Meme - "WITHOUT BILLIONAIRES I'D BE RICHER"
"WITHOUT LAMBORGHINIS I'D BE FASTER"
Canada, a shining example to the world of how to kill prosperity - "Among U.S. states, New Mexico is the only one to end the last four decades less economically free than it began, finds a recent report. Even worse, binding its residents in red tape and smothering them in government leaves its residents poorer. Sadly, even as a laggard that’s moving in the wrong direction on economic freedom, New Mexico still allows its residents more leeway when it comes to business, money, and property than all but two Canadian provinces. And its people, while poor relative to many Americans, are more prosperous than the residents of most Canadian provinces... Disrespect for economic freedom has real consequences in terms of human wellbeing, point out the Fraser and Rio Grande authors. New Mexico trails when it comes to growth in employment and real GDP. “It has the third-highest poverty rate in the union, a larger share of children on federal food assistance than any other state, and a larger share of citizens on Medicaid (tax-supported welfare medicine) than any other state.” While most of the Southwest booms, with neighbouring populations growing by an average of 12 per cent, New Mexico’s population has risen by only one per cent. The state’s restrictive red tape, taxes, and excessive government are causing it to miss out on a regional bonanza. That’s unfortunate for the Land of Enchantment. But as laggard as New Mexico is among U.S. states, it has more economic freedom than any Mexican state, and all but two Canadian provinces... That mismatch in economic freedom has real-world consequences when it comes to prosperity. Mexico, while it has made progress, trails far behind the U.S. and Canada in terms of per capita GDP, according to the World Bank. But Canada, after largely parallelling its southern neighbor for decades, has fallen badly behind. As of 2023, per capita GDP in current U.S. dollars was $82,769 for Americans, $53,431 for Canadians, and $13,790 for Mexicans... Canadians are getting comparatively poorer. “By 2022, all ten Canadian provinces ranked in the bottom ten positions for earnings per person.” Alberta remained the most prosperous Canadian province, “but as of 2022 was surpassed by all US states—in 2010, only 12 US states reported earnings higher than Alberta.” Making the case even more compelling is the historical evidence that economic freedom tends to go hand-in-hand with civil and political liberty. Limiting one type of liberty erodes the others."
Meme - John Carter @martianwyrdlord: ""Blue cities generate most of America's GDP."
"Wow how do you do that?"
"We redistribute tax dollars and call it GDP.""
Brian Wesbury @wesbury: "I’ve talked about this before. It’s astounding when you look at the numbers. Medicaid paying people to stay at home to take care of relatives accounts for 12% of all jobs in NYC!"
"Just consider the New York State Medicaid-funded program for paying people to stay home with aging relatives. Back in 2014, only 20,000 people were paid by the program. When eligibility rules changed in 2015 during the outgoing Obama administration, the number of jumped to 250,000. Today, the figure is more than 620,000 people. This taxpayer-funded program now makes up 12 percent of New York City's private sector jobs, according to Bloomberg."
Meme - Lisa Poort: "Yesterday I got body shamed but today I had a nice day traveling to a communism farm with my friends. The commune is so beautiful, they have no laws or prison. I delivered free tarot readings to homeless Igbt youth. I feel empowered."
Toronto property tax hikes—a brief history - "the case is sometimes made that Toronto’s municipal tax rates historically have been too low. The chart below presents the per cent change in the City of Toronto’s own purpose taxation levy from 2001 to 2022 using data from the Municipal Multi-Year Financial Information Returns (FIR) with the reported homeowner tax hikes from recent budgets added for the 2023 to 2025 period given the absence of current tax levy information from FIR. While property tax increases in Toronto until 2012 were low and indeed declining, they have been on the rise since 2013. Moreover, the chart also plots the CPI All-Items Inflation rate for Toronto over the same period, and in general property tax increases in Toronto have tended to exceed inflation most years. Over the 25-year time span of this chart, Toronto’s municipal tax levy increase exceeded the inflation rate 17 times (or more than two-thirds of the time). Over the entire time period, inflation has averaged 2.3 per cent annually whereas the tax revenue increase has averaged 3.7 per cent. However, if one only looks at the 2023 to 2025 period, the increases including the proposed 2025 increase of 6.9 per cent average out to 7.8 per cent whereas the inflation rate is 2.8 per cent (assuming 2025 comes in at 2 per cent). Of course, the claim is sometimes made that these increases are needed because government transfers to municipalities and other revenue sources have lagged. However, the FIR data show that for the period 2009 to 2022, while total tax revenues grew by 40 per cent, government transfers rose by 80 per cent and other revenues (including fees and user charges) grew by 46 per cent. In short, Toronto, like many municipalities in Ontario, has actually experienced fairly robust revenue growth. Continued property tax increases, however, threaten the robustness of Toronto’s economy."
