Category: nannystate

Magic Money Trees

DigitalCurrency I, Napoleon nannystate 18 Comments

With talk of Universal Basic Income appearing to gain steam these days, one of the main objections is the sheer cost of the program. But one advocate of UBI claims to have the answer, and it lies in marrying UBI with its obvious philosophical twin: Modern Monetary Theory. In doing so, he manages to lay bare the utter nihilism behind both theories.

Okay, so you want to start your own country and create your own currency? Congratulations! What’s step one? …. Step one therefore is to create money out of nothing. Choose whatever you want. Want to use shells? Okay. Want to carve notches on rocks or sticks? Okay. Want to use dollar bills? Okay. Want to use ones and zeroes? Okay. Whatever you do, get that stuff to your people. After your people have money, tax some of it back. Don’t tax all of it back. That would leave nothing for them to use on goods and services in the private sector. Tax some percentage of it back. Congrats! You just ran a “deficit”, began your “national debt”, and gave your money value by requiring that people pay their taxes in your currency.

Losses For The Masses

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 5 Comments

Maybe central planning didn’t work at this time, but trust us, it will work at some point in the future. The question remains, why do we even have such a bank in the first place?

The head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank defended $900,000 spent on a now-cancelled power line project, arguing the project will ultimately get built and the due diligence the bank did was entirely reasonable.

The bank agreed in 2021 to offer a $655-million loan to the project and spent $900,000 on due diligence involving lawyers and outside experts. The project has since been suspended and the original owner sold its interest to another company. The loan did not go through, but the $900,000 had already been spent.

Pharma Pressure?

nannystate Quackery Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough 13 Comments

Suneel Dhand is a British physician who has been openly critical of pandemic policy in many a YouTube video and now focuses his critical eye on another common medical issue: blood pressure.

“I believe it’s absolutely ludicrous that we would have this one size fits all approach to blood pressure [of ] 120 over 80.”

“Every passing year the guidance from the medical establishment gets more and more aggressive and on many levels this is a complete money grab…”

 

Taxing Measures

entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 18 Comments

Boston is certainly not the first city to hit the wall of declining commercial property values, and it won’t be the last. The cheering was widespread when everyone worked from home during the pandemic, but now that many of those jobs have disappeared and downtowns are filling up with the homeless, there’s simply not enough commercial tenants left to fill the gap.

A recent report by the Boston Policy Institute found the city may lose $1.4 billion in tax revenue over the next five years due to empty office spaces. Boston could also face a recurring shortfall of about $500 million each year after that first half-decade, the report found.

In a sane world, the solution would be to cut spending and align it with revenue. But in the insane Keynesian universe, the “solution” is to tax the remaining commercial property owners even harder than they already are. I can’t imagine any negative consequences arising from that, can you?

The measure would give the city the flexibility to temporarily shift more of the property tax levy onto commercial and industrial property owners. If approved, new tax rates would only go into effect if commercial valuations come in low as expected, Wu said.

Odd Behaviour

Canada’s Bolsheviks Juxtapose! nannystate 15 Comments

Manitoba’s NDP government is doing something that’s seemingly out of character: they’ve slashed a spending item by 50%. The opposition Tories are critical of that move, but for the wrong reasons. If they were real conservatives, they would demand to know why the government stopped at a 50% cut.

The provincial government has set funding for park-related capital investments at $6.8 million in its first budget, delivered Tuesday. That’s down from about $12.7 million last year, when the PCs were in power.

“It’s obvious this government doesn’t value parks, the experiences they provide or the tourism dollars they bring to the province,” [Conservative MLA] Nesbitt said during question period.

The MLA for Riding Mountain told reporters later on Thursday that Manitobans and other visitors to the province’s parks will all be disappointed by the funding cuts.

Zero Income Earners

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 21 Comments

The emergence of another casualty of California’s decision to hike the minimum wage to $20 per hour comes as no surprise to anyone who understands basic economics: the real minimum wage is actually zero.

