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I typed in "what is the best political direction" and got this.........."Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism". It's rather funny, that I, personally, probably have some of all those 14 charecterisations...what does that make me? I reasoned that this would put me as moderate or centralist. So I decided to check further as to what defines a centralist and came up with this..."Centrism is a political outlook or position that involves acceptance and/or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society strongly to either the left or the right." Yet I campaigned strongly for Australia's first Labor Prime Minister in 23 years in 1972....so I obviously did not oppose a shift of society to the left as defined in the above. 😛So what am I? Reminds me of a time in the late sixities when I was a union delegate and worked for a chemical company. We were after better wages and conditions, and to support that, meant a prolonged five week strike. Finally we achieved much of our goal, and a recommendation was made for a return to work with the new found conditions. On that day I was confronted by one of my members and called a rotten little commie bastard for having cost him 5 weeks wages. On the same day that afternoon, after the return to work, I was confronted by another member and called a lousy f&^%$#* bosses stooge for supporting a recommendation to return to work. I went home that day, content that I had done a reasonable job. 😊

You speak with the tongue of oracle. I am unworthy to gainsay an oracle.

A very perceptive observation, except I would not make it such an absolute statement, ie suggest A particularly productive part of the political pendulums swing is in the change of direction. +1 I vote contemptuous.

There are several parallel issues here. One is that wealth acquired by the ultra wealthy tends to get put into tax shelters and nebulous investments so it grows (but remains outside the system), whereas that same money in the hands of the less fortunate goes IMMEDIATELY into the community around them. They spend it on groceries and vehicle repairs and school clothes for kids and paying the electricity bill so it’s not dark in their apartment anymore at night and their kids can read. The providers of those goods and services in that community where this money is being spent ALSO spend the money once received for THEIR groceries and THEIR service needs and on THEIR kids. Dollar for dollar / unit for unit… the money in the hands of the less fortunate does more net good than money in the hands of the already fortunate. Yes, spending from the wealthy also creates jobs and injects money back into the system, but very little relative to money used in “trickle up” stimulation packages. Also, a bit of extra money in the hands of someone who already has a bunch of it doesn’t tend to change their behavior or encourage extra spending. Getting $1,000 tax break when you’re sitting on $50M isn’t going to suddenly result in them finally making a call to a plumber or the purchasing a new dishwasher… but for the person living paycheck to paycheck that money literally changes lives, gets spent and injected back into the system quickly, and results in lasting reductions in poverty and suffering. When you’re living at the margins, every dollar counts. It also costs a lot to be poor. When the washing machine breaks, you can’t afford a new one but you can afford to pump quarters into the machine at the laundromat… but that ends up being more expensive on net. When the car breaks down, you don’t get to work on time and you get fired. The rich, however, have tax protected ways of growing their wealth and can afford tax attorneys to hide it. Paying more tax has more impact on their ego than on their lived experience. The anger at the rich is out of hand, though. We need better policies and enforcement mechanisms, not more hate and vitriol directed at those doing better than us. Sadly, the anger is probably in large part intentionally being amplified by the very people on the receiving end. If they can keep everyone mad and focused on the wrong things, then the status quo remains stable and no progress or change gets made. Like most issues in economics, we make a huge mistake by treating it as a moral failure when at its core it’s a policy failure. Fixing the policy is just super hard because the people with the power to change the laws tend to be the same ones benefiting the most from them… and also because focusing on wonky policy details is hard for a public who’s often just trying to survive through to tomorrow and who’d much prefer throwing stones and being distracted with us/them tribalism. Perhaps this thread could try focusing on wonky policy details instead of distractions like yachts and steel boats… or not.

canadians also vote for the Monarchy just like the other saxons (the 3 out of 4 english speaking countries are monarchic), canadians vote for the oligarchs, canadians depend entirely on the import. Canadians are spoiled workaholics , they dont care about political or social activism. They are greedy and glad to inflate the rental prices for their shitty box-shaped canadian houses. A nation of useless, greedy managers.