jfc why is this news

This thread has shown that my understanding of BRICS is very outdated but, as far as I remember, one of the main things that come out of BRICS is direction on who’s getting infrastructure funding, like China, Brazil and India making investments on port building and logistics, which helps streamlining trade between them. That’s what I mean with funding, I don’t suppose there’s a “BRICS bank” but it’s the forum where you can convince China that the next port expansion project they pay for is yours.

Yeah there are workarounds to most of these, it’s possible to get by. But it leaves much to be desired, and it’s a legacy system that has evolved very little over the years. It’s kind of like we live with the instant payment system built for the 2000’s and in my point of view, it sucks that we have missed the most of the last 20 years of development in the space.

When Interac is an option, it does work. But I often come across transactions that Interac isn’t the most convenient option.

Debit Instant payment should always be first place as most convenient option. If it isn’t, we’re doing it wrong.

How does it suck?

1. It’s not truly instant, transactions may take more than 10 minutes to settle, sometimes almost an hour
2. It’s tied to contact information (email/phone) which I might not want to always disclose
3. Rigid transaction volume caps
4. Interac transfer aren’t always free
5. Interac ATM withdrawals aren’t always free
6. The whole security question scheme is cumbersome
7. Banks don’t build on top of it (e.g. no recurring transfers)
8. For merchants specifically, banks slow adoption of QR-code support (and equivalent means) forces the need of a point of sale machine

I stand corrected, the thing did evolve indeed into an organization that has a formal membership process, and it now consists of 10 countries. TIL, and thank you for the link.

But then again, it is really not an economic trade agreement, and I don’t know if there’d be much benefit for Canada joining it, as we are enticing enough as a market for investments without getting BRICS funding for infrastructure projects.

But why cant we have a Canadian credit company?

Yes I think we should have both. A nationalized instant payment platform, and a Canadian credit card provider. Both have their uses, both are critical infrastructure.

The CAD is correlated to the USD for macroeconomic reasons mostly, and BRICS isn’t an economic trade agreement that has a “join” process. It’s just a popular term for the largest non-US/EU centered economies. (But sure, let’s continue expanding the partnerships with Asia and Mercosul)

Interac sucks though, we need a nationalized instant payments mechanism.

Also I don’t understand why business owners don’t push harder for Interac given the blatant fee difference

As domestic steel and lumber needs new clients, I wonder what industries have a good opportunity to make use of the cheaper prices. Construction? Furniture?

Are these things that the minister can truly achieve, though? Aren’t sanctions up to the MPs? And the interpol arrest warrant, up to interpol?

I agree this is just a tweet, but how do we know there’s “zero” action behind it? What available options are not being pursued by the minister?

If he actually does it, then it will be there… Taking up space… I don’t think anyone is going to buy it.

This is exactly why it isn’t tone deaf. He can just issue the ask, hope that not all premiers will follow, and even the provinces that do follow, consumption will still not recover fully; he can say “hey I did all I can, Canadians just don’t wanna drink it” and the US loses a negotiation leverage.

I do think a significant amount of people will buy it, though. They US booze will come out cheap and in droves. And we have a dumber third of the country that’s actually a fan of the US still

a cargo ship can be used to ship a lot of trains, like hundreds of trains

No, my dude. It’s an open ended question in the sense that it purposefully asks a question about a concept which is inherently personal. That’s how this goes for this kind of research.

The whole point is to let each person define what their own version of gender expression is, and answer based on that. The fact that more (or fewer) people are choosing a charitable and supportive definition of gender expression is, that’s the signal being measured.

If this number goes down, it signals that people are increasingly holding definitions of “gender diversity expression” that are harder for them themselves to accept. No measurement is perfect, but they can still be useful. If this “flawed” question carried no information, we wouldn’t be seeing trends on it.

heh a bit of an oversharing/thinking out loud moment; it happens

Not only it’s very much possible, it’s the whole point of open ended questions. Where are you pulling those confident assessments from?

For one, many Albertans who would otherwise be your allies are now offended.

Meh, I kind of agree that the parent comment is needlessly antagonistic but I doubt that this would be the thing that tips someone over, someone this easily swayed would have found other reason to not be an ally already.

So agree on “making the situation worse rather than better” because it degrades the discussion, but it’s not like being offended by this will meaningfully change someone’s view on the matter.

the Internet is flourishing with femboys and fursonas

once the moral panic around trans people fade (hopefully I’ll be alive to see it), what will be left behind in peace will hopefully be a bunch of institutions that were able to thrive on that pride despite all the pushback

According to whom?