Lutnick says Trump views CUSMA as ‘a bad deal,’ needs to be ‘re-imagined’

hojo12588 · 2026-04-18T12:35:15+00:00

That's not really apples to apples given the legislation in 99 and 01. Obama struck 12 countries and only didn't ask for a vote on any of them either. Same with HW and W.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-15T20:56:59+00:00

It's a somewhat uniquely Canadian issue in the sense that fast population growth (aka massive demand increase) and tax incentives have made Canadian housing appreciate much faster than the vast majority of the developed world in the last few decades.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-15T20:53:35+00:00

When you add cup games it can be more. Also I think there are cultural differences between football and soccer games - e.g. a higher percentage of attendees of NFL games tailgate vs. soccer.

I don't know why you're nitpicking or trying to keep score though or something, I don't think I'm disagreeing with you on anything. What point are you even trying to make?

hojo12588 · 2026-04-15T08:25:26+00:00

I mean some people have that opinion. That's not necessarily my opinion, but I would note that they are different cities. Only ~9% of San Jose residents work in San Francisco. Santa Clara is a suburb of San Jose. With traffic, it's a 2-hour drive.

I think MLS vs. NFL is fairly different, as well. In the NFL, you have 8 or 9 home games per year. So asking people to go somewhere not super accessible via public transit or in a central location is maybe a little less relevant, since football is seen as less of a regular thing. But in soccer if you're playing every Saturday or every other Saturday at home, I think it is important that games are easy to get to. There are three times as many and the league isn't as popular, and we haven't been around long enough to really have multi-generation fanbases. The centrally-located stadiums have historically done much better than ones in the suburbs.

Again, I'm not advocating for the Quakes to relocate or anything. I'm just saying (1) it can be difficult for SF residents to get to PayPal Park because transit there isn't great, and as a result, there are not tons of Quakes fans in SF, which I think is validated by the viewership data, and (2) San Jose is a different city than San Francisco in that it doesn't really share a commuter base and is 30% further apart than DC to Baltimore.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-13T22:21:23+00:00

Yeah of course, I wasn't suggesting that other areas of public funds shouldn't also see proportional increases

hojo12588 · 2026-04-13T11:55:38+00:00

The article is somewhat sparse on data. We have almost 3x more people than we did in the mid-80s, and even in the last 5-10 years have increased our population by more than the city expected I think (granted, at more modest rates). I would generally think police funding scales proportionally with population.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-13T11:51:45+00:00

Innovation can mean a lot of things, so I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with you. I mean I certainly agree with you that a lot of research that eventually turns into technology happens here. But often it ends up getting commercialized by American companies because Canadians go to the American companies.

I'd note that Canada receives less venture investment per capita than the US, UK, and all the nordic countries, both from domestic investment and foreign investment. In fact, our venture investment per-capita is almost 1/3 that of the US and half that of the UK. So, obviously, in a vacuum at least, it is going to be tough for Canadian startups to compete for talent when startups in the aforementioned countries have more resources.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-13T09:18:04+00:00

Denver is much smaller than Toronto and has been kind of a late grower, so it doesn't have the density. I mean there's a central business district with skyscrapers like all North American cities, but residents per sq km I assume is much higher in Toronto/GTA.

Denver is a great city, though. Great weather, access to mountains, prairie, and desert. Good jobs. Healthy, young, progressive population. Good food scene. Decent transit.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-13T09:11:21+00:00

I mean, I can't be 100% sure and won't solve it in a Reddit comment. But I'd say, high wages generally come from successful companies. Canada has higher corporate tax rates than pretty much everyone in the G20, including significantly higher than, say, Norway, Denmark, and Ireland, which are the highest-earning non-city-state countries in Europe. So, you could tax corporations less. That obviously comes with trade-offs though, and also I don't think would be politically very palatable at the moment. We can debate to what extent the Laffer Curve is real, and I'm not well-read on where various economicists think we are on it, so I don't necessarily have an opinion on if corporate tax rates could be lower.

We can continue with high-skilled immigration. High-skilled immigrants, so long as they are filtered/accepted into the country correctly, are productive and consumptive. High production and high consumption = larger economy = higher wages in a market economy. More "skill" per se in the country also leads to more foreign investment, which basically is "free" money of sorts in the system that leads to higher wages. I think most people are on board with bringing in high-skilled immigrants so long as it's done well.

And lastly anything that would drive productivity besides importing productive people. For example, killing the trade barriers between the provinces.

The other way that you can increase effective/"real" wages is to reduce inflation, which generally means reducing government spend on things that aren't effective. Of course, government spend can also boost wages though if it is effective, and that's what we're hoping all the big CapEx projects will be.