When making their way to work Monday morning, Navarro and her team learned upon arrival that the restaurant owner had made the decision to close its doors for good. The owner, Loren Wright, told local Fox affiliate KMPH that this was the “last thing” they wanted to do, but knew by Friday night the business likely wouldn’t be able to absorb the wage hike…

“And those who are still working in the areas around us that went up to $20 an hour, they got their hours severely cut.”

The New Police State

Freespeechers It's Probably Nothing nannystate Surveillance State 52 Comments

Not only can the Scottish police now charge you with “hate speech” on a wide variety of topics, but they can do so based on criteria that drops any  and all pretense of objectivity. It seems that for Scots the best way to avoid prison would be to tape their mouths shut and abandon social media.

Asked whether “misgendering” someone or making a comment about their religion would be a crime the minister replied: “This will be up to Police Scotland. I wouldn’t say misgendering if you say something on social media for example it would be up to Police Scotland to determine.”

Rest assured, however, the police will move heaven and earth to investigate such “high level” crimes:

Just last month the national force said it was no longer able to investigate every “low level” crime, including some cases of theft and criminal damage.

It has, however, pledged to investigate every hate crime complaint it receives.

Tax Me Harder!

Cronies Media nannystate 39 Comments

The last thing any municipal ratepayer in this country needs is for their city to gain the ability to get their hands on your income. Income taxes are outrageously high as it is and adding another predatory level of government into the mix will only make that worse. But that doesn’t stop socialist think tanks from proposing such nonsense, which is then uncritically regurgitated by the leftist corporate media.

Macdonald believes the City of Vancouver alone could net a further $100 million annually if it could collect a one per cent tax on annual incomes over $56,000.

Conservative in Name Only

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 36 Comments

If even a conservative government can rack up this kind of debt, there’s no comfort in knowing that a liberal government would rack it up even faster. There’s virtually no political constituency for smaller government left anywhere on the planet, perhaps with the exception of Argentina.

Ontario is delaying its path to balance as lethargic economic growth drags the province’s books further into the red, with a $9.8-billion budget deficit projected for the coming fiscal year.

The deficit for 2024-25 is almost double what the province projected in the fall economic update. That document had also eyed a return to surplus the following year, which was already delayed a year from the 2023 budget. Bethlenfalvy now projects that a small surplus will not happen until 2026-27. In 2025-26, the deficit is forecast to be $4.6 billion.

I Want A New Country

nannystate Surveillance State 44 Comments

RCMP- Saskatchewan RCMP begin Mandatory Alcohol Screenings (MAS) on routine traffic stops

In 2018, the MAS became part of the Criminal Code Section 320.27(2), being a lawful demand of a breath sample from any driver of a motor vehicle, without the need for reasonable suspicion. Drivers will not be pulled over for the sole purpose of completing a MAS – the MAS will only be requested once a driver is pulled over for other various traffic violations (i.e. speeding, careless driving, brake lights not working, etc.).

The Broken Record

Chief Big Screen TV nannystate We Are All Treaty People 18 Comments

You could erase the dates in this article and aside from the monetary amounts there would be no way to tell whether it was written today or 5, 10, 20 or 50 years ago. No half-awake thinker need be perpetually stumped as to why an economic system premised on the Soviet model doesn’t suddenly produce great outcomes. Note to Canada’s developers of aboriginal policy: stop banging your head against the wall.

“Time after time, whether in housing, policing, safe drinking water or other critical areas, our audits of federal programs to support Canada’s Indigenous Peoples reveal a distressing and persistent pattern of failure,” Hogan said at a press conference Tuesday.

“The lack of progress clearly demonstrates that the government’s passive, siloed approach is ineffective, and, in fact, contradicts the spirit of true reconciliation.”

It’s the fourth time since 2003 that the auditor general has held the government responsible for unsafe and unsuitable First Nations housing.

