Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[marvpelkey]

Speaking about the liberals buying too many guns, I wonder how much gun sales spiked when it became known that Trump won? It seems a common thread running through most controversial events down there, regardless of which way one leans. I wonder if somewhere there is a committee of powerful gun manufacturers who sit around and... "Geez, domestic sales have been down lately, let's stir up the pot a bit, shall we?"

And, as to Trump's et al threats about media/free speech, the majority of citizens (anywhere) love free speech when it serves their purpose(s), but not so much when it doesn't. I am less interested in the blow-hard pomp and ceremony threats of some in power, and more interested in anything that may result and then make it's way to the Supreme Court. That's where the fun really begins.

[Robert Roaldi]

Speaking about the liberals buying too many guns, I wonder how much gun sales spiked when it became known that Trump won? It seems a common thread running through most controversial events down there, regardless of which way one leans. I wonder if somewhere there is a committee of powerful gun manufacturers who sit around and... "Geez, domestic sales have been down lately, let's stir up the pot a bit, shall we?"
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It seems to me that whatever happens in the news, the media reports increases in gun sales. Gun sales have increased so often that there must be a glut by now. Smells like industry marketing to me. And isn't it widely accepted that there are more guns than people in the US already? Maybe it's like with cameras, people always want the newest model.


I read an article the other day that expressed the opinion that the reasons for increased US tariffs on Canada and Mexico was to encourage those two countries to do something about illegal immigration to the US and to stop fentanyl importation into the US.

The first of those is puzzling. If a person who does not have permission to enter the US tries to do so from Canada or Mexico, it's not clear what those two countries can do about it. Those people are not breaking any Canadian or Mexican laws when they do that, are they? I honestly have no idea about that. When those refugees crossed into Canada last winter along the Vermont-Quebec border, I don't remember the US doing much to stop them. But I don't remember any of the details about that entire situation.

The export of fentanyl from Canada to the US puzzles me a bit. I have no doubt that Canadian-based criminals are capable of building labs to make the stuff, but if Canadian drug lords can then surely American ones can too. Why would the US illegal drug distribution networks need Canadian fentanyl, unless their supply chains are already operating at capacity and they need new sources. I could see the US requesting Canada to be more vigilant about those labs, accepting for the moment that Canada is not already doing that, but what does any of that have to do with import tariffs? What's the thinking here. If, say, the US imposes tariffs on Canadian-made goods, then the affected companies will complain to the Canadian government to do something about fentanyl? Is that it.

I saw a few online postings this morning that some people with whom RFK Jr hangs with are petitioning the US government to stop distributing the polio vaccine. If they do that, I wonder if those Canadian fentanyl labs wouldn't be better off manufacturing polio vaccines instead and use the American illegal drug distributing channels to deliver them to all the Americans "libtards" who want them. Then I saw that McConnell isn't happy about stopping delivery of the polio vaccine, so there's that. I read elsewhere that Trump thinks that more research should be conducted into the connection between autism and vaccines despite the many years of research that have already been done. I guess this time RFK Jr will be overseeing that research so it will not be biased.

[marvpelkey]

Funny enough, the mechanic that I use for work on my truck (greater Vancouver area) is the (legitimate) owner of 12 handguns, so it is not just an American phenomenon. I once asked him why so many, as the most he can shoot at one time is one. He said he just likes guns....

I think the Americans are not so much concerned with immigrants who passed through Canada and Mexico legitimately, but more those who the two countries allowed an easy pass through to the U.S. Really, I suspect what Trump et al are doing is trying to divert attention from their own inadequate system. The numbers passing through Canada, then into the U.S. are minuscule in the whole scheme of things. Mexico is quite different of course.

In the 30 years I spent in Canadian policing, I never heard of any hard drugs of any quantity ever going southbound. It was always pot going south, in exchange for money or coke coming back, or in the most recent case I was peripherally involved in, a very large quantity of cash going s/b to purchase a large quantity of fentanyl, heroin and coke to bring back. But that's a few years back now. And I bet, currently, that fentanyl in large quantities is still way easier to get in the U.S. than in Canada. Again, divert attention and blame to someone else.

