If this wasn’t Stossel, I might upvote, but because it is him, I’m feeling relatively certain that his eventual conclusion is faulty and many facts are just wrong. Remember, he’s the person who sued Facebook when he claimed the 2020 forest fires were primarily caused by forest mismanagement not climate change and Facebook labeled it “Missing Context. Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.”

It’s a near certainty that salient facts are being hidden to make it seem local government is stealing houses over $8 bills. That is how Stossel “reports”. For instance, any loans, mortgages, judgements, fines, outstanding bills in collections, overdue taxes, the cost of seizure, the cost of the sale, the cost to bring the home into sellable condition, etc are all paid from the proceeds before the “owner” would have any claims….and the government gets to estimate the value at seizure and set the starting auction bid accordingly.

The IRS seizes homes around 300 times per year, most are worth less than the debt owed.

Asset forfeiture is wrong. It’s legalized theft. I wish I could trust the source enough to support this video.

@newtboy,

??? How exactly do you figure cancellation of a billion dollar project is no where near the economic cost of blocking a border crossing for awhile at similar cost???

I'll tell you what the difference in Canada is, the dollars lost from the pipeline were being lost in Alberta, the dollars lost from the convoy were in Ontario. In Canada we've got a pretty sad history of if it happens to western provinces, it doesn't matter. Much like the urban/rural divide in the US. The response is pretty similar as well, the urban side just laughs at the loss of the stupid backwards country folk. When the same thing hits them though it's a national emergency.

I've tried pointing out costs and your just rejecting them out of hand , while whole hog accepting the highest estimates for the convoy cost as gospel truth. Like the literally a company walking from a multi-billion dollar project and you insist that's nothing and the days the border was blockaded clearly must have cost more...


For years now I've insisted that illegal blockades of worksites, job sites or trade routes should be met with prompt arrests and re-opening of the route/site.

Until January of this year, the entirety of the Liberal minded half of my country(Ottawa centric) called that authoritarian, repressive and were against the notion. Now I find myself in a weird spot, as suddenly that same crowd DOES want that action and more to be taken promptly. And the conservative crowd that agreed with me before is now kinda walking things back.

I read it, nowhere did it give an estimate of what those protests cost, and it indicated there were multiple other routes for the oil to travel so didn’t even disrupt oil transportation completely, much less ALL commerce.
And it was about pipelines crossing their (or protected) land it seems, a far cry from the truckers. Yes, the validity and severity of your cause matters, just like the damage you do and to whom.

Billions worth of goods stuck temporarily…but no actual estimated cost for their delay, this cost billions in lost production and salaries that won’t be recovered.

That protest was targeted against the offending entity, not the populace. I have no issue with natives blockading their own land and preserves that feed those reservations against permanent destruction for some private profits. That’s a far cry from the truckers blockading the main border crossing for industry and tourism because they’re afraid to get a poke.

The numbers I saw were special. Hundreds of millions-billions lost (your billions in goods delayed doesn’t have a price tag). That was before the bridge was reopened. These protesters weren’t satisfied with that damage and continued to close your capitol with ever shifting demands. Since regular measures had failed, I support emergency measures, seizure, even forfeiture after trial, of any funds or tools used.

Perhaps they became only as localized (but certainly not as targeted, and localized in a city not the unpopulated country), but they had already done exponentially more damage and showed no sign of end or even demands.

Let’s ignore someone personally supporting a grass roots movement outside their country and control, please. I find it a red herring totally unconnected to how he governs.

Yes, some Floyd protests were more violent than the truckers, some weren’t, remember how they were all violently smashed, tear gassed, rubber bullets galore, run through with police trucks, unmarked vans pulling up and grabbing people crossing the streets, unmarked vans driving through towns full of police shooting tear gas at any moving body, etc? Don’t pretend the response is similar.
Also, the Floyd protests lasted a weekend in most cases (occupy Portland really wasn’t about Floyd) and went elsewhere the next march. They weren’t closing down one area for weeks intent on staying. Most lasted hours and were peaceful until police became violent, despite right wing media’s fear-mongering.

I think you’re stretching, putting on blinders, and doing insane mental gymnastics to pretend you believe that. From the actual damage caused, the idiotic reasoning behind it (quickly abandoned), the extremely uncanadianness of the self centered far right rally masquerading as protest, the international damage, the foreign involvement from planning to funding, these are unique “protests” in numerous ways.

