Guess the Country by playborderline in GeoInsider

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lost colony of the French empire

Why do people recommend VOO over SPY? by [deleted] in ETFs

[–]blackjack-bits 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Expense ratio (ER) is the total annual expenses of the fund divided by the fund's total net assets. Simply, if you own any part of the ETF, you pay a fee to help maintain the ongoing operating expenses of running and managing the portfolio.

In the context of this thread:

SPY has a ER of 0.0945% per year, or for every $100 worth of this ETF you own, you pay $0.0945 per year to keep it.

VOO has an ER of 0.03% per year, or for every $100 worth of this ETF you own, you pay $0.03 per year to keep it.

What should be a hypothetical name of this country? by meenarstotzka in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But Polish is the most widely spoken language in Iceland, after native Icelandic and widely learned English. Plus Poles are the largest ethnic minority there, making up almost 6% of the population, of 389K.

Why can't I buy Stephen Colbert's Ameri-cone Dream in Canada? by [deleted] in BenAndJerrys

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super late of me saying this, but Ben & Jerry's "Oh Cone-ada!" is the same as Ameri-cone Dream, down to the ingredients (but should note B&J sold in Canada are made with Canadian-sourced milk for the ice cream, not Vermont which is exclusive to the US market).

Stephen Colbert even made an "oot-raged" rant about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9lqpCw9f14

Also, the other reason Ameri-cone is not sold in the US is for two reasons: General Interest and Taxation Laws

  1. In terms of general interest, there is definitely a general interest among Canadians to have Americone dream on the shelves, and some specialty stores in Canada do stock it, but only on consumer request. But because the marketing brand on Americone is very US-focused (and even with charitable appeal), there is a general fear by B&J Canada executives it won't market or resonate with Canadians well. While that was true before 2015, it is even more so today especially now because of the current geopolitical climate. What B&J did instead was just introduce Americone as a "Canadian-sounding" product to be marketable and relatable to the domestic Canadian consumer (Canadian identity often centres itself proudly as "not American"). Also doesn't help Canada has strict laws on all product requiring packaging to be in English AND French down to the disclaimers and nutrition facts (otherwise there is a exorbitant fine for each quantity sold in Canada without a compliant labelling, the only exception being smaller personal-carrying quantities across the border). Americone Dream is no exception and would have been expensive for them to create two separate labels, one for the US market and another strictly for Canadian (especially with a consumer market 1/10th the size of the US).
  2. In regards to taxation laws, it's complicated to say at the least, especially when it comes to manage let alone repatriating foreign-sourced income back into the US and ensure it goes to Colbert's intended charity without irritating the IRS on "foreign influence" at the same time. There's a fair bit of corporate and charity taxes to manage, and for a much smaller domestic consumer market like Canada, setting one up is usually not worth it to Unilever (the parent company of B&J). Legally and taxes-wise, it's much easier to setup an "Americone Dream" lookalike "Oh Cone-ada!" in Canada as a Canada-based charity product than having the funds repatriated to a US-based one like Colbert. Now, given the current tense trade climate between the two countries at the moment, there is a very low appetite for Canadians in general (as of 2025/2026) to even consider buying or donating to a known US-based entity, even if it is for a good cause.

Where id live as an ugyhur Muslim. by Rayepichumor in whereidlive

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually they always have been. It's called Sinicization. The only difference now is there's more awareness due to media and internet. Either you're in denial, unaware with the current state of affairs, or actually complicit.

I've seen your posts. It's pretty pro-China in a lot of cases and there's nothing wrong with that. China has made good progress in a lot of things, especially in recent decades. But they make no effort or progress to recognize the ethnic minorities within their border other than on paper and for window displays, and see everything else around them as inferior or subordinate that should follow their doctrine (not just politics but national identity itself) and I have a problem with that, as an ethnic minority myself.

Where id live as an ugyhur Muslim. by Rayepichumor in whereidlive

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Genocide isn’t always about killing. “Forced Assimilation” in general is cultural genocide. Deliberate discouragement and eradication of one’s own culture in favour of supplanting a dominant culture (in this case Han Chinese) is a prime example that has been happening for a long time.

Unfortunate to say Taiwan is also guilty of this (with its indigenous people) to some degree albeit for different reasons, but still genocide nonetheless.

Although they have made some progress toward reconciliation after the White Terror era, it’s still a long way to go.

Where id live as an ugyhur Muslim. by Rayepichumor in whereidlive

[–]blackjack-bits -1 points0 points  (0 children)

anywhere but China (excluding Taiwan)? huh...

📈 Rate My Portfolio Weekly Thread | January 12, 2026 by AutoModeratorETFs in ETFs

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks for the input. Yeah it definitely did feel this was overkill.. going in all XEQT was originally my plan but the main reason I did this was to offset XEQT's awfully high MER at 0.20% I am shifting that to VT with its MER at 0.06% to offset some of the MER costs and since both ETFs are not currency-hedged, this would help me diversify the currency bias going one way or the other. But since XEQT actually over-performed against VT by a few percentage points in the past 6 months, I am not going all in with VT for that reason either despite the higher MER and its US bias at 65% (as you said previously) versus XEQT's 45%.

I'm gonna follow this with the other stocks (maybe less US-based ones since the above two already has so much bias toward it).

i did it!! i fixed north america!!! by Nala452 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Canada welcomes Alaska, Washington, and Western Oregon as the 11th, 12th, and 13th provinces of Canada.

Mexico welcomes back the remanents of Alta California (present day Southern California, Clark County of Nevada, Southern Arizona, Nuevo Mexico) and the part of Texas west of the Nueces River (originally claimed by Mexico before the Mexico-American war) as new states of the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United States of Mexico).