And to your last point, I don't know how to provide a link, but if you query Dr Andrea Love, Biomedical Scientist Answers Pseudoscience Questions from Twitter (about 5 months ago) on YouTube, she has about a 20-30 minute video during which she debunks (even explains the history on each and how things got so twisted) quite a few topics, vaccines and autism to name a couple. She even takes a dig or two at some of the well known garbage peddlers. Great video.

[Robert Roaldi]

I continue to be puzzled why the US wants to start a trade war with Canada or Mexico. It's an open question how far that will go, but Patrick Boyle has release a video about whether US tariffs can work or not. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZGWA5_xGjw. The video is about 25 min long and although we're supposed to supply summaries of included links, I doubt I can adequately summarize its contents. For one thing, I want to watch it again to make I understood what he said. I'm not an economist so some of it went over my head. He gives some examples of past tariff impositions and how they worked out, some good, some not, but I don't think he directly answered my question of why have a trade war at all. Still, I'll recommend that video and his channel in general. His insights are not what we see in day to day social media. What I did take away was that temporary tariffs in specific industries can fulfill some policy goals, but they're not a panacea. If nothing else, he's an entertaining speaker on financial matters, not an easy task.

He has another recent video titled "The Truth about the US Economy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r81aBTeta24, which was released just before the US election and addressed some of the gloom and doom about the US economy that was being promulgated at the time. He basically contradicts it all and presents data to support the idea that the US economy is doing rather well. What I found interesting about that was that it was primarily Trumpistan that was pushing the idea that the "end was near" but that all that talk pretty much disappeared after the election, in much the same way that all the talk of rigged elections suddenly went away, proving to me that none of that was real, it was just show.

In another recent video he calls into question pretty convincingly imo that the large cuts in spending that "unelected vice-president in name" Elon Musk is pushing for will not likely happen. Musk's target at the time was to eliminate $2 trillion from the budget and Boyle attempts to demonstrate the impossibility of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fvDfDDZ4Ms.

[digitaldog]

I continue to be puzzled why the US wants to start a trade war with Canada or Mexico.

I can assure you that it isn't the US per se, but Mr. Trump. Plenty of Americans are not for a trade war with either.

[Robert Roaldi]

I can assure you that it isn't the US per se, but Mr. Trump. Plenty of Americans are not for a trade war with either.

Thank you, I do understand this.

[Robert Roaldi]

I was thinking some more about the assassination of the CEO of that health insurance company. Among the news items that day and since is a chart showing that the company in question denied 32% of claims. I don't know over what period or whether it included appeals, so I don't know how hard a number that 32% is. But assuming that it's close to reality, it occurred to me that if that number were made public, which I guess it now is, who would ever purchase a policy with them again?

Who would pay premiums for years and years if they knew that they had a 1/3 chance of never collecting on a claim? That's a different case than the one where you pay premiums for years and are lucky enough not to get sick so that you never make a claim. I could easily live with that. But I don't think I'd be very happy if I knew that if I had to make a claim, I stood a 1/3 chance of not collecting. I would not take bet.

I haven't heard about mass policy cancellations in the recent news, but shouldn't there be?

[JoeKitchen]

I continue to be puzzled why the US wants to start a trade war with Canada or Mexico.

With Canada it is a hard sell, and more then likely only to get Canadians to lower tariffs they place on USA products.  I know this probably goes both ways at this point, which is why I consider it a hard sell and I am not paying much attention to that side of it. 

With Mexico it is an easy call.  The Mexican government, best case, looks the other way with the Cartels who are flooding our country with fentanyl made from Chinese precursors.  More likely though is they, the Mexican Government, realizes that if they go against the Cartels they will have to make hard decisions and perhaps hell to pay.  If they cant follow though with these hard decisions, they should step out of the way and resign and allow the adults in the room to handle the situation (whether those adults be Mexican or American, I don't really care). 