Their idiotic beliefs are only one of many distinctions I’ve pointed out, and as I mentioned only color public opinion and the amount of patience they’re given by the public, not how the government treats them. It’s not at all honest for you to pretend that’s the entirety of my position…it’s very Bob of you, and has lost some of my respect.

Pipelines crossing sovereign territory or preserves = bad so blockading those areas to force pipeline movement = good….oil companies didn’t truck the oil out, they increased shipments from other areas by rail. Read the article you linked.

Native cultures and governments are different. Pretending an elected board for a reservation works for the people is naive in the extreme. Read about politics on reservations, who funds the people that get elected in most cases, what happens to opposing candidates…saying the board signed off while so many showed up to fight against it seems a bit at odds, no? Like maybe the board members were bribed, had ties with the oil industry, or other conflicts….just maybe?

And again, those protests didn’t cost a fraction what the truckers did from my research. Delaying delivery of a billion in goods isn’t the same as costing a billion in losses. Neither is delaying or cancelling a billion dollar project. Be adult please….don’t make such specious arguments ….please. They don’t slip by, and they make me think you are being disingenuous.

When I was 15 riding my motorcycle on the road, I almost got ran over. My best estimate is that I miss getting ran over by 1/10 of a second. I did get banged up.

The guy was 92 and sued for damages. Went to arbitration and his layer showed but the guy had died from being old. The case was dismissed.

I still ride but this is always in my mind. It did change the way I ride.

I assume you support the anti vax trucker protests and want to see them here?

Can you explain why?

Can you explain why it’s good for white truckers to protest against health and safety policy … to demand freedom from mandates requiring them to be adults and get vaccinated to save lives, costing hundreds of millions already and intentionally shutting down multiple industries with the goal of hurting the economy as much as possible….but bad for BLM to protest against racist police policies, demanding freedom from being put in prison or murdered with impunity by police for nothing beyond fear of their skin color, protests doing WAY less damage to economies, industry, and commerce? (Portland, which the right claimed was on fire all of 2020, estimated total costs at $23 million, <1/2 what Ford alone lost from the truckers so far).
BLM protests that, in fact, were more successful at changing policy….policy that needed changing unlike the mandates that need strengthening.

So…on board with truckers, or can you avoid blatant (most likely racist) hypocrisy?

I'm gonna have to be that guy. $500 a month for a family of four is $2k, which is a very good chunk of money to drop in your lap.

That works out the same as it they were on a single income, working 40 hour weeks at $10/hr, so almost equivalent to a full time job. No doubt that's gonna be a big deal and noticeable financial improvement to the recipient(s).

As always with UBI schemes, the devil is in how you pay for it. If it's truly universal, paying $500/month to ~330 million Americans would cost $1.98 Trillion dollars, meanwhile the current entire US gov budget for 2022 is estimated at $1.2 Trillion.

So, to implement $500/month universally in America would require not only increasing overall tax revenues by almost 50% it would also require the cancellation of 100% of every single other expenditure. That not includes military spending going to zero, but even cancelling the jobs of everyone that collects taxes and would presumably have been responsible for distributing the $500 checks.

If the 'fix' is to just tax the pants off anyone earning more than the $500/month, or limiting who we give it to, then it ceases to be a UBI scheme, and is instead just a mundane modification of the existing social security scheme by shuffling more money back and forth between different folks.

Therein lies the problem: most people HUGELY over-estimate their 'Acceptable risk level'.

- "This crumbling cliff edge above a 1,000 foot gorge is the PERFECT place for a selfie!" (one of the saddest deaths in WA was when one of the best skiers in the state decided to look over the edge of a cornice. It gave way and she fell almost a thousand feet to her death.)

- "100f and 0% humidity? What a perfect time to go for a 10 mile, uphill hike with only a can of Coke and some salty beef jerky!"

- "10 essentials? Beer, pot, lighter, cellphone, hat, earbuds, that little map they give you at the visitor center, more beer and is that 10?"

- "I can read a map just fine! This off-trail hike through a rugged part of the park will be breeze!"

- "I can get signal anywhere in this enormous national forest!"

- "Aww! What a cute little baby bear!"

- "Can we get an Uber at the bottom of this ravine?"

