Oh I get it, it’s a bit like how it’s super annoying that America is used to refer to the US and American is commonly used to mean Estadounidense. Yea that’s frustrating.

Sure yes.

Got an issue with that?

My whole point at the start was about the price point.

Angry guy responds misunderstanding my point, as if I were saying that we don’t need the equipment.

To that I responded “yes we need an update, no we shouldn’t do it in a dumb way. We are notoriously bad at using military budgets, so we should not be accepting anything at any price, we should be doing it in ways that create investment in our industrial base and create economies of scale to benefit the civilian economy.”

That’s where you came in, focusing on the bit “we should not be accepting anything at any price” and started listing necessary features for arctic vehicles. So you’re repeating the misunderstanding of the angry guy. You’re assuming I am saying we don’t need the equipment, whereas what I’m saying is that we do need it but we need to make sure we don’t overpay for it.

So I responded to you with “Did I debate the need of any of that capability? Like, I literally wrote “yes we need an update”.” Meaning, we agree on the premise about the need for these features. I went on to make a point about the strategic importance of cost.

And then you started talking about what else we could be doing with the money in the civilian economy. Which to me is a nonsensical question. Because if I have 10 units of money and need to spend it on military materiel and social programs, well, if I can get good materiel for 8, that means I have 2 for social programs. Or if I can get good materiel at 4, and a gun factory for 6, that will generate income for making materiel cheaper and fund social programs after, that’s even better. Just because they gave you 10 units of money for materiel now, and given you are not going to be shooting someone in the next 5 minutes it doesn’t mean that you should go buy whatever guns exist. Being smart about purchases is a good thing, actually, and I assume we share that because that’s like an obvious thing.

Which is why I say I don’t understand what we’re disagreeing about. We both agree on the need for this equipment, with these characteristics. And I assume we both agree that the government should do its best to spend the money to get this equipment in a smart way (suppress costs, invest in Canadian manufacturing, avoid waste, etc). So what the hell is the disagreement here? I still don’t understand.

============ edit: just to stupid-proof my text: Let’s go back to my dumb example: you got 10 units of money. You need to buy materiel and run social programs. Is your question “if I buy materiel for 8 units, what can I do with the other 2”? Like, assume that 8 buys you good materiel to spec, and to the required amount. And you’re left with 2 units to go. Is it the case that what you’re asking about a “clearly better use of this money for up north”? Because the answer to that to me again is obvious: improve civilian infrastructure (e.g., improve food security, healthcare, education etc). I mean fuck, even if you HAVE to use it on military equipment, the answer is still obvious: buy more equipment, more parts, and build maintenance infrastructure.

============

edit2: to make it as clear as possible:

I’m not arguing against buying these vehicles. I’m arguing that cost discipline and domestic industrial strategy should be part of the conversation. If $5.8M is market price for spec-compliant Arctic vehicles, fine. But we shouldn’t treat “it’s defense” as a blank cheque.

At this point I don’t know what we’re disagreeing about.

Honestly didn’t think the Liberals would do this. Chapeau.

Dual use technology and infrastructure is an entirely uncontroversial topic in the defense procurement sector, so I don’t know what exactly you’re trolling for here.

You can’t piss in my tea and expect good faith engagement afterwards.

Did I debate the need of any of that capability? Like, I literally wrote “yes we need an update”. The point is “we should not be accepting anything at any price”. I can’t understand how that simple common sense statement is a “bad take”. The point of military procurement, or of any procurement really, is to maximize utility while minimizing cost. Ukraine has already shown us that the drone revolution means that modern wars are now back to being wars of attrition. And in wars of attrition, cost is a strategic resource.

Ой, извини, я больше не заинтересован в общении с тобой.

Rough morning? Pipe down bud.

EDIT: Like if you hadn’t written in such a rude and abrasive way, I might have responded with something like: yes we need an update, no we shouldn’t do it in a dumb way. We are notoriously bad at using military budgets, so we should not be accepting anything at any price, we should be doing it in ways that create investment in our industrial base and create economies of scale to benefit the civilian economy. But, when I’m being told to “stfu you fuck you have no field experience”, I’m going to respond in kind. So pipe the fuck down.

What a lazy, stereotypical response.

With that kind of attitude any price is unassailable. Edit: why not 6.8 million per vehicle, why not 15.8 million per vehicle, did you ever buy one?

Look, that 1 billion is being taken away from my public services and climate change adaptation programs. At the very least, I get to demand my tax dollars are not being wasted the way the Estadounidenses throw money down the military industrial complex money pit.