This won't stop left wingers claiming that taxes are too low, or make them remember that they usually claim that density is good because infrastructure costs are lower
End Wokeness on X - "Bernie Sanders: "You think I should wait on line at United? No apologies for my private jets." Socialists are beyond parody"
David Harsanyi on X - "“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”"
Meme - Hot Takes Nobody Asked For: "wanting to guillotine the rich won't make you rich. taxing the rich at 90 percent won't make you rich, nor will it give you good free healthcare. but go on with your tired talking point."
"Defending the rich... won't make you rich"
Of course, if you oppose the left wing agenda, it can't be because you think it is the right thing to do. You must be stupid or evil
Meme - Hunter Ash @ArtemisConsort: "In case you forget how bad things were, here is a leftist public housing advocate being subjected to a struggle session by a crazier leftist for saying local governments have to raise money to pay for stuff."
Paul Williams: "But where do *you*, a person in doctorate program who studies these systems, think that $50 billion *could* come from"
Kristen Hackett: "That's the wrong question and it valorizes white institutions and white ways of knowing and being and structuring society in really problematic ways."
This is why you need white people to run things - or you run out of money and must declare bankruptcy
Left wingers really believe money is made up and there is endless money to fund the left wing agenda. They also believe that more money is always the solution, so the fact that it's not working shows that Capitalism is conspiring to sabotage success
the reason you don't get packages with Canada Post : r/CanadaPost - "repost from a former employee of Canada Post:
Former employee of Canada Post here. I worked a contract to provide insight into the theft issues caused by the letter carriers. During my investigation, I posed as a regular entry-level letter carrier. I know EXACTLY why they do this with the DNC (Delivery Notice Card).#1) letter carriers are paid 8 hours regardless of how quickly they finish their route. When they return to the depot, they can choose to go home early or accept another route. By accepting another route they are paid OVERTIME which they can bank and save for early retirement or cash out next cycle. Parcels are a pain in their side. When it they are sorting mail in the morning, they browse their designated packages and immediately make the decision to write a DNC for parcels that are owing funds (duty), signatures, age of consent (alcohol, tobacco etc), or registered letters (must be delivered to door and not community mail box).They fill out the DNC at the depot and scan the packages as "out for delivery". Some senior employees won't even bother loading it in their truck. Newer employees will learn the "speed hack" and load it up despite not ever having intention of delivering. When they get to the address, they scan the parcel as DNC and it's all over from that moment. Whether the parcel is in the truck or not, you aren't getting it. They speed through their route and are done by 11 or 12 pm."
You Mad, Bro? Philly AFL-CIO Tries to Label Mother-Daughter Trash Collecting Duo Scabs - "There was a time when unions served a purpose. Now, they're just collective grifts that enrich the bosses and do very little for the actual members or the pubic they serve. The Philly chapter of the AFL-CIO is a great example of this. They're apparently on strike, refusing to pick up trash until the taxpayers fork over more money, and they're also mad at Philly residents who don't want to live amongst refuse. Attacking a mother and daughter trying to clean up their community is a pretty bad look, tbh. So is locking replies."
Thread by @prouns_ on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "As someone from a "white working class" family in the trades, I can tell you, anecdotally at least, that the emptying of militancy from labor unions has been decisive in opening up white workers to the right. Sorry, this attempt to blame "PC culture" for white reaction (e.g. not "knowing one's real interest") is total bullshit. And I say this as someone who finds much of today's discourse distasteful and frustrating. I think trauma-talk has become a tick in left subcultures. But this is a cultural frustration that is totally divorced from the "white working class" situation, if you want to call it that. If the only way you can relate to the "white working class" is through racist jokes, maybe it's because you only share the "white" in common with them and less so the "working class" part "
God Zilla 💚🤍💜 🇨🇦🇮🇱 on X - "Unions lost their way when they started neglecting economic militancy to focus heavily on identity politics. Identity politics is divisive by nature, isolating us into smaller and smaller groups and subgroups of aggrieved indviduals with no common purpose."
