Trump bullied Canada over ‘digital taxes’ – and Ottawa submitted
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This is an excellent piece from Joseph Stiglitz.
Everyone should read it.
Trump is bullying Canada over ‘digital taxes’ and Canada caved | Joseph Stiglitz
The question now: will countries cave in to these threats or stick together and collect the billions they are rightly owed?
the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)
Ask 10 economists, you’ll get 10 different answers. But opinions are news now because we need to keep that train rolling in the new 24/7 news economy. My own opinion is that he “capitulated” to get the trade talks started again se he can get past that July 21st deadline and then proceed accordingly.
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Ask 10 economists, you’ll get 10 different answers. But opinions are news now because we need to keep that train rolling in the new 24/7 news economy. My own opinion is that he “capitulated” to get the trade talks started again se he can get past that July 21st deadline and then proceed accordingly.
I also think it gives him a small bit of leverage too. They can always be reinstated the taxes since it was a 2020(?) bill with a deferred effective date
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I think the point is that by capitulating on this, Canada has gained time. Time to make deals with other countries as trade partners, time to source necessities (that they have gotten from the U.S. for literally decades) from other countries, and time to build up their own military might in case Trump makes good on his idiotic “51st state” bullshit.
That’s what I am hoping this is. All just a big game for more time to pivot away from the USA. What we need is time time time.
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The last thing you do when a toddler throws a tantrum is give in to their demands. You reinforce their behaviour and teach them it works. Every child phsychologist can tell you that.
So why the fuck are world leaders, with the resources of an entire country, enabling this whiny man-child?!
The last thing you do when a toddler throws a tantrum is give in to their demands.
But when it’s a toddler with a (nuclear) gun, you do have to tread very carefully and choose your battles wisely.
I can’t say yet if Carney has currently made all of the most wise choices. I don’t think anyone has enough information (including him) yet to make that call. Time will tell.
I certainly don’t envy him this task.
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The media can keep bashing the Canadian government scrapping the tax. The last minute “capitulation” as many in the media is framing it as, while true, is also disingenuous on how Canada has to deal with the US given the cards it has in hand. Canada right now still relies heavily on exporting things to the US and keeping the US at the table talking is the best it can do right now until it can secure other trade deals around the world. Proximity matters and even more so when they are still is a superpower.
Canada still has many options despite this digital tax. What about banning US big tech? What about changing the rules about tech companies entering Canadian job space (and it doesn’t have to be a tax)? Other countries have managed (eg. China, Denmark), so why can’t Canada? The government can fight on one front, but Canadians themselves also have to. The boycott of travel to the US and of US goods clearly has made impact, but Canadians can do more. Support open source software like Linux, move away from Adobe and so forth. There are alternatives and some even Canadian ones. If we are to truly give the Canadian government good tools to fight, we too must do our jobs individually.
What about reveting media ownership limits back to what they were previously?
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Canadian companies, schools and government have deals with microsoft
Increasingly European governments are moving away from Microsoft to open source software.
That is an example (and a proven path) that Canada can follow.
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When the majority keep saying npd is never going to win so i will not voting for them of course they will never win. Of you kwep voting for the same two parties thst failed multiple time, the country will keep getting worse
Hard agree. But it’s a function of FPTP. If we had a better voting system (like Trudeau promised!) then a lot more people could vote their conscience instead of doing strategic voting. But until then, voting strategically is often the best move.
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I also think it gives him a small bit of leverage too. They can always be reinstated the taxes since it was a 2020(?) bill with a deferred effective date
Yes if they don’t get what they want or Trump is unreasonable they can certainly bring them right back.
This is a huge bargaining chip, and the Americans know this too…
Carney hasnt given us a reason to not believe in his ways yet, as much as the conservative opposition scream foul before anything has begun.
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Hard agree. But it’s a function of FPTP. If we had a better voting system (like Trudeau promised!) then a lot more people could vote their conscience instead of doing strategic voting. But until then, voting strategically is often the best move.
Having a bad system mean we should make more efforts to change things with our our hand rather than waiting the government. See all services getting worse and inflation growing witht the status quo we are in
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Ask 10 economists, you’ll get 10 different answers. But opinions are news now because we need to keep that train rolling in the new 24/7 news economy. My own opinion is that he “capitulated” to get the trade talks started again se he can get past that July 21st deadline and then proceed accordingly.
Yes, this hasn’t closed the door forever (as far as I can tell), and Carney doesn’t seem like an idiot, so I hold out hope this is some kind of maneuvering, and he’s still as “elbows up” as he was on the campaign trail.
