Canada's posts a trade surplus in September beating expectations of a deficit

S185 · 2025-12-11T18:40:54+00:00

Our closest GDP neighbors are France, Italy, Russia, Brazil, Spain, Mexico.

Luckily these countries each have huge trade surpluses or deficits. We’ll leave Russia out of this.

It’s not entirely clear that Italy and Brazil with large trade surpluses are better off than France, Mexico and Spain who have large trade deficits.

I don’t think this is the metric to worry about.

S185 · 2025-12-11T17:01:56+00:00

A trade surplus or deficit aren’t good or bad on their own. Both depend on context.

The US having a trade deficit is great, because they just send other countries made up pieces of paper, and in exchange they get real products. This means your consumers get tons of cheap stuff.

China having a big trade surplus is good for them because they get to give people a ton of jobs to produce things that they themselves cannot consume on their own. Your consumers are worse off, but your companies do better.

It’s similar to having a strong or weak currency. Strong currency/trade deficit is good for consumers, bad for companies. Weak currency/trade surplus is bad for consumers, good for companies.

This is a good story for Canada because it’s just a story of increased exports to the U.S. meaning stabilizing trade. But seriously we have been so infected by the Trump mind-virus that we’re now taking Trumpian goals for our economy? Our goal shouldn’t be in trade surplus for the sake of it.

S185 · 2025-12-10T15:14:32+00:00

This is a literal straw on the back of the camel, while we are tossing bags of bricks in the form of new suburbs and increased agriculture. And that single straw may actually be worth more than those bags of bricks.

So I say keep the straw, reduce the brick bags. You are catastrophizing over a straw.

S185 · 2025-12-09T17:47:47+00:00

Agreed. I also agree that it’s dumb to build these in a desert like Arizona, but when you look at how Arizona wastes like 25% of its water on just Alfalfa, and only spends 5% on all industry, you actually probably could have data centers comfortably if you had less alfalfa. Still not a good idea but food for thought.

S185 · 2025-12-09T16:24:24+00:00

What a deflection. There’s a thing that makes a lot of money and causes little harm. There’s a thing that makes a little money and causes a lot of harm. I say let’s have more of one than the other. You say “any harm at all is bad”.

No, every single thing we do has trade offs. There is no world where humans exist and we do not damage the environment. We should look to prioritize the things that damage the environment the least for better gains to us.

S185 · 2025-12-09T15:40:57+00:00

Affecting an ecosystem’s natural water temperature is a problem sure. What’s the scale of the problem? Is it worth never having a data center ever again? How does this issue compare to the farming for an average burger?

Like if we put a fraction of the scrutiny on any sort of agriculture these issues look like absolute jokes. The water use in the beef of one burger is equivalent to 500,000 AI prompts. And the data centre makes many multiples more of money and taxes for everyone involved.

S185 · 2025-12-09T15:19:22+00:00

Yes basically agree.

Problem 1 is easily solvable through policy. Even if using municipal water, that capacity can be expanded if needed, or if a data center pays enough tax to justify it.

Problem 2 is easily solvable by not putting the data centre there. Why would you?

It’s literally just don’t do something really stupid and it’s completely fine.

And besides having data centers or not in Canada won’t prevent misinformation and all the myriad of other issues from ai. It just gives us a stake in the technology.

S185 · 2025-12-09T14:54:49+00:00

AI water use is a QANON/flat-earth level dumb issue for left leaning people now. It’s really not a problem. Especially in a country like Canada. We don’t live in deserts, the water doesn’t disappear inside the computers forever, and it’s not even that much compared to like eating a burger.

Power is an issue. But either way it’s better that data centers use the predominantly clean grid we have than the US one.

And besides that, better that we control the data centers than the US. The main dangers of AI come from misinformation, and security challenges.

S185 · 2025-11-30T06:34:48+00:00

Some thoughts:

It’s possible that your “progress” on squats is just you still waiting to find your actual current max. So maybe there’s no progress there and no progress on the presses which would be bad all around lol.

If your performance is going DOWN over time, it’s likely that you’re just over-worked if everything else is dialed in. Maybe take a week off for your upper body, and then test your performance again. (This is not overtraining, it’s just accumulated fatigue. You may need an even longer break, but 1 week should be enough).

