President Donald Trump's United States of America

[Towered]

View attachment 631046

No way am I giving up Lays chips!

 

[Richard White]

And then there are US companies that employ a lot of people in Canada -- do we put their jobs at risk?

Auto Manufacturer, Pepsi/Coke to name a few. Even Google, Meta and Amazon have staff here.

Also.. to all those people who are closing their Amazon accounts in protest I say this. Look me in the eye and tell me you are not just doing it out of spite because we both know you ain't getting off the couch to go to walmart.

 

[zang]

It is broken. But it's just a joke to think that if the provinces won't agree to some sort of national scheme to harmonize regulation, they'd agree to be part of the EU. It's funny to joke about Canada being part of the EU, but I saw some people commenting who seem to think it's something serious that is actually an option in terms of reducing our dependency on the US.

The last I checked, the being a member of the EU doesn't mean a country needs to be homogenous. We already make exceptions and follow specific regulations for export, and recognize courts outside of Canada (the I.C.C. and I.C.o.J.). Explain to me how it would be so different?

Per StatsCan, the biggest trade "barrier" in Canada is transportation cost. Only ¼ of respondents consider it a major problem. Outside of renationalizing rail and air transport here (which honestly, should never have been privatized in the first place), transportation costs won't change dramatically even if all regulatory barriers were removed.

Transportation cost and availability top obstacle for businesses conducting interprovincial trade​

Among businesses that sold goods or services to customers or purchased goods or services from suppliers in another province or territory over the last 12 months, over half (52.1%) reported that they encountered some obstacles. More than two in five (41.3%) businesses cited transportation cost and availability as a challenge, by far the most commonly faced obstacle, followed by distance between point of origin and destination reported by 10.9% of businesses. In fact, transportation cost and availability was the most commonly faced obstacle for businesses engaged in interprovincial trade across all industries, with over half of businesses in construction (57.6%); agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (53.3%); retail trade (52.6%) as well as in wholesale trade (51.8%) experiencing this challenge over the last 12 months. On the other hand, nearly half (47.9%) of all businesses reported that they did not encounter any obstacles when conducting interprovincial trade
[…]
When looking at the level of impact challenges related to transportation cost and availability had on the ability of businesses to conduct interprovincial trade, nearly three in four (71.5%) businesses reported it as a major or moderate obstacle.

Analysis on interprovincial trade in Canada, third quarter of 2023

From the beginning of July to early August 2023, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions to better understand the current environment that businesses in Canada are operating in and their expectations moving forward. Part of the survey collected data from businesses...

www150.statcan.gc.ca

The second biggest barrier is lack of interest or local-only interest, which invariably comes down to marketing budget for those whose product doesn't fall into the category of "has to be fresh".

Again, most of what this current talk is about is literally the difference between regulations set by the provinces and pertain to the provinces. Most of these "new" barriers are related to safety (truck weights, safety equipment and the like). The only group likely to benefit will be large corporations and logistics companies who don't want to say, have to outfit their trucks travelling to Quebec with snow tires or worse yet want to move to a province with lower safety requirements and ship from there instead. Reducing these barriers will literally reintroduce old safety concerns. Corporations will save a few dollars to turn around and say "look, growth!" while using saved money for dividends or stock buybacks.

And in case you haven't noticed, the EU tends to (sometimes stupidly, as is the case with GMOs) err on the side of safety, not against it.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as Trump’s health chief after a close Senate vote​

Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, was the only “no” vote among Republicans.

From https://www.thestar.com/news/world/united-states/vaccine-skeptic-robert-f-kennedy-jr-is-confirmed-as-trumps-health-chief-after-a-close/article_cc8b281f-2865-5370-94b7-d5141117b620.html

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country.

Nearly all Republicans fell in line behind Trump despite hesitancy over Kennedy views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to elevate the scion of one of America’s most storied political — and Democratic — families to secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Democrats unanimously opposed Kennedy.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, was the only “no” vote among Republicans, mirroring his stands against Trump’s picks for the Pentagon chief and director of national intelligence.