So, if Mexico wants to instead play games, too damn bad, tariff their economy into the ground. 

I've had friends who died from overdoses and I dont care much for excuses from foreign governments who knowingly look the other way. 

[degrub]

And the Chinese companies are flooding in and building factories in Mexico to use NAFTA to get around tariffs and other trade restrictions.

[Robert Roaldi]

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With Mexico it is an easy call.  The Mexican government, best case, looks the other way with the Cartels who are flooding our country with fentanyl made from Chinese precursors.  More likely though is they, the Mexican Government, realizes that if they go against the Cartels they will have to make hard decisions and perhaps hell to pay.  If they cant follow though with these hard decisions, they should step out of the way and resign and allow the adults in the room to handle the situation (whether those adults be Mexican or American, I don't really care). 

So, if Mexico wants to instead play games, too damn bad, tariff their economy into the ground. 

I've had friends who died from overdoses and I dont care much for excuses from foreign governments who knowingly look the other way.

The emotional costs of such outcomes are large. But you seem to be adopting the Trumpian view that a lot of the US drug problems are due to foreigners. Those Cartels are causing problems in all other countries too. Your US-centric notion that taxpayers in those other countries should pay money to fix US problems might work in social media headlines but I very doubt it would work in reality. My guess is that they want their tax money used to solve their own problems. Besides which, American-based drug gangs are perfectly capable of building their own drug manufacturing labs. Also, there's no reason to believe that cross-border cooperation between drug agencies doesn't already occur. But if, say, Mexico doesn't have the infrastructure to combat the Cartels, you have to address the question of how the Cartels got so powerful. It may have been in part due to incompetent government authorities but nobody has a monopoly on that.

The Trump administration is making a big deal out of getting rid of undocumented aliens based partly on the notion in the public's mind that they are responsible for many crimes. They seem to be conveying the idea that a large task force will be created to accomplish this mass deportation. Ok, but if they are capable of that large a project, why don't they also promise to destroy organized crime, biker gangs and other groups that have been around for a long time and causing havoc all the while. If you spend money finding undocumented carpenters and leave the mob in place, it will be a pyrrhic victory.

I'm not saying that there are not international problems to fix, there obviously are. But the international war on drugs hasn't accomplished much and I don't see how doubling down on it will change things. The bottom line is that demand fuels the drug trade, and US demand is large. I don't see how other countries' actions can address that. I also don't see why using tariffs, a tool to manage trade, can fix these other issues. It may sound satisfying to say that the US will tariff the Mexican economy into oblivion, presumably because the US is a buyer of many things made in Mexico, but that will only work as long as it takes for Mexican companies to find other clients in Central and South America. The US seems to be pinning a lot of hope on tariffs, a tool that doesn't always address issues of trade, why expect them to address other issues.

As for China using proxy companies in Mexico to get around regulations, that sounds like the kind of thing that probably happens worldwide all the time and is probably done by all countries when it's in their selfish best interests. Avoiding that kind of inefficient nonsense is the reason to have international trade agreements.

[Rob C]

I guess that the problem is lack of resources in all governments to control (eliminate) the illicit drug industries.

Secondly, I’m certainly not convinced that the will really exists to do that, either. It’s my opinion that there are too many vested interests within all the relevant power structures to slay that particular goose. There is no way that, given 100% commitment, the law couldn’t have rendered the drug trade inoperable. Nope, I think too many plain, brown envelopes change hands too often; there isn’t an employed official who couldn’t do with more free spending cash: ones needs grow according to current status. Money corrupts as potently as does fear for self or family. As they say, we know where you live. What would any of us do, faced with such a proposition? I suppose that’s why the little people do time: they can’t realistically offer the same threat. However, nobody doubts the ability of capos to order executions.

