Shopify CEO and Founder Tobi Lutke isn't hiding the fact that he's become a far right conspiracy theorist anymore:


His Twitter feed is littered with far right nonsense and he's bought Trump's drug/border security fear mongering lock, stock, and barrel.

Hilarious that he mentions this but doesn't mention Medicaid or the constitution being removed from the internet
Can some more people please get on the kill the billionaires train with me. I've been saying it for a decade now.

Yes. That was the sensationalist headline.

BUT all packages worldwide are also affected. The complete elimination of the de minimis (section 321, entry type 86) exemption previously allowed businesses in Canada to ship packages into the US tax & duty free. I know that it shouldn't be taken for granted, but businesses can't just bake it into the selling price at a click of a button - especially if there are preorders or long term contracts that had been planned out at least 6-9 mo in advance.

At my last job, I discovered this loophole and implemented a strategy to split shipments over $800. So for a $1200 order, I would send $600 on Monday and then another $600 on Friday. We'd have to eat the shipping cost ($60-70) but it was way cheaper than eating the cost of duty + taxes if it was a single shipment. This method was the only way we could keep operating in the US - the taxes + duties on a $1200 order iirc added up to $400-$500 or smt. It was ridiculous. If you do the math, the tax rate seems quite high. But it was because CBP charged an amount, UPS marked it up and charged Purolator, and then Purolator marked up and charged us lol

TLDR: The unexpected removal of Section 321 has a direct effect on all US sales from Canadian companies, who are not prepared to take this hit. It is likely that Canadian companies will lose money by fulfilling the shipment.

https://dclcorp.com/blog/shipping/se...-global-trade/

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Anything made in China is hit. Many Canadian companies have products that are fully or partially made in China. So they are being hit from what I understand. Linus tech tips just stopped all shipments to the US.

It certainly is possible, I mean you look at the forestry industry, we went from clearcutting every block we got our hands on to the variable block system and selective logging we do now. Along with the endless replantation ongoing by the companies. The forestry industry is now considered very sustainable, even the bi products which used to become waste like wood chips are often funneled into Hog Fuel plants like the one in Merritt or Fort St James and that product which used to be garbage is now used to generate power. Essentially none of the wood we cut down now is wasted, it all turns into something.

There is a large industry surrounding reclamation and remediation of our mine sites. This process when conducted properly after a decade or so, besides some minor variation in the topography, the site wont look any different than the surrounding nature. I've actually been on a few remediation projects, and the budgets are not small. One very successful example of this process is Nickel Plate Mine right here in British Columbia. Barrick Gold inherited the site during one of their M&A's and ultimately decided it was time to shutter the site that had been mined intermittently since like 1900. Significant resources were put into contouring the site, water treatment, stabilization of the site, etc. Today slowly the landscape is reclaiming that site, and eventually the few remaining manmade structures which is supporting that process will be removed and it will be considered done for good.

All a mine does (whether that be diamond, critical minerals, uranium, gold, etc) is dig up the ground, separate out the profitable part we want, and put the rest right back. At the end of the day there is zero difference between a gravel quarry and conventional gold mine if reclaimed correctly.

Oil sands sites are quite a bit more nuanced, and there is a lot more to unpack there, again it can be done, there's just a lot more to that.

I'd actually say that a conventional landfill leaves a bigger more disgusting scar on the landscape than most mines once they are closed properly.

EDIT: For transparency there is unfortunately plenty of examples of poorly run companies running amuck as well, and leaving disasters. There is several of these projects in the Yukon right now, a quick google search will bring them up and you can see for yourself the disaster that the Yukon gov't has inherited with some of these projects.

This is outright incorrect. It's not just made in China stuff. Please read my post above yours.

I discussed details here and here.

This post, and the ones similar to this are exactly what I was talking about on the last page when I was ranting about idiotic Canadians using "X" as a news source. Fucking idiots.

You know what's funny. Had anyone just fact checked this, they would know it's fake news. The project browser had a notice of technical difficulties.

It's slowly heading that way. Like I posted, if PP manages to get a minority gov't it's a L.

I do wonder if the next decade will be a massive backlash against extreme wealth and corporate power, especially as economic inequality keeps growing. We’ve already seen hints of this with rising anti-billionaire rhetoric, calls for wealth taxes, and movements targeting corporate monopolies.

I think history consistently shows that when economic inequality increases that there will be uprisings of some form - both the anti-billionaire rhetoric and the far right nationalists are born from the same place which is inequality (real or perceived).

I don't follow European or Asian news that much but I don't see the same anti-billionaire pushback that I see in the US where income equality is the worst (I don't really see it in Canada either). Making matters worse are that the most visible US billionaires are all kinda assholes - Musk is the obvious front runner but Zuck and Bezos do themselves no favours by siding with Trump so visibly. The "good" billionaires are all pretty silent.