“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said in a statement afterwards. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”

The rest of the GOP, however, has embraced Kennedy’s vision with a directive for the public health agencies to focus on chronic diseases such as obesity.

“We’ve got to get into the business of making America healthy again,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, adding that Kennedy will bring a “fresh perspective” to the office.

Kennedy, 71, whose name and family tragedies have put him in the national spotlight since he was a child, has earned a formidable following with his populist and sometimes extreme views on food, chemicals and vaccines.

His audience only grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Kennedy devoted much of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode trust in vaccines as well as the government agencies that promote them.

With Trump’s backing, Kennedy insisted he was “uniquely positioned” to revive trust in those public health agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes for Health.

Last week, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he hoped Kennedy “goes wild” in reining in health care costs and improving Americans’ health. But before agreeing to support Kennedy, potential holdout Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a doctor who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, required assurances that Kennedy would not make changes to existing vaccine recommendations.

During Senate hearings, Democrats tried to prod Kennedy to deny a long-discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. Some lawmakers also raised alarms about Kennedy financially benefiting from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.

Kennedy made more than $850,000 last year from an arrangement referring clients to a law firm that has sued the makers of Gardasil, a human papillomavirus vaccine that protects against cervical cancer. If confirmed as health secretary, he promised to reroute fees collected from the arrangement to his son.

Kennedy will take over the agency in the midst of a massive federal government shakeup, led by billionaire Elon Musk, that has shut off — even if temporarily — billions of taxpayer dollars in public health funding and left thousands of federal workers unsure about their jobs.

On Friday, the NIH announced it would cap billions of dollars in medical research given to universities and cancer being used to develop treatments for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Kennedy, too, has called for a staffing overhaul at the NIH, FDA and CDC. Last year, he promised to fire 600 employees at the NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research.

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Can expect to see the graph line for United States to go down.

 

[Richard White]

Can expect to see the graph line for United States to go down.

Is that a bad thing?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Is that a bad thing?

Guess that would save money for the USA, "reducing the surplus population".

 

[Richard White]

Guess that would save money for the USA, "reducing the surplus population".

Have you not seen the movie Jackass or Duck Dynasty?

They are already finding ways to reduce the surplus population.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

Those lists are problematic because what defines made in Canada? 100% Canadian products produced, manufactured, packaged etc all in Canada? And then there are US companies that employ a lot of people in Canada -- do we put their jobs at risk? Plenty of shades of grey to contend with, and people are busily virtue signalling and arguing about it everywhere.

I tend to agree. But at the end of the day here we know whose feet to lay the blame here. As if it wasn’t for that Orange Loompa we wouldn’t be even be having this conversation. /sigh

 

[PinkLucy]

It would have been great to be buying Canadian and supporting local all along. The increased patriotism is fine, but the judgment over getting a coffee at Starbucks vs Tim Hortons annoys me. If you point out that Tim’s isn’t Canadian owned, you are reminded that they employ thousands of Canadians. Well, so does Starbucks. And on it goes. It’s complicated, and ultimately people will do what works best for them. For many, it comes down to what they can afford, and they shouldn’t be made to feel like bad Canadians for it.

Hurrah for the orange one for uniting us somewhat, but thumbs down to the accompanying judgment.

 

[goreckm]

It would have been great to be buying Canadian and supporting local all along. The increased patriotism is fine, but the judgment over getting a coffee at Starbucks vs Tim Hortons annoys me. If you point out that Tim’s isn’t Canadian owned, you are reminded that they employ thousands of Canadians. Well, so does Starbucks. And on it goes. It’s complicated, and ultimately people will do what works best for them. For many, it comes down to what they can afford, and they shouldn’t be made to feel like bad Canadians for it.

Hurrah for the orange one for uniting us somewhat, but thumbs down to the accompanying judgment.