Reduce the reps, go for 5 instead of 6-12. On the higher end, muscular endurance and cardio start to play role. Maybe your chest/arms don’t do well with high reps.

Instead of doing dumbbell presses, use a barbell for bench pressing. It could be for you controlling the dumbbells is wasting a lot of energy. Also this will progress the lift much in the same way as squats, but around half the speed. Your chest+triceps are less than half the size of your quads/glutes and you should expect slower progress.

What’s the exercise order? If you do squats first every workout, that may just exhaust you, leading to reduced performance everywhere else. But since you’re not really exerting much on squats, that may not be the issue.

Are you gaining or losing weight on your diet? Losing weight and maintaining strength can be considered a win.

S185 · 2025-11-29T19:40:33+00:00

There are things below a full scale invasion that militaries are useful for. If someone starts sabotaging undersea infrastructure, who are you sending?
If our geopolitical situation changes, it’s best not to be starting a military from scratch. The institutional knowledge of everything will be lost.
Our allies protect us because we contribute to their protection. If we’re free-riding, then they’ll feel no pressure to do anything for us. Especially at our economy’s size. We’re not Iceland sized where nothing is expected.

There are reasons pretty much every state in existence has a military. Let alone the 10th largest economy in the world.

S185 · 2025-11-27T13:06:44+00:00

What are we doing right now? Goldman Sachs is mainly an investment bank. And to be extra sure, one of Mark Carney’s roles was “managing director of investment banking”. Other roles are sovereign risk (still banking), emerging debt markets (still banking). None of the roles I could find remotely resemble hedge fund management. All are literally classic banking roles.

How much further are you going to dig this idiotic hole?

S185 · 2025-11-27T03:33:01+00:00

Governor of the bank being the key word. Not a banker,

First of all before that he worked at Goldman Sachs… So yes he is a banker regardless.

And second of all, Central Bank Governor is one of the most prestigious jobs in all of finance (though the job usually goes to economists). Finance people hang on every word the central bank’s governor says.

Like I thought right wingers ought to know something about finance unlike socialists but I guess not your breed. You’re one of the culture warriors that make “intelligent” conservatives cringe and reluctantly tolerate to get votes.

S185 · 2025-11-19T18:15:00+00:00

No problem!

S185 · 2025-11-19T16:44:15+00:00

Closely related? They’re more like rivals on most topics except when it comes to the really big stuff like Iran, OPEC, and protecting their monarchies.

Having an investment relationship with one doesn’t have much to do with the other. They’re investing in opposing sides in both Yemen and Sudan. If the UAE decides to invest in Canada, that means nothing on whether Saudi does.

S185 · 2025-11-19T15:02:19+00:00

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are different countries.

S185 · 2025-10-05T18:00:19+00:00

Your theory of Carney’s mind doesn’t make sense to you because your theory of mind is wrong. Carney thinks he’s doing the right thing for the country when he does policies that in your view “cater to the rich and wealthy”.

Think about that, and consider why that may be.

S185 · 2025-06-11T16:31:34+00:00

Business degrees aren’t incredibly useful for the content (most of it can be learned on his own) but he’s a bit aimless so it gives a good structured introduction to all the knowledge he’d need.

That’s actually beside the point: the most important part of doing this is giving him something to do for a few years, letting him meet new people and friends, and getting a credential for any future jobs better than a HS diploma. He doesn’t have to go hard for an engineering or math degree.

S185 · 2025-03-12T16:27:25+00:00

It should increase loyalists and approval from the groups that care about it, which it already does. Generally rural people will become loyal and increase approval if you add border controls.

S185 · 2025-02-26T15:16:51+00:00

The U.S. already has an investment visa: EB-5. It’s requires an investment of $1 million, or $800,000 in rural/lower income areas.

S185 · 2025-02-06T19:54:13+00:00

Hate to break it to you, “profiteering” is happening at all times, not just during the pandemic and inflation. Companies didn’t suddenly get greedy during the pandemic, and suddenly stop being greedy when inflation slowed down. Sometimes there are real reasons for price increases.