Starmer resists recognising Palestinian state as unions’ demand deepens Labour split : r/unitedkingdom - "I know it’s always been the case, but I still find it odd that unions want to get involved in this type of politics"
Why the left love unions so much - they're easy to hijack to push the left wing agenda
Conversations That Matter: Canada’s anti-success mindset - "Diraj Goel, the founder and managing partner of GetFresh Ventures... says Canada needs to stop inflicting economic injuries on itself that cripple the ability to innovate and grow. “Our future is handicapped because we’ve engineered a system that punishes ambition instead of rewarding it. I’ve witnessed it firsthand; it’s a reality every Canadian founder lives with daily.” “The challenge entrepreneurs and innovators face,” says Goel, “has nothing to do with access to capital and everything to do with government policies that are designed to hamper rather than empower.”"
Time to "tax the 'rich'"
Borrowers may learn federal debt isn't an abstract problem - "Federal debt risk just seems like some distant nightmare. The truth, however, is that it may be knocking at our front door sooner than expected. As investors grow increasingly nervous about ballooning government IOUs, they bake additional risk into bond returns. That, in turn, hikes overall interest rates and bolsters mortgage funding costs. It may not seem material, but even a minuscule 10 basis point rate premium quietly siphons an extra $1,400 from people’s wallets on an average $300,000 five-year mortgage. Borrowers should dread more risk (a.k.a., “term premia”) being embedded in government bond yields. In Canada, negligent government spending has already collectively cost mortgagors billions in such premiums over the years. Meanwhile, our leaders keep producing undisciplined budgets, bragging that Canada’s $1.3 trillion federal debt is peanuts per capita compared to our southern neighbour’s eye-watering US$36 trillion. (Side note: These figures aren’t strictly comparable for technical reasons, but their comparative scale matters.)... Canada’s fundamental problem is that too many people vote for government handouts. Politicians dispense cash with reckless abandon to buy these votes and maintain their grip on power, punting fiscal responsibility down the road like it’s contaminated nuclear waste. The only way budget crunches will be solved — on both sides of the border — is with frugality and efficiency, less government dependence, faster growth than debt accumulation and perhaps even debt restructuring (someday). In the meantime, fiscal restraint is job number one, and the only way that may happen is when the government’s hand is forced by credit rating downgrades, fear of impending debt unserviceability and bond vigilantes driving up yields. It’s the type of outlook that makes many yearn for 30-year mortgages with less rate risk, like they have below the border."
Tens of thousands of federal public service jobs should be eliminated, think tank says - "There are 367,772 federal employees, or nine per 1,000 residents, compared to 7.2 when Trudeau took office. By comparison, the United Kingdom has 7.4 federal employees per 1,000 residents and Germany 6.2 employees per 1,000 residents. Last year, the MEI noted that federal personnel costs were on track to exceed $70 billion, compared to $40 billion in 2016-2017, the first fiscal year of Trudeau’s first mandate. According to the MEI, this represents one in seven dollars spent by the government. The MEI maintains that a large portion of this spending is financed by large deficits. In 2024, the federal government posted a deficit of $61.9 billion, far exceeding its promise to keep it below $40.1 billion. “Given the size of our deficit and the speed at which the bureaucracy has grown over the last decade, a federal spending review needs to be just as ambitious as the one undertaken under the Chrétien government in the 1990s,” Brossard said. The 1994 program review has become an example of good fiscal practice in Canadian economic circles. When Jean Chrétien was elected prime minister in 1993, Canada was grappling with persistent deficits, an unsustainable national debt and a ballooning public service. Chrétien then asked his finance minister Paul Martin to put “the house in order”."
I see left wingers claim that in uncertain times, the government needs to stimulate the economy
Pierre Poilievre on X - "“Canada’s manufacturing sector is now smaller than Ireland’s, a country with one-eighth our population,” writes the National Bank, which calculates Canada’s red tape has grown by 42% on the sector. Unleash free enterprise so our private sector can build, make and grow, like the Irish."