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Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t
WHAT. He sold beans for money in his first term, of course he’s making money off of it.
I don’t think he’s smart enough to actually take advantage of this.
This is one of his major MO’s making money, maybe he missed the first few times, but he’s done it so much now that he’s for sure making money on these bets, just like every supporter he’s got out there.
Why do you think he walked away from the table because of the DST, because he cares about gig tech? They paid him – that’s why they got seats at his inauguration.
And before you say anything, no he will not learn his lesson.
Disagree, this is a lesson reinforces itself, I bet he continues this way. I’m not saying he’s smart, just greedy.
That’s the thing, he sells shit. He is, in every respect, a glorified used car salesman. He takes garbage and dresses it up into gilded trinkets that he pawns off on the morons who believe in him. He also definitely used Mar-a-Lago as a way to launder bribes from foreign nationals. (Yet another reason why presidents should be constitutionally required to divest everything they own before being allowed to take office.)
Disagree, this is a lesson reinforces itself, I bet he continues this way. I’m not saying he’s smart, just greedy.
Trump wants a “win”. He will keep doing what he is doing until he can say “See, I won!”. He is that petty and small minded.
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Canadian companies, schools and government have deals with microsoft
And it’s possible to push for change much more easily at this level instead of the federal overnight. TBH - microsoft is used because of the history of how computers were introduced in the NA market. If you look to China for example, they skipped the entire PC generation and went straight to mobile. Windows is not big player but rather things like ‘superapps’ that act more like an OS than an app. That’s only scratching the surface because these apps are much more because they even have financialization (see WePay, AliPay). The other big alternative is MacOS which seems to be catching on in the post-secondary and consumer market this may lead to a change in the business playing field as the older generation retires and younger people move into the workforce.
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And it’s possible to push for change much more easily at this level instead of the federal overnight. TBH - microsoft is used because of the history of how computers were introduced in the NA market. If you look to China for example, they skipped the entire PC generation and went straight to mobile. Windows is not big player but rather things like ‘superapps’ that act more like an OS than an app. That’s only scratching the surface because these apps are much more because they even have financialization (see WePay, AliPay). The other big alternative is MacOS which seems to be catching on in the post-secondary and consumer market this may lead to a change in the business playing field as the older generation retires and younger people move into the workforce.
I understand the use of windows but not other apps and service like microsoft teams
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You’ll never see Canada block big tech at this point I’m afraid. All the talk of sovereignty is just that, talk. None of our different government agencies is prepared to abandon Microsoft. All of our financial regulators are completely in bed with Microsoft. Most of our banks are in bed with Microsoft. Our ATMs run on Windows due to Payments Canada being in bed with Microsoft and mandating it. All of your banking data is accessible by Microsoft. Every government agency runs on Microsoft.
Every time there’s an announcement about ditching US providers, ask your MP/MLA if that includes Microsoft / big tech. There’s always an “out” in those announcements to allow them to dodge that one – like “It’s too expensive to change”, or “too difficult to change quickly” or whatever.
I mean, look at all these “nation-building” projects that they’re itching to suppress Canadian’s rights to “get moving” – they’re all projects that’re gonna be lead by Big US companies to extract resources from Canada. They put on a good show, but the reality is that Trump / America was right that Canada is basically a little bitch at this point. Our politicians have proven that time and again this year.
Oh of course there’s always pain and big tech has always been hard to block or even tax (our government is extremely slow on figuring out tech) - just look at our very own big telecoms - we can’t even get them to behave. Canada has positioned itself into a weak position because we collectively keep voting for these spineless or clueless people believing they are doing good or for private interests. I am sure there is still a large portion of people thinking that politics don’t affect them or they think that their vote won’t matter etc etc. These reasons are all excuses - voting is the just the bare minimum.
Canada should have its own GDPR like the EU. Our personal data and things that we put online - one should have sovereignty over it. We have nothing in place that backs our own citizens and this in itself costs Canada nothing. It is pure and simple legislation and can cause pain to big tech without even changing any operating system.
Canada got turned into the US’s “little bitch” wasn’t a mistake overnight. Go look at the past 30 years of policies and who voted for what - it’s clear there’s a trend and one political part is almost blatant in bed with the US. There are many other ways to cause pain beyond just digital taxes.
Banking wise, I look forward to a day when banks are obsolete via crypto, but this requires a large public understanding of what crypto is all about. I’d argue that the Canadian government has no real way of governing crypto given its nature of how it works. But that’s another discussion.