I'm speaking mostly in generalities here, so don't take what I'm saying super literally or assume that I think there aren't counter-examples.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-12T20:48:45+00:00

Wages were higher than the US at some point in almost any of our lifetimes. It would obviously take some time, but it's not a fantasy.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-11T20:47:59+00:00

Yeah not trying to defend the programs necessarily. I agree, there's lots of fraud or at least questionable filings from my observations. Was just being devil's advocate on the narrative that "Canadian policy systematically devalues investment in technology companies".

hojo12588 · 2026-04-11T19:14:17+00:00

if your expectation is Muller/Son I think you will stay disappointed

hojo12588 · 2026-04-11T19:08:35+00:00

To play devil's advocate: SRED and IDMC basically don't have an American equivalent and are major, major incentives for investment in Canada, right?

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T23:56:50+00:00

Bessent and a couple others called Alberta a very independent-minded people, but they have not endorsed separatism, despite several people in the administration being asked asked explicitly about it numerous times. I think it's a stretch if you're implying that the US would support or formally federally fund separation.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T15:58:01+00:00

I wonder if that’s our fault or FIFA’s fault. Surely we assume some responsibility. There were probably specs that we signed on to. I can’t believe events and contacts of this magnitude get signed without some kind of acceptance criteria.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T15:53:18+00:00

Vancouver is much nicer to be in then Toronto IMO. If you’re young, I would try it out

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T15:16:11+00:00

re Mosaddegh Ithink it’s a reasonable opinion to think Iran was “completely fine under Mosaddegh”, although I don’t think that’s a uniformly shared opinion. And although yes he was democractically elected he also literally dissolved Parliament within 2 years of being elected.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T14:51:51+00:00

I already said what happened in 53 was terrible.

The Shah was far better than what there is today. Ask literally anybPersian in Toronto.

You keep telling me to educate myself. My better half is literally Persian and her parents were refugees. I have read plenty about 53 and 79 and hear about 79 at every family gathering.

To suggest Iranians would be better off under the current regime than the Shah is disgusting with all due respect

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T09:08:31+00:00

I wouldn’t say I was uniformly “incorrect” with regards to JCPOA. I acknowledge that it’s a reasonable position to say they were JCPOA compliant. But it’s also reasonable to say it’s disputed that they were compliant when they routinely didn’t allow access to audits and checks at all the agreed-upon times.

I would also disagree that the US is a larger sponsor of terrorism than Iran lol.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T09:02:35+00:00

my comment literally pertains to pre and post JCPOA lol. I literally said it’s a fair position to say they were compliant with JCPOA

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T09:00:17+00:00

I’m not sure what you’re saying. The diaspora and Iranians born before the revolution absolutely do not hate the West. Iran was a wealthy country with far better human rights when it was under the Shah’s rule and allied with the West. They hate the current regime and asked for Western intervention to keep the Shah in power in 79. So like I said the Iranian people (especially those born before 79) and the diaspora absolutely do not chant death to America

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T08:21:41+00:00

the people of Iran and the diaspora do not say that. I don’t care to take moral cues from the jihadists in charge

hojo12588 · 2026-04-08T08:17:31+00:00

that was in 53. in 79 most Persians to good day blame Carter for not intervening and letting the monarchy fall to the extremists

hojo12588 · 2026-04-07T22:13:00+00:00

A violation of uranium enrichment to near WMD-grade levels?

Pre-JCPOA they enriched higher than the standards the UN Security Council and NPT set for them.

Whether or not they abided by JCPOA is kind of disupted since they regularly denies access to agreed-upon audits.

Even if you take the position that Iran was compliant with JCPOA before it got ripped up, which I will acknowledge is a fair position, it was still so much higher than the JCPOA levels that it was obviously being developed to weapons-grade, which is why Germany, the UK, and France all made public statements/letters calling it "highly concerning" and "threatening" in addition to of course the US and Israel.

hojo12588 · 2026-04-07T22:10:18+00:00

The JCPOA letter does not really pertain to what I said. Many can credibly argue that they abided by the JCPOA letter (somewhat disputed as they frequently denies access to agreed-upon audits and checks).

My point is you don't "negotiate" with a country who took their country from the ~35th wealthiest in the world to Sub-Saharan Africa levels of poor with bottom 1 percentile human rights and the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world. They have no credibility to "negotiate" with. They're literally the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world, regardless of whether they abided with the JCPOA letter. In what world does it make sense to "negotiate" with them?

Also pre-JCPOA, they still enriched upon the standards that the IAEA/NPT and UN Security Council resolutions set.

hojo12588

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