During World War II, the Canadian government raised taxes in a bid to reduce demand and curb inflation (along with wage and price controls, mandatory savings, and other measures).
Inversely, reducing taxes holds the potential to leave money in people's pockets, increase demand, and trigger inflation. Whether it does so will depend on a host of other factors, of course.
Canadian mortgages have separate amortization periods (say 20 or 25 years for example) and interest rate terms (generally 1-5 years, after which the rate has to be renegotiated -- and you have the option of transferring the mortgage to another lender at that time).
You can also let your rate float with the market, which is called a variable rate mortgage.
> A monarchy has the downside that who gets to be the monarch is fundamentally undemocratic.
So I get 1/20 millionth of the decision in which of 3 or 4 members of an exclusive elite get a patronage position, and it's all good?
I'd just as soon eliminate the risk of handing that role to a political climber and leave the position to someone whose power we all clearly understand is only formal.
That being said, I understand and appreciate your arguments around a properly framed constitutional role for a president. If we ever do make the change, I'd like a non-imperial presidency...
Not having a President is reason #1 to keep a constitutional monarch.
The constitutional monarch is a figurehead without much of a day to day role, but who ensures that the demagogue we elect is not at the pinnacle of the political hierarchy.
That's more important than most people understand. A prime minister is always aware of the limits of the role.
Piling on here. My wife had a 2002 Jetta from new until 2019. We replaced both of the front window regulators on multiple occasions. There's nothing like having your window drop into the door when it's -40 C outside.
Sometimes, we'd "luck out" and the window had just slipped out of the holder. Just as often, we needed parts that were available only from Volkswagen.
In general, the car required somewhere between $1000-$2000 worth of maintenance every year. I've owned ten vehicles over the years and none have come close to the VW in terms of total cost of ownership. She replaced it with a new (non-VW) SUV a few years ago and it hasn't needed anything but oil changes yet.
You've ignored the fact that unions are limited to organizing one workplace at a time. Companies routinely close unionized locations.
In a contest over the revenues of the enterprise between those who have only their labor to sell and those who have an excess of capital, I know where I stand. The power disparity favours the rich. It's crazy that I have to say that.
I don't know if it's still normal. In the 1970s and 1980s smoking a pack a day was fairly typical. Two packs a day was considered excessive, but most people knew someone who smoked that much.
The $5 figure was from northern British Columbia. Cigarettes were much cheaper in the U.S. at the time (Canadians used to bring back a couple of duty-free cartons on a regular basis) and in Ontario, where the government reduced the taxes to counter smuggling.
Edit: in the link below you can see that over the course of 1990, cigarette prices rose from $35 to $48/carton (so $4.80/pack if you bought them by the carton) in 1990. They were, of course, more expensive if you bought individual packs, or if you lived in the north.
From Hitler's writing, it is clear that he despised socialism/communism because socialist ideologues promoted class antagonism and internationalism, both of which undermined the unity of the German people.
Of course, at a practical political level, leftists were also his rivals for the votes of the dissatisfied in inter-war Germany.
On this note, the Royal Bank of Canada used a DOS-like system well into the 2000s. The tellers were amazingly proficient with it, entering data, hitting tab-tab-tab, entering more data, tab-tab-tab, etc.
When they switched to Windows, you could see how much the point-and-click interface slowed them down.
It is fun! But I hate people with a lot of 8's, 9's, and 0's in their numbers. They take forever to dial :)