French protesting underway.........

yes spot, the Nazis are in power. Nothing gets past you! It's almost exactly like 1940's Germany.

Oddly enough, here it's been conservative policies that have undermined what we consider our base line social services/obligations. Look to the amalgamating and incorporating of hospitals into health groups by our previous PC administration, or their latest incarnation's cuts to education... then cut funding again. :/

Conservative policies are the surest bet (not guaranteed) to improve the chance for someone to produce something of value. The goal should be to create jobs and opportunity for better jobs. Create jobs, not giveaway programs.

How else do you think to grow the revenues needed to support social programs? Government never creates or produces anything; it relies entirely upon production of output by the rest of the people, those not in government (private sector), in the form of businesses, to generate the 'pie' for everyone to eat.

<<Look to the amalgamating and incorporating >> Sorry man, can't comment on that, I spent a lot of time in Montreal last decade, but can't claim to know enough about your institutions or politics for an opinion.

He hasn't caved, he's paused the taxes hoping the more centrist protesters will go home, and so leaving the far-left and far-right as viable targets to set the attack dogs on.

Not only does it remain to be seen if he's right, those 6 months expire in the summer, and people will be more likely to protest in good weather, and god help them if it's a heatwave.

People forget - the French political system is highly elitist, and almost entirely originates from the Ecole Nationale, whilst the French are a highly patriarchal, conservative and combustible people once you exit the bigger cities. Minor revolutions are part of the social DNA, and tossing the odd petrol bomb almost a rite of passage.

It would seem Macron has forgotten this too, which could be a problem.

Green taxes on fuels is one thing in the cities, but in the countryside? Never going to go down well.

Nor are the communists, which is the point. Why does the hyperbole wash where it suits?

This is what happens when you raise taxes too high in the name of social engineering. The poor and middle class always suffer the most . Meanwhile the upper class(the people with the largest carbon footprint) feel nothing.

That seems a pretty broad brush, high taxes are frequently used to improve quality of life in much more equitable ways than are manageable under more free market conditions, see universal healthcare or emergency services for instance. The main beneficiaries there are exactly the poorest and most vulnerable members of society which is precisely the objection raised by most hard line conservatives.

Hasn't worked out that way here... Both the previous and current conservative governments have shown significant losses in expanding industry/business while stagnating economic growth of the lowest paid (who make up about 40% of working Ontarians). The most recent one is also removing inflationary controls on residential rentals which is going to have social ramifications far beyond "market valuation".

Government sounds a lot like any other type of management in your description in that it isn't designed to be producing anything, let alone pie. It's almost quaint that you believe businesses exist to generate everyone involved a piece of the pie. Henry Ford's axiom about paying the best possible wages seems to have gone out the window a while ago now.

regarding the A&I-cutting off any part eventually effects the quality of service. It's no surprise that concern over "wait times" became a thing only after hospitals amalgamated.
Also, Montreal is in Quebec. What happens here doesn't really affect them.

This is why I was saying in the other thread that it was better for the market to address the climate change problem then to have disruptive, dramatic political action do it. The latter produces a reaction that may not only undo the action, but ultimately destroy the political will to take any further action.

I said business produces the entire pie, and that government activity doesn't grow the pie only decides how it's cut up after it takes its cut, not that everyone engaged in business contributes equally in their roles at growing the pie. Businesses have profit centers and cost centers (Sales Dept is profit center, accounting and attorney is cost center), but government has only cost centers.

<<It's almost quaint that you believe businesses exist to generate everyone involved a piece of the pie. Henry Ford's axiom about paying the best possible wages seems to have gone out the window a while ago now.>>
Everyone involved in business *does* get a piece, called salary - I will always support policies that improve equality of access or opportunity to succeed (but not policies trying to equalize results). As to Ford's axiom, Bezos clearly ain't Ford, you won't get an argument from me; but socialism remains obscenely inferior to free(er) markets.

And I'll suggest that a good chunk of your most productive people have already left for America, or are looking south while salivating to a future when they can migrate here and pay half the tax rate and get to eat more of what they kill. Maybe your policies hurt in ways not so obvious, and maybe your tastes of conservative policies weren't really all that conservative, relatively speaking.

I think you're right here, in another age Jones would be Bill Maher, he's about the controversy not the truth. The problem is that he (and others like him - looking your way Milo) cement the link between mainstream conservatism and extremism, in the heads of his followers they are part and parcel of mainstream politics and that means the lines are being blurred.

There are just as many idiots on the left who use the same tactics and that's encouraging grass roots politics to become polarised at the extremes all over the world but the US is particularly prone to this on a cultural level because of the first amendment. Fact checking and skepticism are seen as disloyalty to a cause and the cause in turn becomes conflated with the national interest.

As for business generating the pie, sure, but as models go that's an oversimplification. If you look at the employment demographics over here NHS staff alone represent something close to 2% of the nation's potential workforce and that's before you include subsidiaries, contractors, associated public sector services, etc, etc and even then that doesn't even begin to represent the full scale of public sector employment which is closer to 18% at any given time.

Across the board payrises for that workforce have a massive impact across the market in terms of money in consumers pockets supporting business and do so far more effectively and equitably than the equivalent outlay in terms of tax breaks to selected companies which evidence tends to suggest become revenue streams rather than fueling investment per se. Those businesses, by virtue of remaining afloat where they might otherwise have failed, generate tax revenue way in excess of that spent out of the public purse, making public pay rises profitable on aggregate. The end result is public sector profit centres, just not in the way you envisage.

You can literally manufacture a recession by stagnating NHS pay and more than one conservative government have done (or tried) exactly that in a series of ideological attacks on the service, which is very much a reason I'm so supportive of the public sector trades unions which can and do act as a check on the ability of (usually) tory governments to act with impunity otherwise. Thatcher tried to break those unions (with some success), but they remain a viable factor in labour relations and I'd argue our economy would actually struggle without them for that reason.

