johnefrancis

Haven't been back since the coop was deliberately bankrupted. No plans to.

Is there more context for this?

It didn't cost "us" anything. Citizens aren't respsible for the Fed govt's spending, deficit, or debt. Private individuals and companies don't pay it. Taxes never need to be raised to run surpluses to "pay off the debt".

The money spent on elections or anything else is received by private individuals and firms, and they go on to spend it on other things. Some of it is returned in taxes.

If the govt were to run austere spending and high taxes, producing enough surpluses to pay off the debt...how much money would remain in private hands? ZERO!

Something to keep in mind any time someone complains about how expensive elections or other useful govt spending is.

Why is the cost a concern? It mostly goes to low income temp workers. Even a general election is a microscopic component of govt spending. Democracy and elections should be among the highest spending priorities.

If you want to complain about spending, complain about something wasteful, like $60B in annual subsidies for the US-owned oil industry that produces 70% of AB oil. Shave that by 1% and you'd pay for every by-election since 1867

Sounds good to me.

Totally agree about electoral reforms of most kinds.

Sadly the NDP has drifted far from their socialist root, and doesn't really talk about any kind of major reform to capitalism. They offer a lot of marginal policy change, but don't talk about alternatives that would reverse the 50 year trend. When Mulcair was leader, h3me wanted to eliminate the federal deficit.

I think everyone can get behind interprovincial trade. Not much else that's positive in there. Build pipelines faster, and double down on the fraud of carbon-capture. Nothing about any systemic changes that will help Canadians find housing or secure stable, increasing incomes. Nothing about shifting the share of economic growth from capital to workers. The inflation adjusted incomes of Canadians have be flat since the 1970s, and we are much less secure and have inferior services like health and education.

Canada's reverse colonization of the British Isles begins ... don't worry, the food we bring will be a big step up. 🦫🍁

there's a saying "if it can be done, you can afford it"...it means that money is never the problem for currency-issuing entities, like "Europe". They always have enough Euros.

What is needed are the resources to do the thing - labour, material, organization.

A state can gently steer the resources using money as an inducement. Or it can just do it with power and laws.

Of course, creating Euros in this way means that the Euros aren't being created in the same way they are now - which is by paying them to those who already hold Euro bonds, and that makes them upset, and that's why it will take a while to happen.

so they only ban hateful content from balck guys now? Is that how this works? 🤷‍♂️

shlab

I'm not arguing in favour of libertarianism, it's nonsense. I'm pointing out some basic tenets of credit money. In whatever form currency is, it's always tied to state power over law and taxes. The rai stones are an OK example of it.

https://neweconomicperspectives.org/modern-monetary-theory-primer.html