Avatar

jadero

jadero@lemmy.ca
Joined
3 posts • 700 comments

Just a Southern Saskatchewan retiree looking for a place to keep up with stuff.

Direct message

This is the closest thing to a solution they will find. It’s too late to switch leaders. That might have worked a few months after the last election, especially if it had been coupled with a bit quicker action on the expansion of Medicare.

Now it’s their turn to take one for the team. We’ve been voting liberal instead of our true preference in order to keep the Conservatives from destroying our country. Now they have to go hat in hand to the NDP and hammer out a different voting system and put it in place before the next election. If they don’t, the Conservatives will take power and it will be their fault.

permalink
report
parent
reply

My wife and I watched this last night. Our conclusion was that there a whole lot of really dumb-ass investors out there.

The main thesis is that small, basically useless units are built to satisfy the requirements of people hoping to either flip directly or to rent to cover the difference between finance cost and eventual market value. That is they are built to the demands of the investors, both institutional and private.

How bad of an investor do you have to be to be sinking money into a dwelling that nobody actually wants to live in? And how did we get so many of them that it’s impacting housing to this degree?

My opinion is that someone, somewhere has been running a con. A scheme where your market is not people who want a place to live, but people who are looking to make a profit by selling to others looking to make a profit.

Now the scheme has run its course and the most recent owners can’t get out because, surprise!, nobody actually wants to mortgage their very lives for a glorified closet.

permalink
report
reply

And the truly horrific part is that their advice further guts the civil service. That leaves us in a position where we have to hire fake experts as a substitute for the actual experts we used employ.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Forget all the “not actually first” and “misleading headline” stuff. If we can do this on donations, probably mostly from people only a paycheque away from needing a food bank themselves, imagine what we could do with an actual social system funded by properly taxing wealth, high income, and corporations. We could turn that headline into something approaching reality.

permalink
report
reply

I agree. I’m also not a huge fan of rebranding “military conscription” as “national service”. There have been people talking about “national service” in ways that specifically excluded military service. This feels like yet another case of the right stealing a term from the left and redefining it to suit themselves. It’s something they have been doing with national and religious symbols and slogans forever as a way to hide their true intentions.

One thing I find particularly concerning is that military conscription has generally been reserved for invasion or active defense. What are they not telling us?

permalink
report
parent
reply

Maybe if the mandatory service were installing fiber to rural areas the way we managed to get copper out there or dealing with infrastructure (especially water and schools) in Indigenous and remote communities. Maybe health care or emergency response.

But guns and bombs? No thanks.

Also, I’m old enough to be exempt by any rational measure. If it came to a vote, my vote shouldn’t be counted.

permalink
report
reply

I thought pensions and RRSPs were supposed to pay for retirement.

Housing is for living in. Maybe some small- and medium-sized business in rental housing because not everyone wants to own.

But investment commodity or retirement vehicle? Sounds dangerous!

permalink
report
reply

No doubt, but this isn’t about the general population, but someone who is supposed to be trained in the ways of making sure that they’re not leading kids too far astray.

permalink
report
parent
reply

But a basic understanding of the Israel/ Palestine conflict doesn’t include being able to recognize the borders of Israel/Palestine from a child’s art project.

Why not? I have only a high school education and some trade school, all before 1980, and have what it takes to not screw up like this. Surely a university educated person charged with the responsibility to guide our children through complex issues should be held to at least that standard.

permalink
report
parent
reply