We used to do that to place free calls on pay phones. I don't recall it being a particularly fast way of dialing, though it was great if you wanted to keep your dimes for hockey cards. Yes, I'm that old.
During World War II, the Canadian government raised taxes in a bid to reduce demand and curb inflation (along with wage and price controls, mandatory savings, and other measures).
Inversely, reducing taxes holds the potential to leave money in people's pockets, increase demand, and trigger inflation. Whether it does so will depend on a host of other factors, of course.
Tax raises obviously increase the deadweight loss associated with that tax because at some point the cost exceeds the marginal utility of the product and people buy less until things are in balance again. But when there isn't enough product to go buy and the government pays off debt, then the deadweight loss may actually be reduced over the long term.
Canadian mortgages have separate amortization periods (say 20 or 25 years for example) and interest rate terms (generally 1-5 years, after which the rate has to be renegotiated -- and you have the option of transferring the mortgage to another lender at that time).
You can also let your rate float with the market, which is called a variable rate mortgage.
> Do you know why mortgages in Canada are so different from the US?
The U.S. has been heavily subsiding mortgages since the great Depression, through programs such as FHA. Banks would not be willing to loan people money at such low rates over 30 years unless the government and taxpayers backed the loan.
The USG massively subsidizes home ownership. The burden is passed down to taxpayers, but also may cause a drag on the global economy due to lopsided interest rate hedging.
Nobody but the United States has long-term fixed rate mortgages: they're horrible for lenders because the lender has to assume all interest rate risk. The reason they exist in the US is because the government acts as a backstop due to pro-homeownership politics, but it causes a bunch of market distortions that are made invisible to American borrowers.
30 year fixed-rate is very much the norm here in Denmark. There was a period of experimentation leading up to 2007, but I think fixed rate is very popular. I'm certainly happy that's what we went for when we bought our first house two years ago.
Because it's more profitable for the lenders, and Canada's government is happy to bend over backwards to make old-boys-club-businesses like banks and telecoms comfortable.
I wanted to disagree with you and say that is simply not a hereditary monarchy, but after a moment I think you are right.
Monarchy connotes the existence of some sort of elite class and even in cases the monarch was elected it was always from the aristocracy, founding families, or royal family.
The idea that a leader chosen randomly from the general population is a monarch feels like it would muddy the meaning of monarchy to the point of uselessness.
Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch.
The constitutional monarch is a figurehead without much of a day to day role, but who ensures that the demagogue we elect is not at the pinnacle of the political hierarchy.
That's more important than most people understand. A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role.
> Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch.
There are lots of republics in which the president has only a ceremonial role. Germany and Italy, for example. There are absolute monarchs as well. The title does not indicate the effective power of the role.
> A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role.
So is the president, if you have an appropriate constitution. This is the key, not the fancy title you give to your head of state.
A monarchy has the downside that who gets to be the monarch is fundamentally undemocratic.
> A monarchy has the downside that who gets to be the monarch is fundamentally undemocratic.
So I get 1/20 millionth of the decision in which of 3 or 4 members of an exclusive elite get a patronage position, and it's all good?
I'd just as soon eliminate the risk of handing that role to a political climber and leave the position to someone whose power we all clearly understand is only formal.
That being said, I understand and appreciate your arguments around a properly framed constitutional role for a president. If we ever do make the change, I'd like a non-imperial presidency...
You don't need a monarch for that. If you're going to have an unaccountable position filled by someone without any demonstrable merit, then have a lottery once per year that draws a random citizen to fill the role.
Executive-branch head style presidents are a silly, bad idea. They only serve to give a single person a huge mandate that places them in a position to disregard the local mandates of the legislature, and at least in the US they appoint the judicial branch. So they pick the judges and can ignore the laws.
Prime ministers are representatives of the legislature, not above it, and presidents in a normal parliamentary system are like VPs in a US-style system - really just there for tiebreaking (and in that the responsibility for organizing government succession in ambiguous situations, but no real latitude.)
