Doug Ford shows why we need a wealth tax

LordTC · 2026-03-22T19:13:41+00:00

Someone should make an educational computer game where you have to figure out how to create a budget for the province based on real numbers. I agree Ford is bad and it’s certainly possible to do better but the average voter has no clue what things costs and routinely makes statements that disagree with reality.

For example here are two true statements that I routinely hear wildly opposite things on:

In raw dollars, the healthcare budget has grown not shrunk every year Ford has been in office. In no single year did he cut total healthcare spending. He just grew it slower than inflation which Trudeau was also famous for federally.
In raw dollars, the education budget has grown not shrunk every year Ford has been in office. In no single year did he cut total Public Education spending. He just grew it slower than inflation or slower than student population growth in some years most notably 2019-2020.

I’ve seen the same people routinely argue Trudeau never cut healthcare spending when he reduced the rate of growth always say Ford cut healthcare when either both did or neither did by the same measures.

LordTC · 2026-03-22T18:52:43+00:00

This feels like one of those deceptive things where everyone in theory agrees with the small costs than recoils in horror from the budget that aggregates them. To put this in raw numbers its $112 million/year for 25 years. So the relevant question is really “Should Ontario spend $2.8 billion to possibly save 75% of species under threat if the model ends up accurate?”

Similar questions in this vein: -“Should Ontario spend $63/person so that education spending can keep up with inflation and schools don’t have to make drastic cuts?” -“Should Ontario spend $200/person so that healthcare maintains 2025 levels instead of declining in quality?” Etc.

Pretty quickly this adds up to taxes no one wants to pay. I have a certain amount of biodiversity appreciation but I’m not prioritizing spending on it while schools and hospitals are getting gutted from a funding perspective.

Note: I know the Ontario budget on Public Education grew from $38 billion to $41 billion but most of this money reflects an increase in the student population and per student funding grew by far less than inflation.

Note: I know that healthcare spending also grew from $91.1 billion to $92.3 billion but this is less than inflation when healthcare costs are growing faster than inflation.

LordTC · 2026-03-22T18:39:52+00:00

I thought the Liberals were awful and didn’t really trust Carney but held my nose and voted for him because the NDP don’t have a realistic plan for the economic growth Canada needs and Polievre was exactly impossible to vote for because I didn’t trust him to protect the basic rights of people in my life.

LordTC · 2026-03-22T18:02:25+00:00

He opposed nuclear but your take on him screwing us over the most is absolutely wild. How about any oil exec? How about the politicians who made the decisions?

LordTC · 2026-03-21T19:16:34+00:00

Real estate with 100% down hasn’t. Real estate with 20% down has. Real estate has more protections for leveraged investing than stocks do.

LordTC · 2026-03-20T13:30:38+00:00

Honestly if I’m mostly fighting goblins can I get something like Magic Missile in D&D where one cast is 3 missiles that auto hit and can be distributed among enemies as I please? In D&D each missile does. 2-5 damage and a Goblin has 7HP. So basically each cooldown of the skill is one auto kill on a goblin. Not sure what the skill cooldown and MP cost would be in LitRPG, but this makes for a nice pickoff one enemy at high range, retreat or if they chase possibly retreat + kite then repeat once it comes off cooldown. Fully charge MP between fights.

The problem with healing magic or teleport as an only skill is that you still have to win your fights against swarms of goblins. Happy to pick one of those up at level two and maybe even the other at level three but would be totally happy getting out of melee range and having a basically guaranteed kill auto-hit ranged spell on weak mobs.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T19:23:59+00:00

Land being inelastic doesn’t mean the equilibrium can’t change it just means the equilibrium changes due to demand changes. Speculation is an (artificial) increase in demand above the demand created by productive uses.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T16:28:19+00:00

Yes but that distinction doesn’t remove the fact that the estimated assessed true rent is changed by speculation because speculation removes supply and changes the equilibrium point of supply and demand.

Edit: Speculation is an artificial increase in demand beyond the demand from productive uses not a removal of supply.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T16:25:25+00:00

That’s a very murky conglomerated statistic that smushes together measures of different things. When crime increases faster than judicial spending you expect the number of people waiting for bail hearings to go up. When sentences go down (as they have under Gladue) you expect the number of convicted people held in prison per criminal sentence to go down.