That's very contrary to conservative thinking but the evidence does bear it out, after all as a nation we've been getting by for quite some time

Reducing that relationship between sectors to a linear producer/consumer relationship is to me is a fundamental mistake and oversimplifies quite dangerously . There are many public services which the evidence shows are delivered more effectively on a non profit driven basis and can still represent a productive (if not vital) part of an economy whilst remaining stable in the long term.

What incentive does the market have to address climate change? The only moral obligation a corporation has is to generate profit. Currently green energy initiatives such as solar and wind are providing cheaper energy rates than traditional power generation and would be the obvious free market choice. However I doubt we would be at this point without the early subsidies provided by various governments to those start-up green energy companies.

The money of customers willing to buy greener products.

Within the confines of the law, and subject to popular opinion.

If they're cheaper and provide what consumers need, it's pretty much inevitable.

I don't know where Cow's getting his info, but I think you're too kind to that type of statement, however limited you made your reply to make it irrefutable. Your statement is true, but implicitly validates what's almost certainly wrong information.

Arizona just voted down the latest renewables initiative. Yet Arizona is very green minded. The initiative would've required 50% of all energy from renewables by 2030. Voters said no.

Which makes sense since it took Arizona 10 years to get to 7%. And *that* was accompanied by a 30% hike in electricity prices.

So, assuming no technological improvements, which is in vogue these days in green science circles, achieving that 50% target would require another 60 years and increase electricity costs by another 180% hike (if $1 per kwh would grow to $2.80).

And it could be even worse since Arizona would probably have gone after the 'low hanging fruit' first, so each new 7% improvement might be even more expensive to accomplish (like losing that next pound when dieting). And, as we've seen with areas like corn ethanol, achieving the 'green' results might also cause other costly negatives, not accounted for in kwh costs.

Sadly this is true, there are absolutely no guarantees any of this can be achieved in a way that's financially palatable, nor can we rely on the market to self regulate towards a desirable outcome.

I'm pretty certain the information is NOT correct, but, as you suggest, I accepted the premise to counter the argument.

Agreed, you can't be held responsible for what I infer.

And if those criteria aren't met?

That would be ideal, but the market has too many distorting influences (hello government) to make that easy, and most companies first responsibility is to their shareholders, not to shoulder the responsibility of the consequences of their business, which is exactly why regulation exists in order to enforce that.

So for the market to play its part, there has to be some rules set it place for it play with. Carbon taxes would be a start, but they're politically awkward to implement - place them at a business level, and it reduces their competitiveness against companies from nations without those taxes, place them at consumer level, and you risk alienating the lower earners and your voter base, place them at the border and they look like a tariff.

It has to be a multifaceted approach, and it's going to have to include a combination of lower CO2 emitting fuels (so, bye coal), subsidy for viable green tech, taxes where appropriate and realising a level of geoengineering is going to have to be tried.

End of the day, people aren't going to voluntarily lower their living standards and we still need a reliable base load for power, that is the foundation to build on and to see what can be achieved from there.

The market has already failed to address climate change.

since we can't change the scientific principles behind power generation (and the technology to increase efficiency is progressing and being implemented but not as fast as necessary) we have one option that is the gorilla in the room: drastically reduce our consumption on a global scale! That's why as horrific as
a massive catastrophic reduction in human population may seem, it would reduce greenhouse gasses by an incredible amount. There is a "bright side" to everything when you think about it.

Who would those customers be? The government promise of rebates was a large selling point for private early adopters. Enough so that we saw some funny examples of economic game theory as a result. The Dutch government doesn't care that Ulbe from Mijdrecht only bought four solar panels for his home. They just wanted him to buy solar panels to drive the market. Take that government interference in the market away and suddenly you lost a lot of that historical market and the money to drive innovation.

Sure, as long as we don't conflate the law with the old libertarian complaint of unnecessary regulation. As for public opinion I don't believe we can count on that to keep companies honest. The public will still happily buy mislabelled fish, try to buy romaine despite the warnings against E.coil contamination, or even shop at stores that suffered large data breaches. And it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy food or produce that originated in China. But few people even bother to look at where their food is coming from.

My information for cheaper renewable energy is largely based on this short article claiming that a solar power plant is now potentially cheaper than a coal plant. Of course we run into the old question of location/climate/weather but it's still an important milestone for the widespread adoption of renewable energy.

I'm not sure why you didn't realize this but your example suggests that the free market won't choose potentially more expensive renewable energy sources. Because why would they? It's in their economic self interest to pursue the cheaper option.

And even for all that, there is tons of technology that can be produced on a huge scale to power the world as needed.

I don't blame the French one bit for being pissed. The onus is being placed on the wrong people to fix this when 100 corporations account for 70 percent of emissions for the world.

And yeah, I use cloth bags to reduce the plastic along the California coastline that I pay a premium to live near, but drastic.change was needed 20 years ago at least.

A lot of this assumes that the U.S. is the only country that produces any form of emissions. We produce very little compaired to China and India. Good luck getting those countries to reign in pollution.

Pretty sure this thread was about France, not sure how you came to the US centric thing?

That being said, this is a few years out of date but the US doesn't do all that well to be pointing the finger, nor is it productive for anyone to start.

Playing that game is a recipe for disaster as blame keeps being palmed off and we all end getting nowhere.

Gosh I just want to do a gun run to France.

Tentacle monster

I have changed my mind about the gun run.

If the French want guns they simply need to go to their mosques and retrieve them.

What? Free health care and they're still outraged?

Brexit, Trump and now this, all three examples of mobs doing destructive things out of spite and ignorance with no idea about the implications of their behaviour.