Corporate taxes used to cover over 30% of government revenue, it's 10% now. The top marginal income tax rate peaked in the 1960s at somewhere around 80% on income exceeding ~3M/year (today's money). We've had 4 decades of tax cuts while the cost of delivering services has increased more or less with the inflation rate. Private equity funds now have favourable tax treatment, and stock buybacks, previously considered illegal stock manipulation is a common practice. And so on and so forth.

If you want what you had, you have to do what you did.

Positive feedback loops, how do they work?

We've known about this for decades. An example: heating causes permafrost to melt releasing CO2 and methane, which cause more heat to be trapped, which melts more permafrost, which releases more green house gasses, etc.

Positive feedback loops tend to be very unstable, and can lead to runaway situations.

This is no different from the widespread adoption of electric clothes dryers, water heaters or domestic home air conditioning. Electrical distribution is never static.

It's a summertime poll in a non-election year. It's about as useless as tits on a fish.

"Speed costs, how fast can you afford to go?" Doesn't matter if it's cars, motorcycles, trains or sailboats. It's not a linear increase either.

Having said that, what I'd love to see is all fixed rail infrastructure turned over to a non-profit corporation. Private or public rail companies with the rolling stock would pay fees to run trains on given schedules controlled by the infrastructure company, with priority given to passenger trains. The fees would be enough to cover the costs of rail maintenance and expansion.

With railways open to anyone with rolling stock, competition is increased. Exclusive routes would be eliminated, which would help reduce freight rates.

Over time, separate passenger rail lines would be developed, at least partially subsidized by fees on the freight companies, as passenger rail typically has very thin margins.

The referendum on Berlin expropriating 240,000 residential properties from corporate ownership. Something to consider.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/29/berlin-vote-landlords-referendum-corporate

Back when I was in junior high in the early 1980s, I found a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my father's bookshelf, and started reading it. I can't remember how far I got into it, but I do remember thinking it was just awful in just about every way: story, writing, pacing, everything.

I asked Dad about it, "Oh, that. It's terrible, isn't it?" A friend had given it to him. Neither one of us finished reading it and after that it ended up at a book reseller.
On the plus side, he'd gone through his books and gave me James Clavell's Shogun to read, which was an awesome novel.

Setting aside the Earth vs moon mistake, much like religion, this is an illusion that uses a human creation to explain a natural phenomenon.

Cool photo though.

This type of harassment is as likely to gain Trudeau sympathy and/or support as not. The 'bozo factor' had sunk Conservative fortunes in the past and seems set to do an encore.

I suspect that that would never occur to these smooth-brain, Facebook-addled idiots.

I'm not a fan of Trudeau, nor the Liberal party in general, but it's about what I'm left with following the collapse of the Conservatives into the abyss of populist willful ignorance and downright, abject stupidity.

I do begrudgingly agree with John Baird on Trudeau being pretty successful overall. I've voted for him before, and it looks like I'll do it again.

At one point we had a remote office in a bank. One of my coworkers, W, had a pretty severe intestinal condition.

Anyway, I'm using the facilities, and one of the bankers comes in and heads to a stall. His phone rings while he's in there, which he answers. It's obviously a work call.

By this time, I'm heading over to wash my hands, just as W slams open the door with an panicked look. He violently shoulders open a stall, drops trousers, and unleashes just an absolutely unholy flume of waste, accompanied by a couple of mercy flushes.

"Uh, I'll call you back".

I'm assuming lessons were learned that day.

Legally, saying 'sorry' is not an admission of guilt in Canada, but a thumbs up is enough to agree to a contract.

Glad the judiciary is keeping us on our toes.

The "move fast and break stuff" techbro ethic might not work so well with pressure vessels.