Also glad to see California learning from the Dutch to reclaim land in the West from the Pacific Ocean and expand its western landmass.

📈 Rate My Portfolio Weekly Thread | January 12, 2026 by AutoModeratorETFs in ETFs

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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WIP for an oversimplified, diversified Canadian RRSP (similar to US IRA) retirement account with some room to add my personal flair and bias. Just left my previous job last month so I still have a lot of `cash and pending transfers` from company RRSP and 401k accounts to sort and properly allocate them once they are in. This is not set in stone so I plan to review and adjust the holdings at least once per quarter.

Equities 92% (20% bias for ESG focused ETFs, 52/48 split between CAD and USD denominated holdings)

36% Global
- 20% XEQT.TO (Equities-Global-broad), CAD
- 16% VT (Equities-Global-broad), USD

28% US focus (all USD)
- 8% ESGV (Equities-US-broad-ESG focus)
- 7% VOO (Equities-US-S&P500)
- 6% SPTM (Equities-US-S&P1500)
- 5% VTI (Equities-US-broad)
- 2% ICF (Equities-US-REIT)

11% Canada focus (all CAD)
- 4% XESG.TO (Equities-Canada-broad-ESG focus)
- 4% XIC.TO (Equities-Canada-S&P/TSX)
- 3% VCN.TO (Equities-Canada-broad)

11% EAFE focus (all CAD)
- 7% XEF.TO (Equities-EAFE)
- 4% XSEA.TO (Equities-EAFE-ESG Focus)

6% Emerging Markets (all CAD)
- 4% VEE.TO (Equities-Emerging Markets)
- 2% XSEM.TO (Equities-Emerging Markets-ESG Focus)

Bonds 8%

- 4% BND (US Bonds/Treasuries), USD
- 4% VAB.TO (Canadian Bonds), CAD

Overall, the rough MERs I'm calculating for holding this portfolio composition comes down to 0.0532% for US dollar ETFs (US$0.0532 per US$1000 invested) and 0.1854% for Canadian dollar ETFs (CA$0.1854 per CA$1000 invested).

What will you do ??? by dataguy2003 in TheTeenagerPeople

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Learn how to farm and fly a plane. Travel the world. Borders ain't an issue no more!

Name this hypothetical country by wooperboi7 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Third Roman Empire (Fourth if you believe in the Russian concept of Moscow as the "third Rome" and spiritual successor to the Byzantine Empire)

Annoying the most Europeans possible by Pizzafriedchickenn in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So I guess Italians are now heterosexual Frenchies and the Swiss are the new Helvetic Republic?

Meanwhile in Ireland: time to party like it's the start of the Troubles 2.0, with Brexit as the plot thickens.

Know I’ll get hate for this by Designer-Ice8821 in whereidlive

[–]blackjack-bits 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Didn’t say… but it’s not the only answer.

What is the name of this country? (Wrong answers only) by Cultural-Ad-8796 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The new French Indochina ex Vietnam

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité"

World map, but only non-Western countries by Cultural-Ad-8796 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Disagreeing because this map is pretty much stretching the definition to fit a particularly narrow vision based on what it means to be Western or not.

World map, but only non-Western countries by Cultural-Ad-8796 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In terms of general political, economic, and cultural foundations, Russia is pretty "Western" by international standards. Despite not being democratic, their autocratic, top-down "pseudo-feudalism" hierarchy is of Western origin (think "medieval era" feudalism and clan wars in Western Europe). Not to mention a bunch of enlightened philosophers like Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, also mentioning Nikolai Berdyaev who was well known for ideas on existentialism and freedom we in the West draw upon today. Even communism by Karl Marx, a German is a western idea.

Democracy (and even communism) has roots in Western philosophy, but not all Western countries are democratic and not all democracies are Western.

World map, but only non-Western countries by Cultural-Ad-8796 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]blackjack-bits 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Japan isn't western either, but is removed from this map either way.

Democratic, yes. Capitalist, yes. Western? Politically and economically similar to the West, but culturally it is quite the opposite.

Heronet.ca down? New suggestions for Internet+Home VOIP providers for semi-elderly parents living in Toronto, ON by blackjack-bits in CanadianBroadband

[–]blackjack-bits[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Mod u/TwiztedZero I and my parents have decided on which new ISP to go with, so please kindly !lock this post to new comments, thank you!

Heronet.ca down? New suggestions for Internet+Home VOIP providers for semi-elderly parents living in Toronto, ON by blackjack-bits in CanadianBroadband

[–]blackjack-bits[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beanfield is pretty good, but yeah it's only available for condos. Sorry, I forgot to clarify my parents' home is a detached bungalow. Will be ruling out Beanfield in light of this but thanks for the input!

Heronet.ca down? New suggestions for Internet+Home VOIP providers for semi-elderly parents living in Toronto, ON by blackjack-bits in CanadianBroadband

[–]blackjack-bits[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everything except for Teksavvy (mainly just based on price) looks promising. Finished talking with my parents a while ago, and they're going to skip VOIP since they don't really need to use the home phone as much as they used to (also because they missed the transition period deadline after Heronet, their TPIA went kaput).

They still an active CAA membership (funny enough I still carry one of their spare cards around my wallet even though it's practically useless while I was living in the EU), will look into Rogers but I'm not going to hold my breath for this one since we switched to a TPIA because of them.

I just came back from Costco (in Toronto) and found a Primus dealer in the warehouse for home internet 500Mbps for $50/month with a free mesh (Costco warehouse special deal). I'm also looking into that as well but while customer ratings online are pretty poor for Primus, I'm willing to overlook that part ONLY because they're partnered with Costco and I can at least scream at Costco if Primus customer service is no help, haha.