The sure way to eliminate drugs is to make the market vanish. You can’t expect foreign governments to pay for that, nor to act externally on the problem: it would be interference in another country’s internal affairs. It has to be done domestically: make using drugs just too damned unattractive, too risky. A first step would be to stop considering drug users as victims: they choose to take them.

[degrub]

"As for China using proxy companies in Mexico to get around regulations, that sounds like the kind of thing that probably happens worldwide all the time and is probably done by all countries when it's in their selfish best interests. Avoiding that kind of inefficient nonsense is the reason to have international trade agreements.

"

You should see what the Chinese auto and other manufacturers are doing to Thai/Japanese auto assemblers and other Thai (partnered or not) manufacturers. The Japanese and others are shutting down assembly lines as the Chinese flood the market with government  subsidized manufacturers. Same thing is being set up in Mexico and Brazil. Same thing happened in PRC with the European and American auto manufacturers. All are cutting back or leaving. Africa was little to no competition. Just buy their way in.
The PRC's strategy is to flood the local market with subsidized product, wipe out the local manufacturers, and dominate the market leaving labour impoverished and the country a feudal underling.

The issue is not one of new colonialism. The issue is more fundamental - intolerance of dissenting thought or action from what the CCP expects. My friends in PRC are reluctant to speak their thoughts now as the CCP has become more invasive in the last 10-20 years. They are telling me that it is worse than during the time of the cultural revolution due to the electronic monitoring and controls.

[Robert Roaldi]

Thank goodness those billionaire tech-bro geniuses are on the case or the US government would be in a mess.

[Rob C]

Thank goodness those billionaire tech-bro geniuses are on the case or the US government would be in a mess.

;-)

[Robert Roaldi]

What a fascinating week in US politics. One ultra-rich guy threatens primary challenges unless the boys toe the line, and the US government nearly bends to his will. And all the macho-male-man President elect can do is reach for a jar of lube. The founding fathers must be spinning in their graves. I don't even understand why Musk wanted to shut the government down, I mean, what's the upside? It's farcical.

It might be all part of a side-show, if that isn't too cynical. As soon as Trump takes office, they will vote in tax cuts in a further effort to "drain the swamp" I guess. Not many people in people in office care much about the country, do they. Yet the lambs voted for them.

I think Bernie Sanders hit the nail on the head on this one in this short 7 min clip where he deplores the state of the union and the power that one unelected guy can exert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79KDKWEOJ1s.


Here in Canada, things have reached silly status. As many tried to hint, Trudeau should have retired from politics 2-3 years ago. Whether you're doing a good job or not people get sick of your face after a few years. He had won three elections, that was enough, time to write a memoir. Power must be one hell of an ego trip though, they cling to power even when things go south.

[Rob C]

I watched your link, Robert, but people with money have charisma. That’s both how some of them make it, and also the reason why they remain alive; though the poor voters probably, deep down, know that they are being had, they just follow the popular line. So much in life depends on it: tall poppies get cut down. If the left is popular then they will vote left, and if the right seems flavour of the month, then that’s how they will vote. Basically, the mathematics, at base level, tells us that all of these people are hustlers, but we still vote for them because we are sheep. There’s also this little problem: nobody else on offer is any the more attractive - a pigs’ beauty contest, then.

Tell you one thing: I would never buy a Tesla, on principle.

I wonder if he thinks of things like that, or whether it would make no difference were he to close the firm tomorrow. For all I know, it might save him a lot of money. Volkswagen is trying to close down several factories in Germany… an electrically powered vehicle has to remain a second car, if only because of the short range and the hassle of finding suitable charging points. One needs a car that can drive on for a good few hundred miles before needing a short refuelling stop. If one doesn’t need that facility, okay, probably cheaper taking the bus or a taxi on the occasions when short journeys are in order. At least in a taxi you can make pictures out of the window without risking lives.