- "Let's go swimming! This raging river of snow melt will be the perfect place to cool off!"

etc etc etc

At first I was annoyed that a cop, in uniform on payroll and on duty, using his official police car, was delivering food as a side hustle.
When he said the delivery driver had been arrested (I can’t make out why) my estimation went from double dipping for extra cash to doing a good deed for an uninvolved citizen.

I was a delivery driver as a teen, delivering lunch to offices in Silicon Valley, so often $200- $400 orders. I once got in a wreck on a delivery and my first thought was “how do I deliver this food before it gets cold?”. Fortunately, our company used radios and they just sent another driver to make the delivery (and get my tip). I don’t know if door dash has the ability to reassign deliveries, but it’s nice (and out of character) of the officer to drop it off for free.

ROTFLMFAHS!!! Projection is absolutely the MO of the right, and of yourself. You’re trying to blame Covid on Biden, and accept zero blame for dismantling the office created to avoid exactly pandemics like this, no blame for not quarantining and letting it in the country after knowing how deadly it was, no blame for denying it’s existence, it’s danger, it’s virulence, it’s mortality rates, or for actively opposing any and all public health measures to minimize it…but now want to blame Biden for the outbreaks among morons that listen to antivaxing right wingers rather than Biden’s public health professionals.
You know there were hundreds of Republican plots to fraudulently vote or intentionally deny valid votes in the last election, yet with no evidence you still claim there was fraud on both sides (and imply there was far more from the left but still can’t show a single example), and despite all evidence to the contrary you still claim Democrats stole the election through fraud.
That’s called projection, Bob, blaming others for disasters and crimes you are actively causing. Derp.

Liar. There’s no way in hell you are even 100IQ. You have no reasoning or problem solving skills at all, zero verbal/English skills whatsoever, and you do not think like an an engineer, never methodically going step by step without glossing over the important bits and ignoring pertinent details….but we know you’re a proud liar already, one that applauds perjury. Test again. I think the mindset you’ve fostered in yourself for decades now has lowered it significantly if it was honestly ever above 100. I retested around 4 years ago for fun, scored one point higher than in school.

I’ve known engineers that weren’t all that intelligent….just not extremely successful ones. Dad owned an international high tech insulation company with dozens of engineers on the payroll. The less competent end up being maintenance techs and cleanup crews rather than R&D techs, designers, and inventors. Somebody has to load and drive the hazardous materials truck to the disposal site, somebody has to do maintenance on machines, somebody has to check dates on inventory to be certain chemicals don’t oxidize, etc, they don’t give those jobs to the best engineers.

What lockdowns? Biden just reportedly had the best job creation year in the nation’s history. Over 500000 jobs per month since he took office (and rapidly rising wages), how many jobs were lost under Trump? Estimates range from 10,000,000-18,000,000. Holy shit, you think that’s bad for Biden?!! Mental defectives with 75 IQ can see how wrong you are….but you can’t.

The tax cuts came in 2017, growth didn’t come until 2021, jobs didn’t come until 2021. It’s utterly ridiculous to try to claim the tax handouts for the wealthy had a thing to do with the economy getting better, especially since they expired for non billionaires before the upturn. I thought you just claimed to be intelligent. 🤦‍♂️

-3.5% Bob. Trump’s last year was -3.5% GDP growth. NEGATIVE.
Overall Trump managed 2.33, 3, 2.16, -3.49 =4% / 4years = 1% GDPY under Trump, who didn’t start in a major recession but left one. Lol! What’s that IQ again, buddy? Obama GDP > Trump GDP

It’s likely, because they never had a real majority thanks to 2 DINOs, so didn’t perform great, so many Trump era disastrous policies and appointees are still in place, and there’s no chance that’s going to change this term thanks to Democrats not actually having a majority. Sadly, too many morons won’t look at why there’s so little progress and just won’t vote, ensuring things won’t change and Republican obstructionism will rule the day. The party “in charge” always loses the midterm. What makes you think I don’t see that. I do not underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.

Lol. I notice you didn’t list any failures, and actually admitted some you listed last time are nonsense (now admitting “Biden economy is doing great” VS earlier claims “failed economy”). LMFAHS!
You get one talking head on CNN agreeing with you and one pro-Republican poll and suddenly you think everyone wants Trump back. You are so silly. When the polls don’t support you, you say they’re worthless, when they do, they’re gospel.
If Garland was doing his job and prosecuting senators and representatives, Democratic numbers would jump by double digits. It’s lack of action that’s losing them support. It’s certainly why I’m dissatisfied….but to assume that means most would vote Republican because they’re dissatisfied with Democrats performance is asinine, par for the course from you.

