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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • “Not everybody can use a bike to get around — these are some of our major arterial roads, whether it is Bloor, University or Yonge Street — people need to get to and from work,” Sarkaria said.

    I hate this so much. It’s so easy to reverse. Not everyone can drive and the idea that driving is the only way to get to work is so frustrating. When I need to go into the office (which is >100km away), I bike ~4km, take the train, then walk ~750m from the station to my office. It’s time competitive with driving, and I’m not even going into downtown Toronto!




  • n2burns@lemmy.catoFuck Cars@lemmy.worldBoth is good
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    1 month ago

    Wrong. Most jurisdictions have Value-Added Taxes, including I’m pretty sure all places that call their sales tax GST (Goods and Services Tax). In the given scenario, as long as the businesses were making those purchases (as business expenses), they would take the taxes paid as ITCs (Input Tax Credits), and be left will a GST bill of NIL.

    Source: Here’s Canada’s info on ITCs. It’s pretty similar in other jurisdictions.


  • n2burns@lemmy.catoFuck Cars@lemmy.worldBoth is good
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    1 month ago

    You’re kind of right that GDP is strictly a measure of economic productivity, and a lot of people look at it to represent a lot of other things like the size of the economy, the health of the economy, how well citizens are doing, etc.

    However, you are dead wrong on this point:

    If I pay you and then you pay someone else and then that person pays me the same amount we’ve increased the GDP without actually doing anything.

    It’s possible that, you’ve “increased the GDP without actually doing anything” if you’re each not doing anything actually useful (see the broken window fallacy). However, in most case, each of those steps resulted in a useful service or product.