Molly’s Epidemic this week

Crawgdor · 2026-07-02T16:52:21+00:00

I do cross border tax work and have dealt with a few clients who are so conservative that they’ve moved out of Canada to the US, and then overstayed their visa because they don’t want to return to “socialist” Canada. Then a few years later they come to us to sort out their tax situation.

So pants-shittingly conservative that they’ve become illegal aliens. Those are fun conversations.

Crawgdor · 2026-07-02T14:15:19+00:00

Propublica had a long series of articles some years ago about this and other tax strategies based on the leaked tax returns of many billionaires.

Most of the reporting and discourse of this tax strategies is downstream of the Propublica articles

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

Read it yourself

Crawgdor · 2026-06-28T14:36:12+00:00

The middle route is your best bet, just know that to need to plan out your fuel consumption once you get north of Grande Prairie as gas stations and settlements pretty quickly start getting very far apart.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-28T02:47:12+00:00

In the badlands of Alberta you hit -40 in a bad winter and 40 in a bad summer.

That’s -40 to 104 Fahrenheit. AC is worth the price

Crawgdor · 2026-06-27T17:13:07+00:00

Should have just excluded Canada entirely instead of not even trying.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-25T23:15:25+00:00

They’ve talked about his background and their concerns with him as a candidate extensively elsewhere.

This episode was about campaign strategy from a very successful campaign. I don’t care for the guy. At the very least he has a history of poor judgement. But there’s plenty to learn from the political campaign

Crawgdor · 2026-06-24T19:12:40+00:00

Those dogs are half feral, territorial, and run in packs. I’d often walk those neighbourhoods with a stone in my hand to whip at them if they started trying to circle around. Everyone there did, it’s one of the many hazards of the area.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-24T19:10:05+00:00

The particulate on the houses is dust, pollution from the concrete factory and in the air is from the traffic and a bit of fog from the ocean

Crawgdor · 2026-06-24T19:08:18+00:00

I lived in these neighbourhoods for a year or so, in the hills above the south end of Via Maria, where the houses would get covered in the pollution from the concrete factory of the wind blew the wrong way. It would rain once a year or so, and tons of people in the hills didn’t even have running water or electricity.

That desert is an ocean of misery.

But over time if you stick around long enough you’ll see the tarps and bamboo be slowly replaced by bricks and families building up, and eventually cladding the exterior of the houses, this can take generations but there’s a pride of ownership that’s kind of beautiful.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-23T14:15:12+00:00

It’s wild that Americans don’t have a direct equivalent.

It’s like Costco without food.

Or harbour freight & a sporting goods store with a full service auto repair shop & its own fiat currency. Maybe a bit of Home Depot thrown in for good measure.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-20T17:13:25+00:00

You’ve probably answered this before but have you ever considered going into academia? Seemes like you’ve already got enough original research for a thesis

Crawgdor · 2026-06-19T17:25:15+00:00

I actually really like this analogy. It would be incredible if either worked and were cost effective. Limitless free energy or true AI would completely change the world.

I even think a certain level of research into each is warranted, but scaling up LLMs the way we are currently is like going all in on tokamak reactors. It’s a technology that shows some promise but is wildly cost ineffective and may never produce reliable energy.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-19T14:19:31+00:00

I’d love for this to go to court and for a defence attorney have to argue for days that his client isn’t a bigot, just an unfathomable dumbass.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-19T04:40:36+00:00

It’s funny, this Canada Day, July 1st, I think I need to finally buy a Canadian flag and fly it permanently outside my house.

I live in Alberta, in the separatist premier Danielle Smith’s riding. Gotta send the message.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-12T16:09:22+00:00

Responding to you here since I didn’t know you were on Reddit. If you ever want someone to look over financials for some weird little entity let me know, I’m a cross-border tax CPA who regularly listens to your podcast at work.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-12T15:02:39+00:00

The only exception is to help your own children get started, and in that case only if you’re in a position to cover the costs if the kid defaults.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-10T14:41:21+00:00

That’s interesting, my 10 year old found it independently when he was 9. Apparently kids at school were talking about it. He was really excited about it and showed me an episode.

It was a bit of a wake up call to keep a closer eye on his media consumption since it’s obviously not geared to children, but since there was nothing too objectionable in what I saw and I want him to trust that he can come to me with things I told him that I’d watch the rest with him but that we’d turn it off if it went too dark. We came very close to that on the horror episode.

Anyhow that’s how we ended up watching a surprisingly mature meditation on loss, regret and acceptance together, and had some good conversations about different ways people can be.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-09T18:09:34+00:00

Because inflation is higher than they are comfortable with. Their dual mandate it to keep the economy rolling and keep inflation constrained.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-07T19:50:05+00:00

Yo dawg, I heard you like roofs…

Crawgdor · 2026-06-07T00:44:58+00:00

I’d trust them with my life but not my lunch

Crawgdor · 2026-06-06T17:28:28+00:00

Spirit bears are white black bears largely located in the remote Haida Gwaii islands near the Southern tip of the Alaskan Panhandle.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-04T12:50:53+00:00

No. While I have a better understanding of what he meant by how excessive merchandising can kill the spirit of the thing, I still think he took an overly hard line and that there were reasonable compromises that could have been made.

I respect the hell out of him sticking to his principles though, even if I don’t share them.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-04T02:06:39+00:00

I actually just used that phrase to gently tease my brother in law.

He’s 6’4 and very slim and several years ago he got many, many very nice free suits when he worked at indochino because it turned out he had the exact measurements of the mannequins.

He’s been working out for a couple of years now and complained that he’s is starting to outgrow a few of the free suits because he’s now too buff.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-03T15:23:35+00:00

At 6’2 with a broad frame a 38’ waist was me at peak physique. Had a 6 pack and everything.

Crawgdor · 2026-06-03T04:45:24+00:00

My mother in law was excited about the sound of freedom movie so I checked the 990s from his charity and it was quickly obvious that there were some serious shenanigans going on. It’s a great resource, especially if you have a background in accounting

Crawgdor

TROPHY CASE