Category: nannystate

Doomsdays

entitlement generation nannystate 16 Comments

The term “doom loop” very accurately describes what is going on in Argentina right now. Despite the chaos gripping the economy, voters seem to be somewhat favoring the Peronist candidate who pledges to keep the free stuff flowing along with the resultant chaos as opposed to a fan of Von Mises and Hayek who would institute widespread free market reforms and stop the collapse.

Demonstrating a doom-loop in which crises caused by big government prompt citizens to increase their demands for for big government, a bricklayer en route to the voting booth told Reuters, “Peronism is the only space that offers the possibility that the poorest of us can have basic things at our fingertips.”

I can think of a few other nations on that same path. Can you?

You can take that to the bank!

Basic Dictatorship Cronies nannystate 17 Comments

Now that the Liberals are all done with the task of lowering grocery prices, they’re going to make sure that Canadians get better, more cost-effective service when they deal with a bank. I’m certain that a government which has zero interest in balancing a budget is well-suited to micromanaging your bank. What could possibly go wrong?

Freeland says she has instructed the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to work on making more no-fee and low-cost bank accounts available to Canadians.

Finance Canada is also being tasked with taking a look at reducing bank fees, such as charges when a check bounces back.

 

Flushing capital

entitlement generation nannystate 20 Comments

Rising compliance costs are one big reason for the sharp increase in housing and construction prices, and while some levels of government express concern and desire to lower those costs, other jurisdictions can’t wait to saddle builders with even bigger burdens.

B.C. construction projects with more than 25 workers must have access to a flushable toilet, according to a law to be introduced by Premier David Eby.

Dreary old England

Freespeechers nannystate 43 Comments

The Twitter post doesn’t mention penalties, but a hate crime is, well, a hate crime. The city of London is watching you….

Rambling word salads

Children R Our Future I, Napoleon nannystate There Goes The Narrative 59 Comments

After listening to this fool trying to explain what she saw during the Ottawa protest, you have to come to the conclusion that the last place Tamara Lich and Chris Barber should be is in a courtroom being subjected to this circus. There’s a crucial difference between describing events that you actually saw as opposed to describing events that you imagined that you saw.

“I didn’t feel safe but it’s hard to describe it as unsafe at the same time…”

“…when they’re bouncing their trucks and their cars…..[long pause]…..I don’t know how to describe it other than roaring at us…like, roaring at me with these large giant vehicles…”

Healthy Options

nannystate Protected Class 58 Comments

Robert Graboyes;

For many years, I asked roomfuls of doctors and nurses how employers might help stanch Americans’ rapid increase in obesity. Their answers usually fit this cloistered stereotype:

“My office had a walkathon competition.”

“My company opened a gymnasium for employees.”

“My employer pays 50 percent of gym membership costs.”

“We have twice-weekly yoga classes in the boardroom.”

“Human Resources offers wellness classes.”

“Our cafeteria offers healthy options.”

Ask the same medical professionals what the government and other employers ought to do to fight obesity, and the answers reflexively veered toward “encourage or require employers to do all those things my employer does.”

The problem is that many of America’s most serious health problems reside in people whose lives and jobs do not remotely resemble those of healthcare professionals or policy-shapers.

Fool me once….

nannystate Safe and Effective Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough 22 Comments

Three years ago, the principle of informed consent was unceremoniously dumped as a guidepost for public health matters. Most of the population seemed to have nearly limitless confidence in those who employed central planning to manage a pandemic response. Despite the subsequent train wreck, we are still seeing many individuals professing shock that they have been misled, once again.

When Brad MacLeod visited a pharmacy in Ancaster last week to get a COVID-19 vaccination, he was quite pleased. It was his sixth shot. But that happiness turned to alarm the next morning when MacLeod checked his vaccine certificate and realized he had received the same bivalent COVID-19 shot he received last November instead of the one he wanted — the new monovalent vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 subvariant.

