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Comment Re: Are renewable energy generators up to task ? (Score 1) 488

We don't have "better energy storage". And if we ever get it, it will cost many times what a conventional power plant would cost. So, instead of paying three times the cost (expensive solar power + backup conventional power), it will cost eight times as much as conventional power. Exactly how many future generations of taxpayers are you seeking to bankrupt? And if its cloudy or calm for too long, the storage empties and the lights go out.

Comment CRTC misjudging its political power (Score 2) 184

Someone might want to inform the CRTC bureaucrats of the consequences of pissing off at least 4-million voters — election of the party that promises to rid us of the CRTC. (Really, this would be about 25% of the electorate assuming that each Canadian Netflix account corresponds to a household with 1.6 voters.)

Gouge us, go to war, waste tens of billions of dollars, the public doesn't care. But cut off our entertainment — it's torches-and-pitchforks time!

Comment Re:IPO wasted nearly $10B (Score 1) 191

Who determines the IPO price? The underwriters.

My point is that it should be The Market that determines the IPO price(s), not the necessarily incompetent and corrupt Central Planners. You'd think these guys ever heard of a little thing called the Free Market and the regulators would have an obligation to ensure that a Free Market is provided to the public?

Comment Re:why does the CRTC need this list? (Score 1) 324

So they get their "canadian content" that way.

Except that the simulcast material is *American* content. Its origin doesn't change just because it's been licensed by Canadian channels for broadcast in Canada. I haven't read the rules, but counting commercials as Can-Con would be pure lunacy. In fact, it would allow all Canadian channels to carry nothing but American content all of the time, defeating any pretense of Can-Con requirements actually existing.

Comment IPO wasted nearly $10B (Score 5, Interesting) 191

The IPO also wasted nearly $10B considering that the issue price was $68 and it started trading at $95. I just can't understand the logic behind the IPO mechanism. The purpose of an IPO is to raise as much capital as possible for a company to enable it to grow. However, 41% of the IPO value didn't go to the company; it went to lottery-winning middle men who were given shares for $68 and immediately flipped them to the open market.

An IPO should operate like a Dutch auction, with company having a trading account loaded with all of the IPO shares and starting sale for at a high valuation like $200 and then ticking down 1% every minute that "too few" shares are sold. This maximizes the haul for the IPO company by not squandering billions of dollars on bank insiders.

Comment Re:it is all going to go horribly wrong (Score 1) 494

I can't understand why the UK is playing along with the 50%+1 idea. It is illegitimate. All Constitutional changes require a supermajority and this is the most fundamental of all Constitutional changes. Canada dispensed with the 50%+1 foolishness after the 1995 Quebec referendum with the Clarity Act which quashes all hope for legal secession (since no more than 40% of Quebeckers have ever really supported secession). A simple 50%+1 majority would surely disappear in the face of the years of economically disruptive negotiations, capital flight, and population flight. (On second though, the latter might help the Yes side.)

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