Mercantilist Pensions

Cronies More Money Than Brains nannystate 25 Comments

Rather than tackle the pressing question as to why pension funds have decreased the their investments in Canada from 28% in 2000 to 3% today, a gaggle of milquetoast business leaders is demanding that Ottawa force those pension funds to invest within Canada despite lower returns. It’s as if these Wesley Mouch types believe that a depressed business climate is an unalterable fact of nature.

Government has the right, responsibility and obligation to regulate how this savings regime operates,” says the letter signed by dozens including BlackBerry Ltd founder Jim Balsillie, Metro Inc. chief executive Eric La Flèche, the CEOs of telecommunications companies Telus Corp., Rogers Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc., and former Bank of Nova Scotia and Air Canada CEOs Brian Porter and Calin Rovinescu.

“We think the government does have some right to have an influence over the regime” in which these large funds operate, he said. “But we’re not suggesting the government tells these pension funds exactly where to invest.”

The Part I Like Best

Great Moments In Socialism nannystate 7 Comments

About Safe Supply programs is the way it gets drugs off the street and squeezes organized crime out of the trafficking business.

“We have noted an alarming trend over the last year in the amount prescription drugs located during drug trafficking investigations, noting they are being used as a form of currency to purchase more potent, illicit street drugs. Organized crime groups are actively involved in the redistribution of safe supply and prescription drugs, some of which are then moved out of British Columbia and resold. The reselling of prescription drugs significantly increases the profits realized by Organized Crime,” states Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, Media Relations Officer for the Prince George RCMP.

Fire Sale!

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 33 Comments

If a privately run pension fund made these kinds of investment blunders, it probably wouldn’t be long for this world. But if the state pension does it, presumably they can just up the contributions from their captive audience.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has done three deals at discounted prices, selling its interests in a pair of Vancouver towers, a business park in Southern California and a redevelopment project in Manhattan, with the New York stake offloaded for the eyebrow-raising price of just US$1.

Around the same time, CPPIB sold its 45 per cent stake in Santa Monica Business Park, which the fund also owned with Boston Properties, for US$38 million. That’s a discount of almost 75 per cent to what CPPIB paid for its share of the property in 2018.

 

Your Criminal Future

It's Probably Nothing nannystate Surveillance State 21 Comments

The notion of prior restraint, or the idea that a person can be sanctioned today for a crime that he has not yet committed, but might commit in the future, just got a whole new lease on life in Canada. This idea gained traction during the pandemic when people were forced to quarantine despite the absence of any evidence that they were carrying Covid, so it’s not surprising to see some innovative totalitarians finding new uses for evil ideas.

Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already.

The person could be made to wear an electronic tag, if the attorney-general requests it, or ordered by a judge to remain at home, the bill says.

Compliance Costs

Cronies entitlement generation nannystate 14 Comments

If I were a Minnesotan, supposedly I would sleep at lot easier at night knowing that the state was ready to protect me from all those unscrupulous house painters out there.

The legislation, which was posted online February 15, would restrict the “sale of certain solvent-based paint materials to licensees; [establish] a paint contractor board; [and require] licensing for paint contractors and journeyworker painters.”

So regardless of their motivations, Minnesota lawmakers are at best offering an immoral “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist. At worst, they are weaponizing the law to benefit special interests.

A Dragon No More?

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 6 Comments

After the death of Mao, China’s embrace of free markets sparked one of the largest economic booms the 20th century has ever seen. But is China now in regress as the communist party tries to widen its control over the economy?

Xi expects business as well as people to serve the CCP. As authoritarian controls metastasize throughout the economy, everyone suffers. For instance, even foreign enterprises now must accommodate party cells. The Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei reported on a Chinese “official, one of several who had helped introduce Western-style stock trading to China,” who cited “a worrisome trend of the party inserting itself more into companies’ affairs by pressuring them to accept Communist Party committees in their offices. ‘The whole thing about getting listed companies to set up party committees,’ he said, ‘is a reversal of what we had tried to do’.”

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