And who knew that the U of T has a Faculty of Information?

“There’s so much confusion around emerging variants and new vaccines and which protects against which that it’s very difficult for experts to stay abreast of what’s going on,” said Colin Furness, assistant professor with the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information…

Milking consumers

Alternative Subsidy Cronies entitlement generation nannystate 35 Comments

I suggest we go one step further: simply close down supply mismanagement and end the marketing boards altogether.

Ban all the things!

Freespeechers Media nannystate 52 Comments

The fact that we are now living in a world in which innovation in social media has fostered an asymmetric system with zero barriers to entry is something to be celebrated, not decried. That won’t stop media dinosaurs like Andrew Coyne, however, from pining for the “good old days” when authority figures with sufficient financial resources could just prevent people from seeing information they didn’t like.

I have a suggestion for Andrew: instead of labelling ideas you disagree with as disinformation and branding their proponents as lunatics, get busy and offer some counter arguments. Maybe the reason you feel defeated is because your arguments are ineffective, non-existent or just plain wrong. It is also possible to offer a bad argument in favor of a good idea. Let that sink in.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1710461278957760892

Bread lines for all

Great Moments In Socialism nannystate 62 Comments

This gambit could go one of two ways: either the government quietly forgets about it in a few months, or they become indignant with the lack of “progress” and impose price controls. I don’t think anything is really off the table at this point.

Champagne said the federal government is establishing a “grocery task force” within the Office of Consumer Affairs that will be focused on monthly monitoring of grocers’ commitments and actions taken by others in the food industry.

Champagne said plans are still in the works to establish a grocery “code of conduct” to support fairness and transparency in the sector, and to create a new food price “data hub” to allow better access to information about the price of food in Canada.

Naivete mindedness

nannystate Safe and Effective Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 8 Comments

As SDA readers are well aware of, any conservative or libertarian who challenges popular narratives on almost any topic is bound to be branded a conspiracy theorist these days. In this talk, Dr. Philip McMillan notes that academia seems to be going all out to create new terms like “conspiracy mindedness” in an effort to attack ideas that they don’t like. In rebuttal, he proposes a new term that deserves to gain some traction: naivete mindedness.

“It would be very interesting if they did a similar conspiracy theory scale looking at a naivete mindedness scale so they look at the opposite end: those people who don’t question anything, who go along completely with what they’re told even if what they’re told doesn’t necessarily make sense… that’s the naivety minded sense and it would be interesting to see what the outcomes of those kinds of research would be anyway.”

Athletes for Totalitarianism!

CFL nannystate Surveillance State 48 Comments

It’s hard to say. Maybe he missed the football once or twice and kicked himself in the head. Even if he didn’t, he ought to be aware that one of the few things putting a barrier between this country and a dictatorship is the free exchange of ideas over the internet. Take down that barrier and we’re essentially done like dinner.

Stating the obvious

Great Moments In Socialism Let Them Eat Taser nannystate 39 Comments

When you see media articles puzzling over how the pandemic seems to have made society less civil, you just have to wonder how brain dead someone must be not to have seen this coming.

A lot has happened in the time since March 2020, and some Canadians feel that one of the characteristics the country used to be known for – kindness – may no longer be an accurate stereotype.

They’ve turned to social media to ask whether anyone else has noticed society being “increasingly unkind” and “disrespectful” since the pandemic.

CTV is soliciting opinions in regard to this problem, but it’s unlikely anyone who strays from the narrative is going to see their thoughts publicized.

Voting for dollars

entitlement generation nannystate Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough 34 Comments

Any predictions out there as to who is going to triumph in the Manitoba provincial election being held on October 3rd?

Here’s mine: The tax and spend party is going to win out over the borrow and spend party.

Here’s why: voters are upset that seven years of rule by the borrow and spend party have not fixed socialized medicine. As happens in every election cycle, each party takes a stab at trying to make this centrally planned system function. It’s now the NDP’s turn to engage in a vain effort to accomplish the impossible. No one dares challenge the single payer model since that would result in electoral defeat.

