(Ignoring the political context of this post) No. I don't want to fight a war. I want a peaceful and secure life. I have two oceans and military ten times the size it needs to be to effectively protect me. I don't need the number to go up or more plastic garbage.
I think an under-appreciated aspect of all this is the complete schadenfreude from everyone. The story goes tariffs only hurt yourself but then we see retaliatory tariffs in response. "Oh yeah I'm going to cut off my leg to show you whose boss!" Very funny.
And then you have people predisposed to higher-taxes who are contorting themselves over the economic cost of this tax while supporting significantly more economically destructive tax policies. Very funny.
And, of course, the opposite. Republicans in my state are campaigning on lowering taxes and inflation while also defending tariffs! Very funny.
That's how the story goes with someplace like China. If you impose tariffs on imports you have no cost-effective alternative for, yes, the tariffs will only hurt the importer, because buying habits will not change. (I suppose Chinese cars are a big exception here)
But in this case, the math is probably different because none of these tariffs affect products the US must realistically buy from Canada (e.g. oil and potash). So Canadian exporters will feel some pain and American importers will feel some pain.
What should Canada do in this case if the two can't come to a trade agreement? Continue to import from the US at the same rate as before?
Canada can apply export taxes on things like oil & gas, and bring americans the pain they would feel if american tariffs were applied, except Canada would keep the taxes.
Are you American? The US has community and equitable distribution schemes. 50% of all assets is the default under both schemes with alimony regularly awarded to women to make up for lack of income.
Changing divorce laws to be less equitable, as far as I know, has never been a major platform of either party in the South. I'm not aware of any politician that advocates for it. I'm sure it exists but it must be an incredibly marginal view.
This is false. Can you cite a source for the idea that the 30-year mortgage was "founded" on the idea of appreciation? The thirty year mortgage was introduced to reduce the housing appreciation requirement the old balloon loan system relied on.
The mortgage was to allow people to eventually OWN THE PROPERTY, not a leveraged investment.
It's an interesting development that some (most?) regular people have forgotten that there is a 3rd option, not just rent or loan. You can actually OWN the thing and pay only property tax on it.
You don't really own it because of the property tax. Unless you live in Malta or a handful of other countries you are effectively renting from the state.
If paying property taxes is considered "renting from the state", then I'll be glad to pay the $600 a month in rent in order for the state and my county to maintain the roads, sewers, drains, school district and everything around me that allows me to enjoy my home and participate in society.
Exactly, a house in the middle of nowhere, with no infrastructure, quickly becomes worthless.
If anything, property taxes could be considered ‘maintenance’, which is an inevitable part of ownership. Nobody likes paying for the maintenance work, but you have to, otherwise the house falls down.
You are claiming infrastructure can only be maintained by a government? That's a ridiculous assertion. Most of the work is outsourced to contractors. They are acting as mediocre project managers, not the masters of inscrutable infrastructure technology.
The state has a monopoly on certain types of infrastructure that it ultimately sustains through the threat of repossession. It uses that monopoly to racketeer property owners under the threat of repossessing their property.
If what you are claiming is true, then why does Malta have higher property values than countries with property tax?
I would agree to a property tax if the voting systems worked fairly at a sufficiently granular level, but they don't. They are farces maintained by criminal organizations beyond a certain scale.
You are part of a society. You exist and thrive because of that society. Otherwise you’d have had to fend for yourself: no healthcare, no education, no roads, no refuse collection, no security, etc. etc.
People who think they have no obligation to contribute to the running of society are delusional and utterly selfish.
I am assuming you’re American, because it is always Americans who have this selfish individualistic view of the world. Seemingly all cooperation or altruism is communism. It’s a national sickness.
Government exists to do the difficult things that individuals or corporations can’t or won’t do. Like build a road network, provide security, or educate the nation’s children (for all, not just you). They have the buying power of a nation, something an individual, local group, or company could t achieve. And they often have the legal authority to do things that individuals or companies cannot (compulsory purchase of land when building a railway or road, for example)
And the most effective way of paying for it is through a ‘national insurance scheme’ aka tax.
And honestly, who cares about Malta? That’s just blatant whataboutism. Malta is a country of 500,000 people. How they raise funds to pay for their infrastructure isn’t important. The point is, they have to do it one way or another. A tourist destination like Malta could be better off with a tourism tax (assuming there are more hotel rooms than residential properties). The end result is the same.
If you want a functioning society it is better to do it formally, rather than ad-hoc (for all but the smallest societies). Because otherwise the bureaucratic processes end up being repeated and become burdensome and in the worst cases descends into factionalism and tribalism. And the ad-hoc approach would certainly lead to inconsistency of provision. That can range from ‘a bit inconvenient’ to societal breakdown between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.
Is Government perfect? Of course not, but replacing it with an anarchic “I’m alright Jack” free-for-all is madness. It is better to work on the focus of what government is for and how to build the correct incentives for high performance.
You didn't read my post objectively. My point is that the current governments, with the exception of some local governments, do not represent or serve their constituencies; in fact, they actively subvert them. I'm assuming your European, that's especially true for you.
No, you are putting words in my mouth. I would gladly pay more taxes for representation that had me and my peoples' interests in mind. I'm not a libertarian idiot.
I did not know option + shift + hyphen produced an em dash. I've always used a double hyphen as a stand in -- as I did just now. LLMs don't do it and I haven't been accused yet. Though, more likely, I'm not popular enough for people to notice!
The overemphasis by critics on punctuation and "this not that" is tiring. I don't really know how to describe LLM writing but it has the same qualities as flat soda. Some authors you feel as though you fall through their work with little effort; unable to stop until gravity slams you into their conclusion. LLM writing can feel like an uphill hike to a sewage treatment plant. That is, its easy to convince yourself to stop at any time. There's a positive quality to that. I hope AI labs don't find a way to remove it.
True but I would also caveat that it may have been an open economic question back then (I don't know the state of the debate) and the personal-economics of slavery are unmistakable for the "lucky" few.
In moments like these I'm reminded of all the people who have committed suicide due to billing errors. This is completely unacceptable. These sorts of errors must _never_ happen.
Uh, they spent hundreds of billions to get their flag ship products blocked by a democratic body with no possibility of recovering their capital except by concession of the people's representative?
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