We need more regulation to solve the problem
Calls for wealth tax as Rich List shows £772bn in the hands of just 350 families : r/unitedkingdom - "I’m Swiss, amongst other nationalities. I have a very clear understanding of Cantonal and Federal taxes and have an office in Zug. Your understanding of the Swiss tax regime isn’t one I’d recognise. Pictet will give you a quick update if you can spare the time. Portugal/Lisbon has fantastic international schools, Policing contrary to what you say is good. We have family in both Customs and the Police force in Portugal so I’m just going to say you are wrong. Healthcare in Switzerland is insurance based and excellent, healthcare in Portugal is a concern outside of Lisbon and Porto to be charitable. Employers NI in France is 40%, but education is 1/3 of the cost of the U.K. for a top international school outside of Paris. Property is also significantly cheaper, healthcare is ok/significantly better than the U.K. We have family friends who are GP’s in Paris. They despair at the English healthcare system, it’s not great there but miles better than here. Property costs are significantly less including annual taxes. We offered our Engineering teams in London relocation last year, 2/3’s of our staff are leaving and we are paying or have paid for their relocation. Most are going back to their countries of birth with their families. We also pay for middle and senior team’s health insurance and children’s education if requested. Throw all the figures at me you’d like, I can give you a real world view. There’s not really much in your reply that I’d consider and issue in real terms to be fair."
Alberto Mingardi: When the Italians chose media freedom - "The 1995 referendum aimed to make it impossible for a private company to own more than two national channels (the government kept three); to limit advertising sales to two TV channels; and to decrease the number of ads during movies to just a few during the mid-movie intermission. A business depending on ads would have been crushed. Berlusconi’s enemies thought they had an easy case with voters. Surely, they would vote in favour of fewer ads — who ever likes his movies to be interrupted by ads? A significant portion of the Italian political class wagered that Italians would not realize that the ads enabled them to pay for such movies with their attention, rather than their tax dollars. They were wrong. Twenty-eight million Italians voted, with 55 per cent — approximately 15 million people, a little more than those who had voted for Berlusconi in the previous year’s election — opposed the referendums that targeted commercial television. Polls indicated that about 35 per cent of those who voted for the Neo-communist party the year before supported private TV... Italians had known government TV since 1954, and private networks for less than a decade. They saw the difference: the first aimed to educate them, while the latter tried to entertain them. Political parties governed the first; the latter, while owned by Berlusconi, was governed by the audience. Advertising made the consumer sovereign. Italians are neither famous for a strong sentiment of liberty, nor a widespread grasp of economics, but they voted to keep the private competitor in a thriving business because they cared about a freedom they had experienced and learned to love: the freedom to choose between six networks instead of three. Perhaps freedom of choice is something the ordinary person needs to experience to defend."
Hardworking senior, 92, forced to mow neighbors' lawns after Dem mayor's neglect in historic city - "An elderly Alabama man has been forced to maintain his neighbors' lawns for decades after the city snapped up properties for a project that was never completed. Jimmy Smith, 92, regularly mows the grass of his late mother's house in Birmingham, despite the city having purchased it nearly 20 years ago... He still lives next door to his mother's derelict home and said the local government stopped taking care of the property years ago."
We need to give the government even more power to fix things
William Watson: Liberal MPs won’t rebel U.K. Labour-style, so cut away, Carney - "For a Canadian the most striking thing about reading the U.K. press is how similar the two countries’ problems are. We’ve both got slow productivity growth, lagging investment, aging populations, high and rising public indebtedness, uncontrolled immigration (though our illegal migrants brave frozen wastes, not the English Channel), woke craziness, identity politics run wild, travails with Donald Trump, rising geopolitical obligations and more. We’ve also both got new governments replacing regimes that had become deeply unpopular by the time they were done — though one difference is that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party outnumbers Badenoch’s Conservatives by 403 MPs to 120, while Mark Carney’s Liberals don’t actually have a majority in our House of Commons... Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is asking departments for spending cuts over the next three years. Of course, he’s also asking them for their top three policy priorities. Three times 39 ministers equals 117, so there’s still plenty of room for a Justin Trudeau/Chrystia Freeland-style “everything everywhere all at once” budget, filled with dozens of new initiatives. Yes, funding for any new proposal supposedly will come from paring back other spending in the department making it. But in a situation as dire as Mark Carney painted during the election, the “worst in our lifetimes,” couldn’t a finance minister just ask his colleagues to provide their top candidates for cuts, and nothing more? The Government of Canada website lists 213 federal departments and agencies. How about we abolish a dozen of them (just 5.6 per cent of the total) and see whether the sky falls or not? The subliminal message offered by budgets that introduce new initiatives by the dozen is actually the Conservative one that Canada doesn’t work. Why else would it require constant fixing? Will a budget-trimming Prime Minister Carney face a Labour-style rupture on the left? My guess is not. These are Canadian MPs we’re talking about, so not the rebelling type. And the consequences of rebellion are much greater in a minority government. Finally, as the last year proved, if ever there was doubt, Liberals will do almost anything to hang on to power."
