The primary goal of this site is to provide mature, meaningful discussion about the Vancouver Canucks. However, we all need a break some time so this forum is basically for anything off-topic, off the wall, or to just get something off your chest! This forum is named after poster Creeper, who passed away in July of 2011 and was a long time member of the Canucks message board community.
Blob Mckenzie wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 11:11 am
Its all posturing probably but he took a shit on an entire country and his party is a bit reckless right now. Its one thing to insult Rosie but he is offside. And Im a right wing leaning person who wants Republican rule as they spin the economy. It does baffle me that so called red blooded Canadians think this is A-ok.
Am I a total idiot?? Could this country not sustain itself if we built a wall??
Based upon what we have, I'd say that yes we could be totally self-sufficient. As much as there is political grandstanding by Pierre in hi speech, Canada absolutely should be the wealthiest country in the world. The concessions we have made since WW2 in order to appease the US, as well as to indulge in our moronic social spending as a nation at the expense of our military and R&D, have set us back decades.
Right now we need the US. I think we could become economically independent from them in relatively short order because we have so much that the rest of the world needs. However our military is in shambles, and that will take probably a decade to fix because of how outdated our equipment has become.....and that can't be quickly replaced (2035 before we get our handful of new fighters) and even longer before our first new naval vessel is in the water.
Some of that could be accelerated by putting a shit ton of resources into our own manufacturing so that we're actually building our own shit.
Somewhere in NW BC trying (yet again) to trade a(nother) Swede…..
Alexander Mercouris has been discussing this situation on his webcast the last couple of days. He returned to the topic today in the first portion of the show before shifting to the Russo-Ukrainian war and other things.
Canada's Birdbones military is a fucking joke. 70,000 active when you have 40 million people?? Should be a minimum of 300,000 and start spending money on these people. They are heroes. Re instill the pride of the uniform.
Pull all the firefighters and equipment out of Califonia. Obviously they aren't going to build a wall but make it an extremely hostile border. Trump s the father of a draft dodger and while I find him highly amusing at times he is as paper tiger a bully as there is.
“I don’t care what you and some other poster were talking about”
In Trump’s first term, tariffs were used principally as a tool in international diplomacy rather than primarily economic policy in and of itself.
That’s what I’ve thought this round was, too, though there was a lot of nostalgia in the rhetoric for the days where tariffs were a primary revenue generator. Yet today’s response to Mexico indicates they are still being used as carrots and sticks, not economic or revenue policy. For Canada, the articulated concern we’ve heard down here is fentanyl and border control; I’ve not studied it enough to know (1) how much of a problem these things are and (2) whether there are low hanging fruit things Canada can do to address that it hasn’t done.
But I am fairly certain this is an arm twisting move. Sometimes arm twisting is done to extort a foreign nations policy in a way favorable to the US, sometimes because other nations are screwing the US (e.g., not living up to NATO commitment in terms of military spending).
Personally, I lean free trade for liberal economic theory reasons, and I would hope that things settle closer to there. But (1) we don’t always start from a free trade baseline (consider agriculture tariffs in EU for US products; consider subsidized production); (2) tariffs are a valid tool of diplomacy (less harsh than sanctions or embargos); (3) the subjects of diplomacy may have greater value than whatever inefficiencies are created by trade policy. (For example, Maybe you slap a big tariff on country’s with labor practices you think do not meet baseline norm, etc.). I strongly disagree that tariffs are an act of hostility or war—sanctions are hostile, embargos are acts of war.
Finally, the US does not owe any country, ally or not, an international trade arrangement that benefits the other country. That’s not to say I don’t think tariffs aren’t potentially self-destructive. I support free trade as solid economic theory. But it isn’t true that all nations are effected equally by tariffs; it would be far easier for the US to survive or outlast autarky (not that Trump’s proposing that, but it’s the extreme no trade policy) than, say, Singapore. That’s why tariffs work for the US as leverage. Whether the US ought to use this leverage for the reasons Trump says for tariffs being placed on each country is certainly up for debate, but I surely wouldn’t say that “it is always wrong to use leverage to advance your interest.” Absent economic policy, how does the US advance it’s interests? Diplomacy without showing leverage gets so far. But after economic policy it is military stuff. Some things aren’t worth losing money over, more things aren’t worth losing lives over, but let’s not pretend that superpowers spend all of the time and money and resources into obtaining that status and then think they won’t use it. There’s a cost to being a state that depends too much on others, and there are benefits as well. So it is.
Last observation: Trump is a realist in foreign policy terms, and he sees his obligations is to advance the interests of the USA. Of course he, like anyone, might calculate how to advance those interests wrong. But a word of advice—when dealing with this kind of man, don’t argue from a position of pathetic-ness (I.e., this will destroy us!) or lead with abstractions (Canada and the United States have always been friends and we should treat each other as friends). Instead, lead with “it is in the United States interests to do x, because y, and we will also benefit from this.” Or just get pragmatic and agree that cracking down on what’s already illegal in Canada (unlicensed fentanyl production) is a small price to pay for the free flow of goods between the borders.
Topper wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 11:12 am
10,000 Mexican troops to the border buys 30 days. I wonder if they will be armed by Project Gunrunner?