PE of 360 Bob. Anything over 25 is overpriced, over 100 is a bubble. Duh….again, you just claimed to be intelligent, but have repeatedly proven that false already. They made under 1 million cars last year out of around 75 million. Ford sold almost as many of one model, F150’s as Tesla sold of all models, and would have sold more if they had the chips to make more. They’re doing well, but are still a little minnow in a big pond, and if they lose their battery monopoly they’re toast. They aren’t the only, or even the best choice for electric cars anymore. If you think they won’t have competition, you’ve proven a lack of intelligence once again.

Summer time when you lost over 1/4 of your value overnight must have been scary. It won’t be the last time.

Good luck. In 5 years I expect they’ll be near worthless once more stable, more energy dense batteries are developed. I’m happy making more money from a diverse portfolio that’s not insanely overvalued.

The Hunga Tonga undersea volcanic eruption was the largest on earth over the last 30 years, according to Research Physical Scientist Brian Brettschneider with the National Weather Service Alaska region.

Brettschneider said that the ash created by the eruption will likely cause a slight cooling effect on the climate, though not as dramatic as short-term climate changes from past volcanic eruptions. In 1815, the climate impacts caused by the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption caused what was called “the year without a summer.”

“What we’re seeing so far is a fairly minor amount of climate altering stratospheric sulfur particles have been detected so far,” Brettschneider said. “A pretty small amount relative to the size of the eruption, so kind of our first initial best guess is that there is going to be a pretty minor climate impact over the next few years.”

Of course, that can only account for the estimates of the blast so far, not any future eruptions that may or may not happen.
Estimates say the Hunga Tonga eruption was equivalent to 2% of the pressure released in the Krakatoa eruption for comparison.

*quality engineering, sadly only required because the original contractors cut corners and no regulators caught it before it failed. IMO, the companies that built it should be paying that $1 billion price tag. They’re the ones who used low quality concrete, left out literally tons of rebar, and decided a soft dirt emergency spillway on an earthen dam was good enough.

This is why we need a $3 trillion infrastructure bill. Really, we likely need ten times that. We haven’t invested in infrastructure for decades.
Had there been regular real inspections they likely would have noticed the problem when repairs only cost $100 million. There are literally thousands of dams in America with similar, or worse issues, and no money to even properly inspect them, much less fix them before they fail. Waiting for them to fail costs at least 10 times what pre-failure repairs cost, but we only care after they fail.

Thanks Manchin, our nation is crumbling thanks to you joining the obstructionist Republican Party, someone needs to burn his yacht with his family on board while he watches, then burn him in his mansion and distribute his hundreds of millions back to the state he stole it from.
Edit: Btw- Goldman Sacks has revised their 2022 estimate for gdp based on Manchin killing the infrastructure bill from over 3% to barely 2%. >$200 BILLION just gone with his vote against America. This as Manchin says “the Democrats aught to push me into the Republican Party”, but you’re already there, Joe. They aught to deny you funding and primary you, but not hand another seat to Republicans as you suggest, traitor. They really aught to strip you of all assignments, all funding, all security, and start broadcasting your location 24/7 until you are gone. If you ask me, they aught to drop you feet first in a slow meat grinder and make a day of it, televised. Then they aught to forced feed you to your family before taking every dime they have and denying them any assistance from anywhere. That’s what aught to happen to skidmarks like you.

You said that already, it’s not an answer it’s the basis of the question, are you having a stroke? More likely trying to dodge because you have no answer.

Try answering the question asked for once….if you can (I have my doubts).

I asked you what Republicans plan to do to return to this imaginary time when border crossing was under demonstrably better control (which is different from when there were fewer people trying to cross), when we didn’t import oil (never happened ), when gas was a buck less (absolutely not true here, but admittedly it was cheaper…because crude oil was free due to zero demand and gas was cheap because no one was driving, compare it to 2019 and it’s not true anywhere) and yes, inflation was under 2%, but gdp was down 33% in one quarter and unemployment through the roof, with fed interest rates at zero (or less)….really shitty trade off.


Were or getting under control. ROTFLMFAHS!! He had 4 years, he added 1/3 of the debt and increased the deficit exponentially with nothing to show for it but division.