Wab Kinew’s plan to reopen the ERs closed by the Tories is only going to happen by shifting staff from other areas, since extra staff are largely unobtainable. If you really want to determine the proper number of ERs that Manitoba needs, you would have to allow free interaction between health care practitioners and consumers in the context of a system with actual price signals. Since we have neither, good luck to Wab.

No profits for you!

entitlement generation Great Moments In Socialism nannystate 19 Comments

One really has to wonder why any investor would ever sink a dime into France.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday the government would ask the fuel industry to sell at cost price and would grant 100 euros ($106.52) in aid to the poorest workers who drive to work, to stem the impact of inflation on households.

“The Prime Minister will bring together all the players in the sector this week and we will ask them to sell at cost price, that is to say that no one makes a margin,” Macron said in an interview with France’s TF1 and France 2 television stations.

 

The Milquetoast Party

Cronies nannystate 56 Comments

In Weimar Germany there was a political party, the Democrats, whose motto was “Nothing will sway us from the middle road”. By creating a party based on the non-concept of “moderation”, however, they wound up helping to build a society that embraced outright statism. It seems that history is rhyming again in Canada. Hopefully, voters won’t fall for it.

Canadian Future is the brainchild of Centre Ice Canadians, formerly known as Centre Ice Conservatives. It was founded in April 2022 when it became clear that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had a huge lead in the Conservative leadership race. They preposterously claimed the party was moving too far to the right, and desired a supposedly more moderate political alternative.

Radical centrists are more naturally at home with the Liberals, NDP, Greens and others on the political left. How do they expect to gain support in an even more crowded political field? With ex-Conservatives at the helm, and policies on trade, democracy, the environment and health care that wouldn’t sway many left-leaning Canadians, I have no earthly idea.

Soviet food systems

Alternative Subsidy Democrats nannystate 14 Comments

With rampant crime infesting so many inner cities in North America, is it really any wonder that large retailers are exiting those environs? Responding with a proposal for state-owned food stores is about as far from a solution as you could possibly get, but these days it seems to be par for the course.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he wants to open city-owned grocery stores to serve neighborhoods that have become “food deserts” after four Walmart stores and a Whole Foods closed.

Johnson announced last week that his administration would partner with the nonprofit advocacy group Economic Security Project to put stores in underserved areas of the city — a proposal Republicans called something out of “Soviet-style central planning.“

The ethics of emergencies

Alternative Subsidy Cronies It's Probably Nothing nannystate Subsidy Fraud Boy 10 Comments

The misappropriation of millions of dollars is a feature, not a bug, of systems guided by short-term, “emergency” thinking. Or rather, a complete lack of thinking.

Rai led a “fraudulent scheme” targeting the hotel and PHAC officials, according to the statement of claim, telling the other owners the government was taking over the entire hotel but only paying for 100 rooms — when he had actually negotiated government payment for all 247 rooms.

It’s alleged he misappropriated the revenue difference of those 147 rooms: at least $15.7 million.

The sky is falling! This time we mean it!

Cronies Insufferable Twits Media nannystate 19 Comments

Friends of Canadian Socialism….oh, wait, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, says that Canadians ought to boycott Instagram and Facebook essentially for complying with the edicts of the Trudeau government. The first thing that popped into my mind when I read this is, “Are these dinosaurs still around?” I remember their frantic assertions in the early 1980s that Canadian TV would soon be destroyed by cable TV due to the boogeyman of “audience fragmentation”. That was, of course, prior to satellite TV and long before streaming services even existed.

The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting group is asking people to stop posting content on Meta’s platforms on Aug. 23 and 24.

The group says the move is meant to show that Canadians won’t be pushed around by Meta, which decided to pull news from Canadian publishers from its platforms in response to legislation that recently passed.

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