A big issue isn't loose control on the land border or the numbers crossing, it is who is crossing, It is who Canada lets in through the airports on student, temporary work and refugee claims that later cross into the US.
Youtube is chock full of pictures of turbaned gentlemen crossing the Canadian border into the US walking through the woods at night somewhere.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say the 25 percent tariff is intended to bloody Trudeau's nose and dissuade him of his open border fantasies. I would expect a ten percent tariff after the smoke clears to become standard for Canada, Mexico, China, the EU and most of the world. I guess we'll see, Trump is such a chaos bomb though, holy crap eh.
Interesting that this isn't bigger news than the (non)tariffs.
“Think of OPM and the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service as the valet sheds of the federal government. They’re not flashy or big, but they hold all the keys. OPM maintains the private information of federal civil servants—bank codes, addresses, insurance information, retirement accounts, employment records. The Treasury’s system processes every payment to everyone from grandmothers waiting for their Social Security check to cancer researchers working to crack the cure. Now there’s a ham-fisted goon [and his kids] in an ill-fitting valet attendant’s coat rummaging in broad daylight through all of the keys—all of that private information, previously given in trust, handled with care, and regulated by law.”
UWSaint wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 1:05 pm
UW's post.....
Good post UW. One of the things way too many Canadians (of the anti-Trump ilk) miss are that his job is by definition to put the USA first.
The USA does not owe anyone anything when it comes to economic treaties, you are right there for sure. However, the reverse is also true here. Canada does not owe the United States anything either. We have sold our energy to the America at cut-rate prices for years, but that is our own fault for not diversifying our international markets. This is both laziness as well as backroom politics and an incredibly naive electorate that gets sucked in by lobbyist groups pushing green agendas on behalf of US energy companies that don't want Canada to fully exploit our own resources. It might be almost economic suicide, but Canada could very much put North Eastern USA and California in the cold dark with a few flips of a switch. But that is the part of negotiation where you said, "it is the United States interests to do x...". It would hurt, but it would be the best thing for Canada in the long run. We would have to drop our own internal trade barriers between the provinces, as well as open up other markets internationally.....long term, Canada gets richer and stronger and the US probably gets poorer.
I also subscribe to the idea of free trade.....insomuch as I understand it. This situation is somewhat asinine, on both fronts. Canada and the US could be the strongest economic alliance in the world. We should be. However, Canada has freeloaded off of the US in too many areas and needs to grow up and stop being "little brother". We need to invest in our military. Currently we are below 1.5% GDP spending there, that should double. We should invest in border security and tighter immigration policies, I agree with the Donald that Canada is a problem for the US. Not because of our insanely long unguarded boarder, but because of who comes into Canada through our other borders and then more easily crosses in the US over that border. It is certainly on the US to keep the undesirables from crossing that border into the States, likewise it is on us to keep our own list of undesirables from coming north. In light of statements from our own political leaders here in Canada that call to attention the "good friend and ally" that we are to the US we certainly owe it to Americans to tighten up our other borders.
Somewhere in NW BC trying (yet again) to trade a(nother) Swede…..
Cornuck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 2:11 pm
Interesting that this isn't bigger news than the (non)tariffs.
“Think of OPM and the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service as the valet sheds of the federal government. They’re not flashy or big, but they hold all the keys. OPM maintains the private information of federal civil servants—bank codes, addresses, insurance information, retirement accounts, employment records. The Treasury’s system processes every payment to everyone from grandmothers waiting for their Social Security check to cancer researchers working to crack the cure. Now there’s a ham-fisted goon [and his kids] in an ill-fitting valet attendant’s coat rummaging in broad daylight through all of the keys—all of that private information, previously given in trust, handled with care, and regulated by law.”
That one is very disturbing. Open access to everyone's private info and competitors contracts.
Name the US car company that gets the most value from the destruction of the Canada-US auto pact?
Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.
I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.
BTW I have read in a couple of places that US AID was set up in Panama and was fascilitating the migrant flow through the Darien gap down there. According to a couple of reports the Darien has already started to dry up since Trump suspended the program.
Megaterio Llamas wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:24 pm
BTW I have read in a couple of places that US AID was set up in Panama and was fascilitating the migrant flow through the Darien gap down there. According to a couple of reports the Darien has already started to dry up since Trump suspended the program.
Scandalous, if true.
There's two kinds of USAID. One that's a progressive slush fund. The other that is a beard for the CIA. Not sure which these were....
They alsio organize and fund regime change operarions in places like Ukraine, Armenia, Syria, Georgia. You know, Color Revolutions. They are up to endless no good. I suspect Trump's angle is payback for them putting their antifa and BLM brown shirts on the streets to burn cities during his first presidency. Just speculation on my part of course.
Megaterio Llamas wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:09 pm
They alsio organize and fund regime change operarions in places like Ukraine, Armenia, Syria, Georgia. You know, Color Revolutions. They are up to endless no good. I suspect Trump's angle is payback for them putting their antifa and BLM brown shirts on the streets to burn cities during his first presidency. Just speculation on my part of course.
Fair point. Apparatchiks of CIA *or* State department.