I mean sure. But if we don't show unity now and increase pain for Americans, and diversify our economy, the long-term economic consequences will do a lot more than make Canadians feel bad. It seems like we'll have to put up with an ever escalating set of shake downs from Trump, or enter a trade war that will likely result in almost no trade happening between our two countries. Irregardless of sovereignty, I don't think many Canadians would enjoy a significantly diminished quality of life that will occur. Also, are we going to want to consume any food coming from the US after they gut their regulations? We should probably beef up our regulatory agencies to examine anything coming from the US with increased vigilance.

 

[lenaitch]

Outside of renationalizing rail and air transport here (which honestly, should never have been privatized in the first place), transportation costs won't change dramatically even if all regulatory barriers were removed.

We never did have nationalized rail and air transport; we had one state-run carrier in each, competing with other, for-profit carriers. The inescapable reality, in transportation and many other things, is it is more costly to support a network of anything in a country that is only a percent or two larger than the US but has roughly 12% of the population.

 

[lenaitch]

Hence why our system is so broken.

At some point we may need to look at rejigging the jurisdiction of alot of things. Interprovincial trade and healthcare spending should be a federal issue not provincial while other things like policing should be left up to the provinces (think RCMP providing local services).

I'm not so sure it is "broken" as opposed to being the nature of a federation with sub-national governments. I guess it would have been nice if they had done a better job of clarifying and updating the distribution of powers in Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Acts but it seems they had enough trouble finding agreement on the new 1982 bits.

All nations with sub-national governments cede some state authority to them. How they are distributed depends on founding legislation and how their courts interpret it. Healthcare as we know it isn't even mentioned in the Constitution even through it existed in 1982. I suppose it could be uploaded solely to the federal government by agreement to the transfer of taxation points, but I would have to be convinced how that would make anything better.

Trade and commerce, including inter-provincial, already are a federal jurisdiction under the Constitution. Still, it seems, barriers went up over time and some could argue that the feds could steamroll the issue but some provinces would go nuts and the result would likely be more costly than the barriers ever were.

There is an interesting federal-provincial analysis here, with Commerce discussed at 3.9.

I have been unable to find a definitive list of exemptions under the Canada Free Trade Agreement Act - apparently there are around 130, but I get the sense that the inter-provincial movement of goods is a fairly small part of them.

 

[zang]

We never did have nationalized rail and air transport; we had one state-run carrier in each, competing with other, for-profit carriers. The inescapable reality, in transportation and many other things, is it is more costly to support a network of anything in a country that is only a percent or two larger than the US but has roughly 12% of the population.

Oh for sure, but my point was that if CN and Air Canada were still under crown ownership, we could at least subsidize transportation costs for trade cross-country. I mean, we could subsidize non-crown transportation costs, too. But as with the headaches seen in the CP/Via deal, it's likely not to our advantage in any way.

 

[JoeParez]

Italy has been suffering a brain drain for years. I feel Trump's (and even Canada's) recent anti-immigration movements are going to end up helping a lot of the EU with problems like this.

Italians have been blaming their issues on immigrants for as long as I remember. Especially when it comes to "paying taxes" --- for whatever reason. However, the biggest culprits when it comes to not paying their taxes, are Italians themselves.
And then, the Italians who do pay their taxes and do everything by the book (like my sister, and my brother-in-law do), are the ones that get audited, scrutinized and screwed over by governments.

 

[PinkLucy]

I mean sure. But if we don't show unity now and increase pain for Americans, and diversify our economy, the long-term economic consequences will do a lot more than make Canadians feel bad. It seems like we'll have to put up with an ever escalating set of shake downs from Trump, or enter a trade war that will likely result in almost no trade happening between our two countries. Irregardless of sovereignty, I don't think many Canadians would enjoy a significantly diminished quality of life that will occur. Also, are we going to want to consume any food coming from the US after they gut their regulations? We should probably beef up our regulatory agencies to examine anything coming from the US with increased vigilance.

I am cool with unity. I am not cool with people telling other people that they aren’t doing it right