French are told they 'don't work enough' as minister launches crackdown on Le Sickie - "Workers in France have been told to stop being in denial and accept that they 'do not work enough' as the government aims to clampdown on soaring levels of absenteeism. Prime Minister François Bayrou is cracking down on those who pull a sickie in an attempt to 'reconcile the French with work', and save the country from bankruptcy. The country has fewer people working than its neighbours and spends the most on benefits, 'yet the French are increasingly dissatisfied with their public services and we are the most pessimistic country in the world', the prime minister said last week when laying out plans for next year's budget... His proposed measures include scrapping two public holidays, putting pressure on doctors to stop handing out notes for non-existent symptoms and getting people off work to tell their employers the medical condition they are suffering from. The level of absence from work in France is one of Europe's highest and at least double that of Britain. Nearly six percent of employees in the private sector are off sick from work at any time, while the rate of absenteeism has soared by 40 percent over the last five years. Between 2014 and 2022, there was a 79 percent increase in public servants taking sick leave. Meanwhile, people staying off work for 'psycho-social' conditions have jumped since the pandemic. The cost of these absences is estimated at up to 80 billion euros, or £69 billion. But his plans have sparked outrage among opposition groups on the left and right sides of the political spectrum. In addition, unions have accused the government of trying to 'destroy the health of the French' as they crack down on sick leave."
French told to take more naps... but also work more - "While stopping short of issuing siesta decrees, the minister said he would push employers to set up break areas or quiet zones to encourage 15 to 20-minute power naps in a drive to improve concentration, reduce stress and limit the risk of accidents. That includes a “quiet label”, which identifies areas in schools, libraries, businesses, shops and restaurants that “promote well-being, relaxation and even naps”... The average French adult sleeps seven hours a night, and one in five sleeps less than six hours. Cited causes include excessive screen time, irregular lifestyles, noise, poor housing and the aftermath of Covid. The plan will also target schools where 30 per cent of children and 70 per cent of teenagers sleep less than the recommended amount, according to studies cited by the ministry... Inspectors found that half of all people on long-term medical leave of 18 months lacked justification, the prime minister said. France has seen a 40 per cent rise in absenteeism over the past five years in the private sector, with almost 6 per cent of employees off sick at any time. The figures are even higher for the state sector, which accounts for more than 20 per cent of the workforce"
Elizabeth Warren’s pushing for free college. Meanwhile her Harvard professor husband earns $400,000 a year. - "Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has made free college and loan forgiveness a central plank of her campaign. To pay for it, her plan seeks to tax the wealth of America’s richest families. But while Warren bemoans the soaring costs of college — her husband Bruce Mann is a law professor at Harvard University who earns an annual salary of about $400,000 a year, according to income tax documents the couple has made public. Mann teaches on U.S. legal history, property, and trusts and estates, his online faculty bio states. Meanwhile, in the past when Warren taught as a law professor at Harvard, she also earned a substantial salary. During 2010 and 2011, she earned $429,981 from the Ivy League university. Prior to that she was listed as being one of the top earners at Harvard, Heavy reports. In 2009 at Harvard she earned nearly $350,000, according to the Boston Globe. The professors’ enormous salaries represent one of the root causes of the problem of skyrocketing college costs and is another typical example of liberal and leftist hypocrisy, said Professor Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan-Flint... The apparent hypocrisy of Warren’s policy proposals and her and Mann’s salaries has not been lost on all observers. In mid-August, Warren tweeted: “The Walmart heirs make $4 million an hour. A new Walmart associate makes $11 an hour. My two-cent wealth tax on families like the Waltons would help level the playing field for working families and rebuild the middle class.” In response, one Twitter user replied: “Warren’s Husband made $400k last year from Harvard. @ewarren herself made another $500k. The average Harvard janitor makes $12.75/hour, or just over $25k a year. Why is @ewarren and her husband robbing those poor janitors?”"
Clearly, the government needs to pay their high salaries because education is an important investment