A monarch does nothing but make sure that a country always has race and rule by blood at the center of its constitution.
Unfortunately, Slide is abandoned by the author. He replied to an issue on github saying basically that he has no time to maintain it and that and that the code is a mess and needs to he completely rewritten from scratch so he doesn't recommend anyone else bother. Slowly but surely the bugs are mounting. There's so e new-fangked thing that's leaving blue boxes everywhere and videos are breaking again. And I think he also mentioned that the Play Store won't let him push small bug fixes without making another large change that he has no time to work on so it's defacto dead in the water now and will never be updated.
I've been trying Infinity from time to time which others have mentioned as the new OSS client, but it seems less textual than Slide. Sline also has great navigation that is immediately missed elsewhere.
(At least the Android version, dunno about the iOS)
Piling on here. My wife had a 2002 Jetta from new until 2019. We replaced both of the front window regulators on multiple occasions. There's nothing like having your window drop into the door when it's -40 C outside.
Sometimes, we'd "luck out" and the window had just slipped out of the holder. Just as often, we needed parts that were available only from Volkswagen.
In general, the car required somewhere between $1000-$2000 worth of maintenance every year. I've owned ten vehicles over the years and none have come close to the VW in terms of total cost of ownership. She replaced it with a new (non-VW) SUV a few years ago and it hasn't needed anything but oil changes yet.
You've ignored the fact that unions are limited to organizing one workplace at a time. Companies routinely close unionized locations.
In a contest over the revenues of the enterprise between those who have only their labor to sell and those who have an excess of capital, I know where I stand. The power disparity favours the rich. It's crazy that I have to say that.
Unions are not limited at all. It's just that they don't get the special privilege of having a multi-work-unit vote recognized as binding on their employer. The government mandates on employers are only imposed as a consequence of single-work-unit votes.
Evaluating union options as only those where they can exercise the power to restrict a company's contract freedom is very misleading.
>>In a contest over the revenues of the enterprise between those who have only their labor to sell and those who have an excess of capital, I know where I stand.
Of course the employer will have more control over the revenues of the enterprise that they own. If it was otherwise it would imply the state transferred ownership of the company's assets to the union.
The disparity is in the ability to freely negotiate and exercise contract liberty. The unions have it, and employers do not.
When a work unit votes to collectively bargain, the company loses a significant amount of contract liberty, and their only option - if they want to completely disassociate from the workers within that work unit - to close that site altogether.
That $5 number is suspicious to me, or perhaps just geographically skewed. In early 90s, I went to the store and bought cigarettes for my mom almost daily and I remember it being about $2.
The $5 figure was from northern British Columbia. Cigarettes were much cheaper in the U.S. at the time (Canadians used to bring back a couple of duty-free cartons on a regular basis) and in Ontario, where the government reduced the taxes to counter smuggling.
Edit: in the link below you can see that over the course of 1990, cigarette prices rose from $35 to $48/carton (so $4.80/pack if you bought them by the carton) in 1990. They were, of course, more expensive if you bought individual packs, or if you lived in the north.
I remember visiting Canada, in the 1970s, and cigarettes were about $4 a pack. Everyone used to buy big cans of Export tobacco, and roll their own. Apparently. pre-rolled cigarettes were taxed heavily, but loose tobacco was not. I think this is still the case, in many nations. I have a friend from UK, who is always smoking hand-rolled "fags."
I paid $5/pack for Nat Shermans in SF in 1994/95. IIRC there were super cheap brands for around $2 but they were skanky, Shermans and Dunhills and American Spirits were all around $4-5.
Is a pack a day normal? During college I would feel bad that I had smoked three cigarettes a day. I've since switched to cigars, and have about one a month at most.
I don't know if it's still normal. In the 1970s and 1980s smoking a pack a day was fairly typical. Two packs a day was considered excessive, but most people knew someone who smoked that much.
It is fun! But I hate people with a lot of 8's, 9's, and 0's in their numbers. They take forever to dial :)