• 1 Post
  • 195 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 8th, 2023

help-circle

  • I find “Trump 2.0” useful to differentiate how I expect things to go down. Trump 1.0 came in and and flailed a lot. The US’ system of checks and balances moderated many of his “policy goals”. Trump 2.0 looks to replace competence in the bureaucracy with loyalty, and subverting any checks and balances.

    A lot of power has accumulated within the office of the Presidency in the US. I used to figure that an advantage of the US system vs the Westminster model is that a PM with a majority in Parliament has very little he can’t do, as long as they are able to whip the votes. It seems that the US has drifted into an elected King almost. Broad authority within the Presidency will probably not go away anytime soon.

    This makes for a very unstable government, assuming elections even stay fair.

    Trump is old, there is going to be a post Trump era soon, but I don’t see a reversal if this model of governance. We can only deal with the US in 4 year terms from now on. Anything long term is too uncertain.



  • There are a few of causes for hope.

    First, Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists and sycophants, not competence. On the downside, this is how Putin ended up on year 3 of a 3-day “special military operation” in Ukraine. Trump is going to make incredibly stupid mistakes not just because he’s stupid, but everyone he has surrounded himself with will be telling him how wonderful and clever he is. On the other hand, this is a good way to get clobbered by reality.

    Canada and Mexico have responded with targeted tariffs and are also planning ahead to next steps. Heck, Canada just finalized a trade deal with Ecuador. Sure it’s not going to replace the US, but it shows many competent people are out there working for Canada. Meanwhile the US government apparatus is going to be gutted of competent people.

    Second, Canada does export a lot of raw materials, which should be easier to shift to other markets. Also things like hydo power and oil can probably absorb a fairly high increase in cost without being substantially effected. Hydro power as an example, can easily eat a 10% increase and still be the cheapest source of electricity. Canada could probably slap export tariffs on oil, hydro electricity, and potash and the US will just have to eat it.

    Finally, Trump will probably continue tariffing the EU and other countries as well, further triggering retaliatory tariffs. This means Bosch, Samsung and LG will need to make more dishwashers to replace the Whirlpool and Maytag dishwashers that aren’t going to be sold outside the US (as an example). It’s going to suck, but Canada already has CETA and CPTPP to build on, and should be deepening CANZUK ties. The world is bigger than the US, and the US looks set to isolate themselves from everyone. Being on the outside in that case is better.


    no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time






  • Disappointingly true. We should absolutely fast track LNG and oil export deals overseas. Slap on an export tariff onto oil and Hydro.Trump already kind of blinked by only putting 10% on Canadian energy, so one of his oligarchs is begging. Double it to 20%, or equalize it to 25%. At the same time increase exports to the west. Prior to the Transmountain expansion, we were doing a “pipeline by rails”. It’s suboptimal, but no one wins in a trade war but not responding means you’re going to loose worse.

    Trudeau is too scared of Danielle Smith’s wannabe Vichy Canada administration.



  • Copypasta my other comment:

    The bulk of Canadian exports to the US are oil. We can certainly tariff US goods, but export tariffs on Canadian oil and hydro electricity to the US will probably be a big component of the Canadian response.

    Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it’s still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they’ll still happily pay it.

    As to oil, there are some refineries in the US that are set up to process Canadian bitumen. Canada’s long history of just exporting raw materials and re-importing finished goods give a pretty outsized room to manuever here. This refineries will probably just pony up and pay more.

    Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

    Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

    Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we’re going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

    no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

    Scotiabank Daily Points


  • The bulk of Canadian exports to the US are oil. We can certainly tariff US goods, but export tariffs on Canadian oil and hydro electricity to the US will probably be a big component of the Canadian response.

    Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it’s still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they’ll still happily pay it.

    As to oil, there are some refineries in the US that are set up to process Canadian bitumen. Canada’s long history of just exporting raw materials and re-importing finished goods give a pretty outsized room to manuever here. This refineries will probably just pony up and pay more.

    Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

    Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

    Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we’re going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

    no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

    Scotiabank Daily Points


  • That’s exactly why I always enable the Compose key. It’s the fastest and easiest way to just type a variety of Unicode glyphs. The key combinations trend to be intuitive as well.

    There’s a good chance the default config file will have a pretty decent selection. Although I have edited the config in the past, I haven’t done it under KDE. The KDE article on setting up the compose key seems to say that KDE uses a different config file anyways.

    Turning on the Compose key is pretty straightforward as I recall, just another setting under Keyboard settings. Finding that config file is still useful if you can’t guess the right combo for your desired glyph.

    Very useful for using character common in math and science.


  • Not exactly what you may be looking for, but one of the first things I set up in Linux is the “Compose” key. Sun keyboards in the 90’s had a dedicated Compose key, and you can enable the functionality still. I usually set it to Right Alt.

    The Compose key is kind of like an extended shift key, so ‘Compose’ + “c” + “/” for example will give you “¢”.

    The key combinations and characters can be edited in a config file (can’t remember off the top of my head).

    Not as versatile and an “Emoji picker”, but allows quick insertion of Unicode glyphs into text. Useful for ¢£€¥™×° type characters.




  • There would be a problem of “you go first…”

    If the US became Imperialistic, and I mean old-school Imperial, non of this new age cultural or economic imperialism, then they could probably “take” their first conquest or two without much opposition. In this case Canada and Greenland would probably fall to US occupation.

    It’s what would happen next that would destroy the American Empire. Everything you said is true, and every one of the US’s allies would wonder if they are next. If Canada, the US’s closest ally for generations cannot trust the US who can? The clear answer is no one. I would expect a swift unravelling of the global order. The EU would be an interesting case. With a belligerent (but failing) Russia to the East, and their long standing guarantor of peace suddenly no better, would it crack under the stress or would something more capable emerge?

    It’s a horrific dystopian future we face, the entire globe would be plunged into an era of increased tension and military spending in the best case.

    The current US “empire” has shown that buying something is cheaper and more beneficial than conquering something. In a few short years Trump might effectively vastly increase the cost of power from Canadian hydro facilities and at the same time scare away any others that would do business with them.