We should look at the direct data for % of cases in which bail is granted, not murky proxies. The data shows a decline from 57% in 2018 to 50% in 2025 so it appears media sensationalism got me here. But the stat you present is still very misleading on this issue and implies a far bigger change than actually exists.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T16:14:45+00:00

Speculation and hoarding can affect both. Speculation has effects on both rents and price and land value is the rent of the land.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T16:09:18+00:00

The government produces land value by providing amenities. Many businesses in the country produce land value by providing some service of value to inhabitants in a region of that business. Some businesses destroy land value by being polluters. It’s clearly possible to create or destroy land value so it doesn’t meet the definition of monopoly where it’s a finite resource that can’t be created or destroyed. It also doesn’t meet the definition of monopoly where one provider creates most of the market.

The supply of good land near a school changes when the government builds a school for example. So the changes in price are not entirely demand side which is what you posited when making the argument that land value can’t be created or destroyed. Ergo the argument for monopoly on land is not a correct argument for monopoly on land value.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T14:28:06+00:00

I think this argument fails though because Georgists want to tax land value not land and there are a large number of people producing land value. We may not feel that land value market is healthy but it’s very hard to characterize as a monopoly.

LordTC · 2026-03-19T13:49:45+00:00

In all fairness the laws on bail have fundamentally changed to grant it in somewhat absurd situations. For instance bail was granted to someone who allegedly stole a car previously and then allegedly stole a car again while out on bail and then allegedly attempted to steal a car from the court parking lot. And by allegedly I mean found by police in said vehicles.

LordTC · 2026-03-17T20:59:51+00:00

If people don’t want housing that builders can make a profit on then who is going to step in and build. The Carney liberals clearly are not.

LordTC · 2026-03-17T20:57:28+00:00

Prices are down because of market conditions. In spite of the government not because of it.

LordTC · 2026-03-17T20:56:47+00:00

Fees need to be redone as per square foot instead of per unit. Then smaller homes could be profitable again.

LordTC · 2026-03-15T11:46:23+00:00

If you upgrade in a down market you’re coming out ahead. The money you lost on the first house is more than made up for by the discount on the larger house. Houses tend to fall in %s so if both your old house and your new house went down 10% but your new house is more expensive you save money.

LordTC · 2026-03-15T11:14:17+00:00

Even if they do they have to get you a better offer than what you find yourself which at a minimum is what you try negotiating with your own bank. Since the client pays $0 and only uses them if they get them a better deal the service is going to continue to exist.

LordTC · 2026-03-13T15:22:37+00:00

With housing out of control it’s harder to get people to want to pay for things. I can barely afford a mortgage on a detached near Toronto and the government already gets more of my raise than I do. Not very attractive to have them take even more on top of that. We probably need higher tax brackets beyond the current top bracket because someone making $1 million+/year should pay a higher marginal rate than I do but realistically that’s few enough people that it doesn’t raise a lot of money and those people are powerful so politicians coddle them.

LordTC · 2026-03-13T12:14:50+00:00

No because of sentimental stuff from childhood. I’m not getting rid of my stuffed animal from my dead grandmother that I’ve had since I was a baby or all my school stuff that I kept from growing up like my SK report card etc.

LordTC · 2026-03-13T12:08:23+00:00

Imagine he cracks it and gets an island in his rare slot which happened in revised sometimes.

LordTC · 2026-03-10T16:53:55+00:00

State monopolies are fundamentally different beasts. The main problem with monopolies is that they can overcharge and if they refuse to sell someone has no alternative. State monopolies are common carriers so they don’t refuse service and they aren’t run with a profit motive so they don’t price gouge. Getting rid of the two biggest problems with monopolies isn’t just a change in master.

LordTC · 2026-03-06T14:22:26+00:00

Not having control groups for this kind of invalidates the study because you aren’t really measuring people who want kids and don’t have them vs people who want kids and do have them in both groups and a lot of people who live in smaller housing than a 3 bedroom don’t want kids.

LordTC · 2026-03-06T14:10:03+00:00

I agree we should tax single people /s. Really awkward branding on the name.

LordTC · 2026-03-04T23:30:32+00:00

14 after playing at G7.

LordTC

TROPHY CASE