The "saving" grace for the US is that there is such a mass of uneducated people that it's so easy to point their anger about their lives towards minorities instead of the people who are robbing them blind. If 40% of the population truly believes that Trump and these billionaires are looking after them then I'm not sure how the uprising actually happens - there's just not enough people left to fight the fight.

re: Wealth tax. I think the time has come for something like this (or higher taxes on non-employment income). More and more of the money being made is now not from employment so the pool of revenue for gov't is shrinking more and more of income comes from other sources that have lower taxes rates (if any taxes at all). My tax rate on my investment income this year is something like a third of my income tax rate (ballpark) and I made a lot more on the investment side this year than I did in employment income - my tax rate shouldn't really go down as I make more money. Nice for me but it doesn't sound fair overall.

Related: One of Zuck's lawyers just quit b/c of his "descent into toxic masculinity". https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0e0CUS..._web_copy_link

trump reinstates the deminus rule.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarador...hein-and-temu/

JT caught on a hot mic.

Bill Gates is one of the original "good" billionaires, if not the OG good billionaries. Outside of those who care about philanthropy, I don't think very many people pay much attention to him anymore because he has been shying away from the limelight. It seems to me that he mostly just wants to educate himself on the topics that his foundation is involved in so that he can make better decisions regarding those projects.

From his tech days to his current philanthropy work, I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for him. I wish the modern day tech billionaires are more like him.

I loosely follow some amount of European news, and I'd say there seems to be a quiet consensus among EU countries -- at least the big ones -- to impose a global wealth tax in some shape or form. This is hardly surprising bcos Europe has always been far more socialist than N.American countries. But I recall the news commentators suggesting that the plan couldn't really be successfully unless the US is fully onboard with it. Even back in the Biden days, the US gov has been lukewarm towards the idea, and now with Trump, he has either signed off on some sort of EO, or threatened the EU to slap them with sanctions or tariffs if they pass laws to go after American companies operating in EU for a hiding profits in offshore tax heavens. (Interestingly, Ireland is considered a tax heaven.) If the global corporate wealth tax scheme is imposed, the US would actually be the one benefiting from the higher tax revenues since they will be the ones collecting the extra tax revenue. But it seems like there is very little appetite for the US gov to go through with this idea.

Methinks Trudeau being caught on the "hot mic" was a bit intentional...

And I think these intentions to annex Canada are absolutely serious.

Trump is being fed this shit by people around him. What he's doing right now is planting the seed, getting his maga minions slowly coming around to thinking "yeah fuck Canada, we SHOULD take all their shit, We're big strong America after all! why should they get all these resources on OUR continent"...

You see people on conservative forums already believing this BS that the US "subsidizes" Canada and all that.

Just wait as this sort of sentiment and movement grows down there... If the trade war goes into full swing, and we go as far with retaliatory measures as impacting their energy in a huge way, it's not going to cause them to pause an re-think their position. Instead it's going to embolden them and think it will be more of their right have our stuff. "How DARE the Canadians retaliate against US and make our gas go up by $1/gallon, we need to pound them into submission"

Yes, the hot mic was definitely intentional because the Conservative narrative has been that fentanyl and the border have been the cause of the tariffs.

It's never been a good faith argument.

I think it was intentional as well because the Liberals and the NDP are going to make PP look like he's in bed with Trump and that he's risking our sovereignty.

I can't believe so many people are so dumb to take it at face value that "fentanyl" is the actual reason.

It's just the excuse he gets to use to implement Tariffs through the "enonomic emergency powers act", rather than having to go through Congress as normal. That's it.

It was 100% intentional. They are going for minerals in Canada, Greenland, and Ukraine. Ukraine is letting them since it means military support continues.

Don't think Trump is fucking around just because he and his supporters are stupid. They are still very dangerous

I sure hope you're right, and not giving the Liberals and NDP too much credit...

If PP wasn't so fucking arrogant and lazy he wouldn't be in this position. All he needed to do was come forward with any policy whatsoever that put Canadians in a better financial position. Instead he tried to ride on the coattails of Trumps SS uniform because when he started that, you still could convince ignorant people that Trumps motivation was about enriching the country, and not just money for him and his cronies sprinkled with racism.

WTF.

I wonder if it's cause it dredged up such a shit storm at the US-Canada Economic Forum today in Toronto.

Hahaha. What is Trumps record this term so far? 100% Fail? He's two weeks in and he's a lame duck.

Now if they can just throw Must in Jail for Trespass then perhaps the US will survive the next four years.

Thanks for posting that update Manic (and for the schooling Bics)

https://pallas-data.ca/2025/02/09/pa...lpc-would-win/

The Hopium I need. It's still a long shot IMO but the conditions are right for PP to lose this election - his alignment with Trump and the trade war against the US will make a lot of people come to their senses.

^ I want to see one or two people here lose it if PP lose.

i dont want to see the liberals win either, why do our choices suck so badly?

So which would be the best result in light of current 'new world politics and economics' ?

1. Cons minority?
2. Libs minority?
3. Cons majority? (no one thinks Libs will win a majority so I won't include in option)