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Oh of course there’s always pain and big tech has always been hard to block or even tax (our government is extremely slow on figuring out tech) - just look at our very own big telecoms - we can’t even get them to behave. Canada has positioned itself into a weak position because we collectively keep voting for these spineless or clueless people believing they are doing good or for private interests. I am sure there is still a large portion of people thinking that politics don’t affect them or they think that their vote won’t matter etc etc. These reasons are all excuses - voting is the just the bare minimum.
Canada should have its own GDPR like the EU. Our personal data and things that we put online - one should have sovereignty over it. We have nothing in place that backs our own citizens and this in itself costs Canada nothing. It is pure and simple legislation and can cause pain to big tech without even changing any operating system.
Canada got turned into the US’s “little bitch” wasn’t a mistake overnight. Go look at the past 30 years of policies and who voted for what - it’s clear there’s a trend and one political part is almost blatant in bed with the US. There are many other ways to cause pain beyond just digital taxes.
Banking wise, I look forward to a day when banks are obsolete via crypto, but this requires a large public understanding of what crypto is all about. I’d argue that the Canadian government has no real way of governing crypto given its nature of how it works. But that’s another discussion.
Yea, I’m not in favour of crypto banks in any way shape or form. Over the past five years, almost every crypto coin has been blatantly used at some point for large scale fraud, and direct bribes – Trump’s a great case in point there. Even more, shifting monetary control into a crypto-verse, is overtly giving all authority and power to tech bros, who are proving in very overt fashion that they cannot be trusted these days.
Just look at SVB. Thiel and his buddies looked at SVB’s balance sheet, said “We have so much money in this bank, if we all pulled out at once we could kill the bank and trigger a regulatory fiasco” … followed by Palmer Luckey, one of that crowd, putting forward a Crypto-first bank with his billionaire buddies backing. So the guys that caused the latest banking collapses, are wanting us to trust them to handle all the monetary stuff. Crypto being beyond government control is a nonstarter, and as soon as govt is involved is basically the same as regular currencies. But even worse the main proponents of it are completely untrustworthy, and are entirely hell bent on dismantling things like democracy. They want the power to mint their own “zuck bucks” to function as official currencies in their little tech fascist fiefdoms. So fuck that noise.
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Yea, I’m not in favour of crypto banks in any way shape or form. Over the past five years, almost every crypto coin has been blatantly used at some point for large scale fraud, and direct bribes – Trump’s a great case in point there. Even more, shifting monetary control into a crypto-verse, is overtly giving all authority and power to tech bros, who are proving in very overt fashion that they cannot be trusted these days.
Just look at SVB. Thiel and his buddies looked at SVB’s balance sheet, said “We have so much money in this bank, if we all pulled out at once we could kill the bank and trigger a regulatory fiasco” … followed by Palmer Luckey, one of that crowd, putting forward a Crypto-first bank with his billionaire buddies backing. So the guys that caused the latest banking collapses, are wanting us to trust them to handle all the monetary stuff. Crypto being beyond government control is a nonstarter, and as soon as govt is involved is basically the same as regular currencies. But even worse the main proponents of it are completely untrustworthy, and are entirely hell bent on dismantling things like democracy. They want the power to mint their own “zuck bucks” to function as official currencies in their little tech fascist fiefdoms. So fuck that noise.
Definitely not crypto banks. I mean more of - people being able to do the transactions themselves straight from their phones or whatnot without the middleman (the banks). That’s how crypto is supposed to work - and people just pay a transaction fee (“gas fees”) to get the transaction done. There’s a lot of work that’s already been done to bring down the cost of gas fees too. Staking is like lending out your money and pooling it together while whoever borrows it has to pay you interest instead of paying the bank interest. There’s a lot of shitcoins and corrupt things with crypto for sure, but that’s a problem people collectively also need to solve - maybe don’t “stake”/lend out your money to shady coins is a start and don’t chase after this big marketed bullshit (FTX scam anyone)? There’s a reason why techbros, wall street etc got in and it’s because they’re circumventing regulation - so looks like the bank even in this current state despite being regulated still do tons of shady shit. The penalties are just the cost of doing business.
It’s a dual edged knife. Want to be free from the middleman banks? Current regulation standards don’t even hold a candle against crypto. Crypto is community driven, decentralized and possibly even anti-inflationary. There are a lot of advantages but also in its current form easily perverted. Anyways, going to stop here as we’re off topic.
