Is the US going to Annex Canada? by force? or just destroy the Canadian Econ for fun

[bennymac]

Yeah not sure how that could ever work realistically- although it would also be more difficult for Alaskans to have extra costs or restrictions placed on goods being shipped by road then it would be for Yukoners not to have that extra spending.

[bennymac]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFqVW...w2cnF5c3pnaHlq

[grinch]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFjRz...s2aWMwcGNsbXgw

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[LeeLau]

I've got one mid size client who's buying steel vessels for fuel. Total spend is approx 800K. Their procurement decision was to pick an Italian company over the US vendor. In part, it's because there's a better warranty. In part it's because I've advised them (as have others) that there's uncertainty about the tariffs. A 20% price uplift makes the business decision easy.

Just one decision by one mid size buyer. I'm sure others will be making their own decisions.

For myself my spend on maple syrup, bacon, dumpster bikes and beater skis will be anything but US, for the foreseeable future.

Can't worry about who else will or will not make that same decision.

[grinch]

Im looking at Prior and Skevik skis now. Are they durable? Ski well? They look like theyre well developed w modern shapes for each segment of skiing

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[frorider]

I certainly found my Prior Husumes to be durable. Is there a dedicated Canadian ski thread in tech talk? I don’t recall one.

[frorider]

Btw one hallmark of the lazy apathetic non voter in the US is ‘both parties are the same’. Interestingly, I don’t hear that sentiment much lately. Can’t put my finger on why though.

[Trackhead]

What is the public opinion in Canada regarding being 25/32 in meeting the 2% GDP funding of NATO? Somewhere around 1.3% last year. With seemingly no real plan to meet the 2% agreements?

Should Europe and U.S. do all the financial heavy lifting, or is frustration with Canada reasonable from Yurp/US?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ex-powderbroker]

Im looking at Prior and Skevik skis now. Are they durable? Ski well? They look like theyre well developed w modern shapes for each segment of skiing

Sent from my SM-S711W using TGR Forums mobile app

are those made at the Utopie shop in Rimouski with the Xalibu skis like 4frnt and Line was and many others?


https://www.altitude-sports.com/prod...20-%20Gradiant

[ex-powderbroker]

What is the public opinion in Canada regarding being 25/32 in meeting the 2% GDP funding of NATO? Somewhere around 1.3% last year. With seemingly no real plan to meet the 2% agreements?

Should Europe and U.S. do all the financial heavy lifting, or is frustration with Canada reasonable from Yurp/US?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

i think there’s universal agreement about picking up the pace, it’s just been a question of the best way to do it, recruit, and how to ramp up the spend. it’s not like the govt has made statements to the contrary. are you the kind of person to berate someone after they acknowledge something, apologize, and begin making amends? how pleasant.

[Trackhead]

^^I have berated nobody.

I love Canada and have a very favorable opinion of Canadians as a kind, respectful population. It's an amazing country geographically as well. I've spent a ton of time in BC/Alberta/Yukon climbing, skiing, and generally being amazed. In the past, I considered moving to Canmore.

It's a relevant topic. It was posed respectfully.

[Trackhead]

6th largest GDP in NATO alliance, ranks 25-27th. Canada seems to have the capacity, but perhaps not the will (which I understand, as defense spending kinda sucks). US at 3.38%, only behind Estonia/Poland, who have a LOT to lose.

Those are inequitable numbers.

[MultiVerse]

I've got one mid size client who's buying steel vessels for fuel. Total spend is approx 800K. Their procurement decision was to pick an Italian company over the US vendor. In part, it's because there's a better warranty. In part it's because I've advised them (as have others) that there's uncertainty about the tariffs. A 20% price uplift makes the business decision easy.

Just one decision by one mid size buyer. I'm sure others will be making their own decisions.

For myself my spend on maple syrup, bacon, dumpster bikes and beater skis will be anything but US, for the foreseeable future.

Can't worry about who else will or will not make that same decision.

The dumbest aspect of the Trump fake trade war is that no company is going to make a huge capital investment based on a tariff-free North American trade zone even with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement already in place

[danmelon]

There is a minority opinion, albeit not insignificant to say "fuck NATO and the imperliast war machine" (more or less). The NDP does not support funding NATO. I don't think rushing to increase NATO spending would have been politically advantageous for Trudeau. In fact if he did so he might alienate support he has from the left. A previous right-of-centre Liberal PM (Chretien) outright refused to join the US in its middle east venture in Iraq and I think many many Canadians supported that stance. I think many of us like to think of ourselves as a nation with a history of peace keeping.

[Trackhead]

^^^^I agree with that. But it seems Trudeau is now making it a priority.

Yurp has a crazy Putin on their doorstep. They seem to think NATO is relevant, despite being tied to the United States imperial war machine.

China/Russia aren't exactly up to great things. Taiwan could be gone in a blink as well.

I wish we could all hide and bury our heads in the sand, be peaceful, but human nature hasn't evolved much since we started walking upright.