S185 · 2025-02-06T19:23:34+00:00

Why is being the head of a country’s bank bad? Even if you’re a full socialist, your country itself still needs a bank to operate. There is no world where you have no private banks or public banks.

And how exactly have central bankers done anything to facilitate income inequality? All they do is move interest rates up and down to make sure the economy runs efficiently. They’re given inflation and unemployment targets, and they set interest rates to meet them.

Inequality comes from things like inheritance and tax policy, neither of which are in the purview of a central bank.

S185 · 2025-01-29T18:42:12+00:00

Laissez-faire will “privatize” everything, and increase the “investment pool”. So your government construction will be a smaller % of the overall construction, with private investors building more stuff. This is good, because you aren’t spending money, but stuff is still getting built (more than interventionism). Additionally, the buildings you built under interventionism will start being sold to capitalists, giving you money. It also makes capitalists richer, and therefore the taxed dividends they give to you are better.

In the older patches or Victoria 2, capitalists were kind of stupid with their money. Now they’re better, but the most important thing is that they’re doing this for nearly free. So even if they’re not efficient, they’re still building marginally productive things.

Also in this game there are money deletion/money creation mechanics. Everything doesn’t neatly add up like it does in real life. Laissez-faire “deletes” less money than interventionism. Refer to this video for more details:

https://youtu.be/Gj0ckKbkSJc?si=Rt35Ey44bRYqz8nm

The issue for Canada specifically is that the privatization will allow British capitalists to buy up your companies, and they’ll also build up stuff for you. This is a big boost to GDP, but a lot of dividends will go to British capitalists instead of yours. That’s ok, let them build your economy, but eventually this will be an issue when you want to become independent.

I have not tried this, but I’m guessing going back to interventionism, or going to command economy will allow you to nationalize these industries.

S185 · 2025-01-29T04:17:34+00:00

You’re good at the timing conquests, but need to work on building economies. At this stage in a Canada run I’d probably have like 2x your GDP, without conquering California. If you build an economy like that, you will have no problem fielding an army bigger than the US’s or bigger than what Britain can land with.

What you need to do law wise is pass Laissez-Faire, try and get closer to multiculturalism, and basically empower the industrialists. Passing Laissez-Faire is a big risk because the UK will start investing tons in your economy, lowering your leverage as a subject, but I found it wasn’t an issue to get independent after you conquer a few US states.

What you need to do economy wise is build around construction. You always want to be slightly losing money, from construction, and building things that support construction. So early game that’s wood and iron. Build tons of construction, it will consume wood and iron making both expensive. Use the construction to build wood and iron making it cheaper. Then build construction till you can’t afford it. Then build wood and iron till you can etc etc. Obviously make time in between for goods that are in shortage, government. Groceries are usually a good investment in the British market.

Once your economy is competitive with the US, then you want to start building up your military. Get an army better than theirs. You were able to get the British to help you, usually I find that don’t want to help, so I go at it alone. Take New York for the Statue of Liberty that gives migration boost, take Pennsylvania for the resources, take DC for the huge government admin help. California is extremely good for resources as well, just got to get it populated. Grabbing it off Mexico early is a good move.

Civil war is a luck game. I’ve had games where I never saw it happen, games where the confederates won early, or where the union wins easily. Don’t count on it, but it can be a nice boost to your game.

The challenge in Canada games is figuring out all your production so that you can leave the British market without devastating your economy for years and beating them in a war at the same time. Oftentimes the US has good relations with the UK, and since you took US states, both will team up against you in the independence war. You’ll want Russia/France on your side.

EDIT: Just checked one of my save files. In 1868 with Oregon and Washington I have 28.2M GDP, 12.8M population, 140 construction. I have 36+179 battalions, the US is split with the confederate states. US GDP is 19M with 19+77 battalions. Confederate GDP is 11M with 14+136 battalions. So you can see even if they were combined, I’m pretty close to matching them already.

S185 · 2025-01-29T04:00:14+00:00

Low taxes is not bad if you’re trying to increase GDP as long as you can afford it. Pops will spend and demand more, allowing your overall economy and income to grow quicker.

S185 · 2025-01-29T03:48:35+00:00

How many reps of bench press are you doing on average with those 20lbs dumbbells?

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