He spent tens of billions on a border fence/wall that UNQUESTIONABLY hasn’t slowed, much less stopped illegal border crossings but has caused ecological damage and/or just fallen down in many places.
Energy independence my ass. Such bullshit lies.
Gas, compared to pre pandemic rates the price rise is not excessive, you want to compare pandemic shutdown/recession price to now like a liar.
Inflation is 4.2%, a bit high not crazy (remember 14% in 1980? Stop whining and crying), so time to raise interest rates from zero. Easy fix, something we could agree on. Biden would say you’re welcome, getting the economy working creates inflation. It also creates demand for gasoline, raising the depressed Covid/Trump recession prices. You’re welcome. He also just secured funding for thousands of electric vehicle charging stations, making it easier to own a Tesla, raising your stock value. You’re welcome.

This energy independence bullshit is based on totally unrealistic pie in the sky predictions even if every project green lighted produces the top estimates without hiccups or failures….we do not and never have produced all the oil America uses, if we did, OPEC wouldn’t matter to us. (BTW, oil/energy independence was a Jimmy Carter plan but the right liked cheap foreign oil and hated conservation.). America has 3% of the world’s oil reserves but uses 24% of world wide oil production, we will never be energy independent while using oil…if we ever miraculously managed it, we would be out of oil in years.

These weren’t under control under Trump, and Republicans have zero plans to get them “under control”, either because they see no problems or because they have no solutions, you choose. Can you name a Republican plan? McConnel can’t.

I got the MRI, which changed things for the worse. I had a large tumor which they determined to be cancer. I also had to get a CT to see if it had spread to the lungs and it showed some small nodules in my lower right lung. They can't be sure it is cancer or not yet. If they shrink during the treatment, then it is cancer.

The treatment I am undergoing is called Immunotherapy, a targeted drug which adheres to the chemical that cancers put out to trick the body into thinking they are normal tissue. Once it binds, the body sees it as foreign tissue and tries to kill it.

Obviously, all the other issues have taken a back seat. If the treatment works, I could live for some time. If it doesn't, I am looking at an estimated 4-6 mos.

I don't know when or if I will be mentally recovered enough to start posting again. No matter what, though, I appreciate all of you.

A 2012 United Nations report summarized 65 different estimated maximum sustainable population size and the most common estimate was 8 billion. Advocates of reduced population often put forward much lower numbers. Paul R. Ehrlich stated in 2018 that the optimum population is between 1.5 and 2 billion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_population

Since we are at or near 8 billion and are far from sustainable, haven’t been for over 50 years, I think the 1.5 number is far more realistic, maybe even high. I think the 8 billion estimates assume international cooperation, constant advances in farming tech with constantly increasing yields (that aren’t happening), and don’t account for climate change disrupting supply chains and production at various levels….so wishful thinking.

War sucks for population control. It’s messy, expensive, destructive of both infrastructure and ecology, and just crap at killing meaningful numbers. We need to reduce by billions, the worst war killed a few million and destroyed much of Europe. A war that kills 1000 times more people….yikes. Forget global warming, hello planetary disintegration.

The only acceptable method IMO is quit having children, then you don’t kill anyone to achieve sustainability. For some idiotic reason, average people find the idea of not having excess children horrific and totally out of the question, but the idea of starving their children to death seems to garner a “shit happens”.

Agreed, we need something like an airborne infectious prion where there could be no vaccine, no sterilization, no escape…..only that would wipe out everyone so maybe not that.

Locally, all the beef in my area is grass fed. All unnatural pastures were created as a byproduct of the logging industry, not for cattle. It’s butchered and stays local. I must guess our beef here is that outlier at 9 kg CO2 equivalent per kg….or better.
I also must assume they give no value to the rest of the carcass in their calculations…bone meal, tallow, etc are also valuable commodities not accounted for here.

The biggest issue with food production is the number of mouths to feed. We about 8 billion today and rising. The maximum number that can be supported is estimated to be between 8 and 10 billion, but the maximum that can be sustained naturally without depletion of essential resources is only 1.5 billion, assuming they use the same resources per capita.
To actually be sustainable as a species, we need to eliminate over 80% of the population AND adopt far less destructive behaviors.
Ain’t gonna happen. Start making your chain mail dresses and shoulder pads now, it’s almost time for Thunderdome.