170 vehicles. That’s about 5.8 million dollars per vehicle. That’s a bit steep isn’t it?

Our institutions are not talking about financialization of housing though! So it defaults to the “if all else remains the same, the factor to blame is immigrants”. If we don’t end financialization of housing, then even without immigration you’re still going to have the exact same problem of housing scarcity because the system requires housing to be scarce so it’s an asset that always appreciates.

Look, we can talk and argue about the rate of increase and it won’t be controversial, with two caveats: a) that people already here should be grandfathered in (none of the PEQ fiasco). b) the rights of immigrant workers should always be equal to those of established ones.

I have explained above why I don’t think the housing and unemployment crises are caused by immigration.

But I agree that if all else stays the same, a big increase in precarious immigrants exacerbates things. The point is that I don’t think that we should accept everything else remaining the same and then play the game of blaming the immigrants. Front and centre should be a program to address the structural problems of our economic system, and immigration only secondary. Think about it: the Liberals just aggressively cut immigration rates, while keeping other things the same. The results are only small dips in the housing market, nothing that actually makes housing genuinely affordable: we’re still in crisis but now we’ve run out of immigrants to blame.

Any politics that puts immigration at the forefront is just ceding the initiative to the (far) Right.

You’re not making any sense. Sanders is slamming precarious low wage temporary guest worker programs. Nobody is defending those. Look at the thing you objected to earlier. It was talking about empowering immigrant workers, precisely the opposite of a precarious work program:

“Gives workers real power — migrant workers will have clean path to permanency, open work permits, they can join unions and organize without fear, which means stronger unions and better wages for everyone;”

Edit: it also seems that Bernie Sanders has evolved in his positions over time: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21143931/bernie-sanders-immigration-record-explained

And yes, I can see that you don’t want to be convinced by anything I wrote. You are not responding in substance to anything I’ve written. But you haven’t actually made any substantive argument to try to convince me or anyone. You haven’t tried to convince me in any real way. But you’ve accused me of gaslighting and bad faith arguing, when it’s clear I’m not doing either. You’re using inflammatory language (“sociopath”) to describe my views, when I haven’t. I think you’re just trying to make it look like you’re not losing the debate by desperately trying to making it look like the leftists are mean to you.

BMO is a seller of mortgages, and therefore heavily invested in the financialization of housing. About 15-20% of their assets are in residential mortgages and HELOCs alone. Of course they want to talk about anything EXCEPT the root of the problem that is literally driving their profitability. This is like bringing up a study from the oil and gas industry to argue that greenhouse emissions are not a problem. And just like Oil&Gas keep pushing an inefficient and outdated energy technology stack and standing in the way of common sense electrification, the real estate financialization industry is keeping Canadian capital in an unproductive and parasitic sector. Imagine if we instead used all that capital not to invest in inert land, but to build up the Canadian economy.

Why is housing inelastic in the current system? Because it is not treated as a universal right, but as an asset. It is being hoarded by Real Eastate Investment Trusts who quite literally profit from maintaining scarcity. The solution is breaking the back of REITs and building non-market infill development across the country. Build the missing middle and keep it the fuck out of the profit-driven market, make it coops and public housing. Oh and guess what we need to do that. That’s right, workers, of which we have a shortage, so therefore …immigrants.

Here’s what Avi Lewis’ platform has to say about housing: https://lewisforleader.ca/ideas/housing-full-plan

If you call this “gaslighting” and “bad faith” argumentation, I honestly have no idea what you would consider “good faith” argumentation.

These problems aren’t caused by immigrants no matter what the frothing-in-the-mouth Right wants you to believe.

Little Quebec data point: the vast majority of immigrants move to Montreal. Guess where the housing crisis is more acute: the regions. Immigrants are not causing the housing shortage. Stupid car-centric city planning, NIMBY zoning, and the financialization of housing is what causes it. Read the CCPA report.

Youth unemployment? At the same time when our healthcare system is buckling from chronic under-staffing? And at the same time when we are missing teachers, early childhood educators? At the same time when we are faced with a climate resilience crisis, a housing crisis, sectors that require actual trained labour? Gee I wonder if there are some solutions to that. Maybe some kind of, oh I don’t know Green New Deal, funded by the ridiculous wealth hoarded by parasites like Galen Weston over the past few decades of neoliberal orthodoxy?

Immigrants are a rhetorical scapegoat, sold to you by demagogues who dream of bringing Trump style authoritarianism to Canada. We know exactly where that leads. No thanks.

Anything is possible!

Try Metaxa with ice and orange juice, and maybe a maraschino cherry ;)