[MultiVerse]

<div>
That is not a minority opinion. Most NATO militaries are all show and no substance make-work government programs because they long assumed the United States will do all the heavy lifting. We are witnessing a generational realignment where Americans no longer want to pay for policing global trade. Trump is enacting a revolution.</div>
<div>
&nbsp;</div>
<div>
Peace keeping is a misnomer. Much of the world is currently involved in some kind of armed conflict. More than 20 countries are currently experiencing civil war right now. Russia is at war with Ukraine. There are insurgency conflicts throughout most of Africa. Mexico faces drug and criminal based warfare. Five countries in South America are experiencing armed conflict. Similalry throughout Southeast Asia. Since most of these conflicts do not generate headlines, people underestimate how warlike much of the world is and therefore the challenges countries absent American involvement will face in the future</div>

[californiagrown]

You know whats worse than placing 25% tariffs on our neighboring countries and starting a trade war?

Bluffing that you are going to place 25% tariffs, and then suffering many of the consequence of a trade war without gaining anything beneficial in return that might have come from a trade war.


We never had a chance to even play it out and see if trumps tariffs would gain the US anything... we just skipped right to suffering the consequences. We started a fight, are eating jabs, and are not even throwing hands back. SMH. Don't start a fight, but if you do, you better fight you fucking pussy.

[Trackhead]

<p>
Pew Research has interesting data on favorability of NATO:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/07/02/views-of-nato-july-24/</p>
<p>
Canada has the &quot;Our North, Strong and Free&quot; statement about protecting the Arctic from outside influence, yet lacks the military budget to effectively fulfull that objective.</p>
<p>
Military spending sucks, but it&#39;s a necessary reality, that even the Canadian government acknowledges.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

[ex-powderbroker]

There is a minority opinion, albeit not insignificant to say "fuck NATO and the imperliast war machine" (more or less). The NDP does not support funding NATO. I don't think rushing to increase NATO spending would have been politically advantageous for Trudeau. In fact if he did so he might alienate support he has from the left. A previous right-of-centre Liberal PM (Chretien) outright refused to join the US in its middle east venture in Iraq and I think many many Canadians supported that stance. I think many of us like to think of ourselves as a nation with a history of peace keeping.

[summit]

The Maritime system and international rules based order that has prevailed for 80 years and raised the world out of poverty and prevented major power conflicts. It was underpinned by ultimate cooperation between players instead of war. The NATO alliance system and the US major ally system, including our extended nuclear umbrellar, are THE primary force behind securing that world peace (and no, it was not the UN, because the UN had jackshit for power and no military).

Military spending is SO MUCH BETTER than fighting wars. Real wars.

Most Americans have no fucking clue because we do NOT study wars in public school history, nor in most college history classes. When we do, we study Vietnam, Iraq, or focus on the bad sides of American interventionalism. Few Americans go to war and people don't have a collective memory or a common shared conversation with modern vets like we did even 30 years ago.

Most people do not understand WW1 at all, or the Franco Prussian War. The WW2 that vast majority of people might know is superficial... if you are lucky people know: "Pearl Harbor started it" and "nukes ended it" and "Nazis are bad and the Holocaust was bad." But most people don't understand the scale of that death, suffering, privation, starvation, and how much work was done to avoid it ever happening again. People think that Vietnam or Iraq were horrible. They were. But people don&#39;t understand that you could take every single fucking inter-state war after 1945, put them together, and never hold a candle to what came before.

So when people think military spending for alliances and deterrence are bad, I know they are good hearted but ignorant. But they don't have to be. And we should be nice to Canada. They are our friends and neighbors. And they should spend 2% as should all NATO allies who benefit immensly from the system. Here's an idea: put it all into sealift and naval icebreakers and arctic naval/coastal support since the US sucks at spending on that and it is sorely needed, and it all has a huge peacetime purchase.

[LeeLau]

What is the public opinion in Canada regarding being 25/32 in meeting the 2% GDP funding of NATO? Somewhere around 1.3% last year. With seemingly no real plan to meet the 2% agreements?

Should Europe and U.S. do all the financial heavy lifting, or is frustration with Canada reasonable from Yurp/US?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's not an issue that's talked about. Personally I feel Canada ( and most of the EU) were short on security spending. We let the US spend heavily on military and security. That allowed us to build nice comfortable social systems. Basically the US underwrote a good chunk of the Western world's security

[summit]

^succinct and accurate

[Trackhead]

And from my perspective, as an American in a country with massive debt, I'd like to see others step up. I get tired of people leaning on us to do mutually agreed upon heavy lifting. It's annoying as hell to see such a massive military budget when there are so many other broken domestic issues that could benefit from that funding. Canada is in the same position. Fix domestic issues first.

But at the same time, I share the frustration/anger/resentment (and embarrassment) with Trump. I told my kid we're going to Fernie in March, and I'm hesitant because of Trump. I don't feel like being ridiculed by Canadians, or worse. Not unlike Muslims feeling unsafe after 9/11. Personal attacks and xenophobia have no place.

[civilcoconut]

It&#39;s not an issue that&#39;s talked about. Personally I feel Canada ( and most of the EU) were short on security spending. We let the US spend heavily on military and security. That allowed us to build nice comfortable social systems. Basically the US underwrote a good chunk of the Western world&#39;s security

Yes, but we were happy to do it because it gave hegemonic control of the western world.

[summit]

I love there is a graphic for everything.


That's a visual scale of jsut how fucking bad modern warfare CAN be. And why we worked so hard to prevent it.

PreWW2 to now, the share of the worlds population living in extreme poverty (<$2/day equiv) went from 70% down to <10%
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/w...verty-absolute

NATO & US Extended Nuclear Detterence for Major Allies
Maritime system - Trade - Rules based order