Trudeau is known by those who have met him to be not very bright. He's admittedly disnumeric and clearly has no interest in and almost no understanding of economics.
Glassnoser
2d ago
Well, Canada has a trade agreement with the US, for one thing. We're not asking the US to open its markets. We're asking them to keep them open as promised. We also didn't do anything to try to influence the US elections.
Glassnoser
2d ago
It will only bring down the government if the NDP decides, and they don't have anything to gain from it.
Glassnoser
2d ago
It's complicated because of the perverse incentives created by bad regulations. The people running the insurance companies don't have a choice. This is proven by their low profit margins. They're not doing this to become unfairly profitable. They're doing that to survive.
Health insurance companies have thin profit margins. If they want to get more money from them, they need to pay higher premiums. Why don't they? It seems like they're just buying cheap plans and complaining when they get cheap coverage.
Glassnoser
7d ago
Putting aside whether this is true or not the whole point of my post is that it doesn't matter since doctor salaries aren't the problem.
I don't see how they're not part fo the problem. If they increased the supply of doctors, they'd be cheaper and healthcare costs would go down.
The supply of doctors in the US is artificially constrained which means you can increase the supply of doctors while lowering salaries.
Up until that point you have no flexibility. You can’t leave your job or your life is over. You can’t choose where you live. If you get fired your life is over.
Why can't you change jobs? Every doctor in my family has done so at least once. Don't many doctors work for themselves at their own clinics?
Glassnoser
17d ago
There is no guarantee of this happening. Progress in AI could stagnate. I don't agree that very many jobs can be automated with today's technology. We may be close, but progress is already slowing down. There are a number of problems limiting progress that might not be overcome. Returns to scaling are starting to plateau, we're running out of data, and Moore's Law is coming to an end. It is definitely possible that we will find solutions to these problems and I know some think they've already found them, but nothing is guaranteed.
Glassnoser
17d ago
If something is self-evidently newsworthy, I don't see why any commentary needs to be included.
Glassnoser
17d ago
How legal was this? Did he have the power to do this and if so, what checks are there on this power? Now the the parliament voted to end martial law, is it over? Is that the proper mechanism for ending it? Do they have that power?
Glassnoser
17d ago
I read read somewhere that it works out to about $17,000 an hour.
Glassnoser
18d ago
Presumably many lawyers could have done that. Wouldn't it make more sense to pay them for the time and effort expended?
Glassnoser
18d ago
Following the logic as you've stated it, the pardon is valid if Hunter Biden didn't commit any federal crimes between the time the pardon was given and midnight last night.
Glassnoser
18d ago
Why did the plaintiffs' lawyers get so much money?
Glassnoser
1mo ago
I've heard Punjabis are wealthy because they own a lot of farmland.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
One or the other of us might move, and also, it's just interesting to know what the dating scene is like in different countries.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
As a white man who's used OkCupid's passport feature to match with people around the world, I've noticed it's really easy to get matches in certain parts of the world. Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, is incredibly easy. The vast majority of my likes are from there. It feels like I could date the entire country if I wanted to. The next is South America, particularly Brazil. It's easy to match with very beautiful women there. The last is East Africa.
Locally, I've noticed I tend to do well Indian women and Latinas, and to a lesser extent, Middle Eastern women.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
What's frustrating about Indians is their ubiquity combined with poor English skills. Tech forums are full of Indians answering questions with broken English that is painful to read and decipher. Call centres are staffed with Indians, many of whom mumble with thick accents and bad grammar.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
There is a reason why people kept this place heterogeneous for thousands of years.
What reason is that?
Glassnoser
1mo ago
Honda Odysseys? The mini-van? Here, they're known for driving Honda Civics.
I haven't really noticed it online, but I have noticed it in person. I live in a city that has received an enormous number of immigrants in a very short period of time, and they seem to be overwhelmingly from India, although some are from Africa and the Ukraine. This is a Canadian city that has not had much immigration since confederation. It used to be very white, with a small black population, a small indigenous population, and a very small population from elsewhere. The few Indian people we had tended to be very highly educated.
Very little changed here for a long time but it's now undergoing a rapid transformation. The population is booming, high rises are going up everywhere, rents are rapidly outgrowing incomes, and traffic congestion is getting really bad. People are blaming the immigrants, and Indians, with their dark complexions and jet black hair, really stand out. It seems like half the population dowtown is Indian now.
The other really visible change is that seemingly most low-skilled customer-facing jobs are now done by Indians. Almost every grocery store employee, Uber Eats driver, security guard, fast food restaurant worker, and call centre worker is Indian.
They're not really causing any serious problems, but there's beginning to be a bit of a backlash. People blame them for the high rents, and there is a belief that they're taking jobs better suited for teenagers when what we really need are doctors and tradesmen. This a very left-wing city with a strong norm against racism and I personally never witnessed much racism until recently, but a minority of people are starting to feel comfortable saying negative things about them and saying they should go back to India.
Much of this racism comes from Indians themselves though. They often don't like Indians from certain parts of India or from certain castes. Many think we're letting in too many or the wrong kinds. There seems to be a lot of conflict between different groups.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
With the economy running at full employment, I think the effect on the economy would actually be positive.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
As someone who has had two bosses before, I know it can be a complete disaster, especially when they have very different personalities and priorities.
Glassnoser
1mo ago
How does this work when the budget is set by Congress and many of these jobs are required by regulations that Congress would have to repeal? Is there just going to be a massive surplus and a government that doesn't enforce the law? What happens when things like permits that are required by law to do certain things aren't issued because the remaining staff can't keep up with the demand?
It seems to me that the first step should be changing the law so that the government isn't needed to do most of the things it currently does.
How can it be extractive if they're profiting so little from it?
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