Science sure is grand."
Stefan Andersson on X - "The purpose of this kind of study is to supply support for a Marxist worldview of systemic oppression of certain groups of people, not report factual findings reflecting an objective reality. The point is that activists can point to "peer-reviewed articles" as "scientific proof"."
Hamilton to become 1st Ontario city with bylaw to stop 'bad faith' renovictions - "the Hamilton and District Apartment Association said while its members "do believe that there should be resources and protections in place for bad faith renovictions," they said city funds would be better spent on "improving their own housing stock," rather than managing the bylaw... It will require a landlord to apply for a city renovation licence within seven days of issuing an eviction notice to a tenant, says the proposed bylaw. The licence fee will be $715 per unit, and $125 to renew annually. The city will only allow the eviction and renovations to take place if the landlord has already secured all building permits to complete the work and provides an engineer's report confirming vacancy is necessary, the bylaw says. The landlord will also need to make arrangements with any tenant who wants to return to their unit once the renovation is complete. These arrangements could include providing the tenant with temporary accommodations, comparable to their current unit and rental rate, or compensation, the bylaw says"
When renting becomes even harder and more expensive, it'll be time to blame "greedy landlords" again!
Tenant advocates say framing cash for keys method as extortion is nonsense since renters ‘bear the ultimate burden’
Bad renters can not pay rent and destroy a place, but it's landlords' fault. And of course the "solution" is even more rent control
CañadaRecord on X - "back of the napkin Since 2000 up to and including Chow's budget, Toronto residential property tax has increased 130% not including the offloading of garbage & water or the Land Transfer Tax Canada's inflation 2000-2023 = 64% Toronto also has six figure Street Art Managers"
So much for property tax increases being below inflation
Left wingers keep claiming that Toronto's property taxes are too low, because they don't understand that property tax is a percentage of home value, and Toronto home values are higher. Ironically, they bash the suburbs, claiming that they're inefficient due a lack of density, at the same time as demanding higher property taxes in a dense city (because they hate homeowners since they'll never join that class). Wasteful spending is usually never an issue because they love spending money on their pet projects
Liberal MPs are furious at Chow over property tax gambit - "At issue is the city's forecast that the cost to house asylum-seekers will rise to at least $250 million in 2024 — and its request for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to pick up the tab. Otherwise, Toronto's budget chief Shelley Carroll said she'll pitch adding an extra six per cent "federal impacts levy" onto the already planned property tax hike of 10.5 per cent. "This is so ridiculously political," one Toronto Liberal MP, who was granted anonymity to discuss the intergovernmental dynamics at play, told the Star... Being blamed for a property tax hike at a time when cost-of-living issues are on everyone's minds is a hit the Liberals don't need. Several told the Star they see Chow's move as "outrageous" on numerous fronts. They charge that she's shirking the city's responsibility to cover the costs of asylum-seekers, not being transparent enough about the price tag and just expecting Ottawa to step in, figuring the federal Liberals have no political choice... “The feds are always willing to take a phone call, respond to text messages, have a photo op, but it has been like getting blood from a stone when it comes to actually funding things," the source said, pointing to funding announcements on housing and even previous refugee funding commitments where the cash isn't flowing as fast as promised... Abacus Data CEO David Coletto told the Star, however, that just as his national polls suggest the government is in trouble overall, his internal projections suggest a number of Toronto ridings are at risk, including Davenport, Eglinton—Lawrence, Etobicoke Centre, Etobicoke — Lakeshore, Spadina—Harbourfront, Willowdale and York Centre. Some of those seats are very firmly in the Conservatives' sights, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre moved swiftly to condemn Chow's proposed tax increases."
'Outrageous': Privately, Justin Trudeau's Toronto MPs are furious at Olivia Chow over her property tax gambit : ontario - "It seems like the Liberals are using the refugee system not to support people but to make themselves look good."
Left wing virtue signalling has very real costs (which usually don't fall on the ones doing the virtue signalling, which is why it continues). But it's the city's fault as well, since they declared themselves a Sanctuary City
Thread by @ronmortgageguy on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Property Taxes Go Nuts Across Canada: Cities & Towns Can NEVER Reduce Spending Mayor Chow announces a 10.5% Property Tax increase & unless her attempt to Blackmail the Feds into a $250M payment works she says she will need to bump the increase to 16% Even in low tax Alberta Is up 7.5% to 10% in Calgary God help the people of little Osoyoos BC where property tax jumped 38% All Canadian cities will see big bumps Naturally Mayor's across Canada blame inflation & other levels of Government Bank of Canada Governor Maclem tears up a bit As both the US CPI Report & all these huge Canadian Municipal Tax increases prove inflation isn't dead yet It's interesting NOT ONE Mayor discussed aggressive ways to reduce spending to reverse these huge increases Why is that never a topic? It never crosses their minds Today Governments at every level believe the public will just accept endless deficit spending & tax increases Politicians believe Canadians have stopped caring & let's face it there's endless protests in the streets about war in other countries but zero pushback on taxes Canadians are completely complacent on ridiculous government waste, payroll increases & endless headcount growth There is a cost to not caring about how inefficient, ineffective, wasteful & careless government are with taxpayer's money It's crazy really: zero accountability The Toronto Crosstown LRT is so screwed up: its Billions over budget, multiple years late & NO ONE can tell you if or when it will ever finish And the guy in charge of that insanity didn't get fired he got his contract EXTENDED"
Meme - "We voted to raise taxes on property owners, not renters. Why did our rent go up?"
Meme - "She voted to raise taxes on rich property owners... .doesn't understand why her rent was raised."
I thought I could beat capitalism with some out-of-date onion bhajis. I was wrong | Zoe Williams | The Guardian - "Something happened to me on New Year’s Eve that I’ve been waiting for for half a century: a product recall, for a thing that I actually had in my fridge... I assumed something grand would happen, like you’d take them back and they’d give you a cake. Or you’d send Waitrose a photo of yourself, eating the offending item, and they’d refund you anyway, maybe with some kind of “congratulations on your strong stomach” message. Nope, the process is much more cost-neutral and there’s no celebratory aspect at all: you have to take it back to the shop, and they give you exactly what you spent on it. A more boring transaction I cannot imagine. Who would even win, between me and capitalism? I have a horrible feeling it’s neither of us."
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