[Robert Roaldi]

Turns out that Matt Gaetz isn't such a nice guy after all. The release of the report from the House Ethics committee points out some glaring character defects on his part, as outlined in this article https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-house-ethics-report-finds-evidence-matt-gaetz-paid-thousands-for-sex-and-drugs-including-paying-a-17-year-old-for-sex-in-2017-1.7155683. I'm shocked, I tell you, I'm shocked.

If I remember correctly it was not that long ago that the moral self-righteous bible-hugging Michael Johnson was trying hard to bury this report. I wonder how his conscience feels about that.

Gaetz probably won't pay much of a penalty though. He was always loyal to Mr. T, which is all that matters in a banana republic. He may yet snag the ambassadorship to Tahiti or Thailand or somewhere.

[Robert Roaldi]

Turns out that guy who drove into the market in Germany was not some crazed jihadist after all. He’s a Saudi national who had renounced Islam and had become an Elon Musk fanboy and a follower of the German AFD party, a near-Nazi right wing German political party, as I’ve heard it described. Earlier that morning (or maybe the day before) Msuk had pronounced that the AFD was Germany’s only hope.

It’s interesting that Musk thinks himself knowledgeable in German politics but he seems to also think that the rest of us want to hear his views on the subject. This happens a lot. Someone who achieves a level of success in one field comes to believe that they know a lot about other fields. And he owns a soapbox to do so, although there might be fewer people playing in that soapbox these days.

At what point does Musk cease to be a loud-mouthed busy body and tip over into the realm of public hazard.

[Rob C]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NsVOc8U-xUs&feature=shared

The above is an in-depth review of a new Tesla. Keep going through the review and wait for the disclosures about some of the ways in which it can kill you because of its, in my view, totally misplaced ideas about the task of driving and how to do it safely. The very first impression when getting into the thing would be enough to make me get right back out as quickly as possible.

It requires a particular kind of mind to buy into some of these modern “solutions” to problems we don’t have.

I am not complaining about the idea of using electricity as means of propulsion, if it suits your travel needs; my concern is with the removal of human control in a situation which is essentially all about human interactions.

[Robert Roaldi]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NsVOc8U-xUs&feature=shared

The above is an in-depth review of a new Tesla. Keep going through the review and wait for the disclosures about some of the ways in which it can kill you because of its, in my view, totally misplaced ideas about the task of driving and how to do it safely. The very first impression when getting into the thing would be enough to make me get right back out as quickly as possible.

It requires a particular kind of mind to buy into some of these modern “solutions” to problems we don’t have.

I am not complaining about the idea of using electricity as means of propulsion, if it suits your travel needs; my concern is with the removal of human control in a situation which is essentially all about human interactions.

Good video, thanks very much. Some funny comments too. I've forwarded it to all my motorsports buddies.

Who cares what kind of motor is under the hood. People are smart enough to know when a product fits their needs. If all you need to do is buy groceries and go to the dentist, there's nothing wrong with a low-cost low-speed moderate range EV, even in cold places like where I live. As far as I'm concerned the real problem we have is that all the low cost models are gone from Canadian showrooms. Every once in a while my intelligence is insulted by a propaganda article in the "business" pages about how small cars aren't profitable. Sure, okay. Meanwhile, all the parking spots at my local grocery are clogged up with pickup trucks bigger than my first apartment that are all cleaner than any car I've ever owned and that mow down pedestrians in unprecedented numbers. But hey, freedom. People buy $80,000 trucks/SUVs for reasons to do with fashion then complain that turkeys cost too much at Christmas while they unwrap $1000 mobile phones. How did George Carlin put it, 'being born is like getting a free ticket to the freak show' or something like that.

We know that the ICE vs EV vs China EV tariffs is a distraction because President Musk's largest automobile plant is in China and he's building a big EV battery plant next door to it. So do we really think that the US government is going to penalize Tesla imports from China? They will go after other manufacturers because, you know, they're the bad guys. As I've said before we've been walking around in bullshit so deep for so long that we don't smell it anymore.