I’m not surprised you think this way about art, because this is also the way a lot of business types think about it. And I can usually tell when these business types get their way in an organization, because when they devalue art and design and demand it be created quickly, the end result usually looks amateurish and…

If you move to a country that has arranged a tax treaty with the U.S. (and there are many), an income tax regime that is equal to or more than what you’d pay in the U.S., and you have an income that doesn’t exceed a little over US$100K, then you will avoid double taxation. Once you start making “too much money,”…

I don’t imagine anything will change. The ownership arrangements are different in Canada with HBO owned by Bell and Discovery+ operating in partnership with Corus. As it is, though, the vast majority of HBO Max already airs on Crave, so you’re really not missing out on much content-wise.

I know that opening up student loans to bankruptcy is seen as an easy fix here by some. A consequence of this, though, I imagine, is that prospective students’ credit will be scrutinized more closely, and I can see that extending to what students will be studying to judge whether their future salaries will be high…

If you don’t pay your student loans, I believe the U.S government will not only seize your tax refunds, but they will also eventually garnish your Social Security payments when you are old. It is in your best interest to try and negotiate a lower payment or formal deferment (if possible) rather than stop paying…

As long as, of course, you didn’t live in the “Rust Belt,” but the attitude then was that those people “deserved it.” It’s amusing, perhaps, to witness the Rust Belt pretty much expand to the entirety of “flyover country” during my lifetime, while politicians still largely don’t give a shit.

It wouldn’t surprise me. Canadian wages tend to be low compared to the U.S., while the country has a high cost of living. It leads to a lot of talented individuals moving south of the border.

There are fans, and they have been redesigned:

I’m not sure anyone really did believe them (aside from the ever-credulous media), but the alternative is war, and the West is, if anything else, war weary. So the Taliban it is.

Because it is filler for the 24/7 news cycle. Canadian news networks aired U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which were quite literally irrelevant to Canada, but hey...I guess it meant a break for the newsroom.

Automatic credit card increases aren’t a thing in Canada, but banks will often send notices stating that they’re willing to give you a higher credit limit, meaning he would then just have to let the bank know that he consents to the increase.

Just be careful if the company at some point decides to abandon its pension obligations in the future.

The obvious problem with XV is that it’s just a fraction of a planned larger game hastily stitched together with some fluffy sidequests. Considering it’s troubled development history and the alternative of just cancelling it altogether, I’m happy it exists. XV, as horribly flawed as it is in so many ways, is fun for…

To each their own, of course, but my issue with Tomorrow Never Dies is that I found the setting to be dull and Jonathan Pryce’s villain to be incredibly corny in a bad way. World had much better atmosphere from my perspective, and I enjoyed Sophie Marceau’s character and performance.

Having rewatched it fairly recently, I didn’t really find Moore to be “too old” in his last outing. I think the problem is that he was very much “70s Bond,” and it’s clear that, by A View to a Kill, the series was ready to shift to darker, more action-oriented films that were very much of the 1980s, and Moore just…

I think two of Brosnan’s Bond films are good (GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough), while the other two are quite bad.

It’s what narcissistic psychopaths do best.

Bankruptcy is a regular fixture of American business, and, frankly, the economy would be much worse if we didn’t have it—a certain element of “risk” is what makes the American economy so productive and wealthy, and part of that is accepting that a certain percentage of failure and bankruptcy is inevitable.

There’s such a thing as a “communal/activist narcissist,” which is largely the vibe I get from people like Jessica Krug.

The problem, I think, is that 50 years of leftists—not just in the U.S., but worldwide—are far more comfortable with being “the opposition” instead of “the government.” The former is considerably sexier (with loud protests and activism) than the latter, which often involves a bunch of unglamorous meetings with…